A rush transcript of "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" airing on Sunday, December 15, 2024 on ABC News is below. This copy may not be in its final form, may be updated and may contain minor transcription errors. For previous show transcripts, visit the "This Week" transcript archive.

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ANNOUNCER: THIS WEEK WITH GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS starts right now.

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GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC "THIS WEEK" ANCHOR: Mysterious drones.

JOHN KIRBY, WHITE HOUSE NATIONAL SECURITY COMMUNICATIONS ADVISER: We haven't seen any indication thus far that there's a public safety risk.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Concerns grow over flying objects spotted in the northeast. Lawmakers demand more federal action.

REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D-NY): The most important thing right now is the safety and security of our communities.

STEPHANOPOULOS: We take it to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.

New Syria. Celebrations after Assad’s ouster with one missing American headed home. The search continues for Austin Tice.

ANTONY BLINKEN, SECRETARY OF STATE: We're determined to find him and bring him home.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Jjames Longman reports from Syria.

Closing ranks.

DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT AND 2024 PRESIDENT-ELECT: We have some great people up there. We have some of the most successful people in the country.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Senate Republicans rally behind Donald Trump's cabinet picks, as FBI Director Chris Wray resigns, clearing the way for a loyalist.

CHRISTOPHER WRAY, FORMER FBI DIRECTOR: This is the best way to avoid dragging the bureau deeper into the fray.

KASH PATEL, FBI DIRECTOR NOMINEE: We look forward to a very smooth transition, and I'll be ready to go on day one.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Senators Eric Schmitt and Adam Schiff join us live. Plus, analysis from our powerhouse roundtable.

And –

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The arrival of a new intelligence, that rivals human intelligence, is a very big deal.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Artificial intelligence revolutionizing our world, as Trump looks to deregulate big tech. Former Google CEO and tech pioneer Eric Schmidt on his new book "Genesis" and the future of AI.

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ANNOUNCER: From ABC News it’s THIS WEEK. Here now, George Stephanopoulos.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Good morning, and welcome to THIS WEEK.

In its final weeks, the Biden administration is facing questions over mysterious flights over the night skies along the East Coast. Reports of unidentified aircraft over the state of New Jersey have been popping up for weeks. Reports of drone sightings have spread from Connecticut to Virginia. Federal officials say there's little to worry about, that there's no known foreign connection to the objects and that many of them are traditional manned aircraft. But that answer has not satisfied state and local officials and citizens worried about privacy and security.

The Homeland Security secretary will join us in a moment. Transportation correspondent Gio Benitez starts us off.

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GIO BENITEZ, ABC NEWS CORRESPONDENT (voice over): This weekend, more suspected drone sightings across the East Coast.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What the heck?

BENITEZ (voice over): Reports of aircraft swarming the sky are sparking security fears, alarm, and frustration.

MAYOR RYAN HERD (R), PEQUANNOCK TOWNSHIP, NEW JERSEY: And it scares the bejesus out of me. We have to solve this problem, and we have to solve this problem now.

BENITEZ (voice over): After initially springing up some four weeks ago, repeated reports of apparent drones have set off growing concerns.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They keep coming. And I've seen – I don't even know how many I’ve seen today.

BENITEZ (voice over): With aircrafts showing up over towns, near sensitive military sites. And on Friday, Stewart Airport in New York temporarily closing its runways after multiple reported drone sightings near the airport, with the state's governor, Kathy Hochul, saying in a statement, “this has gone too far.”

Federal officials this week pushing for more information from the Biden administration.

REP. JOSH GOTTHEIMER (D-NJ): The FBI should be standing at the podium at the Department of Homeland Security and briefing the public and explaining to them what these drones are.

SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D-CT): The lack of information is absolutely unacceptable.

BENITEZ (voice over): Newly sworn in New Jersey Senator Andy Kim posting these videos on X while investigating the suspected drones himself alongside police.

SEN. ANDY KIM (D-NJ): We're counting oftentimes five, six, seven or more at any given time.

BENITEZ (voice over): Before posting again Saturday to say further analysis led him to conclude that most of the possible drone sightings were almost certainly planes. But the White House insisting that the risk from the aircrafts remains low.

JOHN KIRBY, WHITE HOUSE NATIONAL SECURITY COMMUNICATIONS ADVISER: We have no evidence at this time that the reported drone sightings pose a national security or a public safety threat, or have a foreign nexus. It appears that many of the reported sightings are actually manned aircraft that are being operated lawfully.

BENITEZ (voice over): With the White House's reassurances failing to satisfy some local officials –

VITO FOSSELLA (R), STATEN ISLAND BOROUGH PRESIDENT: They're either lying, or they're incompetent, or they're both.

MAYOR MATTHEW MURELLO (R), WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP, NEW JERSEY: We know what an airplane looks like. We know what a helicopter looks like. I'm an acoustical engineer. I have been measuring noises for 30 years. I know what a helicopter sounds like. These are not that.

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STEPHANOPOULOS: Thanks to Gio Benitez for that.

Let's bring in Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

Mr. Secretary, thank you for joining us this morning.

Can you clear up the confusion here?

ALEJANDRO MAYORKAS, SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY: Absolutely, George, and thank you very much for having me.

There's no question that people are seeing drones. And I want to assure the American public that we, in the federal government, have deployed additional resources, personnel, technology, to assist the New Jersey State Police in addressing the drone sightings.

Some of those drone sightings are, in fact, drones. Some are manned aircraft that are commonly mistaken for drones. And we do see duplicative reporting. But there's no question that drones are being sighted.

Let me set the record straight here, George. There are thousands of drones flown every day in the United States, recreational drones, commercial drones. That is the reality, and in September of 2023, the Federal Aviation Administration, the FAA, changed the rules so that drones could fly at night. And that may be one of the reasons why now people are seeing more drones than they did before, especially from dawn to dusk. And so that is the reality.

But I want to assure the American public that we are on it. We are working in close coordination with state and local authorities. And it is critical, as we all have said for a number of years that we need from Congress additional authorities to address the drone situation. Our authorities currently are limited, and they are set to expire. We need them extended and expanded.

STEPHANOPOULOS: What exactly do you need?

MAYORKAS: We want state and local authorities to also have the ability to counter drone activity under federal supervision. That is one important element that we have requested, and we've heard it echoed by the state and local officials themselves.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You know, President-elect Trump has put out a post on this. I want to put it up on the screen right now. He says, “mystery drone sightings all over the country. Can this really be happening without our government's knowledge? I don't think so. Let the public know, and now. Otherwise, shoot them down.”

Your response?

MAYORKAS: Well, we are aware of the drone sightings, as I – as I've said. I think there are more than 8,000 drones flown every day in the United States. With respect to the ability to incapacitate those drones, we are limited in our authorities. We have certain agencies within the Department of Homeland Security that can do that, and outside our department, but we need those authorities expanded as well.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Are there any legitimate national security concerns here? For example, have you seen any evidence at all, especially in these recent sightings in the northeast, of any kind of foreign involvement?

MAYORKAS: We have not seen any foreign – we know of no foreign involvement with respect to the sightings in the northeast. And we are vigilant in investigating this matter, the Department of Homeland Security, with the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the lead.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But there have been concerns in the past. In fact, a Chinese national was arrested in California this week, allegedly for flying a drone over Vandenberg Air Force Base. Last year you had drone flights over Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, over a nuclear facility in Nevada.

So, what is the national security concern right now?

MAYORKAS: Well, when a drone is flown over restricted air space, we act very, very swiftly. And, in fact, when an individual in California flew a drone over restricted air space, that individual was identified, apprehended and is being charged by federal authorities. And so we act as swiftly as possible when an individual does fly a drone over restricted air space and violates the rules.

You know there are, George, more than 1 million drones registered in the United States.

STEPHANOPOULOS: That's an awful lot. But bottom line you're saying Americans have nothing to worry about?

MAYORKAS: Look, it is our job to be vigilant in the federal government with our state and local partners on behalf of the American public. And we can assure their safety by reason of that vigilance. We've deployed personnel, technology, and if there is any reason for concern, if we identify any foreign involvement or criminal activity, we will communicate with the American public accordingly.

Right now, we are not aware of any. If we become aware of any, we will communicate accordingly and take appropriate action.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Secretary Mayorkas, thank you for your time this morning.

MAYORKAS: Thank you, George.

STEPHANOPOULOS: I'm joined now by Chris Christie, former New Jersey governor.

Chris, welcome back to THIS WEEK.

CHRIS CHRISTIE, (R) FORMER NEW JERSEY GOVERNOR & ABC NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Thank you, George.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You're a New Jersey resident.

CHRISTIE: I am.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Have you seen any drones?

CHRISTIE: Yes. Two mornings ago over my house at 6:15 in the morning. I saw them myself. So did my wife. And so, yes, they're there. And I’ve been traveling around New Jersey, as I normally do all week. And I can't tell you the number of people have come up to me concerned about it.

And that’s --

STEPHANOPOULOS: But is this a mass hysteria of some sort?

CHRISTIE: Well, here's why, George -- because of answers like the secretary just gave. They're not answering the questions.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, he said -- he said that they're monitoring it. They haven't seen any unusual activity and they need more authority.

CHRISTIE: Let me tell you something -- I agree that they need more authority, but to not say that this is not -- that to say this is not unusual activity, it's just wrong.

I’ve lived in New Jersey my whole life. This is the first time that I’ve noticed drones over my house. And I was in a in a restaurant in Mammoth County on Friday night, had people at the bar coming up to me and saying, Governor Murphy won't tell me anything, the president won't tell me anything, do you know?

Like, well, I don't know but I will tell you this, I think this is what happens in our society now, George, when -- because we're used to having things so rapidly, if you don't fill that vacuum, then all the conspiracy theories get filled in there.

So you've got people like Congressman Jeff Van Drew saying there's an Iranian mothership off the coast of New Jersey.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Not true.

CHRISTIE: Absolutely not true and provably now not true. And he's had to back off that.

You can't have conspiracy theorists filling the space but the Biden administration and state authorities have to be more vocal and let people know exactly what they're doing.

This interview this morning was a bit of a better step, but I think much too little too late and what people see this kind of activity, it's a newish technology to most people and they're worried about it and concerned and to the extent they're following things around the world, they hear about drones being deployed in Ukraine all the time as weapons, and us deploying drones as weapons at times.

So you could see why people are concerned and it's a lack of communication from the government at the federal and state level that's at fault here.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So you don't think it's kind of thing where once people become focused on it, they naturally see things that they wouldn't necessarily paid attention to in the past?

CHRISTIE: I think that there's some of that, but I can tell you from the activity -- I mean, look, I’m not a conspiracy theorist and I’m not looking for things. I don't need any of that.

At 6:15 yesterday morning -- two mornings ago, that was a drone over -- over my house, and I’ve never seen anything like that before and I’ve been living at that house for 30 years.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So if you were governor right now, what kind of authority would you want to have?

CHRISTIE: I'd want our state police to be able to have the authority to bring those drones down and find out why they're doing what they're doing, and of course, you'd have to coordinate with the FAA. But we do that kind of coordination both when I was U.S. attorney, as a law enforcement officer, and as governor all the time to be able to have shared authority. But the states do not have enough authority now to do what they need to do.

And what we're going to find, George, is you're going to have individuals acting as drone vigilantes, and they're going to start taking them down. That's not what we want, because they're now an important part of commerce and law enforcement uses them frequently for surveillance and other things. We need to be able to operate in a safe way and we're not doing that.

STEPHANOPOULOS: I want to ask you about Chris Wray, FBI director, resign this week. You recommended him to President Trump for -- to be FBI director. You're close with him.

What do you make of his resignation? Was it the right thing to do?

CHRISTIE: I think it was for Chris and for the bureau. Look, Chris was the perfect antidote to Jim Comey and that's why I recommended him.

Jim was a showhorse. Chris is a plow horse, and he's worked for seven and a half years. He got rid of all the Comey leadership that I think led to the really awful actions that Comey took around the 2016 campaign, and that's why I advocated back in 2016 to President-elect Trump that he should have gotten rid of Comey right away.

Think about this, in the bureau, George, over the last seven years that Chris has been in charge, the applications to become a special agent in the FBI have tripled. They're the largest they've been in 50 years, it's because he restored a sense of integrity to that position.

And I think what the president-elect is doing is turning this into just any other position that gets changed with administrations, and I don't think that's good for our homeland security.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And what's your assessment of Kash Patel?

CHRISTIE: You know, I don't know him at all but what I'd say is I saw him give one interview where he said he wanted to eliminate the intelligence capability of the FBI.

Well, as U.S. attorney, I worked on two major terrorism cases that we brought against a shoulder-fired missile person who's trying to broker them to a Yemeni terrorist group in New Jersey, and the Fort Dix Six who were planning on attacking and killing American service men and women at Fort Dix.

Without the FBI's intelligence capability, we would not have been able to stop either of those attacks.

So I hope that he gets smart about what the FBI can and should be doing because if he's going to be and he has to still be confirmed, he's going to be the next director of the FBI, he can't be saying stuff like we're going to eliminate the intelligence capability of the FBI. That just is not the real world.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Chris Christie, thanks as always.

CHRISTIE: Thank you.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Up next, James Longman reports from Syria after the fall of Assad. Plus, Senators Eric Schmitt and Adam Schiff.

We're back in two minutes.

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STEPHANOPOULOS: It has been just one week since rebel fighters stormed Syria, overthrew the regime of Bashar al Assad, creating a moment of crisis fueling both hope and anxiety.

Chief international correspondent James Longman is on the scene near Damascus.

Good morning, James.

JAMES LONGMAN, ABC NEWS CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, George, from Saydnaya, a 1,500-year-old Christian mountain village. As a new Syria emerges, communities up and down this diverse country are wondering what the future will mean for them.

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LONGMAN (voice over): It's been a week since Syrians reclaimed their country after five decades of Assad rule, joy and relief.

LONGMAN: We’ve got the two generations here. Feel good?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good.

LONGMAN: You feel good?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good.

LONGMAN (voice over): Celebrations in every town and city. When crowds like these assembled to protest Assad's rule, they were crushed with brutal force. Now they are free to sing.

And in the ancient Christian town of Saydnaya, they're giving thanks. The monastery here dates back an astonishing 1,500 years. These mountain communities have stood through centuries of turmoil. Now they face a new challenge.

As soon as Assad was gone, the people he made refugees flooded back, like Youssef (ph).

LONGMAN: Youssef is 29 years old. He left Syria when he was 17. And today he's going back.

LONGMAN (voice over): But the return was painful, discovering the brutal reality of Assad's Syria. At the country's most notorious prison, the remnants of decades of tyranny.

LONGMAN: They want to show us. They want to show the world proof of Assad's brutality. The ropes that hanged probably hundreds, maybe thousands of detainees.

LONGMAN (voice over): And at a Damascus hospital, the search for answers. Thousands vanished under the Assads. These people trace the photographs of the death, hoping to recognize a relative.

But in the morgue, discovery does not bring relief.

LONGMAN: This man's son is Muhammad (ph). He's 20 years old. And he missed out on the revolution by two months. He was killed two months ago.

LONGMAN (voice over): All this horror while Assad lived like a king. The opulence of his palace, even looted, clear.

LONGMAN: This is what was a ballroom, clearly ravaged by fire now. You can see all the chandeliers smashed and burned.

LONGMAN (voice over): At his private home, hints of family life.

LONGMAN: A picture of the dictator as drawn presumably by his kids. Assad and his wife.

LONGMAN (voice over): All these revelations hopefully providing closure for a people oppressed for so long. For some, returning to the scenes of Assad's crimes brings comfort.

LONGMAN: He was held here in 2012. I said, you haven't forgotten? And he goes, how am I supposed to forget? I saw people die here.

The only place he could come to get just a tiny bit of fresh air is when he stood next to this window in the toilet.

LONGMAN (voice over): I can breathe at last, he says.

Another person freed, American Travis Timmerman, who had been jailed for months after crossing into Syria, now on his way home to Missouri. His ordeal over. Syria's journey to freedom has only just started.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LONGMAN (on-camera): Events here have redrawn the geopolitical map. Turkey and the Gulf States are now jockeying for influence. Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah are out. The global implications of what has happened here are only just beginning -- George.

STEPHANOPOULOS: James Longman, thanks.

We're now joined by Missouri senator, Republican Eric Schmitt.

Senator Schmitt, thank you for joining us this morning. We just saw James Longman talking about Travis Timmerman, a resident of your state. Have you had any contact with him or his family?

SEN. ERIC SCHMITT (R-MO): I haven't. It's positive news, of course, and we're happy to see that revelation and, of course, there's a lot more that's going to unfold there, but I think President Trump has been clear as far as us intervening there. I don't think that's a situation that we should do, but I do think diplomacy will be important especially in these critical hours in the aftermath of the -- of Assad, you know, being overthrown.

STEPHANOPOULOS: The president has said we're not going to -- president-elect has said we're not going to intervene there. He says the United States should have nothing to do with it, but we are there right now. There are U.S. troops in Syria conducting counterterrorism operations against ISIS. Do you think those troops should remain?

SCHMITT: Well, I think that's a longer discussion and a discussion that President Trump had in his first term. I do think we're entering a new phase, though, of realism in this country. President Trump will be less interventionist, and we get back to our core national interests. Principally defending the homeland, the Indo-Pacific, and China, and so I think that's a longer term conversation.

We'll make sure everybody is safe over there. That's the first order of business, but, again, I think people have had enough of these forever wars all across the world. We can't be everywhere all at once all the time. That's just not our capability, so I think that I'm welcoming President Trump coming with this agenda.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Even if that means ISIS gaining a foothold in Syria?

SCHMITT: Well, I think, you know, understanding what terrorism means around the world is important, but having these tripwires in other regions that pull us into wars, I think the American people have had enough of that, and I think President Trump was pretty clear about it not only in his first term, but when he campaigned, and so again, I think getting back to the sense of, you know, abandoning this failed foreign policy that's cost us trillions of dollars, that sent our men and women across the world, I think we need to revisit that, and again, get back to our core national interests.

I mean, we have drones flying above New Jersey. We don't know what they are. China has a bigger navy than we have. Not a better navy, but a bigger navy than we have right now, so getting back to our core national interests I think is a hallmark of this new realism that President Trump is ushering in.

STEPHANOPOULOS: President's nominee for director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, has a history with Bashar al-Assad and his regime. She met with Assad. She has said supportive things about him and said he wasn't an enemy of the United States, also questioned whether to use chemical weapons. Does that give you any concerns as she faces confirmation for director of National Intelligence?

SCHMITT: I know Tulsi Gabbard. She's a patriot. She served our country honorably. She, I think, fits the reform agenda. President Trump ran on disrupting permanent Washington and having people who are going to view things differently. The intelligence agencies in this country were part of the Hunter Biden laptop, suppressing that story.

There's a lot of reform, George, that needs to happen in those agencies. Tulsi Gabbard is somebody who I think can execute on that, and she's also somebody that believes in our Constitution, individual liberties, and I think this smearing her as some sort of foreign asset is a slur against hers and I look forward to her opportunity to answer these questions in these Senate confirmation hearings.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So you do have questions about her relationship with the Assad regime or no?

SCHMITT: No, not at all. I don't think so. I mean I think it's unusual for members of Congress to visit foreign countries and talk to foreign leaders. In fact, what Joe Biden has done is not talk to anybody and not be respected. President Trump I think believes in engaging in diplomacy, solving these things. He wants to bring peace to Ukraine. I think that's something the American people support.

STEPHANOPOULOS: How about the president's nominee for FBI director, Kash Patel? He put out a book called "Government Gangsters" and included a 60-person enemies list and "The Wall Street Journal" this week wrote this, I mean, in this December 1st wrote this about it. They said the main concern is Mr. Patel's stated desire to use power in a second Trump term to seek revenge against Mr. Trump's opponents.

Voters didn't re-elect Mr. Trump to practice lawfare the way his opponents have. The country wants a bureau it can trust, not a Republican version of the Comey FBI. How do you respond to "The Wall Street Journal"?

SCHMITT: Well, first of all, the idea that he came up with an enemies list is false. There's a footnote in his book related to corrupt actors and I do think Kash Patel is the right man for the job. This guy served as chief of staff for the Department of Defense. He was deputy at DNI. He was a prosecutor, he was a public defender. And let's review the tape here. The FBI was involved in spying on President Trump in 2016.

The FBI was involved in the Hunter Biden laptop coverup. They pre-bunked that story with big tech. The FBI has investigated Catholics because they attend traditional Latin mass, and the FBI has investigated parents who show up to school board meetings because under the auspices of the Patriot Act. That agency is in desperate need of reform. KashPatel is very qualified and I think he's going to get the support in the Senate.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Finally, I want to ask you about President-elect Trump's decision to pardon those involved in the January 6th riots.

You spoke out about January 6th. You said violence cannot be tolerated.

Are you confident that President-elect Trump will not pardon those who actually engaged and were convicted of violent acts?

SCHMITT: I think President Trump -- what he said is he -- he's going to look at these cases on an individual basis and as a former prosecutor or former attorney general, that's the exact right approach. And I think you do separate violence -- violent acts from nonviolent acts, but I think he's been pretty clear he's going to view these individually.

And I think that media's obsession with January 6th and the Democrats’ obsession with January 6th is because they sort of built this foundation on why President Trump should never get back in office. It started there, then the J6 committee, then these -- then the lawfare that ensued.

The American people rejected all that. They don't want to be a banana republic.

President Trump stood stared all of that down, George, and he won. He got a mandate, swept the battleground states, won the popular vote, and he's coming in on an agenda of reform.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Schmitt, thanks for your time this morning.

We're joined now by Democratic Senator Adam Schiff of California.

I want you -- I want to begin Senator Schiff with you responding what you just heard there.

SEN. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): Well, let me just say, with respect to some of the nominees like Kash Patel, this is someone in my view who’s not qualified to be FBI director and someone who claimed, for example, that he want wanted to shut down FBI headquarters early in his tenure and open a museum to the deep state. So this is a conspiracy theorist.

It's also someone I think who demonstrated, sadly, a principle of the first Trump administration and that is you rise to the level of your sycophancy. And the bigger the sycophant, the higher you rise. He's risen pretty high but that's not what we're looking for --

STEPHANOPOULOS: How about the question about the January 6 pardons?

SCHIFF: Well, greatly concerned about it. First of all, that he could pardon people that beat police officers, gouged them, bear-sprayed them.

But also even beyond that, just the general message it would send, George, that his first pardons are going to go to people who sought through the use of violence at the Capitol to stop the peaceful transfer of power, that played some role in that.

Really, that's -- that's who he wants to pardon?

The American people I think voted for him in part because they wanted something done about crime, not because they wanted to see him part criminals attacking the government. They want something done about fentanyl. They want something done about California’s smash and grab robberies.

This is not what they had in mind, not political revenge, not rewarding people who participated in an insurrection to stop the transfer of power.

STEPHANOPOULOS: The president-elect has also talked about prosecuting members of the January 6 Committee like you. I know you said you don't want a preemptive pardon from President Biden.

Is that because you think the Trump administration will not actually prosecute?

SCHIFF: I don't know what the Trump administration will do, but it -- it's for a couple reasons.

First, those of us on the committee are very proud of the work we did. We were doing vital quintessential oversight of a violent attack on the Capitol. But so I think it's unnecessary.

But second, the precedent of giving blanket pardons, preemptive blanket pardons on the way out of an administration I think is a precedent we don't want to set.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And you've communicated that to the president -- President Biden?

SCHIFF: I’ve communicated it both publicly and privately to the administration.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You also heard Senator Schmitt say that the idea that Kash Patel had an enemy list is false. There was -- was that list of 60 people in his book, government gangsters.

Do those people -- many members, former members of the Trump administration, many members of the Biden administration, do they -- do you think they have anything to worry about?

SCHIFF: Well, you know, I think if Patel is made director of the FBI, then all bets are off. I mean, this is someone who will do whatever dirty work the president wants him to do. So I can certainly understand concerns about him.

The remedy there is not to confirm him. That seems to be his only qualification which is blind obedience the president. The president can find other people who are loyal to him and to his interests, but who are also loyal to the rule of law.

Patel is not one of them.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You also heard Senator Schmitt say that Tulsi Gabbard, her contacts with Bashar al-Assad and her question -- her questioning whether or not he had chemical weapons is not a concern to him, is it a concern to you?

SCHIFF: It is a concern to me. I have a couple concerns with Tulsi Gabbard. The first is a complete lack of experience, never worked in an intelligence agency, never even served on the intelligence committee.

There is a very steep learning curve in trying to understand what the intelligence systems do, the role and the interaction between them, not something you want learning on the job.

But also -- and this gets to the point about her comments about Bashar al-Assad or her echoing of Kremlin talking points about the origin of the war in Ukraine -- you want someone with good judgment in that position because they may very well be whispering in the ear of the president, this is how we should interpret this intelligence, these are the steps that we should take. This is our friend, this is our enemy. Someone who had shown that kind of poor judgment is not necessarily someone you want advising this president.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Your close friend and ally, the former speaker, Nancy Pelosi. She had that accident in Europe this week. Do you have any idea how she's doing?

SCHIFF: I communicated with her daughter, Christine, and I understand that she's recovering from the surgery well. So, our thoughts are going out to her. She's an amazing person and, as strong and as tough as she is, I know she'll be back on her feet soon.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Schiff, thanks for coming in today.

SCHIFF: Thank you.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Round table is up next. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

STEPHANOPOULOS: I'm here with the Roundtable. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

STEPHANOPOULOS: President Trump at the Army/Navy game yesterday with Vice President-elect – President-elect Trump with Vice President-elect Vance. Also several of his cabinet nominees. You see Pete Hegseth right there for Defense secretary. Tulsi Gabbard behind Speaker Johnson, along with the incoming senator from Pennsylvania.

I want to bring that to the roundtable right now. I'm joined by our former DNC chair, Donna Brazile, former RNC chair, Trump White House chief of staff, Reince Priebus, the executive editor of "The Associated Press," Julie Pace, and “Washington Post” congressional reporter Marianna Sotomayor.

Reince, let me begin with you and let’s begin with Pete Hegseth. Has he turned the tide?

REINCE PRIEBUS, FORMER RNC CHAIR & FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF & ABC NEWS POLITICAL ANALYST: I think he has. I mean I think he's turned the tide. You're seeing Trump double down. I think the members are looking at this as a rallying cry. They're pointing to the bronze stars, the tours of duty, potentially deputy secretary, a guy like Stephen Feinberg (ph) in pace, a huge piece of equipment, a detailed guy. So, I think so.

And I think you're seeing corporate support coming out of the woodwork. And I think that is – I mean on the inauguration. And I think the two things happening, we're seeing these leaks every day, you know, Facebook's coming on board, and other companies are coming on board. Plus, the rallying cry around Pete. I think Trump is as tough as ever right now. I mean he's on the world stage. People are coming to him. I just think this thing is on – it’s on a big-time cruise control, you know, 85 miles an hour down the middle of the interstate.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Marianna, you cover Congress. Do you agree with his assessment of Hegseth’s chances right now?

MARIANNA SOTOMAYOR, WASHINGTON POST CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER: Yes. We obviously have to wait for his hearing early on next year, but there has been a significant shift. And I think the reason why is because the moment that Trump came out and said that he is behind his pick, we did see a number of Trump allies kind of green lighting to the MAGA base. Al right, start calling senators who are a little bit worried (ph) on Hegseth. Start – start to threaten, actually, a number of senators, including Senator Joni Ernst, that she could get primaried. This is something that Elon Musk has also said publicly that he will use his super PACs to not just find candidates, to go against any senator who may vote against a nominee, but also fund those campaigns.

STEPHANOPOULOS: It was quite a saga inside the Trump transition, Julie Pace. There was concern – some concern, it appeared, at least it was reported, that Hegseth had not been completely straight about his past with him. They floated the idea of Ron DeSantis for Defense secretary. That’s all over now.

JULIE PACE, ASSOCIATED PRESS EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Really. And I think – I think Marianna has it right, there was this sort of pivot point where you could see, particularly, I think, when the pressure campaign against Ernst really started to mount, that I think that took over and became the dominant focus of a lot of these senators as opposed to some of the allegations and some of the questions around Hegseth.

He still, obviously, has the confirmation hearings and you never can fully predict how a candidate is going to appear in those confirmation hearings, but he appears to be in better standing. I think still real questions about someone like Tulsi Gabbard, for example, just based on the magnitude of that job and the importance of intelligence agencies and her own lack of experience in that space.

STEPHANOPOULOS: What's the Democrats' strategy on handling these various confirmations?

DONNA BRAZILE, FORMER DNC CHAIR & ABC NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Well, the first thing is to vet all of these candidates. The second thing is to make sure they get a proper hearing so that we know exactly who these individuals are.

Look, it’s clear to me that, you know, the chairman says that they are running down the road 85 miles per hour. I don't know if that's speed limit or they're just trying to break the rules.

PRIEBUS: In Nebraska.

BRAZILE: But – but – I need to get there soon. There's a blue dot, and I love it.

But it's clear to me that they've unleashed MAGA on – on the senators who were waffling or senators who raised objections or raised concern. And when I say they've unleashed MAGA, they’ve unleashed the full – the Steve Bannons of the world. They go after these senators. They're threatening these senators using all of the dark money. So, I think right now everybody's on pause until the actual hearings start.

PRIEBUS: Yes, but they didn't unleash MAGA. America unleashed MAGA. I mean the point – the whole point of Trump's victory is, how did the traditional picks that we used to always put in place, how did that work for us? The American people rejected it. And they accepted what Donald Trump's been selling in this country for the last couple years.

So, I mean, that he won with Muslim voters in Dearborn. He won with Puerto Ricans in Florida. He won majority of male Hispanic voters. He won in every state across the country better except for I think like Washington and Oregon or something like that.

So, MAGA is here because MAGA has been accepted by the American people, and so that's why we're here. We got to be reminded of this all the time.

BRAZILE: But there -- there are also Americans who -- while I understand MAGA, but there are 74, 75 million Americans who are not MAGA, who still believe that that individuals should be vetted, that the Senate has a constitutional responsibility of Advice and Consent.

PRIEBUS: And they will, and they will.

BRAZILE: But they're, you know, smearing people, they're threatening, you know, members of the United States --

(CROSSTALK)

PRIEBUS: They’re own people, their own family.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC “THIS WEEK” ANCHOR: I guess one of the question for some of the other nominees like Tulsi Gabbard, perhaps like RFK Jr., do they actually reflect the promises that President Trump was making during the campaign.

MARIANNA SOTOMAYOR, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, WASHINGTON POST: I think in some ways -- yes, there is that MAGA base who wanted a shakeup of Washington. However, it really does come down to loyalty with Trump. It was actually interesting that “Time” interview that he did -- he kept saying, oh, yes, you know, RFK, he's going to be making suggestions on vaccines or this issue, but at the end of the day, it's my decision.

Same thing with Gabbard, he was pretty surprised to hear that the intelligence community was pretty concerned with her nomination. For him, it's -- it is loyalty. He wants people to be there but he ultimately sees his role as I make the decision.

It will be interesting to see whether Republican senators have the same kind of support for former Democrats like Tulsi Gabbard and RFK Jr. as they do for someone like a Pete Hegseth.

JULIE PACE, ASSOCIATED PRESS EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Well, this is what's so fascinating about the -- if you take the Trump cabinet nominees in aggregate. I mean, there is no ideological consistency there and there's no consistency in terms of even the political parties that they have supported before.

And so, I think you're right, Marianna, because it doesn't quite matter this is about personal loyalty more than anything else.

Now, as we turn the corner and we get into the actual administration, we all know two things. One, Donald Trump as president will be held responsible by the American people for outcomes over the next four years, and two loyalty is fleeting sometimes with President Trump, if he doesn't feel like somebody is living up to either what they have promised or he has promised the public or their own loyalty to him, they'll most likely be cast aside pretty easily.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Donna, do you have a sense of which of these nominees the Democrats are most concerned about?

BRAZILE: There's no question the FBI director, the way in which Chris ray was basically said, you know, there's the door head toward it.

Democrats have a large role to play while we might lack the votes, I still believe that the Democrats are going to ensure some checks and balances are there and raise as many questions as possible.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let's talk a little bit more about that “Time Magazine” interview. You see the cover there, President-elect Trump, the “Time Magazine's” Man of the Year.

One of the interesting things you saw in that interview, Reince Priebus, is the president resetting expectations on inflation. And during the campaign, he was talking about it coming down like this, and now he's saying well it might be harder than you think.

PRIEBUS: Yeah. Well, I think he's also being pretty practical. I think if you looked at the interview he did last week on a an NBC, I saw a president that’s pretty disciplined, someone who wanted to appeal to a lot of people, some -- a president that speaking to the interstate that's right now driving down the center lane of the interstate.

That was a remarkable interview, certainly deserved. He's been someone who's not just been Person of the Year. He's been person of the century. And it's been a remarkable comeback from assassinations, court hearings, left for dead, Biden resigning, new person comes in, and there's been -- there's nothing more Trumpy in the last chapter than to lose and then to come back and win. You couldn't write it, and it was a remarkable interview.

(CROSSTALK)

PACE: But this point this point about grocery prices, for example, I mean, I do think that this is really notable because so much of the -- so much of the public anger over the last couple of years has been with the Biden administration and their inability to bring down inflation, cost of living, and some of that is because of policy decisions, and some of it is because presidents don't fully have control over things like that and the notion of President Trump making that clear, hey, this actually might be hard, I think that's one of those reference points that we'll be going back to quite a bit over the next year.

PRIEBUS: When oil goes down to $40 a barrel, that's how you get inflation --

(CROSSTALK)

BRAZILE: But also, all production in United States is up, up.

PRIEBUS: And it's going to go up, up, up.

BRAZILE: Well, it's 13,000 barrels, now under when Donald Trump was president, it was 11,000.

Democrats got no credit for what we did in bringing the inflation down and trying to lower prices, the post-COVID surge was real. And Donald Trump hammered the president and then later the vice president.

And for him to retract and basically say, I can't fix this. Maybe somebody -- no, it's not going to fly with the American people.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Marianna, we know we're going to be seeing a lot of executive action on the first days of the new Trump Administration. What is Congress braced for? What are they expecting out of the first hundred days, and can they achieve it with such a narrow majority in the House?

SOTOMAYOR: Well now, they are expecting a lot of executive orders. It was interesting that in that interview Trump said, Congress has a role, but the moment that he gets the sense that Republicans cannot get onboard for a number of issues that they want to address, border security, energy reforms, taxes, it's obviously very narrow majorities in the House and the Senate.

Trump says, well, I can just do whatever I want via executive order. We have seen Republican leadership start to position and be able to push back against Trump and say, OK, well, if you want to do border security, oil, all of those reforms, we will tackle that first. That's going against their plan of just one big policy bill that they were planning into the New Year. But it's just going to be really tough with the very narrow three-seat margin.

STEPHANOPOULOS: In your view, what's the most important thing for Congress to get done for the president in his first six months?

PRIEBUS: Oh, it's got to be, if he can get -- if he can get tax reform done in six, seven, eight months, I think that's -- that -- that's number one. Executive orders, I think they're going to do about 50 executive orders on day one, immigration, regulation, energy, and now they're going to hit that fast and furious. They're already working on it right now.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Likely to seem (ph) quite different from the first days of the first Trump administration?

(LAUGH)

PACE: Well look, I think the -- I was there in the White House the first couple of days and there was a lot of action. I think the difference in those first couple days, the first term was it was action without often a lot of detail or substance behind it. It was actually for the sake of action.

This time there's been a lot more preparation that has gone into this and I would expect that the executive actions that will come forward will have more of a path to implementation than some of what we saw in those, those early first days.

BRAZILE: We expect the unexpected.

(LAUGH)

STEPHANOPOULOS: We'll end on that. Thank you all very much.

Coming up, how will artificial intelligence reshape our world? Former Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, discusses his new book on AI when we come back.

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DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT-ELECT: It brings with it difficulty, but we have to be at the fore -- it's going to happen, and if it's going to happen, we have to take the lead over China. China is the primary threat in terms of that. You know, there are those people that say it takes over the human race. It's really powerful stuff, A.I. So let's see how it all works out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS: President-elect Trump talking about artificial intelligence there. I'm joined now by the former chairman and CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt. He's the author of a new book called "Genesis." He co-authored with Craig Mundie, the late Henry Kissinger. "Artificial Intelligence Hope and the Human Spirit."

Thank you for coming in today.

ERIC SCHMIDT, FORMER GOOGLE CEO AND CHAIRMAN: Thank you.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You know, you lay out the stakes of A.I. in pretty stark terms. I want to read it right here. "The advent of artificial intelligence is a question of human survival." Explain.

SCHMIDT: We need to take advantage, and this is what the book is about. The incredible power of the arrival of A.I. and a new kind of intelligence while preserving human dignity and values. It's going to be hugely hard. It's going to be very, very difficult to maintain that balance.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Why is it so difficult?

SCHMIDT: Because the systems move so quickly. Look at what social media has done in terms of overall zeitgeist in our country and around the world, and now imagine a much more intelligent, much more -- much stronger way of sending messages and inventing things, the way of innovation, drug discovery, and all of that, plus all sorts of bad things like weapons and cyberattacks and things like that. It's happening very, very fast.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You have a sentence that sounds an innocuous but actually isn't. Machines with the ability to find their own objectives are not far away.

SCHMIDT: We're soon going to be able to have computers running on their own, deciding what they want to do, and the way that happens is it's a series of decisions. We go from agents to then sort of more powerful goals and then eventually you say to the computer, learn everything and do everything, and that's a dangerous point. When the system can self-improve, we need to seriously think about unplugging it.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But wouldn't that kind of system have the ability to counter our efforts to unplug it?

SCHMIDT: Well, in theory, we better have somebody with the hand on the plug metaphorically, but the important thing is that the power of this intelligence, the ability for this kind of new intelligence means that each and every person is going to have the equivalent of a polymath in your pocket. In addition to your show and all your notes and writers, you're going to have an Einstein and a Leonardo da Vinci to give you advice on your show.

That will be true for everyone on the planet. We just don't know what it means to give that kind of power to every individual.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But isn't that just happening? Is there any real way to control it with all these different companies moving at all these different speeds?

SCHMIDT: Well, there's a problem which we call the eye of the needle in the industry, where all of the current companies are spending an awful lot of time testing and making sure that their models don't, for example, encourage you to kill yourself or show you how to build a nuclear weapon, all these obviously horrific things.

What happens is the competition is so fierce, there's a concern that one of the companies will decide to omit the steps and then somehow release something that really does some harm.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Is there any way for us to know if that's happening?

SCHMIDT: Well, we'll discover it after it occurs. Today, the general agreement is that the companies are reporting to the government and each other the steps and the tests that they're doing, which is a good thing.

STEPHANOPOULOS: What about the question that President Trump -- President-elect Trump raised in that interview we saw right there, the competition with China? Where are we? Where is China?

SCHMIDT: I used to think we were a couple of years ahead of China, but China has caught up in the last six months in a way that is remarkable. The fact of the matter is a couple of the Chinese programs, one, for example, is called deep seek, looks like they've caught up, and this is even after these extraordinary efforts by the Trump and Biden administration to withhold high-powered chips.

The Chinese are clever, and they understand the power of a new kind of intelligence for their industrial might, their military might, and their surveillance system.

STEPHANOPOULOS: I want to read you something that Sam Altman, one of the pioneers of A.I., said last week. He said true superintelligence, the system that is not just smarter than you and smarter than me, but smarter than all of us put together, just unbelievable capability, even if we can make that technically safe, we're going to have to have some faith in our governments.

Are governments doing what they need to do to regulate this?

SCHMIDT: Not yet, but they will because they'll have to. The way this will work is that the -- I've never seen -- I've done this for 50 years. I've never seen innovation at this scale. That is literally remarkable human achievement of intelligence and the things that we can do and the advances in science and on and on.

There's a point at which, maybe in the next year or two, where the systems can begin to do their own research. They're called AI scientists as opposed to human scientists. So you go from having a thousand human scientists to a million AI scientists, I think that increases the slope. When you're moving at this space, it's very hard for your competitors to catch up.

That's the race. It is crucial that America wins this race globally and in particular ahead of China.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But those are the two -- two different races, aren't they? You're talking about one, it's the race, the technological race. But also, it doesn't appear to me at least knowing my experience with government, the government can keep up with what the corporations are doing.

SCHMIDT: They're going to -- one of the things the book talks about is the government has a role, right? Dr. Kissinger felt very strongly that the future of intelligence, what -- what I'm talking about, should not be left to people like me, right? The technologists should not be the only ones making these decisions. We need a consensus about how to put the right guardrails on these things to preserve human dignity. It's very important.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So how do we develop that?

SCHMIDT: Well, it -- it will come over time. Now with the Trump administration, we have a new set of people who will examine this. In my view, in the Trump administration, they'll be largely focused on China versus the U.S., which is a good thing to focus on. And the U.S., as long as human values, and by that I mean democratic liberal values in the classic sense of individual freedom, and respect for an individual are preserved, we should be OK.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So if you were emperor of the world for one hour, what are the three things you'd order to get done to control this?

SCHMIDT: Well, the most important thing I'd do is make sure that the West wins, which means more money, more hardware, more people, that kind of stuff. The second thing that I would do is identify the worst possible cases and build a second system that watches the first. Humans will not be able to police AI, but AI systems should be able to police AI.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Eric Schmidt, thanks very much.

SCHMIDT: Thank you.

STEPHANOPOULOS: We'll be right back.

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STEPHANOPOULOS: That is all for us today. Thanks for sharing part of your Sunday with us. Check out "World News Tonight" and I'll see you tomorrow on GMA.

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