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CNN Live Event/Special

Interview With Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA); Donald Trump Becomes 47th President of the United States. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired January 20, 2025 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:00]

DANA BASH, CNN HOST: Virtually all the things were things that we heard on the campaign trail, except the Panama and changing the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: And the American flag on Mars.

BASH: And the American flag on Mars, the first two being things that he -- I don't believe he can just do with the stroke of a pen.

But, regardless, just tonally, the fact that he not only did that kind of specific speech and give those specific and pointed partisan notes in that speech. It looked a little bit more awkward than it normally would when you have the person who you defeated there, and in this case two people he defeated there behind you, because it's inside and so intimate.

You could almost kind of feel a little bit of the cringe there inside. But make no mistake about it. What Donald Trump said and the kind of promises that he made for the most part are why people went and voted for him.

TAPPER: The principal aide is what they're called, the principal aide, the incoming and outgoing first and second couples. They're walking through an area of the Capitol called the Crypt.

And at the end of it, the departure of now former President Joe Biden.

Abby, your reaction to the speech?

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST: In many ways it was very much a Donald Trump campaign speech. It's what you might hear if you went to one of his rallies.

And Jason Miller was speaking to you earlier today. And he telegraphed that, that Trump was going to dispense with the flowery language. He was not interested in much of that in this speech. He has a to-do list to do. But one thing that I was very struck by was the way that he played prominently in his speech in this moment.

Usually, presidents spend a lot of time talking about the country, about their vision for the nation, about its place in the world. And Donald Trump talked a lot about him and how difficult it was for him to endure the last four years and the journey back to the White House. He talked about how his life was saved, he believed, by God to make

America great again. And the reason that's notable is because he understands that, for his supporters, that is part of his political story. That's one of the reasons, as we were talking about earlier, that they love him and adore him so much.

Trump is very much leaning into that and using it as a source of power, political power, as he goes into this second nonconsecutive term in the White House.

BASH: He didn't say American carnage, but it wasn't as far off from American carnage as we were led to believe. There were hopeful moments, but there were a lot of very specific kind of broadsides against the current administration.

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: And there's just one other thing, forgive me, Abby, that I want to say...

PHILLIP: Yes.

BASH: ... because I think it is important to note. Where he was giving that speech, in the Capitol Rotunda, four years ago, people in his name were desecrating that very building, that very area because they did not want him to leave office.

They believed the lies he was telling that he actually did win.

TAPPER: Kaitlan Collins, there were a number of religious leaders that spoke, from Rabbi Ari Berman, the president of Yeshiva University, to Franklin Graham, to Cardinal Timothy Dolan, and the archbishop of New York.

But the one that seemed to arouse the most joy from President Trump was Reverend Lorenzo Sewell from West Detroit from the Evangel Ministries in West Detroit. And Trump after he spoke, after his rousing benediction, Trump said to Lorenzo Sewell, "You're a star."

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN HOST: And, Jake, I will tell you, my dad texted me after that and said -- quote -- "I'm going to Lorenzo's church one day."

He thought that he nailed it and really appreciated those comments there from him. But, Jake, on the president's speech overall I had talked to his advisers in the lead-up to this. They had previewed a unifying speech.

But I think really the theme of what we just heard there was vindication from Trump himself, as he was talking about the state of the United States and sought to cast it in dire straits that only he can fix and really castigated Biden's legacy while sitting just a few feet away from him, causing some bemused looks from President Biden, who at times laughed when Trump said he was going to sign executive orders restoring common sense inside the United States. Hillary Clinton there, you see, she burst out laughing when Trump said

he was going to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. But really what Trump was doing there and laying out really what he's posted on TRUTH Social for the better part of a year now are all of the priorities that he is going to seek to implement now that he's in office.

[13:05:04]

And he very clearly feels emboldened. And you can see that he is at the sense of the height of his powers in this moment of what he wants to do with this position.

And there's a reason for that, Jake, by the very people in this room, all of the big tech leaders in this country seated behind him and listening to him, the Republican Party firmly in his grasp. The question, of course, is what this looks like once he -- now that he actually is in power and make if he can make good on all the campaign promises, many of which he repeated today and did not back off of that language, as you heard from him there, but very clearly not a unifying speech, but one of vindication for Donald Trump -- Anderson.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Kaitlan, thanks very much.

Back with the team here in the D.C. bureau.

John King?

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It was a dark speech, but it was also a very ambitious speech.

And I think in the next hour, as -- even as the president is celebrated at this luncheon on Capitol Hill, it's going to take a moment. We're going to get the first couple executive orders. And we're told this is going to go into the late-night hours tonight. We're going to keep getting the new policy.

I think he laid down some markers there that he needs to keep or his party will want to keep. Donald Trump won't be on the ballot again, but he said, we're going to rapidly bring down costs and prices, rapidly. That's a big test. That is the number one issue in the country, the cost of living. It's why he's president of the United States.

He also said we're going to expand our territory. That's an interesting question. When George W. Bush, the last Republican president before Donald Trump, came in, he talked about a humble foreign policy and peace in the neighborhood.

Donald Trump said, we're going to take it back of the Panama Canal. He didn't say we're going to use military force to do that. He said, we're going to take it back. So he talked about manifest destiny, expanding the territory of the United States.

The immigration stuff will be both part of his mandate, which he has, but also part of his test. Does he overreach it, to get too far out over his skis? I think the thing we're looking for is, this is night and day. Joe Biden and Donald Trump is night and day in terms of how they conduct themselves and the things they want to do.

As these orders come out today, not only what do they do? What specifically do they do? What is the tone?

COOPER: David?

DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I'm going to paraphrase something I said at the Republican Convention.

You remember, at the Republican Convention, right after the president was shot, we were told that he had his thrown a speech out and he was going to give a very positive, hopeful speech. And he had a few pages of that, and then he kind of devolved into his campaign speech, which was very, very dark.

And this too was sort of an American carnage burger in a golden era bun. The front and the back had something uplifting. The middle of it was very familiar, sort of dystopian rhetoric that is -- that he ran on, to be fair, that was -- that included his personal grievances and some false assertions that will be sorted out, but as John said, also laid down some markers.

And the question is, will he meet those markers? The idea, for example, that we're going to drill, baby, drill, and that's going to cut energy costs,he said yesterday in a year-and-a-half. I mean, these are things that are measurable. And if people see him on a bunch of other kind of more retribution-oriented or exotic missions, and those markers aren't met, problem for him and the Republican Party.

COOPER: And we're about to see former President Biden and first lady Jill Biden going in the helicopter.

Scott Jennings, your thoughts?

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I thought this was an incredible speech, honestly.

And truly watching Donald Trump indict these gangsters to their faces while they had to sit right in front of him in that intimate setting in the Rotunda for Republicans was remarkable. They had to sit there and take it just minutes after Biden, who we're looking at here, pardoned his entire family.

I mean, it was glorious. By the way, I love the Rotunda setting. I thought it was regal. I thought it was awesome. And listening to him talk about how he's going to exercise his power today reminded me that he is absolutely ascendant. He is at the apex of his political power right now.

And the promise of a new presidency is enormous. You get this power and you have influence. And the mandate is to change people's lives for the better and to restore American prestige. And he began to explain how he was going to do that immediately. The mandate is simple. It's economic relief. It's fix the immigration crisis, steer the

country away from the cultural left, and restore American prestige. The speech hit several notes on that front. And I agree with Kaitlan. Today, Republicans feel vindicated. And Trump is back to fix the country.

COOPER: We just saw the vice president, Harris -- former Vice President Harris and her husband saying goodbye to the Bidens.

Let's go to Jeff Zeleny, who is standing by -- Jeff.

[13:10:11]

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Extraordinary moments of an inaugural ceremony, when the incoming president escorts the outgoing president to the waiting Marine One.

I'm thinking back right now to eight years ago, when President Trump did the same thing with outgoing President Barack Obama. And that was an extraordinary moment. They walked down the steps that day, not as cold that day, not as windy that day.

But now they came out to ground level here, and they are waiting there for the motorcade to move by. And then President Trump will take a final walk with former President Joe Biden and former first lady Jill Biden to Marine One. And the Bidens will lift off and take one last look back at Washington as they head to Joint Base Andrews, and then they will fly to California.

This is the true transfer of power here of the current president and the former president making this walk, the senators, the committee watching as this happens here. It's blustery. It's cold. You can see first lady Melania Trump holding her hat there.

And this is a poignant moment for Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., who came to Washington as the youngest senator and is leaving now as the oldest American president.

COOPER: Van, this is the final moments of the Bidens' political career here in Washington.

VAN JONES, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, 50 years is a long time. It's a half-a-century. And he's spent about half-a-century in that town, often going home on the Amtrak train, talking to everybody, meeting everybody.

And he believed from a young age that he had something to give this country, that he had something to offer that was special, that someday he'd be in the White House. And he was. And history will judge him in some ways harshly, but he's leaving behind a better economy than he found. And he's leaving with more grace and dignity than he was shown by this man who's now walking up those stairs.

And I think the country needs to show some appreciation for the messy inheritance and what he did with it. The speech that we just heard had some good stuff in it and some bad

stuff in it. The good stuff, Donald Trump said he's not going to use political power to prosecute political opponents. Good. I hope he is telling the truth about that. He said -- he did not promise in that speech to end birthright citizenship. That is important.

He didn't double down on that. That's important. And he said impossible is what we do best, which I agree.

But the rest of the speech was him fixing problems that don't exist and making problems worse that do exist. We are already the most energy-dominant country in the world. There is no shortage of oil permits. There is no E.V. mandate. The real threat to Detroit is the Chinese automakers that are kicking our butts making E.V.s. We have got to catch them. '

COOPER: I want to -- I just want to check in with M.J. Lee.

M.J., you have been covering this White House for some time. Your thoughts on some of this.

M.J. LEE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I think we do need to take a real beat to talk about the news that we got from former President Joe Biden just moments after he had stepped into the Capitol Rotunda.

It was actually 11:38 exactly that this announcement hit my inbox an extraordinary and unprecedented announcement to preemptively pardon multiple members of his family. We are talking about Biden's siblings and their respective spouses being offered preemptive pardons.

The timing just could not have been more remarkable, given that it came just moments after President Biden had ridden in the motorcade with President Trump. They had shared pleasantries inside the White House over tea. And now we had this announcement from the former president, again, Joe Biden, saying he worried about how his own family members would be targeted by Donald Trump.

And I am told by a source familiar with his thinking that this was in no small part driven by Donald Trump's public promise to appoint a special prosecutor to go after every member of the Biden family. But this was something that was incredibly worrisome to Joe Biden, something that really haunted him as he thought about the prospects of his life after office.

And if you look at the extraordinary written statement that we got from President Biden, it kind of gets at that sentiment. He said: "Even when individuals have done nothing wrong and will ultimately be exonerated, the mere fact of being investigated or prosecuted can irreparably damage their reputations and finances."

[13:15:01]

Anderson, as we watch President Biden take off, now that he is no longer the sitting president, I mean, we have been talking about all of the different ways in which he himself ended up tarnishing his own reputation in these final days in office, including reneging on his word to be a bridge candidate by seeking a second term, the decision to pardon his son Hunter after repeatedly saying he wouldn't, and then with this, the preemptive pardoning of multiple members of his family.

It was back in December of 2020 that he told our colleague Jake Tapper regarding reports of Donald Trump at the time potentially preemptively pardoning his own children, he said: "In terms of the pardons, you are not going to see in our administration that kind of approach to pardons. It's just going to be totally different, the way in which we approach the justice system."

Well, as it turns out, Anderson, there was another promise broken. That is exactly how he has ultimately decided to approach the justice system. And this is a decision that is going to raise so many alarming questions about the legal precedence that this now sets, and will have been really one of the very final acts for President Biden as a sitting president.

And here he is now flying off. We know that he is going to be going on vacation with the first -- former first lady in California, where, of course, some of his family members reside -- Anderson.

COOPER: Melissa, the -- it was remarkable. There were pardons earlier this morning for General Mark Milley and others. These last-minute pardons were clearly timed.

I mean, they clearly were signed before, but timed to be released after the car ride, once the final inauguration was beginning.

ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, it very much felt like a news dump of pardons. There was no way there was going to be good coverage around this.

And while I think many people could argue why Milley, Fauci and others should be inoculated with these pardons and not prosecuted for doing what they did as government officials, this is much, much muddier. And the right has argued for years that there are foreign dealings, there are ways in which the Biden family has profited that should be looked into.

And this just underscores what so many in this country believe. And Joe Biden sang a very different tune to Jake Tapper and to others about how he wouldn't do this. And it feeds into this notion, the same party that runs on upholding democratic norms, Joe Biden in many ways undercut them in the end. And I think that puts Donald Trump in a stronger position of power.

But one thing I was really struck by watching this is, this is the mainstreaming of Donald Trump. Of course, he was a president before, but you can't dismiss him as an anomaly anymore. He is as much part of the fabric of American history as Barack Obama, George Bush.

And you saw it, from the tech titans there, to the A-list celebrities like Carrie Underwood, to the CEO of the fashion conglomerate. This is a very different Donald Trump presidency than the first time he was in office. KING: If you're going to do these things -- I was covering the

Clinton White House when at the very last-minute when the then soon- to-be-former President Clinton was on his way to the Capitol when they pardoned this billionaire, Marc Rich, who had -- was a fugitive and had violated all sorts of sanctions against Iran and other countries around the world, it's just unseemly.

If you're going to do it, have the courage to do it in the light of day and explain it to the American people. It's a stain on his legacy to do it like this. We can have an argument about, is it necessary? Has Donald Trump promised retribution? Yes, he has.

But I just -- if you're the president of states who said that the curse of Donald Trump was that he didn't respect democracy and didn't respect norms, have the courage to look the American people in the eye and explain what you're doing.

AXELROD: Yes, he -- I mean, the way it was done suggests that there was something wrong with doing it. He tried to slip it in under the -- in the final minutes.

And that was...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't know. Really...

AXELROD: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ... the escalating rhetoric from Trump, though -- I mean, he says -- in the pardon statement, he said: "This acceptance should not be misconstrued as an admission of guilt."

AXELROD: No, I know what he said. I mean, he said that -- yes, I know what he said.

But the fact is that Trump has been saying this for a long time. That doesn't explain why in the last 10 minutes of your presidency you slip a release out.

FARAH GRIFFIN: And the spouse, names I have never heard come out of Donald Trump's mouth.

AXELROD: It just made the whole thing look tawdry.

COOPER: We will talk more about this.

Let's check in with Kaitlan.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN HOST: Yes, Anderson, I'm standing here with Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, a Republican who was in the House to watch the inaugural address by President Trump.

Governor Kemp, thank you for being here.

What did you think of the speech?

GOV. BRIAN KEMP (R-GA): Well, I thought he said it best when he said he was confident, but also optimistic, really forward-thinking remarks, exciting.

So we're ready to go to work.

COLLINS: And Trump is going to come in here in a moment. This is the Emancipation Hall, the overflow room, essentially, for those who could not fit in the Rotunda. A lot of the governors are in here.

[13:20:00]

You saw Trump castigating Biden really over his record while he was just sitting a few feet away. Now the question is what Trump does with his time and his power. And he does have two Republican majorities.

You're a Republican who has gone up against Trump and survived, not something that many of your fellow Republicans have been able to do. What do you want to see the second term look like different than the first?

KEMP: Well, I think from a Republican governor's perspective, we all have a sense of urgency, just like he does. He knows he's got a limited amount of time with these majorities, so he wants to go to work to deliver on the message that he promised people he would do, like securing the border.

We're looking forward to working with him on that, American energy independence, going after foreign gangs and drug cartels and releasing the economy and other things. Those are things that we're all excited about working with him on.

COLLINS: One thing he didn't mention, but we know he plans to do later on, are pardons for the January 6 criminal rioters who were convicted of crimes.

It's unclear how broad he's going to go with that. Where do you personally think he should draw the line with those pardons?

KEMP: Well, I would just say, I will let him speak to that.

But, I mean, I think President Biden was pardoning people literally minutes before the ceremony today. So he set an interesting precedent. So we will see what President Trump does. But, look, for us, today's all focusing on delivering on his message to the people. And the governors can help him do that.

And we have, quite honestly, been waiting for that for many years now.

COLLINS: Will it bother you if he pardons the people who assaulted law enforcement?

KEMP: Well, look, I don't want to speak to specific pardons, not knowing any details. I'd let him -- we can talk about that after he actually does something.

COLLINS: All right, Governor Kemp, we will reach out to you when that happens.

Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us -- Anderson,

COOPER: Anderson, I want to check in with our Manu Raju.

Manu, I understand you spoke to the Clintons.

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right.

I just actually spoke to -- reached -- former President Bill Clinton was walking out of the Rotunda, where the speech just happened, as well as Secretary -- the former secretary of state his wife, former first lady Hillary Clinton.

Hillary Clinton, I asked her first. I said, what did you think of the speech? She smiled. She didn't want to answer that question at all. And then Bill Clinton said: "You have to figure it out for yourself." He wanted to weigh in, but then he decided ultimately not to.

Then I ran into them again as they were leaving the Senate chamber and then I asked Bill Clinton whether he wanted to expand on that. He completely declined to comment. And then they ultimately said that they both were leaving. Both he and the secretary -- and his wife, Hillary Clinton, were not going to attend this luncheon, this bipartisan luncheon, that happens after -- just a matter of moments after the inauguration.

Now, a number of Democrats, though, sharply critical about this -- back to you, Anderson.

COOPER: All right, President Trump is coming down, apparently, to meet some people, possibly give remarks. And let's just listen in.

(CHEERING)

COOPER: This is part of...

(CROSSTALK)

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: ... hall, where that spillover crowd...

(CHEERING)

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: ... to watch the inaugural from the Rotunda were seated.

So it's dignitaries and others who have been put into that room.

(APPLAUSE)

J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, thank you all so much for being here. And was that a hell of a speech or what? That was -- man.

(CHEERING) VANCE: That was a good way to start it off. I didn't know exactly what the president would put in that speech, and I hoped to myself that he wasn't going to hold back.

And, sir, you didn't hold back. That was a hell of a way to start the next four years. But I just want to say, from the bottom of my heart, and I know I speak for the president and for all of us, thank you, thank you, thank you for making this possible. We love you. We wouldn't be here without you, and we're going to make America great again together for the next four years.

(CHEERING)

VANCE: And the last thing I will say is, having stood outside for about five minutes to wave goodbye to the Bidens, thank God we moved that thing indoors, because it was a beautiful ceremony and it was cold as hell outside.

So, sir, the 45th and 47th president of the United States, Donald J. Trump.

(CHEERING)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You know, he's right. I looked. I said, oh, look at this beautiful sunny day. We blew it. We blew it.

And then I went outside and we were freezing. You would have been very unhappy. The sun was very deceptive, I will tell you. It is cold out. And I'm sort of saying, that was so beautiful today. Maybe they should do it there every four years. Does that make sense? I don't know. Because the outdoor thing is really good, but it gets a little cold around this time of the year, as some people have noticed.

[13:25:03]

And a lot of times, they suffer through it. There was no suffering in that room. It was 72 degrees. It was perfect with the best acoustics -- best acoustics I think I have ever heard in a room. This is not so bad either.

But I just want to say, you're a younger, far more beautiful audience than I just spoke to.

(CHEERING)

TRUMP: And I want to keep it off the record. I want to keep that off the record, because I don't want to have all those big shots up there. I don't want them to think you're more powerful than them. You look better than them. And I love you.

(CHEERING)

TRUMP: Now, we just had a great time. We just had a great day. This was amazing. When you think, we took a journey. I mentioned in the speech, a lot of

people said that was not a journey that was possible. And it was indeed possible. I didn't really know too much about what they were saying when they said that. But a lot of people felt it. And we hooked up with J.D. very early. I watched J.D. over a period of time. I endorsed him in Ohio.

He was a great -- a great senator and very, very smart. The only one smarter than him was his wife. That was...

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: I would have chosen her. But somehow the line of succession didn't work that way. But, no, she's great and he's great. This is a great, beautiful couple and unbelievable career.

I just said to him, you are very upwardly mobile, because he hasn't been doing it that long. But he picked it up so quickly. Remember, the first week was a little bit like the fake news was hitting him really hard. And I said, ooh, this may be tough.

But after that, it was smooth selling for him. He took on everybody. He took on the meanest, I don't want to use the word corrupt, because we're into a new system. So let's wait until the corruption begins, because it will. But he took on some pretty mean people and he handled it well.

I want to also congratulate Mike Johnson for the job that he's doing.

(CHEERING)

TRUMP: See, we gave him a majority of almost nothing. And then I said to make it tougher on him, let me take two or three of the people, right? I said, he will only have to suffer with that for about three months. How are they doing, by the way? Are they -- is that moving along?

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): Totally unified.

TRUMP: I said, do you mind if I take this one, that one, and a couple of others? It's -- he didn't mind. He can handle it.

No, he's a man that's liked by everybody. I have never met a man like this. You have got two -- how many is it, 219 or 220 or something?

JOHNSON: Two-twenty.

TRUMP: Two-twenty. And of the 220, 219 really like him. I noticed he got one negative vote once about two weeks ago.

But I think even 220 like him, if you want to know the truth. And that's very unusual. I know a lot of nice guys in Congress, and they have 35 people that hate them. So if you have 35 people that hate you, and you only have one or two or three votes, you will have five, I think. But that's that's going to be -- like, the good news is, when we get

to that five number, it's going to feel like a massive majority. We -- you could be really nasty to a couple of them, at least, yes? So it's going to feel like hitting your head on the wall and stopping. It feels so good to stop. But he's done a fantastic job.

And Steve Scalise is -- he's our hero, because I was with him.

(CHEERING)

TRUMP: You talk about being shot. I was with him. He got some bad ones, and his incredible wife, and she really loves him, you know? You never know about that. I have been with other people. They were doing poorly, and the wife is like looking at her watch. She can't get out of the hospital fast enough.

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: How's he doing? I don't know. He's all right.

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: That woman was a mess. She was crying and crying. No, they're going to take him. They're going to take him.

I told Steve when he finally woke up. It was a while too. The doctor told me it was the most blood they have ever transfused in any patient. They have never done anything like it. And here he is, the picture of strength, right? And he's been a great friend of mine, right?

(CHEERING)

TRUMP: With a family, because of a family. And what a job you did. It worked out pretty much -- pretty much better than we even thought, right?

And I did have a couple of things, you know, to say that were extremely controversial. And between J.D. and Melania and anybody else that heard, please, sir it's such a beautiful, unifying speech. Please, sir, don't say these things. I said, I'm telling you, it's going to play great.

They said, you're right. For this group of people, it's going to play great. You're the only ones I hurt by not -- oh, but we had some beauties, didn't we, Melania? She said, sir -- calls me sir when she's angry.

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: No. No, I'm only kidding. I better say I'm only kidding, or the press is going to pick that one up loud and clear.

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: No, but she said, no, I -- I -- I think it's -- it would be terrible.