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179 People Killed After Plane Crash Landing In South Korea; Cracks Form In GOP Over Immigration Ahead of Trump Term; Trump Asks Supreme Court To Hold Off On TikTok Ban. Interview with DNC Chair Candidate Martin O'Malley; Compromise or Fight? Dems Mull Strategy Under Trump; After 250 Years, Bald Eagle Officially Named National Bird. Aired 8-9a ET

Aired December 29, 2024 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:03]

AMARA WALKER, CNN ANCHOR: And be sure to tune in to the all new CNN film "LUTHER: NEVER TOO MUCH". It premieres New Year's Day at 8:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific.

And that's my time. Thank you so much for being with me this morning. I'm Amara Walker in Atlanta.

INSIDE POLITICS SUNDAY starts right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning and welcome to INSIDE POLITICS SUNDAY. I'm Pamela Brown, in for Manu Raju.

We have a lot to get to this morning. But I want to start with this breaking news from overnight, 179 people were killed in South Korea after a passenger jet crashed at Muan International Airport.

The plane skidded down the runway after it appears there was a problem with the landing gear, and then crashed at the end of the runway and burst into flames. Two crew members were rescued from the tail of the airplane.

Let's go now to CNN's Mike Valerio, who has been following this disaster from Seoul.

Mike, what do we know about how this happened?

MIKE VALERIO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Pam, that is the central question here. What caused the landing gear to fail, leading to those dramatic, honestly, heart stopping videos that we've been watching all day here in East Asia.

Now, everybody else in the United States and around the world is waking up to. So the key to finding out, Pam, what might have happened here perhaps lays in the hands of the two people who miraculously survived. We're talking about two crew members who were sitting back as far back as you possibly can be, essentially underneath the tail section of the plane.

So in terms of how this all unfolded, just after 2:00 a.m. local time in Bangkok, Thailand, this Jeju airlines plane takes off bound for our corner of the world in South Korea. This is an airline that has a great safety record, has been founded in 2005, a low budget air carrier. So if you're in the market to go to, you know, a vacation spot in this section of Asia, East Asia, Southeast Asia, you know, you might choose this airline, Jeju Air, which has never had a catastrophe on this scale.

We fast forward to the 9:00 a.m. hour, just about 3.5 hours south of where we're standing, and there is a radio communication received from the airliner from the control tower saying essentially, you know, there are birds in the area. Beware of possible the potential for bird strikes.

Two minutes later, Pam, then a mayday call is signaled from the airliner, and then four minutes later it crashes, but unclear how anything like a potential bird strike can lead to the flaps not being up on the aircrafts wings. The airliner landing on the runway pretty close to the end of the runway, and certainly why the landing gear was not lowered, is still a mystery at this hour.

BROWN: Mike Valerio, thank you so much.

So, a lot to learn clearly. And joining us now to break down more of this is aviation expert Miles O'Brien.

So, Miles, we know the plane sent out this mayday two minutes before the crash after a warning about birds. How do you assess that? Could a bird strike be the reason for this gear failure?

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Maybe, Pamela, but this is -- this is a real mystery. A lot of aviation experts are scratching their heads on this one.

Now, this is an airport that is on the coast, and it is routine for notifications by air traffic control to go to aircraft indicating bird activity might be a problem. So we don't want to go too far down that road without considering other options. There is video which seems to indicate they lost their right engine, potentially, which might have led to that mayday call.

Now, the sequence of events which put them on that runway without landing gear and without their flaps. In other words, they were not at all in the landing configuration, which would have slowed the airplane down even if you didn't have the landing gear operative, you would have wanted to slow down that aircraft as much as possible.

And I should point out, if you lose an engine, that doesn't mean you lose the ability to put down the flaps or for that matter, the landing gear. The landing gear can be brought down even with a complete hydraulic failure, simply by pulling on some emergency switches which allow the gear to fall down. So there's a -- it's a real head scratcher right now, Pam, as to what the sequence of events were. Clearly, this was a flight crew that was managing an emergency. They

were there was a mayday call, but how is it that it ended up on the runway pretty much in the crews flight condition? Not -- no flaps, no slats, no landing gear.

[08:05:02]

BROWN: So the plane hit something at the end of the runway. It's not yet totally clear what that was. Why was something at the end of a runway to begin with, though?

O'BRIEN: Well, this is, to me the most tragic part of what we just witnessed. The -- there's an antenna system that needs to be lined up with the center line of the runway. It's part of the instrument landing system that airliners use to get -- get you on the ground in that dark and stormy night. It's called the localizer, and it just basically keeps the airplane on the center line. And those antennas need to be where the runway center line is.

Now, what's unusual about this and dangerous is those antennas were built on top of a mound with reinforced concrete. So it was a rather significant barrier right at the end of the runway, which didn't give the airliner much overrun capability. In the U.S. and frequently at many other airports, what they would do is put those antennas as sort of breakaway antennas, kind of frangible towers that the airplane would have gone through and would have caused much less damage.

Also in the U.S., at more than 100 runways now, we have this -- these engineered blocks at the end of the runway, which are designed to collapse under the weight of an aircraft, and that obviously was not present here either.

BROWN: Miles O'Brien, very sad. Thank you.

Turning now to here at home in Washington, Republicans are set to take unified control of Congress on Friday before President Trump takes the oath of office in just over three weeks, but cracks are already starting to form this weekend ahead of the Republican takeover. The fate of speaker Mike Johnson is uncertain in a pivotal vote now just days away with some House Republicans signaling he may not have the support he needs to hold his power.

And beyond the halls of Capitol Hill, MAGA hardliners are sparring online with future DOGE leaders Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy over the future of the H-1B visa program, which allows highly skilled workers like tech engineers from abroad to work in the United States. Trump stepped in on the debate yesterday, standing by his ally Elon Musk, telling "The New York Post" he is in favor of the visas and uses them on Trump properties.

So let's break all of this down with my panel from "The Washington Post". Isaac Arnsdorf and Marianna Sotomayor, "The Boston Globe's" Jackie Kucinich, and Bloomberg's Mario Parker.

There is a lot of news on this holiday weekend. So the first question, Mario, is what is Trump saying by weighing in on this and standing by his -- his new bestie, you know, Elon Musk?

MARIO PARKER, BLOOMBERG MANAGING EDITOR FOR GOVERNMENT & ECONOMY: He stood by him in some ways, but if you really squint at it, he really didn't articulate a position on it. He said that he uses H-1B visas. He doesn't. He uses unskilled labor at his property.

BROWN: Yeah, H-2B.

PARKER: H-2B, right?

But what he did do is essentially step in. This is the holiday time. So the parents will probably appreciate this and say, quiet down, quiet down, right? He put the attention back on him.

I mean, he's got the different factions of his party warring three weeks before his inauguration, when he was -- when he essentially had smooth sailing. So what you saw him do was muddy it a little bit, as we've seen Trump do many times before. Again, not taking a clear position but putting more of the focus on him solely for him to articulate something later on down the line. But to stop some of the squabbling between his two parts of his party.

BROWN: Certainly. But he's clearly, you know, not in agreement with those hardliners in MAGA who have -- who have railed against Elon and Vivek for supporting H-1B visas, right?

I mean, he -- he is sort of saying, look, I like H-1B visas, which is interesting because in 2016, when he was campaigning, he wasn't for them. They were restricted during his first term in office. And now he's changing his tune.

Should we take him at his word here?

JACKIE KUCINICH, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I think we'll have to wait and see what actually comes in terms of a policy. But I think when you step back and kind of look at the broader picture here, this and some of the other things well talk about involving TikTok just shows how big tech has really taken a bigger role in, or is poised to take a bigger role in the next Trump administration, which is a departure from the first one.

There's a lot of adversarial nature in the last one between Silicon Valley and the Trump administration, and now between Elon Musk, some of the other pilgrimages, the other tech entrepreneurs have made to Mar-a-Lago. It seems like the ball is swinging back into their court in a way that we haven't seen before, and we'll have to see how that if that influence holds --

BROWN: Right.

KUCINICH: -- when he takes office.

BROWN: And given their newfound influence, right, you have to wonder if this policy debate is a precursor of what's to come in terms of divide in the GOP. ISAAC ARNSDORF, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, WASHINGTON POST: Well,

in terms of I think you're going to see a lot more examples of musk kind of floating something getting out over there. And Trump is going to that's going to give Trump the ability to sit back and see how that goes.

[08:10:11]

And I think so far his team thinks that it's only going to rub off on him if he wants it to. He can pick and choose the successes, distance himself from something when it blows up, and that's kind of their posture right now and see how it goes. Yeah.

BROWN: And Elon Musk is sort of flexing his muscle on all of this by pulling some blue check marks from dissenters.

MARIANNA SOTOMAYOR, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, WASHINGTON POST: Yeah.

BROWN: Make of that.

SOTOMAYOR: I know.

BROWN: Oh, god.

SOTOMAYOR: What a time.

BROWN: How dare he take blue check marks away?

SOTOMAYOR: I know it's very interesting to see how he is. Of course, using his social media platform to be able to, I guess, curtail the debate, right? Because if you don't have a blue check mark, does it become a prominent or viral that that point of view at least?

You know, one thing that is interesting to me, like I'm just intrigued to see where this story line goes, frankly, because on Capitol Hill, you'll probably never hear it publicly from these MAGA Republicans, but privately, especially those who represent very rural areas, my gosh, they've been talking about the need for workers, whether its H- 1B or really the agricultural, the two A visas.

They will never again say it publicly, but privately, they know they need workers. So, any kind of limitations, further limitations, just remember that the first iteration, the first Trump administration, did put some caps on a number of these visas. They want to see it expanded a little bit.

But again, if Trump does lean in, does take Musk's position. It will be interesting to see if you see that smaller group again of MAGA loyalists come out and say, you know what, maybe we should have this debate. Maybe we should include this part of broader border security reforms.

BROWN: And it's interesting to your point, even Marjorie Taylor Greene weighed in on this debate.

And she said, having owned a construction company for decades, she said, yes, I'm that old. I know firsthand our workforce issues. So she's sort of saying, look, I can sort of understand this, why these pieces are important. But then she goes on to talk about, you know, how it's important to invest in American workers and so forth.

It is so interesting, though. So you have Donald Trump telling "The New York Post" that he supports these H-1B visas, and he also had this Truth Social post that seemed to be a message meant for Elon Musk, that Bill Gates wanted to meet. He said, where are you? When are you coming to the center of the universe, Mar-a-Lago. Bill Gates asked to come tonight. We miss you and X. New Year's Eve is going to be amazing. DJT.

What can we glean about that in terms of Elon Musk and the relationship that the two men have and the staying power?

PARKER: Again, it goes back to quiet down. You're making a lot of noise there. You're kind of starting fights and picking fights that you don't necessarily -- necessarily need to wade into.

But to Jackie's point, it also shows Trump has got something this time that he didn't have the first time, which is widespread adulation from corporate leaders and tech companies that he really wanted his first term, right? He's had these pilgrimages, Mark Zuckerberg, TikTok, which well get into. Elon Musk has been, I mean, almost ubiquitous around him as well during this entire time.

And so you're seeing some of that push and pull with the tech executives making these. I mean, they're getting what they want, right? I mean, they're getting the face time. It's an investment in time and money, and they're getting that sway with Trump.

BROWN: Yeah, I want to go to this speaker fight if you want to call it, or speaker battle, whatever however you want to frame it, because it is reaching a point of urgency now, right? You have January 6th right around the corner with election certification. And Speaker Johnson seems to be in danger of facing a speaker battle.

I want to go to the sound from Democratic Congressman Lloyd Doggett. I talked to him on Friday, and here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. LLOYD DOGGETT (D-TX): It's a near impossible job. It requires total dependency and loyalty to Trump and/or Musk, whoever is running the show over there and with the margin this close, you cannot pass legislation. You can continue to feed red meat to your red base.

But if you're about solving the problems of the country, it's very difficult to do it without some cooperation across the aisle. In order to have that kind of cooperation, you have to have trust.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: And he talked about how Speaker Johnson lost a lot of trust among Democrats because of the spending bill pulling it -- the shared agreement. And there's this open question, what's Trump going to do? Is he going to come forward and try to bail him out, or is he going to let him continue to sort of twist in the wind?

SOTOMAYOR: Yeah, I mean, it'll be interesting to see whether Trump says anything. I think our reporting has shown that Trump is at least watching right now. He doesn't necessarily want to step into this.

And, you know, we are going to be in a fight. Like, undoubtedly he needs to get support by 218 lawmakers.

[08:15:02]

That's the amount that he has right now. And he has to win a number of Freedom Caucus members who have said, I don't know if I'm into your leadership. We'll see how that goes.

But the real question is going to be, how long does that last? Because of course, three days later is certification date. And we have all said we live in unprecedented times. But this is truly never happened in American history, where there has always been a speaker in place to be able to certify the election. And if you don't have a speaker, there is nobody to swear in lawmakers.

So we could be entering a situation on January 6th where there is literally no house. Maybe they're going to be able to rewrite some rules, set some new precedent, but it seems like you would need Democratic sign off on that. I don't know, like there --

BROWN: They could put election certification in jeopardy potentially, right?

SOTOMAYOR: Correct, like you definitely need the Senate. You have the Senate there. You have Vice President Kamala Harris actually overseeing the election process.

So it may be possible to continue, but you need the House. And that, again, unwritten playbook. We see it happen live.

BROWN: We shall see. Not a lot of time here.

All right. Stick around.

Coming up, can Donald Trump press pause on a looming TikTok ban before the clock runs out? We break down what you need to know up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:20:25]

BROWN: Donald Trump hasn't moved back into the White House yet, but he is already flexing his presidential power when it comes to his agenda. His latest move, a Friday night filing to the Supreme Court asking to hit pause on the upcoming TikTok ban.

The social media app is set to be banned in the United States in just three weeks, but Trump is asking for more time, saying he hopes to navigate a resolution that will protect both the First Amendment and national security. CNN's Carrie Cordero is in West Palm Beach and joins us now to explain

all of this.

Carrie, what is the significance of this new request from Trump? And how much do you think it could matter to the Supreme Court?

CARRIE CORDERO, CNN LEGAL & NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: So the Supreme Court, Pam, is scheduled to have a hearing on this on January 10th. All the parties, including the official position of the United States government, have filed their briefs. The briefs of TikTok have been filed.

And so, the president elect also decided to file a brief in this case, even though he's not currently a party to it. And his argument is basically that based on his future foreign affairs responsibilities as the future president as of January 20th, that the court should pause the law and give him time once he assumes office, to be able to negotiate a different outcome so that the app is not ultimately banned in the United States.

BROWN: So walk us through what it might look like if TikTok is actually banned, and what it means for Americans.

CORDERO: Well, so the court really -- this is a case that it took up quickly based on this looming deadline. And the court is going to have to decide whether or not the D.C. circuit got it wrong. The D.C. circuit applied strict scrutiny, which is the standard that's used in this high stakes First Amendment case implicating the First Amendment rights. Over 170 million Americans use TikTok.

There are creators who base their businesses on it, and so it's widely used in the United States if the law goes through, if the Supreme Court upholds the D.C. circuit view, which resoundingly ruled in favor of the government and aligned with the government's and accepted the government's national security arguments in this case, then the app will go away, as of January 19th.

BROWN: Right. There's the political part of this. And then there's the national security part.

If you would, help us better understand the national security implications here with TikTok.

CORDERO: So what the intelligence community and what the U.S. government is arguing is that by virtue of TikTok being owned by a Chinese origin company, ByteDance, which would which originates in China and which would have to provide information to the Chinese government if the government demanded it, that that enables the company to manipulate information that's on the platform.

So, basically, what the government is saying is, look, in a foreign power that is an adversary nation to the United States, has the ability to manipulate information received by Americans.

But this is really a novel case, Pam, because we're talking about not just a normal divestment, which is standard in national security cases where the government can say a company can't buy a foreign entity, but this is affecting the access to information by tens of millions of Americans.

BROWN: Carrie Cordero, thank you so much.

Now, let's talk a little bit more about this. Look, as we know, Trump isn't president yet. But once again in this example, he is trying to exert his influence with this TikTok ban. You have to ask what's in it for him.

ARNSDORF: Well, Trump sees something that other people want. And so then he sees an opportunity to -- he sees leverage, right? He sees an opportunity to make a deal. He's taking a position that's at odds with the position of the current administration.

And he's saying that you know why -- whether we're going to ban TikTok or not. Why are we giving it up for free? That's something that we can use.

BROWN: And, you know, as Carrie pointed out, look, there's the national security part of this. But then there's the political part of this and the potential political cost. And when you look at the vote in Congress, it was -- it was bipartisan, right? Republicans and Democrats, we have it here on the screen.

So you do have to wonder if these politicians, are they aware of the political cost, potentially?

SOTOMAYOR: Yeah, I mean, its incredible to see Trump go against his party in this significant way. I mean, this was something that obviously was bipartisan.

[08:25:02]

The China committee in the House is one of those few committees that still exist where lawmakers are actively negotiating and investigating. They take their job seriously. China is something that Congress really wants to address. The fact that Trump is going against this, I think, is you're going to hear some Republicans, especially those more in the foreign policy space, possibly start to speak out about this once they're back here on Capitol Hill.

But, you know, Trump has been saying, well, there's -- there's a -- I should say it this way. There is a flip from when he was running and was president. And now when he was campaigning and he's basically saying, oh, well, look, I have so many more supporters. I think he has like crazy millions of supporters on TikTok. So I think there is a little bit of personal -- personal wanting to keep TikTok.

KUCINICH: I'm curious how this comes up in confirmation hearings with his national security nominees. Yeah, because, I mean, I believe Marco Rubio supported this new law, and that is potentially his secretary of state.

So, I mean, I just think their answers, they're going to have to walk a very fine line here. BROWN: Yeah.

PARKER: And Elise Stefanik was a co-sponsor of the bill, to your point as well, who is now the U.N. ambassador? I remember I was on a plane with Trump when he said that he was going to ban this about four years ago, back in 2020, and he made the same arguments that his party took on, that it was a national security threat, et cetera, et cetera.

One thing that if you look at the filing that comes up and you all speak to the Trump folks regularly, the word mandate comes up, right? Its unfinished business from his first term when he tried to carve out a deal between -- between Walmart and Oracle for it, but also the fact that they just feel as though they have this mandate due to the sheer scope of his electoral victory in November, that it gives him wide latitude to solve all of these problems, to do this deal making and again, to go back to the unfinished business of the deal that he tried to forge before and getting something for the U.S. to Isaac's point, and it ultimately failed at that time.

BROWN: You know, you talk about the confirmation hearings coming up on January. Pete Hegseth, Trump's defense nominee. His hearing is set for January 14th. So seven days before the inauguration, I spoke to Hegseth's attorney, Tim Parlatore on Friday, and I asked him about the hearing. And, you know, the expectation is going to be a bruising hearing and that there could be testimony from people that would not want to testify.

And here's what Tim Parlatore said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TIM PARLATORE, ATTORNEY FOR PETE HEGSETH: I would love for anybody who wants to come in and publicly testify truthfully, as long as they tell the truth, then we're going to have no problem with them being confirmed. But if somebody wants to come in and lie, then that's a problem.

So, you know, do I expect that the Jane Doe from California is going to come in and testify? No, I don't.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Jane Doe -- he was talking about the accuser, the sexual assault accuser. You have to wonder, is Trump going to have to expend more political capital ahead? And is -- are some of these senators who haven't come out in support of Hegseth? Are they waiting to see what's going to happen in this hearing, or what other allegations could come out before saying, yes, I'm going to support him?

ARNSDORF: Well, this is another one where -- where Trump is avoiding getting into deep intentionally. You know, he's -- he's not -- he's not committing over committing himself to Hegseth one way or the other. He has not personally lobbied and really put the squeeze on any of these senators.

And even without that, he did get Joni Ernst, which I viewed as the -- as the key vote, the key holdout. And she already after a second meeting with Hegseth, feeling the pressure even without Trump personally, just the pressure from his allies, said that that she was going to support him. So I kind of saw that --

BROWN: Support him through the process, I guess, yeah, she's sort of saying.

ARNSDORF: I sort of saw that as the turning point, the moment when the resistance to Hegseth crumbled.

BROWN: But then you have to ask, what about like Senator Collins, Murkowski, Mitch McConnell? Senator, you know, the Senator-elect Curtis, where do they stand? They haven't come out in full support.

SOTOMAYOR: Exactly. They'll absolutely be watching these hearings. I think the hearing is could be a turning point. I mean, you mentioned four senators right there. It's a 53 majority. If three of them vote against, you'll have Vice President J.D. Vance making that key decision to confirm his nomination.

But if it's -- if you lose four Republican senators, there's -- there's no turning back. That is a way to tank his nomination on the House or on the Senate floor.

BROWN: We shall wait and see and see how they respond to the TikTok ban. All kinds of interesting stuff could come out of these confirmation hearings.

All right. Up next, make space for this. Is that how you talk? Do you say that? Well, one Democratic senator says his party should cut it out of the language that he says is unfamiliar to regular people. I'll DNC chair candidate Martin O'Malley for his take just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Democrats are a month away from their own moment of reckoning. The party failed to win back the House. They lost control of the Senate and they lost control of the White House to a twice-impeached, convicted felon.

So where do they go from here?

Joining us now is a man who wants to lead the Democratic Party into the future, former governor and candidate for DNC chair Martin O'Malley.

Governor, thank you so much for coming on.

MARTIN O'MALLEY, CANDIDATE FOR DNC CHAIR: Thank you for having me.

(CROSSTALKING)

BROWN: Of course. And I know it's a holiday weekend, so extra thank you for coming in.

You have said that the Democrats suffered a very bad loss in the November election. You will now be the messenger for the Democratic Party.

[08:34:51]

BROWN: Do you think that the Democrats' loss was just a messaging problem, or do you think it's more, you know, deeper than that?

O'MALLEY: Well, I think it's deeper than that. In fact, your run up, your lead in here pretty much underscored it. Twice-impeached, convicted felon is the person who we lost the hardest working Americans to.

And many of them that voted for him also agree that he's a pretty bad person. So this is not some moment for a caretaker DNC chair. Instead, we need a change maker. And that's the phrase I've heard from a lot of people that I've been speaking to on the phone.

The Democratic National Committee needs to figure out whether we want to mess around or whether we want to be ruthless about winning the next elections.

I vote for winning elections, and we have opportunities in front of us with 36 governors races up in two years, with special elections in between, and with the ability to actually win back the House under Hakeem Jeffries' leadership, where House members actually ran, I think much more effective campaigns than perhaps the top of the ticket would have proven.

BROWN: So how do you win? I mean, what's the strategy?

O'MALLEY: Yes. Well, here's the strategy. I mean, the good news is the message change that we need to make is really a return to our true selves. And that message has to be the economic security and well- being of the hardest working people in our economy.

One of the more troubling aspects about this last election was how many younger voters that we lost. Vice President Harris held her ground, and we kept older voters. But it's the younger voters who are staring at -- who are staring at the high cost of housing, the high cost of food.

This was an election about inflation. But guess what? Once Donald Trump is in office, the people he cares about are not the hardest working Americans. And the people that he will hurt with his policies will be those hardest working Americans.

So the change we need on the message is about economic security. But there are other changes we need to make as well. Tactical changes in how we deliver our message, how we register more people to vote and register them as Democrats. And also how we defend voting rights not just in a few states, but in all states.

Gone should be the days of retreating into an ever-shrinking blue perimeter. We need to have a 57 state-and-territory strategy, and we need to recruit candidates to run from the courthouse to city hall to the House of Representatives. BROWN: And just to note, on Donald Trump, you know that those hard-

working Americans you're talking about, they saw what he did in the first term. They liked it. They thought it did -- it was good for them. And they voted for him again. Many of them.

Not, you know, you can say all of them, but I just want to point that out that, you know, that is their view, that he did work for them.

The question is, in terms of looking ahead, who should -- what kind of leadership should there be? Right. I want you to listen to what the incoming head of the House Progressives said last week, and how Senator Joe Manchin responded to that on this show.

Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. GREG CASAR (D-TX): If the Democratic Party was a little bit more like Chairwoman Jayapal and a little less like Joe Manchin, I think we would have won this election.

SEN. JOE MANCHIN (I-WV): They got to be nuts. for someone to say that they've got to be completely insane.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: So what do you think? Do you think the party should be more like Pramila Jayapal or Joe Manchin?

O'MALLEY: I think it's not about left or right. I think it's really about how we move forward and deliver for the hardest working Americans.

And I would push back a little bit on the analysis that says that -- that Americans like what Donald Trump did in his first term. I don't think that's what it was about. It was about inflation going up faster than peoples wages.

And that's what we need to be focused on. I don't -- I don't buy the left or right. I buy bringing the message back to every family's kitchen table about the things for the next two years that Donald Trump is going to be doing. And a lot of those things will be things that hurt the hardest working Americans, not things that help them.

BROWN: So I want to read something from Democratic Senator Brian Schatz and what he told politico last week. He said, "I think Kamala did a really good job on focusing on middle class concerns, but I remember her saying, quote, 'I'm going to center the needs of the working class.'

And I thought to myself, I don't know anyone in the world who says center. I know people in politics who say center. I know people in academia. I know people in advocacy who say center. But centering the needs or making space for, or all of that is a clear indication that you are not normal."

What do you say to that?

O'MALLEY: Well, it's always relating macroeconomic issues, relating national issues back to the people of our country in ways that that are clear and understandable.

And plain language is something that I think governors and mayors do all of the time, which is why as we rebuild, reconnect and reengage our party with the hardest working Americans who we lost in this last election, we need to be mindful of the language that mayors and governors use.

[08:39:52]

O'MALLEY: Which is why they need to be at the table of a rebuilt Democratic National Committee, not regarded as some spare tires in the trunk, but instead as a central part of our party's comeback.

So I think the senator's point is well taken. We need to be clear and plainspoken about the fact that we are the party that fights for hard working people who want to give their kids a better life.

BROWN: So Democrats are split on how much to cooperate with the incoming Trump administration. You have some Democrats who are already, you know, supportive of some of his nominees. You have some House members, um, that are gearing up to help Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy's DOGE.

What do you think? Do you think that Democrats should work with the incoming Trump administration or just reject it and try to work against it?

O'MALLEY: I think whenever we have an opportunity to strengthen the economic well-being of people across the country, to allow people to get ahead through their hard work, we should be unabashed about actually engaging in those sorts of actions.

But when Donald Trump does things that undermine people's economic security, when he does things that hold down wages, when he does things that hurt our economy like tariffs and drive up the cost of things, we should fight him on that.

In other words, Miss Brown, I think that the two primary places where we need to push back hard on Donald Trump is when he does things that hurt working people and when he undermines the principles of this republic.

BROWN: But you think it's good that Democrats are willing to work with DOGE, for example? Or you think, would you support that?

O'MALLEY: Not if it undermines the well-being of people. Let me give you one example. I mean, if, if DOGE wants to turn social security into a bitcoin bank, we should fight that and we should fight it tooth-and-nail.

A lot of the ideas that you see swirling around DOGE have nothing to do with the real world or the effective administration of our government and the service to the American people.

I mean, social security is the greatest anti-poverty program, one of the most sacred promises we have to the American people. And if DOGE decides they want to do away with social security, we need to fight that, and we need to fight it tooth-and-nail.

BROWN: All right. But also to note, social security is set to go insolvent in about a decade.

(CROSSTALKING)

O'MALLEY: Well, that's not true. Only if DOGE wants it to. Social security is a pay-as-you-go program. There is no reason that social security should go insolvent. The dollars that pay in are the dollars that are paid out, and Congress makes an adjustment every, every 40 -- 50 years to make sure that the health of social security is extended.

This is a solvable problem. Social security can be there for another 90 years, but not if Donald Trump wants to do away with it.

BROWN: All right.

Thank you so much, Martin O'Malley.

O'MALLEY: Thank you.

BROWN: Appreciate your time on this Sunday morning.

And up next, more on the next chapter for Democrats.

We'll be right back.

[08:42:52]

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BROWN: Well, Democratic power in Washington starts to dwindle this week with the start of the new Congress on Friday. So what should this new minority phase of the party look like?

My panel is back. They listened in on the conversation with Martin O'Malley. I'm curious what your reaction is, Mario, to what Martin O'Malley says is the path forward for Democrats.

MARIO PARKER, BLOOMBERG MANAGING EDITOR FOR GOVERNMENT AND ECONOMY: Well, we saw some of it. I mean, it's a big airplane that Kamala Harris had to turn, right, with the economy and the way that Joe Biden and the party had spoken about it and just making it seem that you care about what Americans are feeling at the grocery stores.

The party has fallen short of that. One of the things that he said was about the language, about centering the working class. Just say focus on the working class. Just simplify it for Americans.

BROWN: Right, exactly. So, you know, one of the interesting parts too when I asked him about

DOGE because I asked him about, you know, should Democrats partner and help the Trump administration or just reject everything? And he took a more nuanced approach.

But when it comes to DOGE, he was sort of setting up the prospect of not really Democrats shouldn't work with it.

JACKIE KUCINICH, BOSTON GLOBE WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF: Well, I think when you're talking about entitlement reform, particularly with a Republican administration this always comes up as something that is up for debate. And what you saw from Governor O'Malley is a preview of that, talking about social security, talking about some of these other things that DOGE has said will be, you know, up for debate, which is kind of everything when it comes to the federal government.

So I would expect to hear more about those entitlements -- Medicare, Medicaid, all of -- all of these things that a lot of people depend on will be very much, particularly among Democrats, a big part of their messaging going into this administration.

BROWN: I want to get your take, because we discussed, you know, the support for Trump. And he argued that hard working Americans will soon, you know, not be happy with the second Trump administration.

Now, we've heard from many voters around the country who look back on the first Trump administration and feel as though it was better for them than, you know, President Biden's term. What's the reality?

MARIANNA SOTOMAYOR, WASHINGTON POST CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER: Yes. I mean, this is what Democrats have to weigh. And there's very serious conversations happening, especially among House Democrats, about how do we respond to Trump, how frequently do we respond to Trump?

Many Democrats do not want to spend the second administration like they did the first one, just kind of freaking out over every little thing that Trump did, being a little bit more strategic and recognizing many voters that they have to win back supported Trump.

So they don't also want to alienate them. And I think the biggest example is we've seen Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries in the House before the campaign said, you know, a lot of people, extreme MAGA supporters.

[08:49:49]

SOTOMAYOR: Now, he doesn't say extreme MAGA as often. That's just one of the small tweaks that we're already seeing in messaging.

BROWN: Interesting.

What do you think, Isaac?

ISAAC ARNSDORF, WASHINGTON POST NATIONAL POLITICS REPORTER: Well, I'm thinking about the 40s to the 80s, when Republicans were basically a permanent minority in Congress, and the critique was that they were a Democrat-lite Party. That they were just proposing, like a watered- down version of the New Deal that the Democrats were running on.

And that's sort of what I'm hearing. You know, this idea that the Democrats are going to be the party of the working class, like Trump is owning that space right now. The Republicans are owning that space. And I'm not hearing that -- I'm not hearing a real alternative, a real contrast to something that they're offering that's different, rather than something that they're offering that's just kind of, you know, watered down or sanded -- sanded-down.

BROWN: Tweaks.

All right. Thank you all so much. Appreciate it.

Coming up after 250 years, America's favorite bird finally gets a promotion.

[08:50:43]

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BROWN: You can find it on the presidential seal, on the insignia for the Army and Navy, on your passport, even on the dollar bill. But it wasn't until Christmas Eve, however, that President Biden signed a bill finally designating the bald eagle as the official national bird of the United States.

The bald eagle first sank its talons into American history in 1782, and it appeared on an early seal for the Continental Congress. But not all of the founding fathers were eagles' fans, believe it or not.

Benjamin Franklin famously called it, quote, "a bird of bad moral character" who is, quote, "too lazy to fish for himself". He instead praised the turkey as it was a more respectable bird.

And take a look at this. Here's a live image of one of our national birds now from northeast Florida, having a slow Sunday morning relaxing in the nest.

I hope that you all are also having a relaxing Sunday morning.

That's it for INSIDE POLITICS SUNDAY.

Up next, "STATE OF THE UNION WITH JAKE TAPPER AND DANA BASH". Dana interviews Democratic Senator Andy Kim and Republican Governor Chris Sununu.

Thank you again for sharing your Sunday morning with us. We'll see you next time.

[08:56:22]

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