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Laura Coates Live
Senate To Vote On Bill To Avert Government Shutdown; Speaker Johnson's Future In Question Amid GOP Turmoil; Democrats Claim Victory Over Trump With Funding Bill; Democrats Slam Musk. Aired 11p-12a ET
Aired December 20, 2024 - 23:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[23:00:00]
T.W. ARRIGHI, FORMER COMMUNICATIONS AIDE, SENATOR LINDSEY GRAHAM: But I have a reunion for baseball that will absolutely bring the game back to life and it is reuniting it with steroids. There was nothing better than watching a roided out guy --
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR AND SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Oh, boy --
ARRIGHI: -- mash a ball to the moon. You liked it, I liked it, the world liked it. So, Commissioner Manfred, get on that, let's have some fun, make baseball great again, let him roided up.
UNKNOWN: Okay, Barry Bonds.
(LAUGHTER)
PHILLIP: That is what you call a hot take.
UNKNOWN: Yeah.
UNKNOWN: Yeah.
PHILLIP: Everyone, thank you very much for a great show. Have a great weekend. And thank you very much for watching "NewsNight." Laura Coates starts right now.
LAURA COATES, CNN HOST AND SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Our breaking news tonight, we're waiting for a vote in the Senate to approve a bill that will avert a government shutdown come midnight.
Good evening and welcome to "Laura Coates Live" on this very busy Friday night.
Just hours ago, the House held its own vote to fund the government and avoid a chaotic start to the holidays. It wasn't clear if the plan would actually get across that finish line, though, but it did with a final vote of 366 to 34. It caps a two-day wild scramble for House Speaker Mike Johnson. He was trying to get a solution after Donald Trump and Elon Musk torpedoed a bipartisan agreement on Wednesday. Democrats then voted down a plan yesterday that included Trump's demand to suspend the debt ceiling. Here is what is in this new bill. It will fund the government until March 14th. That means Trump will have to deal with this again in his first 100 days in office. It also provides billions in disaster relief and aid to farmers. But one critical thing that's missing, there's nothing in there about the debt ceiling. Now, you may remember that Trump was threatening to primary any Republican who voted to fund the government without addressing the debt limit.
So how is his feeling and his party bypassed what he wanted tonight? Well, a source is telling CNN it seems he is resigned with the outcome. Even though he is not happy, the debt ceiling was not included. For Elon Musk, well, he is publicly speaking out. He says Speaker Johnson -- quote -- "did a good job here," given the circumstances. He was one of the circumstances. Okay, that's fine. And as for Johnson, he says he was talking with both Trump and Musk in the run up to the vote.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MIKE JOHNSON, SPEAKER OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES: I was in constant contact with President Trump throughout this process, spoke with him most recently, about 45 minutes ago. He knew exactly what we were doing and why. And this is a good outcome for the country. I think he certainly is happy about this outcome as well.
Elon Musk and I talked within about an hour ago, and we talked about the extraordinary challenges of this job, and I said, hey, you want to be speaker of the House? I don't know. He said this may be the hardest job in the world. I think it is.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: Once Senate passes the bill, President Biden will still need to sign it, Of course. Let's go to CNN's Lauren Fox, who is on Capitol Hill. Lauren, the ball is now in the Senate's court. What are you hearing?
LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, right now, senators are beginning a series of votes with the last one expected to be that spending bill that will also include disaster aid, aid for farmers. And, obviously, this has been a long day on Capitol Hill. When we started this morning, it wasn't clear that House Republicans were going to be able to unite behind a plan. It wasn't clear Mike Johnson was going to be able to put anything on the floor that could have the votes to pass.
But a couple of hours ago, the House was able to do their job. Now, the Senate is beginning to work this process on the floor. But it does take a long time for senators to have a series of votes. We expect seven votes on the floor tonight. Typically, this first vote is an opportunity for lawmakers to get back to the Capitol. Some of them maybe had left the premises for a little while, while a time agreement was getting figured out. Now, they're getting back to the Senate floor.
After this, we can expect that likely, because senators are anxious to get home for the holidays, because it's late, they may try to vote very quickly, perhaps 10-minute votes for the following ones but, obviously, Laura, this is a less than ideal situation because we are pressing right up against that deadline. There may become a period of time where funding technically lapses even though senators are on the verge of passing this spending bill that has been hard fought this week on Capitol Hill.
COATES: They've become so accustomed to this 11th hour of what's been going on. But the House Republicans, the spending hawks who were there, they defied Trump on his debt limit request. I wonder how Trump is feeling tonight after that got left on the cut in room floor.
FOX: Yeah, I talked to a lawmaker who actually had a phone call with Donald Trump just a few minutes before the House vote this evening. And what this member told me was that Donald Trump was resigned to the reality of the fact that the debt ceiling was not going to be included in this package. But he wasn't happy about it.
And, you know, our colleague, Kristen Holmes, and I had been working our sources. And one thing that had become really clear is that aides and lawmakers had been really trying to work to make Trump understand that it just likely was not going to happen before this shutdown and that he could potentially be blamed if there was a situation where government funding lapsed, he was coming into office, and perhaps, you know, that's not the best way to start your next presidency.
[23:05:13]
So, ultimately, he has resigned to this, but he was not happy with the fact that the debt ceiling was not included at the 11th hour.
COATES: Oh, Lauren Fox, thank you for joining this 11th hour. I want to bring in former Democratic Congressman Joe Crowley, CNN political commentators and Republican strategists Kristen Soltis Anderson and Brad Todd, and Washington Post opinion columnist Catherine Rampell. Good to have you all here.
Although -- this is Groundhog's Day a little bit. Bill Murray should probably come in at some point in time and talk about why we're here yet again.
BRAD TODD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: It's a Christmas tradition.
COATES: You know what? It really is. I watched it, too --
JOE CROWLEY, FORMER NEW YORK REPRESENTATIVE: Not for me anymore.
COATES: I mean -- there you go. Well, you must be a little bit glad to come out of Congress right now in this chaos. Are you?
CROWLEY: Oh, yeah.
(LAUGHTER)
COATES: Why is this always -- I mean, the 11th hour -- CROWLEY: Because we work on deadlines. Everything is a deadline. A holiday is a deadline. The end of the week is a deadline. It always -- or a law. The expiration of a law is a deadline, and that's how Congress works. It's just -- it takes a lot of effort to get things moving.
COATES: I feel like they thrive on the adrenaline of the deadline. But maybe the idea of who's going to be to blame if things go wrong is not really the biggest catalyst for them these days.
TODD: Well, it's true. I mean, you saw in the bill that failed last night, you had 200 Democrats vote against it, but yet all of them support everything in it. There's aid to farmers, aid for hurricane relief, a debt ceiling increase, and a continued resolution. All the Democrats are for those things. They've all said they're for those things. But they voted against the bill to embarrass Republicans.
CROWLEY: It also included raising the debt ceiling for two years, which would give an opportunity for Trump to give a huge tax cut to the wealthy people.
TODD: Not a tax cut, just keep the tax rates where they are.
CROWLEY: Well, I think the rates we're seeing, what happens with the tax bill that's expiring this year, and what Republicans -- when they will control the House, the Senate, and the presidency.
TODD: So, you're saying the Democrats want tax increase so badly they put the full fate incredibly of the United States at risk over this?
CROWLEY: No, I think the president wants some tax cuts --
TODD: No, tax cuts will keep the rates where they are.
CROWLEY: I don't think that's the case.
CATHERINE RAMPELL, CNN ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, OPINION COLUMNIST FOR WASHINGTON POST: -- just want to keep rates where they are. It is also what's --
CROWLEY: No tax on tips.
TODD: No tax on tips.
RAMPELL: No tax on tips, no tax on Social Security, no tax on overtime. Also lowering --
CROWLEY: Lowering the corporate tax to 15%.
RAMPELL: Yes, that's the big one, lowering the corporate tax rate to 15%, all of which would add something like $4 trillion over the next 10 years.
TODD: I predict the corporate tax rate doesn't go down, and I predict Democrats will support all the other tax cuts plus an extension of it.
(CROSSTALK)
COATES: Wait, hold on. All of our predictions are saved for the New Year's Eve special. Save your prediction for a second. Kristen, let me bring you on here on the idea of the why. He says it's to embarrass the Republicans, the idea of the economics not coming in, but these two saying it does. What is the driving force here?
KRISTEN SOLTIS ANDERSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, REPUBLICAN POLLSTER: Yeah, I don't think that Democrats want to be dealing with this right now. They want it to be when Trump is president, they want that to be on the table. But what I think is interesting is that Donald Trump's not president right now.
Ultimately, something is going to get passed by the Senate and somebody is going to have to go wake up the sitting president, whose name hasn't been mentioned yet, who has been almost no part of this discussion. And that to me is kind of wild, that it feels like Elon Musk has almost more of a president role right now than the actual sitting president of the United States and all of us.
RAMPELL: But that's because it has been an intra-party fight. I mean, what's Biden supposed to do? Call up Elon Musk and say stop tweeting?
TODD: Maybe negotiate, bring the Democrats --
CROWLEY: No, no, no, they had a deal.
RAMPELL: Democrats -- exactly. Democrats --
TODD: A deal that wouldn't pass, a deal that couldn't get through.
CROWLEY: No, no, no, a deal that had both the Senate and the --
TODD: Leadership.
CROWLEY: -- House Democrats and Republicans support.
TODD: Leadership, but not 218 votes.
CROWLEY: It would have meant all Democrats supporting it and a lot of Republicans supporting it.
TODD: You have to -- you have to pass on the floor. That means 218 votes.
CROWLEY: It only failed because Musk said --
RAMPELL: Exactly.
TODD: No, it failed because Hakeem Jeffries got too greedy and put a pay raise in there.
CROWLEY: No.
TODD: That's why it failed. PHILLIP: Well, that's being very reductive on what's going on. There was more. And there was the idea of -- hold on -- of the different tweets that came in. Musk did have an influential role, doesn't he?
RAMPELL: Yes, absolutely. There was this bipartisan deal. The other, you know, pork, allegedly, that was in there was for pediatric childhood cancer research on that, which is now passing separately, thankfully, as well as restrictions on U.S. investment in China, which mysteriously got pulled out after Elon Musk protested. Basically, it was the same legislation with a few things taken out, and then Elon Musk, for some reason, decided to throw a grenade in at the 11th hour with no real objective, as far as I can tell.
TODD: This bill was in trouble with House Republicans before that. You can't make a deal from the leadership and guarantee you get repost (ph). We don't heard (ph). Democrats are a top-down party. Republicans are not. We don't heard (ph).
CROWLEY: House Democrats don't control the agenda of the House.
RAMPELL: Yes.
TODD: Sure, they did. They drove this bargain.
CROWLEY: And they're going to have to do it with a smaller majority in the next year.
TODD: For sure.
CROWLEY: Let's go figure.
COATES: Let me ask you, if this is a matter of House leadership failing, that means, I would assume, Speaker Johnson is vulnerable at this point in time. And if you do need to have the Democrats' support in order to get anything passed, as you are going into the next iteration of Congress, then he will perpetually be in trouble even for a re-election.
[23:10:00]
TODD: There will never be a continuing resolution that passes with only Republican votes.
COATES: Sure.
TODD: There are some Republicans who just will not vote for appropriations. You will always have to have some Republicans, some Democratic votes to do it. The question is, how greedy does Hakeem Jeffries get to give a few Democrats away?
RAMPELL: What was greedy about research for child pediatric cancer?
TODD: You had a pay raise for congressmen. That's the problem.
RAMPELL: No, no --
(CROSSTALK)
First of all, that's not what happens. Congress normally gets a COLA, a cost of living adjustment.
TODD: It has been suspended. It has been suspended.
RAMPELL: Every year, they have voted to suspend it.
TODD: It has been suspended.
RAMPELL: So, in this case, there was just no language about it whatsoever.
TODD: Which resulted in a pay raise for Congress.
RAMPELL: A cost of living adjustment.
TODD: A pay raise.
RAMPELL: A cost of living adjustment.
TODD: Every American would call it COLA, a pay raise.
CROWLEY: Well, have them have a pay increase for the next 14 years, but that's another issue.
RAMPELL: I actually don't object to that. I actually don't object to that because I'd rather have members of Congress, you know, get pay that stays up with inflation rather than having only people who are independently wealthy run for Congress?
TODD: There's an argument to pay them a lot more or a lot less, both. There's both over --
SOLTIS ANDERSON: Yeah, I understand the policy argument behind it. I can also tell you that it's hard for me to think of something that would test in a survey at like 99% opposition. Raising congressional pay is one of those things.
COATES: Why? Because in moments like this, with the 11th hour, you don't have a deal until all this happens?
SOLTIS ANDERSON: No, no, no. Because I think the average American hears $174,000 and goes, gosh, that would be nice. That's why it's so politically toxic to say you're going to raise that at all.
CROWLEY: The politics of it is always hot. It's an untouchable issue, quite frankly. Add to the detriment of the country, you know, members of Congress have not seen a pay raise in almost 15 years. That's an enormous span of time. The cost of living has gone up.
I came from New York City, I live in New York and Washington, D.C. I had to live in two very high- income areas and maintain two households to do that. It is not an easy job to do. And putting it aside, this is building on the radar screen.
RAMPELL: Yeah.
CROWLEY: It was about raising the debt ceiling to allow for the president to go scot-free, the next president scot-free to the next Congress, past the next Congress. So, he wanted to deal with the debt ceiling. He can have as much debt as he wants to tap his little fingers into. And that's what the real issue was about. And he lost today. He lost big time today. And he can blame Musk for it, but he lost today.
COATES: Take a step back, right? Everyone is not as nuanced and well- versed in the wonkiness of the Beltway to know why this is so significant. We know the frustrations of Congress having yet another time to kick a can down the road till March. But explain to me, when you think about it, Catherine, what was the goal or the advantage of having the debt ceiling go away at this juncture before he comes into office, and why is it a loss the way that Joe is describing it?
RAMPELL: So, I, for one, think we should get rid of the debt ceiling altogether. I think it serves no purpose whatsoever except to be held hostage and occasionally, you know, launch a financial crisis or be threatened to launch a financial crisis every few years. So, I am in favor of getting rid of it altogether, whether, you know, you want to suspend it for a couple of years. I actually don't object to that. This is one of the few things that I will agree with Donald Trump on when he said that he wanted to get rid of the debt ceiling. So, I see no use for it in general.
Republicans again have historically held it hostage because it is so powerful to basically threaten the full faith and credit of the United States and, you know, default on our debt, again, potentially kickoff a global financial crisis. I would prefer that Democrats not adopt that nuclear tactic going forward. So, I'm actually fine with it.
CROWLEY: Whether you agree or not with the issue of raising debt ceiling or making it permanent, the fact is Donald Trump wanted it in the bill, and it didn't make it in the bill.
TODD: Democrats always support raising it.
CROWLEY: And in the end, he lost.
COATES: So, what is the impact --
SOLTIS ANDERSON: Republicans killed it.
TODD: They always do it, Republicans. There are more Republicans who are not for raising it. That's an ideological fact. The debt ceiling, the law suspended it until January 1. That's just days away. It is germane to do it right now. Democrats have always supported it. They've said don't let it go to the last minute, don't jeopardize our credit. Only this time the Democrats oppose it because they wanted to oppose Donald Trump. They hate him. It animates everything they do.
RAMPELL: That wasn't the only thing that was stripped out by the bill.
COATES: It's also the idea -- yes, of the full faith and credit is part of it. But it's also this underlying issue of having no guardrails, no ceiling whatsoever to the amount of debt that you could incur for future generations. That is something that people have campaigned on for a very long time about Republicans versus Democrats, people feeling comfortable with debt and those who did not. The debt ceiling can be a shorthand way of saying Democrats don't care about the future debt of America, not just the full faith and credit.
SOLTIS ANDERSON: Yes, well, and the public opinion around whether we should be constraining spending, worried about the debt and deficit, that actually does sort of wax and wane. And kind of when Republicans are in charge, concern about that does tend to go down a little bit. People suddenly are a little bit less agitated about how much the government is spending. It is like a thermostat.
[23:15:00]
When they think it gets too hot, they say, get cool. When it gets too cold, they say, okay, let's get hot again. And so, for this one, I do think that Donald Trump, I agree, he has actually changed the way some Republicans think about things like debt and spending in a way that I think the Tea Party movement of say 10, 15 years ago was a little more ideologically pure on, I think Donald Trump has shown he's a little more ideologically flexible.
(CROSSTALK)
RAMPELL: So, there's a difference between the debt limit which is the amount we can legally borrow, and spending and taxation decisions. And the debt limit is just about, are we going to make good on the promises we have already made? Pay the bills we have already committed to pay and collect the taxes that we have, you know, agreed to -- we've already levied.
So, if you actually care about fiscal discipline, if you are in fact a fiscal hawk, that has nothing to do with a debt limit, that has to do with raising taxes and/or cutting spending, which neither of which Republicans seem super committed to doing right now.
TODD: This did work one time though when Congressman Crowley was there. The Budget Control Act passed in Obama's second term. It did lead to a reduction in spending in real dollars. That's because Republicans use the debt limit vote as leverage to extract spending controls, not cuts but controls. So, it has worked. This strategy has worked. I'm not a fan of it personally, but it did work one time. So, there are times when it is connected.
RAMPELL: But, I mean, you can hold to that principle again with a fiscal responsibility, you know, bringing our deficit -- we're never going to bring our budget into balance, I don't think, but at least bringing our deficit lower without threatening a global financial --
CROWLEY: I'll just say touche --
RAMPELL: Like adults --
(LAUGHTER) -- adults can make these decisions. This is why we elect members of Congress, not to have this extraneous hostage taking that has nothing to do with any.
TODD: Well, in the 90s, the --
COATES: Catherine Rampell thinks that there are adults in Washington. I'm going to leave that for a second. The optimistic --
RAMPELL: I'm very naive.
COATES: I love the optimistic spin. Stand by, we'll talk more about that in just a moment. Much more ahead as the Senate gets ready to vote to formally avoid the shutdown. But can Speaker Johnson avoid a mutiny? Republican Congressman Cory Mills joins me next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[23:20:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COATES: We're following all of the action right here on Capitol Hill at this very hour as the Senate is now trying to avert a government shutdown. Another big looming question tonight, it's about Speaker Johnson. Is he on shaky ground after this week's fiasco? I want to bring in Republican Congressman Cory Mills. He voted against his party's latest funding bill. Congressman, good to see you.
REP. CORY MILLS (R-FL): Good to see you.
COATES: Frankly, you have been consistent in voting against all CRs. You have a fundamental issue with them. Period.
MILLS: I do. And one of the biggest reasons, you know, I'm a military combat veteran. I really care about the strength of our military. I care about the robustness of our defense capabilities. And when you do a C.R., it actually prevents new programs of record from coming on board. So, as our adversaries, we know that China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea has a geopolitical alignment, they're an axis of evil, while they advance their programs for hypersonic ballistic missiles as an example, we can't start new programs of record for research and development. So, it actually hinders us, not to mention adds billions of dollars per day in additional spending.
COATES: When you think the fundamental reasons why you are against it versus the process by which they're trying to do this right now, all eyes are on Speaker Johnson, and they're very critical of him. Do you share in the criticism? Is he vulnerable now for not being able to be re-elected, get that gavel again?
MILLS: Well, I'll tell you, I think that every speaker with this political climate is always on shaky ground.
COATES: Why? MILLS: Well, because the thing that we haven't changed is how we're actually running Congress. We're trying -- this is my whole point of why I ran, was to try and change the fundamentals of how D.C. operates. And I think that we need to limit federal government overreach and growth. We need to limit this two-tiered system, which is basically abandoning the American people. DCRs are essentially driving inflation, which is hurting and killing our American and middle class.
But yet Congress thinks they deserve to have more money on their pocket while the American taxpayers don't. Congress thinks that they should exempt themselves from registration of Obamacare but not the American people. Why is it that you're trying to be either one of two things? Are you a politician or are you a representative?
COATES: Well, is he -- is Speaker Johnson somebody you think should remain in that position given your concerns?
(CROSSTALK)
MILLS: I think that's still to be determined. Look, I think that he is a very faith-based, constitutionally principled man. I think that he faces a lot of uphill challenges at the current moment because he is still one of three-legged stool.
COATES: Yeah.
MILLS: So, you still have Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer who are the Democrat leads of the Senate. You have Joe Biden --
COATES: Mr. McConnell is the Democrat lead, you say.
MILLS: Absolutely. If he's going to vote like one, I'm going to act like one. So, when I sit here and you don't see him stand up to the fight the way that everyone else should, I have an issue with that. I've been a retro-Republican my entire life. However, I consider myself to be a constitutional conservative.
I believe in the seven articles, 27 amendments, our Constitution. I believe that I would like to abolish and repeal the 17th Amendment so we return more power to the states and individual rights. We should limit federal government power, and we should get back to what our founders and framers were intending. I think it's a very simple thing to understand.
COATES: Well, let me ask you. Some people are looking at, obviously, the power of the purse right now that Congress has. They're blaming Biden for not being more active although it would, frankly, be disruptive of the idea of the separation of powers.
But you also have somebody like Elon Musk, who's not elected representative at all, let alone a member of Congress, and he seems to be building a great deal of influence. President-elect Trump not yet the president again having a lot of influence still. If Trump were to say he hasn't support Speaker Johnson, would that impact your decision and should Elon Musk have the influence he does? [23:25:00]
MILLS: Well, I think that when we created DOGE on the understanding of trying to get government efficiencies, which I think is definitely necessary, I think that's almost the same thing as if you were appointed an ambassador. So, if you're appointing an ambassador of a country, does that mean that he shouldn't build some type of influence? Well, of course, he should. And that's the same thing with the Vivek Ramaswamy and with Elon Musk.
When it comes to President Trump's support of things, look, he supported that last C.R., which also eliminated debt ceiling. I obviously voted no on that.
COATES: Right.
MILLS: So, I do what I think is fundamentally principled. I want to support the president's agenda, but I also look at this and say, why couldn't you have done simple things? The 118th Congress fought for two things, germaneness of every bill so we don't cram things that are not germane to one another, and single point bills of appropriation.
If we would have brought together an agricultural bill individually, a bill for funding natural disasters individually, and a C.R. that funds the bare minimum of government for 30 days until January 20th, I could look at that and potentially support it. But when we're doing this crammy bus, omnibus, minibus, C.R., short bus, whatever we want to call them at this point, I have an issue with that because it's physically irresponsible.
And so, it's not just about who endorses something, it's also about what is best for the nation. We have to understand, it's people over party, and we have to understand that we are elected representatives to represent our constituency as well.
COATES: So, you weren't concerned at all when there was the threat of being primaried that Trump was saying if anyone goes against me?
MILLS: No, I'm never concerned about being primaried. I leave that at the will of the people.
COATES: Should Johnson be concerned if Trump speaks out? Because he's very influential among the Republican Party about being able to keep people on his line?
MILLS: Well, I was actually part of the Trump administration in his first term --
COATES: Uh-hmm.
MILLS: -- and I've supported the president, and I'll always continue to support the president's agenda. I wanted to succeed, but we can make things successful in a very physically responsible way. I think that Johnson should be concerned. He's losing a lot of the confidence of his own conference when he would rather try and make a deal across the aisle than actually rally his own conference together to determine --
COATES: But you need across the aisle.
MILLS: We absolutely do, but you also don't abandon a lot of those who are just trying to ask for simple things. We could have taken the bill that was tonight and said, look, just put it into three single-point bills, and you'd have had more Republicans on side. That was the biggest thing we asked for. Let us not be hypocrites and say that we want to fight for single-point appropriation bills and then abandon that. Let's not fight for germaneness and then abandon that because, in my opinion, that makes us hypocrites.
COATES: I want to read for you what "The Wall Street Journal" had to say. Their editorial board writing this tonight, congressman. Mike Johnson is probably the best the GOP can get as a speaker. He listens and understands how Congress works. Some Republicans are saying Mr. Musk should be speaker, and if they want a short-lived majority, go for it. What's your reaction?
MILLS: Well, I think that's actually something that would be true. I think that --
COATES: That Musk could be the speaker?
MILLS: No, that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy should focus on government efficiencies and looking at how we can actually tailor things to be more effective. And Speaker Johnson is certainly better qualified for this. He understands legislation. Again, I'm a fan of Speaker Johnson as a friend. I work with him on the Armed Services Committee. I know how constitutionally principled and how faith-based he really is.
But I will tell you that it doesn't -- all those things aside -- doesn't make you a great leader. You have to be willing to go out there and do things that are unpopular. You have to not only say, I want to get the most majority of people to like me. It's about doing what is right for the American people. I personally think if you leave Congress with more money than you came with and a better reputation than you came with, you probably didn't fight for anything, you didn't help the American people.
COATES: Well, we'll see how many people come up to that standard. Congressman, thank you so much for joining us.
MILLS: Thank you.
COATES: Cory Mills. Democrats are trying to spin tonight's vote as a complete win for them. What does it say about how they'll push back against Trump once he does take office in January? We'll talk about that next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[23:30:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) COATES: All right, so tonight could give us a preview of how Democrats plan to slow Donald Trump's second term agenda. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries taking credit for reaching a deal to keep the government open and blaming Trump for any possible shutdown.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D-NY): House Democrats have successfully stopped extreme MAGA Republicans from shutting down the government, crashing the economy, and hurting working class Americans all across the land.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: My panel is back with me. I want to go to you, Joe, a former member of Congress. Can Democrats take credit for this?
CROWLEY: Well, I think they can in the sense that Republicans could not pass it simply by a majority vote alone. They needed Democrats to pass this bill tonight. That was demonstrated just by tonight with 34 Republicans voting no, so they needed Democrats to pass it. Of course, he has -- he could take credit for it.
COATES: I want to play, I want everyone to respond to this, because Congressman Jamie Raskin was hinting at something earlier today about the part that their strategy could maybe be to sit on the sidelines, eat a little popcorn, and watch Republicans implode on this issue. Listen to what he had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): After three Republicans leave right at the beginning of the new Congress, including Matt Gaetz and Elise Stefanik, there's going to be a one-vote majority. They cannot afford to lose one vote.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: They obviously know that, and they're going to capitalize on that. Republicans should do what?
TODD: Well, I think, first off, it's a cynical strategy. He's right on the math, and it's possible for politics. But I think voters are pretty savvy, and I think if they think that Democrats are merely playing political games and trying to make Republicans look bad, not joining them on things that are common sense in which they agree, I think they'll pay for it. I think it puts a burden on Republicans to do things that they campaigned on. They won the election. They won the popular vote in the House.
[23:35:00]
They do the things they ran on, and I think then the voters will reward them and punish Democrats.
COATES: The mandate, though, do they think it was this chaos? I mean, chaos, and you have the trifecta. People assume maybe stability. Not so much yet.
SOLTIS ANDERSON: Well, I mean, House Republicans had a pretty tough go of it over the last year or two, wouldn't you say? So, I don't know that people really think Congress, regardless of which party is in power, that they're getting great governance here. But I do think that right now --
(LAUGHTER)
-- when you look -- I mean, Congress's job approval rating is pretty low.
RAMPELL: Yeah.
COATES: I'm laughing at the truth.
SOLTIS ANDERSON: Donald Trump's job approval -- I know. But when you actually look at what people think, Donald Trump's job approval on the transition, at least, is much better than Congress's. I think that's why a lot of these Republicans who right now are, you know, maybe they are ideologically not in the same place Donald Trump is on spending things or debt limit or what have you, nevertheless feel like, well, my voter is really like him, and I think if they had to choose between me and him, they'd probably choose him. I think that dynamic is driving a lot.
TODD: (INAUDIBLE) don't have a majority in the Senate right now. This budget bill is being negotiated knowing that there's a Democratic Senate across the way. So that necessarily drove part of the bargain. But I will say Mike Johnson's backbenchers, the guys who are troublemakers, Chip Roy and Thomas Massie and those guys who just like to vote no and cause problems for the leadership, they have to ask themselves, do they want to make the Republican Party look like it can't run the House or do they want to work collaboratively with Mike Johnson, who's a pretty conservative guy, to put a good foot forward and be successful?
RAMPELL: I think this is less about a democratic strategy than just like, what's the expression when your enemy wants to jump off a bridge, just don't get in the way? That seems to be what's going on here. It's not so much that Democrats are like foiling anything. They're just letting Republicans be Republicans. And if they want to cause chaos and not get along and fight their own speaker, let them.
(CROSSTALK)
COATES: Wait, wait, hold on.
TODD: -- things they are for.
COATES: But hold on, Brad. Should -- everyone, should Democrats help to keep Speaker Johnson in power?
CROWLEY: Well, I would say this, that everyone keeps talking about this mandate.
COATES: Yeah.
CROWLEY: Yes, the president won the popular vote. He did win re- election. And all of a sudden, these elections are fair. I love that. But at the end of the day, what kind of a mandate is it when you actually lose seats in the House of Representatives? You know, it was difficult for Republicans to do anything in the last Congress. It's going to be more difficult for them to do it in the new Congress. It's not upon the minority, upon the Democrats to do this. They'll work, I think, to do what's in the best interest of the country. If they need Democratic votes, the bills coming out of the House will have to have some modicum of democratic fingerprint on that. There's no other way around that.
So, you know, people talk about how Democrats have to come to the table. Republicans need to come to the table with the Democrats. If you need our vote, you'll negotiate with us or you don't get the vote.
TODD: You're active in the campaign arm. There is one question I would have. There are 16 Democrats in the new Congress who were elected in districts that Trump carried. Only three Republicans in the district Kamala Harris carried. Are those 16 Democrats, some of whom are in districts with rising Hispanic populations, is there any impetus on them to maybe break with Hakeem Jeffries when he clings too hard to the left?
CROWLEY: We saw the unity today. We saw the unity today. I think that's not next year, but we've already seen that today. I do think that there's a bit of strength when you can win a district that Donald Trump won. I think Democrats feel, you know, I'm a pretty good politician, I know my district, I know how to get reelected. I think you also see the Republicans today. You know, the Freedom Caucus folks are saying, you know, I love Donald Trump, but he didn't vote for me, my constituents do. I said I'll never vote for a debt ceiling increase. I'm not doing it. And that's basically saying, I don't care what you think, Donald Trump. I got to do what I got to do to get reelected.
COATES: By the way, Steve Bannon said that today that this type of governing or these conversations are going to happen, this sort of chaos, every single day of the second Trump administration. That could play very well in Democrats' hands.
SOLTIS ANDERSON: Yeah, I do think that voters ultimately want government to function. That's not like a really controversial statement. But I don't think that looking like you can't govern is a good thing. I think Republicans in the House were unable to capitalize on what was otherwise a pretty good political environment for the right in part because that has been -- that has been a little bit of a tough look for Republicans going through the fight over McCarthy. Democrats not wanting to step in to try to help save McCarthy, and you go through how many rounds of votes on the new speaker there.
And so, I do wonder if, for instance, there is a challenge to Speaker Mike Johnson, do Democrats want to eat popcorn and sit back and just go through that again or do they think, you know what, Mike Johnson is probably the best we're going to get? There are other people in line that Republicans could vote for we don't like quite as much.
COATES: Catherine, say this for day one of the new administration. And, obviously, with the can down the road, we're talking about this will be part of the 100 days of Trump's second administration. What's the impact on the economy and the market if this sort of Washington discord perpetuates?
[23:40:01]
RAMPELL: Uncertainty is not good for the business environment, which is something that Republicans talked a lot about when Obama was in office, right? They were very unhappy about policy uncertainty. You will have that on steroids next time around, not only because Congress is so dysfunctional, but because Trump is so erratic and wants to do a bunch of things that may be quite destructive to the economy, including global tariffs.
So, all of that, even if he doesn't actually execute some of those more destructive policies, the uncertainty around it, the lack of whether it's rule of law or just like competent governance, is bad for the business environment. It is bad for the economy. It makes it riskier for businesses to invest. They don't know where to invest, what to invest in. They don't know what kinds of tariffs may come into place. They don't know what's going to happen to the labor force if there are mass deportations. All of that is not good for the economy.
COATES: Elon Musk's role in any of this influence, does that somehow send a signal to the market or the economy that there is balance?
RAMPELL: I think the problem is that Musk is so erratic and seemingly unwilling to understand how government functions, like he was -- he blew up this bill without actually understanding what was in it. I mean, we've tried to rationalize. You know, oh, maybe it was about pay increases for lawmakers, which are unpopular, whatever. I feel like this is, you know, backward-looking rationalization of why Elon Musk blew up this bill. He was tweeting all sorts of things that were false that were -- about the bill.
CROWLEY: And it's not rocket science.
RAMPELL: I mean, look --
(LAUGHTER)
CROWLEY: It's like --
COATES: I (INAUDIBLE) there. We all -- good job.
CROWLEY: But there is an art to legislating. There is an art form to it. And what I do think Trump loves to do is throw wrenches into things.
RAMPELL: Yes.
CROWLEY: He likes chaos. And he's going to -- RAMPELL: If you read "The Art of the Deal," one of his main go-to negotiation strategies is to blow up negotiations at the last minute in the hopes of having leverage to extract some sort of painful but valuable concession from his counterparty. The problem is he often doesn't know what he wants that concession to be.
He just -- he has gotten so used to that like he has this muscle memory for blowing up the deal that he doesn't always think through like, what is my actual objective here? And I think we saw that in this particular negotiation over this potential shutdown. But also, many times before in his negotiations with other countries and with lawmakers. So, again, none of that is good for governance, none of that is good for economic confidence, and none of that is good for the business.
COATES: Game of Thrones, though. Game of Thrones said chaos is a ladder. So that's WarnerMedia family.
(LAUGHTER)
Thank you so much everyone. Stick around. Ahead, Elon Musk had such an outsized role over this spending bill, as we've been discussing with this great panel. Democrats are resorting to calling him President Musk. What does it say about his influence going forward? Plus, a deadly attack in Germany after a driver plows a car into a Christmas market. Now, two people, including a toddler, are dead. The latest on the investigation, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[23:45:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COATES: You're seeing pictures of the Senate as we speak right now. They are expected to still have a vote tonight to see if they can avert the government shutdown. We are literally minutes away from when that clock would run out.
And, of course, here we are. I have my panel with me. You know, look at this. Here we are. The deadline is almost there, and we still don't have everything in a bow tightly wrapped at this point in time. The odds of this being able to be accomplished on the Senate side, what do you think?
TODD: The Senate does everything slowly. They always have.
COATES: Well --
TODD: Maybe by design.
COATES: They say that they're the higher brow of Congress. No offense to those who've been in Congress.
SOLTIS ANDERSON: Deliberate. COATES: More deliberate, that's the word for it. But the idea here, you were talking to me earlier, this is but the first of many loyalty tests we're going to see, right, in the new incoming administration. Tell us why.
SOLTIS ANDERSON: Well, so the Congress is a separate branch of government from the president, the executive, but Donald Trump has an awful or feels as though he has an awful lot of political capital, that he is the leader of the party and, therefore, he gets to tell his party in Congress what to do.
And you're going to see, whether it was this fight over this debt ceiling of it all or a number of his nominees who did he not have as much popularity might face a lot more challenge from a Republican Senate over policy differences, questions on backgrounds, etcetera. Republicans are not looking to pick fights with Donald Trump these days.
COATES: Let's go to Lauren Fox, who's on Capitol Hill. Lauren, give us the very latest. What's going on right now besides people milling around?
FOX: Well, Senator Schumer did instruct everyone to remain in their seats because that would make this process move a little bit more quickly. But right now, what they are doing is they are moving through a series of procedural votes all before getting to that underlying spending bill that we are watching so closely tonight. We still expect three more votes ahead of that spending bill.
But this, obviously, is just a really important moment for the United States Senate because we are just minutes at this point away from government funding actually lapsing. It's likely that funding will lapse for just a period of a couple minutes, maybe up to about an hour, before this process is finalized. Obviously, after that, it has to get signed by the president of the United States.
[23:49:56]
What you hear from a lot of lawmakers, as I just did, milling about right off of the floor is that this is sort of a technical shutdown in some ways, but people are not going to be affected given the fact that most impacts of a shutdown wouldn't be felt until Monday morning. Obviously, the argument right now being that this is going to be handled far before that.
But I do want to just rewind a little bit. This process could have happened much more smoothly than it did. You had a situation where this morning, it took the House of Representatives several hours to decide on what their path forward was going to be. Into the afternoon, House Republicans were still behind closed doors trying to negotiate amongst themselves, and that was before they got a package actually to the House floor to be voted on. So, obviously, a lot of time wasted earlier today as lawmakers all knew what had to happen in these minutes before midnight.
COATES: Literally minutes. Lauren, literally minutes away from a technical shutdown. Thank you so much. Still ahead, Democrats call him President Musk, and some Republicans want to be Speaker Musk. But after this week, what does Elon actually want? Kara Swisher live with us on that and much more coming up.
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[23:55:00]
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COATES: Well, one of the men who played a key role in the madness we've seen on Capitol Hill this week received no votes and doesn't even hold a government office. Of course, you know I'm talking about Elon Musk, right? In an early test of his political might, the tech billionaire helped torpedo the original spending bill put forth by House Speaker Mike Johnson just earlier this week.
Musk then taking a kind of a victory lap tonight after the House passed their scaled down version, posting on X, the Speaker did a good job here, given the circumstances. It went from a bill that weighed pounds to a bill that weighed ounces. Ball should now be in the Dem court.
Well, joining me now to discuss, CNN contributor and podcast host Kara Swisher. So good to see you, my friend. Look, he must be pretty satisfied with himself and the spending bill tonight on X. I mean, how do you think he's reacting behind the scenes?
KARA SWISHER, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Oh, he couldn't be satisfied. He just created a disaster and a mess, and it didn't change anything. I mean, it's fine. Okay, the paperwork is later. I don't know what to say. Good for you. Great job. We saved money on paper. But in general, there was no spending changes. Created a lot of chaos. I think it weakened, uh, Speaker Johnson, obviously, and even Donald Trump because they look chaotic once again. And, you know, Elon always says, you know, every -- to me, every accusation -- every accusation is a confession with these people, like, he says he wins, and I don't think he won.
COATES: What did he get out of this, though? Why -- I mean, why did he even want to put his thumb on the scale?
SWISHER: Because he likes chaos. These people -- I used an expression last night when I was talking to Kaitlan (ph). Chaos monkeys. They like to sort of make a mess and to create -- to change things. And sometimes, that's a good thing. It's called chaos engineering in Silicon Valley. I won't go into the details of it, but that's essentially it is. You create a situation where you test resilience of things by creating chaos, I guess.
And so that's what he was doing here. He wants this entire thing to change. He wants departments to change. And the way he does it when he has his own companies where he's the king, is he goes in and kicks over cans and fires people and stuff like that. And he thinks he's still in those areas. And in this case, he did a lot of things that were falsehoods when he was tweeting or didn't know what he was talking about. But -- I don't know. It's kind of, don't let the facts get in the way of a good story, I guess.
COATES: I mean, undoubtedly, there are going to be Republicans and Democrats who are completely frustrated by the role that he seems to have in influencing, even before we know what DOGE is really going to do and be capable of. Is this going to impact the way Donald Trump sees his influence and their relationship, do you think?
SWISHER: Well, I can't imagine he likes the president not elect. I call him president not elect, Elon Musk. You know, people are making all kinds of jokes and memes. It's all over in social. And I'm sure Donald Trump has noticed it. And you know what happened to Steve Bannon when that happened in the last administration.
I don't know if it helped him. Like, this chaos is one thing, and Donald Trump also likes chaos, right? He likes to create it. But did it win him any friends if he wants to go back and really make cuts? Is that going to do it? This sort of forceful behavior where you're threatening people, you're going to primary them or you're going to give money to their opponents? I don't think that's a way to make friends in Washington, for sure, if you really want to make change. What he wants to do is do a lot of jazz hands and declare victory and probably go home at some point.
COATES: Don't forget the spirit fingers, of course, as well. Kara, let me ask you --
(LAUGHTER)
COATES: I don't forget those.
SWISHER: I'm sorry.
COATES: But, you know, one way, it seems, you make friends, not in Washington, but in Mar-a-Lago, is by going to dinner at Mar-a-Lago.
SWISHER: Yeah.
COATES: And Musk started this trend of tech billionaires that are cozying up to Trump and --
SWISHER: Yeah.
COATES: -- Amazon founder Jeff Bezos as well just dine with Trump and Musk at Mar-a-Lago this week. You had Zuckerberg and Google also having a pilgrimage to Palm Beach. What's their collective end game here?
SWISHER: They want things. They want no laws. They want contracts. They want -- it's kind of -- someone was telling me, how could you be one of the world's richest people and have to be (INAUDIBLE)? Do you think you could buy your way out of that by this time? But, you know, they want things. They don't want to be bothered. They don't -- some of them fear things. Some of them are worried about possible things that Trump could do to their companies. And in some cases, you know, it's a good idea to write a note and say congratulations, Mr. president. [00:00:01]
And in other cases, it's a little much. In the case of Jeff Bezos, that's certainly true because he also owns "The Washington Post." And so, he's a little -- you know, it's a different relationship. But he wants space contracts. He's competing with Elon Musk. I don't think he liked Elon showing up and sort of interrupting the dinner last night. But he couldn't have been surprised because Elon is the guest that never leaves Mar-a-Lago.
COATES: Speaking of "The Washington Post," anything you want to confirm or deny? Are you -- are you going to have a new title?
SWISHER: I said a quote on the record. I said a quote on the record. I think it could have a better ownership structure, and I have some ideas. That's all. And my whole idea is like, why does it have to be these billionaires? They don't know how to run anything better than many people like myself and others. So, I just think it's interesting to start to discuss whether this is the right owner for "The Washington Post." I have some ideas, and I know some rich people. So, we'll see.
COATES: I love a good Kara Swisher idea. Thank you so much for joining us.
SWISHER: Yeah. Thank you.
