Return to Transcripts main page

CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip

RFK Jr.'s Lawyer Asked FDA To Revoke Polio Vaccine Approval; Trump Weighs Naming RFK Jr.'s Daughter-In-Law Deputy CIA Director; Drone Sightings Now In New York, New Jersey And Connecticut; Trump Team Explores Streamlining Bank Regulations; Trump's Makes The Most Bipartisan Proposal On The Use Of Daylight Saving Time. Aired 10-11p ET

Aired December 13, 2024 - 22:00   ET

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

[22:00:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST (voice over): Tonight, on the table, Donald Trump says maybe to putting into practice a junk science idea from RFK Jr., ending childhood vaccination programs, as Kennedy tries to call in a favor for his daughter-in-law.

Plus, drone dread, Americans demand answers about what's in the skies. New Jersey demands federal help, as the government tries to assure everyone that everything is just fine.

ALEJANDRO MAYORKAS, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: We know of no nefarious activity.

PHILLIP: Live at the table, Keith Boykin, Erin Perrine, Mondaire Jones and Pete Seat.

Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here, they do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Good evening. I'm Abby Phillip in New York.

Let's get right to what America is talking about, vaccines. Tonight, what you think is safe Donald Trump's new health pick doesn't. RFK Jr. would run the Health and Human Services Department for the president- elect. But RFK Jr.'s lawyer, who is helping to select the people who will be in charge of your health, has petitioned the government to revoke its approval of the polio vaccine, the polio vaccine, which has been approved for decades and which has saved millions of people from a virus that can paralyze or kill you.

And this isn't just some idea that's just floating out there. The president-elect himself is on record saying that he is open to whatever RFK Jr. is suggesting here. He talked to Time Magazine about ending childhood vaccination programs, and Trump said this, quote, we're going to have a big discussion. The autism rate is at a level that nobody ever believed possible. If you look at things that are happening, there's something causing it.

First, we have to say this loud and clear. There is no proof that childhood vaccines cause autism, none. But Trump still sees them as a potential danger. He says this also. It could if I think it's dangerous, if I think they're not beneficial, but I don't think that it's going to be very controversial in the end. It is going to be controversial.

RFK Jr. insists that he doesn't want to take away any vaccines. But does that sound consistent with this? This is his past statement about vaccines.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., TRUMP'S PICK TO HEAD HHS DEPARTMENT: There's no vaccine that is, you know, safe and effective. Here's the problem. The polio vaccine contained a virus called simian virus 40, SV40. It's one of the most carcinogenic materials that is known to man.

And now you've had this explosion of soft tissue cancers in our generation that kill many more people than polio ever did. So, if you say to me, did the polio vaccine was effective against polio? I'm going to say, yes. If I say -- if you say to me, did it kill more people that it did ever cause more deaths than I've heard? I would say, I don't know, because we don't have the data on that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Joining us in our fifth seat at the table tonight, Dr. Scott Ratzan. He is the editor-in-chief of the journal of health communication and a distinguished lecturer at CUNY School of Public Health and Health Policy.

And, Doctor, the first thing about you is that you are a doctor. RFK Jr. is not. And he's doing something that is very unscientific. He is saying, I observed this thing over here and I observed this thing over there, and I'm just going to say that there's a relationship even if there is not.

DR. SCOTT RATZAN, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, JOURNAL OF HEALTH COMMUNICATION: Yes, well, thanks for having me, Abby. And, absolutely, as a physician, I've been very proud of what we've been able to do with vaccination in this country and the fact that we've been so successful with polio and measles vaccination. We've not seen the diseases that worry people.

So, right now, we have a very difficult situation when we have politicians going against what settled science. And we really have to think about what is the way that we could have quality communication that people understand what vaccines are good for and why they should take them. We have to figure out a way that get the science out in front of the people, not necessarily the politics in front of the people.

PHILLIP: This is really dangerous, Pete. I mean, I don't understand why there isn't more outcry over this on Capitol Hill, but I will read this from Senator Mitch McConnell who is the Senate leader, and he is a survivor of polio.

[22:05:01]

He says, anyone seeking the Senate's consent to serve in the incoming administration would do well to steer clear of even the appearance of association with such efforts, efforts to get rid of the polio vaccine.

I am actually more curious about why that is not a statement that says anyone who tries to suggest falsely that vaccines should be eliminated essentially for children in this country shouldn't serve in a health post in the government. I'm not sure why it didn't go that next step.

PETE SEAT, FORMER WHITE HOUSE SPOKESMAN FOR PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Well, I think RFK Jr. needs to immediately disavow any move towards getting rid of the polio vaccine, number one. Number two --

PHILLIP: What about his own comments?

SEAT: But number two, Donald Trump has not said that he wants to get rid of the polio vaccine. In fact, he has said the opposite. He has said it would be a very difficult case to make to him, because he has seen that this vaccine has worked. But I think the bigger picture here is the American people are -- they have a bias against expertise, unfortunately. They have a bias against credible, peer-reviewed data, because they have felt misled and mistreated by the government.

And so you almost hit on it there. It's anecdote. That is what drives decision-making for Americans right now, is it's kind of Ferris Bueller's Day Off, where they hear, you know, the cousins, sisters, nephews, uncles didn't get a disease because -- and they were unvaccinated, well, it's good enough for me. I'm not saying that's right. I'm just saying that's the reality of the situation.

PHILLIP: Just to get back to what you were saying earlier, do you think -- RFK Jr. is also the one questioning the polio vaccine. I mean, is he going to distance himself from himself or is that disqualifying?

SEAT: Well, he wouldn't be the first person in politics to distance himself from himself, so, yes, he absolutely should.

PHILLIP: Fair enough. I mean, Doctor, what he's saying, he's -- I think Pete is right in diagnosing what the American people are experiencing, which is distrust in institutions. The cause, though, I think, is up for debate. Part of the reason they have distrust is because some people have been lying to them. And one of those people is RFK Jr.

RATZAN: Well, unfortunately, this has been going on for some time, and people have been misled and confused by a lot of these issues, from the autism piece that you rightfully said has been settled. There is no link between autism and vaccination, but yet we continue to challenge that day in and day out with these kind of questions.

And it's not just polio. I mean, the case also has 13 other vaccines that are under threat. When I was born, there were not even measles vaccines. 400 to 500 people were dying every year. Now, we don't even hear about measles. We have 16 outbreaks because people are not getting vaccinated. The science and the medical community is having difficulty because of this expertise that's been hacked away. And, unfortunately, we have to figure out a way to make America healthy with the proper communication. And that requires all of us working together.

Unfortunately, we don't have them all working together right now not only in Washington, but really within whether it's in the scientific community or academic hospitals even.

PHILLIP: Yes. I want to play this -- this is from this activist mother who is a strong backer of RFK. This is how she responded when she heard that Trump was going to appoint him to a role in the government.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What was your reaction when you saw that President Trump had named him to this incoming position?

ZEN HONEYCUTT, ACTIVIST AND FOUNDER, MOMS ACROSS AMERICA: I cried. Many other people cried. We were so excited.

Guys, it's happening.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The CDC and the FDA say that vaccines are safe. They say that the schedule for kids is safe. The EPA, the FDA, and the USDA say that GMOs are safe. The NIH says vaccines do not cause autism. That doesn't move you at all?

HONEYCUTT: No, absolutely not. I have seen too much independent science to say that they are not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Yes, when you hear that, what do you think?

KEITH BOYKIN, FORMER CLINTON WHITE HOUSE AIDE: Independent science, what's that, Doctor? I mean, this is dangerous talk that we're in right now, because it's encouraging people like this woman on the screen to feel like they don't have to vaccinate their kids. And that message is going to get out there and more people are not going to be vaccinated, people are going to die.

And it's also dangerous because even though you said, Pete, that, you know, people have this distrust in officials and science, they have this because Donald Trump and people like Donald Trump are spreading that message. And if we had a president and health leaders who actually took seriously what they said, that wouldn't be the case.

So, part of the responsibility of our leaders, and I think you know this, because you work for George W. Bush, part of the responsibility for leaders is to be able to communicate accurate, effective information. And it shouldn't be partisan, it shouldn't be polarized, it should be what is scientifically proven and true. SEAT: But I want to know what is wrong about what he said in the Time Magazine interview.

PHILLIP: He suggested that we -- you just heard the doctor say it, it's settled science. Autism is not caused by vaccines. Donald Trump said the opposite. He said that he tried to make a connection between autism and vaccines that is not there.

[22:10:01]

That's just not true.

SEAT: So, my point that I'm trying to make here is he -- and I think I'll get to what's happening. He said we're going to test this, we're going to look at it, we'll see the data. I think --

PHILLIP: On vaccines and autism?

SEAT: I think what he's actually doing is throwing RFK Jr. a bone. I truly am not convinced that he's bought into what RFK Jr. wants to do as much as he's bought into the idea that a Kennedy supports him. That's what this is about.

BOYKIN: But it doesn't matter whether he bought into it or not because other people out there in America will hear that and believe it. That's what counts. The words of the president of the United States matter. And he should not be saying things, regardless of whether he believes it or not, if it's going to have a negative and deleterious impact on people in America.

PHILLIP: All right. There's one more thing that RFK Jr. has his hands in. It's actually over at the CIA, believe it or not. He's trying to back a relative of his, his daughter-in-law, for a top CIA post. And it seems like one of the main reasons is to investigate his view that that JFK was assassinated by the government, essentially. This is a person who, according to our reporting, Tom Cotton, a Republican senator, opposes.

It's so interesting to see all of these people coming into the government essentially to kind of like flog their hobby horses rather than do the work of the American people.

ERIN PERRINE, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST, AXIOM STRATEGIES: I understand that there might be concerns that there could be nepotism there, and that's a fair criticism to make. But it's very hard for Democrats to level that after Joe Biden just pardoned his son for crimes going back 14 years. Let's level the playing field here.

She released a book --

BOYKIN: (INAUDIBLE).

PERRINE: Well, let's talk about -- what they have to do with each other is Democrats are trying to say that there's an issue here. Let's call a spade a spade here, if they want people to trust them and think that nepotism is an issue, whether or not that's the issue. But let me finish my point before you try to jump down my throat on it.

BOYKIN: I'm not going to jump on your throat.

PERRINE: Let me finish my point. So, if there's a concern about nepotism, fine, fair point to make. I don't think Democrats have much credibility on that issue. If the concern is that she put out a book without it going through the government background check process, fine, fair issue to make. John Bolton did the same thing.

But if the concern is whether or not she's qualified to work in the CIA, have that conversation. Tom Cotton can have every concern in the world, but that's not a nominated position that she would be put forth for. That's just one hired by the CIA director. So, if we're now starting going to be looking at every single personnel, I think that's what the DOGE committee is going to be doing anyways to see where we can be removing inefficiencies or people who shouldn't be working in the government.

But as of this point, this is just being a speculative name put out there of a person that's related to somebody else who's getting a job. This happens quite frequently. And if there's a concern about her credibility or her ability to do the job in the national security space, litigate that. The rest of the Democrats don't have much ground on.

JONES: Look, I care less about the nepotism than I do about the lack of qualifications of any number of these people. We were talking about RFK. He is wholly unqualified to lead the HHS. And every single day that he opens his mouth and talks about vaccines not being effective treatments or preventative measures to be taken by the American people, despite all of the science to contradict that, is evidence of the fact that he should not be in a public health role.

You know, it may happen often, but I think it's unlikely that so many people who are related to folks in power. Are the best possible people to be at the helm.

BOYKIN: Just a coincidence. It's just a coincidence.

PHILLIP: You know, Doctor, I do want to give you a quick last word, because, I mean, what's the level of danger of all of these RFK-isms? I mean, I do believe that Americans, a lot of them, have fear. We've had a lot of people who have real concerns about their health, about the safety of their food, their water, all that stuff. But when you see someone like RFK taking that and trying to pivot it into all these other areas, what do you think?

RATZAN: Rightfully so, we should be very concerned. Because if we do have a dialing back of the success that we've had, not only with vaccination but with other public health progress, we're going to be in real trouble in this country. We need to have a health literacy that comes from the secretary level, from the president level. The whole country ought to have a way to understand that health is our only common currency. Disease knows no borders. We've got to think globally, nationally, and locally in all these areas.

We try to do a lot of work at the community level because that's where people are getting their information. And that's where we really need to have a good education system as well on this.

So, it's a big challenge. It's not just HHS. It's a good part of the government, as we all know. It's great that we're able to have this discussion because we need to have better quality communication, better quality health information for Americans.

PHILLIP: It's long overdue in this country. Dr. Scott Ratzan, thank you very much for joining us. Everyone else, stick around for me.

Coming up next, who is behind these mystery drones in the skies? The administration says that they are not dangerous, but lawmakers are demanding more answers.

[22:15:00]

A special guest is going to join us to tell us more.

Plus, you probably trust that your bank will have your money after you deposit it, but there is new reporting that Trump wants to get rid of the agency that ensures that that is the case. We'll discuss that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIP: The president versus the president-elect and a midair mystery. Tonight, the Biden administration says that what everyone worries are drones flying over potentially protected airspace aren't drones and aren't anything to be worried about.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYORKAS: We believe that there are cases of mistaken identity where drones are actually small aircraft and people are misidentifying them.

[22:20:03]

They're very well maybe drones in the sky, of course, but those are commercially available. One can go into a convenience store and buy a small drone. There are also commercial drones as well, but we know of no threat or nefarious activity.

And I want to repeat, Wolf, that if we learn of any cause for concern, we will be transparent in our communication of it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Donald Trump doesn't want to hear that. Here is his post on Truth Social tonight. Can this really be happening without our government's knowledge? I don't think so. Let the public know and now, otherwise shoot them down. Three exclamation points there.

Joining us now at the table is Dr. Pramod Abichandani. He is a drone expert and an associate professor at the New Jersey Institute of Applied Engineering and Technology.

And you've been studying this, and all of these observations, the videos, maybe seeing some with your own eyes. I don't know. I got two questions for you. One, first of all, what do you think is going on here? And, second of all, why do you think that the government is not saying more?

DR. PRAMOD ABICHANDANI, DRONE EXPERT: Yes. So, single drones being sighted in the air is nothing new. You go to Central Park, there's drones in the air. You go to any other place. You know, individuals own drones, they buy drones and they fly drones for multiple reasons.

What is fascinating for a researcher such as myself is the fact that you're seeing multiple drones in the sky. It's almost like a group of drones that can talk to each other and they're flying around. That requires technical vertical. It's just nontrivial. It also requires a significant amount of funding and a team that can not only build the hardware, or purchase the hardware, put it together, but also write the software, the technology that goes on these drones.

My simple sort of explanation here is that we don't know who this is, but whoever these people are, and they are a team, it's not just an individual, highly unlikely that it's an individual. They're smart. They know what they're doing. They have time. They have resources. And it seems like they have the ability to launch these drones from places that we cannot necessarily track easily. And that kind of makes it quite mysterious.

PHILLIP: Do you think it's a state level actor?

ABICHANDANI: It's hard to say who exactly it is. However, one thing to keep in mind is, you know, when you are working with single drones, you could be shooting a wedding or you could be taking pictures of your family. But, generally, when you're flying multiple drones in the air, that's usually meant to force multiply the capabilities of a single drone. Now we have a bunch of them. They spread out over a geographical area. They can collect data simultaneously or a wide area.

There has to be a motivation to fly multiple drones in the air or swarms of drones in the air. For someone like me, it's doing cutting edge research for the Department of Defense or other sort of organizations. And so I'm always curious about what's the motivation to actually fly a swarm of drones. Like what are you really trying to do?

PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, one of the things about this at this point is that part of it is just, what are we hearing from the government? You just heard the DHS secretary say one thing. He seemed pretty clear that he didn't -- they didn't see anything nefarious going on here. That has not calmed the waters from Democrats or Republicans.

Here's just a taste of what's been said from local -- I shouldn't say local, but lawmakers who represent the local area in New York, New Jersey, where this is happening.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NICOLE MALLIOTAKIS (R-NY): We just want the government to tell us what they know. I find it very hard to believe that our government, with its intelligence and its military capabilities, does not know what's going on here. And if the truth is they don't, then we have a much bigger problem right now.

REP. JOSH GOTTHEIMER (D-NJ): They have a responsibility the FBI who's the lead agency here and DHS these are our federal partners who are responsible for this airspace with the FAA to brief the public more thoroughly. They're not providing enough information to the public and the public is concerned.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Do you agree with that?

PERRINE: I do think that the government's not doing a very good job. Because he's right, what's -- Nicole Malliotakis is right. What's the answer? The government either doesn't know and is inept or is lying to the American people, neither of which is a good answer.

Yes, Mayorkas was on today saying that we don't believe it's anything nefarious. Kirby was on a different station saying we don't really know anything about what's going on. So, even the government right now is cross talking itself.

There are swarms of drones flying over the United States and we're all, I don't know. That's not an acceptable answer for the American people. They're flying over Maryland. Larry Hogan was taking videos this week. This needs to be figured out.

[22:25:00]

And, listen, if this was somewhere in the south, I bet you those drones would have been shot down by now.

PHILLIP: Well, people -- I mean, there are some concerns about that, right, like shooting down drones. Some of them are reportedly very large. A source was telling CNN today that it would be pretty dangerous to just try to shoot it down.

But, I mean, probably for a regular person to shoot one down, but don't you think -- it's strange to me that the government hasn't figured out how to get their hands on at least one of these things, or maybe they have and they're not telling us.

ABICHANDANI: So, let me just provide a little bit more context. What we're talking about is counter-drone systems, where there's unauthorized drones in the airspace, and we're trying to detect them, track them, and ultimately capture or interdict them. That is a very hard problem.

And, yes, there are technologies that are available. We do research in my laboratory at NJIT using these technologies but none of them are perfect. And our local law enforcement, A, does not have access to this technology, generally speaking, and, B, even if they have access to this technology, they're not necessarily trained to do these things because you need a lot of practice to be able to bring these drones down safely.

As far as shooting the drones is concerned, I would -- I totally understand why all of us get somewhat concerned, scared looking at these drones flying in the air at night. During daytime, it's fine. You can track them. You can visually see them because there's visibility. At night, it's kind of spooky.

So, I totally understand that instinct to say, like let me pull out my gun and shoot the drone. The problem is In the air, you know, they're moving in three dimensions. One needs to have a really good shot to take them down. And God forbid, a bullet kind of goes stray.

PHILLIP: Is it fair to say you don't sound all that concerned about them? I mean, you sound interested in them, but you don't sound all that concerned about them. Are you worried?

PERRINE: It sounds like Independence Day in the beginning.

JONES: Isn't it implausible that the federal government doesn't know more than what it's saying?

ABICHANDANI: Okay. So, you know, we always talk about all the possibilities, but then we start attaching probabilities to each of these possible outcomes. And to me, the most likely explanation is, yes, it does seem like a group of smart people that have funding to be able to do this.

Where does the funding come from? One of the likely explanations is that it's either a military contractor or some sort of, you know, organization that has that level of funding and backing.

One other thing that is very clear is that these people do not care about their relationship with the Federal Aviation Administration. I mean, by flying these drones in groups the size that, you know, they have been sighted and the kind of reporting that's coming out and at night, you know, now you are really teasing the FAA to sort of look deeply into this.

FAA by itself is a very reasonable body. They've been quite accommodating to the drone community in the United States. But we as a country are very sensitive to aerial safety for all the trauma that we have faced in the past. So, at some point, the FAA jumps in and they're like, you know what, we got to shut this down. That's not the deal that we made.

So, is it possible that, you know, the authorities or somebody in the government knows about this? Sure, yes, I am.

PHILLIP: But they're probably not happy about it.

ABICHANDANI: Also, like another thing to keep in mind is, you know, we know what drones can do. If you just look at Ukraine and Russia, we know what is possible with drones. I mean, the course of conflicts is changing because of the use of drones.

So, maybe it's not the right time to just talk about everything that's going on or everything that folks know just yet, like government authorities, because it doesn't take a lot to take one of these drones and turn it into a weapon, right, into a one way delivery --

PHILLIP: Which is the fear that everyone has.

Dr. Pramod Abichandani, thank you very much for joining us. Everyone else, hold on.

Coming up next, do you want fewer checks and balances on the people who are responsible for backing your checking account? A new Trump plan might have you stuffing cash under your mattress or bars of gold or whatever you have. We'll explain that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:33:47]

ABBY PHILIP, CNN ANCHOR: Donald Trump and your money. Tonight, a closer look at a possible change that the president-elect wants to make that really could change how banks behave and leave you in the lurch if your bank collapses.

The Trump team is exploring, quote "streamlining bank regulations" and among the potential changes that they're considering is this, "Trump allies have discussed the possibility of giving Treasury oversight of deposit insurance, allowing the federal government to substantially shrink or close the remainder of the FDIC."

Among the agency's most important roles is keeping the money in your account safe by insuring deposits up to $250,000. Joining us in our fifth seat is CNN Economics contributor and "Washington Post" columnist, Catherine Rampell. Catherine, what do you make of this? This caught my eye.

CATHERINE RAMPELL, CNN ECONOMICS COMMENTATOR: Yes. So, I want to start by apologizing to our viewers because last night I was on and I said, Donald Trump had no plan for bringing down prices. But if, in fact, he wants to get rid of the FDIC and lay the groundwork for another Great Depression-style bank run, that would do it. You know, that's how you get deflation. That's what happened during the Great Depression.

[22:35:00]

And in fact, the reason we have the FDIC is because we had these -- "it's a wonderful lifestyle bank runs" back in the '30s when people panicked because they weren't sure that their deposits would be safe and everybody else was going and pulling their deposits out. It was a miraculous intervention. It's been useful for all of the many years since. And I just think it's like unfathomable that they would consider abolishing it now. It's just laying the groundwork for all sorts of financial instability.

PHILLIP: Yes, so, Janet Yellen, she's the Treasury Secretary, she said this about it to Reuters, "The lesson we learned from those 100 plus years of history is that banks need to be supervised and regulated appropriately to greatly mitigate the odds of failure.

That deposit insurance is a critical element in promoting safety and soundness and confidence in the system and that there needs to be adequate access to liquidity when banks get in trouble." I don't -- I shocked. This was controversial. I didn't know that people were trying to get rid of deposit insurance.

RAMPELL: We just had a banking crisis last year.

PHILLIP: I was surprised.

SEAT: But where -- where in the story does it say they want to get rid of the deposit insurance? Literally nowhere in this story. It says --

RAMPELL: It won't treat journal with dust.

SEAT: No, it doesn't.

RAMPELL: Yes, it does.

SEAT: It said that it would be absorbed by the Department of Treasury. And it says in the 10th paragraph, we're all treating this like a five-alarm fire, but right there it says, quote, "Also discuss plans to either combine or otherwise restructure the main federal bank regulators, the FDIC, OCC and Federal Reserve." They're asking questions. They're trying to figure out the art of the possible to deregulate the financial sector. Why is that a problem?

RAMPELL: The hard part of the FDIC is not taking in the insurance premiums and paying them out. It's conducting the supervision to make sure that the banks behave themselves. It is true that our financial system has this patchwork of regulatory agencies and, you know, there's regulatory arbitrage going on and it would be better if it were streamlined.

That's not what they're talking about. They're talking about rolling back regulations altogether, potentially getting rid of deposit insurance. That is how I read that story. And again, creating a lot more instability and risk in the financial system and putting more risk on the backs of taxpayers, frankly.

Because you can bet that if any of Trump's friends on Wall Street go belly up, they're still going to demand a rescue whether or not they submitted so that you know, burdensome regulations and deposit insurance that we currently have now.

PHILLIP: I think the deregulation is a huge part of the story, too, because I understand, obviously, conservatives have wanted to deregulate broadly writ large, right? And that's -- there are a lot of policy reasons why they might want to do that and some of them are valid.

But when it comes to banks specifically, we just went through this, okay? We had three of the largest bank failures in U.S. history have happened in the last 20 years, OK? Including, as Catherine pointed out, just a couple years ago.

RAMPELL: Yes, last year.

PHILLIP: Yes.

RAMPELL: Last year, it was the biggest set of bank failures in history. It was like a half a trillion dollars.

PHILLIP: So, it feels like we are not out of the woods when it comes to banks really needing oversight and consumers, just regular people. We're not talking millionaires and billionaires, just regular people with $20,000 maybe in their bank, keeping that money safe.

PERRINE: Well, I think that Pete's point is completely correct here that nowhere in these stories does it say that they want to get rid of the deposit insurance here.

So, let's like take this deep breath. And even if we're being extremely speculative about what could or would and might happen or what they might be thinking until someone says it for the Trump administration, this is purely political fodder for a setting like this and not something that we believe they're actually seriously pursuing.

RAMPELL: It's In project 25, 2025. It's literally, it's literally in that document.

PERRINE: With all due respect, I don't know how many more times Donald Trump can say I don't want anything to do with that and disavow it.

RAMPELL: The people who wrote that playbook are running his transition team and they're the ones who are trying to lay the groundwork for this.

PERRINE: And you know what kind of banking regulatory reform that Republicans have pursued consistently in Congress has been more focused on local small community banks so that they can stay open and thrive, especially for farming-based communities.

That has been a long background in Republicans when it comes to regulatory reform. But what we are talking about here is more political fear-mongering than reality when it comes to what's happening with the Trump transition. And it's political. The one long transition.

SEAT: "The Wall Street Journal" wrote it correctly. Everyone else is just reading what they want to hear.

PERRINE: And it's speculative. At best.

RAMPELL: It's in Project 2025.

PERRINE: And he has said he's not doing that holy agenda.

SEAT: Does that say Trump agenda at the top? It doesn't.

RAMPELL: Pretty much. It's all of his staffers.

PERRINE: Speculative.

RAMPELL: It's all of his talkers, personnel, his policy.

SEAT: He said in the "Time" magazine interview again that he wants nothing to do with the Project 2025 agenda.

RAMPELL: You could have fooled me from all of the things he has already announced he's doing.

MONDAIRE JONES (D) FORMER NEW YORK CONGRESSMAN: So, Donald Trump ran as this working-class champion and won in large part based on that theory. But what we have seen already since his election last month is policy proposal after policy proposal that would actually do harm to working-class people here in the United States of America.

[22:40:06]

And the prospect of complete deregulation throughout our financial system.

PERRINE: No one's asking for that or bringing that.

JONES: Which is what this would be an example of.

PERRINE: Or speculating to that.

UNKNOWN: This is just like --

PERRINE: Complete deregulation? Don't be ridiculous.

PHILLIP: Guys, guys, one second, OK? Are you finished?

JONES: I mean, Elon Musk has said he would be willing to crash the economy and start from scratch.

PERRINE: But nobody, to be completely fair, for what you just said, for what you just said was that they are pursuing complete bank deregulation. Nowhere is that any case even fathomable or something they are looking at.

RAMPELL: You should read from 2020's and stop speculating and making a big deal out of it.

JONES: Just give them more time. They're not going to do it all in one day.

PHILLIP: Mondaire, just a second. Erin, let me ask you a question.

RAMPELL: You're saying "The Wall Street Journal" just published clickbait? Like --

PHILLIP: Catherine, hang on a second. Let me ask you a question, Erin.

PERRINE: I'm saying that people are being wildly speculative at this table.

PHILLIP: When it comes to taking the regulatory system that we have now and shrinking -- when it comes to banks, right? Shrinking it, restructuring it in -- wholly. A lot of people who work in this industry say that is a bad idea on its face. It's going to create instability, it's going to create uncertainty, and that is not what the economy needs right now. Do you find that to be an argument that has any merit?

PERRINE: It's very easy for the financial system to get spooked. But also, it's also very important that there be change in the United States. What the people voted for. There's a way to balance both, though.

PHILLIP: Is this really an area where we are desperate for change? I mean that's the point I don't understand.

RAMPELL: I don't think Donald Trump has a mandate to crash the banking system.

PERRINE: Well, good news, that's not what he's trying to do. And the unbelievable level that I have heard at this table of just speculation and ridiculous fear mongering.

RAMPELL: I covered this stuff. Something that isn't being talked about isn't a serious policy proposal. Nobody is talking about complete bank deregulation. Be honest with the American people. They're looking at streamlining and looking at efficiencies. Nothing has been proposed and nothing is happening. Deep breaths.

BOYKIN: OK, deep breath all aside. What doesn't make any sense to me, and this goes back to the polio conversation, is why they keep allowing these conversations to happen in the first place, knowing the potential consequences, knowing the potential consequences of having alarm in the banking system, alarm in the healthcare system. Why does the Trump administration, the Trump transition team allow this to happen?

The other thing is, this story reminds me of two childhood memories. One is about Lucy and Charlie Brown, and the other is about Monopoly. The story of Lucy, where she's always pulling up the football when Charlie Brown's trying to kick it. I feel like we're going to the same thing over and over again.

It's like we went through this in the 1920s and 1930s with the bank failures, and we created the Glass-D-Glock. We went through this after the 1990s when they deregulated it under the Clinton administration and put in the -- the grand bleeds allow the act and we had a banking crisis in 2008. We went to this week in the consumer financial protection bill and now they want to eliminate consumer financial protection hero.

RAMPELL: And all of that frank.

BOYKIN: And all of that. So, we keep making the same mistake in allowing the banks to do -- to do what they want. And the other memory is the monopoly because we're giving the banks again on jail free card to let them do whatever they want and run rush out over the consumers who really were supposed to be as Mondaire pointed out, the reason why Trump said he was running in the first place.

Whatever happened to talk about inflation? Whatever happened to talk about the working-class people? They're getting billionaires and trillionaires coming in and flying into Mar-a-Lago and trying to -- trying to help out Donald Trump. You've got people who are giving millions of dollars to his inauguration who have billions of dollars. How is that?

UNKNOWN: As if no one is getting millions of dollars to --

PERRINE: As if that never happened to Democrats.

PHILLIP: That is a perfect segue. That's a perfect segue for us to move on to what's going to come next in this in this -- in this show. Catherine Rampell, thank you very much for joining us. Everyone else, hang tight. Coming up next, speaking of pay for play. Who's trying to buy their way into Donald Trump's good graces, and how much does it cost?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIP: You know the phrase, don't bite the hand that feeds you? Well, tech executives are breaking bread with President-elect Trump in what looks like a pretty naked attempt to woo the leader of the free world to be friendly.

Tonight, it's Apple CEO Tim Cook making the pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago, and already we've watched millionaire donor donations to Trump's inaugural fund from tech brethren, Mark Zuckerberg and also Jeff Bezos and Sam Altman.

Joining us at the table is comedian and host of "Stand Up" with Pete Dominick, the podcast. It's Pete Dominic.

PETE DOMINICK, COMEDIAN: Yay.

PHILLIP: So, look, here's my take, OK? These guys are running businesses. They have a fiduciary responsibility to their business. The thing to do in the moment is to do what's right for their business. And if you have to spend a million dollars to the Trump inaugural fund, I don't think they have a choice, to be honest.

DOMINICK: I think everybody always has a choice. I think that it's disgusting, the wealth concentration in this country, the fact that there are so many billionaires, A, and that so many of them are working in the administration.

I don't know how we can't come together at this table and as a country and eat all of these billionaires anywhere else in all of the natural world. If one species had this much of the pie, we would eat them. It's crazy that there's so much money and even crazier that anybody trusts a billionaire at all, but it's to be expected with -- PHILLIP: They've been rich, though, for a long time. And it's not just Trump, right? So, like, I don't know that the -- I don't know disparity between the rich and the poor is a Trump thing. I think what's changed is that it's just way more transparent how to get to Trump. He wants very specific things. He wants you to come and see him. He wants you to donate money. And he's just being upfront about it. And they're responding like businessmen.

[22:50:01]

JONES: To these guys, a million dollars is nothing, right?

PHILLIP: Because it is nothing.

JONES: It is literally nothing to these guys. And to your point, I think there is a very strong business case to be made for them doing what they're doing. We are on the cusp of a new administration which has its eyes set on big tech. Republican leaders in Congress and the incoming president himself feel like there's a lot of conservative censorship happening on these -- on these platforms.

And so, I think it was all of these guys to be on the good side of Donald Trump that may make people uncomfortable. But as a strictly business matter, I think it's the appropriate thing to do as horrifying as it is that you have to bend the knee in this way.

DOMINICK: About profit over people.

BOYKIN: Well, yes, maybe if it is, I don't even want to accept that, Mondaire. Just the idea that this is a, who cares? What's the business -- the right thing to do for business? What's the right thing to do for the country? The right thing to do for the country is not to go down and kiss the ring of Donald Trump in Mar-a-Lago.

PHILLIP: Do you really think that Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook and Jeff Bezos have at the forefront of their minds the right thing to do for the country?

BOYKIN: Of course not. That's the problem. And the problem is that Donald Trump supposedly ran on lowering the price of eggs. He was going to do something about inflation. He doesn't even talk about inflation.

SEAT: Did you have a problem when Google and Microsoft and all the other companies gave to Joe Biden's inaugural? Was that an issue? Did you have a problem when your former boss gave to you donors?

BOYKIN: Let me just say something. Let me just say something. Some of them did not donate, but you know, even if they did, it doesn't matter. The point is, they weren't important. They weren't important.

DOMINICK: Yes, because he'll punish them.

UNKNOWN: They were not -- two things.

JONES: This is for the inaugural ball. PHILLIP: Everyone, stop talking. Just stop talking. We cannot all talk

at the same time. I've said it before. I'm going to say it again. Please, if one person is talking, don't talk.

BOYKIN: They were not appointed to his cabinet -- $360 billion dollar cabinet Donald Trump has, if you include Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. These are people --

PERRINE: Who are not cabinet.

BOYKIN: They could have cabinet level status because Trump could give it to them. These are people who are super wealthy, who don't care a bit about the price of eggs or gasoline and Trump supposedly ran on this thing allegedly, that he cared about all these things. And all these working-class white people who said they cared about those things, they didn't care about those things. They cared about supporting racism.

PHILLIP: All right, Pete, last word to you and then we do have to come back.

SEAT: Innovators and job creators who sustain millions of U.S.-based jobs meeting with the president-elect -- least of my worries. This isn't my worries.

JONES: I just want to say that giving a couple million dollars to the inaugural committee is not doing the kind of harm that you guys are talking about.

BOYKIN: No, that's not the issue. It's beyond the inaugural committee. It's everything else beyond that.

PHILLIP: Everyone, stay with me coming up next. Could this be the last year we spring forward and fall back? I hope so. Donald Trump is hoping so, as well. We'll discuss that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:57:27]

PHILLIP: Now, this could be Trump's most bipartisan proposal yet. In a post on X, the president-elect said that the Republican Party would quote, "-- use its best efforts to eliminate daylight savings time and he called it inconvenient and very costly." Everyone here, I already told you where I stand. I'm ready for it to be gone. I would like the clocks to stay the same.

DOMINICK: But you should be more open and honest with your audience. You hate morning. You don't go -- you don't want to get up in the morning and run. I want to get up in the morning and have daylight and run in the morning.

PHILLIP: I do hate morning runners.

DOMINICK: And you hate morning runners.

PHILLIP: Yes.

DOMINICK: Because, yes, so --

PHILLIP: I don't like being made to feel lazy.

DOMINICK: Right. So, that's the thing. It's a bias. Do you like morning and light? Do you like your afternoon daytime? And it's a bias. But I think this is just -- if we're going to get rid of something, let's get rid of the electoral C=college. This might be a distraction. There's daylight savings.

JONES: There's a lot of research showing that there are public health benefits too, right? I think, I don't care whether it stays ahead or you know, gets set back. It just needs to be consistent. And you know, when I was in Congress a couple years ago, I remember being in a leadership meeting in the House and pulling out my phone and telling then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer that like the Senate had just passed this bill unanimously and they were completely unaware.

And I was like, can we do it in the House? Because this would be a great, this was Marco Rubio's bill with Sheldon Whitehouse a couple years ago. We had an opportunity to do it then and we didn't do it.

PHILLIP: Yeah, I mean, it's controversial.

PERRINE: It clearly is. Yes, we've already seen a little bit of that today. I agree with you. I'd be one for the later portion. I like to be up a little bit later. I'd prefer after work to be able to get things done in the daylight. But honestly, man, fall back night where you get that random extra hour asleep during a random Saturday night, I don't hate it. I don't hate it. I don't have any children so this is my little extra nap.

PHILLIP: This -- I don't -- we keep arguing about this, why can't we get this done?

SEAT: Well, we adopted Daylight Savings Time in the state of Indiana finally in 2006. It passed the House of Representatives by single vote and members -- Republican members who voted for it. Some of them lost their reelection campaign. It is a very controversial -- to this day, every time we either spring forward or fall back, Facebook is flooded with people whining about it.

PHILLIP: Yes, it is odd that a state would adopt daylight savings. It just seems like the wrong direction to go in.

SEAT: Hey, we were like number 48 or 49. We weren't last.

BOYKIN: I don't mind either one as long as you have it consistent. I don't really care one way or the other. But I do say this. If daylight tomorrow will end at 4:29 P.M., that's when the sun will set here in New York City -- 4:29 is way too early for the sun to set. Can we please have it at 5:29 again? I don't want to have to have my day end before it's even five o'clock and the work hasn't ended.

[23:00:00]

DOMINICK: So, you support this Trump policy?

BOYKIN: I support having it consist -- no, he wants to get rid of daylight savings time. I want to have daylight savings time all year round.

DOMINICK: Odds that he knows the difference between daylight saving time and standard time.

BOYKIN: You're probably right.

DOMINICK: One of his oligarchs, the owner said --

PHILLIP: I was trying to end on a bipartisan note. I think that this would be one of the most popular things if Trump could get it done. Congress sure knows they've been trying. Everyone, thank you very much and thank you for watching "NewsNight". "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.