'Cheney Was Behind It'
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It's Wednesday, December 18th, right now on CNN This Morning. I think those people committed a major crime. And Cheney was behind it. A criminal probe? House Republicans siding with Donald Trump, calling for their former colleague, Liz Cheney, to be criminally investigated. Plus... We must stay in the fight. Every one of us. A rallying call. Kamala Harris promising to keep fighting as questions swirl about her political future. And...

The first term everybody was fighting me. In this term everybody wants to be my friend. A tech track, Jeff Bezos, the latest in a long line of tech CEOs trying to make nice with the president-elect. Plus. We will never be the same, but we will get through this. Madison in mourning. Investigators trying to piece together a motive after a teacher and a student were killed at a Wisconsin school. Also.

We're not getting answers, and I think it's because our government does not know who is behind them. Drone mania that tips are pouring in over 5000 and counting. The government remains steadfast, but there is nothing nefarious going on. Right? It is 6:00 AM here on the East Coast. A live look at Capitol Hill on this Wednesday morning as lawmakers there scramble to get it together so that they can go home for Christmas. Good morning everyone. I'm Casey Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us.

Donald Trump, just weeks away from being invested with the immense powers of the presidency, calling for a criminal investigation into Liz Cheney over witness tampering after a report from House Republicans singled her out, accusing her of colluding with a witness on the January 6th committee and recommending she be investigated for possible criminal prosecution.

The president-elect weighing in on Tuesday's report just three hours ago, saying this on his Truth Social platform, quote, Liz Cheney could be in a lot of trouble based on the evidence obtained by the subcommittee, which states that numerous federal laws were likely broken by Liz Cheney and these violations should be investigated by the FBI, end quote. 3.11 a.m. this morning.

The president-elect there referring to the report released yesterday by a Republican-controlled House subcommittee, alleging what it called, quote, the failures and politicization of the January 6th select committee, end quote. The report calls the committee, quote, a political weapon with a singular focus to deceive the public into blaming President Trump for the violence on January 6th and tarnish the legacy of his first presidency.

Among the report's allegations against Cheney that she colluded with one of the committee's witnesses, Cassidy Hutchinson, who served as an assistant to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Hutchinson provided testimony about Trump's actions on January 6th, including recounting a story she was told about an interaction the president had with his Secret Service driver. The president said something to the effect of, "I'm the effing president. Take me up to the Capitol now."

To which Bobby responded, "Sir, we have to go back to the West Wing." The president reached up towards the front of the vehicle to grab at the steering wheel. Mr. Engel grabbed his arm, said, "Sir, you need to take your hand off the steering wheel. We're going back to the West Wing. We're not going to the Capitol." Mr. Trump then used his free hand to lunge towards Bobby Engel.

In a lengthy statement, Cheney refuted the report's findings. She says that it, quote, intentionally disregards the truth and the select committee's tremendous weight of evidence and instead fabricates lies and defamatory allegations in an attempt to cover up what Donald Trump did, end quote. What did Donald Trump do? On January 6th, after spending months promoting false claims of election fraud, he stood on the ellipse and he said this.

We will never give up. We will never concede. It doesn't happen. You don't concede when there's theft involved. All Vice President Pence has to do is send it back to the states to recertify. And we become president, and you are the happiest people. And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.

In the hours after those remarks, this violent mob stormed the Capitol in an attempt to prevent the certification of Trump's defeat. Some rioters chanting, "Hang Mike Pence," Trump's own vice president at the time, because Pence refused to violate his oath of office. That deadly day's events were enough at the time for Republicans to condemn Trump. There's no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events

of the day. No question about it. The president bears responsibility for Wednesday's attack on Congress by mob rioters. He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding. All I can say is, count me out. Enough is enough.

But now, of course, four years later, the Republican Party once again united behind Trump. And in little over a month, he will once again control the federal government, have the authority to order the investigations, or at least have the people that he installs in Department of Justice positions undertake investigations that he has openly called for for months. I think those people committed a major crime. And Cheney was behind it. For what they did, honestly, they should go to jail.

all right our panel is here to discuss jeff zeleny cnn chief national affairs correspondent michael warren senior editor of the dispatch karen finney cnn political commentator former senior spokesperson for hillary clinton's presidential campaign and kristen soltis anderson she is a cnn political commentator and a republican pollster welcome to all of you thank you so much for being here uh mike warren i want to start um with you uh in terms of the the singling out of liz cheney in this report

And the way that it sets up what Donald Trump is now, it's almost as though this House subcommittee has pitched the ball. Donald Trump is hitting it in the direction of his incoming Department of Justice. It's not as though he hasn't said this was what he was going to do, but we are now seeing it play out. That's right. Retribution. That's what he promised on the campaign trail. He was elected. He was elected overwhelmingly, if you look at the Electoral College.

He's going to get his retribution, I believe. And, you know, should we be surprised that the House Republican conference is sort of is working, you know, hand in glove with the incoming president on this? This is what the party has been saying they want to do. It's what Trump has been saying he wants to do. So now we're going to see it. And I think that that is what makes I mean, we all know how, you know, the

expected nomination of Kash Patel. I guess it's maybe now official, uh, to run the FBI, how this was going to be, you know, really a sort of a culmination of that promise of retribution. Um, that's the thing that, that, you know, a lot of even I've talked to people who are Republicans who are concerned about Kash Patel and the amount of power he would have, have been trying to convey to Republican senators, Hey, listen, this guy is different. This guy, uh,

really will do what Donald Trump says he wants to do at the FBI. And that message has been sort of falling on deaf ears. You've seen Kash Patel get a good reception on Capitol Hill from Republican senators. This is a concern that a lot of people have, and I think it's just going to happen. Let's take a look at some of the things Kash Patel has said about Liz Cheney. This was back in March of this year, March 11th. Let's watch.

I think they not only knew, but the political monsters like Pelosi, Cheney, Kinzinger, Schiff, et al. wanted that political narrative, which was insurrection. It failed in court, and now it is failing in the court of public opinion because the truth has finally come out that the January 6th committee buried evidence that corroborates what we've been saying for three years.

Jeff Zeleny, what are you hearing from sources when you talk to them about, I mean, Liz Cheney used to be one of their own. She was in the leadership of the House Republican conference. Is this something where, you know, are any House Republicans or Senate Republicans or other Republicans you talk to expressing concern about what might happen here?

Look, I mean, it's been a while since she's been one of their own. You're right. I mean, but time moves quickly here. Now she certainly is not. I mean, what this sort of is another reminder is that there is a sense of litigation in the air. We're seeing it with the president-elect. That is one of his big focuses. We saw it yesterday with his suit against the Des Moines Register and their upholster. 3-11 this morning, as you pointed out, talking about Liz Cheney. So that is the mindset of the president-elect.

But I think overall, a lot of Senate Republicans, House Republicans are really wondering what the balance of forward-looking policy from this White House is going to be versus backward-looking retribution. And we don't know. I mean, but there is a sense that...

The president-elect has a great opportunity here to do things on immigration and the economy and other matters, but he is not as focused on that. So that's the worry I pick up from some Senate Republicans in particular. But, I mean, to Mike's point, they are making it...

pretty easy for him by confirming or likely confirming if they confirm these nominees, including Kash Patel. Yeah. Kristen, is this where you think Trump, not necessarily Trump's core supporters, and we know his mega base often believes a lot of this and would support it, but the reason he won the election is because a lot of people that had voted for Democrats in the past or had, you know, were on the fence or kind of in the middle, who are unhappy about the economy, decided they didn't want to vote for Democrats, they wanted change.

Are those people gonna see this and support it? I mean, or is he risking some of that? And he clearly feels he has a political mandate. Is he risking that strength by going down this road? - Yeah, it was very clear that Donald Trump ran saying,

I'm going to get retribution. I don't think you can say that this is a switcheroo in any way. At the same time, did he win because of it or did he win in spite of it? And I think that's an open question and one that I assume many Republican leaders would say it's probably in spite of it. We'd rather him do the forward looking stuff.

But remember, Republican leaders have been chastened by their own voters over the last four years. You know, it's notable watching those clips of all of these prominent Republicans on January 6th and in the days after condemning Donald Trump for what happened on that day and then ultimately having to walk it back. It's not as though Republican leaders closed ranks around Donald Trump on January 6th.

and said, oh, let's protect him. They were ready to be rid of him. And it was their own voters that said, nope, this is the guy we want. Well, and it was even, I mean, we showed what Kevin McCarthy said, where he, I mean, this subcommittee, and we said this here, so this is January 28th, right? It's just days after he had gone down to the floor and made those remarks that we showed in the open that sort of starts this process of kind of reversing this process

the way that Republicans were thinking about this. Karen Finney, I mean, there has been this question about whether Joe Biden, as the outgoing Democratic president, should preemptively pardon or provide some sort of legal cover to some of the people that were involved in this. I want to show you what Adam Schiff is, obviously somebody else who has mentioned he's...

a Democrat more extensively involved in the Russia investigation that Trump's particularly upset about. This is what Schiff had to say about whether a preemptive pardon would be a good idea. Take a look. I don't think the incoming president should be threatening his political opponents with jail time. That's not the kind of talk we should hear from a president in a democracy, nor do I think that a pardon is necessary for the members of the January 6th committee. We're proud of the work we did on that committee.

what do you think so i think there's a couple things here i think we need to be mindful of number one as we have more votes have been counted donald trump's lead is not as massive as they have been portraying it right democrats actually did a lot better than we were talking about on election night which means

those republicans have to be careful those who have to face voters in two years how much have are they letting him focus backwards versus forwards one of the things we did hear from voters was a concern that he would be more focused on retribution than lowering their prices and he's already admitted

he's not sure if he can lower the price of groceries. That's not gonna bode well come the next couple of months if people are seeing the focus on retribution. Secondly, I think on this issue,

I personally would like to see Joe Biden do a broad-based clemency program. And I'm going to say this because it's so important, looking at people who are nonviolent offenders, who are, if he's going to, I want him to do the other piece, but I think it's critical there's more he can do for people who, there are people who are on death row. There are people who were caught underneath some of the policies that he passed.

At the same time, I think we have to reframe how we're talking about this protective pardons. The only reason we're having this conversation is because Donald Trump is a threat. He's threatening little young women like Cassidy Hutchinson, little 20-something, who went up to Capitol Hill, did her civic duty, and told the truth. How pathetic.

Let's not call her little. I mean, she's not little, but I'm just saying she's a young 20-something. And this old man is going to use the powers of the presidency to go after her for her civic duty. And so I think we have to remember that these people are in danger because he is a threat to their safety and security. Yeah. As I want to wrap up here, Mike, I do want to take one piece of what this House committee is alleging, which is

this witness tampering, this goes back to Cassidy Hutchinson, how Liz Cheney convinced Cassidy Hutchinson to appear before the committee. We saw her at the start of the program actually giving that testimony. Jonathan Turley, who is a conservative lawyer, works with Fox, has said this about this, quote, in my view, Cheney was acting as a member of Congress in this matter. She had an institutional interest

if not a duty, to pursue witnesses. Is he right? I mean, if you talk to people around Liz Cheney, for the last few weeks, they've been speaking very confidently about

essentially bring it on Donald Trump. If you're really going to do this, we believe we have the law on our side. We believe we have the facts on our side. And she would have the money on her side, too. I mean, the problem with these sort of prosecutions is they get very expensive for the people who are being targeted by them. I think Liz Cheney would have...

quite a bit of a legal defense fund. I think the thing to be concerned about is some of these people who are not brand names, who Donald Trump might go after for, you know, anybody who's listed in Kash Patel's book as government gangsters as being a government gangster.

um those people will be i think in the crosshairs and that's something that they should be worried but it also points to the fact that donald trump is going to be in need of a foil with republicans in control of the house and senate who's he going to fight with so having liz cheney to still sort of fight with is something that he can still sort of bring up and make this kind of irrelevant but that is one of his challenges going forward republicans are in control of government

So it's kind of a strange period for trying to find a sparring partner. Going after Cheney is a way to go after these young women. And I think we have to be very clear about how pathetic that would be. All right, coming up here on CNN this morning, no committee assignments, no caucusing with her party. Republican Congresswoman Victoria Sparks joins us to discuss why she believes GOP leadership in Congress is running circuses. Plus, delayed again, those NASA astronauts stranded in space will have to wait

even longer to come back to earth. That's coming up in our morning roundup. And staying in the fight, Kamala Harris urging young voters not to give up. - The true test of our commitment is whether in the face of an obstacle, do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves?

I'm CNN tech reporter Claire Duffy. This week on the podcast, Terms of Service, CNN business economics writer Elizabeth Buchwald, she's going to walk us through what we might want to consider buying now before prices go up under a Trump White House. Once he gets in the Oval Office, he can put tariffs into place. E-bikes are actually made in China. Really anything that just isn't produced in the U.S. Follow CNN's Terms of Service wherever you get your podcasts.

Let's keep fighting for the America we believe in, an America free of injustice, an America that we know can be unburdened by what has been.

Let's keep fighting the words from Kamala Harris back in December of 2019 when she ended her first run for president, dropping out before voting even started in the 2020 Democratic primaries. Now, once again, she's given a pep talk to supporters as her party searches for their next standard bearer. At a gathering of young Democratic leaders in Maryland yesterday, the vice president said, signaled, she wasn't walking away. Folks have said to me that they're not sure whether they have the strength or

much less the desire to stay in the fight. But let me be very clear. No one can walk away. No one can walk away. We must stay in the fight. Every one of us. All right. Karen Finney, uh, clearly Democrats are very demoralized. And even the sort of the, the posture from her in that speech kind of underscored the reality, um, questions about her political future, who the standard bearer may be, uh,

What do you think it does look like for Kamala Harris going forward? I mean, are Isaac DuVern reporting that her aides and team divided between whether she should run for president again or run for governor of California? Yeah, I think some of that is also consultants who would like her to run for California because they want to get the payout quicker. So I'm not so sure that that's the right move. I think those are some of her California advisers.

and also some of those same people are advising Gavin Newsom, so we'll just put the politics out there. Just saying. Personally, you know, I think she should run for president again if she believes she has the...

energy to do it. Do you think she could win the nomination? I do. But I think you have to recognize, I remember, you know, going into the second Clinton, when he was running for re-election, our chief of staff said, it's going to be like, you know, we're going to string you up from your fingernails upside down, you know, from your toenails upside down. That's what it is to run for president. It's true. I mean, it's gotten only harder. But I also think you can't answer that question right now because, you know,

You know, I would take the time, decide, do you have it in you to do it again? I do think she'd win the primary. Here's the main thing. She didn't get to run the race she would want to run. She had 107 days to run, do the best she could with 107 days with a team that was not quite hers, with a strategy that was developed for someone very different. There were very real on the ground consequences.

And frankly, a Democratic Party that had not been talking to voters for three years. It's very much an open question if she would win a primary. I mean, she would certainly be one of the contenders. I think the more immediate question is, what does she do in the next three years before that primary begins? She needs a platform. But I'm thinking back again to...

You know, she's going to be presiding over the Electoral College of defeat of herself. She's going to do it with the grace as Al Gore did. And Al Gore went out in 02 to think about running. He was exploring running. He decided not to. So we will see which

path she decides to go, but she will have a very crowded fight for the nomination. No doubt about it. This is not going to be given to her. All right. Still ahead here on CNN this morning, trying to find out why investigators in Wisconsin are looking into how a 15-year-old girl got the gun used in a deadly school shooting. Plus, according to Trump, Amazon's Jeff Bezos, the latest CEO, heading to Mar-a-Lago to meet with the president-elect. Let us remind each other that we are loved,

that we are valued and we are not alone in this difficult time. All right. Prayers last night for a student and teacher killed in a Wisconsin school shooting. Hundreds came together for a vigil in Madison to honor the lives that were cut short. As CNN's Natasha Chen reports, investigators are following leads trying to figure out why a 15-year-old girl carried out this attack.

Police in Madison, Wisconsin are urgently searching for what led a 15 year old girl to bring a nine millimeter handgun to school and open fire. Investigators say Natalie Rupnow, who went by Samantha, arrived at the Abundant Life Christian School Monday morning and killed a teacher and fellow student and wounded six others before taking her own life. The past 24 hours have been a flurry of emotion, sadness, anger, disappointment,

Grief. Grief as they try to understand why a festive day with students dressed in their holiday pajamas ended with them evacuating a shooting scene. Police Chief Sean Barnes says the motive was a combination of factors and they are looking into everything from possible bullying to her online activity, adding everyone at the school was targeted equally in the shooting.

As for writings related to the shooting that have been circulating online? At this time, we cannot verify the document. We ask that you not share the document or spread any information that may be false. But police are looking for original documents that may have been taken from the shooter's home and speaking to her parents, who they say are cooperative, to determine whether they owned or possessed the gun their daughter allegedly used. I think law enforcement will take the steps necessary, but we don't know nearly enough yet.

Not enough to know whether the parents will face criminal charges. While the police chief says they will look into whether the parents were negligent, he says that does not appear to be the case right now.

Two of the shooting victims remain in critical condition with life-threatening injuries. And police are asking members of the community to respect the privacy of the student and teacher who were killed. That particular teacher, she would have done anything for those kids. She would have been right there. Loved the school, loved her kids, loved teaching. Beautiful lights.

Yeah. That they were beautiful souls. It was at least the 83rd school shooting in the U.S. this year, more than any other year since CNN started tracking school shootings in 2008. There's going to be public debate about the motives and other aspects of this mass shooting. But let us remember this fact. Gun violence is the number one killer of children in this country. That's a legacy we cannot accept. Natasha Chen, CNN, Los Angeles.

Straight ahead here on CNN This Morning. Former students suing elite colleges claiming the schools violated the rules by favoring students of privilege. Plus lawmakers getting a classified briefing on all those mysterious drone sightings. They haven't found anything that would indicate that there's foreign influence, foreign actors or even little green men who are working on the American people.

Welcome back. With just over one month until Donald Trump's second inauguration, the president is riding high as some of America's wealthiest and most powerful flock to Mar-a-Lago. The first term, everybody was fighting me. In this term, everybody wants to be my friend. I don't know. My personality changed or something.

Or something. Among those making the pilgrimage, the world's second richest man, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, a man that Trump has long feuded with. Bezos owns the Washington Post, making him a prime target for Trump's criticism of the media. During the 2016 Republican primary, Trump said this at a campaign rally.

I have respect for Jeff Bezos, but he bought the Washington Post to have political influence. And I got to tell you, we have a different country than we used to have. We have a different, he owns Amazon. He wants political influence so that Amazon will benefit from it. That's not right. And believe me, if I become president, oh, do they have problems. They're going to have such problems.

When Trump took the White House, Amazon did have problems, including losing a $10 billion Pentagon contract to Microsoft. A speechwriter for Defense Secretary Jim Mattis would later write that, quote, the president called Mattis and directed him to, quote, screw Amazon, end quote, out of the opportunity to bid on the contract.

Despite that, perhaps because of that, Bezos approaching Trump very differently this time around. Amazon has announced it will donate a million dollars to Trump's inauguration and livestream the event. And here's what Bezos told the New York Times Dealbook Summit earlier this month. I'm actually very optimistic this time around that we're going to see. I'm very hopeful about this. He seems to have a lot of energy around reducing regulation.

And my point of view, if I can help him do that, I'm going to help him. Kristen Soltis Anderson, it seems fairly obvious what's going on here. What do you think is going on here? So in one sense, it seems obvious, right? People want the president to like them. They don't want to draw his ire. They want to be aligned and be friendly because that leads to good things. But I also think in some ways the Silicon Valley pivot toward Republicans is

is in some ways a little bit overdue. I mean, when you think about the mindset of a lot of these tech founders, it's move fast and break things, innovate, push through the guardrails. It's very antithetical to kind of the way big, bloated government, slow, bureaucratic kind of works. And so I feel like this tension was long going to come. And now that Trump has said, I'm bringing in Elon Musk, we're going to try to do things the Silicon Valley way, I do also think there's a little bit more of a

hey, maybe there's more of a mindset meld here. We can take advantage of this to make government work more the way we want it to work. Is it a mindset meld or, Michael, is it a bro fight between Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos over space? And I would also note, you know, in 2019, Trump called Bezos Jeff Bozo. Bezos wrote back, quote, finally trashed by at real Donald Trump. We'll still reserve him a seat on the Blue Origin rocket. Hashtag send Donald to space.

"Yeah, it's all water under the bridge." - We're a long way from this. - Exactly, that's in the past. Look, I actually did a lot of reporting on that defense contract and what happened to get Donald Trump to throw Amazon on the bus to try to get Microsoft that contract.

And there was a lot of machinations actually by a third company, Oracle, which didn't have a chance at actually getting the contract, but they did know if they could show that Amazon was somehow nefariously trying to get this contract to Donald Trump, that they could get

that they could get Trump to trash Amazon. And that's exactly what happened. I think there's a lot of lessons that Amazon, the other tech companies, learned from that experience and others like it. Amazon's biggest operation in D.C., of course, is government contract. They need to be in this game. That's what's going on. Well, and what you're reporting, and sorry, underscores, Jeff, is

the personal nature of dealing with Donald Trump, right? It's like the last person to talk to him often is the person that can win the day. And I mean, it is remarkable that a CEO's time is extraordinarily valuable. They clearly believe that this is a worthy investment of personal time and energy. It's absolutely worth it. I mean, there are billions of reasons why. But I remember

Back to the first Trump administration, talking with CEOs and people who work for them, they were sort of living in fear that the president would sort of single them out or call out their company from the Oval Office. So they are trying to get on his good side now. And it's pretty easy to do it. Write a check.

go to Mar-a-Lago, kiss the ring. So I think that we'll see what contracts come out of this. But it seems like why not follow the Elon Musk model? It worked very well for him. It seems to be working out well for Elon. He's now apparently worth $500 billion or some absurd amount of money. All right. After the break on CNN this morning, quote, I do not need to be involved in circuses, end quote. Republican

Republican Congresswoman Victoria Sparks gave that explanation when declaring committee assignment declining committee assignments in next year's Congress. She's going to join us next to discuss her decision. Plus, stuck in space. It's already been six months. Their stay extended again. I think the up part is we're here with our friends. We've got a ride home. And, you know, we're looking forward to the next couple of months and doing a lot of stuff for the International Space Station.

We're all excited. I know you're all excited that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have joined us today. This is a new day in Washington and a new day in America. We had a great meeting with Elon. You're in a room of geniuses that are clearly way smarter than you are. Very cordial, very personable, very reachable, very nice. Very nice. Elon Musk clearly impressing some lawmakers during his Capitol Hill visit earlier this month.

One congresswoman now saying she wants his Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, to be her main focus. Representative Victoria Sparks announcing Monday she will not sit on congressional committees or caucus with the GOP in the new Congress until she sees her party's leadership actually governing in the House.

signaling the challenges ahead for Speaker Mike Johnson as he navigates a razor-thin House majority. Joining us now to discuss is Republican Congresswoman Victoria Sparks of Indiana. Congresswoman, thanks for being here. Thank you for having me. So you have said that you are going to refuse committee assignments. You're not going to caucus with the Republican Party.

In the new Congress, the majority is going to be so slim, at least for the first few months, that any single member of the House could derail legislation as it's going through. There are several priorities that the president-elect, Donald Trump, has said that he has for the new Congress. Are you willing to withhold a vote on those priorities?

No, it's actually the opposite. I want to make sure that President Trump's priorities are actually going to happen through Congress. And unfortunately, this institution has been governing. And unfortunately, we are not changing procedures and processes and doing a lot of talking points and messaging, Bill. And it's not just leadership of this House right now. It's been happening already for decades. But ultimately, my party will have to take responsibility.

So I want to make sure that I put pressure on my leadership to govern and deliver on the great ideas that Ilan has, that Vivek has, that President Trump has, and a lot of great people in the administration. That's what matters. Otherwise, it's going to be slow work in all executive orders. You saw what's happened in the last four years, and all executive orders were

eliminated and bad things happen. And this is not a way to govern. We have to do this in Congress and we make sure that President Trump leave his legacy and impact on this great country, which is really in trouble right now. Are you going to support Speaker Mike Johnson's bid for speaker when that comes up for a vote at the beginning of the new Congress?

I haven't decided yet. I'll be honest with you, Mike is a very nice human being. He's a brilliant person. Does it have a strength to reform this institution that is broken? I am not sure, and I haven't seen that. I haven't seen structural reforms that he would do to change this institution.

Because honestly, all of these committees and messaging, you know it very well. It's just for showmanship. It's just to actually raise some money or get on the X you post. It's not really meaningful. You've seen what's happened in recent CR, and there was a committee

chair of Ways and Means was not part of it. You know, even committee chairs don't matter. It's done at four corner deals and then everyone is getting jammed or bought, you know, and this is not the way to govern. That's not what the American people elected us to do. And we had to get attention to this issue. - Have you talked to any other members of the Republican conference, people who are still going to the Republican conference meetings, who might be willing to join you in the event that you decided Mike Johnson wasn't the man for the job?

I mean, there are a lot of different frustrations. People have to decide, and we'll decide as a conference. Honestly, I still work with Republicans very close. I still work and visit people that will be appointed to administration and had a lot of meetings. So I'm going to ensure that my Republicans are going to be great again. My colleague said we'll take mediocre. I really would hope we will be more than mediocre. So I'm working with people.

I just don't need to go there, you know, like they give you one minute for grievances. It's not where decisions are made, you know, in the committees. It's sad. It's a sad reality. It should be made there, but it's not made there. You know, but we'll see. I mean, people have to make decisions and we'll decide as a team and I'll support the team. I just want to make sure that we do something to change the processes and status quo. This institution is totally broken and not serving the people.

Do you plan on supporting the continuing resolution that will fund the government through the holidays and into next year at this point? No, I mean, this is the

great example you know they have the the try to jam us last second because everyone of course wants to live for Christmas holidays you know the right bills without anyone even known what is it put thousands of pages over thousands of pages you know and please you know make sure vote before you know what is in it you know that a typical process you know the only person the most powerful person in Congress is the staffer who wrote the bill in four corners who made the decision you know and Republicans

even not just conservatives, even not conservatives, no one were actually, you know, was advised even what's happening in that bill. They didn't even talk to Republicans. The Speaker went and make a deal with Democrats loaded with pork and bunch of more spending, which is, you know, I would be willing to actually to continue just do a clean CR, but like they just loaded with so much garbage. I mean, this is irresponsible and reckless. And, you know, for people that I represent to continue this fiscal calamity.

All right, Congresswoman Victoria Sparks, very grateful to have you on the program. I hope you'll come back soon. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Of course. All right, 52 minutes past the hour. Here's your morning roundup. Honda and Nissan discussing a possible merger. The two automaking titans didn't release any details of the possible deal, but they did confirm to CNN that Mitsubishi is also part of these talks. Mitsubishi has not commented on that.

President Biden speaking out for the first time about the mysterious drone sightings along the East Coast. Members of the House Intelligence Committee received a classified briefing about the drones yesterday. The government has now reviewed thousands of sightings.

The return of astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sonny Williams pushed back again. They have already spent six months on board the International Space Station. What was supposed to be an eight-day trip delayed by problems with Boeing's Starliner. The astronauts were planning to come home in February. Now NASA says that won't happen until at least late March so that there's "time to complete processing on a new Dragon spacecraft for the mission."

President-elect Trump posting on Truth Social at 3:23 a.m. this morning, "Many Canadians want Canada to become the 51st state. I think it's a great idea." He first raised this idea a few weeks ago during a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The two have been at odds over tariffs. Since that meeting, he has been referring to the Prime Minister as "governor."

Mike Warren, what is, what's his problem with Canada? Hey, he sees an opportunity. Like, he wanted to annex Greenland, you know, maybe, you know, just take over the entire... No, that was apparently vaguely real, but... I mean, look, he also sees Justin Trudeau as sort of in a weak position in, right now, within his own government and is probably just enjoying twisting the knife. Yeah.

All right, let's turn out this story. Some of the nation's top universities overcharged students by $685 million in a price-fixing scheme. That is the claim from former students in a 2022 antitrust lawsuit against Georgetown University, Notre Dame, the University of Pennsylvania, MIT, and 13 other elite schools. According to the Washington Post, the schools, quote, appeared to favor wealthy applicants.

despite their stated policy of accepting students without regard for their financial circumstances, colluding to limit the financial aid packages of working and middle-class students. The Wall Street Journal, citing court records, reports that one Notre Dame enrollment officer wrote this, quote, Wow. Some universities have already offered settlement payments that need to be approved by the court. Um...

I

I'm a little taken aback by the contents of that email. It is so unbelievable that someone, it's the sort of thing that I think a lot of Americans might assume is happening, but to just see it written is so astonishing. And if you are an institution like an institution of higher education, I mean, one of the things that is so striking is we're in this very populist moment where people are very skeptical of institutions, they're skeptical of elites, and this stuff is why. It's things like

this where people who are average working Americans look at those who are supposed to be the smartest and best and brightest who are ruling over all of us and they say, look, they're coming for us. They don't care about us at all. And so it's outside of the realm of politics. It does not divide things right or left. Republicans have always been skeptical of these big colleges and universities. But now I think even progressives, too, are going to take a look and go, are you kidding me?

Oh, progressives, definitely. I mean, having gone to a state school in California where now they are favoring students from out of state because they can charge them more than those of us who are in state who are supposed to have guaranteed opportunity to go to college. Of course. And you're exactly right. Everybody looks at this and thinks, yeah, this is what the wealthy billionaires, this is how the system is rigged. This is how we never get a chance.

And people know that these school people going to these schools are also favored for jobs when they get out of college. Well, and the numbers, I mean, you know, just the sheer numbers, Mike, that are attached to these tuition bills now are, I mean, like,

there are so many people out there who look at those numbers and say, this just is not possible for me, like at all. Like, why would I even try? - I know, I think about it all the time with my young kids. Like, what is it gonna be like in 10, 15 years when my kids are going to college? How much am I gonna have to be- - I thought it was expensive when I went. - So did I, so did I. - And as it turns out, it's now like double that. - It's, and these, you know,

particularly these elite colleges, they're sort of like playgrounds for young adults, you know, people who are going from childhood to young adults. You know, they throw all these very nice dorms and all kinds of interesting packages. What actual education is going on? I'm a little unclear. But look, I mean, this is...

to echo what everybody's been saying, you know, this populist moment, we're seeing it all. And the lack of faith in institutions, I think you're seeing across the board, whether it's government, whether it's elite colleges, whether it's the media, whether it's sort of the healthcare industry, it's all kind of culminating. And all I can say is, as a journalist, I love that these people put this stuff in writing.

I can't imagine why they thought this was a good idea.

Yeah, for sure. All of that. But to a Christmas point, the populist moment here, I mean, this is really, you know, just one more example. So we'll see what happens in the Trump administration. These colleges are already targets for Republicans, right? Like these elite universities over, I mean, anti-Semitism has been really at the top of the list. And a variety of things. I mean, the Middle East, et cetera. But I think it is outrageous. And I think higher ed is likely to face more problems

of a reckoning they have to some degree, but it's going to be a much bigger one, I think, in the coming year. Yeah, for sure. All right. I'll leave you with this. Tom Cruise getting some top honors for Top Gun.

As a thanks for taking all of us on the highway to the danger zone, this is one of my favorite movies of all time, the U.S. Navy awarded Tom Cruise the Distinguished Public Service Award on Tuesday. It is the highest civilian honor that the Navy can bestow. During the ceremony, the Secretary of the Navy praised Cruise's performance in both Top Gun and its sequel for boosting recruitment, saying that his role helped to, quote, inspire generations to serve in our Navy and Marine Corps.

The two movies made more than $1.5 billion, with a B, at the box office globally. When asked about the honor from the Navy, Cruz said, quote, I'm happy I've been able to be a source of inspiration to many of the sailors who served today or have served in the past. The need, the need for speed. Boom!

Mike's over here high-fiving. I can do this entire movie, okay? Every single line. Your mouth is running checks your butt can't catch, right? All right, you're right, Iceman. I am dangerous, right? Anyone else? No? We only got two participants in this game. All right, fine. Thank you guys very much for playing ball today, and thanks to all of you at home for joining us as well. I'm Casey Hunt. CNN News Central starts right now.

Welcome to Times Square. Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen are back together to ring in the New Year. Best night of my life! And anything could happen. Oh my gosh! So good! That's perfect TV! New Year's Eve Live starts at 8 on CNN. This holiday season, find the perfect gift at CNN Underscored. From the latest fashion, to expert-approved tech, to the best beauty finds. Discover it all at Underscored.com.