Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Google's A.I.-powered Glasses Designed for Hands-Free Tech Use; Indiana Senate Considers Redrawing Congressional Maps Amid GOP Push; Trump Announces $12 Billion Farm Aid Package; Supreme Court Signals it Will Give Trump More Control of Government; Ex-Trump Lawyer Alina Habba Resigns as Acting U.S. Attorney for New Jersey. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired December 08, 2025 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00]

LISA EADICICCO, CNN TECH EDITOR: -- from around 2014, 2013. Those glasses didn't really take off for a variety of reasons. They were very expensive. They didn't really do all that much more than your phone could. But a lot of companies, including Meta, Google, Snap, really do think that this next wave of glasses that uses a combination of A.I. and augmented reality is going to change that and could potentially be the next wave of personal computing.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Really interesting. Eager to see what they look like and how they work. Lisa Eadicicco, thank you so much for the time. A new hour of "CNN News Central" starts right now.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Billion dollar bailout. Minutes from now, President Trump is expected to unveil a long-awaited aid bill for American farmers. It is help that's needed in part because of the president's own tariffs. Plus, a stabbing on Charlotte's light rail transit system a few months after a Ukrainian refugee was killed on the same rail line and the suspect just appeared in court. Also, he's condemning Democrats for expressing concern that President Trump could issue unlawful orders. But CNN's K-File has uncovered video evidence of Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth voicing the same concern back in his TV days. We're following these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to "CNN News Central."

We are tracking breaking news from the White House President Trump moments away from hosting a round table where he's expected to unveil details of a new $12 billion aid package for American farmers. Many farms have been struggling under the weight of the administration's trade wars, tariffs and shrinking crop prices. CNN's Kristen Holmes is at the White House for us. Kristen, what do we know about this new plan and how soon it could come to get farmers some relief?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. White House officials, Brianna, are telling us that they want this out as soon as possible with the latest date being February of 2026. So, just a few months there to try and get this money, this one-time payment into the pockets of these farmers. So as you mentioned, this is a $12 billion package. We know $11 billion of this is slated to go to crop farmers specifically, a lot of focus again on those soybean farmers. $1 billion for farmers whose crops fall outside the umbrella of the Farmer Bridge Assistance Program.

This, of course, is aimed to help a lot of people who helped support President Trump and bring him back into office, but who have been struggling because of those policies. Of course, if you ask the White House, they say that this is all residual effect of the Biden administration, but many of these farmers have been distinctly hurt by the tariffs. Not just universally, but specifically those China tariffs on soybeans. We know that China did agree to start buying those soybeans again back in October, but it's still not at the number that it would have been had this kind of trade war not halted all of the purchasing of this crop. So again, this is a way to reach out and try and help these farmers.

And Brianna, look, this is part of a larger narrative, as we've seen more and more Americans across the country, not just farmers, say that they're struggling, that there is a problem with affordability and it comes at a time where Republicans just aren't sure that they have the right messaging around affordability, particularly heading into those midterms.

KEILAR: Yeah. Certainly, a concern for them. Kristen Holmes live for us at the White House. Thank you. Boris?

SANCHEZ: The Supreme Court appears ready to give President Trump more power, this time, over his ability to fire members of independent government agencies, something law has prevented since 1935. Today, the justices heard arguments on the firing of Rebecca Kelly Slaughter from the Federal Trade Commission last March. At the time, the president called her work "inconsistent with his agenda." A lawyer for Slaughter says her firing could destabilize institutions if the president's powers were expanded. After more than two hours of arguments, the court's liberal justices seem to agree, but the court's conservative majority leaned towards siding with the president.

Let's discuss with former FTC Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya. He was fired by President Trump at the same time Slaughter was, but formerly resigned a few months later. Thank you so much for being with us.

ALVARO BEDOYA, FORMER FTC COMMISSIONER: Thanks for having me.

SANCHEZ: What do you make of what we heard from the court today? Sometimes they kind of tip their leanings based on their questions. It seems like the conservative side is ready to hand President Trump more power.

BEDOYA: Look, I think it's a mistake to predict where the court will be going. Right now it's hard to predict what happens next week. I feel good about the arguments our side made because we were arguing in favor of two centuries of precedent and against the effect of corruption in our government. And I -- my hope is the Supreme Court will side with us in the end.

SANCHEZ: What is the potential danger to consumers if the Supreme Court sides with Trump?

BEDOYA: The FTC protects you against fraudsters and monopolists. We were the folks who banned Martin Shkreli from the pharmaceutical industry for life. We blocked what would've been the largest grocery store merger in history that would've raised the price of eggs and milk even higher. Right? You want the folks making those decisions to be making them without fear or favor, without regard to who has given what to the president.

And in a world where the president can fire any of us at any time for no reason whatsoever, that's a world that's rife for deal making and corruption that you don't want when it comes to the price of your groceries or the price of your medicine.

[14:05:00]

SANCHEZ: It's important to point out that in the firing of Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, the administration didn't cite anything that she did that was nefarious or negligent.

BEDOYA: That's right.

SANCHEZ: They essentially said she's not ideologically aligned with us.

BEDOYA: We got emails. I was at gym class. She was at her daughter's theater recital, that just said, you've been dismissed and went out of their way to not give a reason to fire us. They just did it because they thought they could. Even though, as you said, the Supreme Court has said for 90 years that you cannot.

SANCHEZ: I guess, the counter argument if we were to engage in --

BEDOYA: Yeah.

SANCHEZ: -- a theoretical conversation about the counter argument would be that people serve at the pleasure of the president across the executive branch and the FTC despite being an independent arm of the government --

BEDOYA: Yeah.

SANCHEZ: -- still engages in some form of executive actions, don't they?

BEDOYA: Yes.

SANCHEZ: So if the president had sway over what they're doing based on voters electing him, shouldn't he have sway over who runs the FTC?

BEDOYA: President's head of one branch of government, Congress is the other. This is what Congress has said because it's not just FTC, you drive on a road, you have a retirement account in the stock market. You have a savings account. Your kids play with toys. We want those roads, those securities, those savings accounts, those toys to be protected by independent decision makers that can do their job based on expertise in a non-partisan way. That's what Congress has said and the Supreme Court has ratified that.

And so, not everyone in these government agencies serves at the power of the president. And Congress has made it that way. And Congress said they want to protect those basics of life with independence and non- partisanship.

SANCHEZ: If the FTC is what leads the Supreme Court to making this decision, what other government agency do you see the president trying to influence after that?

BEDOYA: Security and Exchange Commission, the National Transportation Safety Board, the FDIC, the Federal Reserve Board -- they had a tentative decision out there saying, hey, it's different. But the few times it came up today, no one could give a solid answer for why the Fed Reserve, which sets interest rates, which is a key force in our economy, would actually be different.

SANCHEZ: I want to get your thoughts on Justice Alito sarcastically asking the solicitor general whether the "entire structure of government would fall if the court ruled in Trump's favor?" The response was that this guy would not fall from the solicitor general, the entire government will move toward accountability to the people. Your reaction?

BEDOYA: I have two kids. I have a retirement account. I want the folks in charge of keeping markets safe to be independent and non- partisan. My kids play with toys. I want those toys to be free of lead. I want the grocery stores to be giving me good prices and not just merging with whoever to raise prices even further knowing they have the president in their pocket. So I think there's a pretty good counterargument that if the Supreme Court sides with the solicitor general and sides with the president, we do have a pretty seriously bad situation on our hands. So I see it differently.

SANCHEZ: Alvaro Bedoya, thank you so much for the time.

BEDOYA: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Still to come this afternoon, Indiana Republicans threatening to block President Trump's mid-cycle redistricting efforts. And Republican voters who talk to CNN say they do not mind. We'll explain why. Plus, he's denounced Democrats for voicing concerns about troops being given unlawful orders. CNN though has uncovered a series of interviews in which Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth warns about that very possibility. And later, Charlotte's light rail system once again, the scene of a violent stabbing. Officials say the suspect in the latest incident was in the country illegally. That and much more, coming your way in just moments.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:13:28]

KEILAR: Happening now, Indiana State Senators are meeting in Indianapolis as they consider new congressional maps already approved by the State House. This is part of a nationwide push by Republicans to redraw districts in hopes of keeping the House majority in the 2026 midterm elections. President Trump has publicly pushed lawmakers to do this, and if this passes, the GOP could get a clean sweep of Indiana's nine House seats. But Republican Senate leaders in the state say they don't have the votes to pass new maps despite the party holding a super majority, 40-10.

With us now is Republican Indiana State House Representative, Andrew Ireland. Representative, thank you so much for being with us. First off, can you tell us why you support redistricting?

REP. ANDREW IRELAND, (R-IN): Yeah. So you know, at the end of the day, this is really a federal issue and it's a response to what's going on in other states. You look at states like California recently, but even before that, our own neighbor, Illinois, one of the most brutally gerrymandered states in the country. And it was done with the intention of taking Republicans off of the map. So, Indiana is stepping up and responding and saying that, we're going to play the game by the rules that Democrats have set, and that we're going to help level the national playing field by redistricting. That's exactly what we're doing now.

KEILAR: So, there are in the State House differing opinions among Republicans about whether this should go in the way that you think it should.

[14:15:00]

Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray is saying that there are not enough votes to pass the new maps, even though, obviously as I outlined, there is this Republican super majority. Do you think there's enough votes?

IRELAND: Well, I'll say that the House, we overwhelmingly supported it. We passed it with something like 80 percent of our caucus supporting it. I would be surprised, honestly, at the end of the day, if this gets to the floor on Thursday in the Indiana Senate that you don't see a majority of the caucus supporting it and pushing it over the finish line. I think you need 26. There are 40 Republicans in the Indiana Senate. My guess is we're going to get to 26.

KEILAR: Your Republican colleagues in the State Senate who at this point are not on board with redistricting, are facing threats of getting primaried from the president, from his allies. How are you seeing the pressure that they're getting?

IRELAND: Well, listen, I've certainly seen some of that. Certainly, there's been a lot of pressure from the other side too. I mean, at the end of the day, I think this is the right choice for Indiana. I hope my colleagues wake up to that too, as again, I think we have an opportunity here to help level the national playing field to make up for things that have been going on not just over this summer or this fall, but for many years now that have really disadvantaged Republicans. And I think we have an obligation to help level that national playing field. This is one tool to do it.

KEILAR: So I want to ask you, because a number of Republicans in the State House, who at this point are not behind redistricting, they're not just facing primary threats, right? They're facing actual threats as you're well aware. They've received violent threats, swatting, bomb threats at their homes and businesses. There's no evidence that traces these threats directly to posts or comments by Trump or anyone else. But certainly, the president hasn't done anything to tamp that down. He actually posted on social media attacking two lawmakers. One of them was the victim of a swatting attack hours later, in which someone called in a fake emergency report at a Target's address to induce the SWAT team response, which as can be incredibly dangerous.

And then Trump the next day lashed out at the other lawmaker that he had cited, who was the state -- the Senator Pro Tem. He also said he would endorse against anyone who ran afoul of him on this House. So when I -- ran afoul of him on this issue in the House or the Senate. So when I am saying that he's not tamping it down, I mean, this is specifically kind of what's happening. So I hear what you're saying. You're saying this is happening on both sides. That is not happening on both sides. How are you seeing this kind of threat against your Republican colleagues there in Indiana?

IRELAND: Let me say a couple of things. Well, one, I actually carried a bill this year as the House sponsor to help crack down on swatting and raise the penalties for it. Anybody in the state of Indiana that wants to do this, you deserve to spend a lot of time in jail. But I'll say you're wrong. And I think it's kind of ridiculous to frame it that way, that this is just on one side. The bill author in the House actually had threats against his family. The state party chair who supports redistricting had swatting incident. Another one of the Senators, Ron Alting, who also has come out in support of redistricting, had a swatting incident against him.

I mean, at the end of the day, this is political pressure regardless of where it's coming from. It's totally inappropriate, it's illegal, and those people belong in jail. But to insinuate that the president of the United States has any sort of responsibility for this, I think, is totally backwards.

KEILAR: Does the president of the United States have any responsibility to try to mitigate it? When you see swatting going on, happening just after he says something on social media about a lawmaker.

IRELAND: I mean, I guess again, the big piece of it there is law enforcement holding people accountable in the first place. To the extent that federal government can provide resources to do that, we will always welcome that. But the president calling out political opponents or advocating for a position is not the same thing as going and inciting swatting. And if that's what you're getting at, I think that's totally the wrong way to look at it.

KEILAR: No, that's not what I -- that's not what I said. But if someone, if a president were to politically target you and then you suffered one of these swatting incidents, would you hope that the rhetoric might be tamped down? Is that a reasonable thing to hope for or expect from the leader of the country? IRELAND: So again, I don't think you're seeing any rhetoric right now that it's leading individuals to do this. I mean, again, there are nutty people out throughout the world. And maybe these people are Indiana residents or they live elsewhere. But regardless of what their motives are, I don't think you can tie somebody's Truth Social post or their tweets to the bad illegal behavior by another person. Again, I think it's deplorable behavior. These people belong in jail, but I don't think the president is doing anything that he shouldn't be doing.

KEILAR: Republican State Senator Michael Bohacek announced he would not support this redistricting effort after President Trump called Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota, of course, a slur.

[14:20:00]

He called him the 'R' word. And Bohacek said in part, those of you that don't know me or my family might not know that my daughter has Down syndrome. This is not the first time our president has used these insulting and derogatory references, and his choices of words have consequences. I will be voting no on redistricting. Perhaps he can use the next 10 months to convince voters that his policies and behavior deserve a congressional majority. I'm interested in what you think of his rationale there because it is about something that's not related specifically to the policy. This is a colleague of yours in the State House. Have you had a conversation with the Senator? What do you think about his reason?

IRELAND: I haven't talked to the Senator about it. I couldn't, or frankly, the justification for others for voting yes or for voting no. At the end of the day, I believe this is a good policy for the state of Indiana. It's the right step forward, and it's something I support. And again, I hope my -- but honestly, I couldn't tell you what the justification is beyond that.

KEILAR: CNN talked about 50 Indiana voters who were on the ground last week and found that actually a lot of Republican voters, including those who have long histories of supporting Trump, they're not really animated by this issue of redistricting. And you are hearing this from some of your Republican colleagues, State Senator Jean Leising, but also other ones who say there's really only a tiny fraction of her constituents who are contacting them, who are supporting the new maps. Are your constituents telling you something similar? What are you hearing?

IRELAND: So, actually I think that there's a lot of polling that suggests that both Republicans and Democrats alike, the ones that are following the conversation, really do want redistricting what it favors their own party. But I think you're right that, at the end of the day, there's not a lot of people that are very invested in this conversation one way or another. I mean, there are other bigger issues going on both at the State House and the federal level that people really care about.

But this really does fit into that puzzle too. And as I see it, I mean, if you support the president, you support the America First agenda, this helps ensure that you have a fair chance of winning a majority next year in the midterm elections. And so, that really does play a key part in that too. But I will say that, as far as the kind of contact I'm getting, I actually think the majority of it has been supportive. I've been pretty vocal about this issue for a while now. And I will say that the people that live here on the south side of Indianapolis, where I do, they're supportive of those.

KEILAR: Yeah. I will just note, just so our viewers are aware, because they may not be tracking politics there in Indiana super closely. Friday before the House vote, there was a Turning Point USA rally for redistricting that featured Governor Braun. It drew only about a hundred attendees, which was significantly smaller, than huge crowds at the Capitol opposing new maps. But I hear you and we're going to see what happens. Obviously, this is a big week there in Indiana. Indiana State Rep. Andrew Ireland, thank you so much for being with us.

IRELAND: Thank you.

KEILAR: And still ahead, Alina Habba saying she's stepping down from her role as New Jersey's top prosecutor. What could her resignation, mean? Could it be temporary? Plus, President Trump is seizing on a second stabbing on Charlotte's light rail as proof his immigration crackdown is needed. What we're learning about the suspect's status, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:28:01]

KEILAR: We're following some Breaking News out of the Justice Department. Alina Habba, President Trump's former personal lawyer, has resigned as New Jersey's Acting U.S. Attorney. This is following an appellate court's ruling that found she was serving her -- in her position unlawfully. Let's go to CNN's Kara Scannell. Kara, tell us what you're learning about this.

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Brianna, we do have a statement from Alina Habba announcing her resignation, and she said she was doing it to protect the stability and integrity of the office. But she said to be clear, it is not a surrender. So she's hoping that she can be reinstalled in this position in the future. Yesterday, CNN caught up with Alina Habba at the Kennedy Center Honors, and our Producer, Casey Gannon, asked her about the Third Circuit's decision, upholding the lower court's one, saying she was serving unlawfully and Habba acknowledged it was problematic. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALINA HABBA, FORMER ACTING U.S. ATTORNEY FOR NEW JERSEY: I'm making an announcement soon. I think, obviously, it's a big problem what we have going on and it's a problem for all sides and for all -- all sides of the coin and for justice. And we'll keep fighting. We'll keep fighting. We'll keep pushing, whatever we have to do.

(END VIDEO CLIP) SCANNELL: Now, the Attorney General, Pam Bondi issued a statement as well. She said that the Department of Justice will seek further review of this decision and we are confident it will be reversed. Alina intends to return to lead the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey if this occurs. And so far, the Justice Department has not appealed the Third Circuit's decision or have they asked it to go on bunk. We're waiting to see what steps they might take there. But Habba was the first of Trump's U.S. attorneys to be challenged.

It's this process that they have used that these judges have found would allow the Department of Justice to install anyone they want without Senate confirmation indefinitely. And that was the key thrust in a lot of these decisions. It wasn't -- Habba was the first, but she wasn't the last. Also found to be serving unlawfully are the U.S. attorneys for Nevada, for the Central District of California, and the Eastern District of New York, Lindsey Halligan. In that case, those two indictments against former FBI Director, James Comey and the New York Attorney General, Letitia James, were thrown out. But the impact of this --