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Inside Politics
Trump's First Days in Office; Anti-Trump Marches Draw Huge Crowds; Trump Targets Obamacare in Executive Action. Aired 8-8:30a ET
Aired January 22, 2017 - 08:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
[08:00:23] DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I, Donald John Trump, do solemnly swear --
JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): President Trump takes charge.
TRUMP: The take for empty talk is over. Now arrives the hour of action.
KING: Inauguration day includes this tribute to his campaign rival.
TRUMP: I'd like you to stand up.
KING: And a sendoff for President Obama.
But as the new president gets down to business, massive protests illustrate deep opposition and anxiety.
DEMONSTRATORS: My body, my choice!
Your body, your choice!
KING: INSIDE POLITICS, the biggest stories sourced by the best reporters, now.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KING: Welcome to INSIDE POLITICS. I'm John King. Thanks for sharing your Sunday morning with us.
Day three of an already plenty eventful Trump presidency. Across the country and the world, Saturday was a day of protest. The crowds were giant, and the anti-Trump message crystal clear.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ASHLEY JUDD, ACTRESS: We are not here to be debunked. We are here to be respected. We are here to be nasty. I'm nasty.
SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D), MASSACHUSETTS: We will not be silent. We will not play dead. We will fight for what we believe in.
(END VIDEO CLIP) KING: Now we know President Trump loves big crowds, except when they are not his. So, a day that began with a solemn tradition, a prayer service at the National Cathedral veered quickly into a Trump White House lecture, absent facts for the most part, mind you, about yes, of all things, crowd size.
First, the president.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I get up this morning and I turn on one of the networks and they show an empty field. I said, wait a minute. I made a speech. I looked out. The field was -- it looked like a million, a million and a half people. They showed a field where there were practically nobody standing there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: The backdrop for the president there, the CIA's most hallowed ground, the wall of the fallen, those stars behind the president representing 117 CIA agents and officers who died in the line of duty, died to keep us safe.
Then, the first Trump White House briefing, or in this case, angry screed. No questions allowed. Just Press Secretary Sean Spicer reading a statement.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEAN SPICER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The photographs of the inaugural proceedings were intentionally framed a way in one particular tweet to minimize the enormous support that had gathered on the National Mall. No one had numbers because the National Park Service, which controls the National Mall, does not put any out.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Got that? The president spokesman at that podium no one had numbers. No one. So, there was no official crowd estimate, but --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SPICER: This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period, both in person and around the globe.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Well, if there are no numbers, how can he say that? Well, the boss told him to.
With us to share the reporting and their insights, Mary Katharine Ham of "The Federalist", Peter Baker of "The New York Times", CNN's Jeff Zeleny, and CNN's Nia-Malika Henderson.
I wish we weren't talking about this at the top of the show. I wish we were talking about his speech, which he laid out a pretty bold agenda. I wish we were talking about the new Washington, can he get this done?
But let's start with this because the president of the United States decided yesterday he wants to talk about this. Why?
(LAUGHTER)
MARY KATHARINE HAM, THE FEDERALIST: This is important to him. I think that is part of this. I think that's clear that Sean Spicer got the orders to go out and tell that story.
I think "The New York Times" knows it's important to him and tweaked him with that tweet that was the picture side by side, and I don't think the media should pretend it's not tweaking him sometimes, and it's been perfectly professional at all times. There's a symbiotic relationship where he's going to continue to get mad and it's going to continue to drive coverage and I'm not sure it's good for the issues we actually wants to be talking about. That's a part of this story.
KING: I'm sorry, I get that. I get that, but he's the president of the United States now, and he does like these fights. He likes these arguments with the media, there's no question about that.
But whether you're a Trump supporter out there or whether you're someone who is saying he's making up facts, and we'll get to his blaming the media for his fight with the intelligence agencies in a minute, which is simply not true. None of this is going to get that guy in Michigan who voted for Donald Trump and not Hillary Clinton a job.
NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: I think that's right but it's also I think central to Trumpism, this idea that there are villains and there are victims. And, obviously, during the campaign, there were any number of villains, of the Clintons obviously, Obama, the Obama administration, the CIA, the 17 intelligence agencies at some point as well, and he can't really necessarily go after those folks anymore and paint them as victims.
[08:05:05] So, what's remaining at this point I think are for him is the press, and he knows that these fights are going to engage the press. They are also, I think, they are going to bind his supporters together. They need a villain as well and so, it does keep them engaged, attached to him and bound together.
KING: But if they need a villain, he won. It is remarkable what he did in the campaign. It's remarkable he took over the Republican Party. It's remarkable he won the election. He's the president of the United States now.
But he only has -- he did lose the popular vote and Republicans have a 52-48, very narrow majority in the Senate, a smaller majority in the House than they had last time, even if he keeps all of his people, can he govern keeping his people stoked and mad at us?
JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: And that is the central question here, and I think context of all of this matters. He was doing it on a day not when Washington was quiet, not when nothing was going on. The central thing happening in Washington around the country and indeed around the world which he knows because he consumes media were all these other protests. So, I think he wanted to, you know, sort of game the refs a little bit by talking about his crowd sizes.
But I think an interesting window into how we all sort of assess this new president came from a friend of his last night on CNN, Tom Barrack, who came on and said he said the way he interacts is different. We'll just have to get used to it. I think that that's the central thing here. None of this matters.
He knows how to complain and pick a fight with the media. What he doesn't know exactly is what he's going to do next, the order of things. This is easy for him, but I'm not sure how long it is going to wear well with his supporters.
PETER BAKER, THE NEW YORK TIMES: I do think that, as you said, he's an outsider coming in and other outsiders who come in, whether Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan from different points of view then took over a government and became ultimately the establishment. Some of them did it better than others.
And he is now struggling with the idea that he is now the establishment, whether he likes it or not. So, it's in fact better or easier for him to find people to continue that sort of pugnacious fight because it is a revolution in his mind, a movement in his mind and he has to have somebody to go after.
KING: Debate over crowd size, again, it's not going to get anybody a job, it's not going to get raise or lower the price of gas. It is though important I think -- I think, and again, I said this last night on the air, if you're a Trump supporter out there and every time he questions the media, pick up your laptop, pick up your super computer that is your smartphone, check out these facts yourself.
But the debate over crowd size means nothing but the credibility of the president of the United States and the credibility of his press secretary should mean something to everybody. Not just of those who cover the White House but to those who voted for Mr. Trump or those who didn't.
So, let's set this aside. Look at the pictures. The pictures don't lie.
Here is Donald Trump's view -- Sean Spicer said, Donald Trump looking out. You heard the president looking out he saw there. There's just no question, it does not matter. Plus, Washington's a Democratic town. Maybe that in and of itself.
Barack Obama was making history as the first African-American president. Look at the pictures, OK. President Obama had had a bigger crowd. Donald Trump's got a great crowd there. President Obama's a little bit bigger. That's from the president's view, President Obama's view, President Trump's view, we can flip it around and this is Abraham Lincoln's view, if you will, from he other end of the mall, looking up. And there's just no question that there are more people at the Obama
inauguration, who cares?
HENDERSON: He's no longer the president.
KING: Exactly right. That's a great point. Donald Trump is the president of the United States.
Now, Sean Spicer cherry picked metro ridership numbers in his briefing yesterday. It's just not necessary. Who cares? It's not a big deal. These are numbers we know Donald Trump does like. But those are the metro numbers right there. Metro ridership for the first Obama inauguration are higher than the Trump inauguration.
Now, not everybody gets there by metro so that's just one look at it. Again, I wish we weren't having this conversation.
One last thing. We know Donald Trump likes Nielsen ratings. He cited them last week in trashing Schwarzenegger saying he got much better ratings, Donald Trump did, when he was running "The Apprentice" than Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Donald Trump has already tweeted this morning, "Wow, television ratings just out, 32 million people watched the inauguration, 11 million more than the very good ratings from four years ago." That's actually true. That's actually true.
He tweeted it out, but look, he skipped 2009. Donald Trump, the other day, 31 million people almost most. That's impressive. Barack Obama, again, making history as the first African-American president in 2009, 7 million more people.
HAM: If you said that, we could have moved on.
KING: You mentioned Tom Barrack who is the president's -- the chairman, a very good friend of Donald Trump. He's a Los Angeles real estate and investor. Listen to him last night when he was asked on CNN, why? Why can't the president focus on jobs and trade and on the new relationship he wants to have with Russia, focus on his promise to eradicate ISIS from the face of the earth?
Why, on his first full day of office, deal with crowd size?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TOM BARRACK, PRESIDENTIAL INAUGURAL COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: This all started from a tweet. It's not worthy of all the time of how we got started and what up set him was that. It started from a tweet from a "New York Times" reporter that got re-tweeted in the National Parks Service, and the allocation of apples to apples and oranges to oranges is complicated.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HENDERSON: It's actually not that complicated.
KING: But she lost and she's watching from home and I'm sure, for the president takes delight in that.
[08:10:04] But that, Tom Barracks makes the same argument Hillary Clinton tried to make in the debates, that you can bait Donald Trump with a tweet.
HENDERSON: Yes, I mean, it starts with Donald Trump's temperament and Donald Trump himself has essentially said that his temperament is the same as when he was a first grader, right? He is someone who needs attention and needs validation, and I think that's what we're seeing. That's what we've seen throughout the campaign. Size and all sorts of ways has mattered to him and so he's going to continue these fights. He's going to continue to want to seek the salvation.
BAKER: How he knows to be successful. He's going to the same script again and again. His argument is, hey, look, you guys wrote me off repeatedly again and again and again. This works for me. Why stop now?
He may be right but is rewriting the rule book. But other presidents didn't do this.
ZELENY: The one thing that's different, his colleagues now around the world are a different set of people. They are leaders. How do we think his leaders have -- the president of any country reacted to this?
It has to be laughter. Look what Donald Trump is doing on his first day, talking about crowd sizes. So, now, it's a clean slate, a different picture going ahead and it -- the diplomats here who have to write home what's happening on first day in office. It must have been an interesting memo.
KING: Love to see some of the cables.
Again, I don't think crowd size matters at all, but truth and credibility over leadership, including us. If you're a Trump supporter watching at home and you think we get things wrong, use your power. You have access to the Internet and check our facts, too.
But reminded he should tell you the truth, too. This the president of the United States going to CIA headquarters, his first stop, an important stop. He wanted to tell people at CIA, I got your back. I respect you. That's good especially after what happened during the campaign and during the transition period, but this from the president of the United States, his explanation of why some people think he's at war with intelligence agencies.
Listen here, this is simply not true.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Well, I have a running war with the media. They are among the most dishonest human beings on earth.
(LAUGHTER & APPLAUSE)
Right?
(APPLAUSE)
And they sort of made it sound like I had a feud with the intelligence community, and I just want to let you know, the reason you're the number one stop is exactly the opposite. Exactly.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Sort of made it sound like he had a war or running feud with the intelligence community, like we made it up. Here's Donald Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KING: What's happened over the years. I mean, it's been catastrophic, and in fact, I won't use some of the people that are sort of your standards. But I won't use them because they have made such bad decisions.
I think it was disgraceful, disgraceful, that the intelligence agencies allowed any information that turned out to be so false and fake, and that's something that Nazi Germany would have done and did do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Donald Trump in his own words there. I want to quickly get in this tweet as well. Did this several time. "The 'intelligence'", with the word intelligence in quotation marks, "on so-called Russian hacking was delayed until Friday. Perhaps more time needed to build a case. Very strange."
So we did not fabricate Donald Trump's war with the intelligence community. We covered it. He said what do we live -- do we live in Nazi, Germany, suggested in that tweet they were cooking the books.
Why can't he just don't mention it, don't re-stoke the fight, just say, I'm here to tell you, I got your back.
HAM: I mean, he's Donald Trump. I stopped waiting for him to change a long time ago, but I do think there's a line he could walk here if he were different where you say, look, there have been intel failures in the past. There have been politicized leaks. I think he has a bone to pick with some of that that's legitimate.
He refuses to be a guy who can walk that line and say also the servants who do such a good job. For what it's worth, there were CIA folks in that audience and from some reports inside the room it was not just Trump staff applauding him at times, so there's another part of this story as well and it's complicated as far as who works there.
ZELENY: Without question. I talked to someone who was in the room though last night, a government official and I will identify them like that and they said they were uncomfortable -- the senior leadership of the CIA was not applauding, some rank and file who wanted to be there on a Saturday were applauding. And when Donald Trump said you all voted for me, part of the military
-- the CIA, is not how they see themselves, not quite accurate. It was very awkward to be, you know, framed to be doing that. And then talking about everything else, about going to Iraq potentially, taking the oil. All of these things which simply won't happen for his first speech out of the gate is an interesting one.
KING: Maybe what he said, we should have kept the oil in Iraq, and maybe we'll get a chance to do it again. I think he was just talking about --
HENDERSON: He should have had a prompter probably in a prepared speech. He didn't seem like he did.
KING: I think the return of the teleprompter is inevitable. All right. We'll see.
Up next, the new president's early actions and what they tell us about the first 100-day agenda.
[08:15:01] And for this week's "Politicians say the Darnedest Things". Listen here. When a cabinet's trip to pay a courtesy call on a senator sounds like -- well, something else.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. AL FRANKEN (D), MINNESOTA: Thank you so much for coming into my office. Did you enjoy meeting me?
RICK PERRY, ENERGY SECRETARY NOMINEE: I hope you're as much fun on that dais as you were on your couch.
FRANKEN: Well --
(LAUGHTER)
PERRY: May I rephrase that, sir.
FRANKEN: Please, please, please. Oh, my Lord. Oh, my Lord.
(LAUGHTER)
PERRY: Well, I think we found our "Saturday Night Live" sound bite.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: Welcome back.
A very big week ahead for the new president. Several of his key cabinet choices face key votes on Capitol Hill and we are told to look for more executive actions from the new White House on issues ranging from immigration to trade, to energy regulation. Perhaps, some of those executive actions coming as early as today.
Already signed -- a new executive order that allows the Trump administration to quickly waive or re-interpret key provisions of the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare. That order reads in part, "It is imperative for the executive branch to ensure that the law is being efficiently implemented, take all actions consistent with the law to minimize unwarranted economic and regulatory burdens of the act and prepare to afford states more flexibility and control to create a more free and open healthcare market."
This was signed in the early minutes in the White House. The president had the parade, he stood outside and reviewed the parade. This was the first real executive order he signed. It keeps at least in spirit his campaign promise, to act on day one to repeal and replace.
How quickly do we expect to see the actual cabinet agency saying, OK, Ohio, you can do this, OK, Montana, feel free to do, OK, United Healthcare, we'll let you do this?
HAM: I think that remains up in the air partly because we have the crowd size discussion.
(LAUGHTER)
[08:20:01] HAM: But one thing I wonder about Trump and this is -- I want to be open the fact that I have been wrong about his strategy such that it is very many times. So, I wonder, though, if all the sound and fury actually allows people to do more of the handiwork on things like Obamacare, because there's so much bandwidth given to the everyday fights that there's not a lot left for oh, let's go over the details of Obamacare.
And the Democrats can bring up all their people who say they are being hurt, and perhaps more actually happens legislatively that way in the shadows of all the sound and fury. I don't know if that's the case but it sometimes feels like that's what's going on.
ZELENY: It is clear that things have to happen legislatively, though. He did sign that executive order, which is really a statement of his principle as president, something that he said he would do, but the reality here is this has to be changed on Capitol Hill, and there will have to be a law that he has to sign.
TRUMP: The replace part does. It's interesting. I don't know if it was part of the strategy or not because you're right, it's hard sometime to read what they are doing and often, they don't want to explain to us, they just say here it is. That's their right, that's completely their right. That's not a criticism.
But is this in some ways, whether by design or not, sort of a 2 x 4 to tell Congress you better move fast, because otherwise different agencies of government that have swayed over the law could issue their rules could get messy and could come redound to the Democrats' benefit if it's messy? ZELENY: That's certainly possible, without question here, because
Obamacare is not just, you know, the Health and Human Services agency, it's a sweeping law across the government. This thick or this thick.
So I think that -- but there still is not a consensus on what is going to happen on Capitol Hill in terms of this legislation. So, again, Obamacare is not going away overnight and they are still grappling with how a to replace it.
BAKER: It's not going away overnight, but what's interesting here is in some ways, President Obama and the Democrats have laid the bed here. They had and set table. What Donald Trump is going to do is push the boundaries of executive power to use that without having to wait for Congress to make changes, and who did that first? President Obama.
When the healthcare act was passed, he used his executive power to interpret and reinterpret in ways other people, Republicans, said was going beyond the law. Now, you're going to hear the complaints from the Democrats the exact same way -- that he's ignoring the law and using his power to gut it unilaterally. And there will be an interesting back and forth about that.
HENDERSON: It is the gutting about the individual mandate. I mean, is that where they can sort of reinterpret whether or not you can get waivers in different ways not to have to pay that individual mandate.
KING: That's the money.
HENDERSON: Yes, which, of course, funds it.
HAM: That's right. The agency filled in so many of the blanks there and they can change those blanks.
KING: I think that's the fascinating part. He won. Let's see how messy.
Another action they took on the first day, this one came from the Department of Housing and Urban Development was to suspend, in the final days, the Obama administration tried to lower premiums on FHA loans. If you're mostly for low income, middle income families, trying to get in the housing market, lower the mortgage insurance premiums. That was supposed to take effect and it hadn't and the new administration came in and said stop that, stop that. We want to take a look at it. We'll see whether they keep it or not. But they stopped it.
Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader, you can see him next program on "STATE OF THE UNIION WITH JAKE TAPPER," you want to watch that conversation, it will tell you a lot about the Democrats procedure.
Here's what Chuck Schumer's reaction when the Housing Department put that Obama administration effort on hold.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY), MINORITY LEADER: It took only an hour after his positive words on the inaugural platform for his actions to ring hollow. One hour after talking about helping working people and ending the cabal in Washington that hurts people, he signs a regulation that makes it more expensive for new homeowners to buy mortgages.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: They have every right. New administration, to I think take a look. The question is, we'll see what they do going forward. But that's just a snapshot of where the Democrats want to go with just about every argument that they can. Donald Trump campaigned to be a populist and he said he was going to help you working class people and their argument, the Democrats is, he didn't mean it or he's not going to do it.
HAM: Well, I think they'll continue to make the argument. I think it might be more helpful for Schumer to make the argument to Trump, with their New York ties and say, hey, buddy, you don't care about debt and (INAUDIBLE) some of these money to these people, and Trump might just be like, yes, sure, that's a good point.
I mean, this is the weirdness of Donald Trump because he's not an ideological creature but there are people in the administration who are, and this may be him saying, look, this is my administration.
KING: This will be first full week in office and I think we'll start to get some flavor of the new sheriffs in town and how it works because during the campaign, we saw this competing power centers in the Trump campaign, it worked for him. He won the presidency.
And now, he's bringing that approach to the White House. He has Steve Bannon his strategist. He has Reince Priebus, his chief of staff. He has son-in-law Jared Kushner, who has been a key adviser.
He also has a new Oval Office. I think we have some pictures of the new Oval Office here as well. He took out -- these are the gold drapes. President had red drapes.
You see Jared Kushner there to the left of your screen, to the president's right. That's his son-in-law, the vice president, the chief of staff, Reince Priebus. This is a photo here that shows us the change, but what do we expect?
HAM: As far as how he governs?
KING: The power centers. Yes.
HAM: Well, I think the office placement is interesting and how -- how we know the proximity to the president, but I think these things shift hey lot. Jared Kushner seems to be a stable. Kellyanne Conway seems to come in and out of the orbit. Steve Bannon, we hear almost nothing.
[08:25:00] So, I think that will be the puzzle of the entire presidency and I think Trump acts on his gut. So, if there's an adviser who gets in the room and has had a different idea and he likes it, he's going to go with it.
HENDERSON: Yes, and also not clear who can tell him no, right, of that group.
KING: We saw a little bit that have in the last 24 hours.
So, right up next, massive protests coast to coast to put the new president on notice. Just venting, or can the left now borrow a page from the Tea Party?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Donald, let's talk as friends. You're not off to a great start, man. I thought you'd be better at this.
However, I'm glad to see so many people showed up to your inauguration. Oh, wait. That's the woman's march.
One day, your country could be as happy as we are here in Russia. We are not divided, you know, like you, because all our people -- because all our people are so glad for their freedom.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Had a little fun on "Saturday Night Live" last night. Leave it to you to decide how much you like that or don't.
There are a lot of ways to dissect what happened across America yesterday, but this much is indisputable. It was a remarkable show of force.
Take a look. This is here in Washington, D.C., the National Mall was packed throughout the day. The marchers even, look there, leaving had a present for the president outside the new Trump International Hotel just a few blocks from the White House. See what happens to those.
There was more -- Boston, New York, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles. March organizers say, more than 670 demonstrations across the United States, plus an international element, Paris, London, Barcelona, Melbourne, among the overseas sites were companion rallies to the marches here in the States.
[08:30:06] A lot of different causes, a lot of different priorities, and one unifying force, the new president.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D), MASSACHUSETTS: President Trump and the Republican Congress are ready to ram through laws that will tilt it even harder. Now, we can whimper. We can whine or we can fight back. Me, I'm here to fight back. I'm here to fight back.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren there. Let me translate for you guys. That was Mayor Marty Walsh, and Senator Ed Markey behind here, if you want to translate your inner Bostonian.
Impressive crowds, without a doubt, no matter where you looked, here, big cities around the country. Republicans will say most of those big cities were blue cities, Democratic cities. But to the point that these people turn out, what to make of it? An impressive display of First Amendment rights. Is it the beginning of a Democratic version of the Tea Party, or is it a big day of venting?
HENDERSON: Yes, one of the things, it's clear that Democrats and progressives needed this. I ran into a Democratic congressman late on Friday and I said, you know, how are you holding up, how are you getting through this? And he pointed to the vodka that he was drinking.
So, I think -- they certainly they need this display of numbers and strength and enthusiasm. But I think the question is, you know, does a leader emerge from this? If you look at the Trump coalition, it's clear that it's bound by race, religion and to a certain extent class. For Democrats and progressives, there's such a wide, you know, sort of spectrum of demographics, diversity in some ways is their strength, but in some ways it's a burden because it's incumbent upon I think a leader to emerge that can bridge all of those different class and racial divides that the progressive coalition has.
ZELENY: I think Elizabeth Warren there, you know, that might have been her 2020 announcement. Who knows? But the reality here is the Democrats can march in the street, he won. How the campaign worked out, he won.
And I thought Jen Psaki, a long time aide, had a very interesting blog post. She said, I worry it will give too many people license to congratulate themselves for their activism and move on with their daily lives. That is the big question there. What are people going to do about this? Are more liberals going to move to Ohio or Michigan --
HENDERSON: Wisconsin, or Wisconsin, yeah.
ZELENY: -- Wisconsin? I think like that is the point here.
So, going forward, is this the liberal Tea Party? Perhaps, but I don't think we know that yet at all, and what we don't see is any sign of working together or moving forward to help some of those problems out there, and that is something that will hurt everyone.
KING: We started there with Elizabeth Warren. You saw some Massachusetts politicians behind her in Boston. There are a lot of politicians involved. Democratic politicians speaking here in Washington, Democrats speaking, elected officials speaking across the country.
Also a lot of celebrities involved, including two here in Washington, several here in Washington. I'll give you an example of two here. You're a celebrity, you have this platform, you choose then just how to use it.
First, America Ferrera.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AMERICA FERRERA, ACTRESS: Our dignity, our character, our rights have all been under attack and a platform of hate and division assumed power yesterday. We will not go from being a nation of immigrants to a nation of ignorance.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Making her case there. And then had a little different from Madonna.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MADONNA, SINGER: Yes, I'm angry. Yes, I am outraged. Yes, I have thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House. But I know that this won't change anything. We cannot fall into despair.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Memo to Madonna, the First Amendment is a wonderful thing and everybody has the right to exercise it as they see fit, but when you talk publicly about blowing up the White House, you tend to get a phone call from the Secret Service.
HENDERSON: Yes.
KING: Again, you know, we can make fun of some of the statements. My big question about this is where does it go?
And just to say, the president-elect -- the president, I'm sorry, sorry President Trump, he's president. Tweeted this morning, "Watched protests yesterday but was under the impression that we just had an election. Why didn't these people vote? Celebs hurt cause badly."
Now, they have every right -- they can be out there 365 days a year, I was just joking before the show, 366 in a leap year, have every right to be out there. But there is -- his point is -- you can make this point. Give me a chance, but they clearly don't think they are going to get much.
HAM: Well, many of them did vote and were involved, but here's the good news for this marches that a celebrity-laden giant rally in a big urban center is exactly what won Hillary Clinton the election.
HENDERSON: Right.
HAM: You have to have a change of tactics and I do think you're right that people needed and there's a wide swath of people who are represented there. Unfortunately, the organizers of the group decided to cut out a pro-life feminist group called New Wave Feminists explicitly after realizing, oh, we're not sure we want them part of the coalition.
[08:35:09] I think that was a last opportunity to reach out to some -- many women who are on the right or more moderate on abortion who are very critical of Trump and very worried, but they did not take that opportunity and I don't think that bodes well for reaching out to people in Wisconsin and Michigan and Ohio where you need to do that to make that difference.
KING: Usually you lose for a reason. You don't have enough votes so you should be trying to expand your coalition and not restrict your voters --
HAM: And the messages from the podium are not well designed.
ZELENY: How many people in that audience I was wondering across the country voted for Jill Stein.
HENDERSON: Or Bernie Sanders. Yes.
ZELENY: Or Bernie Sanders. So, I think that the Democratic Party is not going to rebuild itself on marches and rallies alone. It just isn't. You make a great point about including groups.
KING: The first real test, we can look at voter registration numbers, we can look at their organizations founded out of this. The first real test will come in the midterms, where the tea party, a lot of people looked at the tea party marches, and said, that's nice and a lot of people out in the street. But does that mean? Is it just venting and they proved themselves, particularly in the Republican Party and stunned their own party? We'll see what happens as this goes forward.
I just want to bring this up, quickly. Michael Flynn Jr. is the son of the national security adviser to the president of the United States. He has had a history of conspiracy theories. He has had a history of race-baiting on Twitter. He has a history of a whole lot of things that aren't very pleasant.
Here's what he tweeted during the rally. Quote, "What victory, women already have equal rights and, yes, equal pay in this country, what more do you want, free mani-pedis? #womensmarch."
Now, he's not in government, but he is the son of the national security adviser. But he is was involved some in the transition. The new administration I don't think needs distractions like this, but silence.
HAM: Or do they thrive on them.
KING: Or do they thrive on them?
HENDERSON: Yes, I'm sure Michael Flynn Jr. is happy that we read his tweet on the air. I mean, he's sort of mastered internet troll.
KING: The last one was him recommending the work of a guy who thinks the United States engineered 9/11. So, I guess I should stop reading his tweets. You're probably right. I don't have David Letterman's glass behind me where I do that.
Up next, was America first. We know America first was Donald Trump's inaugural theme and had a powerful figure for party figures listening just a few feet away.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:40:33] KING: Welcome pack.
The new president's inaugural address was trademark Trump, a dark view of crime and violence, an America first populist promise when it comes to trade and national security and a blunt rebuke of the political establishment, Democrats and Republicans alike.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: For too long, a small group in our nation's capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost. Washington flourished, but the people did not share in its wealth. Politicians prospered but the jobs left and the factories closed. The establishment protected itself but not the citizens of our country.
That all changes starting right here and right now because this moment is your moment. It belongs to you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: One of many remarkable moments in the speech, and let's talk about the agenda going forward, but he ran as an outsider and ran as much against the Republican establishment as he did against the Democrats. Ran as much against Washington as he did really in the end, he made it personal about Hillary Clinton, but for him -- it was delicious. He was standing there and right over his shoulder, you know, the former president, Barack Obama, but also Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush, but Speaker Ryan, leader McConnell, the people he has to do business with.
It was a remarkable you guys are the problem.
BAKER: He's really the first arguably independent president we've had at least since early days of the republic. I mean, he's a Republican. I don't want to minimize that.
But the truth is he didn't feel beholden to either party and made very clear in this speech, this is not a Republican speech. He didn't talk about tax cuts. He didn't talk about the size of government. He didn't about a lot of things Republicans would normally want to hear him talk about.
He had other things he did talk about that were Republican about eradicating ISIS and so forth, but it was a very much the speech of not just an outsider but somebody who -- who is sending a signal to the Republicans as much as the Democrats, I'm not your man, I'm the people's man in his view, the leader of a movement.
KING: America first. I just want to hold up newspaper headlines as we go through this conversation. This is from Brisbane, Australia, international was working, pretty clever headline there, "Don of a New Era", I like that one. We'll stay international for one more. This is Stockholm, Sweden, "America first".
So, the message was received, not just here in the United States and around the world, and when he says America first, he's said throughout the campaign, and you can get flavor of it in his speech. He's not going to reflexively project American force around. He's not going to reflexively meddle in other people's business around the world. He also talked about protection in the context of trade, not free market Republican or neo-con ideas.
HAM: Yes, I rather enjoyed the first part of the speech which was just accurate. People have not prosper the in the way the establishment told them they would prosper and that's why his message works.
Later, it got in into our destiny and I'll deliver you from the carnage, and I'm a morning in America person. It was not my thing, but I -- I'm an ideological person. The country is not ideological.
His message is populist and it's popular. It's popular because people have been failed, and I think his opponents underestimate that at their political risk, as happened the entire election.
HENDERSON: It's just really simple, right? It's I'll fix your schools. I'll make your communities safer and I'll give you jobs.
I mean, anyone really across the Democrat -- demographic spectrum can get into that message. I think you're right. I think people underestimate how appealing that is, how appealing it is to have this president who really almost sounded like a coach, right, who is rallying the team to victory against the establishment, against the rest of the world. And I think he knows that that crowd does have very different feelings from the Republican Party in terms of trade.
They see trade. They see globalism in a very different way than this -- than this current Republican Party.
KING: I find it fascinating to hear you talk about how Washington works and that outside game and talking to the American people and talking to the world very disdainful of the establishment and very much saying you guys are the problem, you screwed this up, I'm here to fix interest.
And when he went inside, though, he was sitting around, yakking it up with them, you know, signing the papers and making jokes with the Republicans and just as more even more so with the Democrats, showing off the art of the deal guy. The horse trading, look, let's be honest. Whatever you think, he can't get things done without their votes and he's got -- they are pretty narrowly divided.
[08:45:01] ZELENY: Which is why that is so fascinating what, Peter said he's not beholden to either side, and watching him in those moments, that's something that we hadn't really seen before, watching him interact with Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi. He does want to have a successful presidency, of course, or he wouldn't have done this. So, I think watching those deals always more important. He was talking to the American people and had he been talking around and talking to the members of Congress looking east, much more interesting.
The question is he has a lot of competing power centers inside his West Wing. I'm told he wanted to have an optimistic speech. He was watching the Ronald Reagan speeches and even Obama speeches and JFK speech. I'm not sure this speech will be remembered as an optimistic speech because it wasn't. It was pretty dark.
BAKER: The words that will be remembered is American carnage.
KING: Peter, as you get to that point. Want to hold that up. Peter is the leader writer of this story. Donald Trump's hometown newspaper as we like to say, small little town, New York City, but it's also a national and international newspaper but this American carnage stops.
BAKER: A very vivid phrase. American carnage, and I think you can make the point that a lot of Americans do follow left behind. A lot of Americans voted for him because they felt like they had been ignored and forgotten.
But that's not necessary lit experience of all Americans or a lot of Americans and to talk down the country as a whole is a surprising thing to hear in an inaugural address. What you'll hear over the next four years is why he's made it a better America and how the statistics that Obama would talk about heading out now will be Trump statistics about, you know, job growth.
HENDERSON: And they are good statistics, right? I mean, he's been handed a -- an economy that's certainly much -- is much stronger now than the economy that -- that Obama was handed.
You know, and there's a promise. There is the American carnage that is the fault of all these people behind me and it's the promise that he's going to deliver the country to a different place. I mean, almost sort of a religious undertone with him as the savior.
HAM: He also did something interesting at the end where he outright said speeches don't matter anymore and gave a very brief speech. That was an explicit reference to the Obama years and people being convinced by a lot of the speeches and perhaps let them by the actual presidency and said, now, actions work, which then scramble by them again like I'm here analyzing the speech that he's telling me does it better.
(CROSSTALK)
KING: Well, talk is over. He said the hour of action is here, we're going to have a very busy week ahead. Another challenge in the speech was to reach out, 54 percent of the country did not win for him. He won the Electoral College victory. He is the president of the United States, but he does have to deal with that as he tries to govern all of America. A lot asking how would we reach out to his critics, how would he reach
out to those who didn't vote for him? How did he reach to African- Americans and Latinos who might have doubts, even anxieties about him? Listen here.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: When you open your heart to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice. A new national pride will stir our souls, lift our sights and heal our divisions. It's time to remember that old wisdom our soldiers will never forget, that whether we are black or brown or white, we all bleed the same red blood of patriots.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Interesting. It's -- he has his own way of speaking, but it's interesting language.
ZELENY: Without question, and, I think again it matters what he's going do with this. His relationship with the Chuck Schumers and others matter a lot . But and interestingly what happened after that, at the lunch, when everyone went in, Mitch McConnell asked for a change of seats and he asked to sit next to President Trump, he moved over Senator Blunt, who is the chairman of the (INAUDIBLE) and the had had a private conversation, as private as you can have in a statuary hall.
KING: He wished him well, McConnell.
ZELENY: Exactly, and talked about please don't say all these things about tax reform and Obamacare. Come to us. We want to work with you.
So, that relationship is still building. I thought it was so fascinating about Friday, seeing our president -- our 45th president for the first time. He has virtually no relation shipments or short relationship with all the people that he has to deal with. That is going to be a fascinating part of his growth that we don't know how this will end.
KING: Right. They want him to talk less because they don't want them to get boxed in, as he has boxed them in on Obamacare, saying I want this, this and this and boxed them in. We'll see how this one plays out going forward.
All right. Everybody, sit down. Our reporters share from their notebooks next, including, who grabbed the most important real estate close to Donald Trump in the Oval Office?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:52:55] KING: We surround our table with reporters, not pundits for a reason. We close each Sunday by asking them to share a nugget or two from their notebooks to help you get out ahead of the big political news around the corner.
Nia-Malika Henderson?
HENDERSON: One of the things that's going to be interesting as former President Obama figures out his post-White House years is whether or not he officially weighs in on this DNC race. Of course, his guy, Tom Perez, who is the former labor secretary, is running as well as Michael Blake who is running as the vice chair, he was an Obama staffer. He's said very complimentary things about Tom Perez and Michael Blake. Michael Blake is actually using some of Obama's former fund-raisers in Chicago to fund his race. It will be interesting to see if he officially endorses and if it matters.
It will be a real test of what kind of juice he has, and we also know that there's some DNC members who blame Obama for the DNC essentially laying fallow and taking a lot of resources away from the DNC as he was president.
KING: A test of clout in the early days.
Jeff Zeleny?
ZELENY: Well, it's location, location, location in real estate, and other things. No knows that more than Donald Trump. So, as the Trump administration settles into the West Wing, the fight is on for who's going to get which office, always one of the more interesting things in a new administration.
Reince Priebus, the chief of staff, I'm told will have the chief of staff's office which has a fireplace as we all know, long conference table, access to outside, but interestingly, I'm told that Jared Kushner will be sitting in a smaller office but the one that is closest to the Oval Office.
David Axelrod had that office. David Plouffe had the office years before that. Karen Hughes I believe had that office.
On the second floor of the West Wing is Kellyanne Conway. She's occupying the office of Valerie Jarrett and once upon a time Hillary Clinton back in the Clinton years. The rest of the offices are still being filled in.
KING: Little fun history there. I don't think she'll hang old historical pore freights in that office.
Peter?
BAKER: Well, we talked about crowd size and one of the things interesting to watch in the next few weeks is how the Trump administration deals with agencies it's now in charge of and had a great example of this. My colleague, Binyamin Appelbaum, from "The New York Times" tweeted out on Friday, pictures that we've all been looking at of the different inaugurations.
[08:55:01] And then re-tweeted by the National Park Service which is normally in charge of that patch of ground and got in trouble for that. The Trump people didn't like that and suddenly, for several hours, the National Park Service went offline hand, their Twitter account suspended.
So, we're going to see a real interesting period, agencies in the government which are suspicious of this new president, deals with the new president as they are suspicious of him.
KING: He is the new boss. We'll see how that one plays out.
Mary Katharine?
HAM: Well, it looks like there's a different CIA pushback coming. General Hayden who served under Obama and Bush came out and said, look, I don't know what the deal is with the holdup on Pompeo given his credentials, they are pretty impressive, and he spoke to the concerns people have about the interrogation techniques, saying, look, the man has said he's going to follow law, he's going to come to Congress if he thinks there should be a change, this is not a big deal.
I think it's interesting because there's been so much fire between CIA and Trump that on the other side, a respected veteran is coming out and saying, look, let's get this moving, the national security operation is important.
KING: Important because General Hayden has been very critical of the new president, Donald Trump, and stepping him with him here.
I'm going to close with this -- mounting pressure on the new administration to kick its personnel search into the higher gear. Many of the two, three and four jobs of the cabinet agencies remain unfilled and it's those positions that have giant influence over day- to-day White House operations. The administration promises a stream of steady announcements in the days ahead.
But it's also no secret around the town, team Trump is having a hard time filling some of the big jobs. Take the number two position in Department Treasury for example. Wall Street veteran Steve Mnuchin is the president's choice for a top job and Mnuchin is hooking for a Washington hand has number two, and the transition reached out recently to Jeb Hensarling of Texas. Hensarling though was passed over for the top job at treasury and said, he has no interest in the deputy role. We'll keep an eye on that.
That's it for us on INSIDE POLITICS. Thanks for sharing your Sunday morning.
INSIDE PLITICS also with us every weekday at noon for the early weeks of this big new year, hope to see you then. That's tomorrow at noon. I'll be here.
Up next, "STATE OF THE UNION WITH JAKE TAPPER".
