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Noem Describes Southern Border Is A "War Zone"; Trump Finalizing Immigration Executive Orders For Day One; Trump's Panama Canal Threats Leave Officials Scrambling; Biden Declares Equal Rights Amendment "The Law Of The Land". Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired January 17, 2025 - 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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[12:30:22]

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: On Capitol Hill this morning, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, Trump's pick to lead the Department of Homeland Security, testified in her confirmation hearing, and it seems like she hit pretty much the notes that we would expect.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is the southern border secure as we find it today?

GOV. KRISTI NOEM, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY NOMINEE: Senator, no, the southern border is not secure today, but in just three days, we will have a new president in this country, President Donald J. Trump, and he will secure our border.

My hope is that if given the opportunity to serve as secretary, that the federal government would no longer, and I believe as President Trump has promised the American people, facilitate an illegal alien invasion.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

BASH: My panel is back here. Priscilla, that was -- is the least surprising thing, I think, that we've heard in all of these confirmation hearings. But she is going to have a very, very big job for a lot of reasons. Even if it wasn't about immigration, I mean, Homeland Security is about what it is.

I mean, really keeping everybody in America safe. She's going to have a lot of help from key individuals inside the White House on what we expect President-elect Trump to do within minutes --

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

BASH: -- of taking the oath of office.

ALVAREZ: That's right. Actually, one of the most interesting back-and- forth story in that hearing was one with Senator Kim who asked her, who's actually calling the shots here, Tom Homan or you?

BASH: Tom Homan being?

ALVAREZ: The incoming border czar. Because remember in the first Trump administration, he ran through multiple secretaries of the Department of Homeland Security because there was often friction when he didn't like the way that things were being handled.

She's in a different position now. I've been told that she's going to be a little bit more limited in scope. Tom Homan is really the one that is focused on this mass deportation pledge. So it creates an interesting dynamic that we just haven't seen before.

Now, you mentioned those executive actions. Now, sources have described to me that perhaps to no surprise, many of those immigration -- or many the executive orders that will come down on Monday are going to be immigration --

BASH: Do you mind if I just read a little bit of your story?

ALVAREZ: Yes.

BASH: OK. So in your story, you say "The planning includes U.S. immigration and customs enforcement sweeps in major metropolitan areas, sending more Pentagon resources to the U.S. southern border, placing additional restrictions on who is eligible to enter the U.S., along with rolling back Biden-era policies".

I just wanted to get that in because it's such great reporting.

ALVAREZ: Thank you. But a lot of that might sound familiar to viewers because what we're going to see is them pulling back their playbook from the first administration, leaning in even harder. The national emergency declaration he tried to use for the border wall that got caught up in the courts.

Well, he wants to use it again. He wants to roll that out again on day one to get more resources to the southern border to help the Border Patrol agents. The key difference is going to be the focus inward, and that is a result of what has happened over the last four years.

We did see surges along the U.S.-Mexico border. Abbott did send migrants to Democratic-led cities. And so now that is where they're going to have their focus. So they are going to be targeting these sanctuary jurisdictions, places where they limit their cooperation with federal immigration enforcement authorities to try to make a point and to make a splash.

So think Chicago, think Denver. Anyone that Tom Homan has sparred with, they can probably anticipate seeing that immigration enforcement in their cities. Now, they maintain, and I've talked to multiple sources about this, that they want to focus on public safety and national security.

But here's the caveat to that. If they run into someone else in that process who is undocumented, they too can be part of that sweep. We saw it under Obama. It's not that it's never happened before.

BASH: You know --

ALVAREZ: But that is how you or they ramp up their numbers. And the last thing I'll say is that all of this is contingent on funding. And we have seen Miller, Stephen Miller, on the Hill. We have seen Republicans, some of whom are representing these board districts, saying the same thing. They need the money. So while they have these grand ambitions, they are going to have to put the money behind it.

BASH: And let's just kind of take a step back, Evan, and just look at the numbers. Kristi Noem calls it a war zone. Nobody's saying that things are under control at the southern border of the U.S. far from it. But it is much better than it was starting. This chart just starts in December of 2023. So we're talking about in a year.

Now, you mentioned Greg Abbott, his move and others to put the crisis that they are still feeling and were back then at their border to sort of spread the pain --

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Right.

BASH: -- you know, and send a lot of these undocumented immigrants across into blue states and cities. That changed the Biden administration's approach and how they deal with the border. But the point is, is that it's not nearly as bad as it was last year.

[12:35:11]

PEREZ: It is not nearly as bad. And that's one of the more fascinating things about the last, say, you know, during this campaign, is that the Biden administration knew they were doing this. They were -- certainly, deportations are up. You and I have talked about this so many times.

But they were afraid to tell anyone about it because it was bad for his re-election. And so that chart and the numbers, they've almost tried to keep a secret because they didn't want to tell their supporters that they were doing some of these deportations and that they were limiting these numbers.

The other thing about this is that, you know, that a lot of this will come crashing into lawsuits, right? The Justice Department is very, very well prepared, the incoming Justice Department, to defend some of these things. And keep in mind, in season one of the Trump era, the -- they ran into problems because they wrote these executive orders so shoddily that they were easily put on pause by judges.

This time, I'm told, they're working to do them --

BASH: Yes.

PEREZ: -- a lot more bulletproof.

BASH: They have been working on them.

PEREZ: Right. And they're trying to make sure that they can at least pass muster from the initial round of lawsuits. MOLLY BALL, SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: Well, I think that's really the big question is, is how big and how fast do they want to go and how big and how fast can they go --

PEREZ: Right.

BALL: -- given the obstacles, the funding, the courts, and just the disruption to society, right? We don't know what kind of reaction this is going to provoke. We don't know --

PEREZ: Well, some cities are already saying that they're going to cooperate, like New York says --

BASH: Yes.

BALL: Right.

PEREZ: -- that they want to cooperate this time.

BALL: Right. So, but, you know, from employers, from the business community, from all parts of society, how much of a backlash is there to this and how much of a tolerance does the administration have for that.

BASH: Rez -- real quick, sorry.

BALL: I think that's a big question as well.

BASH: I didn't mean to interrupt you, sorry. Real quick, from the Hill.

JOHN BRESNAHAN, CO-FOUNDER, PUNCHBOWL NEWS: Well, a couple things. I just think funding will be -- they'll try and do it as part of reconciliation, so they'll try to get it in, which means they'll try to get it away. They only need Republican votes to do it.

The other thing we saw is that Trump in his first administration diverted Pentagon funding for the border wall. He will go be very aggressive on doing -- spending whatever he needs to spend and worry about lawsuits later, and I think that's going to be a big part. He's going to do it and worry about what the court does later.

BASH: Well, OK, because they have the -- you're saying the money will come no matter what. They'll find it.

BRESNAHAN: They'll get the money. I think they'll get the money. They're -- you know, he'll start with the border wall, and he'll start with everything else, and they will lean very, very, very hard on Republicans on the Hill to give him the money he needs to do this.

BASH: I always love learning from all of you. Thank you so much. I learned a lot. Don't go anywhere.

Coming up, speaking of learning something, you want to watch this. CNN's Phil Mattingly went to Panama to fact-check Donald Trump's multiple claims about its famous canal. Stay tuned for this. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:42:27]

BASH: What is behind President-elect Donald Trump's seeming obsession with the Panama Canal? He's threatened in recent weeks to take back the canal, once controlled by the United States, by force if necessary.

So our colleague Phil Mattingly went to the Central American country to find out what this is really all about. And he spoke to the man who ran the canal for nearly a decade and says Trump is spreading lies.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR & CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): This is the Panama Canal, a 51-mile corridor linking the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Its creation helped the United States become a global superpower.

MATTINGLY: Most people don't get access to this, but what you're standing on top of right now, it's a modern marvel. It is an engineering miracle. Only twice in the history of the Panama Canal has transit actually stopped.

It's that invaluable to world trade, to the world economy, to geopolitics in general. It also underscores why any president, President-elect Trump being one of them, cares so deeply about its operations.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): Now, Trump's interest in the Panama Canal, it makes a lot of sense. It's 4 percent of global shipping. That's what comes through here on an annual basis. 40 percent of U.S. containers come through this waterway.

But what people here unequivocally do not understand is why. After 25 years of smooth operations under Panama's control, all of a sudden Trump is threatening to take it back and refusing to rule out using military force to do so.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: The Panama Canal is a disgrace.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): He's railed against how the canal is being run and China's growing influence around the waterway.

TRUMP: They charge more for our ships than they charge for ships of other countries. They charge more for our Navy than they charge for Navies of other countries. They laugh at us because they think we're stupid, but we're not stupid anymore.

China's at both ends of the Panama Canal. China's running the Panama Canal.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): I asked the man who was in charge of the canal for seven years, Jorge Luis Quijano, about those claims. MATTINGLY: Does the canal charge U.S. ships more than others?

JORGE LUIS QUIJANO, FORMER PANAMA CANAL ADMINISTRATOR: No.

MATTINGLY: Does the canal charge the U.S. Navy more than others?

QUIJANO: No.

MATTINGLY: Are there Chinese troops operating in the canal?

QUIJANO: No.

MATTINGLY: Does Beijing or the Chinese Communist Party operate the canal?

QUIJANO: Definitely no.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): Trump's current Panama fixation has left officials here perplexed and frustrated, but also cognizant of the former real estate magnate's roots in the country long before his turn to politics.

[12:45:04]

TRUMP: Well, my interest in Panama really began when we had the Miss Universe contest in Panama, which I own. I own the Miss Universe, and it was one of the most successful contests we've ever had.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): Not all of his business dealings in Panama have been a success.

MATTINGLY: There's a complicating factor for Panamanian officials trying to figure out what the president-elect actually wants here. And that starts right here, because this building, this building is the tallest building in Central America, and it is a building that used to be known as the Trump International Tower and Hotel, also home of the Trump Ocean Club. Now, it is neither.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): The gleaming 70-floor resort marked Trump's first international hotel venture, a massive project, mired by mountains of litigation and confrontation that led to the removal of Trump's name from the property, halfway through his first term in the White House.

As for Trump's attack on the terrible deal that set in motion the U.S. handover of the canal and its surrounding zone to Panama, that's rooted in an even longer-standing preoccupation.

TRUMP: Jimmy Carter gave the Panama Canal away for nothing, zero. In other words, they said, we want the canal. He said, oh, OK, even though we spent the equivalent of many billions of dollars to build it.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): Now, Trump is calling for Panama to reduce the tolls and rates U.S. ships pay to transit the canal, or else.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That was one of our dredges working on it.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): I put that to Ilya Espino de Marotta, deputy administrator of the canal.

MATTINGLY: You know, one of the things that you hear from people in the United States is, well, just, all Trump wants is, you just cut the rates a little bit for U.S. ships, or make some adjustments there just for U.S. ships. Is that a plausible option?

ESPINO DE MAROTTA: It's not a possible option.

MATTINGLY: Why not?

ESPINO DE MAROTTA: Because of the treaties.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): The same treaties Trump rails against mandate equal treatment of all vessels. No U.S. carve-outs. Trump has also ignored that the canal today is far bigger than the one handed over by the United States.

MATTINGLY: There was an expansion.

ESPINO DE MAROTTA: Yes.

MATTINGLY: The U.S. government played what role in the expanded version?

ESPINO DE MAROTTA: OK, as far as financially, none.

MATTINGLY: More than half of the revenue that comes in from the Panama Canal doesn't come in through the one that the United States was integral in building. It comes in through the expansion.

ESPINO DE MAROTTA: That's right. This is the Atlantic side --

MATTINGLY (voice-over): Marotta led the massive $5.2 billion project, which dramatically expanded the size of cargo ships that can traverse the canal.

MATTINGLY: So when President-elect Trump says he's taking -- he wants to take the canal back, do you guys get to keep the one you did?

QUIJANO: No, no.

MATTINGLY: But this is what I remember --

QUIJANO: No, no, no. We get to keep everything.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): Phil Mattingly at the Panama Canal, CNN.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

BASH: My panel is back. First of all, I'd just like, how much did you all learn from that?

PEREZ: A lot. BASH: This is what we're supposed to be doing in our -- in this business. I learned so, so much. Thank you so much to Phil for that.

I know that you have been doing some reporting on -- going forward on the reality of -- the political reality here in Washington.

ALVAREZ: Yes, just over the last few weeks, I had been talking to sources because Panama has become so integral to the U.S. migration management strategy. We saw it with the Biden administration simply because it has the Darien Gap, which connects it with Colombia.

It's a treacherous jungle. It's where migrants have crossed. And it has become in the last four years the barometer of what we're going to see at the U.S. southern border. You see people start crossing there in big numbers.

You can bet that in a few weeks, you're going to see that here at the U.S. --

BASH: Yes.

ALVAREZ: -- southern border. So that has become so important for this administration and as well as the incoming administration --

BASH: Yes.

ALVAREZ: -- to try to work with that government. And this president, the Panamanian president, has indicated that he wants to go even harder on the Darien Gap. So sources I've been talking to in the incoming administration say they really see them as an ally. So this has really --

BASH: Yes.

ALVAREZ: -- got them a little bit flummoxed.

BASH: And I just love how Phil pointed out and showed us how this -- first of all, a lot of the things that Donald Trump claims about China's involvement is just not right. But more importantly, how this is not just a -- something that he started talking about recently. This runs deep with him and it all goes back to his experience as a builder and as a businessman.

BRESNAHAN: Yes, it's about him, which is no surprise for Trump. There is a lot of concern on Capitol Hill about China's economic inroads in Central America and South America.

BASH: Sure.

BRESNAHAN: But the Republicans, even you talk to Republicans in House and Senate, they don't know where Trump is going with this. You know, the idea, the threat of military action and everything, that's just -- no one knows what he's talking about here.

Like, you know, there is no support on Capitol Hill for military invasion of Panama to get back the Panama Canal. I mean, you know, but they're not going to say anything publicly to contradict Trump, but they're just flummoxed by this. They don't know where he's going and what the endgame is here.

BALL: I think with all of these sort of imperialist gestures he's making, you know, with Greenland, with Canada, all of these -- there's a -- question is, is this a symbolic gesture, right? Is this about sort of bullying people and showing that America is strong again and toughness and strength? Or is there some kind of serious policy underpinning it?

BASH: Yes.

[12:50:16]

BALL: And that, I think, is the million-dollar question for the incoming administration. We're going to have to see what they actually do to put any meat on the bones of these sort of threats.

BASH: We are going to have to leave it there. Thank you all so much.

This is the last Inside Politics of President Biden's presidency. It's kind of wild. Thanks for being here.

Coming up, there are just hours left in his presidency. Joe Biden is trying to make a mark on equal rights. We have details straight ahead.

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[12:55:04]

BASH: Amid President Biden's last-minute flurry of executive actions to leave his mark and preserve his legacy, he made one big move that could potentially pave the way for preserving reproductive rights. By declaring that the Equal Rights Amendment, in his opinion, is, in fact, ratified and is now the law of the land as an amendment to the Constitution.

A little history. The law, which enshrines equal rights for women, passed in 1972. But to become an amendment, it needs to be ratified by 38 states. In 2020, Virginia became the 38th state to ratify it after it stayed stagnant for decades. The trouble is, legal experts contend ratification deadlines lapsed and five states have rescinded approval, so legal challenges are sure to follow.

Thanks so much for joining Inside Politics. Please join me on Sunday, State of the Union, at 9:00 a.m. Eastern. My guests include incoming National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, Ambassador Rahm Emanuel, and House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan.

CNN News Central starts after a quick break.

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