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Trump Taps Loyalist Gaetz for AG, Sending Shockwaves Through DOJ; Judge Delays Trial for Jan. 6th Defendant Citing "Real Possibility" of Trump Pardon; "The Onion" Wins Bidding to Buy Alex Jones' Infowars. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired November 14, 2024 - 15:00   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: Confirmation Complications: Republicans divided over President-elect Donald Trump's pick for attorney general, Matt Gaetz. Making matters tougher, some GOP lawmakers are leery of Trump using a tactic that would bypass the Senate's involvement.

SANCHEZ: Plus, President Trump wants Elon Musk to cut government down to size, but that is easier said than done. We're going to break down what is on the chopping block and the potential conflict of interest having someone with billions of dollars in government contracts deciding what government should or should not pay for.

And Infowars has a new owner, one that specializes in its own form of fake news, but also one that has the full support of the Sandy Hook parents, who were owed more than a billion dollars by Alex Jones. We're going to speak to one of those parents as we follow these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

KEILAR: President-elect Donald Trump is at Mar-a-Lago today trying to complete his Cabinet picks after a string of controversial choices here recently. His pick for attorney general is raising perhaps the most eyebrows. Florida Republican Matt Gaetz could soon be in charge of the Justice Department, an agency that he's long been critical of, as well as the target of.

But choosing a Cabinet member is one thing, confirmation, of course, is another. And some of Trump's selections could set the stage for some Senate confirmation fights, even with Republicans in control. CNN's Kristen Holmes is live for us now in West Palm Beach, Florida.

Kristen, how is Trump's team responding to this blowback? Not exactly arms wide open from his own party.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna, they've already moved on. They have meetings today going over who is going to be their pick for a number of other positions, like treasury, like energy. These are things that they're trying to get out as quickly as possible. I do think we're going to have some new names as early as tonight. But when it comes to that blowback, one, I was told that they expected it. They were not a hundred percent sure that everyone was going to come out in any way and support Matt Gaetz or Tulsi Gabbard, for that matter. That instead, they believed that this was Donald Trump's mandate to deliver on some of the promises that he said that he was going to deliver on, like completely dismantling the Department of Justice. And Donald Trump thought that Matt Gaetz was the right person to do it.

Now, I have spoken to a number of his advisors who say that they're clear-eyed on the prospect that Matt Gaetz and Tulsi Gabbard might not be confirmed, that they understand that, that they're going to do everything they can to get them confirmed, but that they also understand that this process, this is just the beginning of the nomination process. And nobody is kind of in disillusionment that there was going to be some pushback or blowback to these particular candidates.

And just to give one example, someone told me that they were very much waiting for the meltdown, and then they saw it and watched it unfold. So this idea that Donald Trump's team wasn't expecting it, they knew exactly what they were doing when they made this decision. And the other thing to point out here, you know, there's a lot of speculation as to Donald Trump going rogue, did he make these decisions outside of his normal transition process.

Well, he certainly did in terms of Matt Gaetz himself was not on any shortlist. He hadn't been part of the parade of lawyers that we were told were brought in to sit for an interview with Donald Trump. But when it comes to his team around him, he was with some of his top advisors on the plane yesterday when all of this unfolded. And that includes his chief of staff, Susie Wiles. They were in these conversations, they walked through what it would look like, what the reaction would be, and then they still decided to announce it as he was landing back in Florida.

So that's just something to keep in mind with all this speculation that Donald Trump wasn't prepared or the team wasn't aware of how controversial Gaetz was. Clearly, they were at this point aware of it and have been kind of relishing in it a little bit as they've watched the coverage unfold.

KEILAR: Yes, no doubt. There's still some holes in the President- elect's lineup.

HOLMES: That's right, Brianna. And some of the big ones that we're looking for are treasury, education, energy. These are all big jobs. Transportation hasn't been done yet. But they're having current conversations over.

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Now, I don't have any insight into what that meeting looks like yet. I'm trying to reach people who have been sitting through that meeting, having these conversations. But yet, we still don't know how this is going to unfold. And just a reminder of what these meetings look like, Donald Trump is essentially presented with the Cabinet position, a series of people who are on a shortlist that then go up on the big screens. They have several TV screens where he watches them. He sees their bio. He sees how they've talked about him in the past. He sees their old tweets.

He is under - they want him to be under no surprises in this situation, and they want him to be aware of who these candidates are. I would, again, and this is with a little bit of hedging, expect that we're going to hear more announcements as early as tonight, Brianna.

KEILAR: All right, we'll be looking for that. Kristen Holmes, thank you. Boris?

SANCHEZ: If he's confirmed by the Senate, Gaetz would lead the very department that pursued a years-long sex trafficking investigation against him. Separately in the House, Democrats are now pushing for the release of an ethics report on the former congressman, just as the panel was set to vote this week on whether or not to release it.

Let's discuss with national political reporter for The Bulwark and fellow Florida man, Marc Caputo.

Marc, great to see you as always.

First, you covered the investigation in a Matt Gaetz and allegations of sexual misconduct and drug use closely. Where did those investigations wind up?

MARC CAPUTO, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, THE BULWARK: Nowhere, as it regards Matt Gaetz. It was Kafka-esque toward the end because it just kept dragging on and on. And eventually the Department of Justice, after two years, decided, okay, we're going to throw in the towel. Why? They didn't really have any hard evidence. And the evidence they had by way of witness testimony against him came from compromised witnesses. One of them was former tax collector in elected position in Central Florida, who, sorry, I set my alarm, I apologize for that, who was an old friend of Matt Gaetz, had been incarcerated and had been a one-man crime wave and was totally unreliable. Among the things that he went to prison for was falsely smearing a rival as a pedophile. And now he's saying, oh, well, Matt Gaetz is the pedophile. Well, it was that guy.

The other person was the alleged victim who apparently gave contradictory statements, both to federal investigators, according to sources of ours, as well as in a civil-related matter that had recently unfolded. Those two things stacked together just led the Justice Department to say, well, we have no real hard evidence and the evidence by way of the witnesses isn't very credible, so they threw in the towel. What was remarkable is that it took about two years for them to do this.

SANCHEZ: Yes, and Marc, you're also getting some insight into how Trump and his team think Gaetz might fare during a confirmation process. What are you hearing about that?

CAPUTO: Well, they knew, as Kristen had reported just a moment ago, they knew that this would be kind of a bonfire, and it is. But Matt Gaetz is among the smarter - the smartest, most eloquent MAGA spokespeople out there. Donald Trump really likes Matt Gaetz. He really trusts him. He likes the way Matt Gaetz defends and advances him, not only on television, but in rallies.

And if you look at Matt Gaetz in congressional hearings, he's built a reputation of being one of the members of Congress who's best at questioning witnesses, boxing them in and being able to use his time on the stand, so to speak or up on the dais. Now, he's never really been on the other side of this in a confirmation process, but he was a debate club champ. He does have a quick acid tongue. That's part of the reason some people don't really like him. And whether he makes it through the confirmation process or not, everyone in Trump's team believes that this is at least going to make pretty spectacular television. It might be not safe for work television, but it's going to make for must-watch TV.

SANCHEZ: You also write that in Trump's mind, the attorney general is the most important position. Why?

CAPUTO: Yes. Think about when Trump first took office, he appointed Jeff Sessions. And Sessions soon appointed a special counsel because of the way in which Trump had reacted to the FBI director investigating him over the Russia matter, as Trump calls it, I'm not calling this myself, the Russia hoax.

And that triggered just a series of problems for Donald Trump, the Mueller investigation, which just saddled his administration for two years. And Trump fumed that he didn't have a loyal attorney general and one who didn't have the guts to just say, look, go pound sand, this is nothing here, nothing to see here, no special counsel.

Matt Gaetz is that guy. He's not going to be the one who, if he's attorney general, is going to appoint a special counsel. He's not going to let these things move forward. And like Trump, as someone who's been investigated by the Justice Department, Matt Gaetz has a bone to pick with them. And as one of the sources whom I spoke to, who was familiar with the transition process had said, as all these other lawyers who applied to be attorney general sort of approach this as a judicial appointment.

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And they had these high-minded discussions about the constitution and law and all these other things. And only Gaetz really understood Donald Trump and said, look, I'm here to cut effing heads. That's not a direct quote, but that's them paraphrasing his mentality, his mindset and the deliverable that he was promised. And Donald Trump knew that and basically said, deal, you know, I buy, you're my guy.

SANCHEZ: Yes. Marc quickly before we go, I always joke whenever you come on, fellow Florida man, because we met when I was working in Miami and we sort of enjoy the weird politics of Florida. What does it tell you that so many folks in the incoming ...

CAPUTO: Yes, we had. SANCHEZ: ... yes, the - in the incoming Trump administration between Susie Wiles, Marco Rubio, Mike Waltz, now potentially Matt Gaetz, what does it tell you that so many of them are from the sunshine state?

CAPUTO: Florida used to be a swing state and became a red state in part because of the success of the Republican Party of Florida here, the consultants, the people who understood data, persuasion and turnout. So this is sort of where MAGA was sort of born ahead of time and was just ready for the right leader in Donald Trump. These are people who know how to win elections. And you just saw here in this last election that they showed that in spades.

And as this being Donald Trump's newly adopted home, you know, like any Florida man or a lot of Florida men, he happened to be from New York. He got to know and sort of went native a lot of the Republicans here and learned that he not only trusted them and liked them, but thought they were among the most competent. That's why you're seeing Rubio, Mike Waltz, I said, Don Gaetz, that's Matt Gaetz's father is about to be a state senator again, Matt Gaetz and a whole host of others.

So I'm not sure if there are any more Florida men left in the wing or Florida women, but it wouldn't surprise me if there are.

SANCHEZ: Marc Caputo, always great to get your perspective. Thanks so much for being with us.

CAPUTO: Thanks, I appreciate it.

SANCHEZ: Of course. So during his campaign, President-elect Donald Trump vowed to pardon people facing federal charges for their participation in the January 6th insurrection. And now we're starting to see the real world impact of that promise. A federal judge is delaying the trial of a Capitol riot defendant from Kansas that was set to start next month, citing the quote, real possibility the incoming president will pardon him. CNN's Katelyn Polantz is tracking this story for us.

Katelyn, what else did the judge say about this decision? Yes, so this is just a judge that had a hearing today on one of the hundreds of January 6th riot cases in D.C.'s federal court. It was Judge Rudolph Contreras, who's very well-respected.

And he said, you know, there is a real possibility that Donald Trump could pardon these rioters and that there needs to be a conservation of resources to put off a valid reason to not have this trial in December that was set for William Pope.

Now, Pope is notable, not for what he did on January 6th, he's charged with some misdemeanor offenses related to it, but how he asked for this. He doesn't have a lawyer. He was writing to the court on his own. It's called pro se in court. And then the way he articulated his need to push the trial back was he said to the judge, essentially there's a mandate for Donald Trump. He's promising to pardon people like me and I've tried to convince the government to do this, the prosecutors, but they seem foolishly intent on vindictiveness in this final hour, want to take me to trial. This is a final opportunity to make peace and to take two weeks off in December. So that was his pitch to Judge Contreras.

Judge Contreras said, though, there is reason to postpone this trial. We saw Devan Cole, the reporter I was working with on this, who was in court today for that hearing, also noticed another judge in D.C.'s federal court postponing another trial, but not everybody that is trying this to move their court proceedings back, waiting to see if they're going to be pardoned, is being successful.

There was another judge as well today who just said he wasn't going to delay a sentencing of a January 6th rioter that is upcoming before the Trump inauguration in January because it's irrelevant to the court's independence and the legal obligations of judges who are seeing these cases through. It's just not something that they need to do as far as sentencings and other proceedings go. Those are going forward, but the trials now do appear to potentially be put on hold.

SANCHEZ: Yes, a story we will keep an eye on. Katelyn Polantz, thank you so much for the update. Brianna?

KEILAR: All right. Let's discuss this now with former Trump White House lawyer Jim Schultz.

Jim, first, I just want to get your perspective on what Katelyn was reporting there, that the judge is delaying trial for this Capitol riot defendant because of a real possibility of Trump pardoning him.

JIM SCHULTZ, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE LAWYER: Look, he said it on the campaign trail that this is something he was going to do, right? I think there will be a process associated with this. There's a lot of defendants in this case, a lot of convictions in this case. I think you're going to - the - you'll see them start with and start considering the folks who were nonviolent offenders.

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You know, folks that had pled guilty to or were convicted of trespassing and who knows what they're going to do with the more violent offenders and the folks that got real jail time at the end of the day.

KEILAR: What are your concerns about those ones if they don't treat it by a case-by-case basis?

SCHULTZ: I think they have to treat it as case-by-case, but these folks are violent offenders. They were folks who had committed violent crimes against police officers. Those people need to be held accountable. They should probably stay in jail, but the folks who were nonviolent people, I think those ones are ones that are going to be ripe for early on pardons. You know, I think that's likely to happen.

KEILAR: All right. What was your reaction when you found out that Matt Gaetz was the pick for AG?

SCHULTZ: Look, I was surprised - everybody was surprised, right? Everyone - we've heard shocked, we've heard surprised, we've heard a lot of things. Matt Gaetz has had no experience of being even really in a significant way practicing law. He hasn't been a prosecutor. He hasn't been - he hasn't led a big department. These are all issues like front and center.

Forgetting about kind of all the other issues associated with Justice Department he had, right? Let's put those aside for a second. Just those issues alone will cause him some problems and the fact that he was this - we were this close to seeing kind of the report come out of the ethics committee. He resigns, that goes away presumably, that we're not going to see that, although I have a feeling that may leak its way out into the public and then that will be front and center in any Senate confirmation hearing. I'm not even sure he gets the Senate confirmation hearing.

KEILAR: Really? (INAUDIBLE) ...

SCHULTZ: Yes. I mean look, I - there's always a couple that kind of fall off along the way. In every administration, there's always folks who have been nominated or announced to be nominated.

KEILAR: But this one means the most maybe to Trump, considering some of his regrets from the last administration, his AG picks. So do you think this may be one that he's going to really go to bat on?

SCHULTZ: Look, he's got other candidates for sure in the till on this one.

KEILAR: Yes.

SCHULTZ: Right? So he feels burned by the Justice Department from the last time. He feels burned by the Intelligence Community from the last time. He feels burned by the Defense Department from the last time around. Those are folks that he's picked. He's picked people that are definitely loyal to him and probably defend him against kind of the bureaucracy that he feels came at him the last time.

KEILAR: You said let's put that now closed DOJ investigation, which was into alleged sex misconduct aside. Okay, well, let's bring it back.

SCHULTZ: Okay.

KEILAR: Let's bring it back because ...

SCHULTZ: Sure.

KEILAR: ... you said he's - he may not get to a confirmation hearing, but let's say that he does. I mean, how does that get aired out in a confirmation hearing? What does that look like?

SCHULTZ: Look, he's going to have a really tough time in a confirmation hearing. And someone just said earlier, I heard he's never been on the other side of that. When you're in the barrel, that becomes a very different tone from when you're on the other side and you're actually doing the questioning. He's going to have a lot of things to answer for. I think it's likely that this report finds its way into the news media in some way, shape or form. I doubt that they're going to be able to keep that under wraps.

Because remember, you had Republicans coming at him on that, not just Democrats. So the chances of that making its way out are probably pretty good. And that's going to be fodder for questions all the way through. And remember, he's got to go through interviews with the senators through this process as well that are going to be asking tough questions in those private interviews.

And then there, you know, then there - they're going to - the administration's going to get feedback from those senators as what they think they're going to do in terms of votes. They're probably not going to have the votes.

KEILAR: All right, Jim, thank you so much, really interesting stuff.

And a programming note, today on THE LEAD, House Minority Leader, Hakeem Jeffries is joining Jake Tapper to discuss the Democrats' losses in the election and what he's making so far of President-elect Trump's Cabinet picks. We'll have that next hour at 4 PM Eastern.

And when we come back, Trump's pick for defense secretary has criticized having women in combat. He says they shouldn't be. And he's pushed to fire senior officers that he believes are too what he calls woke. Why his divisive opinions could make for a fiery confirmation process in the Senate.

And Elon Musk says he thinks he can cut $2 billion in federal spending every year. CNN's new reporting on what that may actually look like.

And sold - Infowars, once owned by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, is under new management. Next, one of the Sandy Hook parents that Jones targeted with lies tells us why he's helped back that purchase. We'll have that and much more coming up on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

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KEILAR: It sounds like a headline in The Onion, but Alex Jones' Infowars media empire will soon be owned by The Onion. The satirical site won that bidding for Infowars in an auction. It's an auction that was part of Jones' defamation settlement. In 2022, he was ordered to pay more than a billion dollars to some Sandy Hook families after he repeatedly and falsely called the 2012 massacre a hoax.

SANCHEZ: In a statement that is clearly tongue-in-cheek, The Onion said, quote, "It is proud to acquire Infowars, and we look forward to continuing its storied tradition of scaring the site's users with lies until they fork over their cold, hard cash. Or Bitcoin. We also accept Bitcoin."

Joining us now is Robbie Parker. His daughter, Emilie, was among the 21st graders killed in the Sandy Hook shooting. His book, "A Father's Fight," is coming out next week. Robbie, thank you so much for joining us this afternoon.

You were part of that group of families who won the defamation suit against Alex Jones last year, and you advocated for The Onion's bid while you are Alex Jones' largest creditor.

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Talk to us a bit about what this means for you, having The Onion buy Infowars.

ROBBIE PARKER, DAUGHTER EMILIE KILLED IN SANDY HOOK SHOOTING: I mean, it's a huge win, right? I mean, I wasn't aware until recently about The Onion being involved in it, but we were willing to take less money to ensure that somebody that was not affiliated with Jones was able to win this auction. And so the fact that The Onion got it is a really big win for us, and I couldn't be happier.

KEILAR: Do you know what they plan to do with this site? And if not, what do you hope they do?

PARKER: No, I have no idea. I'm a big fan of The Onion, and so I'm just as curious as anybody else. I know that they're really smart people, and I'm sure they have big plans, and I can't wait to see what comes out of it.

KEILAR: I think one of the things that has been so hard to watch about Alex Jones is just his persistence when it comes to telling lies. I think we've seen some of the pain that he's put families like yours through. Do you worry that he's going to just take that somewhere else?

PARKER: Of course. I mean, he's even - he was even live streaming this morning before his site got shut down, that he's going to - has another studio set up. And so I - my - I wasn't naive enough to think that I could silence Alex Jones. Our goal, and the reason I joined the lawsuit, was to, one, reclaim Emilie's memory and take back those things that Alex Jones defiled, and also to make it very, very hard for him to continue to spread his lies.

And so we were able to accomplish that through the verdict of the trial, and we were able to accomplish our goals with the sale of Infowars, a business that he spent 30 years building no longer belongs to Alex Jones.

SANCHEZ: Stepping back, Robbie, one of the recurring headlines in The Onion, I think probably carries added significance to you, given what you've endured. Anytime there's a mass shooting in the United States, I think every time, at least that I've seen, The Onion posts this headline that essentially says, we can't do anything else, nothing can be done, says nation - says only developed nation where this regularly happens. Essentially pointing out the fact that the United States is the only developed country in the world where we see these mass shootings over and over and over again. Sandy Hook taking place now nearly a dozen years ago.

What message do you hope that The Onion pushes forward given now that they have won this platform and have at least some awareness of the audience that Infowars has cultivated over the years?

PARKER: Right. And so what I'm trying to do is establish like a sense of truth. So you have the situation where you have Alex Jones, who's on one side of the truth spectrum, like the far-right side of the truth spectrum, so far away from it. And now you have a satirical group on the other side, right? And so I'm here in the middle just trying to proclaim what truth is. And so, yes, my daughter was viciously murdered inside of an elementary school and that shouldn't happen. And Jones uses his rhetoric to create fear in people that people like me were going to use that event to come out and try and take people's guns. And he made me a target and he made people hate me. And so that is what I've had to endure and what my family's had to endure for 12 years now.

So the fact that we've been able to separate Jones from the platforms in which he was using to do that is again, a huge win. And the fact that there's going to be somebody else that's going to use that platform now to create a different narrative and that they're going to have fun with it. But at the end of the day, we need to get back to what truth is because this pursuit and me writing my book and me going through the trial was all in a pursuit of healing. And it can be funny to read satirical arguments and you can get angry listening to Alex Jones, but those things don't bring a whole sense of healing and only the truth can do that.

KEILAR: Yes, it's amazing, Robbie, that you find the strength to tell your story. As you said, you're sort of reclaiming that for Emilie. I have a first grader and so many people with children, especially they look at you and they realize that the only difference between sitting where they sit and where you sit is chance. And I wonder what your message is to them.

PARKER: Yes, there's a lot of people that they use something to separate themselves from me because it feels safer, right? It's very uncomfortable as a parent, especially to say he's really no different than I am when I send my kid to school. And so what I want to do is bridge that gap. We tend to, these very hard, uncomfortable things, we tend to avoid and create this false sense of security and safety.

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And the reason I felt like it was important to share my story was because in order to find that healing and connection for myself and other people ...