Clock Ticks for TikTok
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It's Friday, January 17th, right now on CNN This Morning. I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok.

The clock's ticking. How one of Donald Trump's now favorite social media apps looking for a Hail Mary to save it from being banned in the U.S. A deal reached. Israel confirms a ceasefire and hostage release agreement with Hamas, but deadly bombardments still pound Gaza. We've achieved the most incredible political thing. Look what happened. Is this crazy?

A second chance Trump readies to take the oath of office again. We'll talk to Democratic Senator Ron Wyden about how his party is trying to flip the script on this administration. And... I said, you want it? Why not? Aligning the stars, Sylvester Stallone, among those the president-elect is calling on to be special ambassadors to Tinseltown.

All right, it is 6 a.m. here on the East Coast. A live look at the Capitol Dome. Rehearsals, preparations have been well underway for the inauguration in and around that building as Washington prepares for the inauguration of Donald Trump for the second time. Good morning, everyone. I'm Casey Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us. Happy Friday. In just hours, the Supreme Court expected to release its latest opinions, including one that might determine the fate of one of America's favorite apps.

is now on TikTok. It's my honor. Hello, everybody. I'm having a lot of fun here. Well done. Yo. I'm going to say it's TikTok.

Without intervention from the nation's highest court, the ban on TikTok should go into effect on Sunday, though it does seem that one of Joe Biden's last acts as president may be to punt on the issue. The Associated Press reporting Biden will not enforce the ban and a White House official telling CNN Biden also won't use his authority to issue a 90-day stay that's part of the law. The decision will be left to his successor.

and sources close to President-elect Donald Trump say he's considering granting an extension. Here was Trump's incoming national security advisor, Mike Waltz. - We will put measures in place to keep TikTok from going dark. And the legislation allows for an extension as long as a viable deal is on the table. And then, you know, essentially that buys President Trump time to keep TikTok going.

If Trump can buy time, who can buy TikTok? The first possibility, one of Trump's closest allies. The Wall Street Journal reports this, quote, Chinese officials have internally discussed options, including the possibility of allowing a trusted non-Chinese party, such as Elon Musk, to invest in or take control of TikTok's U.S. operations. People familiar with the discussions said.

As the world's richest man, Musk could easily afford TikTok's price tag, which Forbes reports would be in the $40 to $50 billion range. That is how much Musk paid for Twitter in 2022. Last year, Musk came out against a TikTok ban. He wrote this, quote, in my opinion, TikTok should not be banned in the USA, even though such a ban may benefit the X platform. Doing so would be contrary to freedom of speech and expression. It is not what America stands for, end quote.

Musk has not commented on the Wall Street Journal report, and a representative for TikTok's owner, ByteDance, told the paper that it was, quote, pure fiction. So could there be another billionaire Trump ally out there who might be interested? Hey, Ms. Wonderful here. Everybody's asking me, why do you want to save TikTok? Because it's good for American business. That's why my companies use it. It's the best way right now to acquire customers. So we don't want to turn it off. We don't want it to go dark. We can make it even better. As I like to say, let's make TikTok wonderful again.

Joining us to discuss Mark Preston, CNN senior political analyst. Alex Thompson, CNN political analyst, national political reporter for Axios. Kate Bedingfield, CNN political commentator and a former communications director for the Biden White House. And Brad Todd, CNN political commentator and a Republican strategist.

Welcome to all of you. Thank you so much for being here. I kind of want to underscore how we got here and why this is such a flip-flop. Let's watch what Donald Trump said. This is him going back and forth and back and forth because if you'll remember, this whole thing was actually originally his idea. Watch.

We're looking at TikTok. We may be banning TikTok. We may be doing some other things. It'll either be closed up or they'll sell it. So we'll either close up TikTok in this country for security reasons. I'm going to save TikTok. Biden wants to get rid of TikTok. You know why? Because he has no idea.

I'm now a big star on TikTok. I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok because I won youth by 34 points. I think that's a big, you know, a big credit to TikTok. So I'm not opposed to TikTok.

Brad Todd, how did we get here? Well, Donald Trump is a creature of pop culture and nothing is more pop culture than TikTok. And I think he's also attracted... But that was true in 2020. It is true. It is true, but it's still a villain on the right. And so he has torn between this desire to please the right, which definitely sees TikTok as a legitimate national security risk and villain, and

And something that's cool. And I think he's also a little bit attracted to the fact that it's an outcast among social media platforms. It's the black sheep. It may be the only platform he's not been banned or suspended on, too, for that matter. He may like that about it.

I do think in the end, Republicans on Capitol Hill still have great concern. We don't let government devices use TikTok for a reason. It's because the Chinese Communist Party sucks in all the data and does who knows what with it. So I think that Donald Trump has a tough road with Republicans in Congress on this. And I'll just add to that. A lot of the people that Trump has appointed are China hawks.

people that have, you know, in the past previously, you know, spoken out against TikTok. And there's going to be an internal divide within this incoming administration about what to do about that. Let's watch what Mark Warner, who's, of course, has been, he's the outgoing Senate chairman of the Intelligence Committee, had to say about this. Take a look. I don't get it. 80% of the Congress, Democrats and Republicans, agreed that TikTok is a huge national security concern.

And the irony in all this was Donald Trump was the first guy to point out this problem. Matter of fact, his administration had to convince me. Well, and Kate Bedingfield, now also the Biden team, seems to be

willing to go along with letting Trump do what he wants to do about this. Well, I think the Biden team is saying we're out of here on Sunday and this is now your problem. I mean, I don't think this is a I don't think they're making a statement of policy so much as saying this is a thorny issue. And, you know, guess what? When you become president United States, this is your problem. But I have to think, unfortunately, the Chinese government is probably salivating watching

our government fall all over itself to try to walk back this policy that 80% of Congress thought was necessary. And by the way, the data concerns and the concerns about the Chinese government having influence over the algorithm that is determining what young people across this country are seeing, those concerns are still there. There's the political issue that Donald Trump believes that TikTok helped him win the election, and it probably did.

But should that override the concern about giving the Chinese government undue influence on the minds of kids all over the country? I would argue it should not, but that's where we are. We agree. We do. We do. But I'm confused. So I'm confused that Marco Rubio is somebody who was supposed to be carrying on the policy of Donald Trump over the next four years as his Secretary of State, yet he's against TikTok.

Donald Trump is for TikTok. We know Donald Trump gets what he wants. The head of TikTok is going to sit in a seat of distinguished whatever on the dais on Monday. I'm confused. Why is it? I guess I'm confused with Republicans. Why is it OK to not have it on government devices, but it's OK to put it on our children's devices? I don't understand.

I think most Republican policymakers would agree with you that we should not have it on either government devices or on our kids' devices. And I think in the end, TikTok's in trouble in the United States over this. The policymakers are not going to drop their concerns. If they get a 90-day reprieve here, this is not the end of the story.

Are your guys' kids addicted to TikTok? Oh, my God. That's where they get their news is from 19, 20-year-olds. I mean, that is the biggest story right now. I know everyone's focused on the inauguration. I mean, if you're between the ages of like 12 and 32, you're focused on what's happening to TikTok over the next couple days. There's no TikTok in my house.

Oh, God, listen to you. Dad, Brad over here. Land down, not the Chinese government. Oh, man. All right, coming up here on CNN this morning, a SpaceX fail. What went wrong when Elon Musk's giant spacecraft exploded in the skies mid-flight? Plus, President Biden's warning about oligarchy in his farewell address. We'll discuss live with Democratic Senator Ron Wyden. And the coldest air of the year blowing into D.C. just in time for the inauguration.

-An arctic blast is about to slam the country, and it could make Monday the coldest inauguration ceremony in 40 years. There's a real chance Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg's lips could all freeze to Trump's butt. -That is true. That might happen.

I'm CNN tech reporter Claire Duffy. This week on the podcast Terms of Service, Gary Shulthorn, an attorney in Philadelphia, was driving to work one morning when his cell phone rang. Dad, I'm in trouble. They arrested me. By the time I got to the bank, my phone rang. It's my son. Dad, you've been scammed. Since then, the technology behind voice cloning has only gotten more convincing. Follow CNN's Terms of Service wherever you get your podcasts.

This place used to be considered a check and a balance on the power of the president. That's why we exist. And the message just went out that if you check this president, you're fired. House Democrats this week sounding the alarm over a Republican shakeup atop a powerful committee. Congressman Mike Turner of Ohio was informed he will no longer be chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Turner has largely backed Trump on an array of issues, but has notably broken with the president-elect on some topics like funding for Ukraine.

Another issue that may have drawn Trump's ire this moment from 2019 when Turner was one of only a handful of Republicans who were critical of Trump's phone call with Ukraine's president, the call that eventually led to Trump's first impeachment. I've read the complaint and I've read the transcript of the conversation with the president and the president of Ukraine. Concerning that conversation, I want to say to the president, this is not OK.

That conversation is not okay. And I think it's disappointing to the American public when they read the transcript. The speaker, Mike Johnson, says his decision to remove Turner from his post is not related to any conversations with Donald Trump. New Congress, we just keep fresh horses in some of these places. This is not a President Trump decision. This is a House decision. And this is no slight whatsoever to our outgoing chairman. He did a great job.

but congressman turner does not seem to agree with that characterization cbs news reporting that turner told them this quote house speaker mike johnson fired him citing quote concerns from mar-a-lago and quote turner also confirmed wednesday night that he had been removed from the committee

entirely. Brad Todd, this is the Wall Street Journal editorial board, takes significant issue with this. They also take issue with Tulsi Gabbard and they sort of tie those two issues together. But they write, Mr. Turner's been one of Mr. Johnson's main supporters in the conference. The speaker is sending the wrong message about the rewards of loyalty. It's one thing for the speaker to let Mr. Trump dictate to him on policy, but control over House leadership should be the speaker's prerogative and his ouster of Turner is a sign of weakness.

I disagree. First off, Mike Johnson came into this Congress as Speaker after, in midterm last time. He was not involved in selecting the Chairman of any committees last time. He was a backbench member. This time he is in charge. The Speaker has wide latitude to pick the Chairman of committees.

It's only right that Mike Johnson have a little bit more latitude to pick the chairman. And by the way, if he deems that part of the reason to pick that chairman is to cooperate with the Senate Intel chairman, Donald Tom Cotton, who is from Arkansas, same state as Rick Crawford, who's going to be the new chairman of Intel is from, that's his right. If he wants to pick someone who can work with the administration, that's his right. I think this is a completely legitimate move by him. And Turner's not the most popular member of the Republican conference. That's probably playing into this, too.

Mark Cresson. That's his right. But the reality is that when they set up the government, when the founders set up the government, there were three equal, you know, separate branches of government. And right now, that doesn't exist in Washington, D.C. Donald Trump controls the legislative branch right now. He controls the executive branch. And some would argue he also controls the Supreme Court right now. So this town is entirely run by Republicans. And Mike Turner, there was never a...

as far as him being removed, Johnson didn't give any reason why he was removed. It seemed like Turner was doing a fairly good job at a pretty volatile time right now in our foreign policy. Well, I was going to say, Dad, that I think concerns from Mar-a-Lago is going to be a phrase we're going to repeat a lot.

over the next four years. And Mike Johnson is also, to the broader context, there's a little bit of a competition between who has more influence over Donald Trump, Mike Johnson or Senator John Thune on the Senate side. And you're going to see both of them trying to cater to Donald Trump over who can lead legislative strategy. This goes both ways.

Donald Trump needs Mike Johnson. Mike Johnson needs Donald Trump. They're going to end up collaborating and compromising on some of these things. But I will go back again. Tom Cotton's the new chairman of Senate Intel. Brand new situation there. His delegation mate is now Rick Crawford, going to be the chairman of House Intel. This is a better thing for the United States security. It is true that the leaders of the Congress are going to work with the president of the United States. But what is unique about this situation is that in Donald Trump, you have a president who has

flouted political norms has flouted constitutional norms and go back to the underlying issue that seems to be at play here which is turner's criticism of Trump getting on the phone and behaving in a way that runs counter to historically the way a president would conduct himself and I think the idea that Mike Johnson is going to kowtow to Trump and by putting somebody in place who will stand back and say it's fine for Donald Trump to

put his own political interests, this kind of actually ties in some ways to this conversation we were just having, put his own political interests ahead of the security interests of the United States, that's a problem. This is not a normal situation.

situation where you have leaders in Congress trying to work with a president, you have a president demanding leaders who are not going to hold him accountable for behavior that is potentially dangerous to the interests of the United States of America. This is the Intel Committee, though. This is not an oversight committee. These are people who are supposed to work with the agencies and administrations. Well, no, it is supposed to be. They do have a very strong oversight role in the wake of the Church Committee and other things. Yes, that's true. But John Radcliffe is a former House Republican.

And Mike Walsh is a former House Republican. I think it's fair for the administration to say we would like to have people on the Intel Committee who we're comfortable with and who we can work with. All right. Coming up next, Israel and Hamas reach a deal for a ceasefire and the remaining hostages, even as more Israeli airstrikes kill dozens of civilians in Gaza. Plus, Trump names names the actors who will be special ambassadors for him in Hollywood. See? All done. Roger. Yeah.

Grab that cat. All right, welcome back. An Arctic blast over the Northeast and the nation's capital. This is my least favorite story today. Likely to give Donald Trump the coldest inauguration in 40 years. Meteorologist Derek Van Dam here to break it all down. Derek, to be clear, my dislike of this story is personal and not political in any way, shape, or form. Got you. It just means we're all going to be really cold on Monday. Tell us about it.

- Least favorite story to deliver, but happy to hear it from this individual, right? Okay, we'll go with that. - I love you, yes. - I'm thinking about all the VIPs, the dignitaries, the media who will be outdoors covering this, the general public who will line the National Mall. I mean, this is a significant,

And this is some of the coldest air that we've experienced since 2022. And that's really saying something. So if we go stack up all the previous inaugurations, we have to go back to the 80s. That is Ronald Reagan era, the second time he was inaugurated.

to go back to the coldest ever inauguration. So we're actually comparing it to that. So we're going way deep back in the records. We anticipate that noontime temperature to be about 22 degrees. That's the actual temperature. You factor in the wind, it's a whole different story. We'll get to that in just a second. Arctic air. Yeah, that's a lot of purple. That is a lot of cold. And it's not just casual cold. We're talking about the potential for dangerous cold, especially throughout the Midwest.

the Great Lakes and yes, all the way to the east coast. So this is sunday. Look at D. C. 12 degrees that is for monday around the inauguration time. That is the windshield. That is what it will feel like on your skin as you step outside to make matters even more interesting, more complicated, worse, better whichever way you look at it. Half glass, half empty, half full. We've got a snowstorm on sunday that will blanket D. C. To new york and boston with a fresh layer of snow behind it. That's when the cold arctic air settles in.

And yeah, you might not actually see the mercury rise above the freezing mark until Friday of next week. Good luck, Casey. Terrific. Our city is so good at, I don't know if you've ever been down here for inauguration, Derek. Moving around this town is absolutely impossible when they're underway. And if we have three inches of snow on the ground the night before, we are not exactly very good at that either. It is going to be a total mess.

Derek Van Dam, thank you. I really appreciate it. All right, still ahead here on CNN This Morning, with Donald Trump returning to power in just a matter of days, how are Democrats approaching his second term in office? Senator Ron Wyden joins us live to discuss his personal philosophy about fighting for change in a polarized Washington. Plus, cryptocurrency gets ready for a moment in the spotlight with an inaugural ball and a special guest.

With so much drama in the LBC, it's kind of hard being Snoop D-O-double G. But I, somehow, someway, keep coming up with funky...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirming a ceasefire deal with Hamas that would release the hostages. But even as a security cabinet meeting is underway to approve the deal and a full cabinet vote is set for Saturday, Israeli bombs have not stopped falling on Gaza. Gaza's civil defense says airstrikes have killed at least 86 people, including 23 children. Israel says they were targeting terrorists. In the U.S., both President Biden and President-elect Trump taking credit for the deal.

I told him what I was doing, what I thought could happen. But what we did, we brought in the people or his gonna be his national security people. We brought them in closer to tell them what was happening as we hand this off. We're so ungracious of Biden to say, he did it, he didn't do anything. If I didn't do this, if we didn't get involved, the hostages would never be out. They would have never come out. And CNN's Bionna Golodryga is joining us live now from Tel Aviv with the latest. Bionna, good morning.

Good morning, Casey. So as you noted, the security cabinet is meeting right now. A full cabinet vote is expected tomorrow. This deal is expected to pass. It has overwhelming support among the government's cabinet right now, despite some hurdles that we saw yesterday with far right security, national security issues.

head, Idmar Ben-Gvir, saying that he would resign effectively from this government if this deal actually went through. There are others on the far right, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who's also spoken out against this deal. He has threatened to leave if after phase one of the deal that Israel is not allowed to go back

into Gaza that he has threatened to leave this government. Nonetheless, as I noted, overwhelming support. The prime minister's office here stating that subject to the approval of the cabinet and the government and the implementation of the agreement, the release of the hostages could take place according to the planned outline.

with hostages expected to be released as early as Sunday. And among those hostages are women and the elderly men over the age of 50, including American Keith Siegel. I spoke with his brother Lee and asked him how this moment is feeling for him right now. Plus, genuinely, until all 98 hostages are home, I have a part of me that

There's a hole. Keith is going to fill a big, huge part of that hole for all of us, our entire family. But we all know that without 98 hostages coming home, something's missing. Israel is not able to get back into a routine of looking to the future where we're in recovery. They all need to be home.

And that is the sentiment shared by almost everyone here in Israel. There is high anticipation and excitement at the fact that we will start to see hostages hopefully released on Sunday. But as we heard from Lee Siegel, the concern is once this first phase ends, whether or not both sides could agree to move on to phase two, where the remaining hostages would be released. All Israel is hoping and counting on the return of all 98 hostages after 15 months.

in captivity, Casey. All right, Biana Golodryga for us with that. Biana, thank you so much for your reporting. I really appreciate it.

All right, let's turn out of this story. As President Joe Biden prepares to leave office, he's making a pitch for his economic legacy, in particular, his investments in infrastructure. You may remember last year, his former chief of staff, Ron Klain, reportedly said this about how Biden talked about those bipartisan achievements on the campaign trail. Quote, I think the president is out there too much talking about bridges. He does two or three events a week where he's cutting a ribbon on a bridge. If you go into a grocery store and you know milk and eggs are expensive, the fact that there's an effing bridge is not...

I think that it doesn't get covered that much because look, it's an effing bridge. And yet in the final days of his presidency, Biden has kept coming back to bridges. The mistake we made was, I think I made, was not getting our allies to acknowledge that the Democrats did this. So for example, no new billion dollar bridge over the river. We'll call it the Democratic bridge, figuratively speaking. Talk about who put it together.

let people know that this was something the Democrats did. I almost spent too much time on the policy, not enough time on the politics.

And new this morning, the New York Times reporting on a private and reportedly emotional meeting between Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and President Biden that happened on July 13th. That was a little over two weeks after Biden's disastrous debate performance. The Times reporting that Schumer told the president, quote, if you run and you lose to Trump and we lose the Senate and we don't get back the House, that 50 years of amazing, beautiful work goes out the window, Mr. Schumer said. But worse, you're

You go down in American history as one of the darkest figures. And he would end with a directive. If I were you, Mr. Schumer said, I wouldn't run. And I'm urging you not to run. Joining us now is Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon. He is the ranking member on the Senate Finance Committee and also the author of the new book, It Takes Chutzpah, It Takes Chutzpah, How to Fight Fearlessly for Progressive Change. Senator, good morning. Thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having me back. Congratulations on the book.

I do want to start with this new bombshell at New York Times reporting and a little bit more of what they put into their story. It was July 13th, 2024, a humid summer afternoon just before four. Mr. Schumer, the Democratic leader of the Senate, was about to make a blunt case

to Mr. Biden that he needed to drop his bid for a second term. If there were a secret ballot among Democratic senators, Mr. Schumer would tell the president no more than five would say he should continue running. What is your reaction to this? And did you feel at this time

that the president should have stopped his bid? - Well, first of all, Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden have a long relationship. Chuck was a credible and persuasive connection because they go back to the years working on Judiciary Committee issues. That was a real common bond for him.

So I think that was the right move for Senate Democrats to reach out through Senator Schumer. I will tell you, and I've thought a lot about this too, I'm having town hall meetings this weekend at home. I've had 1,100 of them. And I've said to my staff,

The day that I can't do these open to all town hall meetings, stand there, take unscripted questions for an hour and a half, I've got to do something else. And clearly that was part of this. I think that the White House hadn't had Joe Biden out there doing those kinds of sessions and we saw the consequences.

Did you feel at the time when Biden was still running for president, before that debate performance, that he was up to the job? Did you have any concerns ahead of time? During the first days of the term, we worked very closely together, and he was on the program. You know, I wrote the biggest investment in fighting climate change in American history. It's in the book, "Picking the Long Game."

President Biden was with us every single step of the way. We said we're going to reward people who reduce carbon. We're going to have an effort to lower energy prices. It stood together. He was all in. But clearly, after that big package went through in the first couple of years, I think he was not out on the trail as much, not in part of those spontaneous discussions. And it showed.

Do you blame him for Democrats losing the White House? Do you blame his decision to run for reelection? Look, this was very personal and everybody understood it. Obviously, it would have been better if he had made the judgment earlier because on certain kinds of issues like food prices, for example, there's discussion about what to talk about. I told everybody the focus has to be on those issues where the second word is bill.

It might be medical bill, it might be gas bill, it might be rent bill. That's what people are talking about. We're dealing with inflation. That message got lost.

Did you know that Schumer had had this meeting? Was this done with the knowledge of your colleagues and the support of your colleagues? Generally. I mean, certainly Senator Schumer talks to all of us. The big joke is he knows all of our phone numbers by heart. So yes, there was no question that he was going to do this, that he was the person to do it. Those years of working together, particularly on judicial issues and the judiciary committees, made him a good fit for it. And you were supportive of it? Yes.

Let's talk a little bit about your book. You mentioned it's called It Takes Chutzpah, and you have a number of rules of chutzpah that you kind of walk through. One of them is...

Rule number four, it's show up every day prepared to play. And it's in a chapter that you have about bouncing back. And that, of course, very relevant to where Democrats find themselves politically today. What lessons do you have in the book that you think your party should be applying today? Well, first of all, everybody needs to know what chutzpah is. It's grit chutzpah.

and nerve, and frankly, it's America at its best. - It's a great word, I have to say. It says a lot in just a few letters. - If you think about it, the original proponents were the founding fathers because they took on the British, they told them to go fly a kite. That's American history, and we really need it now more than ever because we've got huge economic challenges. We're gonna have to cope with AI and technology. I came to the United States Senate when only Pat Leahy knew how to run a computer,

I got a chance to write some of the early laws, the digital signatures law. People following this probably signed contracts today with the digital signatures law. So this is a crucial time. And I tell everybody, you've got inner chutzpah. Everybody's got it. And my rules are designed to help you polish the chutzpah and make a difference. So at this point,

the other thing I wanted to touch on with you before I let you go is what Biden said the other night in his farewell address, talking about the tech industry, oligarchs running the tech industry. Has it gotten out of hand? Do you share his concerns? - Well, I think the tax code is broken, and that's what he was really talking about. You know, I made the point that the tax code

that we want a tax code that gives everybody in America the chance to get ahead. Well, firefighters and teachers, they pay taxes with every paycheck. If you're a billionaire and you've got good lawyers and accountants, you can figure out what you're going to pay, when you're going to pay it,

Essentially, you can go for years on end if you buy, borrow, and die paying little or nothing. We need to have a system that gives everybody in America a chance to get ahead. Bill Bradley, great basketball player, and I've been working on this for years. That's the way that America will be stronger, and we have to have the chutzpah

Take on those powerful tax lobbyists and get these reforms. All right, Senator Ron Wyden, I'm so grateful to have you on the program today. Thanks for having me. Thanks so much for having a conversation. Congratulations on the book. And the book is It Takes Chutzpah. It is out now. You can buy it at the Strand Bookstore, which is a family, a Wyden family business, a beloved institution in New York City. All right, straight ahead here on CNN This Morning, Donald Trump's inauguration set for Monday with all the titans of tech in attendance and a few notable absences. My

Michael Smirconish will be here to discuss. Plus, SpaceX failed that Starship rocket that caused some significant problems at airports. This is not right. Something happened. This exploded. This thing has exploded.

We're taking on some of the most unique and challenging projects we've ever done. I definitely want a catio. A what? Have you ever heard of a catio? No, I haven't. For Dave and Jenny Mars, the bigger the challenge. An old lodge. How much work does it need? A lot. We have today and today only to do it. The greater the reveal. Oh my God. Fixer to Fabulous, all new Tuesday night at 8. See it first on HGTV. Stream next day on Max.

-On Monday at noon, Trump will take the oath of office. Then, Adam Habit will put his hand on the Bible, sign it, and then try to sell it for Bitcoin.

Donald Trump's second inauguration is just days away from the guest list to the performances. His 2025 return to Washington is shaping up to be much different than his 2017 welcome. On Monday, attendees will be treated to performances by Carrie Underwood and the Village People, the band behind one of Trump's favorite campaign tunes, also expected to attend.

the world's top tech leaders, including Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and TikTok CEO, Xiao Chu. Their attendance coming as President Biden warns of an emerging tech industrial complex with a dangerous concentration of power and wealth. In his first inaugural address, however, Donald Trump accused a different group of the very same thing.

For too long, a small group in our nation's capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost. Washington flourished, but the people did not share in its wealth.

My panel is back to discuss more about this. Kate Bedingfield, Trump's second inauguration, indeed going to be a much different reception than 2017. Yeah, it will be interesting to see what kind of tone he strikes in his speech on Monday. Obviously the first, everybody remembers American carnage and this kind of very dark...

vision of where the country is. We heard a lot of that from him on the campaign trail. But now he takes the reins. And so it will be interesting to see if he uses this as a moment to try to appeal to people who maybe didn't vote for him. I'm not sure I've ever seen Donald Trump really do that, but it might be smart of him to do it. So let's see. That's one thing I'm going to be looking for.

But I think there is also this question, he's in this unique space where he is an incumbent president in many ways, but he also doesn't, he's trying to present himself as change, as a new direction. Can he thread that line or is he gonna feel like somebody who was once railing against the tech elites and has now invited them to sit on the dais with him? It's gonna be interesting to see how he navigates that line.

Brad, can he be, you know, mourning in America? Are we going to get mourning in America, Donald Trump, or American carnage? Well, he's a lot more prepared to be president than he was in 2017. He has a lot more clear idea of what he wants to do. I think it's also important that he doesn't look like he's going to be greeted with 250,000 protesters the next day. I think it set his administration back.

that the Democrats just absolutely treated him as an illegitimate president in 2017 and protested him from the very first day. I think that was a big setback for his administration. That's not happening this time. I think that bodes well. - Yeah, to Brad's point, there is no Woman's March planned for the day after this inauguration. The other thing is Trump has also been very, you know, has been obsessed

with how his first inauguration looked. Especially the crowd sizes, but everything about it. And, you know, he's a long phone, you know, you had Sean Spicer come out the day after and be like, this is the biggest inauguration in history. But,

But they've raised $500 million for this inauguration. And it's going to be very interesting to see as someone that's as image obsessed as Donald Trump is how it looks. Yeah, that's how it looked back in 2017 on the mall. You know, for all the pomp and circumstance that's going to happen on Monday morning, as it should, and he should revel in the success that he's had, the reality is it's going to be what happens like three or four hours later when he starts signing executive orders.

And then if they start putting in place some of these things, such as are we going to round people up, put them in detention camps, and then send them home? I mean, I think there's going to be immediate whiplash on Monday from people being like, oh, wow, like, oh, my God, what is happening here? Immediately. All right. Well, so speaking of...

where Donald Trump stands going into this, the president-elect is seeing more positive ratings heading into his second inauguration than he did the first time around. According to a new CNN poll, 46% of Americans view Trump favorably. That's his best number since just after the 2016 election. The same survey determined President Joe Biden's approval rating sits at a low of 36% right now. Despite that, he is defending his administration's record in a new exit interview.

I got a lot of criticism. Understandably, we've invested more in red states than blue states. That's in this book. That's in this report. For two reasons. One, red states really screwed up in terms of the way they handle their economy and the way they handle manufacturing, the way they handle access to supply chains.

Joining us now to discuss, because it's Smirconish Friday, is CNN's Michael Smirconish. Michael, good morning. Wonderful to see you. Good morning. I honestly would just kind of take your reaction to how President Biden is handling this on his way out. I mean, he clearly is very defensive of his administration and is having a tough time saying goodbye.

So why are incoming President Trump's numbers for him so high? I think it's because of where outgoing President Biden's numbers are. As you've been pointing out, both in terms of job approval and favorability, they're related, but they're two distinct entities. Biden is leaving at an all-time low, 36% job approval. He's got a favorability of 33%. Donald Trump's numbers exceed in each of those categories. I think it's because of a comparison between

of Trump versus Biden at this low point. Here's the silver lining for outgoing President Joe Biden. When Jimmy Carter left office, he had a 34 percent job approval rating in 2023 when voters were asked, when Americans were asked retrospectively,

how they regarded President Carter, he had a 57% approval. And probably at the time of his passing, most recently, it would have been even higher. What's my point? My point is these things are fluid.

Well, I mean, look, your point is actually made by the fact that, you know, people felt one way when Donald Trump left office and it only took four years for them to decide, well, actually, that wasn't so bad. Our memory has changed. Michael, I want to ask you about this story that The New York Times just posted. It it really walks through. It's it's it's an extra from a book or reporting for a book from two of their journalists.

Walking through Senator Chuck Schumer, the then Senate majority leader's role in pushing Joe Biden off the stage. They detail a meeting that he had with Biden the week before Biden ultimately decided to drop out. But there's an interesting piece in it about

what Schumer and, you know, I'm very interested in your take, but clearly there's an effort here to try to write the story about the way that Democrats didn't expose what was going on with President Biden at the time. Because here's what

They report, they say, quote, for months, Mr. Schumer had been concerned that Mr. Biden was going to lose to Mr. Trump and cost Democrats Congress. It wasn't that he thought Mr. Biden was not capable of the job during their weekday conversations. The president often rambled, but he always rambled. Once in a while, Mr. Biden would forget why he had called. But Mr. Schumer thought little of it. He was convinced that Mr. Biden could handle the job.

But with the Republican messaging machine deriding him relentlessly as old and senile, Democrats were hard pressed to land any attacks on Mr. Trump. Long before the president's disastrous debate performance, Mr. Schumer had privately concluded that the barrier of Mr. Biden's age was too much for him to overcome. What's going on here? Is this revisionist history and this detail about Biden calling the majority leader and forgetting why?

So I have a couple of thoughts about this. First of all, probably Schumer is familiar with the data that you and I have just discussed, right? They were looking at internal numbers all along and seeing that it was probably an unwinnable race. And secondly, I'm convinced there's a whole backstory here. We've never been told about the machinations of the Democratic leadership before.

and how President Biden was actually forced out of the election. I mean, can I remind everybody that George Clooney, not Chuck Schumer, not Barack Obama, not Nancy Pelosi, it was George Clooney writing that opinion piece that was a catalyst for the domino effect that then caused President Biden to step aside and get out of the race. I've always believed that we've never been told everything that went on, and with all the warning signs that

triggered the alarm bells were. And I just hope the story comes out, not in a negative way toward President Biden. I'm not, you know, hoping for him being besmirched, but I just think we don't know everything and we ought to. Yeah, it's history for sure. Briefly, Michael, I want to get to this because it's interesting to me. Eric Adams, the indicted mayor of New York, is going to go meet with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago. What do you think that's about? Well,

Oh, my God. Pardon me. I think we all know what it's about. I think that that Monday, Tuesday is just going to be so difficult to maintain pace with the amount of news that will come out of the new Trump White House. And I would be shocked amidst all the executive orders if there weren't a ton of pardons, including Jay Sixers. By the way, that really troubles me.

So I think that the mindset is probably one of get rid of the pardons, deal with them. Maybe Eric Adams, maybe not, because there'll be so many other things going on that the media is going to be consumed with so much news that it wouldn't have the impact that it would at a different time, say, if he did it six weeks in advance. So buckle up for Monday and Tuesday.

Yeah, good advice. Michael Smirconish, thank you as always. Wonderful to see you on this Friday. Thank you, Casey. Everyone out there, don't forget to watch Michael Smirconish tomorrow morning on CNN. Thank you. All right, let's turn out of this. Donald Trump making a very important personnel announcement over Truth Social last night.

It is my honor to announce John Voight, Mel Gibson and Sylvester Stallone to be special ambassadors to a great but very troubled place, Hollywood, California. Wow, Braveheart Rambo and the Midnight Cowboy, he summoned the three horsemen of the apocalypto to save us. In other words, Trump saw the Expendables 3 on his plane last night and is like.

All right, Donald Trump tapping those three actors to serve as, quote, special envoys to me for the purpose of bringing Hollywood, which has launched much business over the last four years, to foreign countries and to be his, quote, eyes and ears. Mel Gibson telling Variety that he was, quote, just as surprised as anyone else. Any chance the position comes with an ambassador's residence, the Braveheart star added. Of course, he's been through a lot in the last few days. As for the Stallone pick, well, we know Trump loves winners. ♪♪

And so, Mark Preston, this is one of those things. We know Donald Trump, ever since he, you know, the kid from Queens, wanted to be accepted. Hollywood has never accepted him. There are a few who have. They're going to be the new, quote unquote, ambassadors. But we are seeing some movement among celebrities as well. I mean, Carrie Underwood's performing.

It's a little bit of a change. Gavin DeGraw. Yeah, you know what we're seeing, too? We're seeing the definition of Hollywood has expanded from beyond the traditional L.A. actors, right? It is now influencers. It is folks on YouTube and what have you. I think you're going to see a lot more people start to come out for Trump because they feel comfortable with it. I'd also just add a little twist on what you said, which is that Hollywood used to love Donald Trump. Oh, boy. Yeah.

And then he sort of feels they turned on him. And so this is a way of trying to win them back when they're approved back. Can I just say quickly that we also should not forget Mel Gibson has used the N-word. He has said all sorts of anti-Semitic things. I mean, look, it's Donald Trump's right to not pick whoever he wants to be as ambassadors to Hollywood. But I don't think we should lose sight of the fact that Mel Gibson has a really troubling history.

We pick ambassadors to foreign countries and Hollywood is about as foreign from middle America as you can get. So I think we need to think about some foreign relations with Hollywood after this is over with. Maybe cut a treaty. We'll see what happens. Mark Preston, very quickly, we've got about a minute left. This is the last Friday of the Joe Biden administration. On Monday, we're going to wake up. Donald Trump is going to be inaugurated. What are your thoughts going into the weekend?

I think Spraud, look, Smirconish is right. I mean, it is going to be Fast and Furious Monday, Tuesday. Buckle up, because I don't think that this country is ready for what's about to hit them. Alex? I completely agree. I think Trump feels an incredible amount of, incredible mandate, and I don't think any amount of media backlash is going to get him to sort of stop.

okay i mean it's it's a it's an emotional weekend for me in some ways i worked for joe biden for almost 10 years so um i'm watching the end of of a lot of work that i was really proud of so for me it's it's emotional but um i also certainly agree with these guys i think trump feels the wind at his back and i think he's going to see that that honeymoon is going to evaporate sooner rather than later is my guess on joe biden's first day he issued executive orders that were

opened up the border, essentially, in many ways, and also drove up the price of energy. Both those two things were the seeds of his destruction. So watch Donald Trump's first day. Let's hope it works out better for him. All right. Thank you guys all for joining us. Have a wonderful weekend. Thanks to all of you at home. I hope you have a wonderful weekend as well. I'm Casey Hunt. Don't go anywhere. CNN News Central starts right now.

CNN Original Series presents the story of an athlete who changed the game. Go inside the conflicts and complications behind the man who became the Black Mamba. Kobe, The Making of a Legend, premieres January 25th at 9 on CNN.