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Biden Prepares For End Of Presidency With 25 Days Left; Corporate Interests Give Millions To Trump Inauguration. Aired 12:30- 1p ET

Aired December 26, 2024 - 12:30   ET

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

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[12:30:46]

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: President Joe Biden departing the White House this morning for an end of the year vacation. He and the First Lady will land in St. Croix shortly. And with only 25 days left in Biden's term, we're getting a clearer picture on what he has in store for how he'll be spending the final days of his lame duck period.

CNN's Kayla Tausche is at the White House for us. Kayla, what are we going to see from this administration in these closing moments?

KAYLA TAUSCHE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Although we expect that these next 25 days are going to be filled with events and travel that focus on issues that have really been central to Biden's presidency, but also his five plus decade career in public service.

We know that the President will be traveling to Rome in the Vatican in mid-January to visit with the Pope. You may remember back in 2021, he met with Pope Francis ahead of the G20 summit in Rome, where he received communion and a blessing, which was consequential because there have been some questions over whether Biden's position on abortion is at odds with his Catholic faith and should therefore disqualify him. Pope Francis said that it should not.

We also expect Biden to continue a series of speeches to try to burnish his legacy on policy issues like he did with the economy at the Brookings Institution earlier this month. Aides say that climate and foreign policy could be in focus as he looks to cement his legacy on some of these issues.

But when it comes to specific policy advancements, Phil, we don't really expect him to do much more on that front because of how quickly the incoming administration could simply overturn some of those things. We do know that landing teams have arrived at various government agencies from the president-elect's team and that work of handing over the keys has already begun. Phil?

MATTINGLY: Yes, that seems to be the primary focus at this point. Kayla Tausche, thanks so much.

My panel's back with me.

TAUSCHE: Sure.

MATTINGLY: You know, Isaac, if you look at the legislative record particularly the first two years, it doesn't have much precedent over the course of the last five decades, right? And that's a lot of what they've been doing the last couple months. It's been trying to push out all the money that was already signed off on there to furnish that legacy.

But in terms of how people view the President right now, I think what's stunning to me, the latest Quinnipiac University poll, his approval is at 38 percent right now. In December of 2020, Donald Trump's approval after he'd lost the election was 44 percent now. That was pre-January 6.

After January 6, his approval was 34 percent. That's kind of within the margin of where Biden is right now. And Donald Trump had January 6 --

EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Right.

MATTINGLY: -- legacy. Where are we right now legacy wise?

DOVERE: He had -- I think you're right. A historic first couple of years in office, more legislation on the domestic front than anybody going back to Linda Johnson (ph) can claim credit for. I do think that what you've seen is a slow receding into the bushes from Joe Biden here.

I'm going to do it. I'm going to bring up a West Wing quote here. There's a moment on the West Wing when John Spencer, as Leo McGarry, the White House chief of staff, says, he's, like, trying to rally the troops. And he says, we can do more -- we can affect more change in one day in this building than we will in a lifetime after we leave the building.

That is not the approach that Joe Biden has been taking, at least publicly since the election, certainly, and even since he ceded the nomination to Kamala Harris. But there are things that he could be doing through executive authority. A lot of things that he could be doing would probably put a target on them for Donald Trump to go after first.

It does not seem like taking another vacation now is the kind of running through the tape mentality that White House staff has said he and the whole building is approaching things with. I think it's a really difficult thing for Joe Biden to know that he came into the presidency as a rejection of Donald Trump.

And here he is being replaced by Donald Trump. I think back to an interview that I did with Joe Biden. He'd been president for about three weeks, signed him for a book that I wrote. And I -- part of the takeaway that I had from it was him trying to assert himself as Joe Biden, the guy who got elected president. Not just Barack Obama's vice president, not just the guy who beat Donald Trump.

But now that is part of who he is, and it may define who he is. A couple weeks before the election, I had a conversation with a senior person in the White House, and I said, if Harris loses, most of the way that Biden is going to be remembered, at least in the short term, is the guy who was just in between the Trump terms.

No, that's not true. At this moment, that is the way that he is acting.

[12:35:03]

MATTINGLY: Yes, it was a very good book, you know. But I would also know it underscores it is a long time chronicler. One of the best of democratic politics. Of course you quoted the West Wing.

DOVERE: Of course.

MATTINGLY: All right --

DOVERE: Required.

MATTINGLY: It's in every conversation.

All right, up next, President-elect Trump is raising a record amount of money for his inauguration. Where's it all coming from? New CNN reporting, next.

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MATTINGLY: CNN has brand new reporting on how Donald Trump is funding his inauguration celebration. Fortune 500s, crypto firms, billionaires, are all writing seven-figure checks to curry favor with the incoming administration.

CNN's Fredreka Schouten has the new reporting on the thinking behind those checks and the inaugural perks they'll get in exchange, and she joins us now here at the table. I guess that's one of the biggest questions is, what do they get? Do they expect something? How does this all work?

FREDREKA SCHOUTEN, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL WRITER: Well, they certainly get face time with the incoming president, the incoming first lady and members of the Cabinet. It's really striking.

[12:40:01]

The amount of money you give, the more tickets you get to the parties. And there are three days of celebrations planned. It includes a rally. It includes a Cabinet reception, which is described as a very exclusive event. A dinner with the vice president. Dinner with the incoming president and Melania Trump.

So, lots of face time and the ability to make your case about what your company might be interested in seeing from the incoming administration.

MATTINGLY: Yes, I think you might be looking at, there's like the PDF of all, it's like a menu of options -- SCHOUTEN: Yes.

MATTINGLY: -- of what you can get to be able to do. Well, which by the way, this isn't like a Trump specific thing. This is maybe more aggressive than we've seen in the past. And Akayla, I think to that point, particularly in the wake of January 6th, you had so many folks in corporate America being like, we're not giving to anybody either involved in that or just in general, we're pulling off.

If you -- companies that are pledging $1 million to the inauguration, Amazon, Meta, Ford Motor Company, GM, they're also providing cars Intuit, Toyota, Pharma, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, AT&T. Meta didn't donate to Trump's 2017 inaugural fund. Didn't donate to Joe Biden's 2021 inaugural fund.

Mark Zuckerberg was in, was dining with the president-elect. It's just -- the turnabout is wild to me.

AKAYLA GARDNER, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, BLOOMBERG: Absolutely. I mean, we're seeing Corporate America kiss the ring a bit here. And I think they've seen in the past that it has worked. We talked about Apple CEO Tim Cook going down to Mar-a-Lago a couple weeks ago to have dinner with Trump.

And during their first term, they had a pretty warm relationship. And he was able to sort of stave off of these tariff threats that he said would have helped Samsung versus Apple. So, and we were also seeing Elon Musk. Trump has sort of changed his tune on electric vehicles simply because of that relationship and the warming of those two relationships.

So I think they're seeing in the past that it has worked for companies, so companies are sort of looking for the same outcome again this time around.

MATTINGLY: The tech world's kind of blitz on some level. You know, you mentioned Tim Cook going to Mar-a-Lago, Jeff Bezos dined with Elon Musk and the President-elect, Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai, Google, Sam Altman, OpenAI. To a kid's point, it's not just kissing the ring, it's like we're going to come and just slobber on it for the better part of full dinner at your private club.

DOVERE: Yes, people don't give these sums of money just to support the cause or be patriotic, which is some of the things that people talk about. And this is true whenever large checks are written to any political party or candidate. But this level of giving is from companies that obviously are looking to be looked favorably upon.

Donald Trump, we saw when he was president the first time, is transactional and there are things that he can do to help out when it comes to regulations, also potential carve outs when it comes to tariffs or deportation raids that would be not on the companies that are on the good list here.

That seems to be part of what's going on in the minds of people, whether or not that it will prove to be the case. We'll find out. But look, I think that graphic that you had up when of all these logos of the companies. If Donald Trump had that behind him when he was campaigning a couple months ago, it would not have fit. This is not what you think of when it comes to populism in the traditional definition of the term.

MARGARET TALEV, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: You know, I think if you're a regular member of the public and you decide to give money to a presidential candidate or to any kind of a candidate, it's because you support them and you want them to win or because you don't like the other person and you don't want them to win.

What we're seeing now is a little bit different. This really has nothing to do with whether these executives or companies they're affiliated with like President-elect Trump or support his policies or think he'd be good for America. Some do, some don't. In some cases, it's complicated.

They like some things and don't like other things. It's about -- it is transactional or pragmatic. It is either about trying to get something or trying to be there for something that you want or trying to fend off something that you don't want, or just thinking, you know what? It's better to have the relationship and a little bit of goodwill than not to.

That's all it means, but it is a lot of money riding on it. A lot of money. And it really, really inauguration time. I think more than any other time shows you the connection between influence and money.

MATTINGLY: Yes --

TALEV: You could have said that better yourself.

SCHOUTEN: Well, keep in mind that this is a safe bet, right? I mean, the guy has won. It's not like investing in a campaign.

MATTINGLY: No, what I want to ask you, you're so integrated into that, like covering the billionaire space, also covering K Street. Like, you know, all these people, you talk to them on a regular basis. I was talking to a consultant the other day who talks to Fortune 500 companies, was on a lot of conference calls in the last couple of months and CEOs.

And I asked him, I was like, are you telling your CEOs to go down to Mar-a-Lago, are you telling them to donate to the inauguration fund, are you telling them -- and it was like, yes, yes, yes. What happens if you don't? You're in trouble if you're not at the table here. Is that kind of the sense right now?

SCHOUTEN: I definitely think so. And keep in mind, I mean, how much Donald Trump has promised to upend the policies that we saw in the Biden administration. You mentioned, for instance, Elon Musk, right? I mean, this is somebody who gave a quarter of a billion dollars to help him get elected. He is, like, seated at the right hand right now.

And he --

MATTINGLY: Literally.

[12:45:07]

SCHOUTEN: Yes. And he so many ideas about things like getting rid of subsidies for electric vehicles because he says, basically, it benefits his competitors more than it benefits him.

DOVERE (?): It's where he got his subsidy.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right.

SCHOUTEN: And so you're seeing, as you mentioned, Ford, General Motors, Toyota, all lining up saying we want to give $1 million dollars a piece. The stakes are enormously high. The same thing with tariffs, right?

MATTINGLY: Yes.

SCHOUTEN: If Donald Trump slaps tariffs on overseas products, that really affects car makers because as we all know, I mean, cars aren't really like made entirely in America anymore. The parts and supplies come from all over the globe.

MATTINGLY: Yes.

SCHOUTEN: So, yes.

MATTINGLY: Yes, no, no, it's very clear. I want to ask you -- we're former Bloomberg reporters, so we were too dated to weigh in on this. Crypto is fascinating to me right now. And you guys cover this better than anybody. The company's pledging support ripple $5 million -- the equivalent of $5 million in their currency.

Coinbase, Robinhood, Kraken, MoonPay, they were huge in the campaign, big supporters. Trump has been a big supporter of cryptocurrency. They're a force now.

GARDNER: Yes, I mean, we have seen Bitcoin, other cryptocurrencies really rally ever since Donald Trump was elected as well as other stocks, particularly. But because of the personnel that he has appointed, he is named a czar specifically for crypto and AI.

People also feel really good about his SEC pick. So this industry is feeling very optimistic right now, and there's money to be made here. They feel as though Trump is going to be someone who's friendly towards this industry. His son has also said that explicitly. And so we're just going to actually have to see what kind of policies come with these personnel bet (ph).

MATTINGLY: Yes, 1 million is nothing when you're talking about billions of balance sheets on some of them.

All right, guys, thanks so much. Great reporting, Fredreka.

Next, 2024 may turn out to be the hottest year on record. But as CNN's Bill Weir points out, it also may turn out to be one of the coolest years for the rest of our lives. That's next.

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[12:51:27]

MATTINGLY: There was a once in a lifetime eclipse. It seemed to bring humanity together if only briefly. But there were also hurricanes, wildfires and heat waves that devastated parts of the world and reminded us that the climate crisis is already here, whether we like it or not.

CNN's Bill Weir reports on the 10 biggest climate stories of 2024.

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BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At number 10, a rare moment of national unity and wonder.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wow.

WEIR (voice-over): Thanks to the celestial dance of sun and moon. April's eclipse stretched from Texas to Maine, putting over 30 million Americans in the Path of Totality. We won't see another one over the U.S. until 2044.

At number nine, this year's Hajj fell in June, drawing millions of Muslim pilgrims to Mecca just as thermometers hit 125 degrees and the Saudi kingdom reported over 1,300 heat related deaths.

At number eight, wildfire nationwide. While July's Park Fire was the fifth biggest in California history, Texas saw their biggest ever with the million acre Smokehouse Creek blaze. And in the Northeast, the worst drought in decades led to over 500 wildfires just in New Jersey.

At number seven, and fueled by record high ocean temps, Hurricane Beryl roared to Category 5 strength in July, the earliest storm to ever hit the top of the scale. While it hit Texas as a weaker Cat 1, millions lost power around Houston, and it took nearly two sweltering weeks to get the air conditioning back on.

At number six, tornadoes, and lots of them, the most in a decade. Of the two dozen billion dollar disasters this year, over half included twisters. And while Oklahoma saw two monster EF4s, climate change is shifting Tornado Alley from the Great Plains to the southeast.

At number five, Earth's overheating atmosphere is like a giant sponge in the sky, soaking up more water, ringing it out with a vengeance and causing the National Weather Service to issue an unprecedented 91 flash flood emergencies this year.

And at number four, the deadliest rain fell in Spain, where in late October, a year's worth fell in hours around Valencia. The surge broke riverbanks, turned streets into raging rapids. It took over 200 lives.

At number three, the devastating duo of Helene and Milton, back to back hurricanes that began with a 15 foot surge in Florida's Big Bend, but got worse in the mountains of Appalachia. Up to 30 inches of rain around Asheville, North Carolina, brought horrific flooding while spun up tornadoes helped make Helene the deadliest since Katrina.

And then came Milton, just two weeks later. Jumping from a tropical storm to a Category 5 in 24 hours, Milton is just the latest example of rapid intensification in the age of climate change.

But at number two, we have the rise of climate denial. After promising fossil fuel executives deregulation, Donald Trump retakes power with a promise to hamstring the nation's clean energy momentum and pull the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Accord for a second and possibly final time.

The American election cast a pall over COP 29 Azerbaijan, where Petro states that agreed to transition away from fossil fuel at COP 28, transition back to praising oil.

[12:55:08]

And at number one, the heat driving so much of this destruction. Eight years ago in Paris, the world agreed to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, but this year topped. It was over 100 degrees in Phoenix for 113 consecutive days, shattering the record by 37 days.

So first responders now carry body bags in ice and the city has embraced a policy of shade, signs that humanity will have to adapt because 2024 could be the coolest year of the rest of our lives.

Bill Weir, CNN, New York.

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MATTINGLY: Well, thanks to Bill.

And thank you for joining Inside Politics. CNN News Central starts after the break.

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