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Quest Means Business
Walz Speaks After Election Loss; S&P Finishes Best Week Of Year After Trump Victory; Trump Begins Process Of Choosing His Second Term Cabinet; Defense Official Say They Are Discussing How To Respond If Trump Issues Controversial Orders; Trump Promises "Largest Deportation Operation" In U.S. History; Farmers Could See Disruption If Trump Deports Migrants. Aired 4-5p ET
Aired November 08, 2024 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[16:00:18]
RICHARD QUEST, CNN INTERNATIONAL HOST, "QUEST MEANS BUSINESS": A warm welcome.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz is speaking after he and his running mate, Kamala Harris lost the election. First time we've heard from him properly
and fully. We are going to listen in and have a listen to what he says.
GOV. TIM WALZ (D-MN): And a big thank you to my family. My mom is here who I want to say thank you to, Darlene, so we did okay, didn't we? We did
okay. She did a great job.
I think she was as surprised as anybody that were here, but -- and a huge thank you to Vice President Kamala Harris.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
WALZ: First for the faith that she placed in me, but more importantly for the powerful and joyful campaign that she ran.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
WALZ: I am grateful for her leadership and forever grateful for her friendship. Also a huge thank you to my staff, both the folks who worked on
this campaign who we got to know over the last three months, and to the amazing team right here in Minnesota.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
WALZ: We showed the country -- these guys are the best in the business, and I am proud to be your teammate in this. Thank you all.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
WALZ: And to all of you, I want to thank every single person who stood with us in this fight, whether it was volunteers, donors, voters or what I see
in here, lifelong friends. It is an honor of a lifetime to have your support and I will never forget everything that you did to stand up for the
values that we share together. So thank you to each and every one of you.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
WALZ: I think my life is in front of me as I look around here and see everybody, so it is wonderful. But look folks, I just want to acknowledge
the moment. It is hard -- it is hard to lose, it is hard to understand while so many of our fellow citizens, people that we have fought so long
and hard for wound up choosing the other path.
It is hard to reckon with what that path looks like over the next four years. So if you're feeling deflated and discouraged today, I get it.
Take some time, take care of yourselves, take care of your loved ones, take care of your community. There is a million ways to make a positive
difference and get back in this fight when you're ready and know that whenever you're ready to get back in that fight, I will be standing right
here, ready to fight the fight with you.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
WALZ: Now, while we haven't a whole lot of time to process this, I can tell you even in the face of defeat and deep disappointment, I have never felt
more inspired. I have never felt more motivated. I've never felt more fired up of what is possible in this country.
You know, I've gotten to see an awful lot of America over the last three months, more than I ever thought I was going to see.
I have made many new friends. I've learned a lot of new things. I ate way too much local food, but I can order donuts people. I can order donuts.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
WALZ: But I have to be honest with you, what struck me everywhere I went without exception, people really wanted the same basic things out of an
American life and I want to be clear, when I say basic things, I mean things like meaningful work, safe neighborhoods, good schools, affordable
quality health care.
But I also mean something more. It became clear to me, people want security and I mean that broadly. They want to feel like their life is built on a
solid foundation that won't collapse under them if the wind blows the wrong way or something happens.
People want an opportunity where they feel like they can get ahead, not just settling to get by and they really are concerned about giving their
kids a chance to get ahead and I think most of all, and you saw it in a very deep way, people want freedom to live their lives the way they want to
live them.
[16:05:17]
It is not the way that maybe their neighbors wouldn't want to live them the same way, but the freedom is supposed to be everybody's birthright not
because of how much money you had or where your family came from, no matter who you love or how you prayed, or what you think about the issues of the
day are, and everywhere I've gone, I've had the opportunity to tell people how things work here in Minnesota.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
WALZ: And you know us, I had to work really hard to make sure that it didn't sound like we were bragging you know, slip it in, slip it in.
But the truth is, the way we do things here sounded pretty damn good to Americans across this country.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
WALZ: Together, we've made Minnesota one of the best places for kids to live.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
QUEST: Okay, there you have Governor Tim Walz, an honest reflective way of saying thank you and goodbye and basically saying, I don't understand how
on Earth we got the result that we did, but there we are. That's the way it is and we move on and we will be ready when you are, he said.
So let's look at what is going to happen. The first, we are getting a glimpse of how Donald Trump is going to run his second administration.
Apparently, we are hearing that Elon Musk joined Donald Trump on his phone call this week with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Mr. Musk
spent millions of dollars, hundreds of millions, to help Trump get re- elected and campaigned alongside him as you well know. Now, he is believed to have President-elect's ear.
And "The Financial Times" is reporting that Robert Lighthizer has been asked to return as the US Trade Representative, extremely experienced, but
did help launch the US trade war with China. He also renegotiated NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, so he is absolutely steeped in the
issues, and if indeed more tariffs is on the agenda, which we know they are, he will certainly know his way around that issue.
Last week, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, head of the WTO said Trump's trade policies so far seem to have backfired.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NGOZI OKONJU-IWEALA, DIRECTOR-GENERAL, WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION: Since 2018, the tariffs came on board in 2018, we've seen trade between China and
the US grow 30 percent more slowly than their trade with the rest of the world, and we've also seen that rising protectionism is leading to like-
minded countries trading more with each other than with countries that are not so like-minded.
So we see that protectionism and tariffs have some negative impacts on world output and on world trade.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
QUEST: And yet, look at the markets this week. The S&P has had one of its best weeks of the year, if not the best of the week, 4.7 percent gain, a
bit of a topsy turvy today, but overall it has been a very strong week.
Julia is with me. Julia is in New York. Kayla is with me in Washington.
Julia, I am going to start with you. Why has the market been on such a tear this week on the back of the victory?
JULIA CHATTERLEY, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR, "FIRST MOVE": Two things, palpable relief that we didn't have a protracted delay, an indecisive
result. The other thing I think is a consequence of the future policies, cuts in taxes, the fact that corporation taxes aren't going to rise,
deregulation, the banks, the energy stocks have benefited this week. The renewables less so.
Tesla has been one of the big winners. Elon Musk, you just mentioned him, more than $20 billion personally richer and more powerful this week.
Look, it is early days, Richard. We will see. But I have to business optimism despite the threat of tariffs and what that may bring.
QUEST: Hold your thoughts on that. Kayla, we are getting a very good example right at the get-go of how this is different to the eight years
ago. The speed of the chief-of-staff, the rumor of Lighthizer, who is a well-known and I mean, whether hawk or dove, doesn't matter, he knows his
way around the subject.
There is not going to be an apprentice parade through Trump Towers lobby is there, this time?
KAYLA TAUSCHE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, there are a few key differences this time, and that is that this process is playing out at
Mar-a-Lago which is a private members only club where cameras are not allowed and Trump Tower was much more accessible to media, and that was why
we were able eight years ago, to put eyes on all of the candidates that were being paraded in to the then president-elect.
But there is still some drama to this process. I am told by a source close to the process that the story about Lighthizer joining or being offered US
Trade Representative, his old job from the last time that Trump was in office is, in the words of this person, a complete fabrication and totally
untrue.
[16:10:15]
So at least there is some rumor slinging that is still going on, reminiscent of the last time, but it is true, Richard, according to my
sources, that the president does plan to carry out this very tariff-heavy trade agenda. They are trying to figure out exactly what that looks like
and how it is implemented, but I am told that the campaign is already studying the economic impact, perhaps not of 60 percent tariffs against all
goods coming in from China and 10 percent everywhere else in the world, but slightly below that.
So they're not far off, Richard, and they are planning to do it.
QUEST: Julia, the role that Musk will play adjacent is how I think Howard Lutnick described it, but you've just pointed out the enormous conflict of
interest that exists. So he can't be in the administration. He can be highly influential on the administration but what role?
CHATTERLEY: I mean, there is a conflict of interest, Richard. We know that when you mix politics and economics, but it still happens, doesn't it? And
I think the way that we have to look at this situation is that the former president, the president-elect, is not a diplomat and he is not a
politician.
So he is going to do things, like the phone call with President Zelenskyy of Ukraine because he thinks that Elon Musk, one, has a role to play, but
perhaps there is a better understanding of the situation, whether you like it or not, he is going to be asked on to a phone call like that.
I know it is alarming and I know it is strange when we hear about it, but we are going to hear about more and more of these things, and I think it is
back to the future. We have to remember that a lot of strange and unusual things happened, and that is the way the president-elect works.
I have spoken to businessmen who were also asked to be on calls with world leaders because they know a lot about a country or a situation. It is just
the way the former president works. It doesn't mean there aren't conflicts. It doesn't mean that at times it won't stink. It is just the way he works.
QUEST: Right, but it is this, Kayla, it is this determination this time around that we are going to see the difference, that having -- either not
having the right people in place or having had it too slow, there is a determination of the president and the new administration that they are
going to arrive ready prepared and governing.
TAUSCHE: Well, I think that is very true, but there are some key differences, Richard, and that is that you have an entire administration
that has happened with veterans who are still around the process and willing to serve in a second administration. So they've been there before,
and they know the ins and outs of the various agencies and offices so they can get to work much more quickly.
There was also a very concerted effort on the transition that began months ago. You may remember back in 2016, Chris Christie had been working on a
transition, but President-elect Trump then ripped it all up and started over. There was a sense that maybe it was lucky that they won. Now, this
time they were prepared.
QUEST: And we will follow every twist and turn as it goes forward.
Actually, quickly to you Julia, at the end, well, to either of you, either of you. How quickly do you think we will see the first tariffs? Go on,
start with you, Julia; then you, Kayla.
CHATTERLEY: Well, what we saw last time was 11 months between the initial investigation being launched and tariffs being hit by China, I'd say it is
going to be quicker this time around. They know what they are doing.
TAUSCHE: Yes, I think that there are some countries, other than China that have been tempting President-elect Trump. France just today doubled its tax
on digital services. The profits of big US tech companies essentially daring the president-elect to retaliate and I am told that he could do that
early in his term.
CHATTERLEY: And if I could say one other thing.
QUEST: Yes, go ahead.
CHATTERLEY: Von der Leyen though suggested today that the way that perhaps these could be circumvented is buying more liquefied natural gas from the
United States. So even before anything has happened, everyone is working for a way around it and coming to the table, which is exactly what the
president-elect wants.
TAUSCHE: All transactional here at the end of the day.
CHATTERLEY: Totally, totally.
QUEST: Hey, hey, I can play that game, too.
CHATTERLEY: Go on.
QUEST: I am transactional to both of you. Please, in the four years ahead, you have standard invitations to come and join us. I will buy the coffees.
I will buy the coffees. That's my transaction.
CHATTERLEY: We might need something stronger, Richard.
TAUSCHE: See you there.
QUEST: Good to see you both. All right, we were just talking about that.
Now back in 2016, Trump Towers, Kayla was reminding us, the staging ground for the incoming administration. It was "The Apprentice" on steroids.
Dozens of Republicans auditioning for roles in his White House. It was a media frenzy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER (voice over): Welcome to the latest episode of presidential apprentice, Donald Trump's Cabinet candidates look almost like contestants
parading past the cameras.
REPORTER (voice over): Trump has chosen billionaire investor, Wilbur Ross for Commerce Secretary and former Goldman Sachs partner, Steve Mnuchin for
Treasury Secretary.
REPORTER (voice over): Donald Trump's Secretary of State options down one with former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani withdrawing his name from
contention.
[16:15:09]
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: The pick is in. The president-elect will announce that Rex Tillerson, the Exxon CEO, will be his selection for
Secretary of State.
Mitt Romney, taking to Facebook, saying he was honored to have even been considered for the position and saying he has very high hopes for the Trump
administration.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
QUEST: Now, of course, the jockeying is underway, but we do know who the gatekeeper is going to be in all of this. The chief-of-staff has announced
-- has been announced as Susie Wiles, who is -- Trump has named his campaign manager, Susie Wiles as the White House chief-of-staff.
She will become the first woman to fill the role, apparently she has been assured she will get control of who gets access to the Oval Office. She
reportedly has said, as we told you last night, she is not letting the clown car into the White House.
Edward Luce is the US national editor at "The Financial Times." Good to see you, Edward, as always, sir. Great admirer of your writing.
And so what do you think? Let's not speculate on, you know, what policies and all of that, that will happen. Just let's look at the transition and
how you think that is going to go?
EDWARD LUCE, US NATIONAL EDITOR, "THE FINANCIAL TIMES": Well, the MAGA court as some have already dubbed it is very different this time around to
what it was last time around. And Don, Jr. is playing a very big role; obviously, Elon Musk, the new star is born as Trump dubbed him, is playing
a big role. Howard Lutnick is in charge of part of the transition. The former -- the chief executive of Cantor Fitzgerald. There are very
different characters involved this time. They tend to be believers.
Last time of course, Trump was kind of the dog that caught the car. He really didn't expect to win. This time, he has been planning his
administration for years and he has got loyalists around him, but there are all kinds of you know, quite florid characters as you would expect in Palm
Beach.
QUEST: Are we going to see the Bannons and the Millers, and if you like the ideologues coming on board? Because they were the ones in many ways that
created the confusion. They were the ones who were setting up separate -- I read the books, post exposed, they were the ones who were setting up, if
you read McMasters book the separate courts, if you will.
LUCE: They were. I mean, I suspect they won't. I doubt Steve Bannon will get an administration role, and he has been saying he is not going to, but
they would say the reason why they set up separate courts is that because you had these traditional country club Republicans blocking Trump's
instincts or muffling what he wanted to do and therefore, he wouldn't need an alternative court system now because Trump is going to have the real
thing.
He is going to have the real people, people like, we will see in the next few days, but people like Ric Grenell as his Secretary of State. Ric
Grenell was his ambassador to Germany last time around and was kind of persona non grata with Angela Merkel's government. He really, really made
himself unpopular. He is a hardliner.
If he is appointed Secretary of State, I think we will get a very clear indication of whether I am right that the Trump administration is going to
be a MAGA administration this time.
Another is Kash Patel, again, a very, very hard line Trumpian as Director of the CIA. These kinds of appointments, I think we are going to be seeing
in the next few days.
And just one point that I make about Robert Lighthizer.
QUEST: Of course.
LUCE: My two colleagues whose bylines are on that story, I mean, I wasn't involved in the story. These are very, very solid reporters with multiple
sources. So, I would trust their story.
QUEST: All right. I wonder, Donald Trump per se, I mean, forget -- how likely are we going to see a way of governing that is similar in a sense,
and I am not talking about policies implemented, I am talking about the mythology of, say, for example, Reagan and I raise this because Reagan
famously knew the direction he wanted to go, but he wasn't going to be bothered about the minutiae of how he got there.
Now, later in his second term, that fell apart with the Reagan, you know, with Don Regan and all of that and Baker, but at the beginning he set the
course and he let others get on with what he had had set was his policy. Is that likely here?
LUCE: Yes, you know, Trump likes his underlings. He likes people disagreeing with each other. It is just an instinctual Trump way of
operating. He did that with his businesses. It gives him full control when the people around him are at each other's throats.
[16:20:10]
He likes that, he considers that to be a managerial virtue. And so I expect that that will be very similar to the first administration, which was the
leakiest, you know, from a journalistic point of view, administration in history. A bit of a field day for our profession.
But he is the guy who believes in the art of the deal. So there is a lot of ideological stuff here, a lot of ideological beliefs, but the core of
Trump's sort of self-image is I am the one who gets a deal. So if Xi Jinping telephoned him from China next week and said, I will give you three
to four trillion dollars of trade commitments in exchange for you calling off the 60 percent tariff, that's the kind of thing Trump would go for.
QUEST: Thank you, sir. I am grateful. We will talk more. Very kind of you. Thank you.
An act of brutal violence in Amsterdam. Israeli football fans are targeted in a series of -- the Dutch government is condemning it as antisemitic, in
a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
QUEST: So Amsterdam now where some Israeli football fans are now heading home from Amsterdam. It is a special evacuation flight that's been arranged
by the Israeli government. It follows a string of brutal attacks in Amsterdam, where, after the Dutch and Israeli leaders are condemning as
antisemitic.
The violence came after a match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and the Dutch Club Ajax.
Our Melissa Bell has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is for the children. For the (bleep) children.
MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): "For the children" chants the attackers. "Free Palestine now."
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Free Palestine.
BELL (voice over): The Israeli Embassy says it is just one of hundreds of Israeli fans targeted in Amsterdam overnight after a soccer match between
the Israeli team, Maccabi and the Dutch team, Ajax with the attackers violently denouncing Israel's war on Gaza.
This man trying to escape being beaten by saying that he isn't Jewish.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I am not Jewish.
BELL (voice over): Before being struck hard in the face.
The Dutch prime minister condemning the attacks as antisemitic and vowing to prosecute the perpetrators. Police say they've launched a major
investigation, it is unclear how it all started.
[16:25:08]
In total, more than 60 individuals were arrested and some remain in custody and in a press conference, Friday, the city's mayor had this to say.
FEMKE HALSEMA, AMSTERDAM MAYOR: What happened last night is not a protest. It has nothing to do with protest or demonstration. It was crime.
BELL (voice over): The violence culminating with clashes overnight after a buildup earlier this week with Israeli fans seen here chanting pro IDF
slogans and "Eff the Arabs."
(PEOPLE chanting in foreign language.)
BELL (voice over): And others tearing down a Palestinian flag from a building.
(PEOPLE chanting in foreign language.)
BELL (voice over): And while the situation is now under control, attention may soon shift to France, where a match between the Israeli and French
soccer teams is scheduled for next week.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
QUEST: Melissa is with me now in Amsterdam.
Melissa, two aspects. First of all, the team on -- sorry, the fans are on their way home on a flight organized by the Israeli government. EL AL
flying on shabbat, which of course is something they wouldn't normally have done, but how did argy-bargy turn into a full scale riot?
BELL: Well, there had been this tension rising a couple of days before this fixture was due, Richard, and that was something Dutch authorities were
aware of. They put more policemen and women on the streets of Amsterdam last night, 800, which is a lot for this city, I am told. Still, it wasn't
enough to prevent those really shocking scenes.
What we've seen is from Wednesday, almost as soon as those Maccabi Tel Aviv fans arrived, there were images on social media of some of those chants you
just heard in that report. Palestinian flags being torn down. That tension was rising.
But I think, even the Dutch authorities were unprepared for the violence of what went on overnight. It wasn't immediately after the match, it took some
time. It remained calm afterwards, but the scenes were as shocking as they were, Richard, because what you were talking about was individual or small
groups of Israeli supporters being chased through the streets in what Dutch authorities have described as hit and run attacks of remarkable violence,
both verbal and physical -- Richard.
QUEST: Melissa Bell in Amsterdam, thank you.
Now we are tracking new developments about an alleged attempt on Donald Trump's life.
The Justice Department in the US has announced federal charges against the man it says was part of a thwarted plot by Iran to kill Mr. Trump before
the presidential election.
The suspect is an Afghan national who lives in Tehran and is still at large inside Iran, and the DOJ has arrested two American citizens in New York
that says is working for Iran to surveil a US citizen.
Zachary is with me. Just clarify, you know, obviously, we had the attempt where a shot was fired and the president-elect was hit in the ear. But how
many other attempts are there? How many issues are we dealing with here?
ZACHARY COHEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yes, Richard, we did have that first assassination attempt that was carried out by an American, a
young man named Thomas Crooks. That had no direct link as far as law enforcement in the US says to this separate, but related Iranian threat.
Now, the Iranian regime, you can trace that threat all the way back to Donald Trump was president the last time and the killing of Iranian General
Qasem Soleimani. We know that the Iranians had vowed retribution for the death of Soleimani, saying that they would respond in kind and target
Donald Trump and also members of his former administration, people like John Bolton, his former national security adviser, who still have security
details here in the US due to this persistent Iranian threat.
And look, this threat level has really only increasingly concerned US officials and they say that they have intelligence that shows Iran is more
inclined than ever and brazen than ever to carry out assassination plots on US soil.
And so today's indictment, the charging documents is really reflective of that. It is part of this broader network that prosecutors say the Iranians
have put together to try to target Americans on US soil and Donald Trump in particular.
QUEST: We will talk more. You will keep watching. When there is more to tell me, you'll come back. Thank you, sir.
QUEST MEANS BUSINESS, the end of the week. What a week.
Donald Trump has put border security at the heart of the campaign. Now, the largest deportation campaign in US history. The question of how this
affects real industries, it is one thing to talk politics, what happens when you actually have to put it into practice? In a moment, the dairy
farmers.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:32:51]
QUEST: Pentagon officials say they are discussing how to respond if Donald Trump issues controversial or illegal orders. The President-elect has
indicated he plans to fill the government with loyalists, and that raises the question of what happens if he issues an unlawful order. Political
appointees inside the Pentagon may try to carry it out.
The President-elect has suggested using soldiers, for instance, for domestic law enforcement and mass deportations. Natasha Bertrand is with me
now. There is an -- I mean, I could give you the standard, traditional answer, which is, if an illegal order is issued, then military men and
women can ignore it or don't have to follow it. But you and I both know that that's not the political and military reality, is it? So, they do have
to work out what happens if Trump goes rogue?
NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: That's exactly right. And senior military leaders, of course, they could resign in protest, but
officials that we spoke to here said that that on a large scale anyway, is probably unlikely, because military leaders are pretty loath to do anything
that might be perceived as kind of abandoning their people. And so, what we are seeing now is an attempt to kind of game out the responses that the
department might have If Trump were to deploy active-duty troops to U.S. cities.
For example, without invoking the insurrection act, kind of, you know, on a whim, and to engage in domestic law enforcement, as well as if he tried to
use the U.S. military and active-duty troops to engage in this mass deportation plan that he has said that he wants to do. Now, part of the
big, you know, question here is who he's going to actually install in the Pentagon? He has said that he wants to stack the department with loyalists,
along with the rest of the federal government.
And also, you know, there is a plan that he has to purge a really large number of apolitical civilian appointees, not only in the Pentagon, but
also across the entire federal government. So that really raises the question of whether there's really going to be any backstops here when it
comes to him issuing a potentially unlawful order.
QUEST: You know, I guess there's a difference, isn't there? Between the outright unlawful order and the gray area. The sort of the order that's
given or the action that's taken that's quasi legal.
[16:35:05]
And bearing in mind that the President himself now has immunity, essentially, for pretty much everything he might do following the Supreme
Court decision. But it's the gray area that's going to cause the difficulty for military.
BERTRAND: Exactly right. And there are so many gray areas here. The President has really broad leeway, really, to use the military for domestic
purposes. I mean, there are a lot of loopholes, for example, that would allow him to deploy them on U.S. soil in American cities, if he deemed that
it was necessary to protect constitutional rights and essentially to protect American cities. And so, that is what the Pentagon here is really
bracing for.
QUEST: I'm grateful for you. You've got your work it out in the years ahead, and we'll be talking to you many times. Thank you very much.
We all know that, of course, immigration was the cornerstone of the campaign, the President-elect has vowed to not only round up and kick
millions of undocumented immigrants out of the United States. It will be the largest domestic deportation operation in U.S. history, he says.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: On day one, I will launch the largest deportation program in American history to get the criminals out. I
will rescue every city in town that has been invaded and conquered and we will put these vicious and bloodthirsty criminals in jail, kick them the
hell out of our country as fast as possible.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
QUEST: Now, the crackdown could affect industries across the country for one very good reason. So, I've got to roll the knife. I do like a bit of
whole milk dairy. In Idaho, 90 percent of on-farm jobs in the dairy industry are filled by foreign labor.
Rick Naerebout is the CEO of the Idaho Dairymen's Association. And thank you, sir. Thank you. I do enjoy not only milk -- full milk in my tea and
coffee, but in a -- on my cereal as well. It's a vast industry, $7 billion in total. Quite simply, documented or otherwise. Can your industry run
without migrant workers?
RICK NAEREBOUT, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION: We absolutely cannot survive without an immigrant workforce. They make up the
majority of our workforce in half for decades.
QUEST: And how many of that would -- how many people, roughly percentage, would you say, hang on hard with knowledge of the real world or
undocumented? Percentage?
NAEREBOUT: It's going to be tough. I mean, the reality of the situation is, we've got 90 percent of our workforce that we know are foreign born. We
don't have access to a visa program, because we're year-round agriculture, we can't utilize the H-2A visa program, that other ag industries can use.
So, when you've got a stat like 90 percent being foreign born and you don't have a visa program, that's going to do a lot to inform you as to what the
estimates might be for those that are here without authorization.
QUEST: But I was saying at my morning meeting here, you know, surely the authorities ICE, CBP, immigration, surely they are aware of the reality and
they are aware, if they suddenly head off to Idaho to start rounding up undocumented migrants, that essentially, the cows won't get milked and the
milk won't get delivered.
NAEREBOUT: That's exactly right. And the reality is, there are no secrets. When you look at I-9 audits that have been done in the dairy industry or
other agricultural industries or construction, or any of the many industries that rely on the workforce that looks just like ours. There's no
secrets to ICE. They know exactly which industries are dependent on these workers because they've conducted the I-9 audits to know, you know, which
industries are very dependent on an unauthorized workforce.
QUEST: And therefore, they were -- yes, but what do you want? Let's talk about -- never mind, you know, we'll leave it to others to discuss the
rounding up and deport -- the mass deportation. What for you would be an acceptable policy that squares that circle?
NAEREBOUT: For us, we're not asking for a lot. What we want is legal status for our existing workforce that are here, you know, they're well trained,
they've been in the job for a number of years in most occasions and the workers that we don't want to lose. And so, we would like legal status for
our existing workforce that might be here without, you know, authorization and then access to a visa program so that we don't end up in this situation
in the future.
So, we don't feel like we're asking for anything that's unreasonable or too much. We just need to be able to line up the number of jobs we have in
agriculture with workers that are willing to do the work.
QUEST: Let's put it in blunt terms. If the workers get thrown out, deported, is it possible that you can find a replacement workforce, either
amongst legal migrants or amongst other Americans who will do the work?
[16:40:07]
NAEREBOUT: We honestly could not. And first and foremost, Americans don't want these jobs. They haven't filled agricultural jobs for decades. And so,
this fallacy that Americans want to go out there and pick fruit or milk cows or do any of the other jobs we have available in agriculture. It's
just not true. They're not jobs that America is going to take. And then if you look at a state like Idaho, where we've had a very robust economy for a
number of years, we just don't have an unemployment rate that would indicate that the workers are out there, if you remove all these
unauthorized workers within a state like Idaho.
And so, to think that you could remove them and not have significant impacts, that would lead to, you know, inflation at the grocery store. You
know, that's something that I think voters made very clear this election cycle, is inflation in the economy -- issue. And so, if you start to look
at increasing costs, you're going to have significant impacts on consumers bottom line.
QUEST: So, do you -- I understand the election is the result and the result is in turn, and that's fair enough. But do you sometimes, just in
frustration, want to sort of throw your milk on the floor and sort of say, all right, you want these workers gone, you wait and see what's going to
happen?
NAEREBOUT: You always have those moments of frustration where you just want to throw your hands up or as you state, throw our milk on the floor and
walk away. But the reality is that's not American agriculture. You know, we pride ourselves in problem solving and figuring out how to do more with
less, and we're going to continue to roll up our sleeves, work with policymakers and try and find a path forward here.
QUEST: Well, Idaho has a magnificent state. I've been there several times. I'm looking forward to visiting again, where you and I will talk more next
time, over a glass of milk. Thank you, sir, for joining us. I appreciate it.
NAEREBOUT: I look forward to it.
QUEST: The polls said the right -- the race for the White House was a dead heat. The betting markets predicted otherwise. So, we know who was right
but why was one more right than the other? After the break. QUEST MEANS BUSINESS.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
QUEST: Days before the election and you and I had talked many times that this race was a tossup between Harris and Trump. The betting sites like
Polymarket had a much more likelihoods of a Trump victory.
[16:45:02]
It begs the question what the predicted markets saw that the polls and pundits arguably didn't give the same importance to. The basic theory is a
lot of people with money on the line can better predict the outcome than single experts.
Harry Enton joins me. Harry, how did the -- well, start doing that? I could do that too. How did the -- why did the predictive markets do better than
the polls if they did, in your view?
HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: Yes. I think there's the question, right? Maybe I disagree with the underlying premise of your question. Look,
if you were to look at a Web site like Polymarket, you know, you looked a few weeks ago, yes, they had, I think it was something like a two-thirds
chance that Donald Trump was going to defeat Kamala Harris. But what you actually saw in the closing days was those odds started to converge almost
with the polls.
It became more of a tossup, so that by the end, it was about, you know, let's say a six in 10 shot that Trump would win. Now that's a slight
favorite, but it's not overwhelmingly. So, and if you can't do the math at home, I'll do it for you. The polls suggested about a five in 10 chance, so
I guess one-tenth of a chance higher. Why would the polling perhaps, underestimate Donald Trump and the betting markets get it right?
Look, there were a few big bettors in the betting markets who suggested who put a lot of money in and that helped rise the price of Trump. But again, I
don't think there was as massive a difference as you might have thought. And if you go back through the years, there are some years in which the
betting markets do, in fact, do better than the polls. This year was one of them. And there are certain years in which the polls do better than the
betting markets.
I think 2022 is one of those and, you know, my buddy Nate Silver in 2020 I think did better than the betting markets as well. So, some years it's the
betting markets, some years it's the polls. This year's it was the betting markets.
QUEST: Right. I want to talk now about the polls themselves because essentially, it was within the margin of error on the national basis some
might say. Now, admittedly, when you get it down into the individual states, it becomes much more -- much more clear. But did the polls get it
that dramatically wrong?
ENTEN: I don't think the polls got it that dramatically wrong. Look, obviously, across the board, the polls underestimated Donald Trump. I think
that's clear no matter what state you look at. I think maybe the state of Maryland might have been an exception to that but, you know, elections
aren't, don't tend to be won and lost in the great state of Maryland. Beautiful people, wonderful crab.
But it doesn't tend to be where elections in this country decided won or lost. But here's the deal, you know, I shared, if folks at home don't know
this, Richard and I occasionally text, and I shared with Richard a map which essentially projected out what the Electoral College would be based
upon the final polls. And you had a normal polling miss, an average polling miss, that Donald Trump benefited from.
And it turns out the final map looks exactly like that. Look. We don't have a winner yet in Nevada and Arizona. CNN has it projected, but Donald Trump
leads there. So, to me, this was well within the normal average misses. And more than that, that is very unlike 2016 and specifically 2020 were Donald
Trump did way better than the polls. This year, in fact, the polls were the best whenever Donald Trump has been on the ballot at least the three times
that he's been in a general election.
QUEST: So, he wins at the upper end of the margin of error, and when you -- and that translates into the millions of difference of votes. But actually,
it's not very helpful when we have to try and work out before the election who's likely to win the election. I mean, you have a guess. Look, you have
a Get Out of Jail Free card, which is the margin of error. And you're a tight race, you head off to the bank, sir.
ENTEN: I mean, the beautiful thing about me is that I always carry a Get Out of Jail Free card. I actually took it from multiple monopoly sets at
the local Toys R Us. I think that's still in business. I took them a few years ago when they certainly were still in business.
QUEST: You cheat, don't you? You cheat at monopoly. I'm not playing with you.
(CROSSTALK)
ENTEN: Of course. Of course, I cheat at monopoly. Otherwise, I can't let my girlfriend win every time. She'd have me in the doghouse for forever. Look,
I -- my job, as I sort of view it is not necessarily to tell you when a race is very, very tight, who's going to win and lose. It's to paint out
the possibilities. If one candidate is well ahead, when we really haven't had any of those elections, at least on the national level since 2008, I'll
say it.
I'll say it, and be honest with you. But in this particular election, whether you looked at the betting markets or whether you looked at the
polls, the race was very, very tight, and there was really any possibilities on either end. And I think based upon the conversations that
you have, I have had, and I've had with others of our friends here at CNN and they're all lovely people, I don't think anyone could have been really
surprised by the outcome that occurred.
Look, the bottom line which 28 percent of the country heading into the election thought the country was on the right track. The incumbent party
has never been reelected. I think the only question was whether Donald Trump was so unpopular that that history could be avoided by Kamala Harris.
Turns out, couldn't be.
QUEST: Harry, as always, thank you very much. And of course, good Shabbos.
ENTEHN: Good Shabbos, my dear friend. And I have a Get Out of Jail Free card for you anytime you need it.
QUEST: Absolutely. I might be calling on that. I'm grateful.
As we continue tonight. Interestingly, we're just talking about good Shabbos. Allow, normally doesn't fly on Shabbos, but tonight, it is flying.
[16:50:06]
It's flying Israeli football fans back to Tel Aviv from Amsterdam. And that's Matthew Chance. He's waiting for that flight. Matthew will tell us
after the night of authorities, of what happened in Amsterdam and everything? Matthew will be with us in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
QUEST: Now within the hour, Israeli football fans will be arriving home at Ben Gurion Airport. That's a special evacuation flight arranged by the
Israeli government from Amsterdam. It's because of the series of brutal attacks on Israeli football fans after the match between Maccabi, Tel Aviv
and Ajax. Several people were seriously injured, dozens more hurt in the ambushes. The Dutch government is condemning the attacks as anti-Semitic.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHANAN HERTZBERGER, CHAIRMAN, CENTRAL JEWISH COMMITTEE (through translator): Yes, people feel it, but people are not safe either. That's
clear. What happened last night is really terrible. People went to a football match and came back to Amsterdam to have a smoke, a drink and go
to a hotel, and they were just put in a corner by five or 50 men beaten up that is unacceptable in Amsterdam.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
QUEST: Matthew is with me. Matthew Chance at Ben Gurion. The fact that the Israeli government sent the planes when there are, you know, other ways
they could have got home. That, in itself, speaks volumes.
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It does, Richard. I mean, it talks of the sense of outrage that is being felt here. Remember,
it's been just over a year since the October 7th attacks and the country is kind of traumatized at the idea of Israeli citizens being attacked from
whatever quarters. The Israeli President called it a pogrom. The Israeli prime minister called the violence horrifying.
And so, over the course of the day, Israeli officials tell us there's been five evacuation flights come from Amsterdam to this airport in Tel Aviv,
the Ben Gurion Airport. There are another eight flights scheduled for tomorrow. Earlier we got to speak to some of the passengers that come off,
some of the people, the football fans, the Maccabi fans, that had come from Amsterdam, some have been attacked, like Matan Haddad, one of the people we
spoke to -- who spoke to us of his terrifying ordeal. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHANCE: What happened?
MATAN HADDAD, ISRAELI FOOTBALL FAN (through translator): They waited and they come back with the plane. And they just jump on us and all the knives
and all of them just attacked our -- e and my friends.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[16:55:13]
QUEST: The situation is pretty dire at the moment, but there are more football matches ahead.
CHANCE: Yes, there are. There's one shortly in Paris. There are other sporting events as well, and fixtures as well. Look, one of the things that
Israeli officials are saying to me is that what they're going to be doing now, now they getting all these Israeli citizens home from Amsterdam, is
really carefully reviewing future Israeli sporting fixtures to make sure the security situation in those places is, you know, going to going to make
sure this kind of thing doesn't happen again.
They're going to be liaising more closely, they say, with local law enforce -- enforcement agencies potentially sending Israeli security agents, or
more of them to these sporting pictures to try and sort of make sure that in these sort of very sort of precarious times, that Israeli fans can be
properly protected.
QUEST: Excellent word to use in that -- to describe it. Precarious times, wherever we look. Thank you. Matthew Chance in Tel Aviv tonight.
I'll have a profitable moment for you after the break. QUEST MEANS BUSINESS.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
QUEST: And a very short profitable moment. That's the short profitable moment tonight. And that's QUEST MEANS BUSINESS for this Friday. I'm
Richard Quest. Oh, good lord, I haven't got the bell. Well, whatever you're up to in the hours ahead, ding, I hope it's profitable.
JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper. This hour, the celebratory calls pouring into Mar-a-Lago from leaders around the
world, but one president found himself not only on the full phone with President-elect Trump but also with Elon Musk. What were they talking
about, the three of them?
Plus, President-elect Trump's team working quickly to fill critical White House positions. We've already learned his pick for chief of staff, and
this hour, we've got some brand new reporting about other potential hires.
And leading this hour, federal prosecutors announcing charges in a thwarted plot to kill Donald Trump, a plot allegedly led by Iran. Court documents
say Iranian officials directed the suspect to surveil and then assassinate Mr. Trump before the presidential election.
Shocking news. Let's bring in CNN's Evan Perez and John Miller. Evan, give us the details.
[17:00:05]
END
