News Report About President Trump's Growing Displeasure With Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin; President Trump Used The Holiday Of Gratitude To Complaint To U.S. Troops Overseas About All Of His Political Problems
S.E. CUPP, CNN HOST: Welcome to UNFILTERED. Here is tonight's headline. Overfed or fed up? According to President Trump, today we are all eating up a news report about his growing displeasure with treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin. I am extremely happy and proud of the gun being done by U.S. secretary Steve Mnuchin. The fake news likes to write stories to the contrary, quoting phony stories or jealous people. But they aren't true. They never like to ask me for a quote because it would kill their story. That's not what people inside the administration are saying. Trump is reportedly blaming Mnuchin for the appointment of fed chairman who has been raising interest rates and for the turbulence stop market and for not being more supportive of his trade war threats. He is reportedly even wondered aloud with advisers if Trump should have appointed someone else. For more on this, let me bring in CNN White House correspondent Sarah Westwood. What's the latest?</s>SARAH WESTWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Well, S.E, the President's frustration with treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin is just the latest in a slew of people that the President has reportedly grown dissatisfied with. CNN has reported that President Trump gone to lose faith in his homeland secretary Kirsten Nielsen. He has been openly wondering about who he will replaced her with. But again, he has turned back to wondering whether chief of staff John Kelly is still a good fit to lead the west wing. The President's frustration with the Federal Reserve and its decision to raise interest rates several times during his presidency, that's not new dating back to October. The President was complaining that that decision from fed chair Jerome Powell was crazy, that the fed was getting out of control. But what is new is the President projecting that frustration on -- to Mnuchin. Complaining to his confidants that Mnuchin's fault that Powell is at the fed because he selected Powell on Mnuchin's recommendation. And President Trump has touted the stock market repeatedly as evidence that his economic agenda is working. So he has been particularly sensitive to the recent volatility in the market because he sees it as so closely tied to his economic agenda. And again, the President is looking for someone to blame for that volatility, turning that blame on secretary Mnuchin.</s>CUPP: Sarah, thanks so much for that reporting. OK. Here's tonight's other headline. Thanksgiving or festivus (ph). While you were stuffing yourself full of turkey, watching football with friends and trying to avoid talking politics with your family on thanksgiving, President Trump was celebrating another kind of holiday tradition, the airing of grievances. In a call that is traditionally meant to give thanks and support to our men and women in uniform serving overseas, Trump, instead, battled them with a wild and wondering list of complaints, most of them about how unfairly he has been treated. On a call with a U.S. general in Afghanistan, where there is an actual war going on, he complained about the 9th circuit court of appeals for failing to rule in his favor against asylum seekers. He complained to a naval commander in Bahrain about unfair trade deals. He complained to U.S. Naval commander on the USS Ronald Reagan about electromagnetic catapult technology on Navy ships and then boasted to an air force general about his authorization of the use of deadly force at our southern border. Now, it's hard enough to imagine this bizarre self-aggrandizing display being performed with our armed service men and women as unwitting props in Trump's airing of personal grievances. But now imagine it all happening from the comfy confines of the family resort in Mar-a-Lago, where the President got some R&R, played some golf and was regaled by music from the Phantom of the Opera in his lavish ballroom. While a world away, fathers and mothers are separated from their families more months at a time risking their lives every day just to keep us safe. Well, after the airing of grievances though and comes the feet of strength. In a subsequent Q&A with reporters, Trump sounded off on a host of other topics. He defended his daughter, Ivanka's private email for government business, something of bipartisan groups of lawmakers has objected to and pledge to investigate. He defended his decision to believe Saudi Arabia's explanation for the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, publicly questioning his own intelligence community's assessment that prince Mohammed bin Salman was directly involved. After months of complaining that his political enemies should be prosecuted by the DOJ, Republicans issued subpoenas for James Comey and Loretta Lynch. And after ordering a comprehensive report on the effects of climate change, the administration quietly dumped it on black Friday when it turned out it contradicted just about everything the President had said and tweeted about the topic. Here's the deal, Trump is not a king but he sure acts like one. The military the justice department, Congress, his intelligence committee all just there at his disposal to use or ignore for his own benefit. But that's not how this works. That's not how any of this works. So with a change in the balance of power coming, will anyone tell him that? For more on this, let me bring in chief political correspondent for "Esquire" CNN political analyst Ryan Lizza and CNN political commentator Amanda Carpenter. Thank you both for spending at least part of your thanksgiving weekend here in New York with me. I do appreciate it. Amanda, Trump is clearly under the impression that the justice department, his sort of his own personal attorney, that the military are his toy soldiers, that Congress or his gate keepers, his stooges, FOX News is his media. He has had it pretty good for a while. Is that about to change, though, with the new Democratic House?</s>AMANDA CARPENTER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, if they want to be aggressive. But I think there is one thing that is guaranteed that petrifies him and maybe explains the anger that he has at treasury secretary Mnuchin. And that's the fact that the Democrats are going to get his tax returns. There is an old 1934 anti-corruption tea pot dome</s>CARPENTER: Absolutely.</s>CUPP: Who will continue to do his bidding. Thank you for that. Terrific, president hording.</s>CARPENTER: Although, they did get Nixon's tax returns.</s>CUPP: That's true, though.</s>CARPENTER: So we can relive a lot of history.</s>RYAN LIZZA, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: He may look OK after the end of this term.</s>CUPP: He may look out all right. So Ryan, we are going to talk more about Trump's relationship with the military in a coming block. But how bizarre was Trump's call with those military leaders on thanksgiving?</s>LIZZA: On like a Trump scale of one to ten, it seemed like the eight to nine range.</s>CUPP: That's a slide of the scale.</s>LIZZA: But I mean, this is -- he is not, what's the proper term, he is not context sensitive. In other words, he rails about whatever is on his mind to whomever is in his vicinity. If he were sitting right here, it wouldn't matter that you are interviewing him on TV, right. The kid who is mowing the lawn at the White House or a general in Afghanistan, it's all the same. It's whatever he is railing, thinking about at that moment that he is hopped up on. That's what he unloads about.</s>CUPP: No a matter who is there or what day it is?</s>LIZZA: Absolutely. So we get all of these examples of him just being completely inappropriate like he started his administration at the CIA, talking about the crowd size and talking about all of these things behind a wall of stars memorializing dead CIA agents. So he doesn't care about the context. What he is constantly inappropriate.</s>CUPP: None of these kept him from getting elected, Amanda. But as we saw with midterms, there might be some consequences. Do you think now that Republicans are a little bit against the wall looking towards 2020? They coerced him to be a little bit more traditional or mindful of some of these orthodox --.</s>CARPENTER: I think you could look for a few people potentially to exert some pressure on him and that is vulnerable Republican senators going into 2020, like a Susan Collins, perhaps, who may choose to weigh in on issue here or there but largely - I mean, this is Trump's party. The people who is opposition to him have been silenced or they have shown themselves the door like a Jeff Flake. And so, if you want accountability, you have to look to the Democrats at this point, because it is Trump's party. And nothing is going to change that going into 2020 when he is the default nominee.</s>CUPP: Well, so next week, just moving forward, he is heading to Argentina to meet with G-20 leaders, including Xi Jinping of China and Vladimir Putin of Russia.</s>LIZZA: Two of his favorites.</s>CUPP: Yes. Do you think Republicans may be sort of aware of the optics, aware of what just happened with the midterms? Do you anticipate any Republicans saying ahead of that can you just keep it on the straight and narrow for like two days?</s>LIZZA: Well, I don't think any Republicans now that the Democrats are in power in the house are suddenly going be on break on his behavior of what he is doing. If anything, I think now they will have even more of an excuse to be enablers.</s>CUPP: Behind him, yes.</s>LIZZA: And defenders, right. They are going to invite. Of course, there will be Democrats who overreach, do things that are politically bad for them.</s>CUPP: Yes.</s>LIZZA: Republicans will be there pointed out. They are now in more of a traditional role as defenders of their president. Now, they are not in power. So they have will have no shame about that. And you know, foreign policy, every once in a while, you know, you are talking about G-20. There are occasionally the Rubios of the world who sort of pipe up and say tisk, tisk, I don't think you did that exactly or, you know, correctly.</s>CUPP: The Corkers, yes.</s>LIZZA: Or the Corkers, they say I'm gone.</s>CUPP: He is gone, right.</s>LIZZA: And that is the second part of it.</s>CUPP: Yes.</s>LIZZA: All of the people who were his critics the Republicans the leaders, they are all either retired.</s>CUPP: Right.</s>LIZZA: Defeated or in the case of John McCain deceased.</s>CUPP: Yes. That's true.</s>LIZZA: So he now has a much more Trump-like group of Republicans on the hill.</s>CUPP: Amanda, quickly, I want to discuss the Ivanka Trump email controversy for a minute. You know, current House leadership is promising to investigate that. And we all see the hypocrisy in her using private email when, you know, Trump suggested locking up Hillary Clinton for doing the very same thing. Ivanka wasn't running for President at the time. But my question to you is this. Does anyone care about hypocrisy?</s>CARPENTER: We need a proper word.</s>CUPP: And he has turned hypocrisy into like a care of the elites. I care about hypocrisy. I think you probably do, too. But do voters?</s>CARPENTER: I think there is a broader question that's bigger that gets to more, to the idea of what is Ivanka doing there? Who cares about her email? I mean, I do. She is not following the rules. When you go to the White House, you are told you have to conduct official on email. This is very basic stuff. She is not paying attention to. But again, why is she there? What is Jared Kushner doing? And this gets to international complications with Saudi Arabia. So yes, we can talk about emails, but it would be, you know, it would be a failure not to go down the meaning of this.</s>CUPP: Ryan, Amanda, thanks so much for joining me. Happy thanksgiving to you.</s>CARPENTER: Thanks.</s>CUPP: Next, looking at the huge gap between Trump's words about the U.S. military and his action. It might surprise you. And later, has Nancy Pelosi stomped out the mutiny within her party and locked up the speakership?