Trump Digs in After Midterms, Elevates Hardliner Stephen Miller

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1:01Out front next, breaking news, the Democrats flipping another seat this hour. The blue wave getting bigger, more projections could be coming. As I said, we're making another call now. As Trump says, more heads may roll. Also breaking new numbers from the Mississippi Senate race that has yet to be called. Democrat Scott Colombe's lead just got bigger and he will be out front live. And we'll speak to the Georgia governor-elect, Keisha Lance Bottoms, the first black woman ever to be elected governor in the United States of America. Let's go out front. And good evening. I'm Erin Burnett. And out front, we begin with the breaking news.

1:38Trump says tonight more firings could be coming as he's publicly spinning his party's massive defeat. President Trump just speaking at the Kennedy Space Center, which is his first major speech since the election. But as you're about to hear, Trump is not taking the blame. Despite the$3 trillion lost yesterday, you know, our country lost$3 trillion all because of an election. I wonder what that means. If we would have gained$3 trillion, I probably would have been more unhappy. But you know what that means? That means that they thought somebody else did well in the election. By the way, I was not on the ballot, just in case you had any question.

2:17Because if we were on the ballot, we would have won. But we weren't. So he said, I wasn't on the ballot. If we were on the ballot, referring to himself, that Republicans would have won. But I just want to remind everybody, in the context of what he just said there, what he said days before the election. You have to do the one thing. Pretend I'm on the ballot. Pretend I'm on the ballot. But in this election, I'm asking you to pretend I'm on the ballot just one more time. So what I really want you to do is pretend, please, that I'm on the ballot. Well, it, of course, seemed like the American public did that.

3:02They did vote like he was on the ballot. And we are just getting in more results from the historic midterms. Democrat Nancy LaCour flipping the seat that was once held by Nancy Mace, obviously. So that's going R to D. 99 % of the vote now in and LaCour leads the Republican Jenny Costa Honeycutt by more than 3 ,000 votes. That gives Democrats 254 seats compared to 163 for Republicans and puts Democrats on the path to their, excuse me, largest gains since Watergate. And at this hour, Democrats are still leading in four districts currently being held by Republicans. And today, with all of this fallout, a major shakeup at the White House after the GOP collapse.

3:40Trump elevating his controversial top deputy Stephen Miller to become his new chief of staff. And it takes place right away. There's no two weeks notice. This is Monday. Stephen Miller is going to walk in and be the chief of staff, replacing Susie Wiles. As of tonight, that's the highest ranking White House official to leave Trump's White House in the wake of the colossal Republican collapse. A wipeout that sources tell CNN has left Trump fuming. And maybe you could even see from that speech today uncertain as to how to deal with it. And despite saying he'd work with Democrats after those losses by promoting Miller, Trump is sending, obviously, the complete opposite signal, calling Miller a great manager and also saying that he gets it politically.

4:21But voters overwhelmingly from across the United States have rejected Trump's actions in office. And with Miller in charge, right, it's continuity and it's continuity on some of the most controversial policies, showing that perhaps Trump is prepared to veer even harder to the right. Miller is the architect behind the aggressive ICE raids and mass deportations, after all. To all ICE officers, you have federal immunity in the conduct of your duties. And anybody who lays a hand on you or tries to stop you or tries to obstruct you is committing a felony. You have immunity to perform your duties. Either we all side and get behind President Trump to remove these terrorists from our communities, or we let a rogue, radical left judiciary shut down the machinery of our national security apparatus?

5:12Of course, he's also one of Trump's biggest cheerleaders when it comes to the rest of his agenda. Julia Bentonbrook begins our coverage out front live. She's at the Kennedy Space Center. That's where President Trump just spoke. And Julia, what else are you learning about this? I mean, obviously, it gets announced on a Friday. It takes place on a Monday, right? This is abrupt, to say the very least. What are you learning about why Susie Wiles is out and Stephen Miller is in as chief of staff? It is going to happen quickly. And the one thing that is clear is that Trump is frustrated and he has been looking at strategy, at things that went wrong.

5:46And Susie Wiles, the current chief of staff, is taking at least part of the blame for that. Now, I did want to note that here at this event, you know, in Florida, Republicans did come out on top in those big races. Ashley Moody in the Senate, Byron Donald in the governor's race. They were both here, but even they won by less significant margins than they had hoped. So Republicans are really questioning all the things that took place here. Susie Wiles will be replaced by Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller. And as you pointed out, he is one of the more polarizing figures in this administration.

6:21He played a key role in orchestrating Trump's hardline immigration agenda. According to a source familiar with the matter, Wiles turned in her resignation last night. She will move to the political operation in Trump's world, and that is all going to go into effect on Monday. It seemed at first like Trump was somewhat unfazed by these sweeping losses. He's just kept saying, you know, I wasn't on the ballot. That's really what took place here. But we are learning that he was frustrated even during that viewing party in the East Room. And that frustration has only grown as he has continued to watch the negative media coverage.

6:59And when he was on his way here today, he said that he thought that he just needed a change. He praised Wiles, but he said he thought he just needed a change and that he believes Miller gets it. All right, Julia, thank you very much. And he believes Miller gets it. Well, everyone's here with me now to talk about this. So, Paul, what does this tell you? He says Trump says Stephen Miller gets it. But that's certainly not what the American public got. He's circling the wagons. He's shrinking the circle. And he's getting ready for war. I think any idea that he's going to moderate here is unrealistic.

7:36You know, he's not going to compromise with the Democrats. He's getting ready for a fight. And he's putting Hegseth into that circle. I think he's going to be more extreme. He's going to be more radical. He's going to be more unpredictable. You know, it was a blue wave, but it was powered by independent water. and that's really where he lost the country. He lost independence almost two to one to the Democrats and they want to see moderation. They want to see him in check, but he's ready to go. And I think it's really important to underscore that in the next two months, he might be at his most dangerous.

8:04A cornered animal is a dangerous animal, especially when it comes to national security. So there's no limit to what he could do with Iran, Cuba, here domestically. And I think we're in for some very dangerous times after this honeymoon period the Democrats have had. I mean, so let me just remind people of some of the things. I mean, I talked about Stephen Miller as the architect of ICE, right? But he also has gone along with Trump on all of some of the lowest common denominator culture war comments that he's made. Just to remind everybody here, Stephen Miller.

8:34OK, sorry, we don't have that one. But he said things like talking about Robert De Niro. He called him a sad, bitter, broken old man. He talked about James Tallarico, who just won in Texas when he goes in for a blood test. Blood doesn't come out. They say milk comes out. He's clearly transitioning to a female. These are all things Stephen Miller said. And I can go on and on. But this is who is now the chief of staff. Yeah. And I worked with Stephen Miller in the first Trump administration. And he is about as extreme as they get. And one of the things that I think has stuck out most to me during Trump 2.0 is in the aftermath of our government murdering Alex Preddy in cold blood in the street.

9:14What did Stephen Miller tweet out? That he was a domestic terrorist. And that is the person that Trump just appointed. And I have to say that I think Stephen Miller is a horrible human being to just in general and a racist, a bigot. I could keep going, but I won't waste our airtime with that. But what I have to say, too, is that this is just poor political instincts on the president's part, because Stephen Miller is the chief person responsible for blowing up his coalition with Latino voters, people who voted and sent him back into the White House in 2024. That is what Stephen Miller is responsible for because he took one of the GOP's best issues, border and immigration, and made it one of the biggest liabilities with his cruel and inhumane mass deportations.

9:54Yep. So Trump just gave an interview after this to 60 Minutes. He might have done it just before, but we just got the sound afterwards where he says that more people are going to be fired from the administration. Here's how he put it. In a previous lifetime, you were rather famous for saying you're fired quite often. After a big midterm defeat like this, do you expect to fire anyone from your team? Yeah, a little bit. A little bit? I love my cabinet. I think they're good. But I'll be doing maybe a few changes. I don't want to mention who.

10:30Well, as tough as it was for Susie Wiles to lose her job, she did better than Reince previous in 2017 when Donald Trump left him on the tarmac in Long Island after he was fired unceremoniously. And so at least she didn't travel all the way to the trip today and then have to find our way home. Listen, Donald Trump has given America the big middle finger. What he's decided is it doesn't matter what you said on Tuesday. It doesn't matter that you didn't you didn't you reject everything that we've done over the last 20, 22 months. I'm still going to do whatever it is I want to do, and everybody's just going to have to take it.

11:02And I think maybe it doesn't hurt him, but for every Republican who's thinking about running for president in 2028, they're going to have to live with the whole Donald Trump is digging for Republicans. Paul started off by saying that Trump's ready for war with this and referring to war with Democrats. His initial comment, Ryan, was he's going to work with them. But then you have Robert Garcia, who's expected to be the House Oversight Chairman in a Democratic House, who said that Miller should quote unquote lawyer up. That was in all caps, and that was hours after the election. I don't know if that's related to what happened here today, but Trump going ahead and choosing Stephen Miller as his chief of staff, you can see the front lines of this war right there.

11:42Yeah, and it actually does change the equation for the Democrats going after Stephen Miller, trying to tell him to lawyer up. In other words, that they're going to investigate him because as chief of staff, he does come with potential legal protections that he otherwise wouldn't have. And it's based on longstanding Justice Department theories that they say that there's absolute immunity. The chief of staff is the president's alter ego and as his alter ego, he does not have to appear before Congress. He cannot be subpoenaed before Congress. The Democrats can litigate that. There's some good case law for that, but that's a clash in the courts.

12:14Do they really want to do that? Do they want to give this to the U.S. Supreme Court, which has a maximalist view of presidential authority and could easily side with the White House? So it does put in something else into the equation when they think about Stephen Miller, who would otherwise be a great witness for them. I'm curious, Paul, you know, I'm just thinking, obviously, Democrats were irate at this and enraged. But the Republican Congressman Don Bacon spoke out today. He said Miller's a big mistake. And he said, I don't know of a single Democrat that will work with him, frankly. And I think many Republicans do not hold him in high regard.

12:43So this is also Trump taking on his own party back to, well, I wasn't on the ballot. If I were, we would have won. Yeah, I think he's ready to go to war with everybody. I mean, he's not really conceded that he's loyal to his party in any means, and he's willing to pursue his agenda until the wheels come off. I mean, I think he's going to go as hard as he can on his objectives over the next two years. Don Bacon has been kind of a voice of conscience in the Republican Party, especially on Ukraine, other national security issues. He's a retired general. And I think it shows the fragmentation that's happening within the Republican Party.

13:13Don Bacon might run for president. Right. What's going to happen to the Republican Party? But now it's going to be a defining moment for them because they can't accept Stephen Miller. I mean, he's absolutely unacceptable, especially on the Hill. So you want to get anything done legislatively? This is the opposite strategy to achieve that. And then, you know, on top of this, you talk about his circle getting smaller and smaller. Well, he's embraced Pete Hegseth. We'll see if that holds. But wanting Pete Hegseth gone is about as bipartisan as it gets on Capitol Hill, right? And that's true before the Tuesday vote.

13:41But Pete Hegseth was one of the first to congratulate Stephen Miller. perhaps no surprise. But Trump is backing Hegseth now publicly in that interview that he gave to CBS. Let me just play what he just said. I will say that we saw Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth in the hall. He was meeting with you just before now. His name has come up a few times as someone people have called for his resignation. Do you have confidence in him? I do. Look, we've won two wars. We've won Venezuela and taken out billions and billions and billions of dollars already and we will be taking out many billions of dollars and get along very well and you could call it a territory you could call it whatever you want we won that war in less than one hour and you credit nobody was killed you credit pete hegseth no but he was a part of it he didn't say what the other war was by the way and he did just claim ben as well as a territory i mean there's a lot in there but i i'm just wondering what message you think he's sending?

14:45I mean, by saying to Republicans, I'm not even going to give you Pete Hegsa. Well, he has a tendency to stick by the men in this administration. And it's the women who we've seen him fire or Susie Wiles is gone. Exactly. Because sure, she submitted her resignation, but she was forced out the door. And so we're all these other women like Pam Bondi and Tulsi Gabbard. And so I just think it speaks to that of the misogyny of him, that he is easy to point the finger at women, but isn't holding men to the same account. I think when you look at Pete Hegseth, there are plenty of reasons for impeaching Pete Hegseth or firing Pete Hegseth, whether it be, I think back to Signalgate and him texting war plans.

15:25I think of them illegally bombing these alleged drug boats off the coast of the Caribbean and the East Pacific, or now they're botched handling of this war with Iran and there is seemingly no exit strategy. And voters want an end to that war. And Trump could give them a fall guy and give them a head by firing Pete Hegseth. It would actually be politically the smart thing to do. But I also think it would be the right thing to do. And maybe, you know, lesson learned, don't make a Fox News weekend host head of the Pentagon. So what happens with Pete Hegseth here? I mean, if they go ahead with impeachment, which, by the way, impeachment articles are coming from Republican Senator, I mean, sorry, Congressman Thomas Massey.

16:03So I think there's a good chance he gets impeached in the next month. Massey has introduced these articles of impeachment before, and it seems as though Speaker Johnson, in fact, had the House leave early in order not to - Which, by the way, if they do it in the next month, just be clear, it's with the Republicans in charge, right? They don't even need the majority that they've got, Democrats. Right. With Republicans in charge, with the Republican as the main sponsor of the impeachment resolution, and it's a number of different articles of impeachment, including the things that we've just mentioned, including the Iran war, Pete Hegseth gutting the part of the DOD that is statutorily created to minimize civilian casualties, all sorts of things.

16:41And if it passes, which it very well could, there's a lot of reporting, CNN's reporting that there are GOP folks saying that it can pass. And also you have to get the GOP to come back, some of the Republicans to come back to the Hill in order to get the numbers up and they might not come back to the Hill if they've been voted out of office. So I think it does get to pass through the House. Then we'll see what happens in the Senate, but I'm not sure it'll happen there. What does that mean for Trump though? Well, you know, first of all, there are a lot of people who've lost their job in the last week because Donald Trump has done his job so poorly.

17:09So I can't imagine that so many of them would be looking to protect him in any way. And if you're a United States senator looking at having to run for re-election in 2028, you also don't have a lot of incentive to try to stick by either Pete Hegseth or Donald Trump. Yeah, you want your vote to be pro-Pete Hegseth? Right, exactly. You don't want that to be what people are thinking of. In 1994, Bill Clinton had a bad midterm, and he said the era of big government was over. He changed his behavior, cut deals with Republicans, got reelected. In 2010, Barack Obama said he got shellacked, changed his behavior, cut deals with Republicans, got reelected.

17:40Donald Trump seems like he has no incentive. He's not running for re-election. Doesn't seem like he has any incentive to try to cut deals with Democrats, and that is going to hurt Republicans. And I guess he doesn't, maybe he doesn't care who gets elected. He's saying he doesn't even think J.D. Vance is going to run, since it's not going to be him. Well, I don't want to be J.D. Vance running with this record. All right. Thank you all very much. And next, we do have the breaking news. New numbers just coming in in the Mississippi. razor-thin Senate race. Democrats got Colon widening his lead over the Republican incumbent Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith.

18:08So, Colon think he's got it. Does he think he's the next senator from Mississippi making history? Well, he's going to tell you because he's live out front next. And we'll speak to Georgia governor-elect Keisha Lance Bottoms. What does she believe was behind the blue wave? Was it just Trump? And some Republicans suggesting that J.D. Vance betrayed Trump by blaming Trump's war in Iran for the Republican losses. We're going to speak to Sophia Nelson, a very close friend of J.D. Vance's and their time at Yale Law School, and she'll tell you how she sees it.

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19:46All right, we've got breaking news with new numbers in from Mississippi. Mississippi is one of only two Senate races that are left to be called. And at this hour, the Democrats, Scott Colom, is widening his lead over the Republican incumbent, Senator Cindy Hyde. Smith. Now, we've got just over 2 ,500 votes separating the two candidates. I'll be exact here. 2 ,574, I believe. And that is with 97 % of the vote in. It is still too close for us to call officially, but Cologne today says it essentially is over for Cindy Hyde-Smith. We want to hear from her. She needs to ask the question. What is her path to victory?

20:21She doesn't have one.

20:25All right, Scott Cologne is going to be with me in just a moment. But before we are joined by the man who may be soon the senator-elect from Mississippi. I'm here with Harry Enten to go through the numbers and to tell us something we don't know. So, you know, Colom says Hyde-Smith has no path to victory. Is he correct? I don't know if she has no path, but if she has any paths, they are very, very narrow. Scott Colom is the clear favorite at this point. I fully expect him to be the next senator from the great state of Mississippi. And why do I say that? Well, first off, as Aaron was pointing out, the lead has been widening, but it is more than that.

21:01It is, where is Cindy Hyde-Smith going to make up the deficit that she currently faces? I mean, you know, we can just go to the map here and we can say, okay, where are the counties, let's just say, where we have less than, we have showing 94 % reporting or less? Well, there's a lot more blue on this map than there is red. There are still votes to be counted from the Jackson area, Hines County, right? There are still votes to be counted from these counties that are blue that are heavily, heavily Democratic. I mean, look at this. 86 to 13. My goodness gracious. Right. And that's not the only one.

21:34I mean, you can go here. What do we have here? 75 to 20, 24. I mean, these are heavily Democratic counties. And the only really one red left is around Tupelo. And you can see it right here. Cindy Heidesmith. Yeah, she's ahead, but only by 17. In my opinion, if anything, based on the map, math, and everything that we've seen so far in this race, I actually expect Cologne's lead to widen as more votes are counted, not shrink. Okay. You know, I'm looking at this Ty Pinkins. Yes. Ty Pinkins, he's at 2 % here, and we're in Lee County. And we can zone it. But it's about 2 % overall as well, right? So that's been consistent.

22:09But, you know, obviously when you're looking at a margin of, what did I say, 2 ,574 votes, and Ty Pinkins has 20 ,000 votes. If Ty Pinkins were not in this race, we would maybe know who the winner is, and we might be looking at something different. I mean, what's happening here? Yeah, I mean, this to me is very interesting because there were a lot of complaints or a lot of noise that I heard that Pinkins was taking votes away from Scott Cologne. No. If anything, the mask shows he's actually taking votes away from Sidney Hyde-Smith. Take a look at this. Voted for the independent in the Mississippi Senate race.

22:40Look at this. 3 % of Republican or independent-leaning Republicans said, in fact, that they had voted for Ty Pinkins. Compare that to the percentage of Democrats who said zero, zero, zero. So I think based upon the polling that I am looking at, he was basically this escape valve for a lot of non-MAGA Republicans to say, I can't go all the way to Democrats, but I can't vote for Cindy Hyde-Smith, who has backed Trump so much. Which, by the way, is making the point that if Ty Pinkins were not in the race, that does not mean Cindy Hyde-Smith would get those votes. No. So that seeing that GOP is voting is not the same thing as exactly, which is important.

23:13All right. Tell me something else I don't know. All right, I'll tell you something else you don't know, Aaron Burnett, and that is, you know, Democrats had a really good night on Tuesday night. But I think that they have a pretty good chance of holding on to these House and Senate majorities in the next election as well. Take a look at the cash prediction market chance that Democrats win in 2028. The House, 81 percent. The Senate now up to 88 percent chance, which, of course, makes a whole heck of a lot of sense. Because if you're winning in states like Mississippi and you get up, let's say you win Alaska as well, you get 56 seats in the United States Senate.

23:43awfully difficult, given the map in 2028, that Democrats will lose that Senate majority. Wow. All right. Which shows you how much is at stake with what they choose to do really in these next 18 months. We'll see what happens. All right. Harry Enten, thank you. And as promised, now I want to go out front now to Scott Colombe, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Mississippi. And Scott, you just heard Harry here talking about the numbers, saying that as he looks at it, you are most likely going to be the senator-elect. Your lead grew today by about 600 votes. As we were just saying, it's now a lead of 2 ,574.

24:17And Harry was going through some of the counties where there's outstanding votes, whether it's Lee or Hines, and the math and why it favors you. Are you 100 percent confident that you will be the senator-elect from Mississippi? A hundred percent. I predicted this on Wednesday morning. Harry's absolutely right. I knew it was going to trend in my direction because I follow politics in Mississippi. I knew where the votes were. And it's going to only get, you know, more and more clear that the voters have chosen a new direction. And I'm ready to be the next United States senator for the great state of Mississippi.

24:51So the chairman of Mississippi's Republican Party just told CNN, and you know the math here, so I want you to fact check this, that as many as 28 ,000 ballots may still be uncounted. Obviously, you know, we're looking at your margin is 2 ,574. Now, I guess my question is, do you think the uncounted is that high? I mean, I suppose it may be, and it just may be in those heavily Democratic counties. What do you know? Yeah, I mean, here's the reality. He won't tell you where those ballots are because he knows they're in Democratic counties where I'm going to win. And, you know, he needs to stop creating chaos.

25:27It's very clear that the voters have chosen to go in a new direction. And, you know, our Julia Sander, she needs to do the right thing. If she thinks that she has a path to victory, she needs to get in front of a television, get in front of the voters that she still represents, explain how she has a path to victory. Now, she won't do that because she can't win. And it's time to look out for the voters. We got to start focusing on getting these tariffs under control to look out for farmers. We got to make sure we preserve health care and hospitals in Mississippi. We got to make sure we focus on economic development.

25:56It's time to focus on the people of Mississippi and not the politicians. All right. So now you talk about it's time to do that. And I, you know, just going to raise the question as to whether she will eventually do that or not. I mean, there's an army of lawyers in Mississippi right now, and they're counting the ballots we mentioned about provisional ballots as well. There's no state law in Mississippi, I understand, Scott, that would govern how a recount would even work. So we asked Ben Ginsberg, he's a prominent Republican election lawyer, about what could happen. And he said, and in part, Scott, quote, Mississippi has never had a statewide general election recount for a federal office.

26:34There's no statute to cover it. That means a campaign would have to find a cause of action to sue in as many as 82 separate counties, which is a recipe for inconsistent rulings. All of this makes for a recount lawyer's dream for delaying and obfuscating a final result. Look for this one to be long and ugly. Are you worried about this, Scott? Well, I would say that I would hope that our Julian Senator would do the right thing. It's not about her. It's not about the Republican Party. It's about the people of Mississippi. It's clear they've chosen to go into a new direction. If they want to litigate, we've got an army of lawyers ready to protect the process, protect the integrity of the decision the voters made on November 3rd.

27:17And if anybody wants to be a part of that and help us do that, go to Scott, Scott Colombe dot com, because we're not going to let them stop the will of the voters. So, you know, you spent months obviously trying to get Democrats to pay attention to your race. You saw something that, frankly, they did not. Not until, what, two weeks before the election when the Democratic Senate campaign PAC did some spending in Mississippi. Up to that point, you were Han Solo and you did it by yourself. I'm curious, do you think that money actually helped? And then as another part of that question, Scott, if they had done it sooner and in a more meaningful way, would you already be the senator-elect?

27:56Well, I think with margins this thin, everything, everybody did help. And that includes a lot of people in Mississippi that volunteered, that donated, that showed up at grocery stores and handed out push cards. So it all made a difference. Now, I will say this. I don't want to second guess anybody because there's no point in that. What I would say is we should have always looked at Mississippi as competitive. You look at the demographics, 38 % of the population is African-American. They vote overwhelmingly Democrat. You got a lot of white rural Democrats. And this was always a competitive election.

28:28Our junior senator has betrayed the voters. She voted to take away health care. She supported tariffs that hurt farmers. She supported the war in Iran that hurt farmers, hurt everyday Mississippians. And so, you know, we need to be a party that understands that what happens in Mississippi matters. Well, it sure does. And you have, I think, woken up the country to that. That is for sure. And, Scott Colom, I appreciate your time. It's good to talk to you again, sir. I appreciate it. Scott Colom there, as we said, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Mississippi and may very soon be the senator-elect from the great state of Mississippi.

29:00Thank you, Scott. And I want to go now to just outside Mar-a-Lago, where President Trump has just touched down after his NASA press conference. He's talking to reporters. Let's listen. Because if you look, Iran, just with regular missiles, started hitting Qatar and Saudi Arabia, UAE. Nobody thought that was going to happen. If they had nuclear, they would have used nuclear. They would have obliterated the Middle East. They would have gone after Europe, and they would have gone after some of our cities. Because I know them very well. I deal with them a lot. And I know that they're crazy. So we'll see what happens.

29:34We're dealing with them now. They want to make a deal very badly. They have 300 percent inflation. Their Navy is gone. Their Air Force, everything is gone. And they want to make a deal. So we'll see if they make a deal. The Pressure, President, do you want to make the deal really soon, or are you open to waiting? The President's question, what are you saying? Well, we have nobody getting hurt, nobody getting killed. You know, this is a war that we may have been there for seven months, but we probably fought for three or four weeks, really fought. And again, you look at World War I, that's a war.

30:03World War II, that's a war. You look at Russia, Ukraine, that's a war. We're not fighting. We have the greatest blockade in military history. Nothing comes through the Hormuz Strait without our approval. Nothing is going to Iran. No oil is going to Iran. The Pressure President, you've got a couple months before the new Congress takes their seats. What are your priorities? What would you like to get done? What do you think you need to get done before they step in? The President has to act. The Senate is getting nothing passed, and it's just killing our country. And that means Democrats and Republicans.

30:43They're just not getting anything done. So the Democrats voted a block. We could have the best bill in the world for our country. They vote in a block. And we always have a few Republicans that obstruct. And hopefully, John Thune can finally get him to act. I mean, the Senate has to act. The biggest problem we have, it's a roadblock. It's you send things to the Senate when you want it to die. So they have to get together, Schumer and John Thune or whoever is going to be representing the Democrats. They got to have to get things done. The Senate, the Senate is killing our country.

31:24You just heard President Trump and he's talking to reporters. We'll obviously keep monitoring this. One of the first things he said just before we came in on it was that, again, emphasizing that he was not on the ballot on Tuesday, and he says that is why the GOP lost. Of course, so many Americans say it was Trump, and it was Trump's policies, Trump's tariffs, Trump's war, Trump's immigration, all of it as to why they voted how they voted. Next, the Georgia governor-elect Keisha Lance Bottoms is our guest. Her state is the target of numerous ICE raids. So what's her response to Trump saying, oh, I'm going to work with Democrats on immigration just a second ago, even as he put Stephen Miller, the architect of those ICE raids, in charge as his chief of staff.

32:08Plus, J.D. Vance seemed to throw Pete Hegseth under the bus. He says it's the Iran war that's the reason Republicans lost the midterms. So what's J.D. Vance's strategy here and his ambition? Sophia Nelson, a close friend of Vance's at Yale Law School, is our guest.

32:51Transcription by CastingWords 99 a month. Visit SimpliSafe.com slash licenses for alarm license information.

32:59Breaking news, the Republican Senator Tom Tillis condemning President Trump's decision to elevate longtime loyalist Stephen Miller to be the new White House chief of staff. The worst of all possible choices. How do we think somebody as divisive of a background as Stephen Miller is going to be the olive branch we need to the new Democratic majorities in Congress. That, of course, is the Republican Senator Tom Tillis. Well, the Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom offered a scathing assessment. He said, in part, quote, Donald Trump just promoted one of the most vile thugs to ever slither into the Oval Office.

33:38This is an insult to every American who voted for change on Tuesday. Well, out front now, Georgia's Democratic Governor-elect Keisha Lance Bottoms, she beat Republican businessman Rick Jackson by nearly nine points on Tuesday night, a trouncing. Governor-elect Bottoms, you know, Trump came out today, replaced his chief of staff, and he did it saying on Monday, Stephen Miller's the chief of staff, right? There's no two-week notice. There's nothing. She's gone. He's in. What do you think of Stephen Miller as Trump's chief of staff?

34:08It's deeply disappointing. And the nation sent a message loud and clear on Tuesday that we want to be able to focus on the things that matter to the American people, those everyday things like cost of living. How am I going to put groceries on my table? How am I going to put gas in my car? How am I going to pay my rent? And then to double down on someone who has been so divisive and has been behind so many of the policies that have impacted negatively Americans, it just doesn't make sense. He's doubling down on insanity and chaos, and it's deeply disappointing. And Miller, of course, as you've dealt with ICE raids in Georgia that you now will be dealing with as the chief executive of the state, Miller is the architect of Trump's immigration crackdown.

35:00And just to remind everybody, I'm going to play a message that Stephen Miller directed at ICE agents earlier this year. Here he is. To all ICE officers, you have federal immunity in the conduct of your duties. And anybody who lays a hand on you or tries to stop you or tries to obstruct you is committing a felony. You have immunity to perform your duties and no one, no city official, no state official, no illegal alien, no leftist agitator or domestic insurrectionist can prevent you from fulfilling your legal obligations and duties. So that's Stephen Miller. And I guess in that context, Governor-elect, President Trump just spoke to reporters.

35:43He's taking questions on the tarmac by Mar-a-Lago. And he put Stephen Miller in the job, and then he tells those reporters that he's going to work with Democrats on immigration. Here's his exact words. I mean, I said before, immigration's one. Tax cuts or maybe certain things having to do with taxes to make it more convenient and better. A lot of economic development initiatives we can do. I think we can do a lot of things together, actually. You know, a lot of them are about common sense also, and I think you'll see that. You can see already some of the people that are elected want to meet and want to discuss things having to do with, as an example, Texas, South Carolina, you know, etc.

36:25So I'm very much open to it. He's talking about working with Democrats. I mean, are you going to be able to work with him on any of those issues? end and on immigration, where you're now the governor of a state who's been dealing with ice raids? Well, I can tell you Georgia for the past eight years, at least, has not used the power of the courts when it's come to pushing back against anything or at least the past six years from this Trump administration. The governor didn't do it. The attorney general didn't do it in Trump 1.0, and it's not been done in this term. So I will certainly use whatever power we have within the courts to push back on these issues related to immigration.

37:09But Erin, when I was mayor of Atlanta, I ended our city's contract with ICE. We were housing people in our city detention center. It hadn't been done, as far as I knew, by any other cities, counties, or states. And we took the lead on that, and it changed policies across the country. So I'm not afraid for us to have to step out and do something differently if it means doing better as it relates to immigration. So, you know, you've had a few days here to be the governor elect, right, to have this sink in. And I mean, gosh, I'm just thinking at all the different times that we've seen each other on TV sets or as your mayor in so many roles.

37:48And now you are the first black woman to be elected governor of any state in the United States, any state in the United States. And you will soon be sworn in as governor in the state where your great great grandfather was a slave. He was a slave with a price tag, I understand, of a fourteen hundred dollar value placed on him by his quote unquote owner. And you are now the governor of the state where that was the law. What does this mean for you? Oh, it I've said that for the throughout the course of this campaign, it's so deeply personal for me. And the day before the election, I came across the grave of my great great grandmother, who was born in 1845, 20 years before emancipation.

38:36And I don't think that that was a coincidence that throughout the entirety of my life, I've never heard of the existence of this grave. and we went looking for it in a cemetery full of unmarked graves and we found hers. And it just speaks to the shoulders that I stand on. I stand on shoulders made of steel. This is the same hometown that the vice president of the Confederacy was from, a former governor of Georgia, and here I am. But it speaks to the possibilities of people across America when leaders make decisions with generations not yet born in mind and providing opportunity in ways for things that people may not see possible.

39:22And I'm grateful to be the representative of it and just honored, thankful. Well, I mean, I think no matter what anybody's political affiliation was, just to hear something like that should should give all Americans great pride in what this country can do. Thank you so much, Governor-elect. I appreciate your time. All right. And Trump next says he doesn't know if J.D. Vance will run for president, which is interesting because usually a president who's going to be done after two terms is fully in line behind the campaign of his vice president by now. I'm going to speak to someone who knew Vance before he got into politics.

40:00So what does his dear friend while they were at Yale Law School think? Plus Pope Leo breaking his silence to CNN about the historic election. And of course, his vote in it.

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41:19Breaking news. The Wall Street Journal this hour. Reporting Vice President J.D. Vance is urging President Trump to strike a deal to end the war in Iran after Vance distanced himself immediately in the hours after the election, publicly blaming the war for Republicans' midterm losses. Out front now, Sophia Nelson, a close friend of J.D. Vance's while they were at Yale Law School. You've seen Sophia on this program before, and she is now a public defender in Detroit. Sophia, so it was literally within hours of Trump's loss. I remember I was sitting in front of the Texas state capitol in that state that swept Democratic.

41:51So it was early in the morning on Wednesday. Then J.D. Vance posted this long explanation for the loss, saying that it was Trump's war in Iran to blame. He writes, quote, the reason we lost is the war. Fox called that a betrayal of Trump. How do you see it? Well, I think it's J.D. just trying to create distance between him and the president because the president's approval ratings are in the low 30 percentile and J.D. has political ambition. So he needs to create that distance to have a political future. But his point about the war on Iran is quite interesting because the time to speak out against that was eight months ago before it started, not now.

42:31And what I remember about J.D. Vance is that he went on Fox News and tried to sell the war to the American people. The time to speak out was before American service members died in this unnecessary conflict, before it led to sky-high energy prices for the American people, and before we dropped a bomb on a school in Iran killing 120 innocent children. But it's not surprising to me the only time that J.D. chooses to speak out is when it's in his own political interest. And of those political interests, the same day that J.D. Vance posted that whole explanation, which, by the way, left out tariffs and a whole lot of other things, right?

43:07He just put it all on the war. Trump was asked if he had talked to Vance about running for president in 2028, which, as I point out, right, when it was other presidents, two-term presidents, they were behind their vice president by now with a full apparatus, right? Trump has refused to do that for J.D. Vance. Here's how he answered the question about J.D. running. Maybe nobody's going to run. Maybe he won't run. I don't know who's going to run.

43:35That's the most damning non-endorsement I've heard in a long time. But you've known J.D. long before he got into politics. What do you think he's thinking with this? And is there any question as to what his ambition is? Well, the second I met J.D., I knew he had political ambitions. That wasn't really a secret at Yale Law School. I do wonder if he will run, if he thinks he can't, there isn't a path to victory. But he's certainly trying to create that one here by putting distance between him and the president. But again, it's not just like you mentioned, it's not just the war on Iran that's dropped prices up.

44:13It's tariffs. Prices have continued to increase well before the war in Iran started. And the American people didn't vote for tariffs. They don't like tariffs. They don't like increased costs. And it's also corruption, right? Corruption was one of the main issues that voters said drove them to the polls in this self-dealing. And it's obviously most egregious with the president and his family. But I think since becoming vice president, J.D. Vance has managed to buy a 500-acre compound in Virginia. So he has the taxpayer funded house at the Naval Observatory. He has another house in Virginia and then this new 500 ,000, 500 acre house and then a fourth house, I guess, fifth house in in Cincinnati.

44:53Wow. So it's not just the president who's getting rich. Yeah. So, you know, you mentioned Cincinnati. I just have to ask you something about Ohio, because, you know, at the heart of this election, at the end was that unforgettable and unforgivable ad that Vivek Ramaswamy ran. And J.D. Vance responded to it. I'm referring, of course, as you know, Sophia, to the ad featuring Amy Acton's estranged mother. The mother called Acton a liar, not fit for office. Acton's mother, of course, is the one who fled the state with her husband after a grand jury indicted him for sexually abusing Acton as she was a child, right?

45:27I mean, the entire situation, unimaginable and the ad itself despicable. But when J.D. Vance was asked about it, he was not disgusted by the ad, even though the governor of Ohio all the way down, I mean, right, bipartisan disgust. J.D. Vance was not disgusted by the ad. He said he was disgusted by the Republicans who were disgusted by the ad. Here he is. I have to admit that I'm a little bit disgusted when I see Republicans across the country who are whining more about that advertisement than they are about what the congressional Democrats and other Democrats want to do to the United States of America.

46:07Disgusted by the Republicans whining about that ad. I mean, Sophia, what went through your mind when you heard and saw J.D. Vance say that? I was horrified when I heard about the ad, when I watched the ad. And unfortunately, Vivek Ramaswamy is another classmate of mine. And I'm glad, I'm somewhat hopeful that the American people seem to have really been disgusted as well and drawn a line in the sand and said, this is unacceptable. We don't expect, we don't accept this kind of cruelty in our politics. I know J.D. Vance is capable of compassion and empathy because he's shown it to me in the past.

46:43But what's clear, whether it's smears on Haitian immigrants or endorsing this horrific ad trying to use someone's childhood sexual abuse against them, he's willing to be cruel if he thinks it's going to be to political gain. But fortunately, I think this proved to backfire in a really big way. And I'm glad to see that because I think it shows a turn of our politics away from cruelty and back towards common decency. Sophia, thank you very much. I appreciate talking to you as always. And next, Pope Leo speaking to CNN tonight about his vote in the historic midterms.

47:28Out front tonight, proud to be an American, the first American pope ever to vote in the U.S. election. Pope Leo, of course, spoke out tonight and he spoke to our Christopher Lamb about casting his ballot. How should we understand the significance of your... Well, I already made a statement about it. Okay. I'm proud to be an American and exercise. You're right. Okay. As for the actual results, he kept his cards obviously close to his vestments. The Pope wouldn't weigh in on how things turned out, saying no comment when asked about specific races, including Texas. But his remarks about his pride as an American with the ability to vote comes as he begins a 12-day tour of Uruguay, Argentina and Peru just three weeks after undergoing lung cancer surgery.

48:16Thank you so much for joining us tonight and on this momentous week in American politics. AC 360 begins now. Traditional home security only alerts you after a break in and that's too late. SimpliSafe is changing that. Stop. This is SimpliSafe. Police are on the way. We don't just alert. We help stop crime before it starts. Plans starting around a dollar a day. Right now, get 70 % off your new system with professional monitoring at SimpliSafe.com slash Spotify. SimpliSafe. Ahead of crime in real time. Outdoor deterrence plans start at$49.99 a month. Visit SimpliSafe.com slash licenses for alarm license information.

48:54This holiday, all plans, even unlimited, are just$15 a month. A holiday deal this good obviously deserves an enormously expensive holiday song, Like, all I want... Right. Okay, we can afford that. You know what? Forget the music budget. We're gonna stick with whatever's in the public domain. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of$45 for three months,$90 for six months, or$180 for 12-month plan required. $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. New customer offer for initial plan term only. Greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. See terms.