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Trump Inauguration Moved Indoors; Immigration Crackdown; Supreme Court Upholds TikTok Ban; Interview With Sen. Edward Markey (D-MA). Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired January 17, 2025 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:57]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: A major blow for TikTok. The Supreme Court says the controversial app ban can take effect this weekend, but will president-elect Trump hit the pause button?

Plus, she's set to be at the center of Trump's immigration plan. Now Homeland Security secretary nominee Kristi Noem faces questions about the incoming administration's priorities, including mass deportations, the remain-in-Mexico program, and who exactly will oversee border security.

And ahead of a vote by the Israeli Cabinet on the cease-fire hostage agreement, the country's far right security minister now calling on allies to stop this deal.

We're following these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

Hello. I'm Brianna Keilar. Boris is off today.

And in a little bit more than 34 hours, TikTok will officially be banned here in the U.S., and the Supreme Court is not going to stop it, as TikTok had hoped for its 170 million users in the U.S.

This morning, the justices upheld the ban. They sided with the government and the national security concerns if the app stays under Chinese ownership. But it's possible the app may not actually go dark on Sunday, and that's because the Biden administration does not plan to enforce the ban, according to White House officials.

Instead, they say it will be left for the incoming Trump administration to implement the law. And Donald Trump has said in the past that he wants to save TikTok, despite calling for a ban during his first presidency, which the justices mentioned in their ruling today.

CNN media correspondent Hadas Gold is on this story.

Hadas, I know TikTok just responded. What are they saying?

HADAS GOLD, CNN MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Yes, just in the last few minutes, we finally got a response from TikTok. This was in the form of a TikTok video from its CEO, Shou Chew.

He doesn't say exactly what's going to happen to TikTok, but he does allude that things are going on behind the scenes, and he thanks president-elect Trump repeatedly. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHOU ZI CHEW, CEO, TIKTOK: Constitutional right to free speech for the more than 170 million Americans who use our platform every day to connect, create, discover and achieve their dreams.

On behalf of everyone at TikTok and all our users across the country, I want to thank President Trump for his commitment to work with us to find a solution that keeps TikTok available in the United States. This is a strong stand for the First Amendment and against arbitrary censorship.

As we have said, TikTok is a place where people can create communities, discover new interests and express themselves, including over seven million American businesses who earn a living and gain new customers using our platform.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GOLD: Now, later on in that video, Brianna, he does what I think is a very clear message and cater to president-elect Trump, where he highlights that Trump himself uses the platform and has more than 60 billion views of his content.

He says that they will do everything in their power to ensure the platform thrives. And he ends the video with "more to come," alluding that there is something going on behind the scenes, something that they're working on. He doesn't say what it is.

And notably, Brianna, he doesn't say to the users what is going to happen to their app if they try to open it on Sunday.

KEILAR: And so what's going to happen at midnight? I mean, do we have any idea? Do we know what Trump is going to do on Monday?

GOLD: We don't know exactly what the president-elect is going to do. He says that he's going to work on it.

But for the users who are going to try to open TikTok on Sunday, there's a few possibilities of what will happen. Now, first of all, this law actually applies to the app stores and the cloud service providers. It's not actually about ByteDance.

So even if the app still lives on your phone, which is very possible, you might still be able to open it, it might be glitchy, it might be bugging. And that's because the behind the scenes of the networks and the information data flow might have to go to different cloud service providers. And over time, if you can't update your app from the app store, it's going to get glitchy and buggy.

[13:05:00] But there is actually reporting from other outlets that are saying that TikTok might actually sort of shut itself down. They might put up a pop-up that explains to users what is happening about this ban and maybe give them an option to download their TikToks.

But when you go on TikTok right now, Brianna, it is just full of videos of creators lamenting this ban, being angry, talking about what they plan to do next, trying to convince their followers to go to other platforms, because, for a lot of these creators, this is their livelihood.

And, Brianna, there is tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of dollars worth of advertisements that are funneled through TikTok. So this is also a big business story, as well as a big legal and political story.

KEILAR: Yes, it's an industry.

Hadas Gold, thank you so much for the report. I know a lot of people are curious about what's going to happen.

Today, president-elect Trump's pick to lead the Department of Homeland Security -- that would be South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem -- faced questions from senators at her confirmation hearing. If confirmed, Noem would be leading a sprawling agency, which would include overseeing FEMA and the nation's complex immigration system.

During her hearing, Noem described the U.S. southern border as a war zone, and she vowed to enforce a flurry of executive orders on immigration, which Trump is expected to release moments after taking office.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOSH HAWLEY (R-MO): Will you work with President Trump to reinstate the remain-in-Mexico program that the president had in place in his first term, which does so much to ensure that those who would seek to abuse our asylum system are not allowed into the country, and those who have legitimate asylum claims, their claims are processed in due order and in due course, but they wait in Mexico until those claims are fully processed?

Will you work to reinstate that program?

GOV. KRISTI NOEM (R-SD): Yes, Senator, the president and I have talked extensively about this, and will 100 percent partner with him to reinstate the remain-in-Mexico policy and make sure that it's in place.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: So we're told that Trump's team is finalizing deportation plans, one source telling CNN -- quote -- "You will see removal planes, reports of arrests occurring, ICE action in sanctuary jurisdictions. As you get into 30 days and first 100 days, that's where you will see a consistent drumbeat." CNN's Priscilla Alvarez is with us now with some of her reporting on this. We also have CNN chief national affairs correspondent Jeff Zeleny.

Let's start with you, Priscilla, because you're learning a lot about Trump's day one plans on immigration.

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, in the 30-to- 60-day -- or 30-to-100 day drumbeat that that source was telling me about, it gives you a sense that it's going to take time for them to ramp up when it comes to the detention and deportation of undocumented immigrants.

But all the same, they are preparing all these executive actions to make an aggressive push on immigration just within hours of the president-elect being sworn in. And it falls really in three buckets, interior enforcement, ICE sweeps in major metropolitan areas, areas where they know that immigrants have gone to reside and making a point about those sanctuary jurisdictions.

Those are those that limit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement and ones that the incoming border czar, Tom Homan, has often criticized. Now, the other bucket here is the border. The border is actually relatively quiet right now, but they want to sign the national emergency declaration and get Pentagon resources down to the U.S. southern border.

The remain-in-Mexico policy, well, that requires Mexico to buy in, but they want -- this executive action would essentially launch those negotiations. And the third is legal immigration. The travel ban that President Joe Biden pulled back, well, it's going to make a comeback.

Now, sources tell me they're still weighing who exactly it's going to encompass. But these, when you take them all together, mark a dramatic shift in U.S. immigration policy, goes with saying yet again. This happened also four years ago in President Joe Biden pulled back Trump's immigration plan.

But what was most noteworthy about the confirmation hearing today that, of course, Kristi Noem received many questions about the immigration agenda, is who's actually in charge. This time around, Trump has a border czar, and that is Tom Homan. He has a direct line to the president and she described it in questioning with Senator Kim.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. ANDY KIM (D-NJ): Will he be giving orders directly to CBP, ICE, USCIS?

NOEM: Tom Homan has a direct line to the president. He is an adviser to the president, the border czar. I obviously will be, if nominated and confirmed and put into the position of being the Department of Homeland Security secretary and responsible for the authorities that we have and the actions that we take.

(END VIDEO CLIP) ALVAREZ: Now, that is a dynamic that, again, is unique to this second Trump term.

Of course, Trump had a lot of tension and friction with his other homeland security secretaries. I covered many of them in the first term. So we will see how this all unfolds. She is expected to have a more limited scope on immigration, but, all of the same, these executive actions do have to be implemented by the Department of Homeland Security. So we will see how that plays out.

KEILAR: And as we get an idea of how this is going to play out, Tom Homan, so important, we should note he has vowed to bring back family detention centers. He led Trump's family separation policy during the first administration.

[13:10:00]

There are a lot of logistics here, Jeff, but there's also the politics and the optics of this.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Without question.

And Tom Homan, of course, is someone who does not require Senate confirmation, you were saying. So that is perhaps the biggest factor of all here. You said you covered several homeland security secretaries. That is such a key point, because, in the first Trump administration, it was a revolving door, starting with John Kelly and going on from there.

That's not the case this time. This is one more example of the president-elect, soon-to-be president, knowing exactly what he wants to do and knowing sort of more how to accomplish it by getting around some of the confirmations and things by having the border czar.

So this is going to start much faster. But there are -- the optics remain the same. The optics remain sort of challenging. So we will see what the president sort of has the stomach for. But I think he owes his base, he owes people who voted for a lot. So I think this is going to be one of the biggest changes that we're going to see from the 46th to the 47th president.

But we still don't know exactly how fast it will be and what it will look like. But Tom Homan is someone who's going to be a household name. You worked in the Obama administration. You have covered him for a long time, but he does not apologize for family separations.

KEILAR: Yes, it's going to be very interesting. We know you both will be watching very carefully.

Priscilla and Jeff, thank you for your reports.

I want to talk more now about this with John Sandweg, former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

John, what do you make of Noem's testimony? JOHN SANDWEG, FORMER ACTING ICE DIRECTOR: You know, Brianna, we heard

a lot of the same.

And I think what I think is interesting is the justification for all of this immigration enforcement, especially the mass deportation side of this, is public safety. But the tactics that she's talking about are really not one's designed to promote public safety, right, worksite raids, for instance.

I mean, she mentioned it's come out that they're going to reinstitute worksite raids. But you don't go to meatpacking plants and farm sites to find transitional gang members, right? They don't punch a clock and take a regular job. They make their living off drug -- working for drug cartels, things of that nature.

And so my point is that, in the populations they say they're going to focus on this, people have been ordered removed, but didn't actually leave the country. That is a population, Brianna, that didn't -- was not detained because somebody, whether ICE or an immigration judge, decided they didn't pose a threat to public safety. They had no criminal history. They have probably been here a long time, had U.S. citizen relatives.

So I guess what I'm saying is, there remains this disconnect between the stated basis of all of this, which is promoting public safety in the United States, and the tactics and the operations and the policies, which really are not geared towards apprehending those people who pose a threat or commit crimes in our country.

KEILAR: So then what is the goal, then, as you see it?

SANDWEG: Well, I guess it's mass deportation. And I think what happens is that that can be politically unpopular.

Listen, there's a reason, Brianna, that when -- during the Obama administration, during the Bush administration, and even during the first Trump administration, you tend to focus on populations who've committed criminal offenses, for a couple of reasons. One is, obviously, that's good policy, right?

Use ICE's limited resources to focus on those individuals who pose a threat. But, look, let me be honest too. There's a political element to this too. When you start focusing on people who've been here a long time, who've had U.S. citizen children, that is very difficult. That is politically sensitive.

You face bipartisan criticism. And what will be interesting to me is see how the public reacts to this when these policies come into force, because let's make no mistake about it. That's who they're zeroing in on, these populations, people, like you said, the low-hanging fruit of the system, people have been ordered deported, but didn't leave.

And, again, that means it's a population that was not detained, which means somebody somewhere has decided that person doesn't pose a threat to public safety. And, Brianna, more often than not, those are the people who've been here a long time and have U.S. citizen family members.

KEILAR: John, how do you see the ramping-up process taking place? Because there aren't enough beds. There isn't the capacity to hold the undocumented migrants in the number that Trump wants to detain.

Did she adequately address that? And what do you expect this to look like?

SANDWEG: Yes, it's going to be real -- it's going to be really interesting, right?

ICE currently is funded for about 40,000 detention beds. ICE -- most of that is outsourced to private detention companies. But the kinds of things they're talking about -- and even the Laken Riley bill took another step towards passage today, right? And that includes additional mandates, additional populations where Congress has mandated ICE must detain these people.

But the kind of numbers the Trump administration is talking about, they're going to need hundreds of thousands of beds, four, five, six times what ICE is currently funded for. Brianna, there is no funding for that at the moment. There might be lower -- but I think that's where they're talking about tapping into military resources.

So, again, the -- as best I can tell, the transition has been very tight-lipped about their plans. But, yes, I think they're going to be looking at low-cost, fast, quickly to open, camp-style detention centers on military bases. That's really the only possible way they could do this.

And just very quickly, like, even if they were funding money and they want to build traditional detention centers, Brianna, it would take years to build those, right? It just takes years to kind of construct the facilities, get all the staffing in place and everything else.

[13:15:08]

So, obviously, they have to be thinking a much faster solution. And I do think that means camps probably on or and connected to the military.

KEILAR: And Noem says that she will shut down the CBP One app, which is the tool the Biden administration put in place to keep people from coming to the border -- it's kind of like a virtual queue -- because of concerns over fraudulent addresses, among other things.

What effect could that have, intended or unintended?

SANDWEG: Yes, I think the real interesting thing is, all the things he's going to do at the border -- and I expect him to do that on day one, right? Get rid of the CBP One app. Maybe -- maybe there's going to be a new Title 42 or remain-in-Mexico.

I think the unintended consequence that we need to keep an eye out for all of this is, we're going to see a return to the tactics of the border that we really saw before this asylum crisis began. So, the -- what the smugglers have been doing is coaching these people, walk across and surrender to the nearest Border Patrol agent.

And while that created these terrible images and while certainly it overwhelmed our asylum system, the good news, Brianna, is, we knew who the people are. We got biometrics. We were able to interview them, right? If the biometrics came back to national security concerns or from information we get internationally about criminal offenses, we can detain those people.

But we knew who was coming into our country and there was a significant security benefit to that. I think what we're going to see, and I think what we all need to be on guard for, is a return to people sneaking into the country, right, where they, instead of surrendering to the Border Patrol, they try to evade capture.

And I just think there's no doubt that the smugglers are just going to shift the tactics away from -- once Trump basically through executive order eliminates asylum, people are going to start crossing that border again, evading capture, going through remote areas of the desert.

And it's going to be a real challenge because it's going to be a real shift for the Border Patrol back to the tactics we saw really up until 2016.

KEILAR: John Sandweg, thank you so much. We appreciate your insights.

SANDWEG: Thank you.

KEILAR: President-elect Trump confirming his inauguration has -- is going to be moved indoors because of just how brutally cold the weather is expected to be here in D.C. on Monday.

In a post on TRUTH Social, the president-elect says both the swearing- in and the inaugural address will take place in the Capitol Rotunda. Later, he will be moving over to the Capital One Arena for the presidential parade, that also not taking place outside.

And this isn't the first time that this is happened. President Ronald Reagan's inauguration was held also inside the Capitol Rotunda because of weather.

Meteorologist Derek Van Dam is in the CNN Weather Center.

Derek, I have to tell you I'd been watching the forecast because I was assigned to be outside on Monday for coverage. And, wow, it was -- it was looking cold, and that's without considering how much colder it would feel

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: OK, consider, this a blessing in disguise then, right, Brianna, and also a huge, significant logistical development for the nation's capital.

We have to go back the four decades the last time this happened. You just showed the footage of Reagan being sworn in and inside of the Rotunda. Yes, that's when temperatures were seven degrees, a balmy seven degrees, right? That is significant. But you know what? It's not going to be that cold on Monday, but the windchill will make it feel like it will be that cold. So that's what authorities are warning people about. Anyone who's attending these outdoor functions, the outdoor events in and around the D.C. area are going to be impacted by this arctic blast, which, by the way, sometimes is the coldest air we have seen in one to two years, depending on the exact location.

So it's significant. To make matters more complicated, we will get a blast of snowfall Sunday into early Monday morning that will coat the mid-Atlantic in the Northeastern region with a new fresh layer of snow. So it's really going to lock in this cold air.

And when you factor in the winds that will be gusting out of the northwest at 20, 25 miles per hour, it'll drop those windchill values down into the single digits. That is bone-chilling cold, not a casual cold, Brianna, but a dangerous cold -- back to you.

KEILAR: Yes, so freezing. It makes sense, but it's quite the change.

Derek Van Dam, thank you for that.

VAN DAM: Right. Indeed.

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: As I mentioned, I will be co-anchoring Inauguration Day coverage. You can join us as history unfolds live on CNN, as the 45th president becomes the 47th. That will start live Monday at 8:00 a.m. Eastern on CNN.

And ahead this hour on CNN NEWS CENTRAL, much more on the TikTok block. We're going to talk to a Democratic senator who's trying to delay the ban's implementation.

Plus, we're live in Los Angeles, where officials are now warning of possible landslides and contaminated drinking water, as some residents are allowed to return to their homes or, in most cases, what's left of them.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:24:00]

KEILAR: Turning back to our top story now, the Supreme Court ruling that a controversial ban on TikTok could take effect on Sunday.

Our next guest has been pushing a new effort to delay that ban for 90 days and give TikTok's parent company more time to find a buyer. Democratic Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts is with us now.

That's an effort that did not succeed last night, Senator. I wonder what you think about this new plan, where, obviously, the Biden administration wants this ban to proceed, but there's this one-day overlap. They're not going to enforce it while they're waiting for Trump to take power. SEN. EDWARD MARKEY (D-MA): Yes, lookit, the issue with this; 170

million Americans use TikTok. Seven million American businesses use TikTok.

All across Southern California right now, there are Angelenos building new communities, trying to keep their small businesses alive. If this goes dark, the consequences are going to be catastrophic for communities not just in Los Angeles, but all across our nation.

[13:25:05]

So this is the challenge. So President Biden gave a little bit of breathing room, but, remember, the fine and the companies that will be fined, Oracle, Apple, Google, the fine is $800 billion for a violation of the law.

So I have been calling for more time. We need to in fact ensure that TikTok is just not shut down on Sunday. I brought my bill out onto the floor, unanimous consent. Republicans objected.

But the interesting thing is that President Trump and I, a liberal Democrat from Massachusetts, agree on this issue. We have to find a way to keep TikTok alive. And my goal is to create the space where that time can be used to get a resolution of this issue.

KEILAR: Do you have faith that they can make progress to wall themselves off from their Chinese parent company? Or do you think this really is a matter of selling to a non-Chinese owner?

MARKEY: I don't know what the final solution is, but here's what I do know.

This law passed 270 days ago. The Supreme Court issued their decision this morning, two days before the ban goes into effect. So that's not enough time to figure out what you do if the law is held to be constitutional. If it was held to be unconstitutional, we wouldn't even be having this conversation.

But it took 268 days to get the answer. And so as a result, we need to have that discussion. And there are a number of different ways in which this issue can be resolved that keeps TikTok alive for those communities that are out there that need it. But it would just be absolutely irresponsible to have it go dark.

And so to the extent to which we can create more time, there's actually room in the statute, interpreted very liberally, that could give 90 more days for President Trump to be able to negotiate a resolution of this issue.

But under no circumstances should this be allowed to result in TikTok going dark on Sunday or Monday.

KEILAR: OK, so our -- president-elect Trump told our Pam Brown -- quote -- "You're going to see what I'm going to do" and that he's going to -- quote -- "be making the decision" on whether to reverse the ban. You're familiar, though, with where he is on this, and it does seem

that he is inclined to. Do you feel like there is that breathing room already?

MARKEY: Well, it's heading in that direction, but I don't know. That's why we need more time.

KEILAR: OK, so then let...

MARKEY: We need more time in order to do this.

By the way, there was no debate on the Senate floor. There was no expert evidence that was ever presented. This just happened in a must- pass bill, and the language was stuck in, so we have never actually had the national discussion about what all of the options are.

KEILAR: Well, and, certainly, the Biden administration felt that there was a national security imperative here. A lot of experts believe that to be the case. This is a discussion that has been going on certainly for years, at least this topic.

There's a 90 -- this issue of 90-day reprieve, though, that doesn't necessarily solve the issue of finding a buyer, and it's a very unconventional way for a company to spin off, right, to have that kind of deadline there.

Elon Musk has been floated as one possibility. Would he be acceptable to you?

MARKEY: There was a very significant offer put on the table just last week by Project Liberty to purchase TikTok. Elon Musk may be interested. Others may be interested. But we need more time in order to find out.

KEILAR: Would he be OK?

MARKEY: Now, on Elon Musk, obviously -- obviously, if he's considering doing to TikTok what he did to Twitter, that would be absolutely terrible.

And so that's not necessarily, however, what the outcome is going to be. No one knows what the outcome is going to be, because we haven't had the time to have the discussion, to have all the negotiations, including with TikTok.

So we can deal in speculation about what might happen, and there are many options. There are many different ways to solve this problem. But until we get the extra time, until we keep TikTok alive for the 170 million Americans who are in community right now, then we don't have any options to provide for that site, TikTok, to continue operation.

KEILAR: Is this something that Democrats could have weighed in better on when they were in power in the Senate?

MARKEY: On the day that the ban was included in the Ukraine, Israel, humanitarian relief bill, I got on the floor of the Senate that day, 268 days ago, to say, it's a mistake. This issue is too important.

This is going to explode later on, because we didn't give it the time which it deserved. So I weighed in immediately on day one. I tried in this past week to have a bill passed that could give more time.