Shutdown Stalemate
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It's Friday, December 20th, right now on CNN This Morning. I don't see how we avoid a shutdown. Shutdown stalemate. Republicans back to the drawing board after their plan to keep the government open fails. Plus... The district attorney is totally compromised. The case has to be dropped.

Day A disqualified what will happen to Donald Trump's election case in Georgia without Fannie Willis prosecuting. And back in New York with a slew of new federal charges, Luigi Mangione waking up in a Brooklyn detention center this morning and later. We're going to be fighting until we get what we deserve. On strike, thousands of Amazon workers walked the picket line during the crucial holiday shopping rush.

6am on the East Coast, a live look at Los Angeles where it is 3am this morning, five days until Christmas. Good morning everyone, I'm Kasey Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us. The Republican Speaker of the House, apparently on Donald Trump's naughty list after a deal to keep the government open through the holidays and Trump's inauguration fell apart in spectacular fashion.

38 Republicans and all but two Democrats voted against a continuing resolution to keep the government open until March. The deal included a demand from President-elect Trump, raise the debt ceiling. That is something that has always had to be bipartisan when Republicans are in charge because conservatives usually flat out refuse to vote for it. This just stinks. That's why America doesn't trust government and it's for good dadgum reasons. And you said shut it down.

That's what it takes to bring us to the table. Not gonna go vote for another debt ceiling increase without actual specifics on what the cuts will be. That's a non-starter for me. The debt limit must not be increased without commensurate spending cuts and fiscal reform. I've never voted to raise the debt ceiling. I mean, I love Donald Trump, but he didn't vote me into office, my district did. I come from a district where they call in overwhelmingly wanting us to shut it down.

Those Republicans, as he acknowledged there, are now at odds with Trump, who wants to strip Democrats of the leverage that they'd have over his tax plan if the debt ceiling were still hanging over it. The president-elect posting just after 1 a.m. this morning, quote, Congress must get rid of or extend out to perhaps 2029 the ridiculous debt ceiling. Without this, we should never make a deal. Remember, the pressure is on whoever is president.

But right now, the man most under pressure is Mike Johnson. After two very public failures, his re-election as House Speaker in the next Congress, far from certain. Trump yesterday telling Fox News that Johnson needs to prove himself. He said this, quote, End quote.

But already, some Trump allies are openly talking about replacing Johnson when a new Congress is seated in two weeks. Clearly, Johnson's not up to the task. He's got to go, right? He's got to go. I don't think the speaker is going to remain in power. It needs to be either Vivek Ramaswamy or it needs to be Elon Musk. Speaker Elon Musk, implausible, but not impossible. There is no requirement that the speaker be a member of the House.

And that sound that you hear, that's Democrats chanting hell no in a closed-door meeting to decide how they were going to vote on the spending deal. Even hypothetical Speaker Musk would have to work with them because the Republican majority is set to be so slim in the early months of the year that any single Republican could derail legislation like the spending deal. For now, Democrats are exploiting the chaos. The Musk

Johnson proposal is not serious. Everybody agreed, and then it was blown up by Elon Musk, who apparently has become the fourth branch of government. President Musk said, don't do it. Don't do it. Shut the government down.

All right. Joining us on our panel, Alex Thompson, CNN political analyst, national political reporter for Axios, Jonah Goldberg, CNN political commentator, editor-in-chief of Dispatch, Megan Hayes, former Biden White House director of message planning, and Matt Gorman, former senior advisor to Tim Scott's presidential campaign. Welcome to all of you on this Friday before Christmas. All of these lawmakers had hoped to be on planes last night or this morning, already

Already out of here with everything said and done. And Jonah, it has now been blown to smithereens. It's a preview of what next year is going to be like, but I'm also not clear on how they get out of this jam. Yeah, I don't really see how they avoid a shutdown at this point. And I just don't... It's strange to me. Donald Trump was having something he's never had before, which is essentially a honeymoon. His net favorability was positive for the first time in his 10 years in American politics. And to...

essentially, I don't want to say squandering it because we don't know how this is going to play out, but to seriously risk squandering it before you're even inaugurated.

Bold move, Cotton. I just don't quite get it. What's been really interesting is Republicans have now pushed back against Trump a few times now. You look at Matt Gaetz, Attorney General. You see even some of these cabinet nominees that have had to withdraw are sort of untenuous. This is because congressional Republicans are pushing back in a way that they didn't the first term. And one thing that Donald Trump should be careful about is he is a lame duck president. And you can become a lame duck very quickly.

Matt Corman, what is going on here and how does this end? Well, first of all, days like this make me very thankful I never worked on Capitol Hill. But at this point, I don't see how there's not at least some semblance of a shutdown, maybe nominal at best at this point. I mean, look, these things are fluid, right? Pressure and leverage are fluid. But right now, for there to be any leverage with Republicans and any pressure on the Senate or Democrats as a party, they have to pass something through the House. It has to happen.

They have not been able to do that, obviously, last night. And until they do, the pressure is still on the Republicans to get something through the House chamber that they control. Now, again, until that happens, we don't know. I think, look,

The more Trump gets involved, the more likely for that to happen, right? I think the lighter touch with Trump, as we saw with Gates, as we saw with the CR, gives more license for Republicans with a lighter touch to not feel the pressure. Heavier pressure, harder to say no, certainly. And we see that with some of the nominees for the cabinet he's willing to fight for. That's what I'm watching for the next 12 hours. Megan Hayes, is there any risk for Democrats at this point in just

sticking together and saying no and letting it shut down? I mean, do they risk any blame? No, they had a deal.

The Republicans are the ones who went back on the deal. So it's hard for me to have Democrats take blame here. This is a good wake-up call for the Republicans that they are going to need Democrats starting January 3rd to pass anything through the House. The margin comes even slimmer to two people next Congress. So I just, I don't understand how the Republicans are not checking this now and how they are going to get this through now. They had a deal. They were nigged on it. This is part of negotiating. You have to give something to get it through. That is going to be the reality for them moving forward.

So to your point, Matt Gorman, this was Kevin Cramer on the Hill yesterday talking with some of our colleagues about what Donald Trump should do next. Watch. I think one of the ways that this could get fixed fairly quickly would be if President Trump would come up to Washington tomorrow or spend the weekend here and talk to people face to face.

Let's face it, I mean, he's got a lot of sway and persuasion. He acts more like the sitting president than the sitting president. And if he'd come up, I think he could help move things along. Plausible?

- Look, I'll put it this way. One of the things I was struck by is Donald Trump's not president yet. Where's Joe Biden on this? I think there's a MIA factor on Biden too. 12 years ago, it was him and McConnell, Biden and McConnell that really were the ones instrumental for not letting the debt limit be breached back in the summer of 2011.

Where the heck is he right now? Negotiating a deal that they already had. They were part of that deal. Biden hasn't said a word on this. They didn't put out a statement yesterday. A statement, I'm sorry. But I will also say, why would he?

Why would he? Yeah. He's at risk right now. Of what? Of a shutdown ending his presidency throughout this whole thing if this thing goes down. Donald Trump and the Republicans have already messaged out there so well that he's not in charge. Why would they get involved? They had a deal. The White House was involved in making that deal with the Democrats that the Republicans then agreed to and then threw out. Salvage a deal. Where is Biden in this whole process? But this is where I think that you know about this. I mean, they weren't doing stuff behind the scenes, which is very well known that that's what they do. But this is what happens.

Governing is harder than campaigning, and Donald Trump is learning that lesson. - So to pick up on something that Alex was saying,

there's a whole lot of mojo stealing going on here right donald trump isn't president he's stolen basically joe biden's mojo he's acting like he's the center of political gravity until this week where for the first time in trump's political career somebody out maggot him somebody out populist energied him in the form of donald trump in the form of uh elon musk it was a remarkable moment and it's never happened before and trump was playing catch up to you know his guy

And I think that the last is that it's really important to emphasize that Musk and Trump have different policy agendas here.

Musk is about, you know, with all of his weirdness and not grasping how the system works, is talking about restraining spending, restraining debt. And Trump wants to get rid of the debt ceiling so that he can pay for tax cuts and for the wall and all of that stuff without ever worrying about any limits on his spending. Those two things are not reconcilable over time. And given that Musk has all this mojo now,

It's going to be weird. Yeah, competing power centers, competing social media platforms, and like following X. If you want to be the Democrats, you've got to go to Blue Sky now.

You know, it honestly really is a reflection of America. But to Matt's point, I mean, President Biden, not just on this deal, but has been largely, you know, has really retreated and taken a backseat the last several months. And there is a risk, even though we know the details to your point, the details was there was a deal and there's not. Do voters not really realize that? And they just say, well, Joe Biden's still president. Why is the government shut down?

Right. I mean, that's the big question in my mind is, OK. I mean, there's a risk. That's all I'm saying. Because it does seem like there is this ambient sense that Donald Trump is already in charge, despite the fact that Joe Biden is still president. So does that not necessarily lead voters to blame Trump? How many Fs left does Joe Biden have to give? He's going home to Delaware. You know, it's not like he's running for anything ever again. I don't know. It's.

It's weird. I think that you put it rather succinctly. Yes. All right, coming up here on CNN this morning. When he was a candidate, Joe Biden repeatedly said that Donald Trump was a threat to democracy. Now he says it's, quote, not my concern. Michael Smirconish will be here to discuss. Plus, Speaker Elon Musk, Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Dingell weighs in on the push to replace Mike Johnson. And Bonnie Willis disqualified from prosecuting Donald Trump's racketeering case in Georgia. Where does that case go from here?

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Plus free samples and free shipping. Head to Blinds.com now for up to 40% off site-wide plus a free professional measure. Rules and restrictions may apply. Corrupt Fonny Willis hired her lover, Nathan Wade. She paid her boyfriend, a lawyer, who had no experience as a lawyer and no experience doing what? Almost a million dollars.

And then they decided to go on beautiful Norwegian cruise lines, trips all over the place.

nine months after making those claims president-elect trump has apparently succeeded in undermining the fourth and final criminal case still being prosecuted against him a georgia court of appeals disqualifying fulton county d.a fannie willis on thursday citing a significant appearance of impropriety in trump's election interference case a case that can still move forward with a different new special prosecutor

Willis's prosecution was upended earlier this year when her affair with her handpicked special prosecutor Nathan Wade became public. She immediately denied benefiting financially from bringing him on.

I don't need anything from a man. A man is not a plan. A man is a companion. And so there was tension always in our relationship, which is why I would give him his money back. I don't need anybody to foot my bills. The only man who's ever foot my bills completely is my daddy.

Willis will fight to stay on the case, her team asking Georgia's Supreme Court to review the appeal's decision. But Trump believes the matter is closed, telling Fox News Digital, quote,

Megan Hayes, how was this handled in your view? I mean, a disaster, right? Like this is where you let your personal feelings and your personal wants take over your professional and it just blew up the whole thing for no reason. She had a, she has a good case and then she let her personal feelings for this guy get in the way. And it just is a disaster. Like it, I don't understand how you are professional and this is what ends up happening. And then you become sort of a joke and then she acted so indignant. It's just kind of embarrassing, but.

Jonah, this is one of these things where, I mean, when it was all playing out, the events in Georgia and the phone call that was taped and the votes that Donald Trump was looking for, there is something remarkable to the reality that it's unlikely that there will ever be accountability for that. Yeah, I mean, there'll be some historic accountability, which that three bucks will get you something at Starbucks. But yeah, I mean, this is one of the reasons why we can't have nice things is Donald Trump is extremely lucky in the nature and character and competence of his enemies.

Either they're good people who way overreach or they're incompetent people who don't know what they're doing or some mixture of the above. And part of the problem is you get this cascade of norm violations. Donald Trump violates norms. He does bad things. And then people think that they can do bad things or cut corners in order to get him. And then Donald Trump is very effective at pointing that out

And it makes the whole system look bad and feeds this populist discontent about distrust in institutions. It's a terrible cycle. Well, and Matt, this case did give that mugshot that we were just showing of Trump became almost a badge of honor. I mean, people were wearing it around at the convention. Oh, yeah. No, it became a meme and they raised a ton of money off it. You have that tattoo, don't you?

don't you? I do. You don't want to see it though. It's a failing program. No, it's, look, I think in just talking hypothetically, left, right, or center, if you went after the president of the United States,

criminally. You need to have every I dotted and T crossed. And the team of just dolts that they left on this case who acted so ridiculously undermine the case in of itself, like regardless of what it is. And, you know, and

And again, as Megan pointed out, this indignity, I don't know whether Fannie actually believed what she was saying or she was trying to kind of have this viral moment that maybe the left would kind of latch onto when she was testifying at that hearing. Everything she did just backfired spectacularly ending up in this moment. And there's no one to blame but her and her team.

You know, eyes dotted and T's crossed. She was trying to make herself into a national figure. Oh, yeah. At the time, she was sitting for interviews with journalists. She sat for a book by Michael Isikoff. Like, she was very active in trying to make herself and make this nationalized. She was welcoming the scrutiny. And if you're going to do that, then you shouldn't be. Yeah, the phrase of someone who was important around here for a long, long time was, you've got to play air-free ball.

Just not an option otherwise. All right, straight ahead here on CNN This Morning, President Biden's final push to keep his electric vehicle agenda alive after President-elect Trump takes office. Plus, thousands of Amazon workers on strike. The retail giant says it won't affect your packages. -Thousands of Amazon workers went on strike. It's not good, but everyone who waited too long to order a gift is like, "Sweet, there's my excuse." Freaking Amazon, you believe this? I was gonna surprise you.

All right, 24 minutes past the hour. Five things you have to see this morning. For a second day, thousands of Amazon workers on the picket line. They are lobbying for safer worker conditions, better benefits, and higher wages. We are the face of Amazon. We wear the uniform. We drive the trucks. When we pull up to your house, you say, oh, that's Amazon, not that's Samantha or that's this. We're Amazon. We should be recognized as such. Amazon says the busy holiday shopping season will not be impacted.

Whoa, an old power plant in Ohio, now history. An implosion bringing down two smokestacks and three buildings. It's making way for a park and a new neighborhood. Not the Nutcracker show one family was hoping for this holiday season. A thief caught on camera walking off with a family's Nutcracker decoration straight from their front porch. Guys, this is this behavior. It's just like, it's just ridiculous and unacceptable.

Houston police are trying to crack the case. Like, all right. Santa, skipping the chimney, shooting straight down the side of a Colorado children's hospital. The Aurora Police Department's SWAT team was getting in some training and they brought Santa to help. - Dayton County 911. - Please hurry. - What's going on? - I'm delivering a baby.

This mom's birth plan did not include staying in her driveway, but births rarely go as planned. When the new dad arrived home from work, he found his wife halfway through the delivery on the phone with the help of a 911 dispatcher. My adrenaline, obviously all of our adrenaline was going. Still kind of processing all of it, I think. Everything just happened so quick, I didn't even have an option whether to do it or not.

an ambulance arrived on scene just as their baby girl was born. Both mom and beautiful baby Amelia are doing well. This is a story close to my heart. Having been there myself. Now, thankfully, my husband was home at the time and he was the one on the phone with the 911 dispatcher, not me. So props to her for handling it all by herself.

I am really glad I wasn't in that position. All right, still ahead here on CNN This Morning, the government ticking toward a shutdown. Coming up, we're going to speak with Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Dingell about what's needed to make a deal fast. Plus, show force suspected CEO killer Luigi Mangione's unusual journey to New York to face new charges.

Republicans rejected a three-month stopgap funding extension, which means unless they come up with a deal tonight, the government would shut down at midnight, which would be terrible. We need the government. Who else is not going to tell us anything about the drones? The prospect of a government shutdown looking more likely this morning after a Trump-backed funding bill failed last night, with nearly all Democrats and 38 Republicans voting against it,

Politico reporting Speaker Mike Johnson was spotted in a tense conversation with the Republicans who opposed the legislation, writing he was, quote, clearly agitated, using his arms to make his points and running his hands through his hair during the lively exchange. In front of the cameras, though, the blame was not directed at them.

Very disappointing to us that all but two Democrats voted against aid to farmers and ranchers, against disaster relief, against all these bipartisan measures. The Democrats just voted to shut down the government, even though we had a clean CR, because they didn't want to give the president negotiating leverage during his first term, or during the first year of his new term. And number two, because they would rather shut down the government

and fight for global censorship bulls**t. They've asked for a shutdown, and I think that's exactly what they're going to get. All right, joining us now, Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Dingell of Michigan. She's the chair of the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee. Congresswoman, wonderful to have you on the show. So the bottom line here, what is the path forward? And are Democrats willing to continue to say no to these proposals? Or do you think there's some risk in...

getting some blame from the American people if there's a government shutdown. Well, I think we're going to have to communicate very directly, Casey, about what is and is not happening. Republicans don't want to take the blame for this, but they are the exact people that we have to blame for this.

There were weeks and months of negotiations on where to get to this bipartisan CR deal. There was agreement. All four corners, all four corners. Let's be really clear. Agreed with four corners for those that are listening to the leaders, Republican leaders and Democratic leaders of the House and Senate agreed to the deal.

Our leader came in, said, we got to do this. There were things people didn't want in it. Compromise is not a dirty word. President Musk woke up on Wednesday morning and saw some things in there, like he was going to, some of the things he wants to do in China, they were going to raise questions. So his business in China was going to be challenged. And there were other issues, and there were more than...

There were multiple tweets by Musk on Wednesday and threatening members that they would be primaried if they support it. I don't think unelected billionaires should be allowed to threaten elected. That's not the democratic process. And suddenly we didn't have a deal. And there were a lot of things that weren't in what we were voting for last night that were important.

So I think every Democrat I know wants to fund the government. Speaker Johnson didn't have 38 of his own members support that bill. I don't know what their plan C is. I know Democrats want to fund the government. They're really important things we need to get done, but we can't be rolled out.

by somebody just because of threats. Our job is to protect the people that elected us. - Congresswoman, is the House Speaker Mike Johnson engaging at all with Hakeem Jeffries, with Democratic leaders right now? - I think they're, I know that Hakeem, that they have had good relationships. They try to talk, he respects them. I don't believe there's been a lot of discussion between Democrats and Republicans in the last 48 hours.

If Donald Trump were to come to Washington, as some Republican, we heard from Senator Kevin Cramer saying, to fix this, Donald Trump needs to come to Washington and talk to people face to face. Do you think if that happened, Republicans could get something across the line?

I don't know. I think that President Trump is certainly persuasive. I don't like a form of government run by threats. If he came and explained to people, although I think a number of the Freedom Caucus members have some pretty strong feelings about why they voted no. But

But I think people should talk. I think getting everybody at the table. As I've said before, compromise is not a dirty word. People have different perspectives. You can try to figure it out. But I don't think making sure a billionaire can invest in China and cutting children's cancer. And our farmers have so many things they're worried about. Veterans, seniors, there's a lot of issues we need to address.

Those people shouldn't be hurt in the process of helping billionaires. Where is President Biden in all this? He is still actually president. I know that he's been very engaged. I myself talked to the White House multiple times yesterday. Thursday was the anniversary of his first wife's death. So we did go to Delaware and went to mass, a ritual I respect. But he's very much present watching this.

I think right now it's time to see the Republicans. They're the ones that wanted to blow up the deal. They're the ones, so you're all paying attention to President Musk, President...

soon to be President Trump again. - Yeah, to follow up on how President Biden is sort of exiting the stage, his sort of posture towards what's happening is remarkable in its kind of change from what we saw during the campaign. I wanna show you, this is something that he said when he gave that major speech about democracy in Pennsylvania back on January 5th, and then what we heard from him yesterday. Let's watch this. - Trump's assault on democracy isn't just part of his past.

It's what he's promising for the future. He's being straightforward. He's not hiding the ball. The fact that he doesn't abide by the rules of the democracy we've established is not my concern. My job is to make a transition workable and available. It's quite a shift in tone.

Well, one was a campaign mode where he was warning people what was going to happen. I think on the minds of many Democrats is what happened during the January 6th, four years ago, there was not a peaceful transition of government the way that I hope will happen this time. The people spoke on Election Day.

that he would do. I think all of us are committed to protecting our democracy. We are not going to be threatened by billionaires. But what our responsibility is, is to have an orderly transition of government, and to have a government that is

And those of us who are elected, no matter what our party, have a responsibility to fight hard for the issues that matter to the people that elected us, to protect them, reach across the aisle and try to work with them, but not let people hurt seniors or veterans or children. And that's what you're seeing now, an orderly transition, which is what our democracy is.

Do you think that President Biden in his waning days here should offer some pardon related protections to members of the January 6th committee, considering what Trump has had to say about that in the last week?

I have spoken with many members of the January 6th committee, and they... I haven't talked to them in the last 48 hours, but last week, we're... We haven't done anything wrong, so pardon implies that we've done something wrong. I very much worry about the threats I've heard directed towards Liz Cheney in the past week, and I hope our country remains a democracy and people aren't threatened for trying to be responsible public servants.

All right, Congresswoman Debbie Dingell, always grateful to have you. Happy holidays. Merry Christmas. Good luck if you get to celebrate it anyway. All right, coming up after the break on CNN this morning, it's electric. Donald Trump's plans to roll back the Biden administration's electric vehicle policy and the last-ditch effort to stop that from happening. Plus, in his final days in office, President Biden notably absent from the spotlight, even with that possible government shutdown looming just hours away. Michael Smirconish, here to discuss.

Nobody's asking where Joe Biden is or what Joe Biden thinks, and he's the sitting president of the United States. Doesn't that say something right now? All right, let's turn out of this. During the chaos that unfolded yesterday on Capitol Hill, there was a key voice that seemed MIA. Nobody's asking where Joe Biden is or what Joe Biden thinks, and he's the sitting president of the United States. Doesn't that say something right now?

President Biden, in his waning days in office, has been staying out of the spotlight, even as shutdown negotiations spiral as Donald Trump and Elon Musk take the reins. His apathy toward Trump in this moment seemed to be summed up in this remark. The fact that he doesn't abide by the rules of the democracy we've established is not my concern. My job is to make a transition workable and available.

Not my concern. It does sound a little different from what we heard from the president on the campaign trail. He's willing to sacrifice our democracy. I'm not making these quotes up. When he says he wants to be a dictator, I believe him. We've got to win. My democracy is the state. There's an extremist movement that does not share the basic beliefs in our democracy. The MAGA movement. Well, that's my commitment to you, to show you democracy, democracy, democracy.

All right. It's Friday. It means it's time for Michael Smirconish, CNN political commentator, host of CNN Smirconish. Michael, always wonderful to see you. Thank you, Casey. Merry Christmas and happy holidays if I don't see you again between now and the big days next week. Thank you so much for all the appearances this year as well. We've loved having you. Merry Christmas. Happy holidays to you as well. As we sort of outlined there, one person who seems to be on vacation.

Already maybe heading out on vacation as President Biden. I mean, you heard the tone there. You haven't seen very much of him out in public here. Instead, the focus really on the president-elect, even though he's not president yet. What do you make of it all?

Well, that and couple it with the fact that just within the last 48 hours, you've had these two really significant stories, one from The Wall Street Journal, a four person byline, the other from The New York Times on the front page of yesterday's print edition, talking about the frailties that he has exhibited the entire time that he's been in office, including this line on the front page of The Times yesterday. It's hard to imagine that he seriously thought that he could do the world's most stressful job ever.

for another four years. Now, I should point out that there's no bombshell. There's no one anecdote, at least to my eye, in the Times or in the Wall Street Journal, where you read it and you say, my God, why didn't someone say something then? But collectively, they tell the story of, frankly, an 82-year-old exhibiting the frailties of an 82-year-old. But I think that it is a reflective moment for all of us, including the media, to say,

Why are the stories appearing now and how much of this, frankly, could have been written before now? And what would have happened if the debate moment hadn't occurred? He'd stayed in and he'd won the election. Like, where would we be today? A little painful, a little uncomfortable, especially to raise at the end of his term and during the holidays. But I think it's a worthy conversation.

Michael, what do you think and how do you think voters take in this, you know, what we're learning now here? And how angry do you think they feel about seemingly being deceived during this period? So.

So anecdotally, based on the telephone callers to my program both yesterday and I'll cover this subject again today, given the Wall Street Journal reporting. And if I look at the comments that are appended to each of this, these stories, there is a lot of I told you so maybe from partisans.

And a lot of people who voiced the complaint that the media was in the know and covered for him because of their dislike of Donald Trump. They were willing to look the other way, hoping that Biden, in whatever capacity he might be, would nevertheless beat Donald Trump. That's a perception held not by all, but by a significant number, I think, of Americans.

Well, you saw it really in the polling as well that, you know, people really didn't think he was up to it well before we saw him take that debate stage in Atlanta. Michael, while I have you, I do really want to ask you about what we're seeing going on on Capitol Hill, particularly the dynamic between Donald Trump.

and Elon Musk here because we covered this yesterday. Watching those tweets come out from Musk as they were trying to pass this on the Hill on Wednesday reminded me very strongly of what used to happen when Donald Trump was in office the first time around and it would send things skidding out on Capitol Hill all the time, except

This time, the person who caused that to happen, it wasn't Donald Trump. It was Elon Musk. And Trump came in kind of late and said, yeah, actually, I do agree with this. Now, Speaker Johnson was waiting for him before formally pulling the bill. But the ship had already sailed by the time Trump weighed in. I think that's going to impact the Trump-Musk dynamic, if at all. I don't get this. Donald Trump has been on cruise control, right? He wins a majority of the vote, both houses of Congress vote.

Tech titans are coming to kiss the ring in Mar-a-Lago. World leaders are seeking to curry favor. He goes to France to be with Macron. Like why this unforced error at the end of the year when things are looking so rosy for him and people, I think, are largely willing to give him a fresh slate for a second term and to be so at odds with what had been sort of a core principle of of conservatism.

Republican politics, which is control the spending. And now he's on the side of seeking to do what? Raise the debt ceiling? For what purpose? The only thing, and I'm not expert in these matters, the only thing that I can imagine is because they want to ease the ability for a tax cut on his watch and they need the debt ceiling gone in order to make that a reality. I can't do better with any other speculation.

Briefly, who do you think takes the blame if the government shuts down over the holidays? Republicans? Democrats?

It's going to remind me of of the the bipartisan effort for border control where Trump torpedoed it and then everybody pointed fingers at one another. But if this deal doesn't go through, I don't know how you come to any conclusion other than it was the Republicans, including Trump and Elon Musk, who thwarted it. That would be my conclusion. All right. Michael Smirconish, always grateful to have you, as you said. Merry Christmas. Happy holidays. Can't wait to see you in the new year.

For our viewers, remember, tune in to Smirk Hanush tomorrow morning, 9 a.m. Eastern, right here on CNN. All right, 51 minutes past the hour. Here is your morning roundup. A spectacle in New York. Suspected CEO killer, 26-year-old Luigi Mangione back in New York.

He arrived surrounded by officers with bulletproof vests and automatic weapons. Even the mayor, Eric Adams, showed up. They were all escorting him in handcuffs to federal court. Mangione facing a slew of new federal charges. If found guilty, he could face the death penalty.

Malaysia has agreed in principle to restart its search for the wreckage of flight MH370. Remember this? The Malaysia Airlines flight was carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew members when it vanished more than 10 years ago. In the years since then, debris from the plane has washed up on the east coast of Africa and on islands in the Indian Ocean.

Former MLB slugger Sammy Sosa welcomed back by the Chicago Cubs after apparently acknowledging he used performance-enhancing drugs during a career that featured more than 600 homers. Sosa releasing this statement, quote,

Remarkable. Briefly, I want to go back to Mangione, Megan Hayes, because you just had some interesting insight that I kind of wanted to share, which is that

That helipad where he landed, the president often lands there, so you've seen how they can handle that. They didn't have to make him do this walk. No, they frequently bring the cars closer, and you don't have to do that walk. They don't make the president walk. I don't know if it's the exact same pier that the president lands on, but they are able to withstand cars moving, so they did not have to make it. And from my experience with the president, you don't need to do this long walk. And also, they want the pictures. You can see the public affairs person from the police department right there taking photos.

Yeah, so that's a police department camera watching this all play out. I mean, it's just remarkable, stunning, yesterday. So many people. All right, let's turn now to something that President Biden is trying to protect ahead of Donald Trump's inauguration. This sucker's quick. How's it drive?

If you've ever test driven an EV, they are very quick off the line. Biden making a last minute push to secure his electric vehicle agenda by green lighting California's electric vehicle mandate in the hopes that the state's market power will spur EV production before Trump gets into office. Trump has said he'll roll back Biden's EV policies. You might remember he made headlines this summer with this, let's say, confusing way of explaining why.

They want us to make all electric boats. What would happen if the boat sank from its weight and you're in the boat and you have this tremendously powerful battery and the battery is now underwater and there's a shark that's approximately 10 yards over there. Do I get electrocuted? If the boat is sinking, water goes over the battery, the boat is sinking. Do I stay on top of the boat and get electrocuted or do I jump over by the shark? You know what I'd do if there was a shark?

or you get electrocuted, I'll take electrocution every single time. I'm not getting near the shark. So we could end that. Who knew Donald Trump was afraid of sharks? I didn't know that.

So this EV situation, Jonah, California has a history of setting standards for cars in America because the market is so big. Things like seatbelts and other rules often originate there. Now Biden is trying to save this. Is it going to work? And I'm also interested in the

you know, tension between Trump and Musk on electric vehicles as well. Yeah, I mean, I think this is a microcosm of... The Musk-Trump part is a microcosm of these coalitional tensions and fault lines within the sort of Trump orbit that are really hard to sort of figure how they're going to play out. I hope this fails. I mean, I don't care about the shark stuff, but, like...

I'm against industrial policy by the federal government. And the only thing I'm more against is industrial policy by the state of California imposing something on the entire country. And it is going to be interesting to see what kind of carve out Musk gets, not just for the EV stuff and the subsidies for EVs, but also for a lot of the China stuff. Because he needs China in a huge way. And the rest of the party is very hawkish on China. And I just don't know how it's going to play out.

which is one thing I wanted to add about what Joe Biden has done. Most things that Joe Biden is doing right now can very easily be reversed at this late point in the presidency. But he probably had the most ambitious EV agenda of any president ever, but they've come up short in some very significant ways. They were going to make all these charging stations all across America.

They've only had a handful actually been produced, and it's almost certain that Donald Trump is not going to build anymore. Key word is mandate. That's the key word. I mean, I remember traveling with Tim Scott and going to Iowa. People are against electric vehicles as a competition. What they are against is being told they need to hit certain mandates, and that's where the rub is among our party and the general populace. You saw Democrats run away from EPS at the very end of this last campaign. Lesotkin, Michigan, ran ads basically saying, I'm not going to do mandates.

So that's very hard to take from the ethanol state, I'll just say. In Iowa, yes. I mean, it's interesting, Megan Hayes, the New York Times ran this headline last month. Automakers to Trump, colon, please require us to sell electric vehicles. It's a little counterintuitive, but three of the nation's largest automakers, Ford, General Motors, Stellantis, are strategizing with other car manufacturers on how to make a delicate request. Don't scrap.

the federal regulations that compel the industry to sell them. In fact, most automakers don't love the more stringent rules that Mr. Biden put in place, but they have already invested billions in a transition to electric vehicles, and they fear that if Mr. Trump made an abrupt change, as he has promised, they could be undercut by automakers who sell cheaper gas-powered cars.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there was a lot when we were there and you saw the president went to different, to GM and to Ford to see some of these factories. And they have now turned them over to make EV cars and they have already invested all the money to change over these factories and to train their workers to now make electric or to make EV. So I think that they will lose out on a big investment that they put forth based on this money that came out of IRA.

All right, on this holiday Friday, I'm gonna leave you with this. It's a bird? It's a plane? Nope, it's Superman. - Clifftown. - Home. - David, home.

Yes, the Man of Steel and his dog, Crypto, making a comeback in a new movie from director James Gunn. A brand new teaser trailer giving us our first look at David Cornswet donning the super suit. And we get a glimpse of Rachel Brosnahan as intrepid reporter Lois Lane. Since the trailer's debut Thursday, it's already been viewed more than 21 million times. Also, a familiar sound returns, a reimagining of the iconic theme from the first Superman movies starring Christopher Reeve.

The movie is set to hit theaters next July. It will be distributed by Warner Brothers Pictures, which, like CNN, is owned by Warner Brothers Discovery. All right, who's the favorite Superman? George Reeves. The original, 1950s. Yeah, Megan? I have not seen any of them, so I don't know. I know you guys are all shocked and surprised here. Megan, hashtag fail. Alex? Henry Cavill. I think the Christopher Reeves turning back time really just soured me. It was very bad. What about you?

Dan Aykroyd from the Saturday Night Live skit, What If Superman Had Been Born in Germany? Der Ubleman. We got to clip and save that. I have to go with Christopher Reeve. I'm sorry. It's just, I found it to be iconic. There was that also documentary about him and his life. It came out this year, so...

Good fun. Thanks to our panel. Happy holidays. Merry Christmas. Thanks to all of you for joining us as well. I hope you enjoy your holiday season. I'm Casey Hunt. Don't go anywhere. 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.

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