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Trump Picks Governor Kristi Noem As His Homeland Security Secretary; Trump's Cabinet Taking Shape As He Taps Loyalists For Key Positions; Trump Putting Focus On Czars As He Builds Out Administration. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired November 12, 2024 - 14:00   ET

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

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BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Team Trump, On Brand and On Message. The President Elect is building an administration in his own image, one that's devoted to carrying out his plan for America. Look at what we know about his picks.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Plus, will Trump's America first policies put the planet last? Delegates at a climate conference consider what his election means for the fight against global warming as critics slam Trump's choice to lead the EPA, a congressman with a history of questioning the science behind climate change.

And we'll talk about the Musk factor. Billionaire Elon Musk has Donald Trump's ear and his big bet on the President Elect is paying off to the tune of billions of dollars. We're following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to CNN News Central.

KEILAR: President Elect Donald Trump is busy filling some of the biggest positions in his second administration. And this just in to CNN. Trump has announced former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee to serve as the next U.S. Ambassador to Israel. Also, a short time ago, Trump officially announced Congressman Mike Waltz as his National Security Adviser pick.

Sources tell CNN Trump's likely pick for Secretary of State is political rival turned fierce supporter Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who is a staunch China hardliner. And we're told that Trump's choice for Homeland Security Secretary will be South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, who has been lockstep with Trump on immigration and will oversee its enforcement alongside border czar Tom Homan. And Trump's expected pick for Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, Stephen Miller.

Both of those figures key players in Trump's controversial family separation policy of his first term. Here with us now is CNN National Correspondent Kristen Holmes and CNN Senior White House Correspondent Kayla Tausche. And Kristen, I know you have some new reporting that Trump is actually expected to name a slate of these deputy chiefs of staff in the coming days. I know people might think, oh, secretary, that's a big role. Yes, it is. But this idea of deputy chief of staff, we should note, doesn't have to be confirmed. This could be very powerful.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And not just doesn't have to be confirmed, but they will have the President's ear in essential everything that he does. And the names that we are hearing are people who have been incredibly loyal to the former President.

So one of them is James Blair. He ran Donald Trump's entire political operation. I am being told right now that they believe he's going to be deputy chief of staff of politics. We also have heard Dan Scavino is going to be named a deputy chief of staff. And of course, as we reported, Stephen Miller. Now, these are all people who have been with Donald Trump since truly 2021, when he left Washington, when he was really isolated by a number of different Republic, particularly after January 6th. These are people who never really left his side.

Dan Scavino has been with him since long before the first administration. He started as his golf caddy. Now he is one of his most trusted advisors. And James Blair as well as Stephen Miller, they could have a big impact on policy. Remember, one of the things that we've been reporting is that Donald Trump has been thanking the people around him constantly for winning this election. He is also now thanking them with these posts.

KEILAR: And there's this deputy chief of staff. There's also the czar, which is so key. Kayla, I know that you've been reporting a lot about how focused Trump is on this. We mentioned the border czar and Tom Homan. And we're also told that Trump is considering Doug Burgum, the North Dakota Governor for energy czar. How powerful are these positions?

KAYLA TAUSCHE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: And then there's the potential for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to be a health type czar and then potentially even Robert Lighthizer to be a trade czar, although his role is still in flux. But it's not just an attractive role for Trump when he thinks about people who are close to him who can wield a very powerful spear when it comes to policy.

But it's also attractive for some of these candidates when they think, perhaps I'd have a bigger sphere of influence if I didn't have to run an agency with tens of thousands of employees and tons of federal bureaucracy that you have to cut through.

[14:05:007]

And then there's the gauntlet of the Senate confirmation process and the background check process.

And some of these people who care very deeply about the policy aspect here in advancing the President agenda, they feel that they could actually be more influential in a role that sort of sits above that in between the agencies and the President.

And of course, as we know, President Trump thrives on proximity. Often it's the last person who speaks to him, whose idea he actually takes and runs with. And so for a lot of these people, too, they understand that if you're running an agency that's down Pennsylvania Avenue and you're a mile away from Donald Trump, then you're already one step behind.

KEILAR: Yeah. If you have to make an appointment with him and get yourself to the White House, it's a much bigger process than just going down the hall, right? Or lobbying for some minutes on his schedule.

Take us inside Mar-a-Lago. Speaking of proximity, there's all these people who are just there and they're part of this process or they're lobbying to get a role. What's it like and when are you expecting more decisions?

HOLMES: Well, we are expecting more decisions as early as this evening. I mean, this is happening very quickly. But when I'm talking to people inside of Mar-a-Lago, they've described two different scenes. There's the daytime scene, which is Donald Trump meeting with his transition team. They are watching clips of various people.

He is being presented with essentially dossiers of information on people who might lead these cabinet positions. He's also being told, I'm told in part, what these people have said about him maybe negatively in the past, which obviously there's a lot of people that are on this list who have had not kind things to say about the former President. They want him to be briefed on that.

But then there's also the circus aspect of this, which is the nighttime as soon as those meetings are over and you get into members bringing guests. And I was actually told that some members have been offered money to be brought -- to bring in certain guests because people want proximity to the former President. People have been shouting out ideas to him as he walks by almost every night.

He has a standing reservation on the patio at 9:00 p.m., occasionally he's with Melania. Recently he's been with Melania and Elon Musk. Obviously, as we've talked about Elon Musk's growing power here, but people are trying to get any kind of FaceTime that they can with the former President, now President Elect. And a lot of that is causing kind of a scene at Mar-a-Lago as that's become the real epicenter of this transition.

KEILAR: Table for three. Interesting. All right, what do these personnel picks mean for Biden for his agenda as he's heading out the door?

TAUSCHE: Well, it means that it's pretty easy to undo a lot of this. And a lot of these positions, these people who are being chosen are people who can essentially come down and roll things back on day one. They can roll up their sleeves and they can get right to business.

And in talking to the Biden administration, they've been doing some work to try to trump proof their legacy. The term scaffolding has been used to describe some of the structural elements that they're trying to build around what they've done. But even scaffolding, Brianna, can be torn down. It just takes a little longer.

KEILAR: Yeah, we see that in Washington a lot as they put a lot of it up around here. Kristen, Kayla, thank you so much to both of you for your excellent reporting. Boris?

SANCHEZ: Let's discuss all of this with CNN Senior Political Analyst, Mark Preston. Mark, always great to see you. These picks are fascinating in a number of ways. For one, you have the one that was just announced, Mike Huckabee to be ambassador to Israel. Then you have the NSA, Mike Waltz, Florida Congressman, Secretary of State, Florida Senator, Marco Rubio. Those are fairly conventional picks, right? No real surprises, you would say there?

MARK PRESTON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, conventional picks in the sense that for official Washington, they make sense. They feel comfortable. Waltz is, you know, served 27 years in the military, highly decorated, you know, has served on key committees in the House, Marco Rubio in the Senate for several years.

You know, conventional. Mike Huckabee, former Governor of Arkansas. You may not like his politics, conventional. It's the folks, though, the worker bees, the Stephen Millers, the other deputy chiefs of staff that we will see named over the next few days who will really be doing a lot of the work behind the scenes.

SANCHEZ: Perhaps not surprising that Miller and Tom Homan were put up for positions that you don't need Senate confirmation for, right?

As far as the head of the EPA, Lee Zeldin, New York Congressman, and Kristi Noem, South Dakota Governor, put up for the head of DHS. Those are a bit perhaps counterintuitive because Lee Zeldin doesn't have a ton of experience in the environmental world. In fact, he's questioned the science behind climate change. And Noem, aside from the rhetoric, she hasn't really done a lot of work to stem immigration.

PRESTON: One word loyalty. These two are incredibly loyal to President Trump. We have seen that over the years. We've seen Kristi Noem. I mean, at one point, she was on the shortlist, right? We thought, you know, months ago that Kristi Noem could potentially be his vice presidential running mate. She always stays close to him. She, you know, that's why she's put in that position.

Same thing with Lee Zeldin as well. Somebody who has gotten very close to the President, was on the campaign trail quite a bit. It was even yesterday on this show when we were talking.

I said, hey, Lee Zeldin -- and Waltz are both down in Mar-a-Lago.

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We'll see what happens to them. I predicted that Lee Zeldin would go to the Department of Education. More intuitive for him to go there than the EPA, but I guess it doesn't matter as long as you have somebody who's loyal, then that's all you need.

SANCHEZ: I'm also curious to get your thoughts on the use of czars. I mentioned Tom Homan a moment ago. He's going to sort of help shepherd immigration policy alongside Stephen Miller. But then you also have this sort of rumor floating out there that Doug Burgum is being considered for energy czar. Does this have to do with Senate confirmation? Because it seems to me like Burgum has a pretty decent chance if he were to be appointed to a cabinet position.

PRESTON: Yeah, you know, it's interesting if he decides to go that way with Burgum, perhaps Burgum doesn't want to be in the cabinet, right? Perhaps Burgum doesn't want to have to go through and show all of his finances and what you have, you would prefer to go the czar route. We should note though, a couple things.

One is I don't know a president who is coming into office that has put somebody in a cabinet position that is not incredibly, 100 percent loyal to them. So I think we have to put that on him. However, him circumventing the process, what the founders wanted, that in itself, you know, is troubling.

We should note though, Barack Obama had czars, George W. Bush had czars. Czars have been in play. Interestingly enough, it was Republicans who really had the worst to say about czars. These were unelected, incredibly powerful bureaucrats that control the money, the deep state.

SANCHEZ: Yeah, a different day and age, I guess. Mark Preston, appreciate the analysis as always. Brianna?

KEILAR: All right. Donald Trump's election victory is already having an impact on another one of his criminal cases. Today, Judge Juan Merchan hit the pause button in the President Elect's hush money trial, giving the DA's office and Trump's lawyers at least another week to make new arguments on how his election win impacts the case. Judge Merchan is now expected to decide the next steps in the case by next Tuesday.

We have CNN Chief Legal Analyst, Laura Coates, our legal czar, if you will, joining us now. What does this delay tell you more broadly, ultimately about where you think this case will go?

LAURA COATES, CNN ANCHOR & CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: It's probably going to go nowhere towards sentencing anytime soon, let alone perhaps at all. Many people may be wondering, why would a Supreme Court ruling on immunity based on actions in office have any impact on what was done during a hush money involving a campaign? Well, it's because some of the testimony that came in, the lawyers for Trump are arguing, had to do with the official office. People like Hope Hicks and beyond, they were a part of the administration.

And whatever the jury may have heard actually was about things that could have been, in their minds, immunized testimony. So they're thinking about this. What impact could it have? But ultimately, you had this balancing act taking place right now between a jury guilty verdict and honoring the regularity of that process and the fact that he is now the President Elect.

And the idea of a state court either seeking incarceration over a president of the United States, not only unheard of, but not likely to actually pass muster in any case. So you've got this really big balancing act. They have now, a week from today, to make their arguments from the prosecution whether they should proceed further. I think the judge is looking for an opportunity to have somebody else perhaps decide the key issues and allow him to massage them after that.

KEILAR: So, in the federal case before the election, Jack Smith had made a distinction, or tried to. He'd argued one about how that immunity decision by the Supreme Court did not preclude him from using certain, or arguing certain evidence of Donald Trump's guilt. Is there an argument in this case for the prosecution to make when it comes to some of that testimony?

COATES: Now, remember, Jack Smith is at the federal level talking about the external interference case. He's making those arguments, and I believe Judge Chutkan was probably likely amenable to those same notions. She's infamously saying, this is not a king at the state court level that you run up against this idea of the supremacy of the federal government and the roles they have versus a state action.

And so that could be part of what's coming into play. In any event, it's hard to decipher from a jury perspective what weight they assign to testimony that could have fallen under the umbrella of what could have been immunized.

In a federal case versus what they heard, a jury looks at the overwhelming evidence and the ideas of guilt. But if they were to pinpoint a particular moment or had the ability to do so, who's to say they didn't focus on Hope Hicks or something else, as opposed to the breadth of all the evidence coming in, that's where the judge has to balance those very notions.

KEILAR: Really interesting. And then today, you had the Supreme Court declining Mark Meadows request. Mark Meadows, of course, was Trump's Chief of Staff, one of them during his first term, to move his case in the Georgia election subversion case to federal court. I mean, if you're Mark Meadows, you want this, get this out of state court, and get to federal court. Trump's incoming as president, it's denied. So what does that mean for Meadows?

COATES: Well, he probably wants his name to be Donald Trump these days because he has a bigger argument if he's Donald Trump, not to have these cases continue.

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But really, it means that the idea of what is protected for a president, maybe a president elect, is not necessarily chief of staff, he is in a lesser role. The same duties of what would implore a court to say, listen, we cannot have the president or president elect have to be bogged down by these sorts of proceedings.

Doesn't actually apply to you, let alone somebody who's no longer in office. But he'll have to stay the course. The big question, though, is what will happen with Fani Willis's case? It's still indefinitely postponed given the disqualification hearing that's still pending as whether she can actually stay on that case. She'll stay in office, but on that case, that's still up in the air.

KEILAR: What a lot of legal hours that may have amounted to not much in the end.

COATES: That's why I don't want to be the legal czar.

KEILAR: All right. We'll figure out some other role for you here.

COATES: Thank you.

KEILAR: Laura Coates, thank you.

Ahead this hour on CNN News Central, will Donald Trump follow through on his campaign promise to pardon January six rioters? We're going to be joined by one of the officers who defended the Capitol that day, hear his message for the President Elect.

Plus, cashing in on Trump's victory. We're going to tell you how the world's richest man has gotten even richer, significantly so, since Election Day.

And the murder of nursing student Laken Riley ignited a firestorm over immigration. Today, the undocumented immigrant accused of killing her waived his right to a jury trial. What it means for the case? These important stories and more all coming up this hour on CNN News Central.

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KEILAR: Today marks one week since the decisive election, returning Donald Trump to the White House and putting Republicans back in control of the Senate. Now, we still don't know if the GOP will have total control of Congress because more than a dozen House seats are still undecided as lawmakers return today after their extended election recess. Picking a leader is the first order of business.

CNN Congressional Correspondent, Lauren Fox is on Capitol Hill for us. Lauren, what's the latest?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, you are seeing a robust end of this campaign discussion as all the members are returning to Washington today and as it remains really unclear who the next Republican Senate leader is going to be.

Right now, you have vying for this position tomorrow, John Thune of South Dakota, John Cornyn of Texas, and Rick Scott of Florida, who was long seen as a long shot in this race, but has gotten a surge of momentum given all of the MAGA world endorsements he's starting to receive. Now, one of the things that both Cornyn and Thune had been doing over the last several months is crisscrossing the country, fundraising for their colleagues, appearing on the campaign trail for members who were trying to get into the Senate for the first time. And a number of Republicans are still not saying who they are going to vote for tomorrow. And that is for a few reasons. One, it is a secret ballot election, which means they can vote for whoever they want to behind closed doors. And no one, including the incoming President Donald Trump, is going to know who they voted for.

Meanwhile, you also have a number of Republican senators who've been on the phone with President Trump and Elon Musk trying to make the case for their respective leader who they want to see in this position. But at the end of the day, one thing that you're starting to hear from Cornyn and Thune is that they want to open up the process on the Senate floor. They have the experience to lead.

Thune has been the Republican whip over the course of the last several years. Cornyn held that position before him. But obviously it still remains a wide open race with just less than 24 hours ahead of this election. Brianna?

KEILAR: All right, Lauren Fox, thank you so much, Boris?

SANCHEZ: Donald Trump is vowing to keep the promises he made while on the campaign trail. And that poses major questions about how far he's going to go with his vow to pardon the January 6th rioters. Many of Trump's most loyal supporters expect him to grant maximum clemency even for some of the most violent offenders. But a majority of voters and even some of Trump's Republican allies believe he should not pardon anyone who assaulted police that day.

Joining us now is one of the officers who was injured by those rioters. Former U.S. Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn joins us now. Sir, thank you so much for sharing part of your afternoon with us. First, I'm curious to know your reaction to Donald Trump winning reelection. What did you think?

HARRY DUNN, FORMER U.S. CAPITOL POLICE OFFICER: Well, Boris, thanks. Good to be with you. But yeah, my reaction I probably share with a lot of majority of the American people out there in disappointment on election night. A week ago, I was at Howard University with the Harris campaign. And when I was leaving, I felt as if my spirit, my soul was crushed.

That's one of the reasons why I continued to speak out on January 7th and up until the election night is because it was important to me to not let one, not let American, the American people forget, diminish or downplay what me and my coworkers went through on January 6. But also to keep Donald Trump from seeing the Oval Office again.

It didn't work. He won the election. And it's really unfortunate that a lot of American people, in my opinion, just said that January 6th wasn't enough of a deal breaker for them. And, you know, he's going back to the Oval Office.

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SANCHEZ: I'm curious how you feel about that because as you noted, you campaigned for Kamala Harris arguing that Donald Trump was a threat to democracy. Our exit poll data found that of the 73% of voters who think democracy in the U.S. is threatened, a majority of them voted for Donald Trump. I wonder why you think that is.

DUNN: You know, I wish I was able to look into a crystal ball and tell you that answer. I mean, listen, a lot of the people that are jockeying for his cabinet positions now felt that Donald Trump was a threat to democracy. So it's not just, you know, people that or the Democratic or the left that thought that Donald Trump was a threat to democracy.

And Marco Rubio, some of his own quotes were talking about. A lot of people are going to have to answer for their decision to support him one day. It's just unfortunate that that day has not come soon enough. I wish I could understand it, but, you know, it was important to me to get out there and do everything I could do to make voters understand and never forget -- never forget what happened that day.

SANCHEZ: Obviously, as we noted during the campaign, Trump said that he would consider pardoning those charged with January 6th related crimes. And as someone who witnessed that day firsthand, what do you think about the potential for seeing those convicted potentially get pardoned?

DUNN: You know, I followed the cases. I mean, I've testified in a few. I went to a lot of the sentencings. I stood by officers as they gave victim impact statements. And the thought of pardons, it's kind of mind blowing, a little bit. I'll tell you what I mean by that.

Listen, I'm all for criminal justice reform. I believe that the sentences that are handed down in the criminal justice system need to fit the crime. The punishment needs to fit the crime. So people were out there getting overly sentenced to felonies and, you know, multiple years in jail for peacefully protesting, then I sure people should have a problem with that.

However, I don't feel that there are many circumstances where that's the case. You know, I'm not 100% sure, but if there are cases where people have been, you know, sentenced to multiple years for trespassing or something, then that's problematic. Let's be clear. They broke the law. The people that -- there were people there who were peacefully protesting.

However, they were there unlawfully and they kept us from doing our job and securing the Capitol grounds that day. But the people that assaulted the police officers, I have no sympathy for them, even if they were there to protest a stolen election or they got caught up in the moment. That's no excuse for the crimes that they committed and they need to be held accountable.

It would be a slap in the face to me, to law enforcement, to the American people, if Donald Trump would come in and just overstep the Justice Department. But it shows that he has every intention of doing so, and I don't think it's OK.

However, I do believe that the punishment needs to fit the crime. And if there are cases out there where people have been sentenced to multiple years or excessive, then sure, we can look at that. But I'm not aware of any of those cases existing.

SANCHEZ: I am curious about that nuance because you seem to distinguish between the folks that were there and were convicted for trespassing, which is a little less than half of those who have been convicted, and those who actually committed assault and destroyed property.

Do you think that prosecutors just threw the book at everyone the way that some have suggested in trying to seek maximum penalties? It seems like you don't have awareness of some folks that were convicted for trespassing who you feel have been inadequately sentenced.

DUNN: Yeah, see, I'm not aware of those cases and I guess that's the point that I'm trying to make. I think a lot of this is, you know, woe is me. We shouldn't everything, we should have got all scot free. We were there because Donald Trump told us to be there. We had every right to be there.

No, the punishment needs to fit the time. And whether that's, you know, a misdemeanor or. But I'm not aware of people being political hostages and spending their years in jail. Those people that committed those crimes that are sentenced to multiple years, they assaulted police, they conspired to overthrow the government, and they impeded police while they were doing their job. Those people, I believe they've been properly sentenced.

Now, like I said, I am all for making sure that the punishment fits the crime, but I'm not aware of any of these cases that people are talking about where multiple people are being politically persecuted, unfairly, and because they were peacefully protesting. I'm not aware of those cases. A lot of those people -- a lot of those people even got probation too. So, I mean, that's a slap on the wrist.

SANCHEZ: Officer Harry Dunn, we appreciate you sharing your perspective with us. Thanks for joining us.

DUNN: Thank you. Have a good day.