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Trump Inauguration Will Be Inside Due To Freezing Temperatures; Supreme Court Clears Way For TikTok Ban In U.S.; Trump Promised During The Campaign To "Save" TikTok. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired January 17, 2025 - 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, INSIDE POLITICS: Welcome to Inside Politics. I'm Dana Bash in Washington. At this very moment, on Monday, Donald Trump will be taking the oath of office for the second time. And he just announced that the inauguration will be moved indoors because of the extremely cold temperatures expected here in Washington on Monday.

Again, the president-elect just confirming what CNN's Alayna Treene and Kaitlan Collins reported just a short while ago. Alayna, you are with me now for these developments. We have a very lengthy social media post that he released explaining his decision.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN REPORTER: That's right. I'll just read for you some of what he wrote, because as you mentioned, it is pretty lengthy, Dana. Donald Trump, just moments ago, posted quote, I have ordered the inauguration address in addition to prayers and other speeches to be delivered in the United States Capitol Rotunda, as was used by Ronald Reagan in 1985, also because of very cold weather. The various dignitaries and guests will be brought into the Capitol. This will be a very beautiful experience for all, and especially for the large TV audience.

Now look, Dana, when I was talking to some of Donald Trump's advisers, people who have been familiar with this decision. Of course, this is because of the dangerously cold temperatures that are expected on Monday. And I'm saying dangerously cold because remember, I mean, you know this, we have covered many inaugurations.

Thousands and Thousands of people were expected to come and stand on the National Mall for hours at a time to watch Donald Trump being sworn in publicly. They recognized that this was a major health risk to many of these people.

But I will also say that Donald Trump wants the inauguration to be this global event. He has invited world leaders, some of whom are expected to come and attend that swearing in, and as well as other, you know, major leaders from big business and tech companies.

And so, this was definitely, I think, something that has been disappointing for them. They were not anticipating this. But again, they have made the decision to move in -- to move the inauguration indoors, inside the Capitol Rotunda. One thing as well that I want to note is there are questions and discussions that are still underway about what to do about some of the other festivities, including the inaugural parade.

I'm told that they have having some discussions about potentially moving some of that into the Capital One Arena, though that is not final, just something that they are discussing, and also having conversations about what to do about crowd size. So, all that is still under discussion, but Donald Trump and J. D. Vance will be sworn in on Monday inside the Capitol Rotunda, not outside, as is tradition. Dana?

BASH: Yeah. And Alayna, we literally just got this seconds before coming on air. At the -- towards the end of this lengthy statement, the president-elect does talk about the Capital One Arena, where they are going to have an event ahead of time. But he does say that they're going to have viewing there for the people who came in from all around the world for this, and also to host the presidential parade.

We'll join the crowd at Capital One. It's a little bit vague, so I'm sure that they're all still trying to figure this out as they make these really big, drastic changes after months and months and months of focusing on the Capitol, and of course, on the traditional parade.

Thank you so much. Terrific reporting, as always.

TREENE: Thank you, Dana.

BASH: Thanks Alayna. And I have some excellent reporters here at the table, John Bresnahan of Punchbowl News, Molly Ball from the Wall Street Journal, Priscilla Alvarez and Evan Perez from CNN.

10 degrees, that's going to be the wind chill, that's according to the latest forecast. And look, the fact of the matter is, he's not wrong. It would have been extremely dangerous to be outside for a lot of people. It would have been uncomfortable for him. It would have been uncomfortable for all of the VIPs out there.

And yet, this is one of the reasons that people who don't really love Donald Trump, and in the past, when Joe Biden was being sworn in, and Democrats before him, people who didn't love that president. They come is because this is a spectacle intended to tell the world about America, which is why people are reluctant to make these moves. The last time it happened was 1985, Ronald Reagan's second inaugural. I think we have video of it, which will play as you talk.

[12:05:00]

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, I mean, I think one of the things that you saw today, and I was out there with, you know, the crazy runners that are on the mall.

BASH: But you went running this morning?

PEREZ: Yeah, yeah.

BASH: Well, that's a discussion out there --

PEREZ: And right, exactly. Mental health.

BASH: It's very cold.

PEREZ: But, you know, right. I mean, you can see that the workers were still setting up the chairs and the fencing is up. And it's not just a cold. I mean, there's still a lot of snow and ice that is left over from the snowstorm two weeks ago. And so, it is a rather unsafe place. If you are, you know, visiting from outside, and I'm not used to that, it is a very treacherous thing.

Look, you and I were there for the Obama inauguration in 2009, and you remember how much -- how crazy that was, how cold it was, and I probably should have been moved indoors as well. But the conditions in this case are even worse, not only the cold, but the snow and ice that are still on the ground.

BASH: And more to come on Sunday as well.

JOHN BRESNAHAN, CO-FOUNDER, PUNCHBOWL NEWS: Right. Well, one thing is Capital One Arena is right on Seventh Street, so it's not far. It's only a couple blocks from the parade route. So, it's in the zone. It's in the security zone. But they hate changing things like this.

BASH: And its huge.

PEREZ: The security aspect.

BRESNAHAN: Yeah. And the security aspect of this, they hate changing as the last minute, you know, because that's when things get messed. You know, when we've unfortunately, there were attempts on Donald Trump's life. There are threats all the time now. So, but I think just having Capital One Arena there, it gives them a little -- just because it's so close and it's not far from White House and it's not far from the Capitol, not far from the parade route, I think that gives them a little bit of comfort.

BASH: And as we were getting this news, this is obviously the president-elect's moment. As I mentioned, obviously it's a moment for the country, but there is an inaugural committee that has been impaneled and has been working on this for a very long time, which includes top members of the United States Senate and House, I believe, right?

BRESNAHAN: Yeah, both sides.

BASH: Yeah. We have both sides.

BRESNAHAN: Democratic and Republican.

BASH: And so, I was -- as we were hearing this change, this news, I was communicating with somebody who on the Hill, who's involved in this. And the response was, this is the president-elect's decision. We will do whatever he wants.

BRESNAHAN: Yeah. It's his day. He, you know, we all remember when 2017, you know, the biggest crowd in history of the world, which it wasn't because we were there for Obama, which was the biggest crowd I've ever seen. But you know, look, this is -- if Trump wants to do it this way, you know, he's going to secret service and everyone else, the defense department, everybody else involved, FBI, DHS, everybody else involved in what is a major security and diplomatic and political event will go along and that's what he wants.

BASH: There's also kind of an interesting political season bookend here, because raise your hand if you were in Iowa --

MOLLY BALL, SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: I was just thinking that.

BASH: -- in January of 2024 --

BALL: The highest 20 below caucuses.

BASH: I've never seen or felt or

BALL: It never been that cold in my life.

BASH: And by the way, neither -- and neither had Iowans, neither had Iowans. So, you start the political season with votes in and around at extreme frigid temperatures in Iowa and end it with temperatures so cold that Trump has to move the inauguration inside.

BALL: Right. And you know, this is still Trump's moment, and no one can take that away from him. It's hard not to see it as a metaphor of sorts. For the things that are out of the president-elect's control, right? The best laid -- you can have the best laid plans. You can have a completely elegant inauguration plan, but mother nature has a say as well.

And I think that's going to be the theme of the Trump presidency in his second term. He has done much more planning. He is much more focused coming into his second term than he was the first time around. But events are going to dictate the course of this presidency, and more to the point, his ability to adapt to events. And whether he's able to be flexible and be cheerful about it, right?

We don't know how he is feeling about this behind the scenes, if he's upset about it, if he's grumpy that his plans have been disrupted, that he won't get that scene of the giant crowd who have come in for the rally the night before, as well as the inauguration itself. We know he wanted those pictures.

So, in his second term, has he matured to the point where he can roll with events like this, roll with the punches, so to speak, and direct things in a way that, you know, that he's not annoyed about it.

BASH: The other, that's -- those are all such good points that this is an example of what happens on a minute-by-minute basis when you were president the United States. Do you want to do X, but then Y happens? It's kind of like being in the news business. But just on the note of the crowd sizes, because that was his obsession in the first few days. Now it's literally -- it's day one --

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: Yeah. But it's literally a non-issue now. It takes that off the table, which is not nothing when you're Donald Trump.

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Although, he very well may note who does come out for the parade or to the arena. I'm sure that we will get some taste of how he feels about who is in attendance of all of these events.

[12:10:00]

I do want to note, though, from our colleague, Betsy Klein, that the White House has weighed in on this as well. President Biden and the First Lady, according to a White House official, will be attending whether it was inside or outside. This was before the confirmation came from the president-elect that it would be inside.

Speaking to your point about VIPs and all of the people who are coming, and already it's been a who's who of who is going to come of the formers. So certainly, just wanted to note that we're getting that, so we'll see the president there.

BASH: The one thing that the world will be robbed of is the Bernie Sanders hat and mittens, which is a shame, but maybe he'll wear them inside, who know.

Coming up. We want to go to another really big story today. Tick, tick, boom. We have the latest on the Supreme Court decision, paving the way for a ban on one of the most popular apps. Could happen this weekend. Stay with us.

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[12:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BASH: We are also following breaking news, coming out of the Supreme Court this morning, clearing the way for a ban on TikTok to take effect this weekend. It's, of course, one of the most popular apps in the country. But it is one that presents serious national security concerns because of its ties to the Chinese government.

A law passed last year says, if the app is not sold by January 19, so this coming Sunday, it must shut down. But president-elect Trump, while saying, he respects the decision, just told my colleague Pamela Brown that he will ultimately decide what happens next.

CNN's Paula Reid joins me now. Paula, walk us through precisely what the Supreme Court did, and also just as a reminder of what this law means?

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. This is the biggest decision out of the court so far. Here they are allowing TikTok to be banned in the U.S. as early as Sunday amid bipartisan national security concerns. About a week ago, the justices were asked to evaluate that law, you just talked about, passed last year by Congress, broad bipartisan support that said the app would be banned unless it was sold from its parent company, the China based ByteDance.

Now the specific national security concern is that TikTok collects an enormous amount of data on Americans, and that could be used by China, because ByteDance has an obligation to share that data with China, but that could be used in a crisis or another situation.

Again, China is a foreign adversary, but TikTok said, hey, wait a minute, this is a violation of the First Amendment. People on our app, they are expressing themselves, and the government cannot restrict that if you're doing a cat video, a dance video, a cooking tutorial that is protected by the First Amendment.

But it was interesting during oral arguments, we saw rare skip, sort of unity in the skepticism across the justices, and ultimately, they said that the national security concerns override the First Amendment protections today, saying, quote, TikTok's scale and susceptibility to foreign adversary control, together with the vast swathes of sensitive data the platform collects, justify differential treatment to address the government's national security concerns.

OK. So, the question is, what happens next? So, this likely falls to president-elect Trump. If he can show that there are good faith legitimate negotiations underway to sell TikTok or otherwise divest it from ByteDance, the law allows for a pause on this ban.

But I will note that the Supreme Court could have paused this and given the incoming administration a time to resolve this, but they did not. So, they clearly don't think that there is any serious sale pending, Dana?

BASH: Really interesting. Thank you so much. My panel is back. And Evan, I know that you have some new reporting on part of what Paula was talking about.

PEREZ: Yeah. Look, there's been a scramble today, yesterday. The lawyers for these companies that essentially would have to do the operative shutting down of TikTok, the companies that host their servers and, you know, the App Store, for instance.

So though -- one of the things that they were trying to figure out is whether they have a window 24 hours right between the time the ban gets into effect on Sunday, and when Donald Trump is coming in. The expectation is that Donald Trump will do a pause, will issue an executive order that pauses this to give time for negotiations to continue for a sale.

The question is, for all of these companies, is whether that 24-hour periods opens them up to liability. You know, these fines are by the minute, right? And so, the question for all of them is whether they have to shut it down or the possibility also remains that ByteDance and TikTok decide that they are going to shut it down completely in that time. We don't know exactly what's going to happen at this hour, but I think that's one of the things that is being worked out right now. By the way, the attorney general put out a statement today. And one of the things the deputy attorney general and the attorney general put out statements.

And one of the things they say is the next phase of this effort, which is implementing and ensuring compliance with the law, after it goes into effect on January 19, will be a process that plays out over time. That almost seems to give room for the app to continue operating on Sunday.

BASH: Oh, that's really interesting.

PEREZ: That's what I think is going to be the issue.

[12:20:00]

BASH: Yeah. And Priscilla, I want to just read exactly what Donald Trump said to our colleague, Pam Brown, this morning. Quote, it ultimately goes up to me, so you're going to see what I'm going to do. Congress has given me the decision, so I'll be making the decision clear. That's not exactly clear, but it may be if you read between the lines, knowing what he has evolved into recently with regard to his approach to TikTok, gives a little bit of a --

ALVAREZ: It's also exactly what the Biden White House wants right now. All of the statements that they have released have indicated, or outrightly said that this is going to fall on the incoming administration, that they are not going to enforce the ban, which adds another wrinkle to what the lawyers are trying to sort out because they are clearly handing this off.

And part of what they're saying in their statements is citing the holiday weekend, which it is. So certainly, that statement, well, there are questions about it. It's exactly what we are hearing from people within the Biden White House who say this is their problem now, even as the president comes under pressure from Democratic lawmakers to provide more clarity.

BASH: So, this has made for some strange bedfellows, cross party line strange, bedfellows on both sides of this issue, pro TikTok and anti- TikTok, particularly when it comes to China still owning it. Listen to Josh Hawley and Senator Dick Blumenthal, who don't agree on basically anything, Democrat and Republican, but seem to have a similar point of view on this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOSH HAWLEY (R-MO): To read your text messages, it can track your keystrokes. It has access to your phone records. And the problem with that is all of that information is available to and subject to inspection by the government Beijing. And you know, that's a massive, it's not just a national security threat, it's a personal security threat. SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D-CT): The Supreme Court's decision opens the way for constructive efforts now to preserve TikTok, which everybody wants, but not under Chinese ownership, enabling that enemy of the United States to surveil, collect information and present a threat to our national security.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: And Bres, you and your colleagues at Punchbowl have some reporting this week, talking about the unusual alliance, saying Democrats are siding with president-elect Donald Trump, while congressional Republicans have no qualms about letting TikTok go dark.

BRESNAHAN: Yeah. We had Chuck Schumer, the Senate Minority Leader, who's a big China hawk. You know, calling Biden, saying, you know, you have to delay the implementation of this, you have to delay this ban. And you know, the Congress knew what it was doing when they passed this law. And they thought they had would back TikTok and the Chinese into a corner and that didn't happen.

And now I had one Democrat yesterday complain to me, well, TikTok is so in chaos by threatening to shut down. Now you passed this ban. I mean, you can argue about whether or not it's a national security threat or not, but Congress passed this ban, and you know, now you're facing the political backlash of this.

BASH: Can you just go one layer deeper on that Schumer call that you're reporting on?

BRESNAHAN: Yeah.

BASH: He is a China hawk.

BRESNAHAN: Yes.

BASH: I know this is a leading question, but so why would he call President Biden and the White House and say, you can't let this go through or please delay it.

BRESNAHAN: I mean, he was under pressure from his own members. He was getting lobbed his own members, Cory Booker, Chris Van Hollen, Ed Markey -- Senator Markey of Massachusetts has a bill. There is a 90- day window that they can invoke, but he -- Markey has a bill for another nine months, which would give TikTok another --

BASH: The idea because of the economic and the cultural --

BRESNAHAN: And the political backlash.

BASH: And the political backlash outweighs the national security threat.

BRESNAHAN: At this point that they are so worried about what's happening in their base that they're concerned about, you know, what -- with the fallout is for them personally.

BASH: Yeah. And we are talking about 170 million users.

BALL: Well, it is remarkable how the politics have reversed on this, right? This is something that passed on a huge bipartisan vote, with both parties agreeing that this was something that had to happen. But, you know, the company has always felt that they had the leverage in this situation because of that massive user base, because of the massive cultural power that they have.

So, they have been engaged in a game of chicken with the United States government because they believed it would get to exactly this point and that no one would have the guts to actually let this happen. And that is what we are seeing play out.

We've gone from, you know, Democrats and Republicans passing this ban and the Biden White House supporting and enthusiastically signing it to a situation where neither administration wants anything to do with it, and it's become this political hot potato.

You know, if TikTok really believed that this was going to be implemented, they would have tried to arrange a sale months ago. But they always thought that they had so much power in that situation that they could effectively play chicken and force the political system to accommodate them and that is exactly what we're seeing happening.

[12:25:00]

PEREZ: Should we remind everyone though that this began with Marco Rubio coming out of briefing in which he was like hair on fire, saying, this needs to be done. It goes into Congress. And Donald Trump, of course, also gave voice to the same thing. So --

BASH: Which, by the way, Rubio is now the nominee for secretary of state, and he was saying something a bit different.

BRESNAHAN: Right. He was asked today about it, and he said he would -- he thinks that Trump will probably invoke the 90 days, and he'll follow the president-elect's leadership.

BASH: We're going to talk a little bit more about this later because the national security implications and what people who are read in on it say, are -- they say, it is really, really stunning.

Coming up. We have new reporting on Donald Trump's plans to crack down on immigration within the first hours of his presidency, talking about on Monday. Stay with us.