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Trump DOJ Dissolves Team Combating Foreign Election Interference; Democrats Hunt For New Strategies To Win Back Voters; Clarence Thomas Is Go-To Justice To Swear In Trump's Cabinet. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired February 06, 2025 - 12:30   ET

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

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[12:31:31]

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: The FBI is disbanding the team of specialists in charge of combating foreign threats to U.S. elections. National Security Correspondent Josh Campbell is the one who broke this news overnight and has the reporting.

Josh, it is hard to keep up, but it's important that we try. This is a biggie.

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Dana, you know, this special task force was established after 2016 when the Russians, you know, conducted their massive influence effort on the presidential election. The U.S. intelligence community said that that was in order to try to help Donald Trump.

The FBI set up this special task force, basically trying to pull in all the different elements of the bureau that could help counter foreign influence. I'm told from a source that the FBI is preparing to disband that. That is because the new Attorney General issued a memo yesterday saying that this should be dissolved.

What Pam Bondi said in this memo is that she wanted to focus those resources on more pressing issues and to end the risk of any, quote, "weaponization", as she mentioned. But again, this is coming as a great shock to a lot of national security experts that I've spoken with who are concerned because the threats actually continue.

Interestingly, this also appears to be a departure from how the Trump administration handled foreign threats in the first term. I want to have you listen here to a clip when the White House actually brought in administration officials in 2018, held a briefing specifically on election threats and heralded this FBI effort. Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The president has made it clear that his administration will not tolerate foreign interference in our elections from any nation, state or other dangerous actor. CHRIS WRAY, FBI DIRECTOR: The task force now brings together across the waterfront of FBI expertise. So we're talking counterintelligence, cyber, criminal and even counterterrorism. Our adversaries are trying to undermine our country on a persistent and regular basis, whether it's election season or not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMPBELL: Now, there's no indication that the FBI is just going to stop working election interference cases, because the big concern is why disband this team that's bringing in all these elements. This could be a boon, experts say, to foreign adversaries who continue to focus on U.S. elections.

And as Chris Wray just said there in that clip from 2018, these efforts continue not just during election season, but every day.

BASH: Yes. Chris Wray, the Trump tapped FBI director who was --

CAMPBELL: Yes.

BASH: -- effectively forced to quit before Trump came back.

Thank you so much for that great reporting and that scoop, Josh. Appreciate it.

CAMPBELL: You bet. Thanks.

BASH: Up next, how can Democrats win back voters after their worst Electoral College loss since the 1980s? I'm going to talk to a key voice in the party on her vision for one that wins back the working class.

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[12:38:44]

BASH: ?An ongoing and really unanswered question here in Washington is how Democrats navigate this political landscape dominated by Donald Trump. Yesterday, activists across the country mapped out one vision, organizing protests in every state capital to respond to what they call a constitutional crisis, Donald Trump and Elon Musk's effort to remake the federal government regardless of what federal law says.

But Democrats are far from sure how to tackle Trump 2.0, and with a January Quinnipiac poll showing them with their worst favorability numbers since Quinnipiac began polling, that is since 2008. Finding a way back to electoral victory seems pretty hard to imagine.

But Elaine Kamarck is here. She's a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and co-authored a report on Renewing the Democratic Party. Nice to see you. Thank you so much for being here.

So you do lay out in your report a road map, short term, middle term, long term for Democrats to come out of the political wilderness. But of course, the question that people are asking is, what about right now?

ELAINE KAMARCK, SENIOR FELLOW, BROOKINGS: Right.

BASH: Donald Trump and Elon Musk are not waiting for the soul search to end in --

KAMARCK: -- your party. So the question is about your goal to reconnect with the voters you lost on low-income voters, especially across the party.

[12:40:09]

All of the issues that you know that you identified as big issues. But before you get there to re-election, do you have a short-term prescription for fighting back against Donald Trump right now?

KAMARCK: Yes. Right now, the party has to help anyone who has standing to get these issues in front of the courts, because so many of these issues violate standing law and are, frankly, unconstitutional. What the president is doing here is he's like throwing spaghetti at the wall, seeing what sticks, because behind all of this is the desire to have a vast expansion of presidential power and upset the balance of power.

The Republican Congress is just saying, whatever you do, sir, whatever you do, sir. And that's not going to work very well. And so the first thing to do is get this into the courts and protect the separation of powers that's in the Constitution.

BASH: OK. Let's talk about the takeaways from your report. Democrats increasingly struggle to win over, as I mentioned, the working class, non-college educated voters. You say Democrats failed to see the effects of inflation on working families because so many of their voters aren't living paycheck to paycheck.

And for the first time in decades, Democrats won households making over $100,000, which when I first started covering politics, that was --

KAMARCK: A lot of money?

BASH: -- a lot of -- well, also a lot of the Republican voters. Trump won those making under $100,000. So what is the prescription for getting those working class voters back to the Democratic Party?

KAMARCK: The Democratic Party has become, to my surprise, your surprise, right, the party of educated people who, and because education and income correlate, who make more money. So both Hillary -- starting with Hillary Clinton, the Democratic candidates have won counties where the income is higher than the national GDP. That's remarkable.

So what the Democrats aren't doing clearly is they're not talking to rural voters and they're not talking to sort of ex-urban voters and voters without a college degree. And there's a lot more voters without a college degree than there are with a college degree. And they have to talk to them on the flat out economic issues and how the Republican Party is dealing with their needs. And they also have to talk to them about cultural issues. And this is where the rubber meets the road, OK?

Democrats have been, for many years now, so tone deaf on cultural issues that -- and those issues get emotions, right?

BASH: Can you be specific, dig deeper on that? What cultural issues?

KAMARCK: Trans issues.

BASH: And what do you think the Democrats take it to the next step? Democrats are tone deaf on trans issues, as you say.

KAMARCK: Yes.

BASH: So what should they be saying? And is it saying something or is it genuinely that they feel differently in the leadership than a lot of the people who used to be their voters?

KAMARCK: They genuinely feel differently, but they are not sensitive to the opinions of the people who used to be their voters. And they need to think hard about how they talk about the cultural issues.

So let me give you two examples from the past. Bill Clinton was a genius at this. Bill, in that - in his era, right, welfare was a big cultural issue. People shouldn't be getting money if they don't work. What did Bill Clinton say about welfare? He said, end welfare as we now know it. Brilliant.

BASH: The fact that I still remember it --

KAMARCK: The fact that you still remember it.

BASH: -- it means that it's --

KAMARCK: Yes.

BASH: It's a line.

KAMARCK: The other thing he said about abortion, which has always been a cultural issue --

BASH: Safe, legal and rare.

KAMARCK: You got it, safe, legal and rare. See, those things we remember because they were so well said. And we need to do the same thing with this generation's set of cultural issues. Otherwise, nobody hears us.

BASH: OK, so is it find the next Bill Clinton? And I should say one of your many credentials that I neglected to say is that you were part of the sort of Democratic Party leadership that helped get your party out of the wilderness --

KAMARCK: That's right.

BASH: -- back in the 80s when Ronald Reagan and Republicans dominated. One of the ways you did that was by finding a Bill Clinton.

KAMARCK: Finding a Bill Clinton.

BASH: Is there a Bill Clinton that you see, or is it more than that? And, you know, one of the things that Rahm Emanuel, for example, other people are saying is that it's also about showing the people who used to be your voters that you're angry and you get them and that to have kind of a common fight, which means you need to have a common enemy, for lack of a better way to say it.

KAMARCK: Yes, I think that Rahm's right about that. And I think that Bill Galston and I have spent the last 30 years basically writing the same paper over and over again, OK, which says to the Democrats, you must pay attention to the voters.

[12:45:02]

You must pay attention to our base, which is now deteriorated. And you must watch out for these cultural issues which block the economic issues. And that's where the Democrats have always gotten screwed up, always.

Our congressional candidates, interestingly enough, don't. I mean, we didn't have anybody running for Congress on open borders, right, or defund the police. We did a study at Brookings on all the congressional candidates, and they were quite moderate, most of them.

And yet, one issue comes along. Harris did not combat that issue effectively.

BASH: You're talking about the trans --

KAMARCK: The trans issue.

BASH: -- issue.

KAMARCK: Comes along. She did not have a Bill Clinton way of dealing with that issue. And we need to find people who can speak to the voters in the way that Bill Clinton did.

BASH: Who is that person, real quick?

KAMARCK: I don't know. I think there's some potential -- I think there's some governors out there who maybe have that talent, but they haven't emerged yet. Hopefully, they will.

BASH: So let's just do the Bill Clinton trifecta. Somebody needs a sister soldier moment.

Somebody needs a Sister Souljah moment.

KAMARCK: Somebody needs a Sister Souljah moment.

BASH: There you go.

KAMARCK: Exactly.

BASH: Thank you so much. It was great to see you. Please come back. We've a lot more to talk about.

KAMARCK: I will. I will. Thanks so much.

BASH: OK. Thanks so much.

Up next, Justice Clarence Thomas has sworn in five Trump Cabinet members so far. And sources tell CNN at the specific request of President Trump. The White House may be counting on him for much more than that. We have some new reporting after the break.

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[12:50:55]

BASH: Please raise your right hand again and again and again. That's what we heard from Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who's emerging as the go-to justice to swear in Donald Trump's Cabinet, overseeing ceremonies at the Supreme Court, at the White House, even at his own home, all while he and his wife, a longtime conservative activist, are drawing exceptional attention from President Trump.

CNN's Joan Biskupic is here with new reporting that she has with Jeff Zeleny about the closeness between Trump and the Thomases, and the questions that these swearing-in ceremonies kind of open the door to. Not that there's anything untoward about doing it. It's just what it symbolizes.

Particularly we were talking as we were coming on, and I don't have a very strong memory of Cabinet -- and Laura is still here too --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

BASH: -- of Cabinet officials having swearing-ins of any Supreme Court justice.

JOAN BISKUPIC, CNN SENIOR SUPREME COURT ANALYST: That's because it's traditionally been done by the Vice President of the United States, but just think of all the people that Clarence Thomas did. Yesterday, it was Pam Bondi for Attorney General and Scott Turner for the Housing and Urban Development Office.

Earlier in that same day, he was at the Supreme Court doing Doug Collins for the Veterans Administration. Last week, he did Sean Duffy for Department of Transportation. And as you focused on Kristi Noem at his own house on January 25th.

And what Jeff Zeleny found out when we started putting together this pattern was that Donald Trump specifically asked for Justice Thomas to be handling these oath ceremonies. And the reason it's -- you know, gets our attention is because Ginni Thomas especially wants to be -- has wanted to be part of a Trump administration and (INAUDIBLE). BASH: Well, and give us just a little bit of the background with Ginni Thomas.

BISKUPIC: Yes. I mean --

BASH: Not just a conservative activist.

BISKUPIC: During the first administration, she was regularly in contact with top White House officials. And then we know in 2020, when Donald Trump lost that election to Joe Biden, she was somebody imploring Mark Meadows, then the chief of staff, to keep fighting, keep fighting, keep fighting.

And the January 6th Committee found all sorts of emails that she had sent. So that kind of gives you the context of these two, especially, you know, Justice Thomas has been, of all the nine justices, the one most willing to sort of interact with the Trump administration.

Now, I should add that Brett Kavanaugh also swore in two cabinet officials. He did Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin, but these were not at the White House.

BASH: Yes, and the Vice President, so -- has done some. So the -- it is interesting that Brett Kavanaugh -- what I'm trying to say, sorry, is that Clarence Thomas was not a Trump appointee. Donald Trump has the sort of unusual position of having three justices on the court who actually he picked. I guess Kavanaugh did too, but the fact that he is choosing Clarence Thomas is really noteworthy.

BISKUPIC: It is, and I'll tell you why again.

BASH: Yes.

BISKUPIC: And you probably remember back in 1991 when George H.W. Bush named Clarence Thomas --

BASH: Yes.

BISKUPIC: -- to that seat. You know, he's the eldest justice at age 76, the longest serving justice on the current bench. And Donald Trump did not choose him, but Donald Trump has embraced him. And during Pam Bondi's swearing-in ceremony yesterday, he talked about how he realized that Clarence Thomas was this conservative rock star.

He said, they love you, and I love you too, and I love your wife. He called her incredible and, you know, so excellent in what she does. But what Donald Trump was able to do with his three appointees, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett, was to sort of embolden Clarence Thomas's conservatism. So they've kind of formed a great partnership, all moving the court more to the right, Dana.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, I think that point in your story where you're talking about how Trump is a bit obsessed with Clarence Thomas's star power amongst the conservatives was interesting. [12:55:04]

I mean, Trump loves people who have star power, loves people who love him, and the Thomases have made clear that even after 2020 and after the election there, that they were willing to essentially reject the legitimate election results, at least Clarence Thomas's wife.

But it's also just striking because we're talking about a moment where all of these lawsuits are probably headed to the Supreme Court. Birthright, citizenship --

BASH: Glad you brought that up.

BARRON-LOPEZ: -- questions about whether or not the President is violating the power of the purse with Congress. You name it, the list goes on and on. Lawsuits are barely starting. They're probably headed to the Supreme Court very soon.

And how is that court going to rule? Are -- is the conservative leaning court going to rule in favor of Donald Trump or are they not?

BASH: Yes, really, really. I'm glad you made that point. I'm glad you brought us this reporting. Thank you so much to both of you.

Thank you for joining Inside Politics. CNN News Central starts after the break.