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State of the Union

Interview With Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN); Interview With Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE); Interview With Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN). Aired 9- 10a ET

Aired December 22, 2024 - 09:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[09:00:38]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DANA BASH, CNN HOST (voice-over): Shutdown averted. Republicans avoid a self-made crisis after president-elect Donald Trump upends their spending deal. Who has the president-elect's ear?

REP. BYRON DONALDS (R-FL): Thank God for Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.

BASH: Close Trump ally Senator Bill Hagerty joins me exclusively.

And havoc on the Hill. The chaos highlights strains within the GOP...

REP. CHIP ROY (R-TX): It is absolutely ridiculous.

BASH: ... and tests the influence of Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson. How much control do they have? Republican Congressman Tim Burchett is ahead.

Plus: Where's Biden? Democrats cede the stage to Republican infighting, as the sitting president maintains a low profile.

KARINE JEAN-PIERRE, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: This is for Republicans in Congress to fix.

BASH: What are Biden's plans for his last month in office? Close Biden ally Senator Chris Coons is here exclusively.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BASH: Hello. I'm Dana Bash in Washington, where the state of our union is breathing a sigh of relief.

Congress narrowly avoided shutting down the government for the holidays this year, but raised questions about how Washington will function under president-elect Donald Trump's second term after Trump and Elon Musk blew up a bipartisan deal to fund the government days before the deadline and then hard-line Republicans in the House refused Trump's demand to raise the nation's borrowing limit.

It was an extraordinary rebuke of the incoming president by his own party and a warning about House Speaker Mike Johnson's daunting task, corralling a very small, but unruly majority to stick together to pass Trump's agenda.

Here with me now is a close ally of Donald Trump, Senator Bill Hagerty of Tennessee.

Thank you so much for being here.

Sir, first questions, have you spoken with president-elect Trump about what occurred, and is he happy in the end with how it played out?

SEN. BILL HAGERTY (R-TN): Dana, as I mentioned a bit ago when we were talking before the set started, I just walked off the floor of the Senate 2:00 a.m. yesterday morning. I'm fortunate to have gotten back home to Tennessee, but I have not had a chance to speak with president Trump at this point.

BASH: Understandable, given what you just described and what we all witnessed, but also given the fact that you know him well and you understand what he was going for.

The final spending bill that you all approved did not have any new spending cuts. It didn't include the debt limit increase that Donald Trump was demanding. So, what did he accomplish with all of this?

HAGERTY: Well, the main thing -- and I can share with you my perspective on it, Dana, is this.

We were -- we have had our appropriations bills on the floor of the United States Senate since this past summer. Chuck Schumer has refused to bring them forward. This is a typical Washington process, where we wind up with a work product that the American public can't possibly understand. They dumped over 1,500 pages on us.

And Elon Musk, using the tool of Twitter, brought transparency to the entirety of it. The American public were shocked. We are always shocked when we see these types of monstrosities at the last minute that haven't been properly vetted.

And President Trump was able to bring his weight to the table and say, look, this has got to -- this has got to stop. This has got to be skinnied down. This has got to change.

My overarching goal coming into this was to make certain that the government didn't shut down, because President Trump over the next 30 days needs to be able to process his nominees, we need to be able to put in place to get to work on January the 20th, because three- quarters of the American public feel that the United States is on the wrong track right now.

So I appreciate the fact that Elon Musk made this transparent and that we were able to actually improve this. We didn't get everything we wanted. Certainly, I didn't. But we're in a better place now because we're going to be in a position to make certain that President Trump is ready to go ON day one.

BASH: Senator, on Wednesday, Trump said that any Republican -- quote -- "stupid enough" to vote for a clean continuing resolution, one without raising the debt limit -- quote -- "should and will be primaried."

But, in the end, 170 House Republicans, 37 Senate Republicans, including you, did exactly that. Now, it goes without saying Donald Trump is more popular than he's ever been, and he tried to use his political capital on this, and it failed.

[09:05:02]

So what does that say about his grip on your party and, more importantly, his ability to get his agenda over the line in a couple of weeks when he takes office?

HAGERTY: I'm sure Mike Johnson did everything he could to try to accomplish the elimination of the debt ceiling, or at least to push it out a long way, because here's what the debt ceiling has become, Dana.

It's a cudgel. It's a tool that the other side uses to extract pain. And what we're going to be dealing with is a Democrat minority that's going to use this as a means, frankly, to raise spending in order for us to increase the debt ceiling.

That's precisely the opposite of what President Trump wants to do. I think what it does is, it puts the onus on us very quickly to get to work on a work product that will actually cut spending at the same time it would increase the debt ceiling. That would satisfy the Republicans in the House of Representatives, as I understand it.

That will be a way that we can move forward and get this addressed. But President Trump has certainly shown the light of day on the difficulties associated with this debt ceiling. But, again, I want to see him in office. I want to see his Cabinet members in place. That's got to happen on the 20th of January.

That's the key reason that I supported getting this continuing resolution over the line.

BASH: He made a very specific threat in that quote I read to you about people who vote to fund the government without increasing the debt ceiling should be primaried. Will he follow through on that? Someone like you and all of the Republicans in the House, should they be concerned?

HAGERTY: Well, I certainly think we have an opportunity to fix the situation, but that's going to take place in the early part of next year as we come into the reconciliation process.

BASH: So, no primary challenges? You think he didn't really mean it?

HAGERTY: I'm not saying he didn't mean it, but I'm saying he highlighted the concern about the debt ceiling. I think everybody appreciates that right now, and I think we're going to be razor- focused on addressing that.

There is a means to do this during the reconciliation process, and it puts a great deal of pressure on the Republicans in the House and in the Senate to make certain that we get to work together. And I look forward to doing that.

The interesting thing about this entire process, though, is, President Trump has been extremely involved in it. But where was President Biden? The sitting president was not engaged with us at all in this process. And as it unfolded, the American public must have wondered, where is our president?

Then "The Wall Street Journal" raised the fact that, I guess the greatest or one of the greatest media malpractice stories of our lifetimes has taken place, the cover-up of Joe Biden. I guess we understand now why he hasn't been around.

But this is just amazing that the White House and the president weren't even engaged with us in this entire process.

BASH: Yes, well, I'm going to talk to one of President Biden's allies in a bit.

And I'm guessing you would agree with one of the old political adages, which is that, when your opponent is fighting amongst themselves, you get out of the way.

But let's just stick with the whole question of Elon Musk for a minute, because you said something really interesting. You said that he allowed for transparency when he put on social media -- he actually did it at 4.15 a.m. on Wednesday.

And what he specifically posted was -- quote -- "This bill should not pass."

And then, Senator, he posted 75 times over the course of that day attacking the bill, pressuring Republicans to tank it. Donald Trump didn't weigh in publicly for more than 12 hours, and only did so after it was clear Republicans were following Elon Musk's lead and turning on the bill.

So, did Donald Trump only pick this fight because Elon Musk backed him into a corner?

HAGERTY: I certainly wouldn't say that. And I say, thank God Elon Musk bought Twitter, because that's the only way we'd even know what's in this bill. Otherwise, the conspiracy between the government and Twitter would have continued, and this would have all been covered up.

But the fact is that Elon Musk exposing this meant that every one of our offices was inundated with calls from our constituents. The American public wanted to see this change. Donald Trump was speaking on behalf of the American public.

Again, he's just the president-elect. The current president is AWOL, but Donald Trump stepped up and said, look, this is what needs to happen. And I think all of my constituents were there -- or the calls at least that I got in my office. Elon Musk's transparency helped make that happen.

BASH: Well, I think, as a senator voting, I presume that you do your best to read the bills that you're voting on. I understand it was quite large at the beginning, but to say that it was only Elon Musk that made people aware of what was in it, that can't be true.

HAGERTY: No, I'm not saying it was only Elon Musk. We were all struggling to read it, to digest an over-1,500-page bill that we were literally given just hours to comb through.

I was working through it. My staff didn't sleep the night before. It's extraordinarily frustrating. But I think the added weight of the American public understanding and the simple picture that Elon Musk put forward showing the size of the stack of what we originally presented, we started out with over 1,500 pages.

We got it down to 120 pages. Still, it's not what I would have liked to see in terms of a final work product. But it gets the president's Cabinet back in place. It certainly gets much-needed aid to the people of East Tennessee who've suffered dramatically from the floods. That should have taken place earlier, but, unfortunately, it got attached to this tool.

[09:10:03]

We needed to get this passed. We need to get President Trump's team in place and in office. And, at the end of the day, we had a better than we started with. And I appreciate that. And Elon Musk's role in that was significant.

BASH: So, just to put a button that, I'm sure you have seen and heard Democrats are mockingly suggesting that Elon Musk is the one calling the shots, questioning who the president-elect really is, to the point where Donald Trump's press secretary issued a statement on Thursday saying -- quote -- "President Trump is the leader of the Republican Party, full stop."

I'm sure that's not the kind of statement that he and his team really would have liked to have put out there. But do you think it was necessary?

HAGERTY: I don't think it's necessary. Anybody that knows the two men -- and I know both of them. I have been with both of them many times together.

I think President Trump is clearly the leader. He's going to be the leader of the free world in 30 days. In fact, he's already the leader if you look at what's happening, people coming to see him in Mar-a- Lago, the changes that have taken place, the European Union saying maybe they're going to go ahead now and supplant Russian LNG with U.S. LNG, the U.K. stepping up its defense budget in advance of President Trump coming into office.

He already is the leader of the free world. And, as we know, Joe Biden has gone AWOL.

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: You're comfortable with Elon Musk's role? HAGERTY: And media speculation, what the Democrats might say to try to get under people's skin doesn't bother me a bit.

Elon Musk is, again, the richest person in the world. He's been extraordinarily successful, building companies that are unlike any other. And I'm appreciative of the fact that President Trump has that type of talent available to advise him.

BASH: Senator, thank you so much for being here this morning. I hope you and your family have a merry Christmas.

HAGERTY: Dana, nice to be with you.

BASH: Thank you.

HAGERTY: Same to you. Happy holidays to everybody. Thank you.

BASH: Thank you.

And coming up: One of the 38 Republicans to vote against Donald Trump's wishes this week will join me on what comes next.

And then: Congress was melting down this week, so we are going to ask a question about the sitting president, Joe Biden, talk to one of his closest allies, Senator Chris Coons, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:16:22]

BASH: Welcome back to STATE OF THE UNION.

Dozens of House Republicans defied president-elect Donald Trump this week, refusing to raise the debt ceiling and voting against a Trump- endorsed spending deal, raising questions about his ability to keep his party in line.

Joining me now is one of those House Republicans who voted against that bill, Congressman Tim Burchett of Tennessee.

Thank you so much for being here. I appreciate it.

Why was it so easy for you and those fellow Republicans we just showed to tell the president-elect, who's really popular in your district, to essentially take a hike?

REP. TIM BURCHETT (R-TN): Well, we didn't do that, actually.

The reality is, we didn't do what he wanted to in the third bill. We didn't raise the debt limit. And if we could raise the debt limit, combine that with some serious cuts, we could actually see some improvement. I have not voted for any of the continuing resolutions, as you know, because we're really abdicating our duties.

We have one duty that I see. We're supposed to follow the Constitution, and the Constitution says that Congress will pass a budget. I have been there six years, and I think it's been 30 years since they have passed a budget. I used to be on the Budget Committee, and I asked to be taken off of it, because we're not serious about passing a budget.

All we want to do is continue bad spending policies. We are $36 trillion in debt, as you know. Every 100 days, we add another deal, and then they push us up against the holidays.

And, look, that's not by accident. That's (AUDIO GAP)

BASH: So, yes. Forgive me, sir. I had a little bit of trouble hearing you there. Hopefully, you can still hear me.

But I really do want to ask about the notion that the president-elect was very, very clear, saying that he wanted you guys to raise the debt ceiling. He wanted it to happen before he took office. And I understand that you have never done that, nor would you.

What is he not understanding about the core convictions, those fiscal conservative philosophical priorities that you and so many of your colleagues have?

BURCHETT: Well, that's a great question. I made that commitment to my constituents, I would do that, I would raise the debt ceiling if we combined that with some serious cuts.

And yet this bill that we passed, this so-called continuing resolution, which was supposed to be bare-bones, I mean, it had $5.7 billion in there for subs, submarines, $100 million for the Coast Guard.

Now, last week, we passed the NDAA, the National Defense Authorization Act, and we added I believe it was 6 billion new dollars in there, or $9 billion. But we added that onto it. And this is a Pentagon that has not -- has failed the last eight audits.

So why in the world would we continue down this policy of bad spending? And one other thing in this continuing resolution, which I still can't (AUDIO GAP) how it is, the funding for the Francis Scott Key Bridge. You remember that. It got hit by, I believe, was a container ship.

Well, the ship was insured. Why are the American taxpayers bailing something out that was insured? These things are not made clear to us. And that's what happens when you rush. That's why I said, if we got to stay there to Christmas Day, let's stay until Christmas Day.

BASH: Let me ask about the so-called gentleman's agreement that apparently went on behind closed doors.

The Republican leadership said that it would pair the debt ceiling, raising the debt ceiling, with $2.5 trillion in cuts in mandatory spending in 2025.

[09:20:08]

BURCHETT: Yes.

BASH: Said this about the plan.

You said: "They call that a gentleman's agreement, but there are no gentlemen out here.

So you obviously don't trust your leadership to make those cuts, which are really large.

BURCHETT: I trust my leadership. I just don't trust the membership.

When Elon and Vivek came and talked to us about the DOGE committee and everybody was all fired up, and I tweeted it, I had over a million views. I couldn't believe it. But I said, the problem's not going to be between those two guys. It's going to be the voters in that room, the members of Congress.

And you know as well as I do, everybody comes home and they go to their Reagan Day dinners and MAGA dinners and they throw the red meat out. I'm sure the Democrats go to their Truman Day dinners and do the same, and then they come back down there and then they cuss the opposition and then they wink at them and then they pass more spending, more spending.

And we just continue down that road. And this is the first time, though, America I think has really woken up and started paying attention to what is the details of these bills. And I think that's why you're seeing so much outpour.

BASH: And, finally, I do want to ask about the House speaker. You're going to elect a speaker in 12 days.

Earlier this week, you were asked when -- if you would support Speaker Johnson, and you said that you would make your decision in January. Not giving a yes to somebody who is your leader right now sounds like a warning shot.

BURCHETT: Well, there is a lot of discouragement, but I understand what Mike's up against. I mean, he's got a three majority lead. If a bad case the flu comes through, then we're in the minority. I mean, that's the reality of Washington today.

And he has some tough decisions. I think, ultimately, it's going to be decided who President Trump likes, because I believe that will weigh in heavily on the decision-making of that, because, currently, President Trump works very well with Mike Johnson. They have a great relationship. And...

BASH: So, if Trump says he's for Johnson, you will be too?

BURCHETT: Possibly. Possibly. I will make my own decision. I like Mike. I voted for him when he ran this time. I mean, he was a clear consensus winner. And so...

BASH: And what does he have to do to ensure that at this point? BURCHETT: I think he has to show me that we're going to be serious

about making these cuts. We're not going to say, well, let's pass this one more time, one more of these bad spending bills, so we can get back in shape.

We say we don't trust Joe Biden with money, but we gave him over $100 billion in one account and billions in others, and yet we continue doing the same thing, and we keep saying next time, next time, next time.

Well, we're $36 trillion in debt. Every 100 days, we add another trillion. We're going to run off that cliff. And I just -- I don't want to be one that's held responsible for that, because I think America deserves better, and we need to start talking seriously about fiscal responsibility, both parties.

BASH: Congressman, thank you so much for being here. Appreciate it. Have a merry Christmas.

BURCHETT: Thank you, ma'am. Hope you have a happy Hanukkah, ma'am.

BASH: Thank you.

BURCHETT: Thank you so much.

BASH: Thank you.

And up next, one of the senators who is closest to Joe Biden, he will be here as the president wraps up his final days in office.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:27:54]

BASH: Welcome back to STATE OF THE UNION.

This week, Democrats faced the first test of the second Trump term, and it seemed happy enough to let warring Republicans in the spotlight alone. And that includes President Biden, who kept a hands-off approach going in the waning days of his time in office.

Here with me now to discuss all of this is a close ally of Joe Biden, Democratic Senator Chris Coons.

Thank you so much for being here. It's nice to see you in person. We have heard Democrats touting what ended up happening in the early wee hours of yesterday morning as a victory over Donald Trump. But, in the end, the bill that you all voted for didn't include a lot of Democratic priorities that were initially in the deal with Speaker Johnson.

So what does that portend about what's going to come up? I mean, this fight is going to happen again in March.

SEN. CHRIS COONS (D-DE): Well, first, happy holidays. Great to be on with you.

And this is a predictor of what's likely to happen. We're not just going to have president-elect Trump as a billionaire rage-tweeting at 4:00 a.m. We're going to have Elon Musk also injecting instability into how we tackle very complicated and important issues for our country.

And while there's going to be a majority with an R next to their name in the House and the Senate and a Republican in the White House, what we saw over the last couple of days is that they don't agree with each other. What we just saw on this show was a Republican senator from Tennessee and a Republican congressman from Tennessee sharply disagreeing on what should happen with spending going forward and on exactly how it should all play out.

You had to ask Senator Hagerty, do you expect a primary threat since you voted against what the president-elect asked for? So I think we're in for some really rough sailing, and it's going to be difficult for them to pass much of president-elect Trump's ambitious agenda on straight party-line votes.

BASH: Well...

COONS: Democrats will have to be in the mix.

BASH: Well, on that, just on the raw politics of what we saw over the past few days, again, a lot of Democrats think that the way it ended up was a -- just on the politics, was a political win.

I don't hear you saying that.

COONS: Well, because I'm concerned about the American people and what this is going to mean.

[09:30:00]

Yes, in a narrow sense, it was a political win, in that president- elect Trump demanded all sorts of things, even threatened to primary Republicans who didn't support him, and then failed to get most of what he wanted.

But you're right to focus on what fell out of the package. It was things like transparency in drug pricing, investments in fighting pediatric cancer, investment reviews for new American investment into China. Given that Tesla has a major new factory in Shanghai, that may actually benefit Elon Musk's business.

A restriction A.I.-generated revenge porn on social media platforms, something that would benefit X. So I do think we should look hard at what dropped out at the last minute.

BASH: Yes, the pediatric research was done separately, which I will get to later, which is a good thing.

I want to ask about a couple of things that President Biden is considering doing in the last days of his term. "The Wall Street Journal" reported this weekend that he's considering whether to commute the sentences of some, if not all, of the 40 men currently on federal death row.

That includes the Boston bomber.

COONS: Right.

BASH: It includes those convicted of murder and hate crimes in the Tree of Life Synagogue attack, at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, of course, the infamous shooting in Charlottesville.

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: Are you OK -- excuse me -- Charleston.

Are you OK with that?

COONS: I have encouraged the presidents to seriously consider commuting the sentences to life in prison without hope of parole for these truly heinous criminals.

These are people who should never be out of prison. But Pope Francis has called on President Biden, as have many other criminal justice reform leaders, faith leaders, to step aside from federal death penalties, because, frankly, former President Trump executed quite a few -- directed the execution of quite a few individuals on federal death row.

There are some real questions about the fairness in the process of the death penalty in the United States. And I don't know what President Biden will ultimately do, but I think there are reasons, both in terms of racial justice, due process, and what it says domestically and to the world about our values if we were to go ahead and execute all of these individuals, rather than have them spend the rest of life in prison.

BASH: Just to -- we're talking about some people who are -- have real notoriety.

COONS: Literally among the worst people on the planet, yes.

BASH: But, even so, you believe that it should be blanket, that he should just say that they should not be put to death?

COONS: I think he should consider on a case-by-case basis...

BASH: OK.

COONS: ... commuting their sentences of death to a sentence of life in prison without parole.

BASH: I want to play something that President Biden said in an interview about president-elect Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The fact that he doesn't abide by the rules of democracy we have established is not my concern. My job is to make a transition workable and available. The bottom line is that we can't keep this up. We can't keep up this childish game of walking away when you don't agree and not cooperating.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: "The fact that he doesn't abide by the rules of democracy is not my concern."

He spent a very long time arguing really wholeheartedly that Donald Trump poses a threat to democracy. How do you explain the difference now that he's on his way out?

COONS: I think that's a misunderstanding of what he's saying there about "not my concern."

BASH: OK.

COONS: Of course, the president is gravely concerned about what president-elect Trump might do. But, as President Biden repeatedly said, you can't only love your country when you win.

He is committed to the process of democracy. This was a free and fair election. President-elect Trump is the president-elect of the United States. And unlike the election transition that didn't happen in 2020, when President Trump didn't attend the inauguration, when he helped inspire an armed mob to storm the Capitol on January 6, President Biden is committed to following through with the orderly transfer of power.

He still retains, as do many of us, grave concerns, particularly given who president-elect Trump is nominating to run some of the major departments, in particular, Kash Patel to be director of the FBI to carry out retribution against a published and identified list of enemies. Of course he's concerned about that.

BASH: You're a longtime ally of Joe Biden. You sit in his former Senate seat.

There was a report in "The Wall Street Journal" that was pretty detailed and pretty well-sourced outlining concerns about the president's mental and physical fitness going back to the start of his presidency, even Cabinet members who were kept at arm's length. Is that true?

COONS: I don't know whether Cabinet officials were or were not kept at arm's length.

BASH: Were there concerns about him?

COONS: I know that, for years, the way I communicate with President Biden is not by hanging out at his house on the weekend or traveling with him overseas, but he calls me when he's got questions or concerns. [09:35:01]

And I will remind you, in just the fight of the last couple of days, there are Republicans who have been saying that Joe Biden once again outsmarted them politically. So, which one is it? Is he a savvy political operator who outsmarted them, someone who had the sense to step back and let them keep fighting with each other, and, in the end, got exactly the spending bill that he and his administration and Democrats in Congress had been fighting for,or is he someone who's completely AWOL?

I think it's the former. And if you look at the record of his administration, how many massive legislative accomplishments he had as president and the ways he made us safer and stronger at home and abroad, I will take that record any day.

BASH: You told FOX this week that you didn't realize that there might be something wrong until our debate.

Looking back, are you comfortable with your support, the fact that you were a co-chair of his campaign, the whole thing?

COONS: I still support Joe Biden. I think he's a compassionate and decent man who has been a consequential president.

But that was true. The first time I saw or heard anything that made me really question his fitness to serve a second term was that debate.

BASH: Senator, thank you so much for being here.

COONS: Thank you, Dana.

BASH: I appreciate it.

COONS: Happy holidays.

BASH: Happy holidays, merry Christmas to you and your whole family.

Thank you.

And we will go back to the discussion of defiance in the House, the influence of Elon Musk. What does it all mean for Donald Trump's second term?

My panel is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:41:04]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. BYRON DONALDS (R-FL): You saw what happened this week in Washington right before Christmas. Everybody's trying to get out of town and slip one past the American people. But thank God for Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thankfully, Elon and Vivek got on social media and

started raising hell. And they reduced this bill tremendously.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Welcome back to STATE OF THE UNION.

My panel joins me now to discuss.

Scott, I will start with you just broadly about the kind of buzz saw of reality that Donald Trump ran into with his fellow Republicans in the House even before he took office.

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, it is interesting.

He -- his style of politics and style of Republicanism does run a little bit headlong into the old sort of Tea Party DNA of the Republican Party from time to time. It happened on this legislation. I suspect it's going to happen again. And with very close margins in the House, he's going to have to figure out a way to corral these folks and to convince them that teamwork matters.

And I think this was a message of Speaker Johnson. If we have protracted battles about the leadership, we have protracted infighting all the time, all we're ultimately going to do is delay or even deny of Donald Trump the chance to implement his agenda. So, if I were in Trump's shoes, I would be worried about this, but I'd be thinking hard about how to convince these people that teamwork makes the dream work.

And without it, they're not going to be able to get much done.

KAREN FINNEY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: But he's also going to have to face the reality that, for some -- I'm thinking of, like, Chip Roy, who you and I sat on a set about a year ago with -- when McCarthy was trying to win his seat, and we talked about there is a cadre of members, Republican members, he will never vote -- there are certain things -- that is his ethos. That is who he is.

BASH: Yes.

FINNEY: And as you heard members say, look, this is what my constituents voted for.

And for Trump, for whom it's all about loyalty to him, well, if you're a member who has to face voters in two years, you're thinking, wait a second, what about my loyalty to the people who elected me? You can't guarantee me that. And you're asking me to change who I am fundamentally.

Now, plenty of people have completely changed who they are to suit Donald Trump, but there are cadre of members, they are just not going to do it. And so I think what Democrats certainly were looking at this week is, this is a sign of things to come with such a small margin.

And they rightly just stayed out of the way and said, look, if you guys are going to go be chaos, we want the American people to see what they got with this vote.

BASH: And, Kristen, one of the -- clearly, the miscalculations by the House speaker was that, because Donald Trump is so popular, particularly in the ruby-red districts that a lot of these people who ended up defying him, where they represent, that they wouldn't defy him.

But, like Scott said, on an issue like spending and the debt, that is such a core, fundamental principle, that it does -- forgive me -- trump the loyalty to him.

KRISTEN SOLTIS ANDERSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, I have been thinking a lot lately about the 2016 Republican primary and the way that you had, what was it, 16 people running, of which 15 were all competing to be the biggest true conservative, right, that Tea Party DNA that Scott talked about.

And Donald Trump came in and said, I just do things to get things done. I do things differently. He is not easy to pin down ideologically. And so for these Republican members, who they say I was elected for an ideological purpose, I have a policy agenda that I want to see through, that is going to be interesting to see it come into tension when Donald Trump has a different view on things like reforming entitlement programs and mandatory spending, tariffs, the sorts of things that somebody who's a free marketer might have in the past had a very different view on.

JENNINGS: This is the core question. What does a constituent want? Do they want you to execute your ideology or do they want Donald Trump to be successful?

And I suspect, if you polled it or focus-grouped it, you might come up with different things, because ultimately I think these people desperately want Donald Trump to succeed. And they don't -- they don't want an individual congressman from any individual district to derail it.

[09:45:08]

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: Let me get Bakari in.

BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: One of the unique things about this, though, is that the central question that everyone has is, can Republicans govern?

I mean, that has been a stigma for the Republican Party over the last decade or so. I mean, the classic example we all point to is repeal and replace Obamacare. You run on it, you consistently bring it up, you are never able to deliver that for your constituents.

And so when you have this level of chaos that surrounds the party with these thin margins -- and I believe we're going to have a speaker's race at the beginning of the year. I mean, you just have that type of question that is still lingering over the fact of whether or not they can govern.

And that is going to be something that impedes Donald Trump's progress.

BASH: I want to bring in the Elon Musk of it all, because this has been a through line of discussion, both by Democrats and Republicans. Democrats are saying he's the real president-elect. A lot of Republicans are saying, that's not true, but thank goodness he did what he did.

Is this going to wear thin with Donald Trump soon?

JENNINGS: I don't think so.

I mean, look, they appear to be getting along well. Musk was very instrumental in his victory. And I hear Democrats criticizing the idea that we have unelected people with too much influence over the government. I invite them to pick up "The Wall Street Journal" from this week and find out that unelected people have been running the government for the last four years.

I hear Democrats criticizing the influence of billionaires on our politics, when you have got this Soros punk running around collecting Democrat politicians like my kids collect Pokemon cards. So, I think all the criticism of Musk coming from the left is totally hypocritical, totally over the top.

And he is doing something interesting, bringing some transparency to the federal government. It's not a terrible fact.

SELLERS: But the funny part about all of that is, it's a fact, right?

And so the -- Elon Musk does have an outsized influence over Republican politics and the government right now.

FINNEY: Yes.

SELLERS: You have never seen George Soros create an agency and run an agency. You have never seen him parade the president around -- the president of the United States around. You just haven't seen those things. And so that's a bit apples and oranges.

But what I -- the only thing I was going to say is that it's going to wear thin, not with Donald Trump, but if you think Elon Musk is going to push over Thune, that ain't happening. He's not pushing over Hakeem Jeffries. That's not happening.

And he's going to run into a buzz saw. And I personally believe Elon Musk is just going to throw his hands up in about six months and say, you all can have this. These things are not for me.

FINNEY: But I think the other piece of this is -- because Scott's right. Those have been the talking points.

But let's talk about the American people. One of the issues that consistently polls very highly among Republicans and Democrats and independents is the disgust with money in politics. Here you have a man who spent $260 million to get Donald Trump elected, who literally has financial interests in what goes into the budget.

By the way, the new head of NASA is a former SpaceX guy. He's a friend of -- he's a millionaire.

JENNINGS: Thank God.

(CROSSTALK)

SOLTIS ANDERSON: But SpaceX is putting rockets into space a lot better than we were before they came around.

JENNINGS: Yes, thank goodness.

SOLTIS ANDERSON: And that's why the whole Donald Trump project is America making a bet that they think that bringing business expertise into government works. And Donald Trump's first term was a little rocky. He didn't get reelected. People weren't so sure.

But this time around, they're saying, we want to give it another go. And I think, to the extent that Elon Musk is able to support Donald Trump in helping to govern, this will go fine. I think, to the extent that suddenly they come into odds or Musk finds that his skills from running Tesla, putting rockets into space is...

(CROSSTALK)

FINNEY: But not if Donald Trump can't also lower prices. And he's already said he can't keep his promise on that.

BASH: We're going to have to leave it there, this discussion.

Up next: An 11th-hour push by the Senate, it saved millions in funding for pediatric cancers.

More on that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:53:24]

BASH: Late Friday night on the Senate floor, Virginia's Tim Kaine stood up with a proposal. Could the senators all agree to reauthorize the Gabriella Miller Kids First Research Act, which funds pediatric research?

Well, it may seem shocking, given Washington's deep divisions, but it passed. The senators agreed unanimously. And it got me thinking about the namesake for that pediatric cancer research program.

Gabriella Miller died of inoperable brain cancer in 2013. She was only 10 years old. Gabriella was incredible. At such a young age, she became a public advocate for cancer research. Her awareness of and honesty about her condition was wrenching.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GABRIELLA MILLER, CHILDHOOD CANCER ADVOCATE: Once you get cancer, you kind of got to be all grown up. And you don't really have a childhood.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Her father told her, her tumor was the size of a walnut, so Gabriella would smash walnuts as a way to get out her message about combating childhood cancer, even during a visit to the Eiffel Tower.

Not long after she died back in 2013, her parents told me how their remarkable young girl stayed positive, despite being so sick.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELLYN MILLER, MOTHER OF GABRIELLA MILLER: Her quote that she carried on throughout always is, you may have a bad day today, but there's always a bright shining star to look forward to tomorrow. And she always said that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[09:55:05]

BASH: Gabriella worried about the kids after her who would face the same struggle with cancer.

And so we want to remember her today, as her legacy lives on.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

G. MILLER: If I lose my battle, then I'm going to want other people to carry on with the war. And they're going to win this war. And I will be in a good place, and it won't be all that bad.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Her mother, Ellyn, told me yesterday how thrilled Gabriella would be with this latest win in that war more than a decade after she died.

Gabriella Miller's memory is a blessing.

Thank you for spending your Sunday morning with us. Hope you have a terrific holiday.

Fareed Zakaria picks it up next.