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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
Musk Makes Rare Oval Office Appearance To Defend DOGE Cuts; Trump Doubles Down On Gaza Plan In Meeting With Jordan's King Abdullah; Steve Bannon Pleads Guilty In "We Build The Wall" Scam; Refugees Feel Burden Of USAID Fight; Farm Owners Taking Extra Precautions Due To Bird Flu Concerns. Aired 8-9p ET
Aired February 11, 2025 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And the order states that the decision was made without actually looking into the facts of the case and that those charges could be reviewed after the New York City mayoral election later this year. Perhaps a signal that Mayor Adams better stay in line, though the DOJ says this was not a quid pro quo situation -- Erin.
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: All right, Brynn, thank you very much, live in New York. And thanks so much, as always to all of you for being with us. AC360 with Anderson begins now.
[20:00:25]
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, "ANDERSON COOPER: 360": Tonight on 360, the president and Elon Musk make big claims about government fraud and corruption and Musk claims about his transparency even as he avoids it with the president's blessing. We're keeping them honest.
Also tonight, the president now says he's simply taking Gaza and displacing the people living there with the King of Jordan listening on.
And later, well take you to one of the many places where the gutting of USAID is being felt and people are hurting because of it.
Good evening, thanks for joining us. We begin tonight keeping them honest, with the extraordinary claims of government fraud by the president and similar claims of maximal transparency by Elon Musk, but little evidence of either to back it up. In fact, strong evidence to the contrary for Musk contention that he and his DOGE team are doing what they do in a way that, "maximally transparent."
He said that in the Oval Office, wearing a ball cap and t-shirt with one of his kids nearby, and the president, who yielded the stage to him for minutes at a time, both speaking at length with reporters. The president, who is now facing a string of court cases surrounding his and Musk's actions, addressed concerns that he would defy court orders, saying he, "always abides by the courts," but also saying this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD TRUMP (R) PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: And it seems hard to believe that judges want to try and stop us from -- looking for corruption, especially when we found hundreds of millions of dollars' worth much more than that in just a short period of time.
We want to weed out the corruption, and it seems hard to believe that a judge could say, we don't want you to do that. Well, so maybe we have to look at the judges, because that's a very serious -- I think it's a very serious violation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Maybe we have to look at the judges, he says. There's certainly a list of judges to choose from. A federal judge in Rhode Island, as we reported just yesterday, ruled that his administration is not abiding with his orders. An appeals court in Boston upheld his decision earlier today.
The president also, as we said, made claims about the scale of fraud and corruption inside the federal government. His words, by the way, fraud and corruption.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: As an example, a man has a contract for three months and the contract ends, but they keep paying them for the next 20 years, you know, because nobody ends a contract. You've got a lot of that.
All of this, this horrible stuff going on. And we've already found billions of dollars, not like a little bit, billions, many billions of dollars. And when you get down to it, it's going to be probably close to $1 trillion. It could be close to $1 trillion that we're going to find.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Well, he didn't offer specifics on that yet, but he raised the possibility, again, without any specifics of crimes being committed.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: There could be deals made on both sides. You know, I guess the money -- I think there's a lot of kickback here. I see a lot of kickback here.
ELON MUSK, CO-DIRECTOR, DEPARTMENT OF GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY: There's a lot of kickback.
TRUMP: A tremendous kickback, because nobody could be so stupid to give out some of these contracts. So, yes, they get a kickback.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Now, waste, fraud and abuse are hardly unknown in federal government contracts. There's even a federal law to deal with it, the False Claims Act. According to the Justice Department, $2.9 billion were recovered under the FCA last year, which is a lot, but it's just shy of the three-tenths of a percent of the trillion dollar figure, the president mentioned.
The president offered no specifics or evidence of widespread kickbacks in federal contracts, which if he did find them would seem to be something he wouldn't be shy of showing off. The president then turned the floor over to Elon Musk and his claims, including that what he and his Department of Government Efficiency are doing is in the name of preserving democracy itself.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MUSK: And if you have rule of the bureaucrat, if the bureaucracy is in charge then what meaning does democracy actually have. If the people cannot vote and have their will be decided by their elected representatives in the form of the president and the Senate and the House, then we don't live in a democracy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Now, no one elected Elon Musk, obviously, the Senate and the House authorized and allocated the funding for the agencies and the programs that he and his team are now gutting and the president signed the legislation. They can, working together, cut or raise the spending, reshape the agencies and the programs. In short of that, lawmakers in both chambers can exercise oversight and call attention to problems by holding hearings.
Elon Musk is right in identifying the people who are truly responsible according to the Constitution for deciding what the government should do, funding it and overseeing it all. But he also seems to think that if they're falling down on that job, it's his job to decide all that on his own without facing the kind of accountability or transparency from the voters that legislators do every two or six years, but claiming all the same that he is acting transparently.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: What are the checks and balances that are in place to ensure that there is accountability and transparency?
MUSK: Well, we actually are trying to be as transparent as possible. In fact, our actions -- we post our actions to the DOGE handle on X and to the DOGE website. So, all of our actions are maximally transparent.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[20:05:11]
COOPER: He's talking about these posts on his social network and a website boasting about contracts terminated and money saved, with posts sprinkled in touting Trump initiatives like renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America.
It amounts to a series of press releases, which is not really the same as transparency, nor is sending DOGE staffers into federal agencies, taking control of their computer systems and doing things that no one but them really know.
It's not transparency, either to tweet after reporters began doing profiles on some of those staffers, "You have committed a crime." And for someone claiming to be maximally transparent, we know nothing about his potential conflicts of interest, both as the world's richest man and a federal contractor himself.
Today, the White House revealed that Musk is a, "unpaid special government employee," will file a financial disclosure, but that disclosure will be confidential, which sounds like minimal, more than maximal transparency.
And so is this, the administration today fired USAID's inspector general. That's in addition to at least 12 inspectors general fired late last month.
CNN's Kaitlan Collins starts us off again tonight. So, what was the thinking behind the Trump-Musk press conference? And is the White House happy with the extent to which Musk was there, kind of looming by the president's side?
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: I think a lot of it has to do with all the criticism that has been coming from certain corners, especially like Capitol Hill, about Elon Musk and accountability and this unchecked power, and as you noted there, the fact that he is unelected and were seeing just how much he's kind of bulldozing his way through the federal government with his team in tow.
It's basically something that lawmakers get asked about every single day on Capitol Hill, if they're comfortable with the parameters of this and what this looks like, and even some people inside the White House have questions about that purview and what exactly DOGE is doing every single day.
And so this was not a planned event at the White House today when reporters went in to have this executive order signing, they knew that was going to be what was awaiting them.
Elon Musk being in the room was a surprise and really, this was the first time that he has taken questions from reporters. Certainly at a length like this since Trump took office and since he got this new purview of going through the federal government.
And so, it was a session where, you know, as he talked about transparency, where reporters were able to ask questions to him directly about potential for conflicts of interest and what the guardrails are against that and what exactly he's doing.
And also, about some claims that he has made about what the federal government is spending money on that just weren't true, like condoms going to Gaza something that was not just said by Elon Musk, but we've heard repeated by the president, who was sitting there at the Resolute Desk, the White House press secretary, Cabinet officials, lawmakers, Republicans on Capitol Hill. And he noted, Anderson, in that moment, he said that everything he'll say won't be true, that some things need to be corrected in essence.
And, of course, the question is there. That is something that the media fact checked essentially, and then said, you know, there was no evidence that they could find either from the State Department or from -- provided by the White House on this. But it was really, you know, this remarkable picture to see where after that "Time" Magazine cover came out last week showing Elon Musk behind the Resolute Desk, we were seeing him standing next to Trump, behind the Resolute Desk as Trump, really, just for about 30 minutes, let him take these questions from the pool reporters who were inside the room.
COOPER: I mean, if they really wanted to be transparent, I mean, you know, were seeing cameras in the Oval Office in a way we've never seen before. They could have cameras with the DOGE team and Elon Musk as they're spending their day doing whatever it is they're doing. I mean, is there any more talk of any kind of visibility on what they're doing?
COLLINS: Well, that's really the question here of you know, as he's pledging transparency and saying that publicly, it's what does that actually look like behind the scenes? He was talking about the DOGE website but as we have seen -- so much of what we found out about what they're doing has come from sources at federal agencies who have told people about meetings that they had with members of his team. Sometimes in those meetings where they would not give their last names or full names to the federal workers that they were speaking with.
Now, I've heard from people inside the White House that that was because they were worried that they were being doxed, that their information was being published online if they were providing their names. But clearly, these federal workers who were being interviewed in some cases by these staffers who were asking them about their job descriptions and what they do, they did not feel that that was transparent in the sense that they didn't even know who they were speaking with.
And so, I think that is a real question going forward here. And the other important part about what Trump was asked about is, you know, what they are going through and what Trump and Elon Musk are describing as fraud in these situations. All of this is something that was appropriated by Congress, that Congress approved and said, here's this money to spend on this.
Now, maybe they disagree with it or think it's a waste or don't like it, but it is -- did go through that process. And so, that has been the question that Trump was even asked today. Would you eventually go to Congress to ask for a vote or, you know, have that legislative check on this in terms of what you're doing with these agencies?
He said he didn't think he needed to, though. I mean, he would probably pretty easily get the votes, judging by how Republicans on capitol hill respond to this White House.
[20:10:15] COOPER: Yes, that's for sure, Kaitlan Collins, thanks very much. We'll see you shortly at "The Source" at the top of the hour.
Joining us now, former federal prosecutor Jeffrey Toobin. His new book, "The Pardon", just went on sale today. Also, with us former New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu and CNN political commentator, Alyssa Farah Griffin.
COOPER: Alyssa, what did you think of the visual of Musk and --
ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It was fascinating. I'm still trying to wrap my head around Trump kind of sharing the stage with a counterpart. This is someone who likes to be the main character. He's president, he doesn't want to have somebody who's stealing the spotlight from him.
But I think there's some strategy on Trump's part with the Elon Musk relationship. He's giving him incredible bandwidth to basically go through the entire federal government and decide what needs to be cut.
And there are inevitably going to be an -- Elon kind of admitted this, not just mistakes they have to correct, but things that fall through the cracks once these sweeping changes happen and Donald Trump is going to be able to blame Elon Musk when that inevitably happens. A small example is, there is CBS reporting that since the folding of USAID, about $500 million in food aid is sitting in ports and not being able to get to where it was intended to.
That's actually a small thing as they start going through bigger agencies, I think you're going to see actual issues that impact Americans, and it gives them somebody to kind of pass off the blame to.
COOPER: Governor Sununu was it strange to see --
CHRIS SUNUNU (R), FORMER NEW HAMPSHIRE GOVERNOR: It was surreal but I got to tell you, I know what you're not showing here. Musk gave seven specific examples off the top of his head of where the corruption and fraud were. I know you didn't you didn't play the clips.
He was talking about a contractor that had a three-month contract, he was paid for 20 years. He was talking about welfare benefits that were being paid to someone that was technically 150 years old. He was talking about line items in the Treasury that had no justification.
COOPER: But we didn't see any of that, there's no any -- like he doesn't present any actual evidence.
SUNUNU: He's standing there in the Oval Office. Do you expect him to come in with 10,000 pages? And I have to be clear to complain about this administration about transparency. When this president takes open questions on a daily basis, yet Joe Biden didn't show up for a press conference -- six months is insane.
These guys are being extremely transparent. They don't have to sit there and take the questions, but they do. It's all on the website. It's all out there.
JEFFREY TOOBIN, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: It's not transparency to say things that have no factual background. I mean to say we're cutting -- you know, we've found $1 billion or $1 trillion in waste with no specifics. That's just talk, that's not transparency.
SUNUNU: It is 23 days in here, guys, 23 days. You're talking about $2.3 billion that was saved last year. These guys are saving $2.3 billion a day. That's incredible.
TOOBIN: That's what they're saying. But where's the proof.
SUNUNU: You're waiting -- you're not going to be satisfied until he shows up with 10,000 pages --
COOPER: He's giving very specific things, but he's not actually giving any evidence of that.
SUNUNU: It's all going to come because what they also said was, if we have to go to Congress, we will go to Congress.
COOPER: But where are some of the details that have come out like the, you know, $59 million spent on luxury hotels. It's actually not --
SUNUNU: You're talking about the FEMA money that was used for migrants? That was FEMA money for migrants. That's okay now?
COOPER: No, I'm not saying it's okay. I'm not saying it's okay. Don't put words in my mouth.
SUNUNU: So, would you stop that. Would you stop that process?
COOPER: Don't be a dick. The portrayal -- what I'm saying is the portrayal by him is just not factually accurate. He's talking about luxury hotels. I'm not in -- look, I was in Hurricane Katrina. I saw what FEMA does.
SUNUNU: Until he sends you a personal text, you're not going to believe it, I guess.
GRIFFIN: I think the issue too is these are congressionally appropriated funds. I think you and I, as conservatives, could look for a lot of things in the federal budget. We would be more than happy to see done away with. But I think that there have been things that have been presented as one thing and then turn out to be something very different.
The condoms to Gaza, the first time I heard that stated, I knew that wasn't true. It doesn't take an expert to know that were not doing that. And then we've got this example of POLITICO allegedly spending $8 million. That just simply wasn't true.
So, I think what people want is, yes, it's fine to tweet it out, but explain why we're cutting it, what it is, and if it's taking away a good or a service from the public, what is backfilling it so that people aren't going to be losing something they need? SUNUNU: And I'll just add I give him credit for this. He said, look, we're going to make mistakes. He said, we're going to make them -- he said, we're not going to bat a thousand here. We're going to make mistakes and we should be held accountable to those mistakes.
But the fraud and waste and corruption is so deep and so rampant, it's going to take time. He's not going through a ledger on a million dollar business. He's going through trillions of dollars here.
TOOBIN: But if it's going to take a long time, say it's going to take a long time. Don't say we've already found this many billion dollars and then not prove it.
SUNUNU: Would you rather wait him for 18 months and say, oh, and by the way, we didn't talk to you. We didn't tell you anything we were doing, but here's our final result. He's giving us a day-by-day analysis of what's happening. I don't know how much more transparent you can be.
COOPER: Well, I mean --
SUNUNU: And then you're going to say, I don't believe him.
COOPER: Jeff, what about that -- to the governor's point, waiting a year for a final report, would that be tenable?
TOOBIN: But if you -- you don't have to provide the, you know, every dollar accountable. But if you have the president saying we're finding billions of dollars and not identifying where any of those billions of dollars come from, that's not one person on welfare for 150 years.
If you're going to say that there are billions of dollars in waste that have been identified, at least in a general way, can you say where that money is and there's history here, too. I mean, Donald Trump and numbers and you know how rich he is and how much money he's spent or saved. He has not a great history of honesty there. So, that -- we bring that to the table as well.
[20:15:37]
GRIFFIN: Let's take USAID, for example, which I know is not the sexiest thing Dems are not going to win by complaining about USAID funding being cut. But in the first Trump administration, when I worked for him, we did incredible work with USAID, helping our allies abroad. We were supporting the opposition government in Venezuela, getting food aid to starving Venezuelans, for example.
He was using it all over the world. It was Congressionally appropriated, Marco Rubio was a champion of it in the Senate. So, I think there's a lot of Republicans and conservatives who just want to know if were pulling that back, if we're not countering China on the world stage through international aid, what are we doing and how are we leading in that sense?
COOPER: He is -- I mean, what -- I don't think that President Trump gets enough credit for which the government pointed out, I mean, he is being far more in front of cameras than the previous administration. I mean, it is startling. Obviously, we criticize a lot of what he says and stuff, but it is remarkable the amount of stuff he is putting out there in front of people -- whether you believe him or not or like him or not.
TOOBIN: One lesson of the last administration is that people want to see the president, and they didn't see Joe Biden for days and sometimes it seemed weeks at a time. And, President Trump has filled that vacuum. I have questions about the veracity of some of the things he said, but it is certainly better that he's sitting there answering questions than disappearing the way Joe Biden did.
GRIFFIN: What Trump is doing is brilliant from the TikTok ban once it goes back online to 167 million users of thanking Donald Trump that its online heading to the Super Bowl, he announces the signing of the Gulf of America while flying over the Gulf of America. I mean, it's brilliant TV production. Give the man an Emmy. He knows what he's doing, but that is how you captivate voters and you convince them you're getting a lot done every day.
SUNUNU: And don't forget he does the pennies. He does the paper straws. That's strategic. That's the thing. We have these wonky, complicated stuff over here. But I'm going to also do a few things that people just get on a on a visceral level. And people say, okay, great, there's something moving forward.
TOOBIN: But what I don't understand is what's so terrible about paper straws? I don't get it.
GRIFFIN: They melt. Chill, I'm with Trump on this.
TOOBIN: I realized that's not what this is about. But, you know --
COOPER: Before we go, I want to apologize. I was mean, I was rude to you, and I never --
SUNUNU: Are you kidding? I grew up with seven brothers and sisters, and I'm a Sununu --
COOPER: No, but I invited you here and I --
SUNUNU: I'm a former governor, you want to know what I'm normally called, that's one of the nicest things I've called all week, it's great.
COOPER: Yes, I know, but no, I apologize, it's not, I don't know why I said that, I really do.
GRIFFIN: We're all friends here.
COOPER: No, I mean -- I admire --
SUNUNU: It keeps it spicy, it keeps it hot, it's post eight o'clock, have some fun on CNN.
COOPER: I don't want to do that. Governor Sununu, thank you very much, Alyssa Farah Griffin, and Jeff Toobin is back shortly to talk about his new book.
Coming up next, "New York Times'" Tom Friedman on the president's tripling down today on taking Gaza and displacing the people who live there.
Also later, Steve Bannon pleading guilty to defrauding the public in the name of Donald Trump's wall.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:22:49]
COOPER: If the president's notion of taking Gaza in the name of the United States is just a pipe dream, he gave no sign of it today.
At the White House, with Jordan's King Abdullah by his side, he said the United States will simply take Gaza.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We're not going to buy anything. We're going to have it and we're going to keep it, and we're going to make sure that there's going to be peace and there's not going to be any problem, and nobody's going to question it. And were going to run it very properly.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Well, the president also said that the two million Palestinians who live in Gaza would not return home.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: It's going to be where we ultimately choose as a group, and I believe we'll have a parcel of land in Jordan. I believe we'll have a parcel of land in Egypt. We may have someplace else.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Well, neither Jordan nor Egypt nor the Palestinians are on board with this.
Joining us now is "New York Times" foreign affairs columnist and bestselling author Thomas Friedman. Among his many books, "From Beirut To Jerusalem."
So, Tom, President Trump's press secretary, his secretary of state, both sort of tried to walk his Gaza plan back after he announced it last week. He certainly seems to be doubling down on this. As somebody who's worked in this region a long time, how do you assess this plan?
THOMAS FRIEDMAN, "NEW YORK TIMES" FOREIGN AFFAIRS COLUMNIST: Well, as I said in my column for tonight, Anderson, in "The Times" I think it's the single craziest peace initiative I've ever heard. It's clearly not thought out. It was not vetted by experts. It was not run through the countries we're expecting to take these Palestinians, two million people plus.
It was -- it's not really a plan, Anderson, it's a riff and it seems to change every single day. I don't see how it's going to be implemented. I don't see who's going to transfer these people. I don't see how they're going to go voluntarily. America, we are told, is not going to send any troops or pay any costs.
You know, it's just it's just crazy. It's hard to take seriously, except were dealing with people's lives and were dealing with American allies in the Arab world, who could be easily destabilized by this.
COOPER: It also is a big break for the Prime Minister of Israel, Netanyahu.
[20:25:04]
FRIEDMAN: Yes, I mean, for Netanyahu, you know, he has been under enormous criticism for failing to articulate a plan for the morning after in Gaza, how they translate their military victory over Hamas into a political victory of a non-Hamas regime in Gaza.
The reason Netanyahu hasn't articulated that is the only alternative is the Palestinian Authority and Netanyahu does not want the Palestinian Authority governing Gaza, because then he will not be able to tell everyone in the world that the Palestinians are divided. They all have one government in the West Bank and Gaza and that will make them much better place to be a partner for a two-state solution.
So, that's been Netanyahu's policy from the very beginning. And sooner or later, Anderson, Donald Trump will wake up and realize that America's interests and Netanyahu's interests are not aligned.
Now, Trump is not wrong that we can't solve this problem through the old tools. We do need fresh thinking, but the fresh thinking that I would expect from the US president is to challenge all the parties in a new way.
It's to challenge the Arab leadership that we need a different leader of the Palestinian Authority tomorrow. We need a different prime minister. We need a technocratic Cabinet that can actually govern Gaza. We need Arab countries to step up with, with arms to help take Gaza off Israel's hands before a Palestinian force can be brought up to speed, to work with them to do that.
We need Israel to agree to basically get out of Gaza once its hostages are returned. And we need the world to get behind this and support it financially.
Trump could challenge everybody here, and I would be all for it, because we can't solve this just the old way. There's going to have to be a real transition. Enormous damage has been done. Enormous fear has been injected into Israelis after October 7th and obviously into Gazans since then. It's going to take time.
But Netanyahu wants everyone to believe that everything's been tried and nothing is left except to throw these people out and, I fear for Israel that is seen as engaging in ethnic cleansing. You do that and every Jew in the world will learn what it is to be a Jew in the world when the Jewish state is a pariah.
I have no track with Hamas, they are wicked, terrible organization, first and foremost for Palestinians, their leadership needs to be removed and their people basically liberated from them.
But this needs to be done with a coherent plan, not a president riffing about it and saying, you're going to take them and you're going to take them, and we're not going to pay anything, and I'm going to own it. What is this nonsense?
What happens if Xi Jinping and China wakes up tomorrow and says to Taiwan, I own you, baby? All of you are going to have to leave or accept my leadership. What is the difference?
COOPER: In terms of just -- I don't even understand the, you know, he had said initially, once the fighting stops, then the US would go in. But then he seems to talk about kind of the US taking command of the Gaza Strip.
FRIEDMAN: Yes, again, none of it is thought out. It was clearly not briefed to any of his people beforehand or that we can tell that any of them have claimed and there's no, like, plan. There's even like paper, Anderson, of here's the seven-point plan because it changes every day.
And, you know, this is a problem beyond Gaza. In Trump-one, in his first term, Trump was surrounded by buffers, serious people who buffered his worst instincts and impulses and tried to channel them in productive ways. He's now surrounded by amplifiers, amplifiers backed by an enforcer, Elon Musk, who can use the world's biggest megaphone, Twitter, to basically set a Twitter swarm on anyone who disagrees with the president.
So everyone's afraid and the president's Cabinet is really -- it's a collection of bobbleheads, and they just sort of nod at whatever his latest, you know, crazy idea is and again, he's not wrong to say we need to think about this differently. But the operative word there, Anderson, is think, sit down, put a team together, think with your allies. What are the implications for Jordan if we destabilize Jordan? What are the implications for Israel, if Jordan gets destabilized by having to take a million people and upset its demographic balance
Same can happen to Egypt, Netanyahu told Saudi Arabia today. They should take a million people. We're passing Palestinians out right and left, you know, from Israel and Washington. This is not serious. It's not our great power operates, and it will end badly.
COOPER: Tom Friedman, thanks for being here, appreciate it. Coming up, Steve Bannon, today pleading guilty to "The Wall Street Journal" -- as The Wall Street Journal editorial board put it, defrauding the people he claims to represent. We're keeping him honest.
And later, refugees of a civil war, now victims of the USAID freeze.
[20:30:24]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Breaking news, an American teacher, Marc Fogel, wrongly jailed in a Russian prison for nearly four years, is free tonight. He's expected to arrive shortly back on American soil. He's flying back with President Trump's Special Envoy, Steve Witkoff, who brokered his release and is en route to Joint Base Andrews as we speak.
We believe they could arrive at any moment. They're expected to, from there, to head to the White House for a meeting with President Trump. We'll bring that to you when it happens.
Now, Steve Bannon, President Trump's one-time chief strategist, who loves to portray himself as the ultimate patriot, he was in court today and pleaded guilty to a scheme to defraud hundreds of thousands of Americans, most of them likely President Trump's own supporters, people who donated to a scam that Bannon and others promoted as an effort to help build a wall along the southern border.
[20:35:15]
Now, for a guy who loves to talk, he was noticeably silent during the hearing today. He answered a few questions from the judge and acknowledged he was guilty as charged. Once he was out of the courtroom, though, in front of a microphone, he was not quite so demure.
He didn't acknowledge his crime or his guilt, which he just did in court. He did not apologize, in fact, for the fraud. He said nothing about it. Instead, he did as he often does. He went on the attack, signaling out the Manhattan D.A., Alvin Bragg, and New York's Attorney General Letitia James, saying they were an existential threat to President Trump.
He also called for U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to launch a criminal investigation into them.
(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)
STEVE BANNON, FORMER WHITE HOUSE CHIEF STRATEGIST: The existential threat is right here in this city. It is the queen of lawfare. It's Letitia James.
(END VIDEOCLIP)
COOPER: Well, keeping him honest, there's no indication that Bragg or James broke any laws here. And as Bannon's attorney later indicated, Bannon got a good deal, given the charges he had initially been facing. He is a convicted felon now in New York, but he won't be serving any prison time.
You may recall President Trump pardoned him just hours before he left office in 2021 on federal charges in this scam. It was a state charge he pled guilty to today. Bannon's friends in the scam were not so lucky, however. Brian Kolfage, Andrew Badolato, and Timothy Shea were all convicted in federal court of conspiracy to commit wire fraud for their role in the We Build the Wall scheme.
Shea was also convicted of conspiracy to commit money laundering and obstruction of justice. Now, Kolfage got four years in prison, Badolato got three years, and Shea got more than five years.
And it's worth just taking a minute, though, to remind you what they, Bannon and the three others, were involved with. Their charity, the We Build the Wall, was basically crowdfunding border wall construction. They allegedly -- or these allegedly loyal MAGA men, were on tour across the country selling their wall project to Trump supporters, holding town halls with hundreds of people at a time.
And they built the very people that they claimed to care about out of more than $25 million, according to federal prosecutors.
(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)
BANNON: We have many prominent donors here today, some very prominent people that have helped us out, not just on our advisory board, but also given money and contributed. And of course, this wall was made by the citizens of the country. That's why we call it the people's wall.
I'm going to look to my fellow citizens to put some money up, and we're going to go find the toughest sites in the country and start to build a wall.
(END VIDEOCLIP)
COOPER: Well, they also promised people that none of the money would go to them. They framed themselves as selfless volunteers executing President Trump's vision. According to federal prosecutors, Brian Kolfage repeatedly lied to the public, telling donors that he would, quote, "not take a penny in salary or compensation", and that 100 percent of the funds raised will be used in the execution of our mission and purpose.
Instead, prosecutors said they lined their pockets with hundreds of thousands of dollars and devised a scheme to route the money through entities and bank accounts that they controlled. The Fed said Kolfage took more than $350,000.
In addition to their prison sentences, the -- all three of them, Kolfage, Badolato, and Shea, were ordered by the court to forfeit more than $21 million and pay more than $6 million in restitution. Steve Bannon, despite having been accused by federal prosecutors of getting more than a million dollars for his own non-profit, some of which they allege he used for personal expenses, he denied guilt on the federal charges and, as I mentioned, was pardoned before trial.
Even though he pled guilty in a New York court today in the scheme to defraud donors, he's walking away without having to pay a penny.
More now on presidential pardons and the rule of law in America, best- selling author Jeffrey Toobin is back. His new book just out today. It's called, "The Pardon: The Politics of Presidential Mercy". You talk a lot about President Ford's landmark pardon of Nixon. Compared to how President Biden and Trump use pardons, how does it sort of stand up?
TOOBIN: Well, I think what's extraordinary about pardons are that they reveal the president. They reveal their good qualities and their bad qualities. And if you look at, you know, Joe Biden, his obsession with his own family, leading him to pardon his son, who frankly was a convicted felon at that point and should have faced consequences, and then if you look at President Trump, both in his first term and his second term, you see that this is the ultimate transactional narcissist.
He helps the people who help him and punishes those who don't. If you look at all the news we're talking about today, about how he's handling the presidency, you know, over this first month, it all is revealed by the pardons.
You know, look at pardoning Steve Bannon. You know, Steve Bannon helped him so he got away with stealing all this money, you know, by being a pardon -- by getting a pardon. He pardoned 1,500 January 6 rioters because he, too, was a January 6 defendant. Different kind of charges.
[20:40:08]
So, you know, this is what we're going to see throughout the Trump presidency him taking care of his own. He pardoned Rod Blagojevich, the former governor of Michigan, of Illinois, guilty in a corruption scheme. This is who he is. And it's the pardons that reveal.
COOPER: It sort of -- does it send a message also to the people around him that if they do his bidding, even if it's wrong, he can have their back?
TOOBIN: And the Supreme Court reinforced that message that there is no more accountability for presidents. The decision in Trump for the United States said all official actions are off limits. And if you look at Trump's pardons, anyone who is a political ally, whether it's the January 6 people or abortion protesters, you know, who intimidate people going to get abortion, Rod Blagojevich, they are all going to get passes because they are Trump allies, not because they did anything -- not because what they did was right, it's because what they did was for Trump.
COOPER: Yes.
Jeff Toobin, thank you so much.
TOOBIN: And Gerald Ford, too. We'll get to that another time.
COOPER: Appreciate it, Jeff Toobin.
TOOBIN: All right.
COOPER: President Trump today called USAID corrupt. We'll take you to Thailand, where refugees from neighboring Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, depended on U.S. foreign aid to help fund clinics.
Also, for anyone concerned about the price of eggs, reports tonight on how farmers are trying to protect their poultry from bird flu. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:45:42]
COOPER: We're now on our news about USAID. The agency's former inspector general was informed he was fired this evening. A source says it came a day after Paul Martin released a report that said the Trump administration's attempt at a sweeping reduction in staff actually made it more difficult to track potential misuse of funds.
That dismissal came shortly after President Trump and Elon Musk attacked the agency, though citing no specific evidence for their accusations.
(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The USAID is really corrupt. It's corrupt. It's incompetent and it's really corrupt.
ELON MUSK, TESLA CEO: Overall, if you say what is the bang for the buck, I would say it was not very good. And there was far too much of what USAID was doing was influencing elections in ways that I think were dubious and do not stand the light of day.
(END VIDEOCLIP)
COOPER: Again, neither offered specific evidence for their allegations. A view now from the ground on how USAID was able to provide some medical care to a desperate group of refugees in the civil war half a world away until the funding was cut off. Here's Ivan Watson.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is what happens when the world's biggest aid donor suddenly stops sending money. Families ordered to evacuate their sick loved ones from this hospital in the mountains of western Thailand. Days later, the hospital deserted, its front gate locked shut.
WATSON: This is a refugee camp for tens of thousands of people who fled the civil war across the nearby border in neighboring Myanmar. The hospital here largely depended on U.S. government funding, which suddenly stopped. And now nearly two weeks later, there isn't a single doctor on duty for this community of more than 30,000 people.
WATSON (voice-over): It's a 30 minute drive from this sprawling refugee camp to the nearest Thai hospital. The director here shocked by the sudden closure of the camp hospital.
WATSON: Has this been stressful, these last two weeks for you? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking in Foreign Language)
WATSON: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking in Foreign Language)
WATSON (voice-over): His facility has to suddenly absorb some of the refugee camp's patients. And that includes 32-year-old Mary.
WATSON: Is this your first baby?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, first baby.
WATSON: You're going to be a mama soon.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
WATSON: You're going to be a mother.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
WATSON (voice-over): Suffering high blood pressure, she was rushed to this maternity ward this morning and is now in labor far from her family and home at the camp.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translation): I just want to ask the U.S. government why they have to stop helping the refugees.
WATSON (voice-over): On January 20th, President Donald Trump ordered an immediate 90-day pause in all U.S. foreign aid. He declared the U.S. aid industry is not aligned with American interests and claims it serves to destabilize world peace.
Years, Myanmar has been ripped apart by a brutal civil war. A military dictatorship that seized power in a coup in 2021, battling numerous insurgent groups. The conflicts forced more than 3 million people to flee their homes. And now aid organizations tell CNN they only have a month and a half of funding left to feed refugees along the Thai border with Myanmar.
Leaving smaller aid groups scrambling to fill the gap.
WATSON: You're going into Myanmar.
KANCHANA THORNTON, DIRECTOR, BURMA CHILDREN MEDICAL FUND: This will go across the border, yes.
WATSON (voice-over): Kanchana Thornton regularly takes food, infant formula and medicine across the border river to desperate people in the conflict zone. The U.S. funding cut made matters worse.
WATSON: Why is it affecting you? You don't get money from Washington.
THORNTON: Well, patients come to us and asking us for help.
WATSON: Because they're not getting it from the original. THORNTON: Yes, because they're not getting support that they should from the NGO that got the funding cut.
WATSON (voice-over): Everywhere we go in this poverty stricken border region, we hear about basic services disrupted and aid workers being laid off.
WATSON: This clinic treats nearly 500 patients a day. It receives nearly 20 percent of its funding from the U.S. government. Washington has been sending money here for at least 20 years. But now all of that has stopped.
[20:50:07]
WATSON (voice-over): Uncertainty now felt by Rebecca (ph) and her nine-year-old daughter Rosella (ph).
WATSON: Yes, can you show me your favorite pictures?
WATSON (voice-over): The residents of the refugee camp who had to move out of the hospital when it shut down last month. Even though Rosella (ph) was born with a bone condition, she needs oxygen around the clock.
My daughter needs the hospital to be open, Rebecca (ph) says. And so do I, because I'm pregnant.
The cut in U.S. funding means this pregnant mother no longer has access to a doctor. And she doesn't know how much longer her daughter's oxygen will last.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
WATSON (on-camera): Anderson, the pause in U.S. funding has already become a matter of life and death. The International Rescue Committee tells CNN that an elderly woman who couldn't get supplemental oxygen died after the hospital in her refugee camp closed last month.
Life has never been easy for refugees in this porous border region. If the world's biggest aid donor truly does pull out, I think it's fair to say life will get much, much harder. Anderson?
COOPER: Ivan Watson, thanks very much.
Up next, the race to contain bird flu and the precautions some farmers are taking to protect their livestock.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:56:04]
COOPER: Tonight, a somewhat positive update on growing bird flu concerns. Georgia, one of the country's top poultry producing states, has lifted its suspension on live poultry shows, sales, and swap meets after extensive testing found no new bird flu cases. This comes a day after Nevada reported a new version of bird flu in a dairy worker. New York live poultry markets were forced to temporarily close after bird flu was detected at seven of the markets.
Our Jason Carroll spoke to farmers about their bird flu concerns and some of the precautions they're taking to protect their livelihood.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
TOM WARREN, OWNER, STONE & THISTLE FARM: So these are our two-year-old birds that are out here in a winter house, and they're venturing outside today.
JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Farmers like Tom Warren have been keeping a more watchful eye on their chickens these days.
WARREN: We'll just have to see what happens.
CARROLL: OK.
WARREN: It's kind of what we're going to do.
CARROLL: All right.
WARREN: And hope for the best.
CARROLL (voice-over): Warren owns Stone and Thistle Farm, a small farm located in the foothills of the Catskill Mountains, more than a three- hour drive from New York City. But with the threat of avian flu, the city seems closer than ever.
New York's governor temporarily shut down live poultry markets in New York City, Long Island, and Westchester County as a precautionary measure after several cases of bird flu were recently discovered.
GOVERNOR KATHY HOCHUL (D), NEW YORK: Over the last week, inspectors have detected seven cases of bird flu in poultry.
CARROLL (voice-over): Cases of bird flu were also found at the Queen Zoo, and possible cases are under investigation at the Bronx Zoo. Last month, a commercial duck farm in Long Island was forced to euthanize more than 100,000 ducks after a bird flu outbreak hit the facility to prevent further spread.
While birds are the likely source of the avian flu on farms, it's a big concern for small farmers, such as Warren, whose livestock and poultry are partially raised outside, where they have free range to roam.
WARREN: We just hope, I mean, for us, it's mostly we can do a few things to prevent or reduce the risk hazard.
CARROLL: What can you do?
WARREN: Well, like I said, we keep our feeders indoors, so that deters wild birds from coming down into the place.
CARROLL: You're very pragmatic about the whole thing.
WARREN: Getting agitated about it isn't going to benefit me or the chickens --
CARROLL: Yes.
WARREN: -- or the farm business, so we take as many precautions as we can.
CARROLL (voice-over): Precautions, such as no one permitted on the farm, if they've been to another farm, own a bird, or have had contact with birds, is why we did Daniel Brey's interview over Zoom.
DANIEL BREY, OWNER, BREY'S EGG FARM: You can't see it, smell it, or, you know, you have no idea where the bird flu is until it's too late. Yes, I am afraid.
CARROLL (voice-over): Brey is a third-generation poultry farmer who has dodged avian flu outbreaks in 2014 and 2022. He says an outbreak could be financially devastating for small farms like his and Warren's.
BREY: It's like a death sentence. You know, you lose your cut -- you don't have any eggs for three to four months at least, it's a nightmare, but it basically puts you out of business, a smaller farm.
CARROLL: Is that something that you could survive if you had to shut down for that long (ph)?
WARREN: Yes, I'm going to survive. It's the chickens that aren't going to survive.
CARROLL: OK.
WARREN: But, no, but it would be difficult, it would hurt our business astronomically.
CARROLL (voice-over): His message to consumers during all this, poultry and eggs remain safe when prepared properly.
WARREN: Here, would you like a holder?
CARROLL: No.
WARREN: No?
CARROLL (voice-over): Warren says his eggs and chickens are selling, and his well-trained dogs help keep the wild birds at bay, for now.
WARREN: It's probably unlikely that we would contract it, but it's still a crapshoot. I mean, we -- there's a limit to what we can do to control it.
CARROLL: What do you think your odds are? WARREN: I'm not much of a betting man, so.
CARROLL: OK. OK.
WARREN: I have no idea what our odds are. I mean, we've managed to get through a couple of years with avian influenza around without any problems, and we kind of just hope that we'll make it through a couple more years, and then I'm going to retire.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
CARROLL (on-camera): And Anderson, farmers say one of the issues that is so frustrating to them is trying to dispel all of the misinformation, they say, that is circulating among consumers going forward. They also say knowing as much as they can about the disease is one of the best ways that they have to fight it.
Anderson?
COOPER: Jason Carroll, thanks so much.
That's it for us. The news continues. The Source with Kaitlan Collins starts now.
