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Trump's Controversial Picks Face Battle for Senate Confirmation; MTG Tapped to Head 'DOGE' Oversight Committee; Storms, Rain, Snow May Impact Thanksgiving Travel. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired November 25, 2024 - 06:00   ET

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

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: It's Monday, November 25. Right now on CNN THIS MORNING.

[05:57:32]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MARKWAYNE MULLIN (R-OK): He wasn't charged. He wasn't even kind of charged in this. There was no crime committed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: The path to confirmation. Republicans bracing for a bumpy road to confirm some of Donald Trump's controversial cabinet picks.

And --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): This is important work we have to do. It's going to be very tedious. And I look forward to doing it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: DOGE takes shape. Elon Musk gets a new teammate in Congress to help him cut government spending.

And --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUSSELL VOUGHT, PROJECT 2025 CO-AUTHOR: I want to be the person that crushes the deep state.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Reversing course. After distancing himself from the conservative blueprint, Trump taps a Project 2025 architect to head up his budget office.

And then --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I want to take a moment to recognize the brave Turkeys who weren't so lucky, who didn't get to ride the gravy train to freedom.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Lucky Turkeys. The decades-old and, honestly, very strange tradition to save a few fortunate Turkeys from the fate of the Thanksgiving day feast.

All right, 6 a.m. here on the East Coast. A live look at Capitol Hill, where people are taking a break beginning this week, just for a little holiday time.

Good morning, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us on this Monday as we head into the Thanksgiving week.

Donald Trump's vision for his second-term cabinet. We now understand it in full. The once and future president's personnel choices revealing a stark contrast with his first administration.

So, among Trump's picks this time: an independent with the last name Kennedy, who supports abortion rights; more than one former Democratic presidential contender; a centrist Republican who is favored by the Teamsters union; a man who fundraised for Al Gore and advised George Soros.

And then, of course, there are quite a few MAGA loyalists and FOX News favorites.

It all adds up to a cabinet that is united not by dogma, but by loyalty to Trump and his vision.

Over the weekend, Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei writing this in Axios: quote, "Lost in the noise of Trump's most controversial picks is the simple undebatable fact that this might be the most ideologically diverse cabinet of modern times. The team represents the Trump worldview: traditional conservatism is dead -- and its biggest, lifelong advocates neutered to the point of irrelevance. A Trump transition source told us that most of the picks are a version of Trump in their thinking and approach: 'They're fearless disrupters who can walk into these buildings and know they have a mandate for reform and change.'"

A mandate for reform if, of course, they can land the job. Trump has suffered at least one defeat on that front so far. Matt Gaetz withdrawing his name from consideration for attorney general just eight days after it had been announced.

And of course, getting Trump's other controversial picks -- Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard, RFK Jr. -- approved by the Senate could pose the first great test for just how far a Congress dominated by Republicans will let Trump go.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. ERIC SCHMITT (R-MO): I think ultimately, this is a decision that President Trump made to bring in another disrupter. And I think, if you look at this election, it was disrupter versus establishment. He ran on this.

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN): In the end, it is the Republicans that are going to have to make a decision if these people are qualified for these jobs. They have the votes.

MULLIN: The president has done this job before. He knows exactly what he needs. He knows who he wants to put in those positions.

SEN. BILL HAGERTY (R-TN): He wants us to have these hearings done quickly and expeditiously. I've said, I'm more than happy to work through the weekends as long as it takes to get this done.

SEN. TAMMY DUCKWORTH (D-IL): From what I'm hearing from my Republican colleagues on everything from defense secretary to other posts, it sounds like they are ready to roll over for Mr. Trump.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: All right. Our panel is here to discuss: Isaac Dovere, CNN senior reporter; Lulu Garcia-Navarro, CNN contributor and "New York Times" journalist; Meghan Hays, the former director of message planning at the Biden White House; and Matt Gorman, Republican strategist and former adviser to Tim Scott's presidential campaign.

Welcome to all of you. Thank you so much for being here.

So, Matt, we focused so much on, you know, obviously, there are personal issues for a number of Donald Trump's nominees. Matt Gaetz, of course, withdrew in no small part over them.

But some of these, the ideological diversity on display, not something that a lot of the Republicans in the Senate are going to be used to voting for. I mean, the abortion rights question with Kennedy, the union questions for the labor secretary pick. He's asking for a lot.

MATT GORMAN, FORMER ADVISOR TO TIM SCOTT'S PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN: You know, as you're reading the Axios snippet, I thought about the fact that, look, this was an ideologically diverse coalition that enabled Trump to win. It was the Teamsters, in a lot of respects, speaking at the Republican convention. You had a working-class vote. Obviously, some of the Kennedy vote, you had go to Trump.

So, in a -- in a large part, this is a makeup of the voting coalition for Trump that propelled him to win.

And you're right. There's some murmuring on the right about Lori Chavez-DeRemer and her ties to kind of unions, close ties to unions.

But also, you're seeing a little bit of grumbling about Kennedy. And I think, you know, it seems that Pete Hegseth, Gabbard, and Kennedy are among the trio that will have kind of the toughest confirmation fight. My money right now could be on Kennedy having the toughest, simply because you're getting it from the right, with the abortion or the pro-life advocates; and you're also having kind of pharma, food processors. There's a lot of kind of --

HUNT: Industry, shall we say.

GORMAN: Industries. Yes, that could come in and oppose him.

HUNT: Yes. I mean, it's interesting, Meghan. I mean, we've -- we've quoted a GOP aide here at CNN in our reporting who said that Tulsi Gabbard actually may have the toughest confirmation fight.

Others that on this program have noted that, if something is going to protect RFK Jr., it is his connection with voters. Right? And like his Kennedy name. And the fact that he has sort of popularity and is well known in a way that some of these others aren't.

MEGHAN HAYS, FORMER DIRECTOR OF MESSAGE PLANNING AT THE BIDEN WHITE HOUSE: Yes, I think so. And also, some of the stuff that he wants to do with some of the food processing.

And some of those arguments, I think a lot of people would agree with, you know, why does the U.K. have three ingredients when we have 14 ingredients in our food and --

HUNT: It's a fair question.

HAYS: A hundred percent. And so, I think that some people might agree with there.

And I also think his -- his -- his anti -- or his pro-choice stance -- I'm sorry -- is, you know, is favorable to Democrats. There's a lot of things.

I actually think Tulsi Gabbard is going to have the hardest thing I just think there is way too much out there. The intelligence community is extremely tight and extremely tight knit, and I just think that some of her actions in the past and some of the reporting, I think, is going to trip her up.

HUNT: I mean, national security is the one place where, I mean, you know, I covered the whole Trump administration from Capitol Hill. That was one of the few places where you would see them actually kind of push back.

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I think. Tulsi Gabbard, I agree, is going to have the hardest confirmation fight. There is just a long history there of her cozying up to America's enemies and not just like, oh, are they our enemies today? Or are they not?

But like, actually people who are bad, you know, by every single estimation.

HUNT: Bashar al-Assad? GARCIA-NAVARRO: Like Bashar al-Assad, who massacred his own people and others, you know. And I think there's going to be other issues that are going to drop.

So, you know, I -- I think she's going to really, really fight to get confirmed.

HUNT: What kind of position, Isaac, is this going to put Democrats in? I mean, so this -- it's not just Axios. It's kind of writing the story. Our friend of the show, David Sanger, wrote this news analysis that's out this morning in "The New York Times": "Diversity of ideology and opinion is usually seen as a strength, not a defect, of presidential cabinets. If there is a surprise about Mr. Trump's choices in recent days, it is the range of experiences and worldviews that in some cases lie just beneath the veneer of recently declared Make America Great Again loyalty and loyalty to Mr. Trump himself. It's hard to imagine a few of his picks sitting comfortably at a Trump rally. 'There is more ideological diversity here than I expected,' Michael Beschloss, a presidential historian, noted on Saturday. 'And if you look at this group in the context of history, there's some potential here for arguments and debates.' Beschloss continued, 'If those debates are allowed to unfold in a civilized and open manner, history shows that such conflict has sometimes led to policies that worked.'"

[06:05:19]

And there were some statements out over the weekend, for example, from unions, basically praising Trump's labor secretary pick.

ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Yes. And look, I think you're right that, with Robert Kennedy, we are likely to see at least a couple of Senate Democrats lean toward voting for him for confirmation, if not actually vote for him.

HUNT: Right, for RFK.

DOVERE: Yes.

HUNT: Who are we looking at?

HAYS: You can see (ph).

DOVERE: You can see, for example, Cory Booker, who is a -- as devoted a Democrat as there is, has said things that are in line with what Kennedy has said about what's going on with foods and the ingredients in foods.

So, maybe. We'll see. I'm certainly not predicting that Booker will vote for him, but I think that there is some room there.

The question here, I think, going forward is we can talk about the ideological diversity. Often, the word "loyalty" is used to describe the relationship to Trump. It was in Sangers article.

I think more what you see in practice is from Trump an interest in obedience right? And in not -- he is not very loyal to people. He expects people to be loyal to him. And that is the question here with the Senate confirmations.

Will the Republican Senate actually buck his choices? And then, when it comes to governing, will these secretaries, whoever gets confirmed -- I assume most of them will be confirmed, if not all of them -- will they be obedient to him? Will he care what they're doing?

Will he take an approach similar to what he did in his first term of running the White House and not being that interested in what's going on in each of these departments?

But no matter what, every president, at least in the last 20 years, we have this conversation about what are the cabinet -- what's the cabinet going to do? And then they don't do much in terms of shaping what the administration --

HUNT: We forget who was chosen and put there.

DOVERE: It's not like we had these, like, robust meetings during Joe Biden's cabinet -- robust discussions during Joe Biden's cabinet meetings of what the administration was going to do. Or in Donald Trump's first term, or in Barack Obama's term, or -- it's just --

HUNT: Well, but individuals tend to --

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Well, actually, what I think is going to really shape this moment is what they're not going to do.

I mean, I think what Trump is coming in and promising is to dismantle the government in the way that we understand it. And so, a lot of these picks are coming in with the mandate not to reform and change, but to kind of destroy.

And I mean that, you know, in a kind of -- you can look at it as the phoenix rising from destruction. Or you can look at it as destroying in the sense of what -- the system of government as we understand it.

But either way, that is what they're coming in, and that's what the Project 2025 pick. And et cetera, et cetera.

DOVERE: And that's, I think -- that's right. With -- with Vought in at the Office of Management and Budget. But that's one of these offices that nobody knows what it is, except if you're in the government. You know exactly what it is.

HUNT: Right. And you know how powerful it is.

DOVERE: And you know how -- just how powerful it is and him there, a very clear ideology of what he wants to do, very clear direction. Whether it's with project 2012 or 2025 or anything else. That is something that will shape what this government is looking like.

HAYS: And to your point there, it's also the people who are right underneath. The assistant secretary, the deputy secretaries that are right underneath, that are going to be these Project 2025 ideologues, that are going to do exactly what Trump wants.

So, these -- the figureheads of the secretaries, where they are qualified and diverse, it's not really them. It's going to be the next picks down and the picks after that.

GORMAN: Well, to be fair also, like we talk about doing exactly what Trump wants. It's a negative. The man was elected. Like he was the one person -- I'm not saying yet -- who faced the voters. So, like obedience or whatever we call it.

Like, they should implement his vision. That's the job of the cabinet secretaries and everybody who's appointed by him to his government to usher in his vision.

And I think --

GARCIA-NAVARRO: There's a difference here, though. I mean, what the vision is of the GOP now is to really kind of have an imperial presidency.

It is very different than the kind of system that we've had where there is a Justice Department that is independent; where there is, you know, the -- under each sort of department has a certain latitude to implement laws as they see fit. And that is fundamentally going to change under Trump.

GORMAN: I don't think anyone is saying that, all of a sudden, people are going to stop [SIC] disregarding laws. I think they're going to implement his vision and way to kind of implement his vision for the country and his policies.

DOVERE: But you do see, when it comes to the Justice Department, that Trump, when he was president, the first time, he would often talk about how he felt the attorney general should act sort of as his lawyer.

But that is not the job of the attorney general of the United States. The job is to be the lawyer of the federal government. And that is something that has frustrated a lot of previous presidents about their relationship to their A.G.'s.

I don't think that, when Trump was picking Matt Gaetz or Pam Bondi as the replacement, what he was looking for was an independent approach to federal prosecution.

HUNT: Well, certainly, you know. I take your point, Matt, that there is a balance here, right? He did get elected president of the United States.

[06:10:04]

But also, we are seeing him promise to do things that, if actually implemented in the way he says, would be an unprecedented situation for the government. Now, maybe that's what Americans voted for.

All right. Still to come here on CNN THIS MORNING, a new budget- cutting buddy for Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. Marjorie Taylor Greene warning some cities and states that she might try to pull their federal funding.

Plus, Trump disavowed Project 2025 on the campaign trail. Now he's tapped one of the coauthors to oversee the budget.

And Republicans trying to block the first transgender person elected to Congress from using the women's bathroom. We're going to discuss with Democratic congresswoman Debbie Dingell.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP-ELECT SARAH MCBRIDGE (D-DE): I didn't run for the United States House of Representatives to talk about what bathroom I use. I didn't run to talk about myself. I ran to deliver for Delawareans.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:15:32]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wouldn't it be great to be a Democrat, where you don't have to worry about overspending and borders and crime? You just do whatever you want to do and -- and blame it on the Republicans at the end of the day.

I think this is the best thing that President Trump has done to this point, of putting these two in charge of going after fraud and overspending and oversight.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Republicans already applauding Donald Trump for creating the so- called Department of Government Efficiency before he takes office, also known as DOGE.

The department's stated goal is to cut government waste. The president-elect naming Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to oversee it.

And there will be a new congressional oversight subcommittee set to work with DOGE, led by Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GREENE: I'd like to talk to the governors of sanctuary states and the mayors of sanctuary cities and have them come before our committee and explain why they deserve federal dollars, if they're going to harbor illegal criminal aliens in their states and their cities.

We're going to look at every single aspect, and we don't care about people's feelings.

(END VIDEO CLIP) HUNT: "We don't care about people's feelings," she says.

Matt, I mean, this is going to be obviously -- like, this -- this is a crew that's designed to generate headlines, these three. Right?

GORMAN: Yes. Right. Yes. It is. And look, I think that you did a good segment with Margaret earlier in the show, where some of this stuff is going to be very, very simple, where you're going to be going to be going back to work five days a week, if you're a federal employee.

Some of the stuff, I think you'll hear strains of things that Republicans have talked about for a long time.

I remember when I was working for Jeb Bush, he wanted to move some of the departments, you know -- put some more back into the states, like, for example, the Interior Department, more based out in, say, Colorado and out in the plains states.

So, I think you're going to hear some of that. And I think you're going to be also hearing some -- what's interesting is the fact that it's not just purely based on dollars, right? Its efficiency.

How can you make government literally work better? And I'm interested to see what they come up with.

HUNT: OK. So, here's a question. Do you think Twitter works better since Elon Musk took it over? And basically, I mean, if we have an example of, like, how he --

GORMAN: Yes.

HUNT: -- takes an entity that he didn't build himself.

GORMAN: Yes.

HUNT: Because he built SpaceX and Tesla himself, right? Twitter, somebody else built it. He bought it. And then he tried to dismantle it, basically. Or, like, dismantle pieces of it. Like, did it work? And does that give us any lessons for what he's going to do with the government?

GORMAN: Look, I think it's actually -- it's -- the Twitter vision is fundamentally changed. It's gone from a microblogging site to you're going to see where its largely video first, in a lot of respects. You're going to see a lot more incorporation of video in the -- in the future also.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: It's bad. It's bad. Let's -- I mean --

GORMA: Well, that's -- that's -- I completely disagree with you. I totally disagree.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: I mean, it's bad. It doesn't work well. It's glitchy. It's also like -- I mean, I -- can I just say something?

I don't want to talk about Twitter, which is now X, because Twitter is not the government. And the fact is that, you know, the reason the government is there is to work for people.

And two unelected billionaires are going in -- And actually, I will say that Vivek Ramaswamy is not a billionaire. He apparently is not quite there yet. But very, very rich.

HUNT: There does seem to be some dispute on the Internet about that. We were trying to sort through that the other day.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Right. However -- questionable, his finances. We don't know exactly how rich he is, but he's very rich.

And these two people are empowered to go in and actually take away people's jobs and cut the government. What? But what -- what? And let me just ask you.

GORMAN: Yes. Sounds good to me.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: But what exactly are their qualifications for this? I just don't understand it.

GORMAN: Elon Musk, I think he's pretty good at building things. He's pretty good at creating things. I mean, we've -- we've seen on this show and others, that guy can land rockets literally with chopsticks closing it.

The guy's reputation --

GARCIA-NAVARRO: He isn't doing that.

GORMAN: Oh, I'm sorry. He's not the one on the with the hammer and the nails. You're absolutely right, Lulu. It's his vision that created the whole thing.

HAYS: I also think, though, when you start to go into these agencies, people are going to realize it's not the personnel that's costing money. It's a lot of different programs. And maybe they could run more efficiently. So, I'm all for taking a look at them.

I just think some of the things they want to dismantle are going to really be impactful to people out in the states like, you know, the Department of Education. You need programs for special needs children that the federal dollars --

GARCIA-NAVARRO: My daughter's dyslexic.

HAYS: Exactly.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: So, they run the IEP system. They run a lot of things.

HAYS: A lot of programs that are going to -- people are -- I think, are really going to be shocked that the federal government isn't running them and giving dollars into the state.

So, I think that we'll -- it will be interesting to see how this works. But I think they will be shocked to see how much -- little money is actually spent on personnel that they want to cut. HUNT: All right. Coming up here on CNN THIS MORNING, at least 2,000

families left homeless in the Philippines after a devastating fire in a coastal area along the edge of Manila. We'll show you that.

And President-elect Trump picks a key architect of Project 2025 to head up the Office of Management and Budget.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [06:24:27]

HUNT: All right, 23 minutes past the hour. Five things you have to see this morning.

A massive fire burning through a shantytown in the Philippines. It broke out in Manila Sunday morning. Took about six hours to get under control. The number of casualties remains unknown. The cause, under investigation.

Take a look at police body-cam footage of this dramatic police confrontation. A man in Florida ramming his car into everything in sight, determined to elude officers.

According to WSVN, he was wanted for stalking and other offenses. Ultimately, the suspect was arrested.

[06:25:02]

A Russian plane carrying 95 people bursting into flames after landing at Antalya Airport in Turkey on Sunday. Every passenger and crew member -- wow -- was safely evacuated. Good.

The cause of the fire, still under investigation.

The longest active winning streak in women's college basketball is over, UCLA knocking off South Carolina, 75 to 62, Sunday night, ending the Gamecocks' 43-game winning streak.

They hadn't lost a game since the Final Four back in April of 2023.

At least five people have died in the U.K. in the wake of Storm Bert. The system sweeping across the country with melting snow and heavy rain, causing extensive flooding in parts of England and Wales, forcing water rescues across the country -- across the region.

All right. Speaking of weather, storms could impact those heading home for the holidays this week. From winter alerts in the West this morning to rain forecast for the Macy's Day Thanksgiving parade on Thursday.

Let's get straight to our meteorologist, our weatherman, Derek van Dam.

Derek, good morning.

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, about 80 million Americans traveling this week, seeing their family, their friends, their loved ones. Maybe you're hitting the airways.

OK, we've got the potential for some minor delays across the airports here, from Chicago to Detroit and Minneapolis. That's for today.

Moderate weather-related delays along the West Coast, especially near the state of California. But I want you to notice, as we advance into Tuesday, how that weather kind of moves inland.

So, places like Denver to Salt Lake City, some of those transfer hubs could have some weather-related delays, as well.

There is a cold front that will sweep through along the Eastern Seaboard; could bring some delays from Atlanta through to New York City, as well.

Now, it's not just Americans hitting the airports, but it's also Americans hitting the roadways. We've got about 90 percent of us traveling on the roads, and right now we could have some snowfall that impacts the roadways across the Northern portions of the Great Lakes.

But again, I highlight the West Coast, because this is an area that's been battered by storm after storm.

So, this is the storm system that's going to move Eastward today. This is going to bring rainfall overnight and into Tuesday morning along the Eastern Seaboard.

And then we focus our attention on the bigger storm that will impact travel for Thanksgiving and the day after. And I want you to take note of the cold weather that will settle in behind it. Yes, this is going to be a big wake-up call. Winter is coming back with a vengeance.

Temperatures drop like a rock behind this cold front as we head into the weekend, so enjoy the warmth while you can -- Kasie.

HUNT: Yes, I'm watching this, and I'm thinking about texting my husband: Well, we should probably get our Christmas tree on Friday and not Saturday, because it's going to be really cold on Saturday.

VAN DAM: That is good, good advice.

HUNT: Derek, thank you.

VAN DAM: I'll be in that camp chair. All right.

HUNT: I really appreciate it. I'll see you tomorrow.

All right. Ahead here on CNN THIS MORNING, culture wars come to Capitol Hill. Congresswoman Debbie Dingell joins us live with her perspective on the fight over transgender rights.

Plus, one of the architects of Project 2025 gets a top job in the new administration.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: Every single thing they say, it's the opposite: "Project 2025, Trump loves it. He loves it. He loves." They just say it. I've totally disavowed it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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