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The Lead with Jake Tapper

CNN Sees Frontline Ukrainian Troops Fend Off Russian Attacks; DNC Chair Race Heats Up After Party's 2024 Election Losses; Daniel Penny Case Could Soon Go To The Jury. Trump Cabinet Picks Making Their Rounds in the Senate; Misconduct Claims Against Pete Hegseth; Joe Biden Criticized for Son's Pardon; California Trump-proofing State Laws. Aired 5-6p ET

Aired December 02, 2024 - 17:00   ET

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

[17:00:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Welcome to "The Lead." I'm Jake Tapper. This hour, the National Football League is weighing how to handle a brutal and illegal late hit that forced Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence out of Sunday's game with a concussion. Today the linebacker from the Texans, the man responsible, is apologizing and Lawrence is updating fans on his condition while we wait for news from the NFL.

Plus, California is preparing for battle with the new Trump administration with the governor asking lawmakers for $25 million for expected legal fights before Trump has even taken office. They're back at work for a special session over this today and the state's attorney general is here live to explain why.

And leading this hour, put on your Sunday best and step into the spotlight. Two of Trump's most high profile cabinet picks are on Capitol Hill today meeting with some of the senators who will decide whether or not to confirm them for their jobs. It comes as Trump is weighing in on everything from foreign policy to President Biden's pardon of his son, Hunter, while Trump meets with allies down at Mar- a-Lago.

Let's go straight now to CNN's Kaitlan Collins, who's live for us from West Palm Beach, Florida. And Kaitlan, we know that Trump's pick for U.S. Attorney General, Pam Bondi, as well as Secretary of Defense nominee, Pete Hegseth, both of them are on Capitol Hill today. How confident is Trump that they'll succeed and get confirmed?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, and Jake, they aren't the only ones. I should note that we are expecting other members that he has picked to be in his cabinet should they get confirmed by those senators that they are meeting with are expected to be on Capitol Hill all week as they are moving ahead to what this is going to look like and how soon those confirmation hearings are going to start once Trump is sworn in. You just saw Chuck Grassley putting out a statement saying that Pam Bondi, Trump's pick for attorney general, will get a very quick confirmation process, at least a hearing underway. We'll see what the Republican senators say on her. Of course, she's been a much less controversial pick than Trump's last one that he had picked to run the Justice Department.

But Pete Hegseth is also up there as well, Jake. And that one's more of a question mark, even for people back at Mar-a-Lago, who just in recent days, two days ago, were dealing with an e-mail that was published by "The New York Times." It was written by Pete Hegseth's mom to him while he was in the middle of a divorce from his second wife where she was calling him an abuser of women and criticized --

(TECHNICAL DIFICULTY)

-- demeaning women. That was an e-mail that was published in full by "The New York Times" and Hegseth's team, I should note, pushed back on that. But it was a fresh headache for the Trump team that has been dealing with what they are facing for to potentially be a dicey confirmation process for him. And so that's why these meetings are happening so they can have these one-on-one conversations with senators.

But I still think it's an open question for Hegseth. Though I will say the people that have spoken to Trump's orbit feel really good about how Pam Bondi's meetings have been going.

TAPPER: All right, Kaitlan, you need to have your audio person check into the gremlin in your device right there. Thanks so much. Kaitlan Collins in West Palm Beach, Florida. Thanks so much. And you should look out for Kaitlan with better audio in just a few hours on "The Source." That's weeknights at 9:00 Eastern here on CNN.

Let's bring in CNN's Manu Raju who is live for us on Capitol Hill right now. Manu, you've been catching up with Republicans who have met with Trump's pick for Secretary of Defense, veteran and former Fox host Pete Hegseth. Just yesterday, "The New Yorker" magazine reported that Hegseth had been forced out of a veteran's advocacy group over allegations of misconduct. What do the senators with whom you've spoken think is going to happen with Hegseth's confirmation?

MANU RAJU, CNN ANCHOR, INSIDE POLITICS SUNDAY: It's still an open question, Jake, whether or not he can, in fact, get the votes to be confirmed. There are a lot of Republicans who are holding their cards close to the vest. They want to hear Pete Hegseth not only discuss these allegations that have come out in these reports, but his vision for how he would carry out sweeping potential major changes to the Pentagon, his own view on policy, something that a lot of members simply don't have a clear understanding of exactly how he would do just that.

But he is meeting with members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Republican members. That will be the first committee that will actually take up his nomination early next year. One of the meetings he's gonna have in just a matter of moments is with Senator Dan Sullivan of Alaska who also sits on that committee and I asked him whether or not he would bring up those allegations and talked to him about that in this meeting that's coming up.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. DAN SULLIVAN (R-AK): The Pentagon needs a serious course correction so I'm gonna have a lot of questions for him, but I think, you know, he's the kind of guy who can do that.

RAJU: And you have questions about these allegations that will come out?

SULLIVAN: I mean, but there's a process for that. Sometimes you got to take these allegations seriously. Sometimes, even when you take them seriously, they turn out to be inaccurate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: And he's also met with another member of the committee, Jake, Tommy Tuberville, earlier today. I asked Tuberville if he brought up these allegations in this meeting. He said they actually did not come up in that meeting. Even as Tuberville, a very close ally of President-elect Donald Trump, said that he would support Hegseth's nomination going forward.

[17:05:04]

But of course, Jake, it requires just four Republicans to break ranks to scuttle any nomination that moves along party lines. Unclear if Hegseth can get the votes, but clearly trying to shore up GOP support at the moment. Jake?

TAPPER: Manu, how are the reactions from lawmakers when it comes to President Biden pardoning his adult son, Hunter, after years of promising that he would never do such a thing?

RAJU: There's actually bipartisan criticism about this, Jake. Some people sympathize with him saying that, especially Democrats, like this is what would you expect any father to do for a son. But there was some criticism about what Joe Biden had said before, saying that he would not pardon his son Hunter. People like Senator Mark Warner criticizing that decision.

Also Senator Maggie Hassan telling our colleague, Lauren Fox, that she wishes that Biden had kept his word. And I caught up with Senator Joe Manchin, who is the retiring independent Democrat, still independent Senator, still caucuses with Senate Democrats and he said that Joe Biden should actually went further in his pardon.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOE MANCHIN (I-WV): As a father, I don't know if a father would have done the same thing. What I would have done differently, my recommendations, the council would have been, why don't you go ahead and pardon Donald Trump for all his charges and make it, you know, it had been, it had gone down a lot more balanced, if you will. I'm just saying, wipe them out.

RAJU: What do you think this does for his legacy?

MANCHIN: I don't know. From that standpoint, it makes it difficult.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: And other Democratic senators, Jake, agree with that assessment that it has left us a bit of a blemish, at least, on the Joe Biden legacy. But Republicans, of course, jumping all over this, Jake. But one question for Republicans will be that Donald Trump pardoned Jared Kushner's father to, who has now been nominated to serve as the ambassador to France.

How do they view that pardon and that decision to nominate Charles Kushner for that position, despite pleading guilty to federal crimes more than a decade ago? All questions for Republicans as well as Democrats in light of all these pardon news, Jake.

TAPPER: All right, Manu Rajah on Capitol Hill. Thanks so much. Let's bring in our political panel. And we'll get to Pete Hegseth in a second. But I do want to talk about Hunter Biden's pardon. And Tom Dupree, I want to start with some of what President Biden wrote in his justification for pardoning his son after promising since 2022, I think, that he would never do such a thing.

He wrote, quote, "No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter's cases can reach any other conclusion that Hunter was singled out and only because he is my son and that is wrong. I believe in the justice system but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice." Is that true that no reasonable person can look at this and conclude that the only reason he was prosecuted was because he was Joe Biden's son?

TOM DUPREE, FORMER PRINCIPAL DEPUTY ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL, GW BUSH ADMINISTRATION: It's not true. I consider myself a reasonable person and I think --

TAPPER: I agree.

DUPREE: -- this is a political prosecution. So they are this close. But look, what's going on here is pretty simple and Biden said in his message, he basically said as much, he's my son, how could I not pardon him? But to my mind, that is precisely the situation in which a president of the United States needs to exercise restraint and caution in exercising the pardon power.

The Constitution gives presidents broad authority to pardon individuals. But that power needs to be exercised with restraint and what Biden did here was that we're worst sort of just in unfair, non- neutral, partial application of the law. He's gone on a lot and gone after Trump about, you know, two-tiered justice system and going after people and exercising favoritism and then he did it himself.

He sacrificed the moral high ground in the process. I think it was disrespectful to the American people given his promises over the years and it was also disrespectful to the rule of law frankly.

TAPPER: What do you think, Ramesh?

RAMESH PONNURU, EDITOR NATIONAL REVIEW: I think that Biden's decision to hang on to the White House longer than he should have helped to produce the coming Trump presidency. And now this pardon is helping to disarm the Democrats in facing that new Trump presidency. So it's sort of a parting gift where he again puts his own interests --

TAPPER: Well, tell me how it -- just to poke --

PONNURU: Well, every time that Trump -- well look, Trump has a record in his first term in office of issuing dubious and corrupt pardons. He is likely to do it again. Democrats are not going to be able to get a word out of their mouths criticizing it without the words Hunter Biden coming back at them.

KAREN FINNEY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah, I disagree with that. I think there's a bit of hypocrisy there. I think two things can be true at the same time. I mean, Donald Trump is someone who has not adhered to the rule of law throughout his career. So one thing that Joe Biden does not mean that, oh, well, if he hadn't done that, then Donald Trump wouldn't have, you know, pick your poison. What I will say is I wish he hadn't previously said he wasn't going to do this. I agree with that.

But I can also see a place where there -- what changed is that after years of a sort of fiendish obsession with Hunter, you then look at the people that Donald Trump is putting in place and you know that he has said his -- it's gonna be about retribution and revenge.

[17:10:04]

And you think my child is not gonna be safe and there's one thing I can do to try to protect him and I'm gonna go ahead and do it. Whether you disagree with -- agree or disagree, I do think as a father, again, I understand why he would want to take that option.

TAPPER: So listen to Charlamagne tha God responding to the Hunter pardon news.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD, AMERICAN RADIO HOST: I just want Democrats to stop acting like they are on this moral high ground politically when they have shown us, they're not. You know, whether it's skipping the primary process, when Biden stepped down to things like Biden pardoning his son. Stop acting like you all are the pure party and Republicans aren't. And it also shows me elected officials can do whatever they want as long as they have the political will and courage to do it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: So I heard a similar message from Dave Portnoy of Barstool Sports. I haven't heard yet from Joe Rogan on this, but I imagine it's going to be a very similar message. I think common people see this and they go like, ah, they're all full of crap.

FINNEY: Look. I think, again, the calculation was, I can do this, it may tarnish how people feel about me for a period of time. But again, it's about your child versus, you know, how do I feel about public opinion? The last thing I would say, though, it is brilliant, the idea of also pardoning Trump. He should do that because that would shut everybody down right now.

TAPPER: Well, let me ask you as a former Justice Department official, because I have heard from some very angry Justice Department officials today who think, why is Joe Biden saying that this was a political prosecution? Why is he going after us? We're just doing our jobs. Hunter Biden's a criminal and we went after him.

DUPREE: Absolutely. If I were a Justice Department employee, I would be furious because you have invested years of your life pursuing this investigation under the auspices of Merrick Garland's Justice Department, under the auspices of an independent special counsel, only to be told by the President of the United States after the fact that all along this was political and never should have been brought. That's wrong.

And normally I like to quote, you know, James Madison and the founding fathers, but I'm going to start quoting Charlamagne tha God now because I think he got it exactly right, Jake.

TAPPER: He did.

DUPREE: He basically said that, look, you know, these distinctions about, well, Biden did this, but Trump did this, I mean, these are distinctions that lawyers might appreciate, but I don't think the average American, when they look what happened here, they know the only reason Hunter Biden got a pardon was because his last name was Biden. They don't buy it.

TAPPER: Ramesh, I do want to ask you about Pete Hegseth. More questions about him. He's obviously Trump's pick for Secretary of Defense. "The New Yorker" obtained a whistleblower report alleging that Hegseth, when he was head of a veteran's group, was repeatedly intoxicated at work events, pursued female staffers. "The New Yorker" writes, quote, "Hegseth had to be restrained while drunk from joining the dancers on the stage of a Louisiana strip club where he had brought his team."

"The report also says that Hegseth, who was married at the time and other members of his management team, sexually pursued the organization's female staffers, whom they divided into two groups, the party girls and the not party girls."

Hegseth's attorney tells CNN, we're not going to comment on outlandish claims laundered through "The New Yorker" by a petty and jealous disgruntled former associate of Mr. Hegseth's. Get back to us when you try your first attempt at actual journalism. I think that is actually a message from a Hegseth advisor as brought to us from the attorney. What do you make of all this though? PONNURU: Well the alleged behavior is outlandish. I don't know that

the allegation itself is outlandish in the sense that we've got a lot of other data and a lot of other reports about Pete Hegseth with which these allegations are consistent. I think that senators in both parties ought to be looking at, among other things, whether Hegseth is capable of managing this immense organization.

TAPPER: Three million people.

PONNURU: But also of whether he's got the maturity, self-control, steadiness to do the job. And those are things that we want -- we want a Secretary of Defense to have more of those than the average person, not less.

TAPPER: That seems like a reasonable standard. Thank you so much. Good to see all of you.

California's governor says he's on a mission to, quote, "Trump-proof" his state's laws. How exactly does he plan to do that? Well, the Attorney General of California is going to explain live on "The Lead" next.

Plus, how do Democrats plan to win back voters after their brutal losses this election? I'm going to ask a man running to take over the DNC. That's next. CNN Heroes, an all-star tribute. Meet and celebrate the honorees.

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[17:15:00]

TAPPER: In our "Politics Lead," Inauguration Day might be 49 days away, but California is already gearing up to battle the new Trump administration. Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom has called a special session of the state's legislature and they are meeting right now with the aim of passing new legislation on a range of issues from immigration to funding the response and recovery from wildfires and more.

Joining me now is California Attorney General Rob Bonta. Attorney General Bonta, thanks for joining us. So Governor Newsom is seeking $25 million for your Department of Justice to take on the Trump administration in court. California sued the first Trump administration more than a hundred times. What are you expecting this time around? Why do you need $25 million?

ROB BONTA, ATTORNEY GENERAL OF CALIFORNIA: If history is an indicator of the future, if statements made by Mr. Trump, his inner circle, Project 2025 or any indicator, we will need to go to court to stop him from breaking the law, from violating the Constitution, from breaking federal law, from overreaching his enumerated, limited, delineated executive authority, and make sure he stays within his actual sphere of given lawful jurisdiction. So in short, if he breaks the law, we're going to court to stop him.

TAPPER: Yeah. What do you mean breaking the law? Like, give me more of an example there, because that's quite a preemptive accusation.

BONTA: Of course. You know, if he violates the Equal Protection Clause by going after LGBTQ+ communities in ways that are in violation of the Constitution, if he goes outside his actual federal authority and doesn't follow the processes of the Administrative Procedures Act, where you need notice and comment, and you can't do things that are arbitrary and capricious.

[17:20:00]

He violated that quite a bit in Trump Administration 1.0. He tries to use funds for a project or for a purpose that they're not supposed to be used for, like building the border wall. He did that in Trump 1.0. Those are all examples, varied examples of how he broke the law. He was pretty creative in the ways that he did it. He likes to do what he wants, when he wants, how he wants, regardless of the Constitution or federal law, and if he does that, we will be there to stop him in court.

TAPPER: You just mentioned him going after members of the LGBTQ community. What are you anticipating?

BONTA: I think he could crack down on gender affirming care, so not providing access to gender affirming care for the transgender community. We firmly believe here in California that gender affirming care is healthcare, and everyone should have access to high quality, affordable healthcare. He could condition federal funding on certain steps that not be taken to be inclusive of the LGBTQ community. We think that could violate existing civil rights laws or constitutional protections, like the Equal Protection Clause.

So there's a whole varied number of ways that he could act. When we sued him over 120 times, as you mentioned, we won a super majority of the time. That was courts, mostly federal courts, saying Trump broke the law. So it's not hypothetical that this man in his presidency will break the law and need the attorneys general like the attorney general of the largest state in the nation, the fifth largest economy in the world, to hold him accountable in court when he does.

TAPPER: Let me ask you about your vow to protect undocumented immigrants in California. Everything we are being told right now is that the Trump administration is first gonna target undocumented immigrants who are violent criminals, targeting them for deportation. Would you object to that?

BONTA: The federal government can use their own authority to enforce federal immigration laws. That's their right. They have that opportunity to do so. If they do, there is no legal objection that we can't make to that. The only issue is whether we will be assisting in that immigration enforcement.

We have a law here in the state of California. It's SB54, our California Values Act, our state sanctuary law, and there are exceptions to that so that there can be assistance with immigration enforcement when they are serious or violent felonies and some misdemeanors. So in that particular example, focusing on those who are involved in criminal actions, I think the best approach is to use the criminal law.

Why not use the criminal law to enforce violations of the criminal law for those who commit crimes? I think that's a perfectly appropriate place. We think that we should enforce the criminal law when there are any violations from felonies to misdemeanors. We do that regularly at the California Attorney General's Office, from human trafficking to fentanyl trafficking to organized retail crime to hate crimes. And the criminal law, I think, is a perfect tool to use to stop crime and address crime.

TAPPER: All these battles are surely going to end up in court, possibly under Trump-appointed judges or the conservative-leaning U.S. Supreme Court. California is facing a projected budget shortfall. Are these fights which you may lose worth the taxpayers' money? Are you going to have to triage and decide which ones are more important?

BONTA: We're going to be prudent, of course, with the actions that we take. We're not going to court just to go to court. We're going to court if and when the law is broken by Mr. Trump or the Trump administration. And we don't go to court unless we think we're going to win. In Trump administration 1.0, as I mentioned, over a hundred lawsuits that we brought prevailed on most of them, super majority.

And we spend a number of millions of dollars on the litigation, but the amount that we saved California was in the billions, including our lawsuit to keep the citizenship question off of the 2020 census. That saved us in our estimation billions of dollars. There was a grant of $30 million that was tied to sanctuary local jurisdictions cooperating with federal immigration enforcement. We pushed back on that. We won in court and we got the $30 million grant.

So what we are investing will certainly have massive disproportionate returns on investment. And we think it is very important to make sure that the President of the United States and his administration complies with the law and to take him to court when he violates it.

TAPPER: California Attorney General Rob Bonta, thanks so much for joining us. Appreciate it.

Coming up, Ukrainian forces on the front lines have a message for President-elect Trump as he prepares to take office. That's next.

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[17:25:00]

TAPPER: In our "World Lead," Russian leader Vladimir Putin just approved the biggest defense budget in the history of Russia. A third of Russia's total spending next year will be on the Russian military as the war drains resources on both sides of the nearly three-year bloody conflict. And Ukraine braces for a change in U.S. support as President-elect Trump prepares to take office. CNN's Nick Paton Walsh embeds with soldiers in northeastern Ukraine, some eager to send a message to President Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT

(voice-over): They have a three-second window, rushing out with a U.S.-supplied Stinger and an aging anti-aircraft gun to shoot down Russian attack drones.

[17:30:01]

In the fleeting moment, they fly overhead in range.

UNKNOWN: Three kilometers from us.

WALSH: Three kilometers from them.

WALSH (voice-over): They could hit that and prepare to. But the radar is wrong and they pause to hear it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through audio translator): Turn there.

WALSH (voice-over): So reposition the entire truck. But suddenly, the drone has vanished. It sounded like a decoy, but that usually means others are coming. And the sky is filling up with drones in the next region.

A month ago, the targets here seemed endless. November was a record month for drones across Ukraine that usually crash into towns, not this empty field. Their sound slices through the dark.

WALSH: It was pretty low and close. And while they think this is Ukrainian drones headed for Russia, the Russians also use this moment to take the same routes to try and sneak their drones in.

WALSH (voice-over): Right now, a Ukrainian drone attack on Russia is underway. So they've been forbidden, even if they could, to fire. Each night, they watch Russian drones weave their complex way out of their tiny range. When the defenses fail, the icy silence breaks. Moscow pummeling the border town, Sumy, here with a cluster munition missile that killed 12 in an apartment block because Ukraine is still inside Russia holding positions in Kursk.

This thermal drone image shows just hours earlier, the dawn's fighting Kursk for Alexander (ph).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through audio translator): The assault teams came in the dawn grey. There was almost no contact. We worked with birds. Then the infantry simply swept them up.

WALSH (voice-over): In the positions they've hit, no sign of the North Korean troops meant to be in Kursk instead Chechens, even African mercenaries. But above all, endless waves of Russians.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through audio translator): I have the impression they have unlimited people. It's like the next Russians don't know what happened to the previous Russians. So they go there, into the unknown.

WALSH (voice-over): His Humvee is a mess. He hasn't slept for three days. And shelling has damaged his hearing. But he knows what he'd say to President-elect Donald Trump. When Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in the 90s, we were promised protection.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through audio translator): You took away our nuclear weapons? You promised us protection? Yes, in simple terms, so keep your word. We're being slaughtered, and you're still trying to play games, to defend your interests. You have to give everything you could to end this war in two days. Who will believe the words of the U.S. or England, who are pissing themselves in front of Russia? Pardon my English.

WALSH (voice-over): Confident they can hold out in Kursk, less confident of how long the west expects them to.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALSH (on camera): Well, Jake, today we've seen the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz come to Kyiv promising more air defense. But it's his first visit in quite a while. And certainly on the heels of criticism over his phone call to the Kremlin head, Vladimir Putin, essentially ending many years of isolation for Moscow. You heard about North Korean troops in that report. Well, we heard from Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the weekend that some had indeed been killed. And there have been suggestions they've been integrated into Russian units. But hearing there they've not been seen in full force on the front lines. Jake?

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Nick Paton Walsh, thanks so much.

[17:33:45]

They lost the White House and both chambers of Congress last month. So how do Democrats plan on rebuilding Alaska man who is running to lead the Democratic National Committee? A former governor, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Back to our Politics Lead and to the debate on who is going to lead the Democratic Party out of the wilderness as it grapples with the aftermath of the election loss and attempts to rebuild a coalition that Donald Trump has picked apart. Several candidates have already thrown their hats into the DNC chair race, including Minnesota Democratic Farmer Labor Party Chair, Ken Martin, Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler, New York State Senator James Skoufis, and my next guest, the former governor of Maryland, Martin O'Malley. He recently resigned as head of the Social Security Administration to run for the DNC chair position. And you were just telling me during the commercial break about how rewarding that was, how much work you did.

Which do you think was a more -- is a more beleaguered organization, the Social Security Administration when you took over, or the Democratic Party, which is more beleaguered?

MARTIN O'MALLEY, CANDIDATE FOR DNC CHAIR: Wow, that's a tough call. You know, when -- when the President asked me to go pull Social Security out of a customer service nosedive, they listed themselves the most demoralized place to work in the federal government three years in a row. And yet they rose. And I'd never worked with a finer group of Americans. And I do believe that this is a moment in our party where -- where we can actually pick ourselves up off the mat.

You know, darkness makes a great canvas. And we have to ask ourselves a lot of questions about how it is that we have a brand that people run away from instead of a brand that people want to run on. And so, you know, it's a time for rebuilding and it's a time for reconnecting. And I believe I have the right set of skills to lead my party out of this darkness.

TAPPER: So when you look at how Democrats did this year compared to 2012, you can see some major dips among critical Democratic voting blocs -- blocs. Look at that. These are -- these are, you know, were core Democratic voters, black voters, Hispanic voters, Asian voters, and -- and you're losing ground with them significantly. What is the problem with Democrats that you are repelling people? It's not just that you're failing to attract, you're actually repelling your own voters.

[17:40:12]

O'MALLEY: As I've talked to people all across the country, Jake, and people who have run, people who are party stalwarts, it would seem that the people of the United States, in the most important place in our country, their own kitchen table, feel like we've lost sight of them and they have lost sight of us. It is a stunning reversal for a party that in modern times was the party that stood for working people, that stood for an economy that works for everyone, that instead, people would think that were talking about things that had nothing to do with their reality.

It's my understanding that one of the more effective messages we had out there, and some of our candidates notwithstanding, you know, the difficulties at the top of the ticket, talked about Social Security, talked about prescription drug costs, talked about the high cost of living, engaged people in an economic conversation. When we did that in places, some states that Donald Trump even won, we still had U.S. Senators in Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, who prevailed as senators.

The common theme that I've been able to discern is that where our candidates did well, and look what Hakeem Jeffries did with a number of congressional races. Where our candidates did well, it was because they were talking about the issues that people cared about most at their kitchen table.

TAPPER: So I've talked to --

O'MALLEY: And that's what we need to get back to.

TAPPER: I've talked to a lot of Democrats who point fingers at President Biden, not just for the decision to run for reelection, but for the message of Bidenomics, for a message of the economy's working, for almost a victory lap. In fact, some Obama people I talked to said that in 2012, they -- they made a point of not, you know, showing people charts to, you know, look how good everything is, but just talking about, like, we -- we've still got -- we're making progress, we still got a lot of work to do. But somebody had this idea of touring the country, Bidenomics, et cetera. How much of the blame do you put on the White House?

O'MALLEY: Yes, you know, I'm -- I'm not running for DNC chair to fix blame. I'm running to fix the problem. And we will have to do a dispassionate deep dive on what -- where we failed to connect and why and how. I know from my own experience running. I ran in 2010 for reelection, and it was after the recession, and a lot of my consultants, both of my consultants told me, don't talk about the truth, that we're starting to get better because people don't want to hear it. They're not feeling it.

It -- the charts and the graphs don't do it. But being able to connect the personal stories to real people in real places, that's how you connect. I traveled when I was running for reelection on the back of the green Winnebago. We carried a kitchen table, literally with us strapped to the back of the Winnebago. And were bringing out almost like a presidential seal before talks. And I'd say this is the most important place in Maryland.

So what the President and the White House needed to do was to connect those dots in very plain language back to those kitchen tables about jobs, about the high costs of prescription drugs. I mean, the truth is the President did enormously impactful work to bring down the price of prescription drugs. But we didn't hear that too much nationally, did we, Jake?

TAPPER: Yes.

O'MALLEY: We heard it in -- in local races, but we didn't hear it so much nationally. It's -- it's not easy to bring back to real concrete stories that touch people in real ways, in their own families, economic struggles. But that's what we need to do as a party. And we have so many good candidates.

Our bench has, I mean, on her bench, our up and coming candidates --

TAPPER: Yes.

O'MALLEY: -- people, Antonio Delgado, so many people across the country have the ability to give people hope that we can make our economy work and give our kids a better tomorrow. Right now, the -- the -- you know, the animists in our country, its fear is rampant in the land, and that's the other guy's twisted talent. But we have got to get back to the politics of hope, civility, and building a better economy that works for all of our kids.

TAPPER: How much do you think the pardon of Hunter Biden hurts the Democratic brand of Democrats have spent a lot of time over the last eight years talking about how Trump is lawless and he -- he only wants pardons for his friends and supporters and his family members. You know, you've heard the shtick.

O'MALLEY: Right. TAPPER: How much does the president's -- the current president's pardon of Hunter Biden undermine that message?

O'MALLEY: And all of those things that you said about Donald Trump and his disregard for the law, the 34 felonies, people seemed to say they didn't care. They wanted to express their fear that their economy was going to get worse and their cost of living was going to go up. Ultimately, I mean, I don't blame the President for pardoning his -- his son. I honestly don't.

I had a conversation with two of my own adult sons, and they asked me, if Donald Trump were saying you were going to chase us and persecute us and use the powers of the presidency to pursue us, would you pardon us? And I said, yes.

[17:45:05]

TAPPER: But the guy committed crimes. I mean, this is different than theoretical, your son's concern.

O'MALLEY: Yes, he did, Jake. And -- and at the same time, the guy that's coming in is a man that says he's going to chase and prosecute and persecute his political enemies and their families. But ultimately, look, you know, two years from now, four years from now, you know what people are going to care about, Jake? They're going to care about whether they can feed their kids, whether they can keep a roof over their head, and whether they're going to give them the better future that their parents gave them. And that's the message of this party. And that's what we're going to get back to, to win elections.

TAPPER: All right, well, good luck with the DNC race, sir.

O'MALLEY: Thank you.

TAPPER: Good to see you, Martin O'Malley, former -- former governor of Maryland.

The subway chokehold case could head to the jury tomorrow, with the defense wrapping up its closing arguments just moments ago. We're going to go live outside the courthouse next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:50:32]

TAPPER: In our Law and Justice Lead, the jury could get the case tomorrow in Daniel Penney's subway chokehold death trial in New York City. CNN's Gloria Pazmino is outside the courthouse in Manhattan. Gloria, walk us through what happened in court today.

GLORIA PAZMINO, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jake, we heard from the defense first this morning and they laid out a pretty clear case. In fact, they described their client's actions as heroic, saying that he decided to step in to protect his fellow passengers in a moment where everyone was scared and nobody else would step in. They also specifically focused on the fact that they do not believe it was the chokehold that Daniel Penny placed Jordan Neely in that killed him, but rather a combination of factors, including his sickle cell trait, the fact that he was high on K2, and the fact that he was experiencing mental illness.

Now, the prosecution began to lay out their closing statements this afternoon, and they went very methodically, step by step through a lot of the evidence that's been presented in this case. Now, we are expecting them to finish tomorrow, but so far they have split up their closing arguments into three important parts, justification, recklessness and cause of death.

And Assistant District Attorney Dafna Yoran spent most of the afternoon explaining the definition of recklessness. And that's key here because of the manslaughter charge that Penny is facing.

Now, even though we have not heard from Daniel Penny directly during this trial, he chose not to take the stand. We do hear from him in that interview video when he sat down with detectives following the incident. And it's that video that Yoran used today over and over to point to what she calls his recklessness and his disregard for Jordan Neely's life.

She talks about how he appears not concerned about what happened. He is somewhat nonchalant, she said, when describing the interaction. And at one point she said, as she was describing the amount of time that Neely was held in that chokehold, she referenced the last portion of it and said the last 51 seconds, Mr. Neely was already unconscious. There was no conceivable justification under the law and human decency to hold an unconscious man in a chokehold. We cannot as a society tolerate an unjust and untimely death of a fellow citizen.

That's the question here, whether or not Penny had enough justification to do exactly that, take the life of another. She pointed to the recklessness, the fact that he multiple times referred to Mr. Neely as a crackhead. She said it was evidence of the fact that he disregarded his life. Tomorrow she will get at the cause of death, another key part of the prosecution's case. And we are expecting the jury to get instructions and the case and likely begin deliberating tomorrow. Jake?

TAPPER: All right. Gloria Pazmino in Manhattan, thank you so much.

[17:53:42]

A brutal and late hit knocks an NFL quarterback out of the game with a concussion. How will the NFL respond? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: In our Sports Lead, all eyes on the NFL to see how the league will respond after a late hit knocked Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback, Trevor Lawrence, out of the game Sunday with a concussion. Today, Texans linebacker, Azeez Al-Shaair, apologized for the hit. CNN sports anchor Coy Wire joins us now to discuss. Coy, has the NFL responded yet?

COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Hi, Jake. Received this message just now. In this moment, a league source confirms the NFL is leaning toward discipline in the form of a suspension for Azeez Al-Shaair, do not yet have a timeline. Now Jake, many fans, analysts are saying that this was intentional, while many others, including the player himself and his head coach, DeMeco Ryans, say that this is not something that is taught.

And that a lot of quarterbacks try to take advantage of the rules and slide late to get an extra yard and that makes it tough on the defenders. Now Lawrence had to be carted off the field there in the second quarter after that hit from Al-Shaair. It's an illegal hit unnecessary to the head and neck area. A huge brawl broke out between the two teams.

Al-Shaair was ejected along with Jags cornerback Jarrian Jones, who was one of the many teammates who rushed to Lawrence's defense. Here was Jags coach Doug Pederson on the response to this hit.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DOUG PEDERSON, HEAD COACH, JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS: It's unfortunate because it escalates to a -- to a level that -- that doesn't need to be on the field. And, you know, we hold ourselves to a high regard. You know, we're in the National Football League. We got to figure out a way as a league, I think, to somehow minimize or at least get these plays out of the game if possible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WIRE: Now Azeez Al-Shaair posted on X this morning saying he was sorry and that he didn't see Lawrence slide until it was too late. Happened in the blink of an eye, he said in part, my goal is to hit you as hard as I can. Then I pray you're still able to get up and play the next play. And when the game is over, go home to your family unharmed because it's not personal, it's just competition.

[18:00:00]

He also said that he's receiving online hate, saying in part, I've been called every single name in the book from reporters with their hands ready for a story to find their villain to racist and Islamophobic fans and people. You don't know my heart nor my character, which I don't see to prove, need to prove to any of you.

Jake, Al-Shaair was fined on two previous occasions this season, so we should soon know what the discipline will be for Al-Shaair.

TAPPER: All right, Coy Wire, thanks so much. Good to see you.

The news continues on CNN with Wolf Blitzer right next door in The Situation Room. I'll see you tomorrow.