Johnson Walks a Thin Line
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It's Friday, January 3rd, right now on CNN This Morning. We're going to get this done. You can start cutting off my fingers. I am not voting for Mike Johnson. Walking a thin line, today Speaker Johnson's bid to hold the gavel goes to a vote, putting the GOP's razor-thin majority to its first big test. Plus... He was 100% inspired by ISIS. Piecing together a timeline, the key details we're learning about the driver in New Orleans in the hours leading up to the deadly attack. And...

We know we have a bombing, absolutely, and it's a bombing that certainly has factors that raise concern. A search for a motive. Investigators trying to find out why an active duty Green Beret orchestrated a Cybertruck explosion outside of Trump's Las Vegas hotel. And then looking for a new leader. A crowded field of candidates have tossed their hats into the ring to chair the DNC. The vote now just weeks away.

All right, 6 a.m. on the East Coast. A live look at Capitol Hill on this Friday morning. A very busy Friday set to unfold underneath that dome. Good morning, everyone. I'm Casey Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us. Groveling for the gavel in just hours, House Speaker Mike Johnson will find out if all the meetings, phone calls, TV interviews, opinion pieces, trips to Mar-a-Lago, texts to Elon and pleas to President Trump...

have panned out for him. This afternoon, the House votes to elect its speaker for the new Congress. President-elect Trump has endorsed Johnson. But with Republicans holding 219 seats, Johnson can only lose one GOP vote to another speaker candidate and still reach the 218 he'd need to keep his job. There's at least one Republican who is a hard no.

You can pull all my fingernails out. You can shove bamboo up in them. You can start cutting off my fingers. I am not voting for Mike Johnson tomorrow. That was Thomas Massey appearing there with Matt Gaetz. You may remember, Gaetz was a key figure the last time Republicans needed to hang together and elect a House speaker.

You might have missed it, Blinked and you missed it, but that was then Congressman Mike Rogers having to be restrained on the House floor. That was back when Kevin McCarthy was struggling to win the gavel. Rogers appeared to be going after Gates there. McCarthy, during his fight to become Speaker, made a number of promises to his fellow members to win the votes. Those promises, though, ultimately cost him his job just months later.

Johnson is reportedly not making that same mistake, not making those same types of commitments. He's still hoping that this afternoon will go his way with relative ease.

We're going to get this done. Look, I'm humbled and honored to have President Trump's endorsement for the role again, as well as the endorsement of leaders across the conservative spectrum and the Republican Party, all my colleagues that are standing with us. And we will get this done. Look, the things that we're talking about this morning are an illustration that we live in very serious times. We cannot afford any palace drama here.

We can't afford any palace drama. Our panelists here, Molly Ball, senior political correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, CNN senior reporter Isaac DeVere, Kate Bedingfield, former Biden White House communications director and former Trump White House communications director Mike Dubke. Welcome to all of you. Thank you for being here. I don't know if Johnson sounds as confident as he may wish he can be.

heading into this vote. Mike Dubke, what do you think? - Oh, I think he's confident. I think he has to be. He's got Donald Trump, the president-elect on his side early. McCarthy, if you remember, before he went through his 15 vote marathon, Trump had to call after the votes had started.

I don't think anyone else is organized to try to oppose him at this point. So I think he has to feel confident. And we've got the Republicans have a very aggressive agenda that they have to go after. And having two, three, four, five votes

Delaying anything is going to delay that agenda. Yeah, sure. But like, Mike, I get that, you know, he's saying that we can't afford this. The last time, I mean, they couldn't afford to do it the last time they did. It hasn't deterred them in the past. Very different. Very different. 23 versus 25. In 23, you had a Democratic Senate. You had a Democratic legislature.

President. You had Republicans who were ready for opposition and to stand in the way of that agenda as opposed to being proactively pushing an agenda. Very different circumstances. So I think he's going to win on his first ballot. Molly Ball, we're watching a handful of these Freedom Caucus members kind of try to figure out what they're going to do. We saw Chip Roy, who is one of the

Stronger voices, I guess I would say, on this seems to have... Mike Johnson says that Trump's not calling people yet. It's possible Roy has had, you know, the Trump orbit kind of reach out to him and say, "Hey, don't do this." But there's a number of real wild cards, including Victoria Spartz is one of them. She also spoke with Matt Gaetz yesterday night on his new show. Let's watch what she said.

Speaker Johnson needs to commit to govern and deliver on this agenda that is very important for American people. So as of right now, if we don't have concrete commitment from Speaker Johnson, I'm not going to be supporting him tomorrow, but I'm open-minded. I'm going to talk to some other members and hopefully we can connect with him later tonight or tomorrow morning and figure out if we can actually make real changes in this institution.

What's your sense of how this is going to play out today and especially the incentives in terms of, you know, any for any one of these people? I mean, look where where Matt Gaetz landed himself after making a big show of taking on Kevin McCarthy. Sometimes these incentives are not lined up right for Johnson and these other members.

That's right. And the real problem for Johnson here is just the math. I mean, you can have a Republican caucus that is 99.5 percent united. And if there are two outliers, that's all it takes for him to lose this vote. So that's the problem for him. He actually does have a Republican Party that is as unified and optimistic as I've ever seen it. It's just that it only takes a couple people.

And there are a few people who see themselves as more loyal to what they consider principles than they are to the

making sure that he gets the vote on the first ballot. Now, there is no alternative, and that has been a consistent message from Johnson World is that, well, if you don't like me, what is it that you want? Because there isn't anybody else. But that doesn't mean, as you said, that has not deterred them in the past from just making trouble for trouble's sake, either to make a point or to seek these structural reforms, which Johnson has not committed to. In fact, he's

He's trying to raise the threshold for the motion to vacate. So this is, I think, an early test for the incoming administration. And it's a really important test for Johnson, who is still seen as sort of an accidental speaker and who has to prove that he has the effectiveness and has the leadership skills to do this job going forward in what are going to be difficult circumstances. Yeah. Let's take a look at what Donald Trump has had to say publicly about Johnson here heading into this vote. Let's watch.

I think they'll support Speaker Johnson. I think we're going to have a great time in Washington, and I think we're going to get great support. He's the one that can win right now. People like him. Almost everybody likes him. Almost everybody likes him, Kate Bedingfield.

Others have noted that people who may run instead of Johnson have 30 to 40 people who don't like them in the House of Representatives. But I think to Molly's point, this is the beginning of something. It's not the end for Johnson. Right. Well, yeah. And in some ways, this should be the easiest vote. And it's absolutely not. And this portends a very challenging situation.

you know, few years for this Congress. I mean, look, Mike's right. I think Trump's support, I think the dynamic here is very different than it was in 2023 for the Republicans who are leading, who are going to be, you know, drafting behind, he's racing terminology, he's going to be drafting behind Donald Trump. And he's been very clear that he wants to see Johnson made Speaker. So, you know, I think the dynamic is very different than it was in 2023. But the fact that it is such a challenge for them to even get their ducks in a row on getting their Speaker appointed.

it does not portend well when you're getting to more complicated and challenging legislation as they move forward in the session. So we'll see. What does it mean for Democrats who are trying to, I mean, they don't control any of the branches of government, but. Yeah. The two things that I feel certain of going into today is that, uh,

Mike Johnson does not want to have 15 votes or more for speaker like Kevin McCarthy did two years ago. And that all 215 House Democrats are going to be voting for Kim Jeffries to be the leader. And they will continue to do that vote if it's one ballot or 15 ballots as it was two years ago.

This is, I think Kate's right, this is an early test for what the Republican leadership is going to look like. It is also a gauge of what the Democratic response will look like. We saw a couple weeks ago when the shutdown threat was there that the Democrats stayed unified in what they were doing until they provided the votes that the Republicans needed to avoid a shutdown. They have said very

very explicitly that they will not be there to save Mike Johnson or House Republicans going forward. So is this a governing majority? We're going to find out. This is a bat signal to the Democrats about how much potential power they have for a minority party in this House, given just how tight the margins are. Well, just because, I mean, Mike, one of the things that Republicans don't want to do is work with Democrats, right? That's one of the grievances that they have against Mike Johnson is

The country's not going to function if they don't. That's true. I think for the Democrats right now, it's a sit back kind

Kind of lean back in your chair. Just relax. Just watch it all unfold in front of you. Which is very different, though. Very different than 2017. When the Democrats were really pushing hard in opposition, I think they're going to sit back and just watch how all this unfolds. Mainly because the numbers are so small. 99.5% is absolutely right. And it still doesn't get you over the finish line. So this is going to be a tough one for Johnson. But I do think, I mean, look at the gray hair on the man.

It just, I mean, you look back several months, he had no gray. He's got a lot of gray right now. The politics of this, all through last year, I kept asking Republicans and Democrats involved in House campaigns, was the dysfunction of the Republican majority registering for voters? And they kept saying...

Not really, or it's just Washington, whatever. And look at the results. The House Democrats went into election day thinking that they would be able to capitalize and win the majority. They did not. One big difference. You can blame that undivided government in the last election. Now that you have unified government,

Republicans have to deliver. I mean, that's the big, that's the long story here, I think. Yeah, for sure. All right. Join CNN Live for special coverage of the vote for the House speaker. I'm going to be up on the hill today with our Dana Bash. We start live today at 12 p.m. Eastern, right here on CNN.

And straight ahead here on CNN This Morning, Bourbon Street reopens, but it won't look quite like it did before tragedy struck there on New Year's Day. Plus, new details about the decorated service member behind the wheel during that Cybertruck explosion in Las Vegas. And the highest ranking Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer revealed who he thinks should chair the DNC. We know that we lose when voters get their information about Democrats from Republicans. So we need to level up.

I think it's important for people to understand that to protect our citizens in America from evil, you have to crush it. You can't go out there and placate it. You can't go out there and say, oh, I'm going to put this in place and that in place and hope that evil doesn't show up on your doorstep, because it will.

Bourbon Street reopens as new questions surface about the safety of the New Orleans Central District. A 2019 security report recommended the safety barriers should be fixed because they, quote, didn't work. They were being replaced at the time of the attack. The city's police superintendent explained Thursday why those barriers proved ineffective. This particular terrorist drove around onto the sidewalk.

and got around the hard target where he did have a car there, we had barriers there, we had officers there, and they still got around. CNN's Lee Waldman live on the scene for us this morning. Lee, can you tell us what you're seeing there this morning?

jaycee good to be with you this morning it seems all is normal here on bourbon street we're seeing the street completely open now to vehicle traffic yesterday they opened it back up to pedestrian traffic but we're starting to see within the last hour vehicles starting to drive up and down bourbon street but what has taken our breath away this morning is a growing memorial

to the 14 lives that were taken here in the very early hours of New Year's Day. I'm going to move out of the way so you can see that for yourself this morning. You can see it's off to the side next to these temporary barricades that have been put into place on the sidewalk. It's candles and crosses that have been left here for those 14 people that were killed in this vehicle ramming attack.

They're right beside these yellow barricades that were dropped off yesterday afternoon by law enforcement. These are next to that mechanical barricade that we keep focusing on that wasn't functioning on New Year's Day, that they're hoping to get functioning in time for the Super Bowl next month. Now, you hear the sounds of vehicles driving through here. That shows you that

48 hours after this attack, more than 48 hours after this attack, things are back up and running. Bourbon Street was open yesterday. People were, businesses were back open. People were visiting bars last night. The life was back in Bourbon Street. We got here over an hour ago and people were leaving those bars, walking back to their homes, their hotels here. Life is back up.

So things feel very normal here, aside from this growing memorial showing you that the lives were lost here. Lee Waldman, thank you very much for that report this morning. Really appreciate you being there for us.

We are also following developments in the Cybertruck explosion just outside the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas on Wednesday. The U.S. Security of Homeland Security saying there's no evidence that links the New Orleans attacker to the person believed to have caused the explosion in Las Vegas, despite some similarities. CNN's Natasha Chen explains.

Authorities say they believe the driver of the Tesla Cybertruck that exploded just outside the entrance doors of the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas was 37-year-old Matthew Livelsberger. His body was burned beyond recognition, and police are waiting for additional forensic analysis for final confirmation. In how we're trying to identify him, and I'm feeling comfortable to give you this information,

is a tremendous amount of substantial evidence. - The motive for the bombing remains unknown, but police say Livelsberger died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head just before the explosion. They found two guns, a military ID, a smartphone, and a smartwatch inside the cyber truck.

They've also identified two tattoos they say Livelsberger had. One of which was on the stomach and one of which is on the arm that we can see bits and pieces of it as in comparison to what it is that we now know he had on his body. Livelsberger was an active duty member in the Army Special Forces operations serving in Germany with previous tours in Afghanistan. He was awarded five bronze stars and held the rank of Master Sergeant, a senior enlistment according to four U.S. officials.

He was on approved leave when police say he rented the Tesla Cybertruck in Colorado, arriving in Las Vegas New Year's Day. He drove up and down Las Vegas Boulevard before passing the Trump Hotel. Livelsberger then circled back and parked the Cybertruck in the entrance driveway just moments before the fiery blast, according to law enforcement officials. Video of the aftermath shows the bed of the Cybertruck loaded with fireworks, gas tanks and camping fuel. The level of sophistication is not what we

would expect from an individual with this type of military experience. Police credit the Tesla vehicle's body construction, forcing the blast upward and limiting the damage to the hotel driveway, even leaving the glass doors intact. Law enforcement officials say they have not connected the explosion at the Trump Hotel to the deadly terror attack in New Orleans in the early morning hours on New Year's Day, but acknowledge the similarities.

Like Livelsberger, the suspect Shamsuddin Jabbar used a vehicle to carry out the attack, killing 14 people. Both have a military background. Jabbar was an army veteran and served in Afghanistan. They even rented their trucks through the same company, Turo. If these turn out to be simply similarities, very strange similarities to have. And so we're not prepared to rule in or rule out anything at this point. All right. Our Natasha Chen for us this morning. Natasha, thanks for that.

All right, coming up here, the Democratic Party looking for new leadership. Former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley wants to do the job of DNC chair. He's going to be live in the studio with us coming up. Plus, the House comes back to vote for a speaker. The big question, will Mike Johnson be able to keep his job? All right, welcome back. Temperatures dropping, a major storm brewing that may bring the winter's most dangerous weather yet. Let's get to our meteorologist, Elisa Roffitt, with more. Elisa, good morning. Good.

Good morning. We are looking at some major impacts possible pretty much across I-70 that goes from Kansas City over towards Saint Louis. You can see that red there. We're looking at difficult to near impossible travel, heavy and blowing snow, significant ice and sporadic power outages.

This is just for Sunday and all of this stretches east as we go into Monday. We have winter storm watches that are being issued from Kansas through Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky and again even Ohio too and all of this will continue east into Monday. The watches stretch almost 900 miles so pretty large area in the Midwest will have some significant impacts from this storm. It really starts to develop on Saturday. More moisture starts to pump in

by Sunday and look at what happens. We've got cold air trying to squeeze in from the north, all of that moisture coming in from the south and that's going to create these bands of heavy snow across parts of northern Missouri, central Illinois and that ice all that pink there is ice. Plus you have rain and a tail of some severe storms possible along the gulf coast. All of this pushing east on monday, those impacts stretching across Tennessee into Kentucky and even parts of Virginia and the mid

So we're looking at multiple different types of precipitation here. Some heavy snow. The ice could be significant across the Ozarks and the Tennessee and the Ohio Valleys. Rain and even some severe weather. Some of the same spots that are still recovering from last weekend's tornado outbreak could see a line of damaging winds coming through with this that will also be capable of a couple of tornadoes. So very dynamic, potent, multi-hazard system on the way. Casey.

Sounds like fun. Elisa Rafa, thanks very much for that. We're of course thinking people who are struggling with all of it. Straight ahead here on CNN this morning, Democrats preparing to choose a new party leader and a new direction. One of the candidates for DNC chair, former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley joins us. Plus, two disturbing incidents involving vehicles in a single day. New reporting on the warnings that might have been missed.

It is not a time now to stoke fear. It is a time to calm fear. It is a time to draw conclusions based on evidence adduced in an investigation.

The epic story. She was going to kill everybody. Do I look like a monster to you? Concludes. The mans are a cult. We need to get her out of there. With one. Oh, there she is. Blast. I hear like moaning. Like a porno. Twist. What are you hiding? Can we cut? The Curious Case of Natalia Grace, the final chapter. An ID documentary event. Starts Monday, January 6th at 9.

What I can tell you right now is that he was 100 percent inspired by ISIS. And so we're digging through more of the social media, more interviews, working with some of our other partners to ascertain just how -- to ascertain a little bit more about that connection. The FBI investigating Wednesday's attack in New Orleans as an act of terrorism. Fourteen people killed when a pickup truck rammed through a crowd of people on Bourbon Street early New Year's Day.

Officials had originally said that 15 had been killed. Law enforcement identifying the suspect as 42-year-old Army veteran Shamsuddin Jabbar of Texas. He was killed in a firefight with police. CNN obtaining this exclusive video showing the driver shortly before the attack. You can see him putting something in the bed of the truck and working on the hitch. Investigators say an ISIS flag was among one of the things that he placed in the truck.

According to President Joe Biden, explosives were found in ice coolers in two other locations in the French Quarter, and the suspect had a remote detonator in his vehicle. A law enforcement official familiar with the investigation telling CNN that FBI agents and local police found chemicals typically used to construct explosives at the attacker's home in Houston.

Plus, another investigation on the other side of the country. Law enforcement looking into an explosion in a Tesla Cybertruck that also occurred on New Year's Day. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas says there's nothing linking the two incidents yet. However, both men seemingly involved had military ties and both vehicles were rented through the website Turo. If these turned out to be simply similarities,

very strange similarities to have. And so we're not prepared to rule in or rule out anything at this point.

All right, joining our panel, Danelle Harvin, who is with Georgetown University's Emergency and Disaster Management. Danelle, good morning. Thanks for joining us. Let's kind of big picture here. We need to underscore authorities are saying that they have not found links here, right? They're saying these appear to be unconnected. However, the similarities are remarkable, shall we say. What do you see in it, particularly the fact that, you know, these are both

well, one active duty military, but both people with military experience and training. I always get in trouble when I link military to extremism, but we've been talking about this since 2018. When I ran the Fusion Center here in D.C., the intelligence center, we actually wrote an intelligence product talking about extremism in the ranks of active and retired military. And if you fast forward to January 6th,

16% of those individuals that were arrested and tried for January 6th were active or former military or first responders. And so we see this radicalization in those individuals that swear the oath to the constitution.

They're still looking at why these individuals are doing this, but it's something that's been on our way in the Homeland Security space for a few years now. I think we should just be careful to make sure that we distinguish that this particular person has been linked to ISIS with an ISIS flag, different and distinct perhaps from what you're talking about with January 6th. But that said,

We were speaking earlier with an expert who pointed out that there can be, when you leave the military, some alienation from the loss of a community and that that can contribute. Do you see that?

Well, in our analysis when we did this intelligence report in 2018, there's a whole lot of factors. Some of the factors are individuals that lose that sense of camaraderie and they need to reconnect with other individuals that feel some of the political or sociological issues that they share. But people have been in the military for hundreds of years, right? And so we've only seen this spate

of attacks, Fort Hood, things like that recently. I also think that ISIS and Al-Qaeda to a lesser extent, but mostly ISIS, appeal so much more. They have so much more outreach. And if you're downtrodden, and I've consumed their products for over 10 years, I have to dissect them, I have to train individuals on them. They're very appealing to many people who are downtrodden, who are very angry at individuals.

They're psychologically geared towards individuals who are on the margins or in extremes of our population. When you say it's appealing, how? What's the detail there?

They have a little bit of something for everybody. You've probably heard Director Wray over the last few years talk about the salad bar ideology. It doesn't matter how you show up to the salad bar. There's a little something there for everyone. So if you're a black nationalist, right, and you don't like police beatings, they have products for you. ISIS does. Absolutely. Absolutely. We've seen our white nationalists, our far-right extremists. They have something for them as well.

They have something for a little bit of everybody. And we saw for the very first time, I think it was 2018, we had a suicide bomber.

in the Middle East who came from Florida, middle class family, gated community. He'd left the US, burned his passport and went out there to join ISIS. He said he didn't like his life and they offered something to him. So they do this, there's an appeal that they have for women. We've seen young women leave the United States and travel to join ISIS. And so they're very effective in their communication. - Terrifying.

All right, so this attack in New Orleans has also prompted reactions here in Washington, including from President-elect Donald Trump's pick for national security advisor, who argued the country's safety is at stake.

We need Governor Noem at DHS. We need Kash Patel at FBI. We need Pete Hegseth at DOD. This is an across-the-government look. Marco Rubio at State, and of course, Ratcliffe at CIA, and Gabbard, Tulsi Gabbard at DNI. That has to be in place day one, guys, because this is a moment in transition of vulnerability, and President Trump is going to project...

because he is a leader of strength. The narrative that we project on day one will be just important, and that's having our people in place. So, Mike Dubke, how does what the country is going through with this potentially change how...

the trajectory of these nominees for President-elect Trump and some of the national security imperatives? - Well, I think Waltz is absolutely correct. It's going to fast track a lot of these nominations. I think the rhetoric is going to be if there is opposition to some of these nominees, we don't have time for this debate. We have to put people in place now. So, Kristi Noem,

Tulsi Gabbard, Hegseth, these individuals I think are ultimately, if we're just talking about the real politic of this, they're going to benefit from the attacks from a couple of days ago. Mollie Ball, the Republican Party writ large on national security has in many ways been splitting apart from itself, right? The old school national security conservatives of the Reagan era

Obviously, George W. Bush led the country into Iraq. You have seen the current MAGA movement very explicitly reject a lot of that thinking and saying, you know, we have to kind of withdraw, we've got to get out of these foreign wars. Something like this suggests that, you know, I mean, Donald Trump has said we need to have nothing to do with Syria, right? Where was the United States fighting ISIS?

in Syria. Does this kind of thing, especially if, God forbid, there are more copycat attacks, does that change that calculus at all?

I think that the senators are going to have a lot of questions for these nominees about exactly how they are looking at attacks like this, given that they, you know, particularly the New Orleans attack seems to have been, you know, inspired by a foreign ideology, but was not, but did not have, you know, foreign roots. It was essentially, from what we know so far, a sort of homegrown lone wolf inspired by ISIS.

You know, how do they view these kinds of attacks? How do they want to approach them? How do they think that we need to take them on? Presumably it is not a military invasion of Syria. But short of that, you know, what is the strategy? Because, you know, we saw Trump repeating misinformation about this attack initially, trying to blame it on immigration, trying to blame it on the border. That was not the case. So, you know,

You heard Mike Walz talking about the narrative that the administration puts forward about these attacks. I think we need to hear from the various cabinet appointees

how they are conceptualizing this problem and how they plan to approach it. So I do think it's going to put some urgency into the confirmation process, but I think it's also going to bring a lot of questions to how the government, you know, seeks to prevent attacks like this and how they can take on these types of problems. All right, Danelle Harbin, thanks for being with us this morning. Appreciate your expertise as always. So come up here after the break. After sweeping election losses in 2024, Democrats

Ready to choose a new leader of the Democratic National Committee. One person who'd like that job, former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley joins us live. Plus, in just hours, Republican Mike Johnson's fate as Speaker of the House set to be decided. I think it's going to be okay, Larry. We'll have maybe one no vote, I think. I think we get it done on the first round. I don't know if he has the votes right now, but I do believe that he will have the votes. And I'm not sure that it will be on the first round.

All right, welcome back. 2024 was a difficult, shall we say, year for Democrats. They handed complete control of the White House and Congress to Republicans in sweeping election losses. Now that it's 2025, Democrats are trying to decide who will lead the party's recovery efforts. They're set to elect their new Democratic National Committee chair next month.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who is the highest-ranking Democrat in Congress, seeking to tip the scales in that crowded race yesterday. He endorsed Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman Ben Wickler's bid. Wickler, just one of eight candidates hoping to move the Democratic Party past those recent failures, and they all have various plans about how to do it.

We need to remember that when we're not talking about jobs and opportunity, we're not fighting on our firmest ground. The majority of Americans believe that the Republican Party best represents the interests of the working class and the poor, and the Democratic Party represents the interests of the wealthy and the elite. That is a damning indictment on our party brand. We know that we lose when voters get their information about Democrats from Republicans. The Democratic Party, though, can't just be the anti-Trump party.

All right, joining us now, one of the candidates for DNC chair, former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley. Governor, thanks for being here. Thank you, Casey. I guess I want to start big picture here. Why is it, do you think, that you,

or anyone that we just saw who's running for the chair represents a change, a break from the past for Democrats. Yep. Casey, this is a time that requires change in the Democratic Party. The stunning losses that we've had, the fact that our brand is so badly battered that the hardest working people in America lost sight of us, thought we were more for elites than we were for them. This requires a time of change.

And I believe that I have the ability to be that change agent. If you want a caretaker, if you want a state chair, somebody that understands state parties. I mean, certainly I understand that having been a governor, had to make my own party stronger. But I believe there's a skill set that's required for this moment of profound change that's actually bigger than any state chair has the power to offer.

I am a turnaround, operational turnaround leader, probably the best in our party, which is why the president dispatched me to Social Security. Secondly, I've actually chaired a national committee unlike the other fine people in this race, the Democratic governors, where we expanded the map.

and three years of record fundraising. And third and finally, I've actually run for office. I have been elected. I have knocked on those doors. I understand what the 36 Democratic governors who are up this year, I understand what those members of Congress, who Hakeem Jeffries is counting on taking back the House, what they need in order to have their back to be successful and do the things that we must do, be ruthless about winning the next elections.

What did Democrats misunderstand about 2024? There were so many that I talked to who thought Kamala Harris was going to win, and obviously she did not. What we failed to do was to connect to the biggest concerns that the hardest-working people in America had, and that was the fact that inflation, they felt, was going up faster than their paycheck. Yeah, James Carville wrote, quote, "We lost for one very simple reason." This was yesterday. It was and it always will be the economy

There you go. Stupid. We have to begin 2025 with that truth as our political north star and not get distracted by anything else. So you agree with him? Totally agree with him. In fact, when I've been talking to James Carville, he said, if I were the chair of the DNC, I would be focused every single day on creating a brand that people want to run on instead of one that people want to run from.

And the good news is, Casey, that change is really a return to our true selves. Because our party's very purpose for being is the economic security of every single American. When we're not speaking to that, we lose. When we do speak about that, we can not only win elections, we can accomplish so many other things to make our country and our society more inclusive, stronger, more just.

Do you think that Democrats lost in this last election cycle in part because they were too woke? I don't know exactly what that means. I believe that we lost because we were not awake enough.

to the economic realities and the fears that people had at their kitchen tables. You know, Donald Trump is a master practitioner of the politics of fear. Ours is the party that says we have nothing to fear but fear itself. We can make tomorrow better than today. I thought that the vice president's best ads were the ones where she looked in the camera and said, "I feel your pain."

Inflation is too high. That's why we're bringing it down. That's why we're going to protect Social Security. That's why the things we are doing are working to bring down the price of prescription drugs.

We have to stay focused on the economic concerns of Americans. And believe you me, Donald Trump is going to give us opportunity after opportunity to reconnect to the kitchen tables of America and show that he is not for you. And in fact, that he's making choices that actually harm your family's ability to get ahead.

Who do you think is going to win in the future for Democrats? Is it going to be members of the squad and the progressive left of the party? Or do you need someone that's more in a Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter mold to lead you going forward?

You're talking in the presidential race. You're talking all these other races that connect primarily the primarily the presidential race. Yes. But there's going to be an argument over who gets to define the Democratic Party's brand. Right. Who is. And I'm curious who you think that should be.

I think it should be the Democratic governors of the United States of America. I think it should be the men and women running for courthouse seats and city hall seats. I believe it should be the Democratic mayors of the United States of America. It's interesting, Casey, you know, I was chair of the Democratic Governors Association and for three years and it was during President Obama's reelect for a brief shining moment. We were all communicating, you know, on the same page.

but our national party tends to run itself like an exclusive club rather than being cognizant of the fact that the very people that connect us to the economic realities in all 50 states and all of these big metropolitan economies are mostly Democrats.

And it's the Democratic mayors. And we need to make sure that we communicate with the Democratic mayors, with the Democratic governors, bring them together in a sort of battle cadence, a war council, if you will, so we can all get on the same page.

and communicate to the economic concerns of the American people. I look at the Democratic Party's challenges, I see a bunch of cables lying on the ground that need to be reconnected to each other so that we can make the changes necessary to win the next elections. It's all there to be done, but it's not going to happen if we pretend that this is some sleepy caretaker election that a state chair can do this. It requires a broader skill set, and that's why I'm running. All right.

Martin O'Malley, Governor, thanks very much for being here. Thank you, Casey. Always appreciate your time. Hope to see you again soon. All right. Good luck. Thank you. 53 minutes past the hour. Here's your morning roundup. In Southern California, two people are dead and 19 injured after a small plane crashed through a roof of a warehouse. At least 200 people working inside. The plane crashed just two minutes after taking off. The people who died believed to have been on the plane. The cause still under investigation.

A week-long farewell to former President Jimmy Carter beginning this weekend. America's 39th president will lie in repose starting tomorrow night at the Carter Presidential Center in Atlanta. He will then be moved to Washington to lie in state beginning January 7th at the U.S. Capitol. The state funeral takes place the morning of January 9th here in Washington. He will be buried in Plains, Georgia that evening.

President Biden awarding the Presidential Citizens Medal to 20 people in an East Room ceremony, all of them honored for, quote, exemplary deeds of service to their country and their fellow citizens. Most notable among them, Liz Cheney, the co-chair of the January 6th committee. Elizabeth L. Cheney for putting the American people over party.

Congressman Bennie Thompson, the January 6th committee chairman, also receiving the award from the president. All right, let's turn back now to The Hill. A little over five hours, lawmakers are going to start to decide the fate of Mike Johnson's speakership. One congressman, Kentucky Republican Thomas Massey, has been saying he will not vote for Johnson. Of course, the Trump-backed speaker can't afford to lose the support of any other Republican if all members are voting today.

President Trump, whose election victory certification could be delayed if a prolonged speaker battle ensues, seems to have relative little appetite for the drama, agreeing to personally call any Johnson holdouts ahead of the vote. One of those holdouts saying the key to reelecting Johnson as speaker is simple.

There are some folks who have concerns and have not committed to vote for Mike Johnson as Speaker of the House. I believe that there is one thing that can secure Mike Johnson as Speaker of the House for the 119th, and that is by bringing us together and selecting Chip Roy to be the chairman of the Rules Committee.

All right. Our panel has returned. That, of course, was the voice of Lauren Boebert, who has been willing to take on leadership at various different points. So, Mike, we were talking about this a little bit earlier in the show. Here's what our Stephen Collinson, who tends to write our big paint, our big pictures every day here at CNN. He says this quote, House speaker elections on Friday. Less about Mike Johnson. More about Donald Trump.

If Trump fails to lift Johnson over the line, he'll sow new doubts about his capacity to effectively lead the GOP trifecta of power in the House, Senate and White House. Time is short. New presidents have limited time to enact their program with midterm elections always looming. The GOP's shaky unity and tough fights to come make Trump's window even smaller. It does seem like if Johnson doesn't get this together, it says as much about Trump as Johnson.

as Johnson? I mean, this is tough for him potentially. There's some truth to that. But I think the major point there is speed. I mean, there is a lot ready to go on the agenda for Donald Trump, the Republican-controlled Senate, and the Republican-controlled House. So all of this, if we have all of this delay out of the gate, it is going to push back almost all of the Trump agenda. So absolutely, there's a lot

They are going on. The one thing, though, that was mentioned I really want to point out is almost more important than the Johnson vote is who is in charge of the Rules Committee. What makes it to the floor? How does it get to the floor? What parts of the legislation are going to be voted on? If Johnson gives...

the Rules Committee, if he does not control rules, he wins the speakership, but doesn't control rules, this entire Trump agenda is going to be delayed. Yeah, fair enough. Although we are getting a little bit down into the weeds on that. I absolutely take your point. Is it too early in the morning?

He's got to get the gavel first. He's got to get the gavel first. But it's so vitally important. I mean, there's so many moving parts to this. That's what I'm trying to say. Yeah, that's fair enough. I want to... Our team dug up this interview that Mike Johnson did in a...

a Louisiana, with a Louisiana radio station. And this interview was, it aired, it was conducted December 31st, so New Year's Eve, which I mentioned just because he talks about the timeline of his calls with Donald Trump. But basically he got on the horn with the president-elect and said, hey, I need a little bit more help from you sooner. Watch this.

So Johnson apparently aware he needed a little help.

Yeah, this is not a position of strength for the new speaker coming in, right? And it is also, I think importantly for what going forward would be if he wins this vote and eventually whenever it happens, if it does, that he will not be the one calling the shots really about how things go in Congress. Even though he will be the Speaker of the House, it will be Donald Trump, which is not a shock given how Donald Trump has...

exerted his influence over the Republican Party over the last eight years and the years to come now that he's coming back to the White House. But it's still an amazing thing to have a co-equal branch of the government that is completely in the sway of the president.

And he's probably better off trying to hold the line on making the argument to the far right discontents in Congress that he will be the loyal Trump foot soldier rather than making some of these process, you know, yeah, promises that are essentially like pulling a, you know, a loaded gun close to him. It seems risky. Three seconds. Well, I think the problem that he has is that Donald Trump doesn't want to be the speaker of

If you had a Donald Trump who was going to be out there and say, I want this bill and this bill. I want it written in this way. I want these committees. I want so and so and so and so. They would do it. But Trump does not engage with Congress on that level. And that makes Mike Johnson's job that much harder. It sure does. All right. Thanks, guys, for being here. Thanks to all of you for joining me. And join us again for special live coverage of the vote for speaker. We're going to get started 12 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN. I'm Casey Hunt. Don't go anywhere. CNN News Central starts right now.

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