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Gaetz Accused Of Having Sex With 17-Year-Old In 2017; Source: Trump Is "All In" On Gaetz, "Not Going To Back Off"; Trump Travels To NYC With Musk, RFK Jr., Don Jr., Speaker Johnson; Musk Playing Major Role In Cabinet Picks, Transition Decisions; RFK Jr., Who Attacks Unhealthy Food, Poses With McDonald's Meal. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired November 18, 2024 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

DANA BASH, CNN HOST: Today on Inside Politics, through thick and thin. The president-elect is standing by his decision to elevate MAGA fire brands to top government positions and tells his team that Matt Gaetz as attorney general is the most important pick he will make.

Plus, is Elon Musk flying too close to the sun? The richest man in the world seems to go everywhere Trump goes. And now is using his social media platform to publicly push his favorite cabinet picks and preparing for a purge.

We have new reporting on the hunt to find and fire federal employees. Those employees at the Trump team believe are too not enough -- not MAGA enough. I should say for the cause.

I'm Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines at Inside Politics.

We start with the potential problem for the Trump transition team. The House Ethics Committee is now planning to meet on Wednesday, as pressure builds to release their findings on the president-elect's pick for attorney general, Matt Gaetz. Today, we're learning new details about the potentially damning evidence that even Trump's Senate allies say, they want to see.

CNN's Paula Reid broke this story. Paula?

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Oh, Dana, these new details come from a civil lawsuit filed by a Gaetz associate. The former congressman is not a party to this litigation, but it targeted people involved in the criminal investigation Gaetz faced, including the woman who is allegedly 17 when Gaetz had sex with her, as well as one of Gaetz's former friends.

And as a result of this lawsuit being filed, the parties engaged in discovery. They created a whole new record of evidence, some of which is public. They spoke to witnesses, including that underage girl now her deposition and those of some of the other women in the case are under seal.

But lawyers in the case, they were pretty clever because they introduced portions of her testimony that's under seal when they questioned other witnesses. So, they referenced the underage girl's testimony, including that she says she had sex with Gaetz on an air hockey table. So, the lawyer asked, quote, and you heard her testimony that she said that you observed her and Matt Gaetz having sex on an air hockey table?

Now the person being asked about that denied that is something that he saw. But the lawyer also throws in that quote, the friend of the underage woman who brought her to the party testified that she too had sex with Gaetz at the same gathering.

Now this is relevant to the ethics committee report because the ethics committee has talked to many of these same witnesses. They also have much of the evidence that was gathered in this civil litigation. So, it gives you a flavor of what they've gathered in their investigation.

Of course, we know the Justice Department investigated the former congressman over these allegations of having sex than underage girl is whether obstruction of justice, and they opted not to charge, and he has consistently denied any wrongdoing.

BASH: And Paula, what are the odds at this point? Do you think that we're ever going to see this ethics report?

REID: Well, there's obviously, Dana, an enormous public interest, because we're talking about an ethics report for the nominee to be the nation's top law enforcement official. But there are politics at play, and it's unclear if they're going to officially release this report. A lot of folks have talked about it leaking.

Dana, I broken more stories than anyone on this ethics investigation over the last year. And I can tell you this committee, it doesn't leak things, which is why we're so focused in our reporting about what kinds of evidence the committee has collected. Because even if they do release this report or release a redacted version, it likely won't include all the evidence.

So, it is a public service, not only to the American people, but also to the lawmakers who have to assess whether former congressman Gaetz should be the nation's next attorney general.

BASH: Yeah. The ethics committee is one of those, maybe people out there might not totally believe it, but it is like a sealed shut vault in that committee, for sure. Thank you so much, Paula, for that terrific reporting.

Let's bring in my panel of reporters here, Astead Herndon of The New York Times, Vivian Salama of The Wall Street Journal, and CNN's Manu Raju. Hi everybody. I have a case of Mondays, obviously.

Manu, let's just pick up where Paula left off because the ethics committee -- the whole point of the ethics committee is that they investigate sitting lawmakers, which I think it's pretty fair to say, the fact that Matt Gaetz quit as soon as he was nominated. You don't normally quit unless you're trying to avoid something.

[12:05:00] So, I think the cause and effect are pretty clear. But given that the notion of the ethics committee having this meeting and potential releasing something. I mean, you've been covering this kind of stuff for a long time.

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. I'm not sure how this is going to turn out, because the pressure is enormous on the Republicans on that panel. In order for them to release this report, it would require a majority vote on this evenly divided committee, which means one Republican needs to break ranks.

And you can already hear the pressure coming from people like Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, last week, saying that they should not release a report, a pretty unusual statement by the speaker to do just that, to lean on the ethics committee.

Typically, speakers stay away from the ethics committee, given the fact that they are investigating such significant issues involving their own members. They don't look like they're tipping the scales one way or the other. Even Kevin McCarthy stayed away from the House Ethics Committee report. Even last week, Mike Johnson indicated, he was not going to get involved, and then ultimately did.

Now he denied to Jake Tapper yesterday that he spoken to Trump directly on this. But you can tell -- you can be certain that Trump world does not want this information out there. So how do the Republicans ultimately respond to this.

And Dana, Johnson is saying that this should not get out because of precedent, or would establish precedent, but there actually is precedent to release reports in the aftermath of members resigning. So, the question ultimately, though, is going to be on those members -- on the committee, do they change course, and they side with Democrats here?

VIVIAN SALAMA, NATIONAL POLITICS REPORTER, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: I mean, and you have also president-elect Trump looming over this entire process. Obviously, there's a lot of pressure about pushing back against him.

A lot of lawmakers concerned about what that would do for them, kind of moving forward if they were to break ranks with them, or break away from what he wants, essentially, and to go against any of his picks that could ultimately vote badly for them. And so, there's a lot of concern on Capitol Hill among Republicans that that would also play a role as well.

BASH: And this is CNN reporting on that very notion. Trump used Gaetz as the most important member of the cabinet. He is quickly assembling, and he considers the nomination of the former Florida congressman an urgent priority for the incoming GOP majority in the Senate.

ASTEAD HERNDON, NATIONAL POLITICS REPORTER, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Yeah. I think we should see the nomination of Gaetz as a statement of intent from Donald Trump, whether it's Gaetz, Tulsi Gabbard, RFK Jr. I mean -- but I think Gaetz most specifically, this is for anyone who may have thought that he was being hyperbolic on the campaign trail or been taking him figuratively and not literally.

This is what the second Trump administration means. The point of it is revenge. And after the last four years of he's kind of been stewing about these government agencies, it is an intentional thumb of a nose at the kind of intelligence community, at the Department of Justice, and that's the reason why these pics are happening.

I think it's going to be the first test of how much room we think congressional Republicans are putting -- willing to put between them and Donald Trump. And I also think it's an early test of how much the public is engaged in the second Trump administration in a different way.

Are people -- are the folks in the constituents in the districts going to feel like Gaetz is a step too far, or did they sign up for a MAGA ideology second time around. And Donald Trump is going to have a lot of leeway based on the mandate of the results. The pressure coming from the constituents, I think, will inform some of the reason -- the willingness for the congressional Republicans to push back or not.

RAJU: And into something ethics report itself, I would be surprised if Senate Republicans are not able to get their hands on this. I mean, the Senate Judiciary Committee investigation will be thorough. Confirmation processes are thorough, even if you are the member of the same party. How do you not as a member of the committee --

SALAMA: Demand for report.

RAJU: Demand for -- Republicans who want --

HERNDON: But that role specific.

RAJU: Exactly.

BASH: On that sort of broader notion of kind of where MAGA world is versus this specific Gaetz's nomination. Markwayne Mullin, Senate Republican from Oklahoma, who's very close with Donald Trump doesn't like Matt Gaetz. The way that he tried to thread the needle was quite telling.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MARKWAYNE MULLIN (R-OK): I've got to set my personal opinions, and they're really not opinions. I got to -- I got to set my personal situation with Matt to the side and look at the facts. If he's qualified, he's qualified. I be quite frank. I didn't even know he was an attorney until after he was appointed attorney general.

KRISTEN WELKER, NBC NEWS ANCHOR: Should the House Ethics Committee release that report, Senator?

MULLIN: Absolutely.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SALAMA: That's pretty extraordinary, since when the news broke. I think it was you that interviewed him.

RAJU: Yeah.

SALAMA: He had some very unappealing things to say about Matt Gaetz. Well, kind of a long way in a few days?

BASH: Yes. But he still said, I didn't even mean it was -- it was like the interview version of a sub tweet. He's out. Didn't even know he was a -- was an attorney, until he was nominated. And he does want the ethics committee report revealed.

SALAMA: He was talking about him bragging about drug parties before and things like that. So, I mean --

BASH: OK, fair point.

[12:10:00]

SALAMA: I think, he toned it down quite a bit in the last few days, but it goes to show the pressure that is on a lot of these lawmakers to essentially show loyalty not to Matt Gaetz, but to Donald Trump, who is essentially, you know, who nominated him and who wants this pick to go through. And so, they are -- they are in a tough pot spot right now.

HERNDON: And a lot of those MAGA voters feel like the first Trump of Donald -- the first administration of Donald Trump was thwarted by a bureaucracy, by congressional Republicans, by -- it made Mitch McConnell a villain in that ecosystem.

For the last two years at these rallies, it has been a mantra of, when they return, they will block out all of the kind of pressures that stop Donald Trump from doing what he wants to do. So, I think this is the first step of that to test what, how, what far these lawmakers are willing to go over there -- over their party's leader, who comes in any stronger position than eight years.

RAJU: If you could just see how pained Markwayne Mullin was in the thought of having to vote for Matt Gaetz.

BASH: Yeah. It clearly wants his ethics report to come out so that maybe he's -- the whole nomination is withdrawn.

HERNDON: Yeah, through the work for him.

BASH: I mean, that's what it seems like.

HERNDON: Yeah.

BASH: I want to turn to another Trump pick, Peter Hegseth. He is the nominee for defense secretary. CNN is reporting. He paid a woman who accused him of sexual assault in 2017 and included a confidentiality clause. Hegseth denies the allegation of sexual assault, says he settled with the woman to avoid bad publicity. He has not been charged criminally or civilly. His attorney characterized the incident as a quote, consensual sexual encounter, and said, Hegseth felt that he was a victim of black male. Sources say the Trump transition team was caught off guard by the allegation and that he was never fully vetted by an outside firm.

I mean, just going back to what you were saying about the whole tone and tenor of his rallies and of kind of the MAGA universe, wanting people like them to get into these very senior positions in departments where they can dismantle. You know, DOJ is obviously one of the biggies, so is department of defense.

HERNDON: Yeah, absolutely. And I think again, like Trump is being intentional with these choices. And I think, you know, to the point about the lack of outside vetting. We know that he kind of chooses off a whim, a hunch, except this on Fox News. I think that look is just as much important as whatever qualifications he may or may not have.

But more importantly, I think it is a -- I mean, he's forcing Republicans to choose among a menu of options they don't really love. But I think he has made -- also made clear that Gaetz is the top priority.

So, I would be interested to see which one of these other options becomes more of a sacrificial lamb, because it could -- they could find a way to show toughness against Donald Trump by letting him get the biggest person he wants, which I think is Matt Gaetz even more so than Hegseth.

RAJU: Go ahead.

SALAMA: I was just going to say, you know, we are -- we live in an era right now where the president-elect himself has faced similar allegations. And so, it is very hard to envision the Senate making this an issue. Will it come up in the Senate confirmation hearings? I think so. Will it stop Peter Hegseth from getting confirmed? It's hard to say.

RAJU: It's hard to see multiple Republic -- Trump nominees going down. There's typically one, maybe two in a new administration that fall by the wayside. We'll see if Trump even accepts that. If they go down, will he pressure the Senate to go into recess. We can install them unilaterally. That will cost --

BASH: Do you think that's actually going to happen?

RAJU: I -- you know, there is a lot of resistance among Republicans to go into recess if they reject an appointment, but jump through, the new majority leader will be under a ton of pressure from Trump. I don't think he's going to give up, even if Matt Gaetz goes down.

BASH: All right, everybody standby. Coming up. Donald Trump and his new entourage hit the big apple this weekend. We'll tell you why this picture from their flight is so telling. Stay with us.

[12:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BASH: A picture posted by Donald Trump Jr., caught our attention because it tells so many different stories. The president-elect was flying to New York for the Ultimate Fighting Championship with his new entourage, the richest man in the world, once and future, first son, Trump's pick for health and human services secretary, and the House speaker popping up there in the upper right in the background with a big smile. There is a lot to unpack there.

Vivian, I want to start with you, and we can put the picture back up, because in the break you were telling us some really interesting experiences you had over the weekend with this picture.

SALAMA: This picture is so telling that I started getting outreach from foreign ambassadors who are here in D.C., multiple who were trying to understand, you know, asking me questions about, what is speaker Johnson doing there? Why is RFK Jr. eating a hamburger when he's so against McDonald's?

I mean, they were literally trying to report back to their capitals and make some sense of this picture. And sometimes I would have the sort of shrug emoji, and sometimes I would offer a little bit of, you know, feedback. But, I mean, it just goes to tell you how telling this picture was.

BASH: Yeah. Ambassadors, they're just like us.

SALAMA: They're just like us.

BASH: They want their questions answered.

SALAMA: Exactly.

BASH: But let's just dig in. Let's start with Elon Musk, of it all. He's everywhere. He -- this is just one of the places where he was. He is being very aggressive, we're told, obviously, behind the scenes, with regard to Trump's cabinet picks and other members of his upcoming administration. He's also doing it publicly --

[12:20:00]

HERNDON: Yeah.

BASH: -- which is kind of remarkable. Check this out. My view for what it's worth is that the cent is a business as usual choice. He's talking about the treasury pick, whereas Howard Lutnick will actually enact change. Business as usual is driving America bankrupt. So, we need change one way or another.

So, the fact that that this guy has Trump's ear. He's like attached at the hip to him, and yet he puts this out publicly. You've been covering Trump for the past year. How is that going to fly?

SALAMA: I mean, you can imagine, at the Wall Street Journal in particular, our heads were exploding when that tweet went out. There has already been a lot of jockeying for the treasury position, but for Elon Musk to so blatantly weigh in like that, and especially since Donald Trump is the president-elect and he likes to be the one to call the shots.

It was really telling. He is trying, at least, if not in actuality, emerging as a little bit of a shadow chief of staff for Donald Trump right now, really keyed in and weighing in on a number of different things, not just the treasury pick, but he was on the phone call that Donald Trump held with Ukraine's President Zelenskyy, which apparently was not actually planned, but he sort of joined spontaneously into that conversation.

And of course, we know that his main role is going to be this very opaque at the moment department of government efficiency. And we are expecting that he's going to really take an ax to government spending in the way that we saw it really play out with X when he bought Twitter a few years back. And so, a lot of people really looking at the enormous influence that he already has in Trump's orbit but will also have on the government moving forward.

BASH: Yeah. Except the chief of staff, if they put out this public tweet, they would -- I think, even in Trump world, be fired.

SALAMA: You're absolutely right. You're absolutely right.

BASH: Yeah. Let's go back to the picture because we can't get enough of it. One of the things that Vivian was talking about, yes, that is RFK Jr., with McDonald's in his hand. I can't tell if the look on his face is, I cannot, like I know what's going to happen when this becomes public. Or I can't believe they're making me eat this, or I'm pretending to eat this even though I'm not.

HERNDON: You know, I do empathize with the feeling of regret mid McDonald's -- and I've also experience. But I think it may be explained to (inaudible). It is kind of ironic that, you know, after all this talk about the deep state and all of that, there's a group of unelected emperors around Trump who are putting their foot and thumb on policy, really shaping what this administration might look like.

I think of RFK Jr., specifically, we talked to him six months ago for the podcast. And he was saying at that time that he found no difference between Trump and Harris. And we would ask him why, like, what was the origin of his kind of break from Democrats? And it obviously goes back to kind of what he calls the elite capture of big pharma in 2020, and it all roots back this kind of antivaccine crusade.

But I have to say, as I have traveled on the trail, I have been kind of surprised of how many make America healthy again, hats. I see about how much of his brand has actually really cut through to some of the Trump voter who, you know was making fun of Michelle Obama for bringing up some of this stuff, you know, back in that area.

But that has now embraced this new message of breaking up big pharma or big food and things like that and focusing on chronic illnesses. That message, coupled with Trump's anti-establishment has really cut through to a portion of the electorate. So much as I look at that picture, and I see somewhat of the Trump appeal in there, the bros on the private jet eating McDonald's like, that is the Trump relatability in one image.

BASH: And RFK Jr. did say that the food that goes on that plane is like just poison. And to be fair, Donald Trump Jr., when he posted this picture, he said, make America healthy again. Starts tomorrow, which we can all relate to that.

Let's -- OK, put it back up, please, and let's look at the back right. That is Mike Johnson. You can kind of see a situation where the president-elect says, oh, wait, we're going to take a picture. Get in here, Mike. And he just jumps in.

HERNDON: He wasn't at the cool.

BASH: He wasn't at the cool kids' table. And there's a lot of that. Look at there, there's the sort of right side. You see him in the elevator there with Kid Rock and others. While Saturday night, he also hits a ride to the UFC fighter.

RAJU: Yeah. He was actually thinking -- he planned to go to Mar-a-Lago this weekend. The plan was to be there to meet with Trump, hash out, begin talking about the legislative strategy, and instead, he's on his way to a UFC match with Donald Trump, taking selfies in elevators and on airplanes.

Look, Johnson knows his political power is tied to Donald Trump. There's no question about it. Trump is very much comfortable with Johnson as speaker. We've seen how Trump has treated other people in the leadership position, and Johnson has going to have such a narrow majority, a handful of detractors, like Marjorie Taylor Greene. People who are tied to Donald Trump in their own way, could make life very difficult for Johnson, but if he is tied to Donald Trump --

[12:25:00]

BASH: Sorry, that's my favorite one. Go ahead, Manu.

RAJU: If he is tied to Donald Trump, that will essentially inoculate him from the pressures that he's going to face to govern. So, can they actually get on the same page? That's a totally different question. I mean, just last week, Johnson said Donald Trump -- you think that Donald Trump wouldn't pick anyone else from the House GOP for his cabinet. And the next day, he announced Matt Gaetz as attorney general.

BASH: I remember when Kevin McCarthy was so close to Donald Trump that he was untouchable, really wasn't. So, let's just remember that.

RAJU: Yeah.

BASH: He is one of the rare Democrats to do better this year than he did in 2022. What can the party learn from Ohio Congressman Greg Landsman' success. He's going to be here next.