The Path to Confirmation
50:53 Share

This episode is brought to you by LifeLock. The holidays mean more travel, more shopping, more time online, and more personal info in places that could expose you to identity theft. That's why LifeLock monitors millions of data points every second. If your identity is stolen, their U.S.-based restoration specialist will fix it, guaranteed, or your money back. Get more holiday fun and less holiday worry with LifeLock. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit LifeLock.com slash podcast. Terms apply.

The 2024 F-150 Lightning truck gets dirty and runs clean. With an EPA-estimated range of 320 miles with the available extended-range battery, it's the only electric vehicle that's an F-150. Visit Ford.com slash F-150 Lightning to learn more. Excludes platinum models. EPA-estimated driving range based on full charge. Actual driving range varies with conditions such as external environment, vehicle use, vehicle maintenance, high voltage, battery age, and state of health.

It's Monday, November 25th, right now on CNN This Morning. He wasn't charged. He wasn't even kind of charged in this. There was no crime committed. The path to confirmation, Republicans bracing for a bumpy road to confirm some of Donald Trump's controversial cabinet picks and... This is important work we have to do. It's going to be very tedious and I look forward to doing it. Doge takes shape. Elon Musk gets a new teammate in Congress to help him cut government spending and... I want to be the person that crushes the deep state.

Reversing course after distancing himself from the conservative blueprint, Trump taps a Project 2025 architect to head up his budget office. And then... I want to take a moment to recognize the brave turkeys who weren't so lucky, who didn't get to ride the gravy train to freedom. Lucky turkeys, the decades-old and honestly very strange tradition to save a few fortunate turkeys from the fate of the Thanksgiving Day feast. Mm-hmm.

All right, 6 a.m. here on the East Coast, a live look at Capitol Hill, where people are taking a break beginning this week just for a little holiday time. Good morning, everyone. I'm Casey Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us on this Monday as we head in to the Thanksgiving week. Donald Trump's vision for his second term cabinet, we now understand it in full. The once and future president's personnel choices revealing a stark contrast with his first administration.

So among Trump's picks this time, an independent with the last name Kennedy who supports abortion rights,

More than one former Democratic presidential contender, a centrist Republican who is favored by the Teamsters Union, a man who fundraised for Al Gore and advised George Soros. And then, of course, there are quite a few MAGA loyalists and Fox News favorites. It all adds up to a cabinet that is united not by dogma, but by loyalty to Trump and his vision.

Over the weekend, Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei writing this in Axios, quote, "Lost in the noise of Trump's most controversial picks is the simple, undebatable fact that this might be the most ideologically diverse cabinet of modern times. The team represents the Trump worldview. Traditional conservatism is dead and its biggest lifelong advocates neutered to the point of irrelevance.

A Trump transition source told us that most of the picks are a version of Trump in their thinking and approach. They're fearless disruptors who can walk into these buildings and know they have a mandate for reform and change. A mandate for reform if, of course, they can land the job. Trump has suffered at least one defeat on that front so far, Matt Gaetz withdrawing his name from consideration for Attorney General just eight days after it had been announced.

And of course, getting Trump's other controversial picks, Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard, RFK Jr., approved by the Senate could pose the first great test for just how far a Congress dominated by Republicans will let Trump go.

I think ultimately this is a decision that President Trump made to bring in another disruptor. And I think if you look at this election, it was disruptor versus establishment. He ran on this. In the end, it is the Republicans that are going to have to make a decision. If these people are qualified for these jobs, they have the votes. The president has done this job before. He knows exactly what he needs. He knows who he wants to put in those positions. He wants us to have these jobs.

hearings done quickly and expeditiously. I've said I'm more than happy to work through the weekends as long as it takes to get this done. From what I'm hearing from my Republican colleagues on everything from defense secretary to other posts, it sounds like they are ready to roll over for Mr. Trump.

All right, our panel's here to discuss Isaac DuVern, CNN senior reporter, Lulu Garcia-Navarro, CNN contributor and a New York Times journalist, Megan Hayes, the former director of message planning at the Biden White House, and Matt Gorman, Republican strategist and former advisor to Tim Scott's presidential campaign. Welcome to all of you. Thank you so much for being here. So, Matt, we focused so much on, you know, obviously there are

personal issues for a number of Donald Trump's nominees. Matt Gaetz, of course, withdrew in no small part over them. But some of these, the ideological diversity on display, not something that a lot of the Republicans in the Senate are going to be used to voting for. I mean, the abortion rights question with Kennedy, the union questions for the labor secretary pick, he's asking for a lot.

You know, as you're reading the Axios snippet, I thought about the fact that, look, this was an ideologically diverse coalition that enabled Trump to win. It was the Teamsters in a lot of respects. Speaking at the Republican convention, you had a working class vote. Obviously, some of the Kennedy vote you had go to Trump. So in large part, this is a makeup of the voting coalition for Trump that propelled him to win. And you're right. There's some murmuring on the right about Lori Chavez de Reimer and her ties to kind of unions.

close ties to unions, but also you're seeing a little bit of grumbling about Kennedy. And I think, you know, it seems that Hegseth, Gabbard and Kennedy are among the trio that will have kind of the toughest confirmation fight. My money right now could be on Kennedy having the toughest simply because you're getting it from the right with the abortion or the pro-life advocates. And you're also having kind of pharma, food processors. There's a lot of kind of

Industry, shall we say. Industries, yeah, that could come in and oppose him. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting, Megan, I mean, we've quoted a GOP aide here at CNN in our reporting who said that Tulsi Gabbard actually may have the toughest confirmation fight. Others that on this program have noted that if something is going to protect RFK Jr., it is his connection with voters, right? And like his Kennedy name and the fact that he has sort of popularity and is well known in a way that some of these others aren't.

Yeah, I think so. And also some of the stuff that he wants to do with some of the food processing and some of those arguments, I think a lot of people would agree with, you know, why does the UK have three ingredients when we have 14 ingredients in our food? It's a fair question. A hundred percent. And so I think that some people might agree with there. And I also think his, his, um,

his pro-choice stance, I'm sorry, is favorable to Democrats. There's a lot of things. I actually think Tulsi Gabbard is going to have the hardest thing. I just think there is way too much out there. The intelligence community is extremely tight and extremely tight-knit, and I just think that some of her actions in the past and some of the reporting, I think, is going to trip her up.

I mean, national security is the one place where, I mean, you know, I covered the whole Trump administration from Capitol Hill. That was one of the few places where you would see them actually kind of push back. I think Tulsi Gabbard, I agree, is going to have the hardest confirmation fight. There is just a long history there of her cozying up to America's enemies and not just like

oh are they our enemies today or are they not but like actually people who are bad you know by every single estimation like Bashar al-Assad who massacred his own people and others you know and I think there's going to be other shoes that are going to drop so I think she's going to really really fight to get confirmed

what position Isaac is this gonna put at Democrats enemy so this is not just access its kinda reading the story are I'm from the show David Sanger wrote this news analysis it's out this morning in the New York Times diversity of ideology opinion usually seen as a strength not a defect

of presidential cabinets. If there is a surprise about Mr. Trump's choices in recent days, it is the range of experiences and worldviews that in some cases lie just beneath the veneer of recently declared Make America Great Again loyalty and loyalty to Mr. Trump himself. It's hard to imagine a few of his picks sitting comfortably at a Trump rally. There is more ideological diversity here than I expected, Michael Beschloss, a presidential historian, noted on Saturday. And if you look at this group, the context of history, there's some potential here for arguments and debates.

Bachelot's continued, "If those debates are allowed to unfold in a civilized and open manner, history shows that such conflict has sometimes led to policies that worked." And there were some statements out over the weekend, for example, from unions basically praising Trump's labor secretary pick. Yeah, and I think you're right that with Robert Kennedy we are likely to see at least a couple of Senate Democrats lean toward voting for him for confirmation, if not actually vote for him. Really? For RFK? Yeah. Who are we looking at?

You can see, for example, Cory Booker, who is as devoted a Democrat as there is, has said things that are in line with what Kennedy has said about what's going on with foods and the ingredients in foods. So maybe. We'll see. I'm certainly not predicting that Booker will vote for him. But I think that there is some room there. The question here, I think, going forward is we can talk about the ideological diversity

often the word loyalty is used to describe the relationship to Trump it was in Sanger's article I think more what you see in practices from Trump an interest in obedience right and in not he is not very loyal to people he expect people to be loyal to him and that is the question here with the Senate confirmations will the Republican Senate actually buck his choices and then when it comes to governing

Will these secretaries, whoever gets confirmed, I assume most of them will be confirmed, if not all of them, will they be obedient to him? Will he care what they're doing? Will he take an approach similar to what he did in his first term of running the White House and not being that interested in what's going on in each of these departments? But no matter what, every president, at least in the last 20 years, we have this conversation about, oh, what's the cabinet going to do? And then

they don't do much in terms of shaping with the it's not like that we had these like robust meetings during Joe Biden's cabinet me robust discussions are in job and cabinet meetings up what the administration was going to or in Donald Trump's first term or in Barack Obama's from or it's just individuals tend to

Well, actually, what I think is going to really shape this moment is what they're not going to do. I mean, I think what Trump is coming in and promising is to dismantle the government in the way that we understand it. And so a lot of these picks are coming in with the mandate not to reform and change, but to kind of destroy. And I mean that, you know, in a kind of you can look at it as the phoenix rising from destruction, or you can look at it as destroying in the sense of

what the system of government as we understand it. But either way, that is what they're coming in and that's what the project 2025 pick and et cetera, et cetera is about. - Right, and that's, I think that's right with Vaught and the Office of Management and Budget. That's one of these offices that nobody knows what it is.

Except if you're in the government, you know exactly what it is. And you know how powerful it is. And you know just how powerful it is. And him there, a very clear ideology of what he wants to do, very clear direction, whether it's with Project 2025 or anything else, that is something that will shape what this government is looking like. And to your point there, it's also the

the people who are right underneath, the assistant secretaries, the deputy secretaries that are right underneath that are going to be these Project 2025 ideologues that are going to do exactly what Trump wants. So the figureheads of the secretaries where they are qualified and diverse, it's not really them. It's going to be the next picked down and the picks after that. But to be fair also, like we talk about doing exactly what Trump wants. It's a negative. The man was elected. Like he was the one person, I'm not saying that, who faced the voters. So like obedience, whatever we call it, like

they should implement his vision that's the job of the cabinet secretaries and everybody who's appointed by him to his government to usher in his vision and I think there's a difference here though I mean what the vision is of the GOP now is to really kind of have an imperial presidency it is very different than the kind of system that we've had where there is a Justice Department that is independent where there is you know the under each sort of department has

a certain latitude to implement laws as they see fit and that is fundamentally going to change under Trump. I don't think anyone is saying that all of a sudden people are going to stop disregarding laws. I think they're going to implement his vision and way to kind of implement his vision for the country and his policies. But you do see when it comes to the Justice Department that Trump, when he was president the first time, he would often talk about how he felt the Attorney General should act sort of as his lawyer.

but that is not the job of the attorney general the United States job is to be the lawyer of the federal government and I that is something that is frustrated a lot of previous presidents about their relationship to their ages I don't think that when Trump was picking Matt Gaetz or him body as the replacement what he was looking for was an independent a approach to federal prosecution it well certainly you know I take your point not that there is a balance here right he did get elected president the United States

But also we are seeing him promise to do things that if actually implemented in the way he says would be an unprecedented situation for the government. Now maybe that's what Americans voted for. All right, still to come here on CNN this morning, a new budget cutting buddy for Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, Marjorie Taylor Greene warning some cities and states that she might try to pull their federal funding.

Trump disavowed Project 2025 on the campaign trail. Now he's tapped one of the co-authors to oversee the budget. And Republicans trying to block the first transgender person elected to Congress from using the women's bathroom. We're going to discuss with Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Dingell. I didn't run for the United States House of Representatives to talk about what bathroom I use. I didn't run to talk about myself. I ran to deliver for Delawareans.

This episode is brought to you by LifeLock. The holidays mean more travel, more shopping, more time online, and more personal info in places that could expose you to identity theft. That's why LifeLock monitors millions of data points every second. If your identity is stolen, their U.S.-based restoration specialist will fix it, guaranteed, or your money back. Get more holiday fun and less holiday worry with LifeLock. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit LifeLock.com slash podcast. Terms apply.

The 2024 F-150 Lightning truck gets dirty and runs clean. With an EPA-estimated range of 320 miles with the available extended-range battery, it's the only electric vehicle that's an F-150. Visit Ford.com slash F-150 Lightning to learn more. Excludes platinum models. EPA-estimated driving range based on full charge. Actual driving range varies with conditions such as external environment, vehicle use, vehicle maintenance, high voltage, battery age, and state of health.

Wouldn't it great to be a Democrat where you don't have to worry about overspending and borders and crime? You just do whatever you want to do and blame it on the Republicans at the end of the day. I think this is the best thing that President Trump has done to this point of putting these two in charge of going after fraud and overspending and oversight.

Republicans already applauding Donald Trump for creating the so-called Department of Government Efficiency before he takes office, also known as DOJ. The department's stated goal is to cut government waste. The president-elect naming Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to oversee it. And there will be a new Congressional Oversight Subcommittee set to work with DOJ, led by Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene.

We don't care about people's feelings, she says.

Matt, I mean, this is going to be obviously like this. This is a crew that's designed to generate headlines. Yeah. These three. Right. Yeah, it is. And look, I think you get a good segment with Margaret earlier in the show where some of the stuff is going to be very, very simple, where you're going to be going back to work five days a week if you're a federal employee. And some of the stuff

I think you'll hear strains of things that Republicans have talked about for a long time. I remember when I was working for Jeb Bush, he wanted to move some of the departments, you know, put some more back into the states, like, for example, the Interior Department more based out in, say, Colorado and out in the Plains states. So I think you're going to hear some of that. And I think you're going to be also hearing some of what's interesting is the fact that it's not just purely based on dollars, right? It's efficiency. How can you make government literally work better

And I'm interested to see what they come up with. Okay, so here's a question. Do you think Twitter works better since Elon Musk took it over? And basically, I mean, we have an example of like how he takes an entity that he didn't build himself because he built SpaceX and Tesla himself, right? Twitter, somebody else built it. Mm-hmm.

he bought it and then he tried to dismantle it basically or like dismantle pieces of it. Like did it work and does that give us any lessons for what he's gonna do with the government? - Look, I think it's actually, the Twitter vision has fundamentally changed. It's gone from a micro blogging site to something you're gonna see where it's largely video first in a lot of respects. You're gonna see a lot more incorporation of video in the future. - It's bad. - Well, I completely disagree with you. Totally disagree. - It's bad, it doesn't work well, it's glitchy. It's also like, I mean,

Can I just say something? I don't want to talk about Twitter, which is now X, because Twitter is not the government. And the fact is that, you know, the reason the government is there is to work for people and to...

unelected billionaires are going in and actually I will say that Vivek Ramaswamy is not a billionaire. He apparently is not quite there yet. But very, very rich people. There does seem to be some dispute on the internet about that. We were trying to sort through that. Right, but whatever. Questionable. His finances, we don't know exactly how rich he is, but he's very rich. And these two people are empowered to go in and actually take away people's jobs and cut the government. But what...

What exactly are the qualifications for this? I just don't understand it. Elon Musk, I think he's pretty good at building things. He's pretty good at creating things. We've seen on this show and others, the guy can land rockets literally with chopsticks closing it. The guy's reputation... He isn't doing that. Oh, I'm sorry. He's not the one with the hammer and the nails. You're absolutely right, Lulu. But it's his vision that created the whole thing.

I also think that when you start to go into these agencies, people are going to realize it's not the personnel that's costing money. It's a lot of different programs. And maybe they could run more efficiently. So I'm all for taking a look at them. I just think some of the things they want to dismantle are going to really be impactful to people out in the states. Like, you know, the Department of Education, you need programs for special needs children that the federal dollars... My daughter's dyslexic. Exactly. They run the IEP system. They run...

There are a lot of programs that are going to, people I think are really going to be shocked that the federal government isn't running them and giving dollars into the state. So I think that it will be interesting to see how this works. But I think that it will be shocked to see how much little money is actually spent on personnel that they want to cut.

All right, coming up here on CNN this morning, at least 2,000 families left homeless in the Philippines after a devastating fire in a coastal area along the edge of Manila. We'll show you that. And President-elect Trump picks a key architect to Project 2025 to head up the Office of Management and Budget.

All right, 23 minutes past the hour. Five things you have to see this morning. A massive fire burning through a shantytown in the Philippines. It broke out in Manila Sunday morning. It took about six hours to get under control. The number of casualties remains unknown. The cause under investigation.

Take a look at police body cam footage of this dramatic police confrontation. A man in Florida ramming his car into everything in sight, determined to elude officers. According to WSVN, he was wanted for stalking and other offenses. Ultimately, the suspect was arrested.

A Russian plane carrying 95 people bursting into flames after landing at Antalya Airport in Turkey on Sunday. Every passenger and crew member was safely evacuated. Good. The cause of the fire still under investigation.

The longest active winning streak in women's college basketball is over. UCLA knocking off South Carolina 75 to 62 Sunday night, ending the Gamecocks 43 game winning streak. They hadn't lost a game since the Final Four back in April of 2023.

At least five people have died in the UK in the wake of Storm Burt. The system sweeping across the country with melting snow and heavy rain causing extensive flooding in parts of England and Wales, forcing water rescues across the country, across the region.

All right, speaking of weather, storms could impact those heading home for the holidays this week from winter alerts in the west this morning to rain forecast for the Macy's Day Thanksgiving Parade on Thursday. Let's get straight to our meteorologist, our weatherman, Derek Van Dam. Derek, good morning. Yeah.

Yeah, about 80 million Americans traveling this week, seeing their family, their friends, their loved ones. Maybe you're hitting the airways. Okay, we've got the potential for some minor delays across the airports here from Chicago to Detroit and Minneapolis. That's for today. Moderate

weather related delays along the west coast, especially near the state of California. But I want you to notice as we advance into Tuesday how that weather kind of moves inland. So places like Denver to Salt Lake City, some of those transfer hubs could have some weather related delays as well. There is a cold front that will sweep through along the eastern seaboard could bring some delays from Atlanta through to New York City as well. Now it's not just uh

Americans hitting the airports, but it's also Americans hitting the roadways. We've got about 90% of us traveling on the roads and right now we could have some snowfall that impacts the roadways across the northern portions of the Great Lakes. But again, I highlight the West Coast because this is an area that's been battered by storm after storm. So this is the storm system that's going to move eastward today. This is going to bring rainfall overnight and into Tuesday morning along the eastern seaboard. And then we focus our attention on the bigger storm that will impact travel for Thanksgiving.

and the day after. And I want you to take note of the cold weather that will settle in behind it. Yeah, this is going to be a big wake up call. Winter is coming back with a vengeance. Temperatures drop like a rock behind this cold front as we head into the weekend. So enjoy the warmth while you can.

Casey? Yeah, I'm watching this and I'm thinking about texting my husband. Well, we should probably get our Christmas tree on Friday and not Saturday because it's going to be really cold on Saturday. That is good advice. Derek, thank you. I'll be in that camp too. I really appreciate it. I'll see you tomorrow. All right, ahead here on CNN This Morning, culture wars come to Capitol Hill. Congresswoman Debbie Dingell joins us live with her perspective on the fight over transgender rights. Plus, one of the architects of Project 2025 gets a top job in the new administration.

Every single thing they say, it's the opposite. Project 2025. Trump loves it. He loves it. He loves it. They just say it. I've totally disavowed it. Time to move? Skip the hassles of selling during the holiday season and sell your home directly to Opendoor. Request an all-cash offer in minutes, close, and get paid in days. You can even pick your close date so you can move after New Year's. Start your move at Opendoor.com or download the Opendoor app.

Open Door is represented by Open Door Brokerage, Inc., License 02061130 in California, and Open Door Brokerage, LLC, and its other markets. Terms and conditions apply.

Good things come in threes, like my three-row SUV. Mom! Coach, that's three... It gets my three kids to three sports in three different parts of town. Mom, my new cleats are so hot. Luckily, I fill up with Synergy Supreme Plus premium gas from Exxon and mobile stations. It keeps my engine three times cleaner for better gas mileage. Mom, can we get ice cream after practice?

Because as soon as this season's over, the next one begins. Find a station at Exxon.com. Synergy Supreme Plus gas compared to Synergy regular gas and port fuel injected engines. Benefits based on continuous use and may vary. All right, welcome back. The fight over transgender rights is now spilling into the halls of Congress. More specifically, into the bathrooms. The issue centers around Delaware Congresswoman-elect Sarah McBride. McBride is set to become the first openly transgender lawmaker to serve in Congress since

when the new term begins in January. But just two weeks after her election, Republican Congresswoman Nancy Mace introduced a new rule effectively banning McBride from using women's restrooms on Capitol Hill. Mace posting about the topic more than 300 times on social media in a span of a couple of days. This weekend, McBride pushed back.

I didn't run for the United States House of Representatives to talk about what bathroom I use. I didn't run to talk about myself. I ran to deliver for Delawareans. And while Republicans in Congress seem focused on bathrooms and trans people, and specifically me,

I'm focused on rolling up my sleeves, diving into the details, setting up my office, and beginning the hard work of delivering for Delawareans on the issues that I know keep them up at night. Congresswoman Mace standing by her position after House Speaker Mike Johnson signed off on her proposed rule.

And so I'm going to keep calling out these folks on the left. They don't get a say. I mean, it's just ludicrous to me that women who are victims of abuse should be forced to undress or go to the bathroom next to a man.

All right, joining us now to discuss this and all things on Capitol Hill, Congresswoman Debbie Dingell of Michigan. Congresswoman, thank you for being with us. I really appreciate it. I know that you've called this a hateful and divisive political sideshow. I am interested to know a little bit more about what you make of why Nancy Mace is doing this, how she's doing this. I mean, I have to say, I remember covering...

There wasn't even a women's bathroom at all near the Senate floor as recently as the 1990s. You know, there was a long line there. They had to expand it because actually, oh wait, women started getting elected to Congress. What do you make of it all? So first of all, I think it's a total distraction.

You heard Sarah. Sarah has been very clear with her colleagues. She's going to abide by the rules that Mike Johnson has put out, period. She's not going to try to go in the ladies' bathroom off the floor. She doesn't want it to be the story. She's tired of Nancy Mace making it a story every day. She came to Washington to deliver for the people of Delaware and to worry about those kitchen table issues.

And she has been very strong with all of us as her colleagues to please not talk about it, make it more of an issue.

She's going to abide by what Speaker Johnson said and do the job she's supposed to do. So I do think this is a non-issue, as Nancy keeps saying. She's going to fight for it when it's been made very clear. She's going to abide by the rules that Speaker Johnson has put out there. But, you know, I do wish we had some compassion, a little empathy for families who have a child who –

is struggling. I think that we need to be supporting the families so they've got the ability to go with their parents, the doctors, the experts. And governments should not be making the lives miserable of

or complicating just a really tough situation further. And as far as Nancy Mace goes, for where Sarah's gonna use a bathroom on Capitol Hill, it's a non-story and I wish she'd abandoned trying to make it headlines every day and do the job she was elected to do.

Congresswoman, let's talk about the big picture of the losses that Democrats suffered in this election from the top of the ticket, of course, down to the Senate majority and honestly not taking back the House when that, of course, was something that was potentially on the table. You and I obviously talked so many times ahead of the election about Michigan, about what was going on there.

Your sort of big picture takeaway from why Democrats suffered these losses, if you could describe it in a single phrase or in a straightforward way, I mean, how would you put it?

I think Democrats and I don't, I'm not into the finger pointing game, quite frankly. I don't think it gets us anything. I think every Democrat's got to do some soul searching. I don't think Democratic losses are as big as everybody wants to make them out to be, because normally when you see this kind of presidential election, Republicans would have had far stronger coattails and they did not. They have a very slim majority in the House and in the Senate.

which is going to make it difficult, I fear. Not I fear, because we're going to stop them if they're doing bad legislation. What I really want to see us do is work on the problems that Americans care about every single day. And I will work across the aisle with them. But we...

It's not one little thing, Casey. It's many things. I mean, we clearly have the Democratic Party's got to talk to men better. And I'm not just talking white men. I'm talking African-American men, Hispanic men, working people, grocery store prices matter. You heard me tell you that all fall.

I go to Kroger every Sunday and always somebody wants to talk to me about the price of groceries. And we have to do a better job of communicating to voters on the platforms they are on, where they are getting the news, a better understanding of where they're getting their information and be there, be present and be where the voters are. Congressman, how do you think Democrats should respond?

approach Trump in this second term of his differently than the way he was approached in his first term? I'm going to do it the exact same way that I did do in the first term, if you'll recall it, Casey, in that I said I'd work with him. I respect the office of the presidency. People have elected him.

And he and I did very well because, one, I said he was going to get elected and was like one of the few Republicans or Democrats in the country that saw it coming. Then he got very angry at me about my voting for impeachment. But I worked with him on trade. And I will work with him on trade. Again, I think it's a huge issue. I think there are common ground issues that we can work on.

But we can't react every day to whatever it is that, you know, has everybody in a tizzy. We have to pick our battles where they really matter, where it could hurt people, the people that we represent. I want to make sure that we don't destroy our vaccination system so that people are still able to get flu shots and we're prepared on public health.

I could go through a different list of many things. I don't want to see Social Security and Medicare cut, but I think we're going to have to pick our battles. He's going to be president for four years, and the American people have things that they want to see get done. And I hope there are things we can work together on to get things done. If he does horrific things, if he

targets people in unfair ways and terrorizes them, I'm going to stand up to hate whenever and wherever I see it. Briefly, Congresswoman, Politico is reporting that Vice President Kamala Harris wants, she's been telling her advisors and allies she wants to keep her options open, whether that's to run for president in 2028 or run for governor in California. Would you like to see Vice President Harris be the Democratic standard bearer going forward?

BUT I WANT TO SEE, AND I'M ALREADY WORKING ON IT, IS AN ALREADY WORKING ON IT, IS AN ALREADY WORKING ON IT, IS AN OPEN PRIMARY IN '28 THAT INCLUDES OPEN PRIMARY IN '28 THAT INCLUDES OPEN PRIMARY IN '28 THAT INCLUDES BATTLEGROUND STATES. BATTLEGROUND STATES. BATTLEGROUND STATES. LIKE -- IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE LIKE -- IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE LIKE -- IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE MICHIGAN. MICHIGAN. MICHIGAN. THERE SHOULDN'T BE A LOCK. THERE SHOULDN'T BE A LOCK. THERE SHOULDN'T BE A LOCK. BUT WE NEED A VERY COMPETITIVE BUT WE NEED A VERY COMPETITIVE

28 presidential primary where the issues that matter in November and are going to determine who is president are part of the early primary system. And, you know, she would certainly be a strong contender to be a candidate. We need a strong primary. All right. Congresswoman Debbie Dingell, thank you very much for being with us this morning. I really appreciate it. Thank you. All right.

Coming up next here on CNN This Morning, an age-old White House Thanksgiving tradition returns today. We're going to rewind and show you some of the most memorable turkey pardon moments of years past. They are quite something. Plus, holiday meals with a side of politics. How Americans are trying to put a stressful election cycle in the rearview mirror for their family get-togethers.

You don't know how I feel, and in my opinion, you don't even care. Well, opinions are like honey. Everybody's got one, and everybody thinks everybody else stinks. Oh, for Christ's sake.

It is that time of year again. In just a few days, millions of Americans will be sitting down with family and friends over turkey and the trimmings after an incredibly divisive and contentious political season. Here was one noted comedian's advice. Take it or leave it before you grab your seat at your table.

Can we please not let politics up the holidays? Anybody with me on this? If we're going to remain a viable society, there must be some things that transcend politics, like disaster relief and law enforcement and helping neighbors. And Christmas!

Joining us now to discuss Mark McKinnon, former advisor to George W. Bush and John McCain, the creator of Paramount's The Circus. Mark, good morning. Do you agree with, are you going to take Bill Maher's advice? 100%. I was thinking what we ought to do instead of just pardoning turkeys is just pardon all the relatives who haven't talked to each other over the last eight years so we can all just get together and be civil again. Just a blanket, you know what, we're going to let the past be the past.

That's fair enough. Yeah, let's start over here. But I mean, look, in seriousness, there are a lot of people who, you know, have, you can just tell, politics is obviously, we'll say, don't talk about politics and religion in these settings, right? It's not like this has never come up before. There seems to be an added level of, I don't know if it's just, it's animosity, it's division, it's,

feelings that are deeper in their opposition than in past election cycles, or certainly it seems that way to me. What is it, you know, how can we move forward from the divisive nature of the election in a way that lets people, you know, rebuild? I do know people who have broken off relationships because of politics.

I don't know, Casey. I think that there is an exhaustion factor now. People are just worn out by it. They're worn out by the divisiveness, the debates. And yes, sure, people feel passionately about these things and are disappointed or excited about the election. But I think that there's just a feeling of, OK, you know what? It was a clear victory. Let's, you know, let's stand back. Let's, you know...

Elections have consequences, as Obama said. Let's let this roll out. And I think that this appointment process with Trump has been an interesting example. I mean, I think it's surprising a lot of people. No matter what side of the aisle you're on, when you look at his appointments, there's something for everybody to love and something for everybody to hate. And what I'm really struck by is the speed

You know, we talked before about how Trump was really an accidental candidate in 2016. And it reminds me of the movie The Candidate, or the last scene you remember Robert Redford turns around after he surprisingly wins and goes, what do we do now? Well, that's not the case this time for Trump. And what I'm really struck by is the speed with which, you

you know, all the appointments are already made. We're two and a half weeks in and the major appointments are made, which is surprising. And to some degree, the Gates thing really kind of worked for them because it just became that shining object. It's like, okay, you know, we got that out of the way. We got the big controversy out of the way and sort of,

you know, made a few people mad, made a few people happy, but it's out of the way, let's move on. And so I think it's, again, I try not to be political about this, I just objected, I think it's been a very successful appointment process so far. So speaking of that process, I mean, do you think there is going to be an appetite to oppose some of these other nominees who, as you point out,

It did not have to because Matt Gaetz was taking up so much of the oxygen, sort of continued as lesser in a way that if they had been kind of at the forefront, Pete Hegseth, for example, with this accusation, the police report against him, Tulsi Gabbard is another example of all of the rest of them. Do you think any others face potentially not getting confirmed by the Senate? And if so, who's at the top of the list?

Well, I think at the top of the list are Hegg, Seth, and Gabbard probably just because they're so important to our national defense and security. And I do think that the Senate has reasserted itself and just to say, listen, we get the deliberative process. We advise and consent here. But it'll be really interesting, particularly with people like Gabbard. I mean, I spent a lot of time with her during our show. I think she's a really interesting, very smart person. And I think that, you know, I think that senators have legitimate questions about the

you know her trips in relationship with assad and those sort of things and and i think that they just want to hear from her and i you know i assume that she has a a you know a a story to tell and and that they'll want to hear it and it may be a very legitimate one but you know it's one that i think is it's there's a there's a weird narrative out there about her right that relates to national security and and so that will have an opportunity and she will have an opportunity to address that

Mark, I mean, big picture here, you mentioned kind of national security and that.

is one area where I have seen, you know, old guard Republicans be willing to buck Donald Trump. And in no small part, that's about America's role in the world, the sort of post-World War II Pax Americana, the system, this international system that was built basically by America and has, you know, sustained through now. When you look at the cabinet picks and you think about the way Trump

has been conducting himself so far with world leaders. Do you see a dramatic departure from the status quo from him in that arena? I mean, how is the sort of broad posture position of America in the world going to change based on what we know?

Well, I'd say two things. One is when Trump was president before, the one thing that I saw in the limited international travel that I did is a lot of international people, even if they were opposed to Trump, kind of liked his foreign policy chaos just because it kept people off balance. And they liked the fact that they sort of, you know, that foreign leaders, including autocrats, were left thinking, you know, what in the hell is this guy doing?

On the other hand, I think people were reassured. I was by appointments by like Rubio, Senator Rubio to secretary of state, because, you know, he's a guy who's been very deep in these issues for a long time. And, you know, it'd be unfair to call him an establishment figure. But but he's but he is somebody who's familiar with this territory. He's not like just somebody who's coming in there to like a lot of others to just break stuff.

I think he will come in and bring some order, and I think he's respected within the State Department. So I think he'd get a balance of those things. All right. Mark McKinnon for us this morning. Mark, always grateful to have you. Thank you for being here. See you soon.

Alright, 52 minutes past the hour. Here's the morning roundup. The United Arab Emirates has arrested three Uzbeki nationals suspected in the death of a missing Israeli rabbi whose body was discovered on Sunday. Israel says Rabbi Zvi Kogan was killed in an anti-Semitic act of terror and is vowing to bring the killers to justice.

The Menendez brothers are expected to appear virtually from prison at a court hearing today. Defense lawyers making a plea for their release. It's going to be their first public appearance in nearly 30 years. The brothers are serving life without parole for the 1989 murder of their parents.

Ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt says this, quote, "Normal people are not ready for AI." During a talk at Princeton University, Schmidt says that in the near future, a child's best friend might be AI-generated and raised questions about guardrails going forward. What are the rules?

Is it okay that that child is the equivalent of Mark Zuckerberg, the surrogate parent who gets to decide what your kid learns and doesn't learn? Playing with the way people think is really powerful. So if you think about state-sponsored misinformation, that's trivial compared to having your best friend be state-sponsored and this sort of daily interaction and shape someone's identity, their cultural values.

Yeah, so our panel tech, I have to say, I mean, this side of the table, we have other fellow parents. What he had to say in this entire kind of talk that he gave was really interesting, but it is pretty alarming. I mean, there's a recent story out of Florida of a young boy who, you know, who tragically, you know, took his own on life is my understanding because he was friends with an AI chatbot and it went south. I mean, this warning seems really stark.

And it should be heated. I mean, this is coming from someone who isn't just a crank. This is coming from someone who used to lead Google. And I think

you know what we've seen is the I mean I hate to use these words but we have been experimented on humans with all this technology if we think about when the iPhone came out and everything that's happened subsequently what has happened is that there are no real laws around this stuff there are very little guardrails and so what we learn about it we kind of learn through experiencing it we see our own children how they react over time how their brains are being

changed by how they look at information through scrolling, they have trouble concentrating, they have trouble actually engaging with information. I mean, our children are already struggling with reading. Are they going to struggle with writing just because of the fact of AI? I mean, this is really changing the very nature of how we process information. And so I think that warning is actually pretty important. All right. Well, certainly something to keep an eye on. All right. Let's turn out of this.

A Thanksgiving tradition returns to the White House in just a few hours. Joe Biden will pardon his last pair of turkeys as president. The lame duck president sparing two 40-pound turkeys from the kitchen table, piece and peach, I'm sorry, and blossom from Minnesota. The lighthearted and, let's be honest, very strange presidential event stretches back 77 years. Plenty of jokes along the way. Watch.

I'm glad I can make at least one turkey happy this year. Make sure they have plenty to eat for their Thanksgiving dinner. For the sake of our feathered guests, I'm not going to elaborate on the contents of those baskets. I want to take a moment to recognize the brave turkeys who weren't so lucky, who didn't get to ride the gravy train to freedom, who met their fate with courage and sacrifice and proved that they weren't chicken.

It's not that bad now. Come on. Thanksgiving is a special day for turkeys, I guess. Probably, for the most part, not a very good one when you think about it. January 20th, I'll come to the farm to see you. Okay, it was actually pretty bad. Barack Obama, sorry. That's a pretty bad joke. This is a...

Okay, I shouldn't let my personal biases thinking, I find this event to be deeply uncomfortable and sad, but we keep doing it. We do keep, I had never been to one person. I went last year to just like see what it was. It is stranger in person than it is on TV. I agree with you. Yeah, it is odd. You've been. Yeah, I've been a couple of times. It's very odd. It's very odd. They like walk over, they bring them over from the Willard. They stay the night at the Willard. They have like a red carpet arrival the night before. Then they bring them over to the, we did it in the Rose Garden because there's during COVID. And it's,

It's just a very odd event. And they're running around and they're walking and they're trying to keep them contained. And the little kids want to take photos with them. It's very bizarre. But it's fun. People like it. And the point of it is that we are pardoning the turkeys so that on Thursday we eat all the other turkeys. It's just a strange thing. I mean, I think its history is actually rooted in the poultry industry and the turkey industry. I mean, I actually think this is like a sort of a special interest. Yeah.

The Turkey Federation is very involved. They spend the night with them at the Willard. The Turkey Federation spends the night with them at the Willard. It's like the Eagles in the 70s trashin' the hotel room. I will say. Anyway, the pictures from inside the Willard, there's like wood chips on the floor. It's very strange. Who gets the room at the Willard the day after? I don't know.

I'm not going to do that. All right, from turkeys to this, I'll tell you this. Matt Gaetz's time as President-elect Trump's pick for Attorney General lasted just eight days. Many have noted that that's less than one Scaramucci.

But the former congressman already apparently has a new gig. Gates now on Cameo. You may know it as the site where people can pay celebrities to record custom video messages. So if you want the Florida Republican to wish you a happy birthday, it'll cost you apparently over $500. Gates' bio reads, quote, Trump nominated me to be U.S. Attorney General.

That didn't work out. And once I fired the House Speaker. He was, of course, referring to former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Gates is just the latest on a growing list of former politicos on the platform. I'm a little teapot, short and stout. Bitch, I used to be the governor of Illinois and inmate number 40892424. Needless to say, it was way better being governor. I'm here to tell you that you are absolutely terrible. And I mean terrible.

Totally terrible at a college pick-em football league. My favorite TS song is definitely going to be Trouble. I knew you were trouble when you walked in. Hey, Club Condo. It's your favorite, Katara. After 18 years in the closet, George Santos pulled me back out.

Okay. Again, Matt Gaetz available to wish you happy birthday on Cameo. Oh, has it really? Okay. Thanks to all of you at home 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.

We're not a threat to anyone. In the new HBO original series, Dune Prophecy, it is sisterhood above all. I'm Greta Johnson. And I'm Ahmed Ali Akbar. Join us on the official Dune Prophecy podcast, where we unpack each episode with the show's creators, cast, and crew. Stream Dune Prophecy Sundays starting November 17th exclusively on Max, and you can listen to new episodes of the podcast every Sunday night.