Trump Says Strikes On Land To Start In Venezuela “Soon”

27:23Why? Because it's for all the marbles, essentially. You know, what they want to suppress is what was in his backpack. Any sort of notebooks that might have had incriminating statements in it. the idea of weapons or otherwise, any sort of laptops and beyond, any statements he may have made. Remember the Law and Order episodes? We all do. You know, our Miranda warnings. If I didn't give those Miranda warnings to you and you spoke to me, there is a chance that I conformed an illegal search or a conversation with you. And therefore, you can suppress the evidence that I have taken from your possession.

27:54And if the court were to find that's the case and you don't have what's in the backpack, You don't have certain statements. Then you have less leverage in a case to meet your burden as the prosecution. And for the defense, they may have more leverage to try to escape the highest of penalties here in a case like this. We don't have statements from him on the stand. He hasn't testified. The trial hasn't happened yet. But they're hoping that the evidence that they acquired from his possession in that McDonald's would be enough to push over that threshold. So they're going to fight like hell to keep it all out.

28:25Okay, Laura Coates, great to have you as always. And if you are a true crime junkie, you can follow every step of this case. You can watch the live feed from inside the courtroom, and you can even get analysis from Laura Coates and the CNN legal team while that's happening. This is the Brian Walsh trial, live coverage on the new CNN app under the Watch tab. Next year on The Lead, apparently the president has a high comfort level with the press. Was he so comfortable that he actually dozed off during today's cabinet meeting? What may have had him so tired, that's ahead.

29:09Today at the White House, President Trump's cabinet meeting and what appeared to be Trump having a little difficulty staying awake, seemingly dozing off during some presentations. So White House says what you're seeing here is actually the president, quote, listening attentively and running the entire three hour marathon cabinet meeting, unquote. Now, we should say if he was falling asleep, maybe he was a bit tired from all that time online last night where he was retruthing quite a bit between 720 p.m. and midnight. 158 posts and reposts to be exact, ranging from criticisms of Democrats to criticisms of immigrants to conspiracy theories from Alex Jones and more and more.

29:52All right. My panel joins me now. Mike Dubke. Yes. He did look a little sleepy in that cabinet meeting. I don't know if he was dozing off or what, but. Or listening intently.

30:09And does that what it look like? Does it look like I'm listening intently? Yes, it does. And I can keep talking if you want me to. I'll talk right on through this. Look, he's 79 years old. I mean, like, this is not abnormal for a 79 year old to be sleepy. I will say this, and this is from my personal experience with the president. He is abnormal in the amount and the lack of sleep that he needs. I mean, the fact that you when was the last tweet of his 158? probably something like 2 a.m. in the morning. This guy is awake all the time. And I'm not trying to pull this Joe Biden, oh my goodness. I was just going to say, you sound a lot like Joe Biden's White House staff.

30:48I know, and I'm really not trying to say that. I think the reason that Elon Musk and Donald Trump were such close friends at the beginning is because both of them have supernatural lack of sleep ability. It is crazy. So I'm not really worried. It was a three hour marathon press conference, basically. And he's out there all the time. He conducts, somebody was saying earlier, he conducts all of his activities out in the open. And that's something we haven't seen. I mean, I think that, and that was a lot of what the Biden folks would say, especially when Jake moderated that debate with Joe Biden.

31:24A lot of what they were talking about, that famous debate where he could not really say anything that was coherent was because he had international travel. his family said you should not be doing this. You should not be doing a debate when you have international travel right before, etc. But at the end of the day, whether it be Joe Biden or Donald Trump, if you're almost 80 years old or 80 years old, it is time to retire. And it is just time. I mean, aging is part of the natural process. It isn't offensive. We all go through it. This is what happens when you're 80 years old. And so he will be the oldest president when he leaves office.

31:58And I think you're now seeing signs of that, right? Yeah. The Pentagon held a briefing today, they say, for news outlets. But there was something missing. News outlets. Because a majority of the mainstream news outlets, including CNN, not to mention Fox and others, did not agree to the new Pentagon rules laid out by Secretary Hagseth. So this is what we have. Conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer posting. She was at the desk of Washington Post reporter Dan Lamothe. So did several other media people, whatever they are. That prompted Lamothe to post this, saying, y 'all are going to have to work this one out for yourselves.

32:35Mike Dubke, there's expanding the reach of the media press pool from outlets like the New York Times and the Washington Post to other ones that might be conservative, like the Free Beacon or whatever. And then there's expanding it to people that really aren't journalists at all. Well, I think you had so many new voices in the room because so many of the legacy media did not want to play by the rules, including CNN and Fox News, that the Pentagon had laid down. And so, you know, my warning to the Pentagon is really be careful what you wish for, because if you look at the questions that these new voices asked, they were kind of out there.

33:20They were not usual questions. No offense to legacy media, but if I'm a spokesperson for the White House, I basically can figure out what the question is that I am going to get. Because they're based in fact? Well, because they're based on conventional thinking or whatever. Well, look at this. Loomer took to X or Twitter and she posted, the secretary of the army's office is plotting a coup at the Pentagon to remove Pete Hegseth. That's presumably the kind of thing you're talking about, Sochi. Yeah, I mean, I think if you were advising the president of the United States, you are not part of the media.

33:56And that was what Laura Loomer has been doing on national security. She's been advising him. That's why you've seen certain firings happening at the White House. Matt Gaetz was in there. He was the president's pick for attorney general, we may remember, about a year ago. And so that's not what the media is. The reason at the Pentagon and at the Justice Department and at the State Department, you have a press corps that understands those agencies is because those agencies are complicated. You want people asking the tough questions to the American people. You don't want some health reporter, which no due respect to a health reporter, but going into the Pentagon asking those types of questions to people of the Pentagon.

34:32They understand the precedent at the Pentagon. They understand what the law is. They understand the way the Pentagon works. And so you want people with that knowledge asking the tough questions on behalf of the American people, not people that actually are talking to the president daily and his surrogate. Let's talk about the Pentagon right now on the subject of the second strike, because what we got today from Secretary Hegseth was the clear message that he did not see the second strike. He did not see any survivors of the first strike and that it was the admiral who conducted the mission. He did support.

35:09He did express support for the admiral. But there's been a very clear message since yesterday from Hegseth that whatever happened, I did not actually order that specific action. So I've been what I've been tracking rather than these specifics around this is where and who at the White House and other places have come out in support of Secretary Hegseth. Because I do think on Capitol Hill, this is a very serious matter, so I want to be serious when I address this. On Capitol Hill, I think there's a number of Republicans that are questioning not just this strike, but a lot of actions by this Pentagon, where they are not getting timely responses, whether they be Democrats or Republicans, from several elements within the Pentagon.

35:52So there have been a lot of questions about Hegseth's leadership. And this is just one of another kind of point for the media and others to point to. But it really is drawing into question at what point are Republicans going to hold this Pentagon accountable and Hegseth accountable? So this story has changed a little bit. But I think there's a bigger story here. I agree. Watching where the administration goes in its defense. Well, and there's not only, not only does Congress have a responsibility to do oversight, but if you had a Justice Department that was truly independent, there are statutes in order to prosecute Hegseth if they wanted to.

36:29Now, the Inspector General of the Pentagon... We should note, there's no conclusive evidence that he did anything wrong. There's no conclusive evidence. But the reason I think that you are also seeing him clean things up is because an Inspector General could potentially investigate him and refer him to the Justice Department for charges. All right. Thanks to both of you. Appreciate it. Coming up, the new documentary from rapper 50 Cent. This one is digging into the past of Sean Diddy Combs, even speaking to some of the jurors who helped send Diddy to prison.

37:01We have to find somebody that'll work with us that has dealt in the dirtiest of dirty business. We're losing. In our pop culture lead today, the new Netflix documentary Sean Combs' The Reckoning is produced by Combs' longtime rival, Curtis 50 Cent Jackson. The documentary is set to provide never-before-seen footage of Combs. In fact, some clips are so deep behind the scenes, lawyers for Combs have issued a cease and desist, alleging that those clips were stolen. Let's bring in CNN's Elizabeth Wagmeister. Elizabeth, do we know where the footage came from? Yes, Jake. So according to Sean Combs' team, I have connected with his spokesperson.

37:42They allege that that footage that you just saw in that trailer actually was Sean Combs' personal footage. They explained to me that since he has been 19 years old, he has been documenting his life with his own personal videographers because he wanted to create his own documentary. Now, it's quite surprising that he was documenting his life in the days leading up to his arrest in September of 2024. But it appears that 50 Cent and the producers behind this Netflix documentary got their hands on that so-called personal footage. Now, I have obtained the cease and desist letter that you have referenced, Jake.

38:21They are demanding that Netflix doesn't air this. Clearly, that didn't happen. This has been out and was released last night with all of these new allegations. But I do have a statement from Sean Combs' spokesperson that I want to read to you. His spokesperson tells me, quote, Netflix is plainly desperate to sensationalize every minute of Mr. Combs' life without regard for truth in order to capitalize on a never-ending media frenzy. If Netflix cared about truth or about Mr. Combs' legal rights, it would not be ripping private footage out of context. They go on to say it is equally staggering that Netflix handed creative control to Curtis 50 Cent Jackson, a longtime adversary with a personal vendetta who has spent too much time slandering Mr.

39:07Combs. Now, I reached out to Netflix. They tell me that they did have the rights to this. I want to read you part of a statement from the documentary's director, Alex Stapleton. And this is what she says, quote, it came to us. We obtained the footage legally and have the necessary rights. We moved heaven and earth to keep the filmmakers' identity confidential. And they go on to say that they also reached out to Combs' legal team, offered them an interview, and that they declined to do an interview. All right, Elizabeth Wagmeister, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

39:45Welcome to The Lead. I'm Jake Tapper. For this hour, so many new questions tonight about that follow-on strike on that alleged drug boat in the Caribbean. President Trump says that neither he nor the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, even knew that there was a second strike, which killed survivors hanging on to the wreckage, according to The Washington Post. I'm going to ask a current senator who served in Iraq as a CIA analyst if she thinks the White House is trying to make an admiral the fall guy for this controversy. Plus, as many Americans are struggling with the cost of living, President Trump says that any questions about affordability are actually a democratic scam and a fake narrative.

40:24We'll talk about that with our panel. Also, a winter storm now bearing down on the northeastern United States, threatening to drop nearly a foot of snow in some places. And that's before the really big chill sets in. We're going to go to the CNN Weather Center for the latest forecast. And for comedy legend Ben Stiller, it's all in the family. He's out with a brand new documentary about growing up with comedian parents. And beneath the humor, there are lessons for all of us. Ben Stiller will join us live ahead.

40:56The lead tonight, President Trump defending the follow-up strike on the suspected drug vessel in the Caribbean in September that killed survivors of the initial attack. But the president also says he and Secretary of Defense Pete Hankseth did not know about that second strike. I didn't know about the second strike. I didn't know anything about people. I wasn't involved in it. I knew they took out a vote. Pete was satisfied. Pete didn't know about a second attack having to do with two people. During today's cabinet meeting, both President Trump and Secretary Hegseth remain defiant about the strikes that the administration says are meant to curtail the flow of drugs into the United States.

41:32But questions remain about whether or not the follow-up strike constitutes a war crime. Let's get to CNN's Elena Treen at the White House. Elena? Well, Jake, I think one of the key things here that we saw there was that, yes, they were very much defending Admiral Frank Bradley, the one who had, they said, directed the order for that second strike. But then in the next breath, they tried to distance themselves as well. And that's why I think the comment you just played of the president saying that he nor Hegseth had any knowledge of a second strike is so notable. But then the other point that I really took away from that cabinet meeting was when Hegseth was asked specifically about whether he had seen the footage of the second strike and if he had known at the time that there were still two survivors after that first initial strike before the second one had been ordered.

42:19Listen to what he said. I watched that first strike live. As you can imagine, at the Department of War, we got a lot of things to do. So I didn't stick around for the hour and two hours, whatever, where all the sensitive site exploitation digitally occurs. So I moved on to my next meeting. I did not personally see survivors, but I stand, because the thing was on fire. It was exploded in fire or smoke. You can't see anything. You got digital. This is called the fog of war. This is what you and the press don't understand. You sit in your air-conditioned offices or up on Capitol Hill, and you nitpick, and you plant fake stories in the Washington Post about kill everybody, phrases on anonymous sources not based in anything.

43:02So he's clearly criticizing the press there, Jake, and saying that this was the fog of war, but incredibly notable that he was not in the room, he says, when that second strike occurred. And that's really going to be the key as we look ahead to how this all plays out moving forward, where Congress and Republicans and Democrats alike are raising concerns about this. Some Democrats saying it could have amounted to a war crime. Republicans, maybe not going as far, but saying they need more answers and information on this. That is going to be the key question, is whether they knew at the time that there were still two survivors after that first initial strike, because that's really where I think the concern and scrutiny around all of this is only going to grow.

43:40And the train at the White House. Thanks so much. And joining us now, Democratic Senator Alyssa Slotkin from the state of Michigan. She's had an extensive career in defense, including three tours in Iraq alongside the military as a CIA analyst. Senator, thanks for joining us. So the Trump administration has spent more than a week now denouncing you and five of your fellow Democratic lawmakers for that video in which you reminded members of the military that they have a duty to reject unlawful orders. CNN's K-File found that Secretary Hegseth once told an audience something pretty similar in a previously unreported video from 2016.

44:18Take a listen. And I do think there have to be consequences for abject war crimes. If you're doing something that is just completely unlawful and ruthless, then there is a consequence for that. That's why the military said it won't follow unlawful orders from their commander in chief. There's a standard. There's an ethos. There's a belief that we are above what so many things that our enemies or others would do. What's your reaction to this discovery? Well, good. I'm glad at one point he thought that. And, actually, I mean, this is something I've engaged with Secretary Hegseth on since his confirmation hearing.

44:59This was my line of questioning. If something illegal was ever asked of you, would you reject it? And it shouldn't be a hard thing to do. And I think, just over the last week, it clearly hit a sore spot for the president and for Secretary Hegseth. And so it doesn't, I guess, I'm glad to hear that, in 2016, he had something to say about the ethos of the military. The White House today put out a new video attacking U6. It features veterans attacking you for making that video. And they said they say they stand behind President Trump. What's your reaction to that video? We're not going to air it, but I know you've seen it.

45:39Yeah. I mean, look, leadership climate is set at the top. When the president of the United States is saying that people should be arrested or investigated or hung, then we shouldn't be surprised when people up and down in society are going to do that. And that's certainly and worse. And that's certainly been happening in my life and in others' lives. I think the fact that we have been talking all day about the strikes in the Caribbean and what actually happened, and now the president is distancing himself from the strikes in the Caribbean and the secretary of defense is distancing himself sort of proves the point.

46:14You know, I think, to me, you know, again, we need transparency on what's actually happening. The secretary should just come and brief publicly what's going on. The video of these strikes should be released so that we can just say with accountability what actually happened. But, you know, less than a week of us doing this video, which we didn't think was anything other than restating the Uniform Code of Military Justice, we now have a situation where Democrats and Republicans are questioning what they're hearing about the striking of, you know, survivors floating in the water. President Trump says that he and also Secretary Hegseth didn't know about the second strike on that September 2nd operation in the Caribbean.

46:58Secretary Hegseth said he watched the first strike on the ship live and then he moved on. He says that Admiral Bradley made the call to make the second strike. What's your reaction to that? Well, again, I don't know. This is why we need transparency. But I think it's interesting, after the initial strike, the secretary said that he watched the whole thing, right? And we know that there's video of the whole thing. So this thing could be easily deciphered if they just release the video. And I think the fact that they haven't, again, is certainly raising eyebrows on this issue. So I just, look, come down, have a hearing, walk through it, explain to the American public what happened, and do what leaders do, which is take accountability and take responsibility.

47:41JOHN YANG, President, The Secretary of Defense also says he did not personally see those survivors after the first boat strike because the boat was on fire, and he blamed the fog of war. From your experience working in the Pentagon, working in Iraq, do you find that credible? JANE FERGUSON, President, The Secretary of Defense, The Secretary of Defense, The Secretary of Defense, The Secretary of Defense, The Secretary of Defense, The Secretary of Defense. And it wouldn't be the first time that a secretary has had things go on that they don't like or they don't approve of or whatever. But there is a sense of responsibility when you're a leader to take accountability for these things.

48:17And that's something that Mr. Hegseth doesn't seem to be able to do. In fact, it's the opposite. And right now he's blaming those in uniform. The secretary of defense is the ultimate leader responsible, and he should accept responsibility just like Democrat and Republican secretaries before him. Democratic Senator Alyssa Slotkin from Michigan, thank you so much. Thank you. Vaccine advisors who work under RFK Jr. at the Department of Health and Human Services are scheduled to meet this week. We're going to explain the changes they're considering to the childhood vaccine schedule. Plus, a growing number of Republicans questioning why President Trump pardoned the former president of Honduras, who was convicted in the United States of being part of 400 million tons of cocaine trafficking.

49:02CNN just spoke to that former president's wife about his release and that's next.

49:12In our worldly today, Republicans range from perplexed to pissed off this week after President Trump formally pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, erasing a major U.S. drug trafficking conviction for, according to a U.S. attorney in New York, helping, quote, to facilitate the importation of an almost unfathomable 400 tons of cocaine to this country and billions of individual doses sent to the U.S. Republican Senator Bill Cassidy posted on X, quote, Why would we pardon this guy and then go after Maduro for running drugs into the United States? Lock up every drug runner. Don't understand why he is being pardoned, unquote.

49:52Regardless, this afternoon, Trump told reporters, quote, I feel very good about it, unquote. Hernandez was released from a West Virginia prison after Trump's pardon Monday night. Joining us now, CNN Espanol anchor Maria Santana. She's been covering President Hernandez for years. And Maria, you spoke with Hernandez's wife this afternoon. Yeah, that's right, Jake. Well, for years, former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez and his family have insisted that he is innocent of the drug trafficking charges brought by the U.S. government against him, saying that he has been the victim of political persecution and a witch hunt led by the Biden-Harris administration.

50:31And it seems, Jake, that this narrative was central to the extraordinary way in which he secured a total and unconditional pardon from President Trump. Tonight, we are learning new details about how it all came about. His wife, Ana Garcia de Hernández, confirmed that Hernández, the ex-president of Honduras, wrote a letter to President Trump back in October, calling Trump, Your Excellency, and praising Trump's resilience in what he called the face of political persecution. writing in part, just as you, President Trump, I have suffered political persecution targeted by the Biden-Harris administration, not for any wrongdoing, but for political reasons.

51:12In that letter, Jake, along with a persistent lobbying campaign from longtime Trump ally Roger Stone, who argued to the president that Hernandez was a victim of leftist lawfare, was what helped propel the former Honduran president to freedom, according to Stone, who said just as much in interviews today. Now, I sat through the trial of Juan Orlando Hernandez, all two weeks of it, and the evidence that was presented was pretty strong. The U.S. government, we listened to testimony from cooperating witnesses, drug traffickers who said they would pay bribes to Hernandez in order to secure their drug trafficking routes.

51:52One of them even said that Hernandez boasted about how he was stuffing cocaine up the noses of the gringos, of the Americans. So, as you can imagine, this is why this has been so controversial, as Trump has this aggressive campaign against drug trafficking vessels in the Caribbean and how he has gone after Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro for his supposed ties to drug trafficking. But I asked his wife today what she makes of this contradiction and whether, you know, Trump is not sticking to this standard by pardoning her husband, but by going after Maduro. Let's listen to what she said. I don't think there is any contradiction in the decision of President Trump.

52:39On the contrary, I think that what he's doing is that he's doing justice in a case that is clearly like my husband, a case of lawfare, political persecution, also a case where they didn't have any proof at all. They didn't have anything against my husband, just the world of narco traffickers who wanted to get revenge against my husband and wanted to go out of jail.

53:12Trump has also meddled, or at least spoken quite a bit, about the country's dramatically close presidential election. He's alleging fraud without evidence as the candidate that President Trump endures remains locked in a virtual tie with his opponent. So separately, how are Hondurans responding to President Trump involving himself in the election? Well, this has definitely been controversial also in Honduras. I mean, this announcement by President Trump on social media on Friday that he was going to pardon ex-Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez came just hours before the presidential election in that country.

53:51And he said he was backing right-wing candidate Nasri Tito Asfura, Hernandez's political ally. So this has been seen as very coincidental that he wrapped both things together. I am endorsing this candidate for president, who is an ally of the ex-president that we have sitting in a U.S. federal prison. So I am going to pardon him. Many people have seen it as just another way in which the president is trying to disrupt that process. When I went to the trial, there were many Hondurans who traveled from Honduras, who live here in the tri-state area, who assisted every single day, protested outside court, because they saw this as justice because of how their families suffered because of the drug trade in Honduras.

54:34So there's been a lot of reactions, but definitely some disappointment on the part of some community members. All right, Maria Santana, thank you so much for your insights. Appreciate it. A fast-moving winter storm is dropping a lot of snow across the northeastern United States. We've got the latest forecast plus a look at the next cold blast heading our way next.

54:59A major winter storm is turning roads in the central and eastern United States into a slick and slippery mess. CNN's Derek Van Dam is keeping track of the storm, which is dumping snow on the northeast. Jake, the latest storm in our winter blitz that's been impacting northern New England continues to throw snow at us. This is a scene earlier today in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. We had the trucks out in full force, really trying to clear the roadways, but it was simply coming down too heavily in some locations. And that, of course, caused the traffic backups and the delays and also the hundreds of accidents that were reported with this winter storm that continues to impact the interior of New England.

55:38So this is a swath of snow that's currently on the ground. Again, this is from multiple winter storms that have rolled through the region recently. Now, the most current one is still impacting the northeast, but it's really more of a rain event, a cold rain for the I-95 corridor where the majority of the population lives along the eastern seaboard. But of course, you travel inland a little bit, and that's where it quickly changes over to snowfall, and that is impactful snow, over a half a foot in some locations possible. I think on the backside of the system, we could wrap around enough cold air that we actually transition to wet snowflakes that could accumulate in Boston tonight.

56:15So that's something to monitor, but it will stay all rain for New York before coming to an end. This is a bomb cyclone. We talk about that often because it's a storm or a low pressure system that intensifies or strengthens quickly. And that's exactly what it's done and continues to do as it exits off the northeast coastline. So behind it, we've got another round of cold air. So we're going to lock in the wintry temperatures and keep the snow on the ground as well. Lots of purple in this map. And that just kind of gives you an idea of the type of weather that we should anticipate coming at us here in the days to come.

56:47The wind chill on Wednesday morning will people low zero for some portions of the upper Midwest. And we're talking single digits to lower teens across portions of the Great Lakes. And then we see that reinforcing shot of cold air progress further and further east as we head into the end of the work week. Here's our temperatures. A brief look. We're cooling off quite dramatically across the East Coast. Jake, back to you. All right, Derek Van Dam, thank you so much. Top vaccine advisors are set to meet this week to consider changes to the childhood vaccine schedule. We're going to break down some of the potential moves next.

57:27In our Healthly Today, major changes could be coming to the childhood vaccine schedule, including on the recommendation to give hepatitis B shots to newborns. Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr.'s vaccine advisors are meeting Thursday to discuss all of this. Let's bring in CNN's medical analyst, Dr. Jonathan Reiner. Dr. Reiner, thanks so much for being here. We really appreciate it. So current recommendations are that babies should be given the first dose of the hepatitis B vaccine within 24 hours of being born. We'll see whether the Vaccine Advisory Committee votes to change that, but it does seem like they might be willing to do so.

58:02Are there risks to delaying the first dose? Sure. So the reason why babies are immunized so quickly after birth is that if mom has hepatitis, mom can pretty effectively transmit that virus to the baby. After the baby's born? Through childbirth. Through childbirth, okay. Through childbirth. And although it's part of protocol, prenatal protocol to test moms, you know, people get different levels of maternal care. And depending on when you're tested, you can contract the virus after that. So it's a more perfect solution to vaccinate all the kids when they're born. And a child who gets hepatitis B has about a 90 percent chance of contract of having chronic hepatitis, which is a bad lifetime disease.

58:53This is actually the expertise of Senator Cassidy. Yeah. Right. And he's really upset about the idea that they might be taking away this recommendation. You know, if they push back vaccinating kids from birth to two months, it's estimated that about 1 ,400 kids in the United States will get hepatitis B. If they push it back, the first dose back to 12 years, it's estimated that that's more like 2 ,700 kids per year. So it's a big deal with real heavy consequences. So the Washington Post says that the new chairman of RFK Jr.'s vaccine committee, and let's remember, he fired all these people who actually knew what they were doing.

59:34The new chairman says they're also going to look at the childhood vaccine schedule in general and whether it's linked to allergies and autoimmune disorders. Yeah, I think what they're specifically going to look at is something called aluminum adjuvants, which it's not really the metal like that you wrap your sandwich in. So aluminum salts, which make the vaccine more immunogenic. And it actually allows vaccine manufacturers to use less vaccine to get the same immunologic response. These adjuvates have been used for a very long time, for like 70 years. They've been exhaustively studied. And in fact, a recent Danish study looked at 1.2 million kids over 24 years and found no adverse consequences for a variety of things, including neurodevelopmental disorders.

1:00:27Very, very hard data. Let's turn the subject to President Trump, because obviously he had an MRI in early October, and it wasn't until yesterday that we had gotten any details about why he got that MRI. Here's President Trump talking about that earlier today. I had one day where I didn't do a news conference. There's something wrong with the president. You people are crazy. I'll let you know when there's something wrong. There will be someday. That's going to happen to all of us. But right now, I think I'm sharper than I was 25 years ago. But who the hell knows? So yesterday, the White House released the details of the MRI of his cardiovascular and abdominal systems, saying both showed, quote, perfectly normal results.

1:01:12but there are questions about why he would be going through that. And also, there are all these clips we see of President Trump and his gait being a little different, seeming to favor one leg. What's your general response to all of this? Is this kind of screening standard procedure? There's no chance that this was just sort of routine preventative care. First of all, it's not part of routine preventative care. There aren't patients who come to see me or any of my colleagues where we say, you know, let's just scan your whole body. In fact, we don't even know if they scanned their whole body. They disclosed that he had a chest scan and an abdominal scan.

1:01:45The president's doctor didn't even disclose what kind of scan. The president said MRI. All that the president's physician said was advanced imaging. Did he have an MRI? Did he have a CT? Did he have both? And what he didn't say is whether the president had a scan of his brain. He didn't say he didn't. He just included some data from the chest and abdominal scans. So it's not plausible or really credible to believe that they just decided to do some preventative screening for a third time this year. Almost certainly this is in response to some sort of a symptom or sign or concern. And you mentioned the president's gait.

1:02:21Occasionally the president seems to swing one of his legs a little bit or seem a little bit unsteady as he walks, sometimes on uneven ground like the lawn. So I don't know why they scanned him, but that's certainly a reason why one could be scanned to understand why perhaps your your gate is a little bit difficult it'd be great if there was a law saying they had to give us all the information about the health of a president there should be a law the president's physician should have to certify that every year all right dr jonathan reiner we always appreciate it thanks so much it's the final hours of voting in the last big election of the year in the united states and coming up next i'm going to ask a tennessee republican member of congress if he's worried that his party might lose tonight in a congressional district that President Trump won last year by 22 percentage points.

1:03:16And our politics lead for the last time in 2025. Let's cue the CNN election music, please. Nice. Yes, the election jam. We're just over an hour away from the polls closing in the great state of Tennessee. There we have a special election in the state's 7th Congressional District, and it's unusually become a national test for both parties. The race is pitting Trump-backed Republican Matt Van Epps against a Democratic state representative, Afton Bain. Now, traditionally, this is a Republican stronghold and would be a slam dunk for Republicans. But on the heels of last month, when Democrats won big from coast to coast, up and down the ballot on the issue of affordability, the party is looking to add to its wins and flip this historically red seat blue.

1:04:04It's unlikely, but who knows? Republican Congressman John Rose represents the 6th District of Tennessee. He joins me now. Congressman House Speaker Mike Johnson felt the need to campaign with Van Epps yesterday. President Trump has called in to multiple events signaling that this race is closer than they'd like it to be. Take a listen. Is this a warning sign for the GOP that you are barnstorming the state the first day back from Thanksgiving recess in a state that went 20 points for Trump and you have to be here campaigning so hard. No ma 'am I did this all last year. The whole world is watching this is a big deal because right now we're like three votes up on the radical left and this would be a wonderful victory for us it'll be really a positive sign.

1:04:51Congressman how well do you need to do tonight in order to stop this narrative that Democrats are ascending? Well, I think we will win this race. You know, Representative Bain is actually my constituent. She lives in the 6th District of Tennessee, the part of Davidson County that I represent, running, of course, in the 7th District. And it is a Republican district with a decisive Republican majority, but it is a special election. And as we all know, those are turnout elections. And so what matters today is can Republicans get our voters out, which are the majority in this district? I don't think this is somehow a referendum on a broader question about what's happening in the country.

1:05:38And I do think Representative Bain is out of touch with the Tennesseans that she seeks to represent in the 7th District. And I think you'll see that in the results tonight. But President Trump won this congressional district by 22 percentage points last year. The fact that we're even talking about this and that so many Republicans are sending money and that President Trump's involved and Speaker Johnson even felt the need to go there. I mean, it shows that you guys are concerned. Well, I think when you have a special election on December 2nd following the Thanksgiving Day holiday, you're going to have a question about whether you can get your base to turn out.

1:06:14And certainly that's what the progressives have done. They've been running to the left and Afton Bain, whose policies are very out of touch with this district. She's been espousing views that are really out of touch with the mainstream of what the folks in the 7th district would want to see. And I'm very in touch with that because they're my neighbors. They look very much like the folks that I represent in the 6th district. It's a special election. Therefore, it's a turnout election. And that's what you see manifesting here. We don't want to get caught not responding and not motivating Republicans to come out to vote on this kind of blustery December day.

1:06:52Democrats won big in November, largely on the issue of affordability. A recent CBS News poll shows that 60 percent of the American people think that the president is making the issue of prices and inflation sound better than it really is. 58 percent of Americans say prices in just the last few weeks are going up. All sorts of data says prices are going up. Do you worry at all that the president and the Republican Party in general are not in touch with the reality of affordability and prices in this country going up? Not at all. You know, the president ran on a set of policies, which he's been working quickly, along with the help of Congress, to implement to get the Bidenflation of the last four years under control.

1:07:36You know, the complaints of Democrats, of progressive Democrats, including Representative Bain, that somehow the president's responsible when it's kind of simple, you know, it's like an arsonist who wants to then claim credit for trying to put out the fire or for claiming that they have policies that will help. It was their policies over the four years of the Biden administration, the profligate spending that created the worst inflation in my adult lifetime. Not since I was a senior in high school have we seen this kind of inflation. It takes time to get that under control, but the president's made great progress.

1:08:10I just filled up my car with gas in Nashville this week at$2.39 a gallon. We haven't seen prices like that since the last Trump administration, and so I think it points to the progress that Republicans and Republican policies are making at making this country livable once again. And I might point out that those elections where you saw Democrats do well are happening in states where the policies and the policies that Afton Bain is advocating for have led to these very problems. And so it's rich for them to come to Tennessee and suggest that the policies that are not working in New York and New Jersey might work in Tennessee.

1:08:52We're very proud of the economy in Tennessee and the folks moving to Tennessee from New York and New Jersey to escape those liberal policies don't want to see them implemented in our state. All right, Republican Congressman John Rose of Tennessee, thank you so much, sir. Appreciate your time. Let's talk about this now with the panel. Brian Lanza, well, first of all, let me just ask you about something Congressman Rose said, because I'm sure that plays fine in his congressional district, but the idea that the president can blame this all on Joe Biden, I mean, that's just not what polls suggest people are buying.

1:09:30Listen, I think he had a window to blame Joe Biden, but that window's gone, right? It is clear that prices, you know, we made promises that we're going to bring prices down. We had an off-year election that said affordability is the number one concern, and the American people are concerned that Trump's not doing enough. And, you know - Tariffs are making things worse in some cases. And there's an acknowledgement from the administration that tariffs were making things worse. He recently reversed himself on policy tariffs related to agricultural products. Agricultural products is the thing that sort of has the biggest impact.

1:10:02He's focusing on driving energy costs down. So he's doing some things and some things will work. But I think in the long run as they analyze where they're going to spot check the tariff conversation, you can't just have affordability in food and think that's enough. You're going to have to have affordability in everything, in housing, in cars and all these other things. And for them to just try to focus on the agricultural part, I think that's good to have that focus. But the focus needs to be everywhere. Congressman Dent, how well do Republicans need to do tonight? He didn't give me an answer, I should note.

1:10:30I mean, he just said they're going to win. But if they win, if the Republicans win tonight by three points, five points, six points, anything single digits, I think, people are going to really worry in the Republican Party. Well, they ought to. I mean, this is just one of many special elections we've seen in 2025 where Republican candidates have underperformed significantly. Democrats overperformed. Remember the two Florida special elections. Republicans are winning those seats by 30 and 35 points. The ones who replaced them were winning by 12 and 15 points in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. State Senate seat went from went from was elected a Democrat for the first time ever since Abraham Lincoln in Lancaster County.

1:11:09I mean, this is what's happening. And so if you're a Republican in a district that Trump won by 10 points or fewer, you know, you want to be really nervous going into this midterm. Probably not going to need a laxative for the whole year. You're going to be awfully loose. Let me tell you that much. All right. That was not a metaphor I was anticipating. President Trump ended his cabinet meeting earlier today by ratcheting up some of his rhetoric against the Somali population in Minnesota. Take a listen. Ilhan Omar is garbage. She's garbage. Her friends are garbage. These are people that work. These are people that say, let's go.

1:11:46Come on, let's make this place great. These are people that do nothing but complain. But when they come from hell and they complain and do nothing but bitch, we don't want them in our country. Let them go back to where they came from and fix it. Thank you very much. What was your response when you heard that? Well, you know, this is kind of just part of the nativism that we're just kind of getting used to, blaming immigrants for all of our problems. I mean, all of us, our families came from someplace else at one point or another. I'm sure they were all demonized, but not like this by the leader of the country.

1:12:25So it's really tragic that we are scapegoating a lot of people who come to this country just to find a better life. I know that was the case in my family. So another interesting thing about President Trump's rhetoric is you're now starting to see more Republicans pushing back on it. And that's having an impact when it comes to his efforts to redistrict. In Indiana, State Senator Michael Boachek made news last week when he vowed to oppose efforts that are pushed by President Trump to withdraw the Indiana congressional map in favor of the Republican Party after Trump used a slur, the R word for people with intellectual disabilities, to describe Governor Tim Walz.

1:13:04Boachek, whose daughter has Down syndrome, spoke with CNN earlier today. At some point, we have to stand up and you can't validate slurs like that and rhetoric like that because how do we expect our children to not use terms like this, to be respectful of each other when the most powerful person in the world is using them? It just goes to a matter of character and somebody has to speak up. And at this point, I have the microphone. What was your response when you heard that? I mean, he certainly does have the microphone and he has a reason to feel that way. But I think his constituents are going to have a much different feeling.

1:13:47I mean, he has a sympathetic story, obviously. Intellectually challenged kids have a soft spot and they certainly deserve our love and respect and consideration. But this state senator holding up hostage a redistricting plan that the vast majority of Republicans in Indiana want, that the vast majority of Republicans here in Washington, D.C. want, that the vast majority of Republicans want in the U.S., it creates a political problem for them. I don't know that Republicans around the country want this redistricting. If you're a Republican in California right now and you just lost your seat, you didn't want this to happen.

1:14:22If you're in New York, you don't want this to happen. This juice is not worth the squeeze. Yeah, but Charlie, here's the thing that happens once every 10 years. This mid-decade redistricting, I think, is terrible. It's got to end, I think. We got to end it there. Thank you so much, guys. I appreciate it. You know him from Meet the Parents and Zulander and Dodgeball and Night at the Museum. Too many other hits to name. He's also one of the compelling forces behind the show, Severance, on Apple. Coming up next, I'm going to be joined live by Ben Stiller. He's going to talk about a very new, incredibly personal project.

1:14:54You don't want to miss this. Stay with us.

1:15:01Our pop culture lead for actor and director Ben Stiller's show business is the family business. They're looking at not only my partner in comedy, this is the mother of my two kids. This is the father of one. When they were working, I remember sometimes hearing laughter, sometimes hearing raised voices, never knowing if that was real or them rehearsing something. We don't know, Ben. That's why we're so messed up. Raised by famous comedy duo Jerry Stiller and Anmira, Ben Stiller had a front row seat to their rise, to fame, and all the work that went on behind the scenes. In his new documentary, Stiller and Anmira, Nothing is Lost, currently on Apple TV, Stiller examines the thin line between his parents' act on stage and their marriage offstage.

1:15:46It's really quite a project. Ben Stiller joins us now. Ben, congratulations. It's a fantastic documentary. First of all, what made you want to do it? You know, Jake, when my dad passed away in 2020, it was during COVID and we couldn't do a memorial for him. And I was trying to figure out how to deal with all my feelings about having lost both my parents and these careers they had and their relationship. And I just had this instinct that I wanted to do something about them, make a movie about them and sort of about their lives. That's all I really knew. And also, when he passed away, I knew that the apartment that we'd grown up in, they had left it to my sister and she was going to sell it.

1:16:27So I wanted to document the apartment because our whole lives had been there. So it was sort of started from there and then evolved into what it became in terms of the themes of the movie, which is really about family, I think, and creativity and marriage and parenting and all the things that I experienced growing up with my parents. Yeah, it's really beautiful. I really do recommend it. One of the things that's so interesting about it is your parents kept a lot of stuff. And so when you're going through the apartment just to memorialize it, you're finding all these things, tape recordings and photographs and film letters that your parents wrote to each other, some of them a little naughty.

1:17:12I'm wondering, how did you decide what to include, what not to? I mean, there must have been, I mean, it could have theoretically been like a 30-hour movie, I'm sure. How did you decide what to use? Yeah, I mean, that was one of the challenges of it was there was so much stuff, and I was lucky to have all of this footage of my parents being interviewed on talk shows in the 70s and 80s and doing their act and commercials and TV shows and movies. There was all this stuff. And then it really became about how to tell the story of their relationship and how it evolved over the years. And then also finding all of this personal stuff, these letters you mentioned between them when they first met each other, these love letters between them.

1:17:56I mean, I think everybody has that experience of if you've lost a parent or parents and you have to go through and clean out all their stuff and go to the house they lived in. And for me, it was a long process. It took about five years to really figure out what the movie was. And for a long time, I thought, I don't even know what I'm doing here. It's just, it's, you know, because you can also get lost in the memory when you get into that stuff. And, you know, you hear these recordings of your parents talking and it takes you back to another time. Yeah, there's, it's obviously a lot about your parents' marriage, but it's also about your life through the prism kind of of your parents' marriage, your children through the prism of your parents' children, your marriage through the prism of your parents' marriage.

1:18:42How did that end up? Was that automatic when you were doing this? Or did this develop? No, not at all. At first, I just wanted the movie to be about them. And as I was going through the process of making the movie and screening it for people and showing them, a lot of feedback I got was, well, I'm really not seeing that much about your perspective on them. Because I really wanted to make it about them. But when I realized that really, since I was the one making the movie, you know, it's that thing that how your parents affect you. And when I started opening up to that more and I started to really look at my own life in relation to theirs in terms of my relationship.

1:19:24At the time, I was going through some relationship issues with my wife and and I was looking at how my parents got through that stuff. and then started talking to my kids and them telling me things about myself as a parent that I had criticized my parents for, that I thought I was, you know, mistakes I had made that I thought I wasn't, that they had made that I thought I wasn't going to make. Then it really became clear to me, oh, this movie is really about that. It's about that cycle, you know, and... I love the part when you're talking to your daughter and she's talking about how she looks at you the way...

1:19:59she's an actor growing up as an actor's child but she also can she can bond with you because you also grew up as an actor's child Ben Stiller thank you so much you can watch the new documentary Stiller and Mira Nothing is Lost it's airing right now on Apple TV it is wonderful Ben congratulations you can follow me on Facebook, Instagram, Threads X, Blue Sky and on the TikTok at Jake Tapper you can follow the show on X, Instagram at The Lead CNN if you ever miss an episode of The Lead You can watch the show on the CNN app. Download the CNN app. Aaron Vernet Out Front starts right now.