megan hayes, democratic strategist, former director of message planning for the biden white house. and matt gorman, republican strategist and former senior adviser to tim scott's presidential campaign. welcome to all of you. thank you so much for being here. annie linskey, let me actually start with you, because the wall street journal, the paper that you write for this is the opinion page. you do not write for the opinion page. but it was interesting. they're pretty skeptical about pete hegseth. they say that they called it the senate, the world's most non deliberative body, and they say that his real views are now a mystery. and they say, let's hope he rises to the occasion. i was struck yesterday by the fact that he struggled to answer some relatively basic questions about some of the big issues that he'll have to deal with, grapple with as secretary of defense. you know, he could answer what caliber bullet goes into a sidearm that a soldier carries, and he emphasized that part of his biography. but this is not someone who, in an earlier era, might have won confirmation to this

pretty heavy. >> megan hayes, you obviously worked in the biden white house for quite some time. and, you know, president biden, this also comes as he you know, he reflected in an interview with susan page that he's not sure what's next for him, how he'll be at 86 years old. pretty striking admission for a lot of reasons. but of course, when you said it in the context of a eulogy and his own potential future presidential funeral, it's quite a lot. >> absolutely. and also, the biden family just welcomed his first great grandchild yesterday. so the circle of life is continuing here. so it is pretty a reflective time for him. i do think he always would say when my dad retired is when he passed away. and so i think that the president is going to focus really quickly on what he's going to do, you know, to continue and what his legacy will be. post-presidency probably will not be as long as jimmy carter is, as we see. but, you know, i do think that he'll want to do something. he'll want to still be involved. you know, he had the biden moonshot, the cancer moonshot, excuse me before, an

to megan hayes and matt gorman. thank you.ngton on that mid-air disaster involving a passenger jet and military helicopter. plus, we'll bring you some other major news headlines, including the latest on the cease fire deal as hamas has just released another israeli hostage. all another israeli hostage. all that one way to power e*trade's award-winning trading app makes trading easier. with its customizable options chain, easy-to-use tools and paper trading to help sharpen your skills, you can stay on top of the market from wherever you are. e*trade from morgan stanley. power e*trade's easy-to-use tools make complex trading less complicated. custom scans can help you find new trading opportunities, while an earnings tool helps you plan your trades and stay on top of the market. e*trade from morgan stanley. ♪♪ when you live with diabetes, progress is... having your coffee like you like it without an audience. ♪♪ [silence] the freestyle libre 3 plus sensor tracks your glucose in real time so everyone else doesn't have to, and ove

margaret talev, senior contributor at axios megan hayes, former biden white house director of messagelanning. and matt gorman, former senior adviser for tim scott's presidential campaign. welcome to all of you. thank you guys for being here. good morning. good night. >> that's all i'm saying. >> but we're here, right? we're drinking coffee instead of, you know, there's no bourbon in the tea. i promise. um, look, this is a serious and significant day. and, margaret talev, you've covered a number of these administrations, a number of presidents. and i have to say, you know, i've been spending kind of the, the, the weekend before this reflecting on, you know, four years ago today, i was covering joe biden's inauguration. trump did not attend. right. he broke that long standing tradition of the outgoing president standing there, the peaceful transfer of power, handing over to the person who is coming in. trump's helicopter flew over top of the capitol, right? i mean, if you were at the inauguration, kind of as it had started to to wrap up his marine one was taking him out, flying over the

megan hayes, i actually want to take a moment to reflect on one of the things we are going to see that we have seen before, but that is going to be different from the last inauguration. and that is the sitting president embracing an incoming president, bringing him into all of the formalities that we as a country undertake to underscore to people that their votes matter and that there is going to be a peaceful transfer of power from one president to the next. and that is what president biden is planning to do today. >> yeah. and i remember four years ago i worked for president biden then, and we didn't know if donald trump was going to leave the white house. it was a question of if that helicopter was actually going to take off, and if we were going to actually get access to the building on january 20th. so i do think, you know, joe biden is is the ultimate statesman. he is going to do this the right way, the way that the traditions have always done. and that is what he's going to do here. and i think that's important to him, not only for his legacy, but i think it's who he is as a man

our panel is back, megan hayes, um, this is obviously this kind of disaster is a massive testing momentor any politician. this is where it gets extraordinarily real. you have seen gavin newsom try to be out front. he has, you know, videos of himself walking through the rubble, meeting with people. he did multiple national news interviews over the weekend. there's also the mayor, karen bass. um, is the criticism that they're receiving here legit? >> i mean, some criticism, of course, is legit. i'm not sure that this is the time to be having this criticism. i'm not sure how the governor or the mayor control 100 mile an hour winds and a drought, so i'm not sure exactly how they were supposed to stop those things. i also think that there has been some real misinformation and disinformation coming from the president very early on, and some of his his friends, i guess that that spread some of this, that's some unfair criticism. of course, there is criticism here, of course, that people can always do more. millions of people are impacted by this. so there's always going to be criticism. i'm no

megan hayes from the biden white house. and welcome to all of you. good morning. thank you for being here, especially for braving the snow to make it all the way in today. brad, megan, what have we learned from what happened on that day? we saw it happen. i was there at the capitol. now, the person who, you know, many republicans held accountable for that at the time has been re- elected president of the united states. >> you know, most republican voters held donald trump accountable for it. that's why lucas desjardins -- ron desan esantis started the the ahead of him. it was until alvin bragg charged trump in new york, many thought it was out of bounds and beyond the pale. this was a factor in the election. nikki haley was polling 20%, well into the primary season after she stopped running. there are plenty of republicans who still are not going to forgive donald trump for that day, nor probably should they. i think when you have to give the american people credit and realize they factored a lot of other things into this election, too. >> megan, how do you explain

contributor fox news contributor mary katharine ham and message planning for the biden white house, megan hayesto have the latest cnn poll, biden 33% approval and that is one point better than his worse and leaving critics say this makes the carter administration look good. >> right but let's not forget where donald trump left his first term 34%. americans have a short memory and something to be said with trump's numbers on the rise but let's not forget where he was four years ago. >> john: what do you think, the legacy leaves behind? >> last night was the malarkey speech taking credit for things he has not done and fudging things on the facts he has done and taking issue with fact-checkers. the legacy of a lot of people read, you could have been a moderate guy who brought us normalcy post the worst part of covid. he decided to not be a moderate president that afghanistan withdraw without a lot of haste. this giant package that caused inflation. he decided to ween into the left-leaning cultural trends of the day. late in alienated a lot of people and the speech last night, not buying it. >> joh

politics senior reporter alex thompson, cnn political analyst, national political reporter for axios megan hayes, democratic strategist and former director of message planning for the biden white house. and matt gorman, republican strategist and a former senior adviser to tim scott's presidential campaign. welcome to all of you. good morning. thank you for being here. stephen collinson, big picture here. this is clearly a concerted effort. and we didn't even talk about the standoff that the trump administration had with colombia over the weekend, where they didn't want to take military deportation flights. trump threatened tariffs. ultimately, colombia backs down. but this is a concerted push not just to actually execute on this campaign promise, but to show americans what is happening. >> right. you've got the policy here. they want to get a tough, quick start on this issue that many americans showed in the election that they wanted donald trump to fix. and you've got the politics. they're trying to build support, and there's only so much they can do without getting extra momentum from funds in

senior reporter stephen collinson, former biden, biden white house director of message planning megan hayesnd republican strategist matt gorman. good morning to you all. thanks for joining me. donal, i want to start with you. you are a security expert. you've worked in these areas for many, many years. i want to know what you think about the investigation that's happening as we head into day two, and how there the investigators right now are trying to figure out coconspirators that could have been involved in this attack and where they go from here. >> well, there's two different tracks of the investigation right now. manu. there's running down all the leads and contacts that may have been affiliated with the actual attacker, who they know, and they have identity identification on. and then there's those improvised explosive devices, those ieds, those bombs that were placed near the french quarter that actually may not have anything to do with the truck vehicle ramming. and so first they have to look at that physical evidence, see if that links to that individual. that could take dna. so th

megan hayes, democratic strategist and former director of message planning for the biden white house. and matt gorman, republican strategist and former senior adviser to tim scott's presidential campaign. good morning to everybody. i mean, there are so many points of friction between trump and milley over the years that it's hard to pinpoint exactly which one this is coming from. there was also, of course, the the time that milley joined trump when they walked across lafayette square during the black lives matter protests. and milley later apologized for appearing with trump in that moment. then there was, of course, the fact that he testified to the january 6th committee. but, matt, this is a general that trump appointed to the joint chiefs. do republicans share his disdain for him, or is this is this a personal vendetta? >> i think probably a little of both. i think republicans do share his disdain for him. and actually, in some other ways, too. one of the big critiques you hear among republicans is milley's leadership on afghanistan was an absolute disaster, a total misreading of t

now is our panel, cnn's alayna treene republican strategist brad todd and former biden official megan hayes. elaina, let me start with you. how much did the response from republicans on the hill play into the trump administration rescinding the memo, which is implicitly or not an acknowledgment that it was confusing? >> yeah. i mean, well, first. >> of all. >> i just want to point. >> out. >> how this is so. >> out of step. >> and not common for donald trump. >> he never. >> backs off anything. >> he. >> doesn't ever want to do reversal. >> if anything. >> he tries to. >> deny and double down. >> that is not. >> what happened here. >> but i think you're. >> absolutely right. republicans played a huge role. >> in this. >> and we know, i. >> know from my conversations. >> with republicans on the hill, from even people with inside the administration. new political appointees put there. >> by donald trump. >> there was. >> a. >> lot of angst about this. >> we know. i know caitlin spoke about this. >> that a lot of republicans were getting calls from their constituents., very. concerned about wh

joining us right now to talk about this is megan hayes, democratic strategist, former white house director of message planning under president biden and pete seat, former spokesman in the george w bush white house. it's great to see you guys. pete, it's great to have you here in person. megan, i wish you were here as well. hours after he takes office. these people can expect executive actions to take. one side note, trump and republicans have both criticized and biden for using and not using executive actions when it comes to immigration. i digress, but these big sweeps of american cities and much more campaign promise made, campaign promise kept. >> absolutely. >> campaign promise made and kept. he ran on immigration. he is a hardliner on this topic and securing our border and making sure that we tackle the scourge of illegal immigration in this country. and donald trump has said, you know, a lot of people think it's bluster and bluff when he says, i'm going to act on day one. it sounds like he's going to act on day one. and tom homan has been saying the same thing ever since he was tappe

and megan hayes, former special assistant to president biden and former director of message planning.ter, president biden revealed in that interview with usa today that trump privately complimented him on his economic accomplishments. yeah, that's a 180 from his public statements. so given your experience covering both biden and trump in the white house, what's your reaction to this? >> well, look, i mean, the truth is that the economy that biden is handing over to trump is in pretty good shape. >> now, trump doesn't want to say that because it wasn't convenient publicly to make that point during the campaign. but if you look at the current inflation rate, not what it was, but what it is now, whether you look at the unemployment rate, you look at where the stock market is, you look at where wages are all these kinds of things. we just got new jobs numbers yesterday. they're pretty much in a healthy shape. this is the kind of economy any new president would want to inherit, if you think about it. in fact, probably one of the better ones that any new president has inherited going back i