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RFK Jr. Meets With Senators Ahead Of Confirmation Battle; Trump Looks To Keep Coalition Impact As Inauguration Day Nears; Luigi Mangione Hires High-Profile NY Defense Attorney. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired December 17, 2024 - 05:30   ET

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

[05:30:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: Do you believe there's a connection between vaccines and autism?

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT-ELECT: Uh, well --

REPORTER: Do you believe there's a link?

TRUMP: Well, I don't -- look, I -- right now you have some very brilliant people looking at it. I think everything should be looked at. You're not going to lose the polio vaccine. That's not going to happen.

REPORTER: Do you think schools should mandate vaccines?

TRUMP: I don't like mandates. I'm not a big mandate person.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Julia Manchester, national political reporter, joining us now to talk more about this. Julia, good morning.

JULIA MANCHESTER, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, THE HILL: Good morning, Kasie.

HUNT: Thank you so much for being here.

So Trump also said a little bit more about RFK Jr. and whether or not he is radical, or extreme, or too much so for this job.

MANCHESTER: Um-hum.

HUNT: Here's what Donald Trump said, and we'll talk about it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: What do you say to people who are worried that his views on vaccines will translate into policies that will make their kids less safe? TRUMP: No. I think he's going to be much less radical than you think. I think he's got a very open mind, or I wouldn't have put him there. He's going to be very much less radical. But there are problems. I mean, we don't do as well as a lot of other nations and those nations use nothing. And we're going to find out what those problems are.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: So, Julia, how is RFK's attempts to say to these senators that he's not as radical as some people think playing so far?

MANCHESTER: Well look, compared to someone like Tulsi Gabbard or even Pete Hegseth maybe a few weeks ago I don't think it's as dire for RFK Jr. That being said though, I think there are a lot of senators -- particularly someone like Mitch McConnell, a polio survivor himself -- who have a lot of questions about RFK Jr. going forward. I think for the most part Republicans are relatively more united around him. But look, he can only afford to lose, what, three to four votes, so he's got to be careful going forward.

But I think it's more than just this question of vaccines and there's a lot of questions as to how a lot of his policies -- for example, on limiting GMOs in food, for example, and getting additives out of food. How would that influence, for example, the agriculture sector? It seems that Sen. Chuck Grassley from Iowa has a lot of questions --

HUNT: Aha.

MANCHESTER: -- on that.

So a number of things to keep an eye on with him.

HUNT: Yeah. Well, so the food question -- I mean, there's a couple of different things and areas going on as well with his nomination. Concerns on the right about abortion. But let's start with a potential crossover appeal on some of these food issues.

There are people like Sen. Cory Booker who have made some noises about hey, maybe this is actually the right thing to do. Maybe we should have guidelines that are more similar to the Europeans about food dyes, for example.

Is there crossover? I mean, and I also don't think that we should forget that RFK Jr. is part of a storied American --

MANCHESTER: Yeah.

HUNT: -- Democratic political dynasty.

MANCHESTER: Yeah. Look, I think you could potentially see some weird coalitions or what we would say are weird or different coalitions forming around RFK Jr., particularly on this -- you know, the topic of food.

When it comes to SNAP benefits, for example, there have been lots of calls from Democrats to get a lot of these food programs for lower income individuals to feature more healthy foods. And I think Democrats see an opportunity for someone like RFK Jr. there.

You know, when it comes to abortion, for example, that's a question that a lot of Republicans have about RFK Jr. Remember, he may be a populist. There may be this horseshoe where you see the left and the right populists sort of coming together and RFK Jr.'s emblematic of that.

That being said though, I think you have Republicans and Democrats who have their own individual different questions about RFK Jr. and he's going to have to overcome that on Capitol Hill this week.

HUNT: Well, and abortion in particular. I mean, the HHS secretary does actually have a lot of authority --

MANCHESTER: Um-hum.

HUNT: -- over places that certainly the anti-abortion movement is very focused on.

Have you heard much about how aggressively they may push him on that?

MANCHESTER: I think it could be aggressive. Look, one thing that helps Republicans, at least rhetorically, is they say look, the issue of abortion has been punted back to the states with the overturning of Roe versus Wade. That being said though, when it comes to abortion pills and those pills being delivered -- how they cross state lines, et cetera -- there are a lot of questions as to how HHS could impact that.

So you could see that question from not only Republicans but also Democrats. That's going to put RFK Jr. in a very interesting, peculiar situation given that he, himself, is more so liberal on the issue. But he's working for an administration that has had a pretty big impact in at least the federal level sort of pushing back that abortion access.

HUNT: All right, Julia Manchester. Thanks for being here this morning.

MANCHESTER: Thanks, Kasie.

HUNT: I appreciate it.

MANCHESTER: Yeah.

HUNT: All right, let's turn to this. As the president-elect prepares for the fight to have his nominees confirmed in the Senate congressional Republicans are leaning on what they call his mandate from the presidential election.

But our next guest, Ron Brownstein, argues that mandate may only go so far with some of the more reluctant voters who cast their ballot for Trump based on the economy.

Brownstein writes this. "Above all, the key to Trump's success among these divided voters was their discontent over the economy, and their belief that Trump would improve their financial situation. [05:35:00]

Molly Murphy, a lead pollster for Harris, told me she believed voters who thought Trump would improve conditions on the issue they cared the most about -- usually inflation, but also in some cases reinforced by immigration or crime -- minimized any of these other personal or policy concerns about him. 'If they thought that Trump was going to be better on their primary concern they either forgave the other concerns or convinced themselves that' the elements of the Trump agenda they disliked 'just won't happen.'"

And Ron Brownstein joins us now with more on this. Ron, good morning, always good to see you.

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST, SENIOR EDITOR, THE ATLANTIC (via Webex by Cisco): Good morning.

HUNT: So, of course, Donald Trump is leaning into the mandate that he says he has pretty aggressively. And I want to play a little bit of the press conference that he held yesterday because you can kind of see how this mandate that he seems to feel his has is playing into his thinking where he says everybody wants to be my friend. Take a look.

BROWNSTEIN: Yeah.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I did have dinner with Tim Cook. I had dinner with, sort of, almost all of them, and the rest are coming. And this is one of the big differences I think between -- we were talking about it before -- one of the big differences between the first term. In the first term everybody was fighting me. In this term everybody wants to be my friend.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: So Ron, how long do you think that's going to last?

BROWNSTEIN: Yeah. Look, there's no question Donald Trump goes into office the second time in a much stronger position than he did the first time.

I mean, it's easy to forget that the leaders of the Republican Party in Congress when he first entered were Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, both of whom were skeptical of him. The Supreme Court that was much more narrowly divided. A business community that was much more leery about being associated with him.

In all those ways his position is obviously much stronger. And in some -- to some extent, rooted in the fact that this time he did win the popular vote.

But I think what's very clear from looking at both the exit polls and the AP VoteCast, which are two principal surveys of what voters did on Election Day and why, Trump again won because he won support from a significant minority of voters -- a significant slice of voters who held -- still held reservations about him, whether personally or his agenda, but voted for him anyway because they thought he'd be better on the issue they cared most about, as Molly Murphy said, usually the economy.

And I think, Kasie, that frames the dynamic going forward. If Trump can deliver what those voters hired him to do, which is a more stable economic situation, they may continue to look past a lot of other things that they're less enthusiastic about. But if he doesn't -- and as you know, there are a lot of economists who think his agenda is more likely to rekindle than suppress inflation -- and if he doesn't, there's plenty of doubt even among people who voted for him that could quickly come back to the surface.

HUNT: Yeah. And Ron, you talked to Whit Ayres who -- you know, I'm sure you've known him for a long time. He's been on the scene for quite some time -- a really smart guy.

He told you this. He agreed that "if Trump overreads his mandate, he could quickly strain his support among the voters ambivalent about him, including not only the racial minorities he drew into his coalition but white-collar Republicans who reluctantly backed him because they viewed Biden and Harris as too liberal.

If Trump provides his most controversial nominees, such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services and Kash Patel as the FBI -- a blank check to pursue polarizing agendas -- Ayres said, 'we are going to be looking at Joe Biden level-job approval numbers before we turn around' for Trump."

BROWNSTEIN: Yeah.

HUNT: Say a little bit more about this.

BROWNSTEIN: Yeah. Well look, I mean, as I said, Trump was hired above all because voters who were uneasy about the economy, I think, looked past other doubts about him. We've talked about it before. Voters who were pro-choice but negative on the economy -- there were a lot of them -- 36 percent of the entire electorate. They split almost exactly 50-50, which meant Trump won a lot more pro-choice voters than Democrats did -- Republicans did in 2022.

If you look at voters who said that he was too extreme, one-third of them still voted for him if they also said they were worse off than they were four years ago.

So you can see how the doubts about Trump have not been extinguished within the electorate. It's not like all of the accusations that the Harris campaign leveled against him failed to land; it's that for voters at this moment the economy overshadowed all of that.

Trump -- viewing his position -- his win as a clear mandate -- you know, an historic mandate -- the fact that he has less guardrails, that may not be an unmitigated blessing for him because he -- it will allow him to move in all likelihood more aggressively in directions that are still very fraught for him. The January 6 pardons, questioning childhood vaccines, rolling back access to the ACA, block granting Medicaid.

[05:40:13]

I mean, there's a lot of things on his to-do list that will face pushback from the electorate as they forward, particularly, as I said, if he cannot make progress on the biggest issue he was hired to deal with which is getting people's cost of living more under control. Tariffs, mass deportations, big tax cuts -- most economists think that's more of a recipe for fueling than stifling inflation.

HUNT: Yeah, there's a lot -- there's a lot on the table. And while, of course, the president-elect is acting as though he is already the president, he, of course, isn't yet.

BROWNSTEIN: Yeah.

HUNT: So we haven't started to feel some of these things are real that you outlined there.

Ron Brownstein, always grateful to have you on the program, sir. Thanks so much for being here.

BROWNSTEIN: Thanks for having me.

HUNT: All right. Still ahead here on CNN THIS MORNING a potential preview of Luigi Mangione's defense. What the lawyer for the suspected CEO killer could argue in court.

Plus, the Falcons stay alive. A Monday night doubleheader. That's next in CNN sports.

(COMMERCIAL)

[05:45:40]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: It was cold-blooded. Just a cold-blooded, horrible killing. And how people can like this guy is -- that's a sickness, actually. That's really very bad, especially the way it was done. It was so bad. Right in the back.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: President-elect Donald Trump blasting social media support for the suspected UnitedHealthcare CEO shooter. Luigi Mangione remains in a Pennsylvania state prison and has been fighting extradition to New York.

Top New York attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo, a former Manhattan prosecutor, is representing Mangione and he is facing a possible 15 years to life in prison if convicted of second-degree murder.

Agnifilo, a former legal analyst right here at CNN, saying before she was hired that he could have a clear defense strategy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAREN FRIEDMAN AGNIFILO, LUIGI MANGIONE'S ATTORNEY: It looks to me like this -- there might be a not guilty by reason of insanity defense that they're going to be thinking about because the evidence is going to be so overwhelming that he did what he did. And I hear what you're saying about being radicalized. I hear what you guys are saying.

But as a former prosecutor in that office I would be concerned that you have someone who was the valedictorian of his class. He was brilliant his whole life. He comes from this great family. I mean, something changed, right? Significantly something changed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Joining us now, Dave Aronberg, state attorney in Palm Beach County, Florida. Dave, wonderful to have you on the show. Thank you for being here.

DAVE ARONBERG, STATE ATTORNEY, PALM BEACH COUNTY, FLORIDA: Great being with you.

HUNT: You and I have spoken many times from far away from each other but it's really nice to see you in person.

Let's talk a little bit about this defense that Karen floated that before, of course, she ended up taking on Mangione as her client.

But do you agree with her? It is plausible that he could mount a defense by reason of insanity.

ARONBERG: Kasie, it's good to be with you in person.

I think insanity is going to be very difficult. You have to show you had an established medical condition and did not know the difference between right and wrong. Well, he wore a mask to hide his identity. It shows you he knew what he was doing was wrong. And then he fled. And he had fake IDs. He tried to hide out. That shows you he knew what he was doing was wrong and illegal.

So I think that's going to be a hard defense.

A better one would be manslaughter --

HUNT: OK.

ARONBERG: -- using extreme emotional disturbance -- saying that was his mindset -- as opposed to murder. So I don't think they can get him an acquittal, but I do think they can get him a lesser conviction.

HUNT: So dig in a little bit more to this -- the insanity defense. You have to -- you have to not understand the implications of your actions, basically? I mean, where does that come from in the law?

ARONBERG: The law is established that you just can't know the difference between right and wrong. So if the Martians told him to do it and then when the cops showed up he hugged them, that would tell you he didn't know what he was doing was wrong -- was illegal.

But when you have meticulous planning for a crime -- when you wear a mask to hide your identity --

HUNT: Um-hum.

ARONBERG: -- when you flee and have fake IDs, that shows you that you knew the implications of your actions. You knew that it was illegal, it was wrong. And that's why I think it's going to be very hard to have an insanity defense.

HUNT: OK.

ARONBERG: I think you could also perhaps get jury nullification, which is where the jury hears the evidence and the law and disregards both because they feel sympathy for him. And we see the public -- at least some segments of the public supporting this guy. So that's always a possibility. That's a prosecutor's greatest nightmare.

HUNT: So under those circumstances if you are defending Luigi Mangione it sounds to me like you're saying there are a couple of different ways you could go. If you're saying he has an emotional break, right, and that potentially reduces the charges, can they make that argument and also argue -- make arguments that engender sympathy from the jury? Can they do both of those things at the same time?

ARONBERG: Yes. You can try to argue in the alternative. I think he's going to have to take the stand to show that he had this emotional break where he just felt so outraged about the insurance industry. That's why he had this emotional disturbance because of his own experience with his back surgery and with his family's experience. And he reflects the public's mood -- the frustration with the insurance industry. I think that may be his best chance.

But if you get sympathy from the jury, the jury can go in that jury box and -- in that room and decide that we like this guy -- not guilty -- even though that doesn't follow the evidence of the law. That's why I say it's the prosecutor's worst nightmare because you're supposed to follow the evidence and the law. But juries have a lot of independence. The only thing predictable about juries is that they are notoriously unpredictable.

[05:50:00]

HUNT: Have you ever worked on a case where you feel like that's happened? Where the jury has had sympathy for someone?

ARONBERG: Yeah -- oh, yeah, yeah. In fact, in my office we lost a case -- a self-defense case where the guy ran after people and shot 39 times from behind, killing one. But because they liked the defendant and didn't like the victims, not guilty. So it really does happen.

HUNT: Hmm, all right.

David Aronberg for us. Very grateful to have you. Thank you very much. I hope you'll come back. ARONBERG: I'd love to. Thank you.

HUNT: OK.

Time now for sports. The playoff-bound Vikings handled the Bears while the Falcons keep their postseason hopes alive with a win in a "MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL" doubleheader.

Carolyn Manno has this morning's CNN sports update. Carolyn, good morning.

CAROLYN MANNO, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Kasie.

The NFL season in the home stretch. As you know, three weeks left. And conference races are really heating up now.

The Vikings clinching a playoff berth yesterday when the Packers beat the Seahawks. Last night they wore white helmets for the first time in their history as they took on the Bears. And the new look definitely seemed to work for Minnesota.

Wide receiver Justin Jefferson scoring the first touchdown of the game, then giving a shoutout to Vikings' Hall of Famer Randy Moss as he continues to recover from cancer surgery. A nice gesture there.

Minnesota punching two more scores on the ground in the second half to walk away with a 30-12 win. It's the team's seventh win a row.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JUSTIN JEFFERSON, WIDE RECEIVER, MINNESOTA VIKINGS: Our potential is so high. Every game, you know, we're expecting the offense to be the best on that field.

KEVIN O'CONNELL, HEAD COACH, MINNESOTA VIKINGS: It's going to be incredibly competitive down the stretch here and we're going to have to play well and continue to improve, chasing our best football.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MANNO: In the other game, the Falcons did just enough to beat the Raiders and keep pace in the NFC South race. Atlanta quarterback Kirk Cousins threw his first touchdown pass in five weeks -- a 30-yard strike to a wide open Drake London. Vegas still had a chance to pull off the upset in this game, but Atlanta's Jessie Bates ended up picking off Desmond Ridder's Hail Mary attempt in the endzone on the final play to seal the 15-9 win and snap a four-game skid.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAHEEM MORRIS, HEAD COACH, ATLANTA FALCONS: For us to go out there and find a way to win. I think the most important thing when you come off a couple of losses in a row, particularly when you're the Falcons and you want your Falcon fans to feel good about it, you've got to find a way to get a win. And you gain confidence through getting wins, and I think that's what our guys did today. (END VIDEO CLIP)

MANNO: So if you look at the NFC Playoff picture, Kasie, the Lions, Eagles, Vikings are all tied for first, but Detroit holds a tiebreaker over both teams. The Falcons on the outside looking in right now but they are only one game behind Tampa for the division lead. Atlanta holding the head-to-head tiebreaker there, so that should be a really fun race to the finish.

And it all comes down to tonight for the NBA Cup in a matchup featuring two of the hottest teams in the league right now. After navigating a really tough schedule in the knockout rounds, you've got the Thunder meeting Milwaukee for the championship in Vegas. It's the teams' first meeting this season.

And the Bucks, as you know, a veteran-laden squad full of star power. OKC, a really young team on the rise in the hunt for the number one seed in the West for a second-straight season. And do not forget about the pay day here. Each player on the winning team of the in-season tournament finale is going to earn around a half-million dollars.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GIANNIS ANTETOKOUNMPO, FORWARD, MILWAUKEE BUCKS: It's life-changing money, OK? Obviously, $500,000 you can put a downpayment on a house. You put the downpayment on two house. Some players, like, might not make that money ever in their career.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MANNO: Even the losers, Kasie, will make about 200 grand in this game. And for those of you Debbie Downers at home that are saying NBA players make way too much money, Giannis is actually right. I man, the NBA minimum for players coming into the league is just over a million. So for some of the younger guys half a million dollars is nothing to sneeze at.

HUNT: Indeed, it is not.

All right, Carolyn. Thanks very much for that. I appreciate it.

All right, coming up here in our next hour on CNN THIS MORNING demanding answers. What's behind all the drone sightings. The White House is trying to tamp down panic.

Plus, two dead after a school shooting in Wisconsin. The whip of the gun violence prevention task force Rep. Mike Veasey is here -- Marc Veasey to discuss.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If your kids are -- have school, they are not OK. If they are at church, they are not OK. If they are outside, that's where they are not OK. Well, where are they going to be safe?

(END VIDEO CLIP) (COMMERCIAL)

[05:58:43]

HUNT: It's Tuesday, December 17. Right now on CNN THIS MORNING --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: You're not going to lose the polio vaccine. That's not going to happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Confirmation fight. Donald Trump trying to tap down concerns about RFK Jr.'s history of vaccine skepticism.

And --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And she was screaming, like, "Oh, my leg. Help! Help!"

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Tragedy in Wisconsin. Two dead after a school shooting. What we're learning about the 15-year-old shooter.

And --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND (D-NY): We should be treating it like a national security issue.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Drone drama. Today the White House Intelligence Committee demanding answers about the uptick in unexplained sightings.

And --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I had dinner with, sort of, almost all of them, and the rest are coming.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Flocking to Mar-a-Lago. Tech CEOs making the pilgrimage to Palm Beach to buddy up with the president-elect.

All right, 6:00 a.m. here on the East Coast. A live look at Boca Raton, Florida -- not too far from Mar-a-Lago. Good morning, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Capitol Hill and in the spotlight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: Sir, do you stand by your previous comments about vaccines being linked to autism? Do you stand by those comments, sir?

(END VIDEO CLIP)