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Deportation Fears Rise For Some Families After Trump Win; Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) Discusses President-Elect Trump's Cabinet Picks; Report: You Need To Earn $107,700 To Afford Home In U.S. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired November 14, 2024 - 14:30   ET

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

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[14:30:52]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: New insight today into how immigrant families of mixed legal status are feeling as Trump's mass deportation preparations are underway.

CNN correspondent, Rosa Flores, has that story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: How many of you are U.S. citizens?

How many of you support Donald Trump?

You're undocumented and you support Donald Trump?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I support Donald Trump for the economy.

FLORES (voice-over): Two Hispanic families with mixed legal status in Houston with two different takes on President-elect Donald Trump's return to the White House.

This is the Espinosas' first gathering since Trump's win.

(on camera): How many of you fear that deportation could impact your family?

(voice-over): Cesar Espinosa, a husband and father, was a DACA recipient until this summer when he got a green card. His sister and brother-in-law are DACA recipients. His sister-in-Law is a green card holder.

And the rest of his family here are U.S. citizens. Some who are not present, are undocumented.

(on camera): You're a green card holder. Your wife is a U.S. citizen. Why are you afraid of deportation?

CESAR ESPINOSA, FEARS DEPORTATION UNDER TRUMP: I just became a green card holder after 33 years of being in this country.

I don't think people understand the fear. It's a constant shadow hanging over our heads.

FLORES: What was your reaction to Donald Trump winning?

KARYNINNA ESPINOSA, FEARS FAMILY MEMBERS COULD BE DEPORTED: I cried a lot. It was -- it was emotional. Half my family, like if they're going to be here or they're not going to be here. And how do you tell all of our kids? Like my nephews, they're also our kids.

C. ESPINOSA: To tell people that this doesn't live in kids and children's mind and teenagers, in young adult's life is a lie.

FLORES (voice-over): Gelacio Velazquez is an undocumented mechanic who has worked in Houston for 25 years.

GELACIO VELAZQUEZ, UNDOCUMENTED TRUMP SUPPORTER: Oh.

FLORES: He plays in this park with his two U.S. citizen children, ages five and nine, and stands by Donald Trump.

(on camera): So you support Donald Trump because of the economy?

VELAZQUEZ: For the economy, yes.

FLORES: But you don't support the anti-immigrant rhetoric?

VELAZQUEZ: I'm not support of the anti-immigrant action.

FLORES: Do you support his mass deportations?

VELAZQUEZ: No. It is not human.

FLORES: Are you afraid that you could be deported in this mass deportation?

VELAZQUEZ: I'm not afraid. I'm not afraid.

FLORES (voice-over): Espinosa runs a migrant advocacy group and says many people are afraid and have called him in tears.

C. ESPINOSA: I think there's a heightened sense of fear.

FLORES (on camera): Explain why Latino men are going to Trump.

C. ESPINOSA: Democrats forget the promise when these guys are in the office in the Washington. The Latinos want a better nation.

FLORES (voice-over): Espinosa believes some of the Latino support for Trump was a vote against the prospect of the first black female president.

C. ESPINOSA: There's still a lot of machismo. There's still a lot of misogyny. And something that we need to say aloud is there's a lot of anti-blackness.

FLORES: Velasquez says he hopes Trump finds compassion for immigrant fathers like him who are not criminals. (on camera): If you get deported, would you regret your support to Donald Trump?

VELAZQUEZ: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

FLORES: He's saying that he wouldn't regret supporting Donald Trump.

So, you're really not thinking about yourself. You're thinking about your children and the future of your children?

VELAZQUEZ: Yes. I want the better for my children.

FLORES (voice-over): Cesar says he feels guilty for bringing so much uncertainty to his family.

(on camera): What's it like for you to see your wife go through this and the emotions that she's going through?

C. ESPINOSA: I apologize to her a lot. We fell in love right away and we got married almost right away because when you know, you know.

FLORES (voice-over): We asked Velasquez and Espinosa the same final question.

(on camera): Do you have a plan in case you get deported?

VELAZQUEZ: I respect that decision. I leave the country. I'm not coming back.

C. ESPINOSA: There is a plan. We've talked about it openly with our family.

FLORES (voice-over): Turns out, these two Hispanic families with two different takes on Trump's win have the same plan if they get deported. They would go to Mexico as a family.

[14:35:07]

Rosa Flores, CNN, Houston.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: Our thanks to Rosa for that report.

Stay with CNN NEWS CENTRAL. We'll be right back.

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SANCHEZ: When President-Elect Donald Trump announced that he was nominating Matt Gaetz to be his attorney general, it eclipsed what previously was seen as Trump's most controversial choice for his cabinet, Pete Hegseth for secretary of defense.

[14:40:05]

Now, Hegseth is an Army veteran who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan. And he is a Bronze Star recipient, perhaps best known for hosting a weekend show on FOX News.

He used his platform to argue against having women in combat roles, accusing the military of lowering standards to allow women into those jobs.

He's also encouraged Trump to pardon some U.S. troops accused of war crimes, bucking the advice of the defense secretary at the time.

We want to discuss with Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois. She served as a combat pilot in Iraq and serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Senator, thank you so much for being with us.

I do want to ask you about Hegseth specifically. Because if he is confirmed as the secretary of defense, what would be in place potentially to stop him from moving forward with this idea that women should be removed from combat roles?

SEN. TAMMY DUCKWORTH (D-IL): Well, I mean, it's actually a congressional action that basically opened combat roles to women.

But let's be real. In modern warfare, there is no foreign line of troops, like you said, where you could keep women, OK, you stay back here and you won't be in combat.

Truck drivers, a job that women have been doing since World War I, were some of the most often hit people in Iraq, being hit with IEDs.

This idea that you will exclude women from combat is one that shows his lack of experience and really him being unqualified to be the secretary of defense. Because it's not where modern warfare is.

SANCHEZ: I also wonder about your view of the qualifications of another nominee that Trump has put forward. And you sit on the Foreign Relations Committee which has jurisdiction appointments, including ambassadors.

What do you think of Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee being selected for ambassador to Israel? What do you plan to ask him at his confirmation hearing?

DUCKWORTH: Well, I am somewhat concerned. I do think that Mike Huckabee is someone that when we bring him before the committee, we should ask him some very important questions.

He has been, you know, making statements that seems to back up Netanyahu. And, frankly, I think that Prime Minister Netanyahu has committed some war crimes with some of the actions he's taken in Gaza.

Now let me tell you that I truly fully support Israel's right to defend herself and I will continue to vote to provide weapons of -- self-defense weapons to Israel.

But we have to have a real accounting of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. And I don't think that Mike Huckabee is going to be someone who is going to hold Netanyahu to account. And that's a pretty scary thought.

SANCHEZ: Another nominee Trump has put forward is that of former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard as director of National Intelligence.

Now you told my colleague, Kaitlan Collins, yesterday that you don't think she has the qualifications to fulfill that role. Do you think there's sufficient evidence to back the accusations that she's a Russian asset who has been spreading Russian propaganda?

DUCKWORTH: Well, the people that get nominated for these roles should be above any dispute. I mean, the fact that we're having to have this conversation is an indication that it is problematic, right?

I think she's compromised. Not only is she not qualified for the job. Never having done anything in terms of National Intelligence.

But she's also likely compromised, whether it is her cozying up and acting as an apologist for Syrian dictators or her very close relationship with Vladimir Putin or her continuing to espouse and support conspiracy theories.

She is somebody who has been compromised and I don't think that's the kind of person that should be in charge of all of our nations secrets.

SANCHEZ: When it comes to Gabbard and Hegseth and even Matt Gaetz, which we haven't talked about, it seems like some of these nominees will face an uphill battle getting confirmed.

And some Republicans are arguing that the newly elected president should have his choice of who serves in his cabinet.

I want to play you some sound from Congressman Thomas Massie, who is sending a message to Senators who may oppose these picks. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Do you think he'll get confirmed by the Seante?

REP. THOMAS MASSIE (R-KY): He doesn't need to. It'll be recessed. He's the attorney general. Suck it up.

That was a question about Matt Gaetz. He's essentially saying that he's going to get appointed during a recess and he's telling folks who my oppose it to "suck it up."

What's your response?

DUCKWORTH: Well, Donald Trump is trying the change the process here in the Senate so that he can have those recess appointments. But we don't go into recess in the Senate.

[14:44:59]

And frankly, where were these people when they we're opposing President Biden's nominations? You know, they -- they think it's OK to oppose the nominations from other presidents, and yet when it comes to Donald Trump, they roll over for him.

This is the problem with Republicans in the Senate, is they're going to roll over for Donald Trump and he'll do whatever he wants. They will stab each other in the back.

If you don't believe me, ask James Lankford what happened to his border security bill that he negotiated over almost half a year and had an agreement and then Donald Trump stabbed him in the back. And within 24 hours, Republicans rolled over.

This is what they do. And it is really sad. Because they should be putting the wellbeing and the security of the nation in front of Donald Trump's whims. And unfortunately, I don't believe that they will do that.

SANCHEZ: Senator, have Democrats outlined any kind of plan to fight recess appointments if Republicans choose to go that route?

DUCKWORTH: Well, Republicans need to remember that if they do that, it becomes the standard practice. And I don't think we should.

These are the same Republicans who refused to lift the filibuster, for example, to pass key piece of legislation like the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.

What I say to my Republican colleagues is, show some backbone, be a Senator, and let's vet these candidates for their experience and whether or not they're suitable for the position, and whether or not they've been compromised.

And let's truly put people into these positions who are going to do good for the nation. And putting somebody like Tulsi Gabbard, who is not qualified and likely compromised, is not the answer.

SANCHEZ: Senator, I know that you were a Harris campaign co-chair. And Democrats on the Hill are meeting this week trying to regroup after the election loss last week.

What are you hearing in conversations about what you and your fellow lawmaker are taking as a message from voters given what we saw last week?

DUCKWORTH: You know, we are actually having a lot of conversations, especially with our new members. We have a group of new members who are majority- minority, everybody from Ruben Gallego to our additional other new members that are coming in, and to Andy Kim.

We have a great new class of freshmen. We've been listening to them to hear what they did and how they won their seats. And then also to some of the members returning from battleground states like Nevada.

So we're still going through that process. We're going to make sure that we connect with our constituencies and continue to do the best we can for our constituents and our states.

SANCHEZ: Senator Tammy Duckworth, we have to leave the conversation there. Appreciate your time.

DUCKWORTH: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Thanks so much.

Stay with CNN NEWS CENTRAL. We're back in just a few minutes.

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[14:52:15]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: If you felt like buying a home was getting further out of reach, well, you might be right.

A new report from Oxford Economics finds you need to earn six figures to afford a home in most cities. A household needs to earn nearly $108,000 to cover a single-family home, property taxes and insurance costs.

CNN's Matt Egan is with us now on this story.

And, Matt, just put this figure into perspective for us. Why it is so expensive compared to five years ago?

MATT EGAN, CNN REPORTER: Well, Brianna, this is almost twice as much as what you needed to make before Covid to be able to afford to buy.

Back in 2019, a household needed an income of about $57,000 a year to be able to buy that new home and afford the insurance and taxes. But look at that. Well over $100,000.

Now, this is, of course, because we have too many people trying to buy too few homes. So home prices have had nowhere to go but go up. Mortgage rates, of course, are much higher as well. So is home insurance.

Now it's true that people are making more money but often not enough. This same Oxford Economics report finds about one in three households make enough money to be able to afford to buy. That is down sharply from 59 percent five years ago.

Now when you look at where this problem is most severe, it's in some of the cities on the coast that you might expect, right, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, New York, Miami.

In all of those cities, you need household income of at least $200,000 to be able to afford to buy. And in San Jose, you need $460,000 a year.

Now, it's true that the fact that home prices are up, that's boosting the net worth of everyone lucky enough to own a home right now. But we know that there are a lot of people who are on the outside looking in. They want to buy but they just can't, not at these prices and not at these rates -- Brianna?

KEILAR: So what is the Trump plan for addressing housing affordability?

EGAN: Well, he hasn't laid out a specific plan. But the president- elect has talked about a number of ideas to try to get at this problem.

He's talked about cutting red tape and tax incentives, using federal land for affordable housing. Those three things are very much in line with what Vice President Harris was talking about.

The president-elect is also talking about keeping mortgage rates low. Of course, that's not something the president can control. That's really up to the Fed and the bond market.

And we've actually seen mortgage rates go higher recently, in part, due to concerns about Trump's economic agenda being inflationary.

Trump has also talked going mass deportations as a way to ease demand for housing. But we also know, this is no secret, that a lot of people who work in the housing industry building homes are undocumented.

[14:55:10]

Pew Research finds that about one in four people who are classified as construction laborers are unauthorized workers.

And so, of course, the problem is, if you deport millions of people, you can have a situation where they have to raise wages significantly or build fewer homes.

Either way, that's going to make home prices go even higher -- Brianna?

KEILAR: Yes, I can see how that would happen.

Matt Egan, thank you very much.

And still ahead, it sounds like a fake headline from The Onion. But it's actually real. The satirical news site is now the new owner of InfoWars. We'll have details coming up on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

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