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Trump: "U.S. Will Take Over The Gaza Strip...We'll Own It"; Trump: Gaza Could Be Rebuilt As " Riviera Of The Middle East "; Trump Won Dearborn, Mi In 2024 After Biden Won It In 2020; Acting Deputy Atty. Gen. Accuses FBI Leadership Of "Insubordination"; Democrats Mobilize To Challenge Trump's Agenda. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired February 05, 2025 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

DANA BASH, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS: Today on Inside Politics, we're tracking the global gas of disbelief after President Trump announced his new idea to seize the war-ravaged Gaza Strip, relocate more than 2 million Palestinians, and turn the area into, quote, the Riviera of the Middle East.

Plus, stepping into the ring. Democrats say they're ready to fight back against Donald Trump's barrage of borders and the actions Elon Musk is taking as we speak to dismantle the federal government. But is anyone prepared to lead the charge in the Democratic Party?

And just about anything Trump wants, he gets. Thanks to the Republicans who control Congress. I'll talk to a former House Republican about why her party seems to be seating the powers of the legislative branch.

I'm Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines at Inside Politics.

We start with Donald Trump's bringing his penchant for disruption to a region of the world that has seen far more disruption than most there want.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it too. We'll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site, and get rid of the destroyed buildings level it out, create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area. Do a real job. Do something different.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: For starters, the forcible removal of more than 2 million people goes against international law. But if the humanitarian or moral argument, neither of those is enough, the national security questions, regional implications, they are endless. But Donald Trump was looking at this as a real estate developer as much as the United States president. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We have an opportunity to do something that could be phenomenal. And I don't want to be cute, I don't want to be a wise guy, but the Riviera of the Middle East. This could be something that could be so bad -- this could be so magnificent.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: This, of course, coming from a president who campaigned on putting America first and staying out of forever wars. CNN is covering all of this developing story from all of the angles that we tend to do, including from the White House. That's where Jeff Zeleny is and Nic Robertson in London. Jeff, let's start with you.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Dana, just a few moments ago, the president told reporters in the Oval Office, when asked about this again. He said, everyone loves it, of course, that flies in the face of the reality of this. This is sent to shock waves throughout the Arab world, of course, where it is not being well received. And Palestinians, of course, view this simply as ethnic cleansing.

But the White House right now is scrambling to catch up to the president, which is a familiar pattern that we have seen now. Advisers say this is something he has been talking about privately. This is something that did not take them by surprise. He was reading this from a statement last night in the East Room. Look at the smile right there on the prime minister's face after the president said this. So, it was clear that he was aware of this as well.

Now what happens? That is a central question here. Of course, there's a White House briefing this afternoon. The president has a few other events as well. Some key questions here is, is he serious about the idea of committing a U.S. troops in the region?

He campaigned against the idea of nation building. He's long been a critic of that. Even as he is proposing this policy, he's dismantling the USAID, of course, if the U.S. were to be involved in something like this, it would take that very agency and ones like it to help succeed in this. So, many contradictory thoughts here. But there is no doubt that even though some people were not aware of that.

The White House insists this is something that's been on the president's mind for some time. Is it simply a gambit, perhaps, but he was frustrated, we're told, the fact that nothing has worked over the years. So perhaps his statement was intended to send a shock to urge movement from other nations as well, Dana.

BASH: Yeah. The consistent contradiction is very well put there, Jeff. Nic, I want to go to you now and ask you about what you're hearing from the region, particularly the displaced Palestinians, and how they're responding?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yeah. They're really pushing back. And they're saying, you know, we're going to go back to our homes. They've been going back to their homes in the north of Gaza. One man CNN spoke to said, he would rather stay there and eat dirt and eat rubble than leave. They don't care if palaces or grand buildings, grand villas are built for them in other places. What they want is Gaza.

[12:05:00]

And this is what you hear from regional diplomats from the Middle East as well. Look at the people follow the people. The people want to stay. The people are saying they want to stay, whatever the conditions, without water, without roofs over their heads because they say it's their land and it's for the people there, it's as simple as that.

And we've heard the King of Jordan, King Abdullah, today, echoing that sentiment, saying that they shouldn't be displaced. We've heard the French as well saying that the de placement shouldn't happen.

We've heard the British prime minister today saying that they should be allowed to return to their homes. They should be allowed to rebuild their homes. And he said, you know, Britain should support them in that. So, there's a lot of push back, whether it's Palestinians going back to their rubble in Gaza or leaders in the region. It's loud and it's clear.

BASH: It sure is. Nic, thank you so much. Thank you, Jeff, as well. And I'm lucky to be surrounded here at the table with some really talented journalists, Nia-Malika Henderson of CNN and Bloomberg, Hans Nichols of Axios, and CNN's Stephen Collinson, who I always say on our air, is your -- our Oracle, and I'm glad to have the Oracle out from behind the curtain.

So, I do want to start with one of your quotes from your excellent piece this morning on this, and you said the following. He, meaning Trump, envisaged a real estate deal whereby he'd assumed responsibility for Gaza and masterminded job-creating urban regeneration project. He called it an American ownership position. A better phrase would be colonialism for the 21st century.

STEPHEN COLLINSON, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Yeah. I think what we're seeing in this second term of Trump is this, belief that having survived his assassination attempt, having won reelection, having got liberation from all his criminal threats. He believes that he can do pretty much everything he wants. The reality and everything that's gone before is not going to stop him.

The conventions of domestic politics and the conventions of the Middle East. Sure, he sees this as a real estate deal, but it is, I think, a symptom of a president who's looking at a problem that's never been solved, at least trying to come up with things. The problem is this suggestion is something that in the first term would never have got out. I don't think of the Oval Office.

Someone around Trump would have said, the people that told him what you can't do. Would have said, well, you can't come out and say that in public. Now there either isn't anyone who wants to stop him from saying these things that, you know, that patently seem absurd.

The ones that could stop him say Rubio or Mike Waltz, the national security adviser. They've seen what's happened to everyone else that's clashed with Trump, and they understand that they won't be around very long if they contradict the president. So, it's a real dynamic of what's happening, not just in American foreign policy, but domestically as well.

BASH: Yeah. That's such a good point. I was speaking to a Republican who might have been one of those who said, please don't do that, sir, who was telling me about the concerns about I mean, where do we even start about how the Arab countries would respond. This was last night. We've seen how they would respond, concerned that they might even go so far as pulling out of the Abraham Accords, which is one of the crown jewels of Donald Trump's first term.

And that, yes, maybe this is a madman theory of saying something that's so outrageous that when he gets something as compared to this as normal as a two-state solution, you know, that everybody can give him props, but it is so risky in a region like this, with players like this.

HANS NICHOLS, POLITICAL REPORTER, AXIOS: He's improvising, right? Donald Trump is improvising, and he's unbound by any of, as Stephen pointed out, of any of the constraints that were on him in his first term. And we all just have to -- again, stretch every morning and try to stay with them and understand both what he's trying to do on the first iteration of this, which is clearly just sort of mixing things up, right?

Sometimes in diplomacy you get credit for creativity. This is certainly a creative idea. Now, where you really get credit in diplomacy is for actually executing peace deals. And there's such a long distance between throwing an idea about this out and actually rebuilding and bringing peace to the region. But he's making the initial steps, and he is not going to be bound by conventional thinking.

BASH: Well, it's a good thing that John Thune, the Senate majority leader is a runner, so he does stretch every morning. And I'm not sure about Mike Johnson, but he's definitely getting -- maybe getting used to it. Let's hear what both of them said this morning about this idea.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): We're trying to get the details of it, but I think this is a good development. We have to back Israel 100 percent, and so, whatever form that takes, we're interested in having that discussion, but it was a surprising development, but I think it's one that we'll applaud.

SEN. JOHN THUNE (R-SD): A more peaceful and secure Middle East and put some ideas out there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[12:10:00]

BASH: Hamana, Hamada, I think is another way to say ---

(CROSSTALK) NICHOLS: What details they're waiting for --

BASH: Yeah. A lot -- a lot of details. But let me just also give you some other quote. Because I think these are maybe speak to the reality of the way that people are reacting. Lindsey Graham, I think that might be problematic. Thom Tillis, this is maybe my favorite quote ever. There are probably a couple of kinks in that slinky. John Cornyn, I don't know what to make of it. Check back with me tomorrow.

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, POLITICS AND POLICY COLUMNIST, BLOOMBERG & CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yeah. Listen, maybe he hasn't actually seen the presser, of course, he has. He doesn't really want to address that. I mean, Donald Trump telegraphed a lot of this is in his inaugural address. When he talked about expanding American territory and kind of talked about himself as someone who is ordained by God to do whatever needed to be done to reshape the world and reshape America.

And that's what -- that's of course, what we're seeing, you know, this could be improvisation, it could be the opening bid for negotiation, but it's also fuel for Hamas. It's fuel for terrorists. This idea that the American military is going to go in and clear out that area of people who live there and whose homeland it is. It isn't nation building. It is territory expanding. It's, as you said, it's colonialism.

And the idea that Americans who Donald Trump has told, you know, too many wars, too much in blood and treasure in these other wars. The idea that he's going to now turn to this, it caught a lot of people by surprises.

BASH: Because this is Inside Politics. I want to go way, way back to the fall of 2024, and the election. And the really big problem that Democrats, that Joe Biden and then Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket had with voters who on the left, and include -- especially in including those in areas that had a lot have a lot of Arab American voters who were so angry at the Democrats that they either didn't vote, or perhaps, in some cases, voted third party, or even Donald Trump.

Just to give you a sense of the big, big swing, Dearborn, Michigan, of course, the home of a lot of Arab Americans. Just look at this swing. Donald Trump won there by more than six percentage. Four years earlier, Joe Biden won by 39 percentage points.

So, my question now is, when the Democrats who were saying, OK, you might not be thrilled with our policy in the Middle East but wait till this guy gets in office. You know, there's a lot of I told you so going on in Democratic, right?

COLLINSON: Right. Well, that was the frustration because the Democrats couldn't get it across that, OK, you may be angry with the president, President Joe Biden that point, but Trump will be 10 times worse. He's going to be the best friend of the Israeli far right parties in the coalition that there's ever been.

But the problem is, this is politics, and this is emotion, and that is a logical argument. But for the people that were voting against Joe Biden and who voted uncommitted, this wasn't a logical question. It was a question of humanity and emotion. They saw their brethren dying in massive numbers in Gaza, and that, in itself was enough to cast a vote in the opposite direction. People weren't necessarily thinking about politics and foreign policy. This was a question of humanity.

BASH: Yeah. Such a good point. Don't go anywhere because we're going to sneak in a quick break. We have some new reporting on the Justice Department accusing the FBI of insubordination. The breaking details after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BASH: Now to some more breaking news, in a new memo obtained by CNN. The acting deputy attorney general says, rank and file agents who simply followed orders to investigate January 6, will not be fired or otherwise punished, but that's just part of his message. Our senior justice correspondent Evan Perez is standing by you broke the story. Evan, what are you learning?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Dana, this is a memo from Emil Bove, who is the acting deputy attorney general. And one of the things he's doing here is to try to clarify and perhaps calm the nerves of people at the FBI that they might be getting fired, simply for doing their job, simply for following -- doing the work that they're assigned to do. They don't have a choice of which cases to work. And so, that's what he's saying here.

But I'll read you just a part of the memo where he describes the interactions that have been going on behind the scenes that have not been public, and he accuses the acting leadership of the FBI with some -- being insubordinate, essentially because they had rejected his previous request to provide the names of agents, the core agents who had worked on these January 6 cases.

I'll read you just a part of what the -- what he says here. He says insubordination. This is from the week of 20 -- January 27. He says that insubordination is necessitated, among other things, the directive in my January 31, 2025, memo to identify all agents assigned to investigations related to January 6, 2021.

In light of the acting leadership's refusal to comply with the narrow request, the written directive was intended to obtain a complete data set that the Justice Department can reliably pare down to the core team that will be the focus of the weaponization review pursuant to the executive order.

[12:20:00]

This is the president's executive order that -- ordered essentially that the government be rid of any weaponization, including, of course, the FBI and the Justice Department. This is a memo though, Dana, that really does raise additional questions, right?

They say that they're not going to fire or punish agents who followed orders, but he does go on to say that people who should be concerned were -- are people who may have been partisan or shown any other kind of weaponization of the FBI. How does that get -- how does that get defined? We don't know.

And so, we know that we expect today, Pam Bondi, the new attorney general, who was sworn in just in the last hour or so at the Oval Office. She's taking office, and now she will be in charge of this review, which will be looking at all of these Trump related cases. And we'll see how far down they go to take action against agents who are working on these cases that the former president -- that the president, believes were weaponized against him. Dana?

BASH: Yeah. If he's thinking that this memo is going to make people who FBI agents who were assigned to these cases feel more free to come forward. I'm not sure that was -- that was how it landed, certainly not with me. But I'm not an FBI agent. Thank you so much for that great reporting.

Evan mentioned Pam Bondi. She was just sworn in in the last hour as the nation's attorney general. I want you to listen to what Donald Trump said about his new AG, just a few moments ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I think she's going to be as impartial as you can possibly be. I know I'm supposed to say she's going to be totally impartial with respect to Democrats, and I think she will be as impartial as a person can be. I'm not sure if there's a possibility of totally, but she's going to be as total as you can get.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Hans?

NICHOLS: Look, that's just a Trump troll. He's walking up to the line. He kind of jokes at it. He didn't say it. You know, if you have Stephen who writes finer and faster leads than I do as a former wire reporter. I don't know if you could say, write the lead on that. President Donald Trump, you know, threatened to prosecute his enemies and not follow the law impartially, like he just kind of said it. He didn't say it so.

But impartial isn't in the eye of the beholder, right? And it's pretty clear what Trump means by impartial, and that is adopting his view of what impartial is. It's the same as weaponization. Republicans say the Justice Department and the FBI was weaponized. That's a fair argument, but you know, they're weaponizing it in reverse. BASH: Also, you didn't have to say anything. Pam Bondi speaks Donald Trump.

HENDERSON: Yeah. Listen, she is in that position because she is a Donald Trump loyalist. She believes that 2020 was handled in a fraudulent way, and that Donald Trump is the true winner of 2020, and she believes January 6 was essentially a walk in the park.

And so, she is going to be part of his revenge tour. She passed the loyalty test, as did Kash Patel, as did Tulsi Gabbard, as did Pete Hegseth, and they are going to do what Donald Trump wants them to do. They owe their positions to Donald Trump.

Unlike what we saw in 2016 where these were people like Jeff Sessions, who came with their sort of own stature and portfolios. These people are complete synch events to Donald Trump, and they'll do what he wants them to do.

BASH: OK, everybody standby again, because coming up. We'll talk about an ominous warning from a top Democrat.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT): We have not weeks, we have days to stop the destruction of our democracy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: So, the question is, what is their plan? We'll discuss after a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:25:00]

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BASH: Democrats are still trying to find their footing two weeks into Trump 2.0, which is, so far defined by an unprecedented power grab. Democrats are boxed out. They don't control any of Washington. And even when they do stand united, they don't exactly have the ability to block anything in Congress. Instead, they're promising big fights.

Question is, do their leaders have it in them? Well, watch this very well-known member of, I would say, the Trump resistance. He's not sold.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIMMY KIMMEL, HOST, JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE!: There's so much damage being done, but we are not going to sit back and take it. Our leaders on the left are going to stand up for what's right.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): We are going to fight this fight. I am going to stand with you in this fight, and we will win. We will win. We will win. We will win. We will rest. We won't rest. We won't rest. We won't rest.

KIMMEL: Oh, we are so --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: My smart reporters are here. Nia?

HENDERSON: Yeah. You know, Chuck Schumer, I mean having a little trouble there. I do think one of the key ingredients that's missing from this version of the resistance is ordinary citizens who became activists. They were the ones who flooded airports after that announcement of the Muslim ban, and Democrats followed them.

They weren't really the ones at the tip of the spear. It was this outrage among ordinary citizens. The problem now is those ordinary citizens are deflated, defeated, exhausted, and they're just looking to people like, Chuck Schumer, who also seems a little exhausted to lead them during this resistance, and it's obviously happening in fits and starts.