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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
Everything Everywhere All At Once; Interview With Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT); New AG Pam Bondi Orders Review of "Politicized Justice" Against Trump; Bill Gates Says USAID Does Work That Saves Millions Of Lives; Gates Says He Is Hoping Trump Sees The Value In Keeping PEPFAR Strong; Arab-Americans In Michigan Express Disappointment To President Trump's Proposal For The U.S. To Take Over And Own Gaza. Aired 8-9p ET
Aired February 05, 2025 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Last month, the U.S. government announced that it would issue a limited six month license, which would effectively ease some of the restrictions to allow more humanitarian aid into Syria, but so far, it is still keeping that broader raft so sanctions in place as it continues to watch very closely to see what steps Syria's new Islamist government will take in the coming weeks and months -- Erin.
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: All right, Clarissa, thank you so much for sharing that with all of us. Incredible reporting and thanks so much to all of you as always for being with us for it. AC360 with Anderson starts right now.
[20:00:29]
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, "ANDERSON COOPER: 360": Tonight on 360, the president's takeover plan for Gaza. His administration's claim today that he didn't really mean what he said about the central points of it on camera last night in great detail in some cases more than once. We're keeping them honest.
Also tonight, the administration's effort to trigger mass resignations at the CIA. Why it's happening and what it could mean for the country's premier intelligence organization.
Also tonight, my conversation with Bill Gates about the gutting of the US agency for international development and the harm that could come from it in human health and American influence around the world.
Good evening, thanks for joining us. We begin tonight, not for the first time and likely not for the last time, with a lot, not for the first time, because anyone around for the first Trump administration recognizes that creating news by the truckload has always been part of the game plan.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEVE BANNON, FORMER WHITE HOUSE CHIEF STRATEGIST: All he has to do is flood the zone every day. We hit them with three things. They'll bite on one, and we'll get all of our stuff done, bang-bang-bang. (END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Bang-bang-bang, Steve Bannon, 2019 classic. Six years later, that tactic flooding the zone is in full swing again. In just the last two weeks and three days the new Trump administration has already granted clemency to each and every January 6th convict and defendant and launched a purge of the FBI and the Justice Department. It has all but eliminated the world's leading global aid agency and frozen spending, or tried to on thousands of federal programs, including vital scientific and medical research.
The world's richest man with the president say so and the help of a half dozen or so unelected computer whizzes, one reportedly just 19- years-old, has gained access to the Treasury's formerly nonpartisan office for paying out trillions of dollars a year, including Medicare and Social Security.
The president has threatened our two closest trading partners with the kind of tariffs traditionally reserved for adversaries or enemies, and has offered incentives to quit to every single person at NOAA, the hurricane forecasting people whose map, you all remember the president reportedly altered with a Sharpie during his first term.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R) PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: We got lucky in Florida, very, very lucky indeed. We had actually our original chart it was going to be hitting Florida directly. Maybe I could just see that, Kevin. It was going to be hitting directly, and that would have affected a lot of other states. But that was the original chart.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: The head of NOAA at the time was found to have violated the agency's code of ethics in connection with what became known as Sharpiegate.
Yesterday, the president nominated him once again to lead NOAA or whatever remains of it.
Just today, we learned that the CIA is offering so-called buyouts to its entire workforce. There's some question of whether everyone would be allowed to take them, but everyone got the offer.
Separately, "The New York Times" is reporting that the CIA sent the White House an unclassified e-mail listing of all employees hired over the last two years. The list gives first names and the first initial of the last names, according to the "Times" report, and includes what the "Times" says is a large crop of young analysts and operatives hired to focus on China, whose identities are usually closely guarded because Chinese hackers are constantly trying to identify them.
Now, any or all of those stories could be the lead of any given day. We'll certainly spend more time talking about some of them tonight, but I want to focus for a moment on another item in that flood of news, not just because it's a big part of it, but also because of how well it fits another familiar pattern making a comeback now, for the first time, in the Trump administration.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: The US will take over the Gaza Strip and we will do a job with it, too. We'll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site.
I do see a long-term ownership position, and I see it bringing great stability to that part of the Middle East and maybe the entire Middle East.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: The US will take over the Gaza Strip. Why would they want to return? He also said. He also talked about sending in US Troops, if necessary, displacing the nearly two million people who still live there, forcing them to go to Jordan or Egypt and rebuilding the Gaza Strip as, "an international unbelievable place." And also, he termed it the Riviera of the Middle East.
Now, it may be a fever dream, but he actually did say it. It did not go over so well, certainly with Palestinians or Jordan or Egypt or Saudi Arabia, anyone who knows much about history or the region for that matter. This is not the first time that President Trump has been opining about beachfront property in surprising places.
You may remember, he used to extol the virtues of North Korea's potential as well. But in relation to his new plan for Gaza, in a pattern eerily similar to the first administration, people around the president spent today trying to say he did not actually say what he said, or if he did, his words did not mean what those words actually mean.
Those same people said, what he said was brilliant, by the way, of course, one of those kind of four dimensional chess moves. Here's his press secretary today.
[20:05:22]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAROLINE LEAVITT, PRESS SECRETARY: Let me just take a step back here, because this is an out of the box idea. That's who President Trump is. That does not mean boots on the ground in Gaza. It does not mean American taxpayers will be funding this effort. It means Donald Trump, who is the best dealmaker on the planet, is going to strike a deal with our partners in the region.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Now, keeping them honest. The president gave no indication this was some sort of opening offer. As for boots on the ground, if only someone had asked him about that. And it turns out they did and here's his actual answer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: As far as Gaza is concerned, we will do what is necessary. If it's necessary, well do that. We're going to take over that piece that were going to develop it, create thousands and thousands of jobs, and it will be something that the entire Middle East can be very proud of.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: So no, he wasn't ruling out sending US troops who would then be involved in fighting the war, that Israel just stopped fighting. And not only does that mean a war, it also costs money. Unless, he's pretending he can somehow just get all the land and develop it and have what he called a long term-ownership position.
And our US taxpayers funding that. Is that a private Trump organization development? Will there be new Trump University there? Did the president simply not mean a word of what he said?
His Secretary of State seems to think he didn't mean it when he said on three separate occasions yesterday that the people in Gaza would have to find homes elsewhere.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARCO RUBIO, US SECRETARY OF STATE: So, what he's very generously has offered is the ability of the United States to go in and help with debris removal, help with munitions removal, help with reconstruction, the rebuilding of homes and businesses and things of this nature so that then people can move back in.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: That's what he said according to the new Secretary of State, Marco Rubio. Here's what he actually said at some length and in great detail when CNN's Kaitlan Collins asked him who would live in this rebuilt Gaza.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I envision a world, people living there, the world's people. I think you'll make that into an international, unbelievable place. I think the potential in the Gaza Strip is unbelievable, and I think the entire world, representatives from all over the world, will be there. And they'll all live there, Palestinians also. Palestinians will live there. Many people will live there.
But they've tried the other and they've tried it for decades and decades and decades. It's not going to work. It didn't work. It will never work.
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF CORRESPONDENT: Where do those people go in the meantime, Mr. President?
TRUMP: But more importantly than that is the people that have been absolutely destroyed, that live there now can live in peace in a much better situation because they're living in hell, and those people will now be able to live in peace. We'll make sure that it's done world class. It will be wonderful for the people.
Palestinians, mostly we're talking about and I have a feeling that despite them saying no, I have a feeling that the king in Jordan and that the general president, but that the general in Egypt will open their hearts and will give us the kind of land that we need to get this done.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: So, it doesn't sound like what Secretary of State Rubio says, the president said. But if you're looking for more clarity, here's what the president said just a couple of hours earlier in the day.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I don't think people should be going back to Gaza. I think that Gaza has been very unlucky for them. They've lived like hell. They lived like you're living in hell. And it could be Jordan and it could be Egypt, it could be other countries, and you could build four or five or six areas. It doesn't have to be one area, but you take certain areas and you build really good quality housing, like a beautiful town, like someplace where they can live and not die.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Netanyahu just sitting there. There it is. I don't think people should be going back to Gaza. That's what the president of the United States plainly said about nearly two million people, and what the people around him now say. He did not say, new zone, fresh flood, same playbook.
In a moment, I'll talk to Senator Bernie Sanders. He joins us, but first, CNN's Kaitlan Collins. So, Kaitlan, do White House officials think they can spin their way out of this? Because the president did say what he said. I mean, we heard it.
COLLINS: For Trump, it has always been his statements that are the ones that matter, Anderson. We have seen this pattern before when Trump was in office the first time, when he was on the campaign trail. And obviously, we're seeing it happen today where aides do try to walk back or clarify or soften the comments that he made. And certainly an explosive one last night, where he came out. And he was essentially suggesting that they would be permanently displaced from Gaza, that they would not return there.
He said in part to me, when I asked him who he envisioned living there after it was rebuilt, which he and his aides are predicting would take 10 to 15 years, he answered to me, the worlds people. And he mentioned that Palestinians could be part of that. But he made clear he didn't see it as their homeland essentially anymore.
[20:10:18]
And that's really, you know, I've covered Trump for a long time, and I've seen this happen before, where aides do try to walk back some of his comments. And that's why I sought to clarify exactly what he meant, Anderson. And it wasn't a one off. He was reading from prepared remarks when he came out there and initially said he believed the US should occupy Gaza, should take ownership of it.
And as he framed it last night, he said it should be a long-term ownership. That's why those comments were so striking inside the room, because he wasn't simply framing it as a temporary relocation as we saw the White House press secretary do today.
And so really, I mean, there's obviously been a massive amount of fallout from these comments today. It started hours after he made them last night when it was about 4:00 AM in Saudi Arabia, and we saw the Foreign Ministry there responding, saying that there must be a permanent Palestinian state for them to move forward with what Trump and Netanyahu both are seeking, which is a formal normalization deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
And so I don't think it's surprising to see that today. But I will say Trump's Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff, who was the one who personally went to Gaza and saw this devastation up close and reported back on it to Trump and is part of what has shaped his view on all of this, went up to Capitol Hill today, to the Senate Republican lunch, and we are told he was basically peppered with questions from these senators, especially about the president declining to rule out using military force.
Today, the White House said repeatedly he did not commit to using it. Certainly he didn't. But he also didn't rule it out, which was the real headline last night, because Hamas is still in Gaza. And so that raises the question if the US is going to take over Gaza, how are they going to do so without using military force? And that's not really an answer that has been laid out for us yet.
COOPER: Yes, Kaitlan, appreciate it. Thank you. We'll see you at the top of the hour for "The Source."
Kaitlan's guest is going to be the Governor Wes More of Maryland, a state that's home to nearly six percent of the federal workforce.
Our guest now is Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who had this to say about the state of affairs on the Senate floor.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): In my view, the Trump administration is moving this country very aggressively into an oligarchic form of society where extraordinary power rests in the hands of a small number of unelected multi-billionaires.
The Trump administration is moving this country very aggressively into an authoritarian society where the rule of law and our Constitution are being ignored and undermined in order to give more power to the White House and the billionaires who now control our government.
The Trump administration is moving this country very rapidly toward a kleptocracy where the function of government is not to serve the needs of ordinary people, but to enrich those who are in power. (END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Senator Sanders joins us now. You talk about an oligarchy running in the White House. You have billionaires now currying favor with the new administration, donating to the presidential library, the inauguration, making deals with family members of the Trump family. How far are we from a kleptocracy?
SANDERS: Well, let's start with oligarchy and I think we are there. You know, when you see three of the richest people in this country, the three richest, standing behind the president when he gets inaugurated, when you see Elon Musk, who contributed over $200 million, 270 to get Trump elected and then becomes in many ways the most important appointee of the Trump administration.
And when you see, since Trump's inauguration. Elon musk becoming $150 billion richer in two and a half weeks, $150 billion richer, you tell me whether or not we are living in an oligarchy.
And I think the function of government under Trump, under Elon Musk, will not be to serve ordinary people, but to make the very richest people in this country even richer.
COOPER: There are probably some people watching who think and think, oh, Elon Musk, smart guy. He's got these 19-20 something year-old tech-wizards going into government and looking for waste and abuse. And what's wrong with that? What is wrong with what is going on?
SANDER: Nothing wrong with looking for waste and the kinds of bureaucracy that exists. I think we can do a whole lot to get rid of the waste, the fraud, the excessive bureaucracy that exists in the government, especially, by the way, in the Defense Department.
[20:15:14]
What is wrong right now is one simple reality. What Musk is doing is illegal and unconstitutional. You cannot go into an agency like USAID and essentially fire everybody and get rid of that agency. You cannot do -- that's an agency that was created by Congress. They want to get rid of USAID, fine. Come to the Congress, make your case. You can't do it unilaterally. You cannot withhold US funds that were appropriated for Medicaid, for community health centers, for Head Start.
You cannot put a freeze on that. That money was appropriated by the Congress. And as I hope, every fourth grader in America knows, Congress holds the purse strings. And what I also worry about is not just the movement toward oligarchy, but this growing trend toward authoritarianism. I hope the American people are seeing clearly that we had the January 6th rioters, the people who were trying to, in a sense, overthrow an election, undermine democracy, contributed to the injuring of 170 Capitol Hill Police officers, they are pardoned.
And then the FBI agents who worked hard to make the case, doing what they are told, they are now being investigated. What is the future of the FBI? Is there criteria to be an FBI agent in the future, one who swears allegiance to Donald Trump, or one who upholds the Constitution and the rule of law?
And I'll tell you something else in terms of what authoritarianism, Anderson, and this is something that you and other people in the media should pay attention to. ABC paid a fine to Donald Trump, presumably for, you know, saying something that he didn't like. Meta, owned by Zuckerberg, paid a $25 million fine to Trump. Right now. Paramount, that owns CBS, is contemplating reaching a settlement with Trump. He has sued the Des Moines Register. The FCC is now investigating PBS and NPR. That is a movement toward authoritarianism when you go after and intimidate an independent media.
So you add it all together. We're moving toward oligarchy. We're moving toward authoritarianism. And in terms of kleptocracy, well, what can I say? Before he just -- before he got inaugurated, Trump and his wife issued coins. They made billions of dollars anybody can give to the president, in a sense, by buying those coins.
So, the American people are going to stand up and fight back, or else were going to be in real trouble.
COOPER: We had a historian, Doris Kearns Goodwin, on last week who talked about Andrew Jackson corrupting essentially government employees, giving out favors to people who curried favor with him. He gave them civil service jobs, and it took generations in America to correct that.
And it took Teddy Roosevelt being the Civil Service commissioner for six years to really root that out and get a civil service that served the American people and not whoever was in power.
The damage being done, potentially, people think, oh, well, you know, maybe it's just going to be four years. The damage can be done. It can be for generations.
SANDERS: Right. I mean, it goes without saying that I think the overwhelming majority of Americans want a strong, efficient, independent civil service. We can make improvements. I am not here to tell you that we don't have a bureaucracy, that we don't have waste. We do, we've got to work on that.
But you don't get rid of thousands and thousands of dedicated public servants and replace them with people who are simply loyal to Donald Trump. That's not the way democracy is supposed to work.
COOPER: Just let me just quickly ask you on Gaza, when you heard the president of the United States, talking about turning the Gaza Strip, I mean, getting two million Palestinians out. I mean, is anybody who has read history or the region or been watching for the last year, does this you think this was a joke at first? I mean, can you believe --
SANDERS: Look, look, one could say that, Anderson, on the other hand, given the suffering that the Palestinian people have gone through under Netanyahu's brutal war, which has killed some at least 45,000, injured over 100,000, mostly women and children, the idea that the president of the United States is going to say to these people, oh, by the way you're going to have to leave the place where you live, because we are going to build something equivalent to the French Riviera.
[20:20:22]
COOPER: Well, also, the thugs of Hamas are still there. I mean, it's not as if they have gone.
SANDERS: To say, but even the -- that's right, so, you know, and as you just discussed a moment ago, how do you do that? Are American troops involved? How much money is being spent? But the idea of telling 2.2 million people who live in an area, you're gone. We're going to build a French Riviera here. So my billionaire friends can enjoy the beautiful view.
It is, to say the least, preposterous. It ain't going to happen.
COOPER: Senator Bernie Sanders, I appreciate your time. Thank you.
SANDERS: Thank you.
COOPER: Coming up, the president's Justice Department escalating its war against those who investigated him. As Senator Sanders was talking about.
Plus, my conversation with Bill Gates about Elon Musk and the fight over USAID.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:25:00]
COOPER: A tense internal standoff between interim FBI leadership and its Trump appointed supervisors in the Justice Department escalated today. First shortly, after Pam Bondi was sworn in to the office as the new attorney general she established a, "Weaponization Working Group." It's focus would include examining the criminal and civil cases brought against President Trump.
Also today, CNN obtained a copy of a memo sent by acting deputy attorney general and former Trump attorney Emil Bove. It accuses FBI leaders of, "insubordination" in connection with fulfilling the demand for the names of thousands of employees connected to the January 6th investigations.
Today's news comes a day after the CIA became the first national security agency to offer so-called buyouts, part of a much larger effort to dramatically downsize the government. Late today, we learned that about 40,000 people have taken advantage of the offer so far, government-wide, or about two percent of the federal workforce.
I am joined by former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe and John Miller, a former FBI assistant director of public affairs. I want to get to the possible cut to the CIA in a moment, but talk about the tensions between the FBI and the DOJ right now. JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: So the FBI has an acting director and an acting deputy director, both friends who were picked by Kash Patel as someone he'd worked with in the field in the United States and out of the country. So there should be a level of trust there.
But the break is coming between the acting director and the attorney general, because he's demanding the names of the agents who worked on the Mar-a-Lago case, the thousands of agents who worked on the January 6th cases and others.
And what they did is they supplied what everybody did in those cases, but only the employee numbers. And the break is they want the names, and those names are supposed to go to this working group, and then to Stephen Miller at the White House. And that's according to this executive order.
COOPER: So what's the idea of just supplying the numbers?
MILLER: So the idea is, once you send over 5,000 names of FBI employees, does that end up on the internet? Do they end up seeing, you know, vandalism at their homes, being doxed, and, you know --
COOPER: Is Elon Musk tweeting about them?
MILLER: Exactly. The other thing is what happens with those names when you give up those names? Are they going to run these people for what is their political affiliation? What do they say on their social media?
COOPER: So that is good numbers. And if it goes to those numbers can be followed through by appropriate authorities.
MILLER: Exactly. If you give their unique employee number in a proper investigation of alleged misconduct, which they haven't alleged, they want to go look for it in this weaponization thing is, is that the inspector general at DOJ could take those numbers and then go through their investigative activity, but they just want the names and they want them sent to DOJ and the White House.
COOPER: Andrew, what do you make of this gantlet of sorts being thrown by Emil Bove? And how do you expect the administration to determine whether anyone the FBI acted with corrupt or partisan intent, which yes --
ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: You know, this is just Emil Bove trying to turn the FBI into the bad guys. Like he looks terrible as a result of that e-mail that he sent out last Friday demanding these names, an e-mail that I should remind everyone was the subject line of the e-mail was "Termination."
So, for him to try to send this message out today, pretending that that was not his intent and that only those people who were seen to have like intentionally weaponized the authority of the FBI against the president are going to be sought after. It's absolutely, patently ridiculous. I should also say that his comment in the in the message today that, you know, rank and file members of the FBI won't be punished or subjected to termination unless they believe that they've engaged in some partisan activity and intentionally weaponized the FBI.
The idea that there is some massive group of FBI agents out there in the field who are deeply partisan, left leaning, anti-Republican people who intentionally ignored the directives of DOJ and went after January 6th rioters unlawfully is absurd. That is a fantasy.
COOPER: And John, very quickly, when FBI director Chris Wray left on "60 Minutes," he left a very stark warning about the threat level and the threats that are out there. Is this a good time to be offering buyouts to CIA employees?
MILLER: Christopher Wray said in his entire law enforcement career, he had never seen the lights blinking red to use his term in the threat stream, which tacks back to your other subject, which is, is this really the time with that complex threat stream across all threats to be offering buyouts at the CIA, which you're at risk of being taken up on by the most experienced and talented people.
COOPER: John Miller, thank you, Andrew McCabe as well.
Up next, my conversation with Bill Gates about Elon Musk's attempt to end the US Agency responsible for billions in foreign aid.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:33:40]
COOPER: We wanted to get a different perspective on the fight over the U.S. Agency for International Development or USAID, a program that dispenses billions in foreign aid. On Monday, Elon Musk said President Trump agreed with him that it needed to be shut down. Earlier, I spoke with Bill Gates, the Microsoft Founder, whose Gates Foundation is one of the largest charitable organizations in the world. We discussed Elon Musk and the funding fight. The interview is part of a book tour he is doing for memoir of his early years, " Source Code: My Beginnings."
Well, let's start with Elon Musk. He has called USAID a criminal organization. He called it evil. He talked about it's a radical left political psyop. What -- to you, what is the importance of USAID and the U.S. giving aid to people in need around the world?
BILL GATES, CHAIR, GATES FOUNDATION: Well, the USAID plays a super important role in dispensing our aid budget, which is less than 1 percent of the government budget. Usually, it's pretty obscure. So maybe this is a chance to talk about, OK, is some of that work we'd like to change. But overall, it's work that saves millions of lives and helps strengthen relationships for the United States.
COOPER: If it's just moved into the State Department, does that matter?
[20:35:00]
GATES: No, the exact organization can change. It was kept separate, so the idea of helping the poorest, you'd have real priority for that in mind. And I'm not against some degree of tuning, but having all those people not come into work and characterizing the whole thing in a negative way, I'm a little disappointed in that.
COOPER: Let me ask you about PEPFAR as well, because this is a program which George W. Bush started. It has saved more than 20 million people's lives around the world since then. Is it -- are you -- are you -- is it done now? I mean, is it -- is it paused? What is --
GATES: There was -- there were 48 hours where drug disbursement was shut down, and then that was reversed. And now, the challenge is that the employees who manage that work aren't being let into the office. And so we're a bit up in the air. When I saw President Trump just after Christmas, these HIV programs and the value they bring, and the fact that I also support these programs, so spend a lot of time to make sure that money is very well spent, that was a strong message that I gave him. And I'm hopeful that he'll see both the moral and strategic value to keep this strong.
COOPER: You think there's a strategic value to it as well?
GATES: Absolutely. If you go around Africa and you ask, who really helped them out, who helped them deal with the HIV crisis and has maintained that commitment, they're uniquely thankful to the United States.
COOPER: If PEPFAR stopped, what would happen?
GATES: You'd have up to 10 million deaths if it was stopped abruptly. I thought the argument would be about could we cut it by 10 percent over the next several years and, look, there's a lot of demands on the budget.
COOPER: You were in another interview recently. I think you characterized some of the stuff Elon Musk has been saying about the right wing government in Germany as insane.
GATES: Just the idea of him supporting particular very right wing parties, I'm surprised by that. I'm very careful to say Elon is super smart. His private sector work is fantastic. I'm surprised the number of things he states opinions on. I've always had friends around me who make sure I don't spout off on too many things all at the same time.
COOPER: Do you think his role in this government makes sense?
GATES: The basic idea that we should review almost every department and that if you were really smart about using technology or updating the goals, you could save 10 percent here, 10 percent there, which adds up to a lot. I'm -- I don't think that's a mistake. But, going in very quickly and saying that all these people run a criminal organization that's not quite as subtle as you'd hope to see. COOPER: The tech community has often talked about disruption, about moving fast, breaking things. Do you think that works in the federal government?
GATES: Well, we count on the federal government for the safety net, and it -- we're not -- we're not supposed to have agencies go bankrupt. In the private sector, it's great that companies disappear and other companies take their place. But when you're counting on a department to say, enforce safety rules to review drug safety, things like that, you can't be as -- take as many risks as you do in the private sector.
COOPER: What should somebody in high school now be studying or look -- thinking about in terms of the future?
GATES: Well, in my day, it was easy to envy the kids who were naturally sociable and great football players or those things. And people even say the revenge of the nerds that, those of us with, down in the computer room, we sort of --
COOPER: Have you watched that movie, by the way?
GATES: Yes, absolutely. And --
COOPER: Were you a consultant on that movie?
(LAUGH)
GATES: Just by my life. That's all.
COOPER: OK.
GATES: So, it's nice now that you can see different learning styles or approaches can be rewarded if you're able to discipline yourself and focus on the right things, it can become a superpower.
COOPER: My conversation with Bill Gates' new book "Source Code" ahead, how people in one of the country's largest Arab-American communities are reacting to the President's plan for Gaza.
[20:40:00]
And later, the president's crack down on migrants. And why, even those here lawfully are feeling the impact.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: At the top of the program, we laid out the administration is rewriting of what the President said last night about taking over Gaza and remaking it as a Riviera of the Middle East, his words. Regardless of what the people around him say he said, he said it all on camera and millions of people saw it, including Arab-Americans, many of whom voted for him. More from CNN's Jason Carroll now in Dearborn, Michigan.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Days before the last presidential election, Donald Trump was the invited guest at The Great Commoner restaurant in Dearborn, Michigan. Albert Abbas says he extended that invitation, a decision he is now reflecting on given all that has happened in the last 24 hours.
[20:45:00]
ALBERT ABBAS, DEARBORN, MICHIGAN VOTER: Many in the community are at a loss for words. Last night was a very rough night for most of us.
CARROLL (voice-over): Abbas is Arab-American and one of a number of Democrats who voted for Trump. Abbas says he hoped Trump would do more than President Joe Biden did to help Palestinians suffering in Gaza.
DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip.
CARROLL (voice-over): But after Trump said Palestinians should leave Gaza so it can be redeveloped, Abba says not only does he feel betrayed, he's hearing from a number of people angered over his past support of Trump.
ABBAS: People were really, really frustrated, and I don't think there's anyone to blame. At the end of the day, as Arab-Americans or Muslims, we really didn't have much of a choice.
CARROLL (voice-over): Dearborn, a Detroit suburb, is home to the largest Arab-American population in the United States, the Community which helped Trump carry the critical swing state. He won 42 percent of the vote in Dearborn versus Vice President Harris with 36 percent and Jill Stein with 18 percent. In 2020, Biden handily carried the city with 69 percent.
Faye Nemer voted for Trump in 2024 out of frustration over the previous administration's support of Israel. Now, she is troubled by the President's proposal to move Palestinians out of Gaza.
FAYE NEMER, MENA AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE: I mean, it's very concerning and it's infuriating.
CARROLL: Personal feelings, you're infuriated but standing by your decision for now to have voted for Trump?
NEMER: Correct.
CARROLL: And what would move that needle for you to say, you know what? I made a mistake.
NEMER: Palestine is the red line for this community.
CARROLL (voice-over): Nemer says she suspects Trump is bluffing and is using his proposal as some sort of negotiating tactic. That's the same sentiment shared by Amer Zahr.
AMER ZAHR, COMEDIAN: First, this is clearly not going to happen. Right?
CARROLL (voice-over): And real estate broker Ali Farajalla.
ALI FARAJALLA, REAL ESTATE AGENT: A lot of people are calling me and texting me saying, hey, how did your vote work out? How is that third- party vote?
CARROLL (voice-over): Both were so called protest voters, neither supported Trump or Harris.
CARROLL: Are there any sort of second thoughts now about having supported a third-party candidate?
FARAJALLA: Absolutely not. And I'll still do it again and again and again.
ZAHR: I didn't vote for Trump. So a protest vote, I don't know. I would say it was a targeted vote of conscience to say that the children of Gaza have to mean something. Their death has to mean something.
CARROLL (voice-over): And while Arab-Americans here were divided in the past, going forward, one point is uniting them, opposition to Trump's proposal to move Palestinians out of Gaza.
SAM BAYDOUN, WAYNE COUNTY COMMISSIONER: The community will be unified. I will tell you this, the Palestinian people would rather die and live in a demolition site than to be ethnically cleansed and being sent out of Gaza to Egypt or Jordan.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CARROLL (on camera): So again, Anderson, after spending some time here in the Arab-American community, you really get a sense that they feel like they've been let down by both Republicans and Democrats. Certainly, there's a great deal of frustration after hearing what Trump is proposing, but there's also a feeling that had Harris been elected, had it been a Harris Administration, the feeling here is that Palestinians would still be suffering. Anderson?
COOPER: Carroll, thanks very much, in Dearborn. With me now to put some numbers to the story, CNN Senior Data Reporter Harry Enten, generally speaking, has there been much of an appetite in the U.S. for -- to get involved in rebuilding Gaza?
HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: No. No, there has not. But look, we have no new polling since last night, right? Polling works fast and it doesn't work that fast. When the polling that we had prior, that was taken towards the middle end of last year, what we saw was the overwhelming majority of Americans opposed the idea that the United States should take a lead role in reconstructing Gaza. You could see it right there. 57 percent opposed, just 37 percent support.
And what I should note, is the support was lowest among Trump's own base of Republicans. So the idea that this is going to sell among the American people at large or the Republican base, simply put, he definitely wasn't looking at the polls before he went out there and made a statement that was heard around the world because of how crazy it sounded to most people.
COOPER: How did Palestinians view President Trump during his first administration?
ENTEN: Yeah, so like, we talk about Americans, right? But at the end of the day, the Gaza Strip is filled with Palestinians, right? So the question is how did Palestinians feel about Donald Trump during his first term? And the bottom line is they absolutely disapproved of his leadership. I mean, you rarely see numbers like this. Look at this. 78 percent during his first term disapproved of his leadership. Just 10 percent approved it.
And I even drilled down a little bit more because I love going into those cross tabs. And what I found was approval, or at least disapproval among Gazans was even higher. The disapproval among Gazans was even higher than it was among Palestinians overall. So simply put, this would not be a popular plan either in America or in the Palestinian territories.
[20:50:00]
COOPER: All right. Harry Enten, thanks very much.
ENTEN: Thank you.
COOPER: Coming up next, how the president's crackdown on unlawful migrants is impacting those here lawfully on a Florida farm not far from Mar-a-Lago.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Across the country today, demonstrators took to the streets, part of a movement billed as a -- as 50 protests in 50 cities in one day. Among their grievances, the president's crack down on illegal immigration. On that last note, tonight, we have a new report showing how that can impact legal migrants with visas who keep America's farms running. CNN's David Culver reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID CULVER, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Calling out to us from the back of the bus, Juan Manuel Cisneros shows us what he describes as his American dream come true.
CULVER: I said, do you always carry that document with you? And he goes, yeah, because if anything happens, he can pull it out and say, I'm here legally in this country.
[20:55:00]
CULVER (voice-over): Everyone on this bus can say the same. They're farm workers here on H-2A Visas, which allow foreign workers to fill temporary or seasonal agricultural jobs. CULVER: They come here for about eight months. All the folks on this bus who are on their lunch break are from Mexico. He says they're able to work the field and as he sees it, it's a good solution to be able to make money and yet at the same time, be here legally.
CULVER (voice-over): But with that visa comes grueling work.
RICK ROTH, PRESIDENT, ROTH FARMS: Nobody local wants to work in agriculture harvesting crop, nobody. These are hardworking, able- bodied men, and that's what they're doing. They're doing manual labor.
CULVER (voice-over): And they're doing it in a place that might surprise you.
CULVER: That's east (ph)?
ROTH: Yes.
CULVER: If I go far enough, I'll hit Mar-a-Lago?
ROTH: Yes, you will.
CULVER (voice-over): You need only travel about 40 miles from here as Roth Farms sits just on the western edge of Palm Beach County, Florida.
CULVER: Certainly, doesn't feel like the beach is a Palm Beach?
ROTH: But it has the weather.
CULVER (voice-over): Which can be brutally hot and humid for those working these fields. Yet, despite his need for a reliable and cost- efficient workforce, Roth says he supports President Trump's stance on immigration.
CULVER: Is it going to get more difficult to get workers, do you think, under President Trump and the crackdown on immigration?
ROTH: No, I think it actually will get easier. We just want people to be vetted and we want good workers that are come out -- come out here.
CULVER: So the H-2A Visa program may seem like a perfect solution to keep predominantly migrant workers employed on farms like this one here in Florida. But critics point out that it doesn't cover every person or every situation. Say for example, those migrants who are fleeing violent and dangerous situations and don't have a home to go back to once the season is over, or those who simply want to live and work with their families year round in the U.S.
And then, you've got small farmers who say that the program is just way too costly and way too complicated.
CULVER (voice-over): For now though, Roth sees H-2A Visas as the best way to keep U.S. farms running. He hires a third-party company to handle the logistics. They recruit the workers from abroad and then place them at several different farms, including Roth's. ROTH: You hire them in Mexico and you transport them over here. You pay all the transportation costs.
CULVER: You're paying for that?
ROTH: I pay all the transportation costs. We put them up in housing. We pay all the housing costs. The only thing we're allowed to charge them for is the cost of the food when we feed them.
CULVER (voice-over): So what is it like for these workers?
CULVER: So here, it is about five o'clock in the evening and these workers have just finished their shift at Roth Farms. They're arriving back at their housing complex. Juan Manuel and the others invite us to meet them after their work day is over.
Yes? What do you do this time of the day? Yes. When you get here from work.
JUAN MANUEL CISNEROS, FARM WORKER: [Foreign Language].
CULVER: Dinner is at six?
CISNEROS: [Foreign Language].
CULVER: We can go with him. He's inviting us up. They've been working 10 hours today. They work six, sometimes seven days a week. They have just a few things that they need, a few changes of clothes, some snacks, and not much privacy.
CULVER (voice-over): Juan Manuel shows us his setup. He says what he makes is about $16 an hour. So here, what you make in an hour, as he puts it, is an entire day's work in Mexico.
This is his third year on the Visa work program. He said the money that he makes here, he is able to support his family in Mexico as well, and help his mom and dad and brother and sister. And he said that's what you need to do to survive.
You can see all the workers now are gathering from all the different buildings. Most of them, all work at different sites, but they come together to eat and then sleep, and then they will be back at it on the fields in about 10 -- 11 hours from now.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: David, the farmers you talked to, do they believe that President Trump would support expanding this program, especially given his belief that foreign workers are taking American jobs?
CULVER (on camera): They seem to think that the president has no choice here. And what is interesting, Anderson, is many of them are supporters of President Trump. I mean, you heard Mr. Roth there and they're also supporters of his take on immigration, his crackdown that we are seeing going forward with these deportations.
