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CNN Live Event/Special

The Inauguration of Donald Trump; President Trump Attends Congressional Luncheon. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired January 20, 2025 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

ASHLEY ALLISON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: ... who will say things and people will begin to assume because he has Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg sitting holding court with him that everything that comes out of his mouth is accurate or true and it's not. And it's the folks up here, the journalists out there who are under pressure who will have the responsibility to hold the line and keep it -- and in fact check him when he presents something that is false.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Tim, now you were pointing out in history the record for executive orders on the first day is -- what?

TIMOTHY NAFTALI, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Nine.

COOPER: By --

NAFTALI: Biden. And --

COOPER: That seemed like a lot.

NAFTALI: Well and Trump himself didn't have many executive orders the first time around on January 20. So he is -- he has decided to make good on his promise to be a dictator on day one. Remember that promise. That's what he and that he's making.

I just want to make a point about how the world is watching this. Know there are a number of foreign leaders that came to this inauguration which was itself unusual. He also invited -- the president did -- invited leaders of foreign conservative far right governments. In a sense we had the far right international representative the inauguration and the president United States for the first time since 1901 in an inaugural address talked about how this country is going to acquire new territory and threatened the sovereignty of another country.

That is a signal to the far right in the world that America is now going to play the game the way the other far right countries play which is what we want we take. Which means for the first time since World War II, we are no longer an indispensable nation. If we follow through with the rhetoric in the inauguration we have become an imperialist nation.

I know my friends on the left will say we were throughout the Cold War. I don't view the Cold War that way at all. We were seeking collective security. We over -- we overdid it in certain parts of the world. I know that. But what we -- the kind of rhetoric that the president used today in his inaugural speech is the kind of rhetoric one associates with imperial great power.

COOPER: David Urban just in terms of these executive orders do you think -- I mean obviously the Trump administration anticipates legal challenges doesn't expect them all to stand, I assume.

DAVID URBAN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes I think you know while the president was giving his address inaugural address public citizen or one of these watchdog groups filed a suit to eviscerate DOGE -- the government efficiency committee. So I think the administration expects there'll be lots of challenges to these things.

But again it's delivering on the red meat the woke part of the agenda. We're going to deliver on day one. We're going to have actions. We're going to close the border. The things that they can do. You'll see enforcement actions taking place in Chicago, New York and other cities in the next coming days -- 24 hours, 72 hours.

Again the thing that's going to be tougher for the administration to do is really affect the economy because people are going to go to the grocery store and they're going to check out the gas pump. And if those numbers don't come down and come down quickly that's where they're going to be able -- that's where they're going to notice it.

And so you said people pay attention domestically, internationally, where people pay attention the most is when they get their grocery bill, when they're filling up their tank, when they're going to 7- Eleven or you know whatever Wawa sheets. Whatever they're checking out and they pay. They notice the bills gone from a $10 bill to a $20 bill. That's a big deal in their life.

So that's how it impacts them there, domestic quicker. Trump wins. It takes a long time, he's not doing a good job.

COOPER: And, Anita McBride, you were chief of staff for Laura Bush. Just in the White House right now, they are still -- they're nearing the end of their move. So the Biden stuff is already out. The Trump stuff is already in.

ANITA MCBRIDE, DIRECTOR, FIRST LADIES INITIATIVE, AMERICAN UNIVERSITY: Absolutely. I think the House is ready for the new first family to arrive --

COOPER: They're probably happy -- they are like 30 minutes or so.

MCBRIDE: -- that they're getting a little bit of extra time because that means the staff there can stagger their own mealtimes and get a little bit of rest time to be ready. But the House by this point is ready for them to come and to welcome them warmly.

I would like to, if you wouldn't mind, just maybe, Tim, challenge you a little bit on Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy because -- as a far right leader. Do you remember when she was elected? President Biden actually said that. Look what they just did in Italy elected a far right leader and then came to see her. Not that way but as a strong leader in Europe and in Europe that needed a person --

NAFTALI: Point taken. But the AfD is also, the Germans are there. And the further right of the Le Pen's from France are there.

COOPER: I want to play something that President Trump said during his inaugural address about the Gulf of Mexico.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: A short time from now we are going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. And we will restore the name --

(APPLAUSE)

-- of a great president, William McKinley, to Mount McKinley where it should be and where it belongs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: There's also a video of Hillary Clinton's reaction during that --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: -- to the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: No one else -- not many other people seem to be laughing there.

[15:35:00]

David Chalian, I mean, one of the many things I guess we'll hear today.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF AND POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Yes, I don't know what like what that gulf is called at the end of the day is going to be like the most important thing in the Trump presidency of these next four years. But it does show you, A, his ability to entertain, which like that is something he is clearly doing here. But also it's just the branding exercise.

So I think, you know, we journalists will keep our eye on the ball of things that he does that are going to have real change for people every day. And like you said, hold accountable to his promise to bring down prices. I mean that's something he has sort of been backpedaling on.

It may be tough to bring down prices but the American people are waiting to see that. This kind of stuff feels a bit more like the branding performative entertaining.

COOPER: Well how much of it is a distraction from those other things. CHALIAN: You know that that is that is certainly part of what you do what we've learned about him in the past. That is part of his strategy is to come up with enough distraction.

I don't think -- But the only thing I would say about that, Anderson, Donald Trump is not one to hide. It's like you're distracting and it's something hiding over here. He doesn't hide anything. He's very clear about what he is, he's doing and what he intends to do.

ALLISON: Yes, but I would also say though he does it for exhaustion purposes as well. A lot of people have been talking about where's the left. Where's the resistance?

And 2017 we went after every single fight. And right now many people on the progressive side are saying, let's take a step back and really focus on the things that we need to pay attention to so we aren't exhausted and day one --

MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Can I just say that President Biden on his way out the door I think did President Trump an enormous favor with the family pardon. To me the biggest event of the day still to come are those J6 pardons and commutations which I'm prepared to be outraged about. But the response is going to be, look what President Biden did relative to his family on the way out. It's going to completely dissipate that issue.

COOPER: We're going to have more ahead where you're learning about what's been going on behind closed doors at the inauguration lunch with President Trump the lawmakers.

We're also standing by from Mr. Trump's next stop at the Capital One arena where we are expecting to speak once again to a fired up crowd of his supporters.

Stay with us with our inauguration coverage continues.

[15:40:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: The inaugural lunch at the U.S. Capitol is dragging on into the late afternoon, 3.40 p.m. Eastern, and the lunch is still going on. We are standing by for President Trump to wrap up events on The Hill. There'll be an exchange of gifts there, then an honor ceremony that we expect will happen shortly.

Then he will be reviewing troops and coming over here to his faithful supporters at the Capitol arena. I want to go to Manu Raju, he's on Capitol Hill. And Manu, is that the congressional lunch is still ongoing right now.

You've been able to learn a little bit about what has been going on. There's been some cameras that we were able to see, but obviously we couldn't hear. What have you learned?

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, in fact, in just a matter of minutes, we expect the cameras to go back up so we can see what's been going on. But we've gotten a sense of the attendance in this room. It's been mostly Republicans.

Democrats -- there are members of the Democratic Party who have attended, about 40, but that's about roughly a fraction, 260 members, people total have attended this lunch and speaks to the concerns. A lot of Democrats that I spoke leaving the speech, raising concerns about Donald Trump's tone, his rhetoric in this speech, which they called divisive. But other people who did not show up as well.

The former president, Barack Obama, not at this lunch. Neither is George W. Bush or his wife, Laura Bush. The Clintons also, Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton. I saw Bill Clinton on the way out of this lunch. I asked him why he's not going. He said they had a meeting to go to as well.

But they're all in this lunch. We're learning about some interesting people sitting next to each other, Erin.

One of them is Senator Dick Durbin, who was the top Democrat in the Senate Judiciary Committee, sitting next to the Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Of course, Durbin has been one of the sharpest critics of Clarence Thomas and the like. But just in a matter of minutes, we should be able to get a sense from the room what happened in the room.

We'll hear some toasts, some gifts giving as well. A quick bipartisan moment. Even though, behind the scenes, mostly Republicans, not many Democrats choosing to attend this lunch.

BURNETT: Yes, no, not many. I did see some. There appeared to be Jim Himes. Saw some others there that we could see. See Hakeem Jeffries speaking now. And we are, Kasie, going to see an exchange of the gifts of the flags. So let's listen to Minority Leader Jeffries.

REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D-NY), MINORITY LEADER: Some 250 years later, from Appalachia to Anacostia, Middletown to Mar-a-Lago, the Bayou to Brooklyn, we remain one nation under God.

To Vice President Vance, Usha, and family, may God bless and watch over you as you begin this journey.

On behalf of the Congress, we present one of the flags that flew above the Capitol today to the 50th Vice President of the United States of America, James David Vance, and wish you Godspeed.

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN), INAUGURAL COMMITTEE CHAIRWOMAN: Thank you, Leaders Scalise and Jeffries. I now ask my friend, Senator Deb Fischer of Nebraska, as in the beef you had for the entree, who has been an excellent partner in planning today's events, to come up and present the inaugural photographs.

SEN. DEB FISCHER (R-NE), INAUGURAL COMMITTEE: Well, my thanks to Chair Klobuchar for putting together and putting together again in the last two days the 60th Inaugural Ceremony here at the United States Capitol. Amy did a wonderful job, along with all of the committee, all of our staffs, in order for this to come together and be a very memorable experience.

It is a tradition that the committee give our new President and First Lady, our Vice President and Mrs. Vance, the official photographs taken at the swearing-in ceremony. And so it is such an honor to be able to have those presented to you.

[15:45:00]

I hope you will display them with pride, with honor, and with a humbleness that I know you will carry those presented to you. I hope you will display them with pride, with honor, and with a humbleness that I know you will carry with you every single day that you serve the people of this country.

May God bless you all.

KLOBUCHAR: Thank you, Senator Fischer. Now, on behalf of the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, I'd like to present the President and Mrs. Trump and the Vice President and Mrs. Vance with these crystal Lenox vases. See them over here?

For the 10th consecutive inauguration, Lenox has provided the official inaugural gift. The hand-cut etched vases display the White House for the President and the U.S. Capitol for the Vice President because I know that he is going to enjoy not only being the Vice President, but also, as Senator Thune and Schumer know, the President of the United States Senate, and there's no better job than that. These gifts symbolize our equal branches of government as well as our enduring democracy.

There they are.

(APPLAUSE)

I will now invite Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson of Louisiana, to give the toast to the Vice President.

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA), HOUSE SPEAKER: Thank you so much. It is my great honor to offer a toast to our new Vice President, Mr. J.D. Vance. J.D., you wrote something very poignant in your memoir. Actually, many things very poignant, but let me quote you here.

What separates the successful from the unsuccessful are the expectations they had for their own lives.

That's really meaningful. That expectation is a powerful thing. We remember the people in our lives who provided that to us. We all need that. Everybody needs hope and encouragement. They need a greater expectation. We need people in our lives who will make us look further and reach higher.

J.D.'s written a lot about the people in his life that have done that. He's written about, we know the great story of your grandparents and what they did in your life. He's written about his professors and mentors that he met in law school. He writes a lot about, speaks a lot about his gracious, beautiful wife, our new second lady, Usha. She's a great inspiration as well. And, J.D., you yourself have been inspiring people. Your story really has. It's one of the reasons that I believe God has raised your platform as he has because you've been so faithful to tell that story and to inspire so many others.

And so, our hope and our prayer is, as you continue to do this, that as you go to help us execute on the America First agenda, that you also do what you've been doing so well all along, and that is providing a model for what is possible in America. What a great story. What an inspiring story you've had. And it's just getting started.

I pray specifically that you inspire a lot of the young men in America. Some of them feel hopeless and stagnant sometimes. And you're a great example to all of them and to all of us.

That if you work hard and you play by the rules and you do the right thing, you can make a better life. You're now the Vice President of the United States, my friend.

So, everyone, will you please join me in raising a glass to our own mentors, the people who inspired all of us, to the possibilities of our own future, to these great new horizons. What a perfect choice this was for the painting, the artwork today. And to the great example of our new Vice President, Mr. J.D. Vance. Here, here.

CROWD: Here, here.

KLOBUCHAR: Thank you, Speaker Johnson and Vice President Vance. I will now invite my Senator next door in the state of South Dakota, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, to give the toast for the President.

SEN. JOHN THUNE (R-SD), SENATE MAJORITY LEADER: Well, Mr. President, Madam First Lady, congratulations. It is an honor for all of us to be able to be here today with you on this historic day as we celebrate your inauguration.

Mr. President, one of the most important influences in my life when I was getting started in politics was Ronald Reagan. His philosophy of limited government, his belief in peace through strength, the strength of his convictions were all things that appealed to me. But I was also drawn by his optimism and by his belief in America. And Mr. President, those are qualities that I see in you.

[15:50:00]

One of the things that resonated throughout your campaign was the unshakable belief in our country and in her citizens. You remind us of everything that's possible in America.

I'm looking forward to working with you over the next four years to build up our great country. It says in the scriptures that if you ask for wisdom, it will be given to you and given to you generously. And so I pray and our prayer is that God will richly bless you in the years ahead and grant you not only strength, but wisdom. And ladies and gentlemen, I ask you to join me in raising a glass to the President of the United States, President Donald Trump.

CROWD: Here, here.

KLOBUCHAR: So, this has been a long day with many other things ahead for so many of you, but I want to thank you for attending the 60th Inaugural Ceremonies. And as we close, we ask that you pick up a gift. All of our guests are going to get a set of commemorative glasses in embossed leather featuring the great seal of the United States, which Senator Fischer and I selected together. And maybe Senator McConnell added some bourbon from Kentucky, just saying.

It is now my privilege to conclude this luncheon by asking Margaret Kibben, the chaplain for the House of Representatives to deliver the benediction.

COOPER: So, the lunch is wrapping up there. The richest man in the world has one of the best seats in the House as Donald Trump took the oath of office today. I want to bring in former CNN Chairman, Walter Isaacson.

Walter, it's good to have you on. Walter actually hired me at CNN, so I appreciate it.

You're also the author --

WALTER ISAACSON, FORMER CNN CHAIRMAN, AUTHOR, "ELON MUSK": We're talking about conflicts of interest --

COOPER: I know. I felt I should just acknowledge --

ISAACSON: Down here in New Orleans, you're our hero, too. So thank you for --

COOPER: Well, I love the city. You're the author of the remarkable book, "Elon Musk," that came out in September of 2023. I'm wondering what you make of Elon Musk's latest iteration, the rise of him in the world of Trump.

ISAACSON: You know, when he was a kid, sitting there lonely, no friends on the autism spectrum in South Africa, he'd sit there and read those superhero comics. And always imagined himself putting on a cape and saving humanity. And he really throws all in when he, like, I'm going to go to Mars.

And through the book, I talk about all the disruptive things he does to get SpaceX going. Likewise, when he takes over Twitter. Well, now he's going to do that in the government.

He was never a big fan of Donald Trump. I remember riding around with Musk and he'd tell me that Donald Trump is a con artist, a carny barker. And he'd say, just like my father is.

And in some ways that helps explain it. I mean, he's always in search of his dad and he's now all in for Trump. And it's going to be amazing to watch what he does.

COOPER: Do you think it was a business decision? I mean, Scott Galloway has said, you know, it's the best investment Elon Musk has ever made. He put in, you know, whatever, $200 million or something to the campaign. And, you know, his net worth has already gone up multiple times in that.

ISAACSON: No, no, I don't think it's -- I know that makes me sound naive maybe compared to Professor Galloway. But I think that, you know, if he wanted to make money, you know, Trump is certainly -- Musk didn't do this to get more electric vehicle subsidies. I mean, Trump is cutting them out.

Yes, there's going to be a whole lot of regulation cut. Yes, it's probably going to help SpaceX and some of the companies. But I think Musk, and if you read the book, there's just a whole lot more dark and light, demons and driven things going on in his head than a calculation of how can I get Tesla to have a few more tax credits.

COOPER: How much time does he actually have to do this stuff? I mean, obviously he's not running each of these companies. I'm told he has very good people in running a number of his companies like SpaceX.

How much time does he actually have to devote to, you know, budgetary issues in the U.S. government?

ISAACSON: One of the things I talk about in the book is how he doesn't really run the companies. He just goes to the most important issue at the time and decides he's going to focus on that and set an example. He said it comes from reading Napoleon who not only did the strategy, but then he would just go with his sword and horse to the greatest part of the battle.

The night that the Twitter board allowed him to take over Twitter, we were flying down and we go to Boca Chica, Texas, and he spends two hours working on the Raptor engine of the Starship. And everybody around the table is going, wait, dude, you just bought Twitter. And yet he focuses serially on things.

[15:55:00]

So it's probably not the best management style, but it's certainly a way to get the troops inspired.

COOPER: I'm wondering what went through your mind when you saw those images today of, you know, him, Tim Cook, Jeff Bezos, the leader of Google. There's a huge, major businessman from India there as well. Sam Altman is there. What went through your mind?

ISAACSON: You know, it's -- I think Trump loves billionaires. And when you put Elon Musk and the fellow tech bros in front of the Commerce Secretary and the rest of your cabinet, he was sending a huge signal. You remember Steve Bannon, who's sort of the head of the more populist wing of the MAGA movement, said that he was going to get rid of Elon Musk by inauguration day. Well, no, Trump just showed that he's sticking with Musk and is going to have a relationship with what Biden dismissed as a tech oligarchy.

COOPER: There've been some who've wondered how long the kind of bromance will last between Musk and Trump. Do you think that it has legs?

ISAACSON: Well, it's certainly not the most stable of molecules because Musk has never worked for anybody well in his life and Trump has never shared the limelight. But I think it's going to work well for a year because it's in both of their interests for it to do so.

As you can sort of see, as you look at all of what Musk has done, he's got a very strong vision of how to go into the government with a blowtorch and truly cut costs and regulations, which will cause problems. It'll cause a lot of rubble in the way. But he does have both the social media sort of arrows in his quiver to take on any person in Congress who's going to resist it and Trump definitely has his back at the moment.

COOPER: Walter Isaacson, it's great to have you on, Walter. Thank you.

ISAACSON: Good to see you again, Anderson.

COOPER: All right, back here with the panel. Michael Smerconish, I mean, I think for a lot of people, seeing, you know, it's not just that these are billionaires who have big tech companies. I mean, they control the flow of information globally to hundreds of millions of billions of people.

SMERCONISH: You know, what occurs to me as I'm listening -- I read his book, by the way, and I thought it was terrific. Donald Trump doesn't have friendships that we're aware of, like deep friendships. Have you ever seen someone come forward and say, we grew up together and we remain buddies? We went to Wharton together. I worked for him for all these years. So it's just, it's rather unique in his world.

If you asked me, I'll bet if I asked you, you'd rattle off a number of friends who you've been hanging out with for decades. That doesn't seem to be the case with him. Maybe it's a good thing. I don't know. Friends are a good thing.

COOPER: David Chalian.

CHALIAN: I do think what you raise about the information piece of this is something to -- for us to continue to watch because as we live in an attention dominated society and economy. And by the way, Donald Trump successfully masters that attention economy, that attention culture for his success politically. It's what, I mean, we talk about, oh, the podcaster. Donald Trump was dominating the attention span of Americans. And that's part of his success in politics.

And now as the president of the United States and in government, he has this fierce loyalty. These folks who are coming, not just to contribute to the inauguration, but that are all responsible for how his government is going to be portrayed, communicated around the world through all of these channels.

And this is part of Donald Trump's plan is to be the dominant force. And when you have all of these entities, think every single one, Meta, TikTok, every single one of these avenues are now people who feel that they owe Donald Trump something.

COOPER: But they're also doing business. I mean, Amazon now has a documentary deal.

CHALIAN: And that is why they're doing it, no doubt. But there's an effect of it too, which is just how people get their --

URBAN: Even more importantly, symbiotically, the U.S. space program is SpaceX, right? I mean, our launch program --

COOPER: Well, Jeff Bezos, by the way, will also be Blue Origin.

URBAN: They're trying, and if you watch it on X, the exchanges, they're partners. But let's not be kidding ourselves. You know, you want to put something into space, it's going on a SpaceX rocket right now. When people get -- when astronauts get stuck in space, they call Elon to get them unstuck out of space.

I mean, so he is inextricably involved in our government, whether you like it or not.

COOPER: Well, I mean, the satellites, you know, being used in Ukraine --

(CROSSTALK)

URBAN: On and on and on.

ALLISON: The innovation of that in terms of the space program is important. I wonder if the space program will be on the DOGE list to make budget cuts, but probably not.

[16:00:00]

I think the thing about Elon Musk, just alone, not Zuckerberg, not -- there's 106 million U.S. -- people living in the United States on X. Only 154 million voted in this past election.

X is basically engaging with the same amount of people that are deciding to engage in our democracy. They have about a third of our population. And whether you want to believe it or not, the algorithm is tilted. And so we are really in, talk about an information wave of, who is going to be controlling the narrative?

Donald Trump is going to be setting the narrative arc, but the way it is going to be distributed to the American people, it's why we hope Congress acts. And when you look at something like TikTok, who knows what, you know, let alone being owned by the Chinese government.

NAFTALI: I just wanted to say quickly that the pandemic divided us further and in large measure, that was because of misinformation. And we face a situation now where, as David mentioned, as Ashley mentioned, we're going to have a monopoly of information control by people who have an interest in not looking like they're stupid. In other words, that they made a mistake, that they bet on the wrong horse.

They have an incentive now to tell people the economy is better because of Trump, to tell people the reason that those hostages were released was simply because of Trump. In other words, to reinforce the myth that Donald Trump wants to share. And I think that's dangerous because what are the countervailing sources of information the busy people are going to have? That's what I worry about.

COOPER: CNN's live coverage of the inauguration of Donald Trump continues right now.

END