A Change of Heart
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I'm sorry, I shouldn't be victim blaming here. Give it a try at midmobile.com slash save whenever you're ready. $45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three month plan only. Taxes and fees extra. Speeds lower above 40 gigabytes. See details. It's Monday, December 2nd, right now on CNN This Morning. Have you ruled out a pardon for your son? Yes. A change of heart. President Biden going back on a campaign pledge about pardoning his son Hunter and...

We're going to come after the people in the media. An FBI shakeup, what Donald Trump's pick to leave the FBI says he would do on day one if put in charge. And then, a civil war reignited how rebels in Syria rapidly seized the country's second largest city. And, Yesterday I shoveled for four hours. Let it snow. Regions around the Great Lakes getting hammered with up to five feet of snow. It's not over yet.

All right, 6 a.m. here on the East Coast, a live look at Capitol Hill on this Monday after Thanksgiving weekend. Good morning, everyone. I'm Casey Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us. The Biden Justice Department has been politicized. That's this message, the message this morning from no, not just Donald Trump, but from President Joe Biden himself.

the president issuing a full and unconditional pardon to his son Hunter after repeatedly insisting in public that he wouldn't do it. And to defend his decision, the president adopted an argument that could have come straight out of Donald Trump's playbook: blame your political opponents and claim unfair persecution.

President Biden said this, quote, The charges in his cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election. The president adding, quote, No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter's cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son. And that is wrong. End quote.

President Biden pardoning his son not just for the gun crimes for which he was convicted and not just for the tax crimes for which he pled guilty. Instead, Biden gave his son an extraordinarily sweeping pardon for any and all crimes he committed, may have committed, or even merely been involved in at any point in the last 10 years.

That broad language, unlike any in recent history and reminiscent only of President Gerald Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon for, quote, all offenses against the United States, end quote, that the former president had or may have committed during his entire presidency. Trying to explain his decision to Americans, President Biden made a personal appeal. He said this, quote, I hope Americans will understand why a father and a president would come to this decision, he said last night.

Understand? Americans might. Though they'll have to be forgiven for thinking that all of this was off the table. Is there any possibility that the president would end up pardoning his son? No.

-Oh, is there a -- -I just said no. I just answered. -Would the president pardon or commute his son if he's convicted? -So, I've answered this question before. It was asked of me not too long ago, a couple weeks ago, and I was very clear, and I said no. -You said before that the president would not pardon his son. Is that still the case? -Nothing has changed. That is still the case. -And have you ruled out a pardon for your son? -Yes. I said I'd abide by the jury decision, and I will do that, and I will not pardon him. -I could speak for the president.

and he said he would not pardon his son. -Does the president have any intention of pardoning him? -We've been asked that question multiple times. Our answer stands, which is no.

Well, it stood until last night. Joining us now, Saleha Mohsen, senior Washington correspondent for Bloomberg, Isaac DeVere, CNN senior reporter, Megan Hayes, former director of message planning for the Biden White House, and Brad Todd, Republican strategist and CNN political commentator. Welcome to all of you. Megan Hayes, look, you know, many of our viewers have gotten to know you, but you really do know this family. You worked inside this White House for a very long time.

Can you help us understand how they got to this decision? Because I have to say, I've talked to some people who thought the president wouldn't get there because he was concerned about his legacy. Obviously, something really changed. Yeah, I'm

I'm a little surprised. I didn't actually think he'd get there until much later in the last couple months of his term. But I do think with some of the nominations that Trump has put up, I think it probably caused a little bit of worry for him. But also, I think people have to remember, the president has lost two children already. And he does not need to lose another one to more political, you know,

which hunts that he the president is calling them he doesn't he worries about hunter going to jail there and there's a lot of things wrapped up in this but i think at the end of the day the president made a decision as a father to keep his son out of jail and out of harm's way moving forward you just to pick up on something you said at the top of your answer you think the selection for example of kash patel played into this decision i think that some of these nominations that trump has been putting forward and leaving this in the hands of other folks i think is is worrisome to the president i mean

President Trump and Kash Patel have said they're going to go after their political enemies. They're going after retribution. I think that

that Hunter Biden has been seen as the person they've gone after many times. And I don't think the president's going to leave that to chance when he leaves office. He, again, does not want to lose another son. He has lost two children already, and he does not want this to go on any further once he leaves office. Isaac DeVere, what's your reporting behind the scenes on how this came to be? But also, I mean, we have seen some Democratic reaction already criticizing the president for this. I mean, we saw

a tweet from the colorado governor at the demo democrat jared polis saying it's bad president precedent that could be abused by later at presidents and

Congressman Greg Stanton said, I respect President Biden, but I think he got this one wrong. And then Joe Walsh, who is a former congressman, Republican congressman who's become a Trump critic. He was on MSNBC. He put it this way. Let's play it because it's kind of a succinct way to look at it. Take a look.

So the next time any of us complain about anything Trump does, this pardon is just deflating. Nobody's above the law, we've been screaming. Well, Joe Biden just made clear his son Hunter is above the law. Donald Trump lies every time he opens his mouth, we've been screaming.

Joe Biden repeatedly lied about this. The politicization of the justice system. Donald Trump and his people have been screaming. That's exactly what Biden said here. Does he have a point? And what are you hearing from other Democrats? This is the kind of thing that does breed cynicism in people. And it's that cynicism that in part Donald Trump plays off of and making the moves that he does when he says, look,

It's all rigged against everybody. The Justice Department is politicized, right? And now Joe Biden has said that. His Justice Department, under his administration, was what was pursuing these cases, was what had gotten the guilty verdict in the gun case, and we were waiting for the sentencing in this tax case.

That's a that's an issue for Joe Biden to face now when he has put himself forward not just as an opposition to Trump but as someone who is standing on principle and on norms and on Keeping in in that way. I do think though. It's important We can hold multiple thoughts in our heads at the same time right that Donald Trump will

perhaps use this, certainly allies will use this as justification or something to point to when he does things, whether it's pardoning people who were involved in the January 6th riot or other things. But it's not like Donald Trump wasn't going to do some of those things anyway, right? And so it's

but it does muddy all the waters of people who wanted to see Biden, if nothing else, as somebody who was standing up for all of these ideals that he was talking about for the last bunch of years. Yeah, fair. Although we should also acknowledge, Taleha, that

this is not the first president to pardon someone who he is related to in some way including I mean dot with Donald Trump it was an in law but an in you know someone in his family nonetheless and in law Charles Kushner Jared's father who he is just nominated to be his ambassador to France

I would have to agree that there is a little bit of a precedent being set that now when Democrats are sort of trying to figure out where they go from here after being after having lost so badly in the presidential elections and down ballot races they're trying to rebuild the party and they're left with

an aged president leaving, former head of the Democratic Party after being president, and now he's done this. It's going to be really hard in the next two years as Democrats are trying to position themselves heading into midterms to also serve as bulwarks against some of Trump's plans, especially now that we've heard about his FBI domination. Brad Todd, you and I have spent...

we saw each other on Sunday. We were talking about the ways in which Republicans obviously feel like the Department of Justice has been weaponized against them in political ways.

Do you buy? I mean, Joe Biden is basically saying, look, he would never have been prosecuted if he wasn't my son and that this is political as well. Do you buy that? There's no question. A lot of Justice Department prosecutions are a result of the fact that the DOJ decides they can get press out of them. They are sensitive to media pressure. They're sensitive to political pressure. Joe Biden and Donald Trump are now saying the same thing. And I think that makes the case for why the DOJ has to be cleaned up. A new ethos of operation has to happen there. But I think

One thing about this pardon that's striking to me is that it's not for the gun and the tax charge. This is for everything he did in the last 11 years. Coincidentally, that's when he went on the board of Burisma, the Ukrainian gas company.

I think that there's going to be a lot more investigation into what Joe Hunter Biden's dealings were with Burisma. And now that he's been pardoned, he doesn't need the Fifth Amendment. He can tell us everything. He can tell us everything about his co-conspirators. He can tell us everything about other people who did business with him. A lot more is now on the table. And so I think Joe Biden, in overreaching here with an 11-year pardon, he may have opened more foreshadowing.

for investigation from the House. - But that's the point in the mind of the president. It seems that there was this fear that there would be vindictive retribution, prosecutions of Hunter Biden under a Trump-run Justice Department. And look, it is definitely the case that some of the attempts

attention to hunter biden is because of joe biden i remember uh still being in south carolina the day after the south carolina primary that joe biden won in 2020 when he turned his campaign around and all of a sudden uh senator ron johnson was asking for information about barisma so but

But that's the way it goes. It's also the case that Hunter Biden clearly over the course of his career benefited from being Joe Biden's son. - Just watch, more people will be pardoned by this administration who dealt with Hunter Biden. - We will see. All right, coming up here on CNN this morning. The new Congress not yet in session. Democrats already looking to the midterms. Democratic Congressman Glenn Ivey will be here to discuss how his party can move forward after their devastating losses. Plus heavy snow pummeling the Great Lakes.

some places nearing five feet of powder, and Donald Trump's pick to head the FBI said this is his day one priority. - I'd shut down the FBI Hoover building on day one and reopening the next day as a museum of the deep state.

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I'm CNN tech reporter Claire Duffy. This week on the podcast, Terms of Service, we're going deep on conspiracy theories.

Could AI chatbots really be a helpful tool for pushing back on these false narratives? To find out, I spoke with Thomas Costello, an assistant professor of psychology at American University. It was not so much the AI part, but whether facts and evidence might work to change conspiracy believers' mind, to make them more skeptical. Follow CNN's Terms of Service wherever you get your podcasts.

We will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government, but in the media. Yes, we're going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections. We're going to come after you, whether it's criminally or civilly. We'll figure that out. But yeah, we're putting you all on notice.

Those the words of Kash Patel vowing to go after perceived opponents of Donald Trump. He is now also the man that Trump says he wants to lead the FBI. Over the weekend, the president-elect making it official in a statement calling Patel, quote, a brilliant lawyer, investigator, an American first fighter who has spent his career exposing corruption. Democrats calling the pick proof that Donald Trump wants the FBI to be weaponized against his political enemies.

Kash Patel's only qualification is because he agrees with Donald Trump that the Department of Justice should serve to punish, lock up, and intimidate Donald Trump's political opponents. But some congressional Republicans say Patel's selection is exactly why Donald Trump was elected in the first place. Do you have any reservations about Kash Patel serving in that role?

No. Donald Trump campaigned on reforming the FBI and the Department of Justice, so I don't know why any of this is frankly surprising to people. I think Kash Patel is a very strong nominee to take on the partisan corruption in the FBI. There are serious problems at the FBI. The American public knows it. They expect to see sweeping change, and Kash Patel is just the type of person to do it.

Our panel's back. Brad Todd, the Wall Street Journal has a pretty interesting op-ed on this today. I will say I was surprised that Lawler was so unequivocal as a swing district Republican. Obviously, the others that we saw there, a little bit more straightforward in their kind of the way that we might expect them to answer something like this. But the Journal sort of interestingly, they really went after Jim Comey in this op-ed. They say the FBI's abuses under Comey were the worst. It's

since J. Edgar Hoover, as documented by the Justice Department IG, and they reference the special counsel John Durham. FISA officials lied to get a warrant against Trump campaign official Carter Page. They lied about disinformation in the Steele dossier, which was financed by the Clinton campaign. But they reference John Bolton, who told our Jake Tapper over the weekend that,

that Trump has nominated Kash Patel to be his Lavarenti Berea, who is, of course, the head of Joseph Stalin's secret police. And he says the Senate should reject this nomination 100 to 0. The Journal argues, OK, the Senate really has to look at this.

What do you think is the future for Kash Patel? I'm watching two people on the Senate Judiciary Committee, John Cornyn and Chuck Grassley. Chuck Grassley's already spoken. He said, of course the Justice Department needs to be reformed. Of course we have to have major changes. Kash Patel has to explain to the Senate how he's going to do it. I want to see his plan. John Cornyn also was the Chief Justice of the Texas Supreme Court.

He takes a very serious approach to these matters. Both of them are late in their careers. Both of them have not yet announced if they're running for reelection this time. I think that the way those two men handle this on the Senate Judiciary Committee holds the fate of Kash Patel's nomination. For sure, there are probably two or three Republicans who could vote no. If you're looking for a fourth one, what I would first look at is can he get out of the Senate Judiciary Committee?

That's an interesting way to think about it. I mean, because the journal does go on to write, does Mr. Patel still want to unleash the FBI on Democrats and media critics like Hoover? Down that road lies no end of political trouble. And again, this is the Wall Street Journal. It's not like a liberal bastion, OK? No end of political trouble for Republicans and the Trump presidency. The effort is sure to backfire. Voters didn't reelect Mr. Trump to practice lawfare the way his opponents have. The country wants a bureau it can trust.

not a Republican version of the Comey FBI. Will that resonate? Well, I think, I don't know about that, but I think that the Republicans are ready to see the Department of Justice turned 180 degrees around. And some of that's going to mean it's going to have to not go easy on Democrats. But I think Republicans mainly want to see it depoliticized. There is 100 to 0 among Republicans on that. All right.

Still coming up here on CNN This Morning, snow piling up over four feet in some areas of the Great Lakes region. That snow set to continue. We'll have much more with our meteorologist, our weatherman, Derek Van Dam. Plus, airstrikes in Syria killing dozens after rebel forces launched a surprise attack.

Right where weather in full swing heavy snowfall approaching 5 feet in parts of the Great Lakes region. Snows expected to continue like effects. No warning still in effect for parts of Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York through tomorrow afternoon. Let's get straight to our meteorologist, our weatherman Derek Van Damme. Derek, this is a lot of snow. Yeah, Casey, can you imagine waking up having to hunt and peck for your car? I mean, this would be a great sequel to that 2000 Ashton Kutcher's flick. Dude, where's my car?

Yeah, there it is right buried under 4 feet of snow. Of course that can be very dangerous. We don't like it when the visibility drops to nothing, but when we talk about these lake effect snow bands, they are a game of miles. Some people get hit very hard. Some people get next to nothing and it can be a matter of just a few miles away. This is a sped up radar loop over the past few days. You can see the bands that I'm talking about. Look at how it's just South of Buffalo.

important because I want to show you where the heaviest snow actually accumulated. Buffalo Airport only an inch or a little over an inch of snowfall. You travel about 10 miles to the South and we saw over two feet. That is the nature of lake effect snow. It is all about the direction of the wind and where that snow actually falls. Now there's more snow incoming across those very localized areas and that could impact Interstate 90 where we've seen some backups and of course stalled vehicles through the course of the weekend as this arc

Arctic air mass continues to settle in over the eastern two-thirds of the country. Dude, where's my car? I will say we had a snowpocalypse, we called it here in D.C. once, and I was at the time had a Mini Cooper, which was in fact entirely buried in the snow. The pickup truck down the road was fine. It only takes two inches to bury a Mini Cooper, so there's that.

not quite, okay? But I do remember having to dig it out. So my sympathies to whoever owns that car you showed. Derek, thank you. I appreciate it. All right, straight ahead here on CNN this morning, Republicans preparing to take control of Washington as Democrats look

to 2026 to regroup. Democratic Congressman Glenn Ivey joins us to talk about how they plan to do that. Plus, before Biden, other presidents have used their power to help out a family member, a friend, or even a past president in need. Mark McKinnon will be here to discuss the long list of controversial pardons passed. I decided that was the only way I could get rid of Mr. Nixon's problems that were taking 25% of my daily time

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You should be here.

Democrats, once again, thinking about tomorrow, just not exactly in the way they'd hoped when the party embraced that motto during Bill Clinton's 92 campaign. A recent poll finding that Democratic voters, particularly young voters, are less optimistic about their party's future than at any point in the past eight years. Democrats debating how they're going to reinvigorate and rebuild their base as they prepare to try to make important decisions about who will fill key leadership roles in Congress and at the Democratic National Committee.

-I wish the Biden campaign and the Biden White House and the Harris campaign talked more about what they did to break up corporate power. So I think Democrats need to be much more aggressive in making this case. -We weren't communicating the way that we needed to. -And we've got to win the House back in 2026. -We need a complete reboot. We need a complete reboot with the DNC. We need a complete rebranding. Our brand is toxic in so many places.

All right, joining us now is Democratic Congressman Glenn Ivey of Maryland. He currently sits on the House Judiciary and Ethics Committees. Congressman, I'm so grateful to have you on the program this morning. Thanks for being here.

Thanks for having me. So I do want to start with what we learned overnight with President Joe Biden, who decided to pardon his son Hunter, not just for the crimes that he was convicted of and pled guilty to, but for a sweeping 10 year period of time. Did President Biden make the right decision?

You know, I think I've got mixed views about it, frankly. I think that, you know, there is concern that the president legitimately had that the Trump administration and, you know, all this, the retribution tour stuff with respect to the Department of Justice and how he plans to use it against his enemies.

I think there's a legitimate concern about what that could lead to. And I think that's part of why the president put in a 10 year stretch for the for the pardon term, because that should protect him against anything really up against up to statute of limitations, basically, for most offenses. On the other hand, I got to say that.

even though I don't think Hunter Biden would have been prosecuted under most circumstances, a pardon at this point

will be used against, I think, Democrats when we're pushing to defend the Department of Justice against politicizing it, which is certainly what President Trump plans to do, or President-elect Trump. And, you know, the Patel nomination, I think many of the other nominations, it looks like he's going to try and use it in a way to go against and inflict retribution on people. And I think this sort of gives him ground to argue that, you know, both sides are doing the same thing. So,

I know that there was a real strong sentiment and, you know, wanting to protect Hunter Biden from unfair prosecution. But this is going to be used against us when we're fighting the misuses that are coming from the Trump administration.

Very interesting. Sir, for viewers who don't know, you yourself have worked at the highest levels of our law enforcement and legal communities and worlds, including in high-profile political scandals, Whitewater, for example. Do you think...

that Republicans have any ground to stand on in terms of the arguments that they're making about the Department of Justice? Is there validity to the feelings that they may have about how the department conducted itself in the first Trump administration and since?

No, I think most of that stuff is really overblown and intentionally so. I mean, it's Trump. One thing about Trump is it's not new when, you know, politicians are under investigation by the Department of Justice that they say it's political witch hunt. Those are phrases that have been used for decades by people in the crosshairs, say like Senator Menendez, for example, who was recently convicted for misconduct in office. The difference here is that twofold.

One is a lot of people started believing Trump and, you know, his MAGA base is, you know, fully on board with the argument that the entire Department of Justice is

somehow, you know, an abuse of power and is just running out of control and needs to be quote unquote reined in. And I think that's one of the big problems. The other one, though, is that he's going to be the president of the United States and will have full control over the Department of Justice. And, you know, the Patel nomination for FBI, I think, is a bad omen for what he might want to do with that. And his

his statements about it have been pretty explicit so um it's it's it's pretty uh concerning i would say and you know what's at risk is the overall rule of law in the united states uh which has been a real bedrock for us for more than a century and and uh we need to fight to preserve that

Congressman, Democrats did spend, of course, the last campaign strenuously arguing to Americans many of the points that you just laid out. Why, in your view, did Americans vote to put Republicans in charge of the White House and both houses of Congress? And what do you think your party needs to be doing differently going forward?

Well, it seems like the exit interview data that I've seen so far and, you know, the post-mortem polling data seem to indicate that it was really driven by their views of the economy. And I think there were a couple of factors there. One was, I think we spent too much time talking about how good

things were from a macroeconomic standpoint. And even though they are, frankly, and, you know, in a lot of ways, the U.S. economy is the envy of the world. But there were a lot of individual people who just weren't feeling it in their daily lives and at their kitchen tables. And so I think they turned to the alternative. And that was Trump, unfortunately. Now, one of the things I think we could have done better there was communicate. I think a lot of times we passed

landmark legislation that was helping people and will come to help people. Some of the, the, you know, especially the infrastructure, big projects will come to bear, you know, probably in the next year or two. So they take time to roll out, but people didn't know all the particulars, you know, so they heard like initials, you know, ARPA and that kind of thing, but they didn't know specifically what was going to benefit them with one or two exceptions, like the, um,

prescription drug costs for insulin, for example. But overall, I think they didn't really know what we had done and we didn't do a great job of telling them. And that led them to misunderstand where they stood in the economy and who was going to help them more than the other party. And I think the Democrats have done a great deal to help, but I don't think we got the message across. All right. Congressman Glenn Ivey, very grateful to have you spend some time with us this morning. I hope you'll come back on the show, sir.

Thank you. See you soon. All right, still ahead here on CNN This Morning, Syria's long-running civil war entering an explosive new phase. Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper joins us to talk about the latest developments in the Middle East. Plus, merit or nepotism? President-elect Trump looks into his own family to fill out his administration. I like nepotism. I think, you know, a lot of people say, oh, nepotism. Usually these are people without children. But I like nepotism.

A violent, deadly night in Syria. Dozens killed in the northwestern part of the country and airstrikes carried out by the Syrian government and Russia. They are targeting rebel forces who took control of much of Aleppo and Idlib in a surprise attack. An attack that Iran and Russia, Syria's biggest supporters, apparently never saw coming. I asked National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan about that on CNN's State of the Union. Was the U.S. government surprised by how swiftly these rebels took over?

Let me tell you one thing we weren't surprised by. We were not surprised that these rebels would try to take advantage of a new situation in which the Syrian government's main backers, Iran, Russia and Hezbollah, were all distracted and weakened by conflicts and events elsewhere. All right. Joining us now to discuss former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper. He served in President Donald Trump's first term. Mr. Secretary, very grateful to have you on the show. Thanks for being here. Good morning, Casey.

Were you surprised by what we've seen unfold on the ground in Syria? And what impact do you think it has big picture on a region that's obviously in considerable turmoil right now? Yeah, I was a little surprised. And I think by the fact that Jake Sullivan didn't answer your question, the administration was a little surprised, which is more concerning. Look, I think it is significant. It points to a number of things. First of all, it is true, of course, that

uh russia and uh iran and hezbollah are both weakened and distracted and this created that opportunity for uh these rebels to advance on aleppo and now they're expanding that advance so it's important to see the assad regime under pressure but when you step back it it does speak to the fact that you now have uh countries uh players in the region that are in a far worse position today than they were uh not

Not just 10 years ago, but really over a year ago since October 7th when Hamas attacked Israel in that brutal assault against Israelis. So you could see the chessboard in the Middle East is changing around right now in front of our eyes.

Speaking of the chessboard, sir, how do you think the impending inauguration of President-elect Trump is impacting that, particularly in terms of whether we may see more pressure for a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel?

Well, first of all, it's a lot more complex, complicated, dangerous situation than the role today than it was when Donald Trump left office in January of 2021. So he faces that coming in. Secondly, we know that he wants a world without conflict. Of course, we all want a world without conflict, but that's

That's not what we live in these days. I think when it comes to the Middle East, though, I think Donald Trump's arrival on the scene in January of next year will be a benefit more so than the Biden administration to the Israelis and anybody else. And I think the nation that has most of fear is Iran. You know, it didn't help the Iranians that leading up to Donald Trump's election in earlier this month or last month in November, the

We know that Iran was trying to undermine his campaign on social media. And we also know that Iranians were trying to kill the president, trying to assassinate him. So he comes in with a really tainted view of Iran. He's already talked about a maximum pressure campaign against the Iranian regime to break them. We obviously are concerned about Iran's nuclear aspirations. So I think Iran is in a very weak position. Israel will be in a stronger position coming into the new year.

Very interesting. So, sir, you've obviously done the job of secretary of defense at President Trump filling out his cabinet. And he has nominated the veteran and Fox News host Pete Hegseth for that role. Over the weekend, The New York Times reported on an email that his mother had sent to him amid a contentious protest.

divorce. And this is what she wrote about, again, her own son. Quote, I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around, and uses women for his own power and ego. You are that man and have been for years. And as your mother, it pains me and embarrasses me to say that, but it is the sad, sad,

This is obviously a man in Pete's Hegseth who's going to have to endure a committee hearing before the United States Senate. What do you think something like this says about his fitness to lead the department? Yeah, I saw that story as well, and you're kind of shocked by it. It's one thing to have your political opponents attack you, but it's...

It's pretty damning when your mother, you know, a letter is uncovered where your mother is talking about your character and integrity and how you treat women. Look, I think for any nominee, the longer you are out there exposed, the more there is for opponents, critics, skeptics, the media, others to kind of pick at your resume, at your experience, at what you've said and done in the past. And at this point in time, you know, Trump has done a good job in terms of

proposing a full cabinet at this point in time, but they're going to sit out there for the rest of December, early January, and they really won't have nomination hearings until after January 20th. So that's a long time to be out there. And you can expect that Moore is going to come out with all of his nominees over time. And that's kind of the danger of when you're nominated for these positions.

One of the other nominees, and I know we don't want to dig too deep into this, but I do want to touch on Kash Patel, who is the nominee to lead the FBI, only because he wrote about you in his book. He called you the poster child of the defense industrial complex and remarked that you were one of the members of the executive branch of the deep state. And he has talked about targeting people.

I'm just interested to know if you're at all concerned about him leading the bureau from a personal perspective? Well, you know, he doesn't bring to the job the experience that one would expect. And, you know, somebody I trust and respect, Bill Barr, has said damning things about Kash Patel and his ability to lead the organization. And I think really for anybody, we do want reform for our institutions.

But what you don't want are people politicizing them and using them for personal retribution, for going after for others. And that's going to be the concern of everybody. I think that's going to be the scrutiny of the Senate when if Kash Patel goes before the Judiciary Committee for his hearings to be the FBI director, that will play out over time. And these will be some of the top questions I suspect he'll be asked. Fair enough. All right. Mark Esper for us this morning, sir. Always grateful to have your expertise on the program. I hope to come back soon. Thanks, Casey.

All right, let's turn out of this. From Donald Trump's days on The Apprentice to his first presidency, the president-elect has long tapped his own family members to fill key roles. I like nepotism. I think, you know, a lot of people say, oh, nepotism. Usually these are people without children. But I like nepotism.

Over the weekend, Trump announced plans for the billionaire Mossad Balooz to serve as his senior advisor on Arab and Middle Eastern affairs. OK, notably this man, also the father in law to Trump's daughter, Tiffany. Additionally, Trump named Charles Kushner the next U.S. ambassador to France. Charles Kushner is, of course, Jared Kushner's father. So that's his other daughter, Ivanka's father in law. Our panel has returned. So, Brad, he's

Pretty candid there in that, yes, old clip. But as we know, Donald Trump actually has been remarkably consistent over many years on a lot of things like this. And of course, it's worth noting, Trump pardoned Charles Kushner, who was, you know, put behind bars by Chris Christie. So it's there's a lot more to that saga.

Nepotism goes back as far as we've had a presidency. And Donald Trump just says it out loud. And of course he wants people around him who are loyal to him, who are close to him. Every president has. And I think we keep skipping over the fact that one of the reasons Donald Trump is popular with swing voters who are cynical about politics is because he says things out loud that other people just do and then act like they're not going to do.

Though we've talked about Hunter Biden on this panel already this morning, in the Biden administration itself, we did not see nepotism like this. In the Obama administration, we did not in the same way of family members and positions. That said, ambassadorships are ridiculous in the way that they work in America in the eyes of most foreign governments. The ambassador to France under Barack Obama was a major donor who didn't even speak French.

But I don't think anybody could argue that Donald Trump took a view of all the people who are qualified for these positions who could possibly be ambassador to France and just happened to find Jared Kushner's father. Well, and Saleha, let's just watch. This was Chris Christie back in 2019 talking about the nature of the crime that Charles Kushner committed. Watch this. I mean, if a guy hires a prostitute,

to seduce his brother-in-law and videotapes it and then sends the videotape to his sister to attempt to intimidate her from testifying before a grand jury. Do I really need any more justification than that? I mean, it's one of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes that I prosecuted when I was U.S. attorney.

your incoming U.S. ambassador to France. Yes, he is, but I think the American voter that brought Donald Trump back into the White House is not paying attention to this kind of nuance. I remember traveling over the past year, starting in January, to Iowa, Ohio, Kentucky, Wisconsin, talking to voters face-to-face, not just looking at polls and things and saying, why is it that you're voting for Donald Trump? And they said, because he's going to do things that are against transparency

But he'll just tell us he's doing it. Meanwhile, we've got currently we're talking about Joe Biden, who said all year, I'm not going to pardon my son. I'm not going to pardon my son. And then he does it. So they like the honesty and they're not looking at the nuance that we are all talking about today. Well, let's go back. Joe Biden also facilitated a lot of Hunter's own business dealings when he was vice president, too. I mean, like this, this is there's there's more to this than just a pardon.

All right. Let's, in fact, turn back to this developing news about President Biden's sweeping pardon of his son Hunter. While Biden broke his previous promise to not absolve his son of his federal and tax tax and gun convictions, controversial presidential pardons and commutations are far from unusual, especially right at the end of a president's term. And by these presents do grant.

a full, free, and absolute pardon unto Richard Nixon. As one of his final acts as commander-in-chief, former President Bill Clinton pardoned 140 people, among them Roger Clinton, the former president's brother who spent a year in prison for a guilty plea of selling cocaine. President Bush threw a lifeline to former White House aide Lewis Scooter Libby.

commuting Libby's 30-month prison sentence. President Obama has commuted the remaining prison sentence of Chelsea Manning. Breaking news tonight, the president has just commuted the prison sentence of his former campaign advisor and longtime confidant Roger Stone. President Trump announcing moments ago that he's granted a full pardon to his former national security advisor Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.

All right. Joining us now to discuss former advisor to George W. Bush and John McCain, Mark McKinnon, also the creator of Paramount's The Circus. Mark, it's Monday, so we're thrilled to have you. Let's talk about what we saw here from the president. Were you surprised by it? And what do you think are the long term implications, if any? Well, you know, the old expression, Casey.

Family over country. This is so disappointing and deflating on so many levels, but especially including the fact that Biden went out of his way to make clear on numerous occasions on the record that this was not going to happen.

And now there's reporting that there were perhaps even discussions where they talked about the fact that he was going to do this and would say something different publicly. So it's no wonder why the public loses trust in public institutions and public leaders. And the problem for this is that obviously it helps Hunter Biden,

But it hurts the Democrats and it hurts the country because this is really good for Donald Trump and it's really good for Kash Patel because this makes the argument that Trump and Patel have been making about the Justice Department and the Democrats have been screaming about Donald Trump. And it just turns it around and takes away the argument from Democrats. So it's really disappointing to me. And I think, you know, a bad day for politics, a bad day for the country.

Peter Baker put it this way, kind of underscoring what you're saying here, quote, "Mr. Biden's pardon will make it harder for Democrats to defend the integrity of the Justice Department and stand against Mr. Trump's unapologetic plans to use it for political purposes

Even as he seeks to install Kash Patel, an advisor who's vowed to come after the president-elect's enemies, as the next director of the FBI, it will also be harder for Democrats to criticize Mr. Trump for his prolific use of the pardon power to absolve friends and allies, some of whom could have been witnesses against him

in previous investigations, can Democrats now plausibly be out there saying, arguing that the Department of Justice has been fair and even-handed? No, they can't, and that's the problem. And so now Patel has got a lot of wind at his back for this nomination because they can use all these arguments.

And it's you know, it's it's it really is problematic for the just the general confirmation. And I think what we really need is is some part some pardon legal action.

constitutional revisions or statute revisions on the pardon laws because it's been so abused here. You know, listen, at the end of the day, this helps Hunter Biden, it helps Cash Patel, and it helps witches because witch hunt is now a term that just has no resonance whatsoever.

Mark, do you feel like this particular pardon is remarkable in how it was framed because of the period of time that the president put in here? Because, I mean, obviously we came in with Biden is not the first person to pardon friends and family, shall we say. But at the same time, there are some differences.

Well, I think that's what's really disturbing to me, Casey, is how sweeping it is. And it makes it pretty clear that there was some that there may be some there there that we weren't aware of and that Biden is aware of.

and that there's some reporting about some foreign agent registration problems and the sort of things that Democrats were saying that Republicans were making up. Now there's credence to believe that maybe it was true. So that's why it's problematic. And listen, I think the thing about the State Department and Kash Patel is that ultimately I think what's going to happen is that Patel will get in there if he's confirmed, obviously.

And we'll discover that the deep state is not so deep. There's really, you know, it is filled with lots of people who are good citizens. And by the way, lots of Republicans, the people when I was in college who were going to the FBI were shiny-shoed Republicans, not a bunch of progressive liberals. So I think they're going to find that, you know, it's populated by conservatives. And as I said, the deep state won't be so deep. But they do now have confirmation that at the very least, the leadership and the politicians are the problem.

All right. Mark McKinnon for us this morning. Mark, I'm always grateful for your perspective. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you, Kristen. Thanks. See you soon. Our panel's back very briefly here. Brad, trust in...

the Department of Justice and in our legal systems. How do we restore it to the extent that it has been damaged? Apparently, I mean, Mark is arguing by both sides here. Well, first off, all institutions are in trouble. The Justice Department is not the only one. There are good people on the lines and the FBI agents.

but the f_b_i_ has to stop waiting in the political matters like school board fights all the sort of things that it has adjusted for prosecuting crime in particular line crime yeah i mean i think it's not just republicans meaning ask hillary clinton what she thinks of jim comey right i just think that we are making a lot of this part in here and i think that we we need to take a step back on but he said american people are not looking at this they're not into this is that this is not that deep for them they are more concerned about other issues this is a political issue that we are making a lot of nonsense out of but i mean

I agree with you that we need to look at these systems and reform them, but Joe Biden pardoning his son is not the issue here. All right, I guess we will find out how much Americans are focused on it here in the coming days. Thanks to all of you for being with us. Thanks to you for joining us as well. I'm Casey Hunt. Don't go anywhere. CNN News Central starts right now. I run a school for young women.

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