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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
Trump Fires Top U.S. General, Calls Gen. Charles Brown A "Fine Gentleman"; Trump Falling Sort; Acting ICE Director Removed Amid Frustration Over Pace Of Arrests; Pentagon Announces It Plans To Fire 5-8 Percent Of Civilian Workforce; NY Times Columnist: Musk Is "Operating As What Cybersecurity Experts Call An Insider Threat"; Mine Workers Tell CNN Musk Claims Are False; Alleged Healthcare CEO Killer Appears In Court, Attracting Dozens Of Supporters, Observers; Los Angeles D.A. Urges Judge To Deny Menendez Brothers' Request For A New Trial; Second Body Said To Be That Of Israeli Hostage Shiri Bibas Handed Over By Hamas. Aired 8-9p ET
Aired February 21, 2025 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
WILL RIPLEY CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: So Brianna, as you know, China's biotech rise, this is not just about medicine, it's also political.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Very interesting -- very interesting story indeed. Will Ripley, thank you so much for that report tonight.
And thank you so much for joining us. AC360 starts right now.
[20:00:22]
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, "ANDERSON COOPER: 360": Good evening.
We begin tonight with breaking news. President Trump has just fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, his top military adviser. He made the announcement on social media, quoting from his post, "I want to thank General Charles C.Q. Brown for his over 40 years of service to our country including as our current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He's a fine gentleman and an outstanding leader, and I wish a great future for him and his family."
The President went on to say, "Today, I'm honored to announce that I am nominating air force Lieutenant General, Dan 'Razin' Cain to be the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff."
COOPER: Now, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had previously called for General Brown's firing because of his, "woke focus on diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the military."
Hegseth on our radio show last fall, said or podcast last fall said, first of all, you've got to fire the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. And he went on to talk about how any general involved with DEI efforts should be fired. Either you're in for war fighting and that's it, he said.
CNN's Kaitlan Collins has more reporting on this, and she joins us right now. It's not entirely unexpected, especially since the new Defense
Secretary has been talking about this before he was even being considered for that job. How much of this is about DEI?
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, I think it depends on your definition and what that looks like. And I will say that when Hegseth got confirmed as the Defense Secretary, that he stood next to General C.Q. Brown. And who is the President's top military adviser, effectively, and said that he looked forward to working with him.
So we actually saw him strike quite a different tone after Hegseth had gone through the confirmation process. It was actually at The Pentagon.
But one thing that was clear was, this is something that has been long rumored for weeks now, that this was in the works, that this was going to happen, that they had not changed their minds on that feeling initially of General C.Q. Brown, ever since you heard those comments from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
And just to drive home how unusual this is, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Anderson, typically stays regardless of who the president is, even if they change parties and it's a different administration. They stay for that four-year term. And he started his in October of 2023. He succeeded General Mark Milley in this role. And so, his term does not expire until the fall of 2027.
But with this ouster tonight, Trump has removed him from his post and is now picking someone else to take this position, which really does drive home what you heard from Pete Hegseth in that interview back in November, blaming him for DEI policies, that is obviously part of this.
And I've been talking to people in recent weeks. None of them would, would say on background or privately that C.Q. Brown's job was assured in this role.
I will note today he was posting pictures. He was at the southern border and was talking about the work that the military has been doing and what that partnership looks like, and so, he clearly was still doing his job as of just a few hours ago, before Trump announced on Truth Social tonight that he was ousting him.
COOPER: Traditionally, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, usually as administrations change that position often remains the same. It's not that each time a new president comes in, that person is removed.
COLLINS: Yes, for example, general Mark Milley, that was Trump's actual hand-picked Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman. It might be hard for some to believe, given how much that relationship deteriorated and how Trump talks about Mark Milley now and he's, you know, reposting things suggesting military tribunals for him. But that was actually someone that he handpicked in his first term to be the Joint Chiefs Chairman and take on that role. It is a four-year term. When President Biden won and took office, he kept Mark Milley in that
role and did not fire him or oust him. And then when his term expired, that is when he picked C.Q. Brown. It is now a four-year role. It used to be every two years, I believe, and then they would go up for Senate confirmation once again. But typically, yes, those are positions that stay on and that stays regardless of the political party.
And so, the thing to watch here tonight though, Anderson, as this is the first major firing that we are seeing happening at The Pentagon since Trump took office just a little over a month ago, is whether anyone else is to follow, because there have been rumors that have been rampant in Washington for weeks now, that there is going to be mass firings, I would say multiple firings at the leadership at The Pentagon. It's been hard to run down whether or not that's actually going to happen.
But tonight we are getting this late night announcement that the top military adviser to the President has been ousted.
COOPER: All right, Kaitlan Collins, thanks very much. We'll see you at the top of the hour for "The Source." I want to play that soundbite of Pete Hegseth in November, talking about General Brown.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PETE HEGSETH, US DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE SECRETARY: Well, first of all, you've got to fire, you know, you've got to fire the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and you've got to fire this, I mean, obviously, to bring in a new Secretary of Defense, but any general that was involved, general, admiral, whatever that was involved in any of the DEI woke shit has got to go.
Either you're in for war fighting and that's it and that's the only litmus test we care about.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[20:05:14]
COOPER: Joining us now is Rahm Emanuel, former Obama White House Chief-of-Staff former Chicago Mayor and currently CNN senior political and global affairs commentator.
Ambassador, I appreciate you being with us. I understand you know, General Brown. What do you make of this firing?
RAHM EMANUEL, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL: Yes, well, not only know him, I knew him as ambassador, in Japan, and he has extensive experience in the far Indo-Pacific area as a former air force of head in INDOPACOM.
I think this, you know, in a week of unsteadiness of America, the idea that also then on our national security profile to have this type of unsteadiness is projecting a level of weakness.
Now, see how this plays out. Right now, China is doing a military exercise they've never done before off the coast of Australia. Live fire, it's impacted civil aviation there because of the weakness, China is doing something we have never, ever seen.
What is the United States communicating? Chaos at home, firing over some political difference, if that's the true reason, it is unsteady both in Europe and now it is unsteady in the military, as a weakness, it is also projecting, I think, a level of chaos here.
I think it's very, very reckless and he has experience. I dealt with him many times as ambassador. His knowledge and the trust that Australia and New Zealand, his counterparts in India, in Japan and South Korea. This is not the type of thing you want to have at a moment where people are trying to figure out where the United States is going, what the type of leadership is.
I think it actually projects very bad, not just on the United States. It is something our adversaries are going to take advantage of.
COOPER: President Trump also said he's going to have Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth solicit nominations for five more high level military posts. Does that sound like, I mean, a purge of some sort at the highest levels of the American military? Is this common?
EMANUAL: Well, you know this and first of all, the answer is in the question. No, it is not common. I was there for President Clinton and President Obama. You kept people in because there's something to the steadiness, the trust and the relationships they build worldwide that people know they can count on. America.
His knowledge, C.Q.'s -- General Brown's knowledge of the region I worked at extensively was a checkmate on China. There was many allies and friends that knew him and trusted him. I think you're going to have a level of impact where a lot of folks across the branches of the Armed Forces are going to start to look over their shoulder and pull back for risk of getting on the wrong side.
This is not the moment in time I think the United States wants our men and women not just in the Armed Forces, but more importantly in their leadership, unsure and unsteady in questions. You have moments and I just use this example because it's prevalent out there. China is doing something we've never seen off the coast of Australia in front of Sydney and live fire. They've never done this.
The United States is nowhere to be seen and found as a deterrent with our one of our closest allies in the region. And now, rather than respond to China, we're firing the head of the Joint Chiefs. Imagine what that communicates not just to China, but across the globe as people look at the United States. Is this a country you're going to hang your hat on and you're going to actually draft behind because you understand and trust your leadership?
And I say that because we had many dinners with all the INDOPACOM's with President Obama, there's a connectivity between the president and the military leadership, and that's essential for our National Security.
COOPER: This also comes as a time as the war in Ukraine continues. And obviously there's now a realignment with this administration and our European allies, who traditionally have been our allies, and Russia.
EMANUEL: Well, look, I mean, this situation and I've talked about it, written about this. I think what we're doing here is we're basically empowering our adversaries and endangering our allies.
The problem when you look at this is the United States under Donald Trump, thinks of Ukraine as a real estate deal. They got 20 percent, we get they get that. That's how much Russia has now of Ukraine.
Russia is looking at these negotiations. This is about Ukraine's sovereignty and were going to claim it. It's a totally different discussion between the United States. We're just looking at it, president's background is real estate.
Russia sees the grand power play here in Europe for the projection this is not just Ukraine's sovereignty. Moldova, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, every place where we put troops, they now said we've not only gotten everything we've wanted and the United States, leaving Ukraine vulnerable.
We've gotten what we want on negotiations vis-a-vis NATO. We now want your troops out of Eastern Europe, they added and they put -- we see your 20 add 40 at the table. This is a dangerous precedent because we're projecting weakness and weakness invites aggression. And you're seeing it play out in the Indo-Pacific right now.
[20:10:15]
COOPER: President Trump, went out of his way tonight to say that General Dan Caine, whom he's nominated to replace General Brown, is someone who has passed over for promotion by President Biden. I mean, how much of this do you think is about the current or the man who was just removed as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs-of-Staff.
He had spoken out about experiences of racism that he had witnessed and gone through in the past. How much of this is about DEI and sending a message?
EMANUEL: Well, I think it's a lot -- I think a good portion of it, but I want to say one other thing having worked with not only heads of our Joint Chiefs in throughout my career, but heads of different military operations, or rather, offices, in INDOPACOM and other areas across the globe. One of the things that's been impressive to date is the men and women in leadership in the Armed Forces.
When you think about where the armed forces of the united states was after Vietnam, you look at the quality of people and the choices and optionality we have a president has for a head of Air Force, Navy, Marines, Army, Coast Guard. It is incredible depth of talent.
It's a true success story of the United States rebuilding this Armed Forces from the low point to where it is today. I don't know the case that somebody got passed over. That doesn't mean you take somebody at this critical juncture where America's being tested and you remove them. And I think it's going to have not just a consequence and stop with
General Brown. I think it's going to have a consequences with everybody else in the leadership. That's what I'm worried about, when in fact, on the heels of a week in which heads are spinning, as your question indicated about Ukraine, heads are spinning around the globe.
And now we double down on the message and theme of unsteadiness and the very point where people want the United States to project strength and steadiness, because, again, that old axiom is true, weakness invites aggression. That's what's fearsome and that's what's worrisome right now.
COOPER: Ambassador, if you will just stick around, I want to get your take on another big story tonight, namely that after a month of made for TV action, including on horseback, the Trump administration is still struggling to live up to promises it has made about mass deportations. And it's just removed the man that they put in charge of the effort. This is another person who's just been removed, by the way.
Also tonight, what are the facts behind the limestone mine Elon Musk has been, talking about where federal retirement documents are processed, CNN went inside. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:17:18]
COOPER: Keeping them honest. tonight, starting with the removal of this man, Caleb Vitello, acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. This is him on a raid just last month in New York. Now, given that he has just been removed from his role, you might think he was a holdover from the Biden administration. But no, he was actually chosen by then President-elect Trump to be the next director of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE.
He hadn't been confirmed yet, so that's why he was the acting director. But now he's not that either. A spokeswoman for the Homeland Security Department saying in a statement that he's not being fired, just reassigned, and that he'll remain in charge of, "finding, arresting and deporting illegal aliens," which is a major priority of the president and secretary. Not clear how he will be in charge of that if he's not actually the director of the place that does that -- but details.
Despite that statement and despite public denials by the president that he's unhappy with ICE's performance, multiple inside sources tell us that frustration over lagging arrest numbers is real, at about 8,000 since Inauguration Day, they're exceeding on a daily basis last year's daily average during the Biden administration. But according to "The Washington Post", they're falling short of the administration's own targets of 1,200 to 1,500 a day.
One Trump official told CNN, "They're treading water. They're way behind, adding that pressure on ICE is coming from White House deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, border czar Tom Homan, and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem seen here getting on a horse with federal law enforcement at the Southern Border."
"It's not pretty," is how this official describes the pressure on ICE, which sounds accurate because we've just seen the acting director professionally deported.
Mass deportations is what Donald Trump ran on. It's what Trump promised over and over again. It seemed like no campaign promise on the subject was too big for him to make.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: On day one, I will launch the largest deportation program in American history. We are going to get the criminals out.
It will be liberation day in America. On day one, I will launch the largest deportation program of criminals in American history.
Mad people, they are all now in the United States, and they're now taking over cities. It's like an invasion from within. We're going to have the largest deportation in the history of our country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: And yes, that was on the campaign trail. And maybe plenty of his supporters knew that wasn't actually going to happen on day one, as he said it would, though on day one, he did very publicly sign executive orders about the border.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sir, this is an executive order entitled Protecting the American People Against Invasion, which again deals with the southern border and the unprecedented admission of illegal aliens across the southern border.
Sir, this is a proclamation declaring a National Emergency at the Southern Border of the United States.
TRUMP: That's a big one. A lot of big ones, huh? You know what that means, right?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[20:20:16]
COOPER: In all, since that moment on Inauguration Day, the President has signed at least ten executive orders or other executive actions on unlawful immigration and has also targeted the lawful kind, shutting down on day one, the government app for migrants wanting to follow the rules by applying outside the country.
And just yesterday, the administration stripped temporary protected status from some half a million Haitian migrants, making these formerly legal immigrants and a stroke of the pen, illegal immigrants and eligible for deportation. These are people he once said were eating the pets.
It is worth noting that with all these efforts to get rid of Central and South Americans and now Haitians, there's one group of foreigners the president has, out of the blue, decided to invite to move here. White South Africans, in particular Afrikaners. He actually signed an executive order promoting, "the resettlement of Afrikaner refugees, escaping government sponsored race based discrimination, including racially discriminatory property confiscation."
He wants White Afrikaners here. It's too long to try to get into the history of South Africa as apartheid regime, but it's at the very least an interesting group to make special welcome to.
Anyway, whatever you may think of the President's policy choices on immigration, his priorities or the morality of it, there's simply no denying that he is making a production of it literally.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KRISTI NOEM, U.S. SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY: Here in New York City this morning, we are getting the dirtbags off the streets.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: That is DHS Secretary Noem late last month taking part in migrant arrests in New York, one of several high profile enforcement actions she and other top officials have appeared at and documented heavily.
The administration has also made a big show of using military aircraft for deportation flights, even though it costs more than the traditional civilian flights, and loudly began sending deportees to Guantanamo Bay some before quietly removing some this week.
The White House this week even turned the deportation process into a kind of viral video posting on social media, something entitled, "#ASMRIllegalAlienDeportationFlight."
(VIDEO CLIP PLAYS)
COOPER: By the way, there's some ASMR videos use sounds to trigger emotional states and are generally supposed to be soothing. It's hard to see what soothing about shackles, but so be it.
Taste and again, morality aside, it all seems part of how the administration signals it is all in on the problem. They have even gone so far as to spark a Justice Department rebellion by trying to drop corruption charges against New York's mayor in the name of furthering the President's immigration policy and then after that, prodding him about it on national television.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TOM HOMAN, BORDER CZAR :If he doesn't come through, I'll be back in New York City and we won't be sitting on a couch. I'll be in his office up his butt saying, where the hell is the agreement we came to? (END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Well, the bottom line, so to speak, is that in almost every way possible, the administration has made an enormous public show of its toughness on immigration, both lawful and unlawful, some of which may actually be useful if those images are seen in South and Central America and elsewhere and deter migrants from coming here illegally without following the rules. But that remains to be seen.
What is clear is that for all the show and all the orders, when it comes to doing what it promised, the administration by its own lights is coming up short.
With that, joining us again is CNN senior political and global affairs commentator, Rahm Emanuel. It is only a month ambassador into the new presidency. What do you think it says that the White House is, by their own account, falling short on what they had promised and what they had wanted to see.
EMANUEL: Anderson, I think you should, if I could, to the viewers, pull back the screen and take a wider lens. He promised that on day one, inflation would be down. Immigration deportations would be up, and America would be respected around the world, and there would be peace in Ukraine in day one, take a look at what's happened, inflation is actually not down, but up.
Immigration deportations are not up, they're actually down and America is actually inviting weakness in its chaos in negotiating with Russia and Europe and Ukraine. And that's why his poll numbers are down. And so this week, I think will be seen as a pivotal week in his presidency.
Now, I am not one that ever bought when you get 49 percent you have a mandate. But for four weeks they've been repeating that. And the trend line in all the public opinion polling on his presidency and himself indicates displeasure with the presidency, and mainly because he's been distracted talking about buying Greenland when people are worried about buying groceries, not Greenland, they can't afford those groceries.
He hasn't solved inflation, you can see the data is pretty consistent. He said he was going to have on day one, the largest show of deportations consistent. He's below President Biden. He's below president Obama. And rather than get peace in Ukraine, you have seen the result there.
And that is why his poll numbers continue to decline. And I really do think this will be the week that people note that its actually flipped. And that's what's happening in the whole week kind of in a nutshell from, I think, all the pledges being made and this guy is going to be the fall guy for taking the hit here. But there's a bigger problem, because the President is not focused on the priorities in which he ran on and the American people smell a rat.
[20:25:32] COOPER: I talked to Maggie Haberman last night and she said, there's a
quiet frustration among some of president Trump's advisers because some of his policies have been drowned out by the administrations flood the zone strategy and all the attention that Elon Musk gets.
I'm wondering what you make of the strategy, generally speaking, because there certainly has been a whirlwind of activity and, you know, which is a stark contrast to what we saw in the previous administration, you didn't seem as much actually happening in front of the cameras as you see here.
EMANUEL: Right, I mean, yes, I know that, look, I think it's a general thread. The energy was to show a contrast to the Biden administration, there's no doubt about that and one level, from a kind of energy to the lack thereof, you actually got from a thematic you and purposeful or narrative, that energy added up to a lot of action and people were confident about that.
The problem is, it's gotten so cluttered and the fundamentals have gotten closer. Meaning you're going to go to the grocery store, you're going to see less eggs, and they're going to be very expensive. You're going to see that not only in grocery stores. You're going to see that in a whole host of costing of items, and you're also going to see the fact on the immigration. It's a level of activity. It's not the criminal immigration. It's now going into areas, in fact, that people don't want to see.
They don't want to see raids on schools. They don't want to see raids on places of worship. And so, it's having that impact and I think people are basically penalizing the administration because they're not focused on what they were supposed to run on. And there is a bit of the show is done and its now the circus left, and you can see a lot of things that are left after the circus leaves.
COOPER: Because you point out the criminal immigration that was always the, you know, it's all these criminals that were going to get out. It's more complicated, I mean, it's difficult. The countries don't want to receive them. There's a lot of complexity to it. Even if many people want that to happen.
EMANUEL: Yes, Anderson, the way I look at it is look, in 1986 was the last time the United States dealt with immigration under Ronald Reagan, Senator Simpson and Congressman Mazzoli. It's been close to 40 years. Every president either tried to do some comprehensive immigration reform or through tape, bubblegum, some rope and some chewing gum, try to piece something together, whether it was like on President Obama on DACA, but also deportation.
We have to fundamentally fix this. We're a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants. And the American people are quite receptive to people that respect the laws and come to this country accordingly. Think about this, and I say this, I am the son of an immigrant. I am also the grandson of an immigrant. You have a president, and I say this respectfully married an immigrant. You have a vice-president who has also married the child of immigrants. No two people better understand the importance of immigrants to the
country from a legal standpoint, but also illegal. The thing that they're doing is trying to score points rather than solve problems. This is a very tough issue, but it can be resolved with leadership. It hasn't in 40 years. So to me, I understand like in Chicago, they sent Doctor Phil, that's a show. Solve the problem with Congress.
COOPER: Yes, Rahm Emanuel, I appreciate your time, thank you.
Coming up next, the job cutters now have sights set on the Pentagon's civilian workforce. We have new details on just how many jobs could be eliminated.
Also, the suspect in the killing of health care CEO Brian Thompson appeared in court again today. Luigi Mangione with groups of supporters inside and outside the courtroom.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:33:13]
COOPER: More breaking news tonight, the Defense Department says it plans to fire 5 to 8 percent of its civilian workforce, and because that workforce totals nearly 1 million men and women, that would put anywhere from 47,000 to 76,000 people out of work. Defense officials said the first 5,400 could get pink slips early next week.
Last night, Elon Musk, who seems to be running DOGE, though the administration says he's not running DOGE, was given a chainsaw at the Conservative Political Action Conference outside Washington. Musk saying, quote, "This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy".
Also today, a federal judge ruled that his dismantling of USAID may continue. Musk, you'll recall, compared that to feeding it to a wood chipper. At the same time, some cuts are getting pushed back. At a town hall last night outside Atlanta, Republican Congressman Rich McCormick was confronted over the firing of 1,300 people, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)
REP. RICH MCCORMICK (R), GEORGIA: Why is a supposedly conservative party taking such a radical and extremist and sloppy approach to this?
(APPLAUSE)
So I've been down to the CDC several times. Actually, Dr. Houry, one of my former attendees, works there, and I'm in close contact with the CDC. They have about, what, 13,000 employees? 13,000 employees at the CDC. It's about 1,300 people, which you're referring to.
A lot of the work they do is duplicitous with AI. Once again, one of the problems we have -- I happen to be a doctor. I know a few things.
(END VIDEOCLIP) COOPER: I don't think he meant to say duplicitous.
Our next guest, Zeynep Tufekci, teaches at Princeton and is an opinion columnist for The New York Times. She writes about Musk and DOGE today, saying that DOGE's young computer wizards now wield so much control over the IT systems, where they're working, that they become, in effect, the network systems administrators, or sysadmins, for the entire government.
[20:35:10]
I appreciate you being with us. I read your piece today, and it kind of -- it was the first time I've heard someone explain kind of a little bit what's going on. You write in this latest column, you said DOGE -- that Elon Musk, quote, "isn't approaching this challenge like a budget-minded official. He's approaching it like an engineer, exploiting vulnerabilities that are built into the nation's technological systems, operating as what cyber security experts call an insider threat".
So, explain what's going on.
ZEYNEP TUFEKCI, PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY: So, from the reporting, what has happened is these DOGE associates, who are operating in a lot of secrecy and lack of transparency for such a powerful position, have started going to these key agencies, like the Office of Personnel Management, which is the HR for the entire government, and demanded access to the entire network, even though they're just new there.
And the people who resisted that kind of unfettered access got -- put on administrative leave or fired. And then once they got there, that was the first place they went, they went to the Treasury, and something similar happened. The Treasury has a database of every payment that the U.S. government does, and this is such sensitive information.
Like it's -- if you're a company, you can see what your rivals are doing. If you're, you know, a company competing with Musk, your contracts are there, all prepared (ph).
COOPER: So they could actually look into what --
TUFEKCI: So they wanted access. And this is so sensitive that very few people have access to this, and they're like career civil servants trusted by both parties, and they've been there. They were immediately put on leave, and they were put aside, and they were told, you're going to give these youngsters access. And then this happened again.
Now we're hearing they're asking for access at the IRS, Social Security, and all of a sudden, you're looking at, like, this is the keys to the kingdom to the entire population's sensitive personal data.
COOPER: You wrote, "Now we're stuck with a system that offers equal efficiency to those who wish to exercise the legitimate functions of government and those who wish to dismantle it or to weaponize it for their own ends. There doesn't even seem to be a mechanism to learn who has gained access to what database with what privileges".
TUFEKCI: Exactly.
COOPER: So, essentially, these systems, this was all done over decades to make these systems incredibly efficient, and there were people warning about linking all these systems together, and they were kind of ignored. People were raising this as a potential for abuse, but in our desire to have things be efficient, that wasn't listened to.
TUFEKCI: That's exactly right. So what happened is, people have been warning about this before the 1970s. Government holding this kind of personal data is very powerful. We already have a problem with all these companies having all of our data, but the governments also have other powers they can do, and it's a bipartisan failure.
Every government just wanted to have Silicon Valley on their side, and they're fickle. They are now on Trump's side, and they were before on Obama's side. And nobody put in the kind of protections that if this got in the hands of the wrong people, we would at least have some transparency.
I don't even know what they're doing, which I think that is the key problem. You're not even in a position to know what's been accessed.
COOPER: Nor does it seem like that there's a record of it. You used in your article the example of Edward Snowden --
TUFEKCI: Right.
COOPER: -- and people were like, well, how can this guy have access to all this secret intelligence?
TUFEKCI: He was the sysadmin. He --
COOPER: Because he was the sysadmin guy.
TUFEKCI: Right. This is the oldest problem in governance, who watches the watchers, who guards the guardians. In modern world, it is who watches the sysadmin, because they're the ones that have access to the entire system.
COOPER: So that position, the systems administration position that -- you're saying Edward Snowden was the sysadmin guy --
TUFEKCI: Right, the --
COOPER: -- that is what these people are doing, and they are getting that position, and that gives them a window into everything.
TUFEKCI: So the Atlantic reported that one person at the part of GSA, where they run --
COOPER: The General Service Administration. TUFEKCI: Right, they were -- they run technology for the entire government, he asked for 19 different systems. He asked for access to 19 different IT systems at very high privileges, which is unprecedented. And according to their reporting, he hadn't even gotten through a background check, and he's a Tesla engineer.
So, like, these are not elected people. These are not being done with oversight. And I do want to add one thing that really alarmed me was when a judge ruled against the administration on something, it doesn't even matter what, Musk tweeted to his 200 million followers, he posted, not tweeted, I guess, ex-posted, the judge's daughter, face, name, photo, and allegedly employment at the government -- at the Department of Education.
And to me, I'm just looking at this and thinking, this is the judge's family, and she works for the government.
[20:40:03]
And now I'm a judge, and I'm seeing this in front of me, administration's doing something, and I'm thinking, who in my family is next?
COOPER: Right.
TUFEKCI: What kind of information? This is very --
COOPER: (INAUDIBLE) is not going to happen just --
TUFEKCI: This is not a claim that they are doing anything improper. This is a claim that if they did, how would we even know what is going on? We don't even know like who these people are.
COOPER: Yes.
TUFEKCI: We know they're very young. We don't know if they have security clearances. We don't know anything else.
COOPER: Yes.
TUFEKCI: So to me, like, even a lot of other things get reversed. If somebody walks off with all that data, like Snowden with --
COOPER: Right.
TUFEKCI: -- on a single thumbnail, would we know?
COOPER: Yes.
TUFEKCI: You know, we just -- I just think this is kind of an urgent emergency --
COOPER: Yes.
TUFEKCI: -- to pay attention.
COOPER: I recommend people, read your --
TUFEKCI: Thank you.
COOPER: -- full opinion piece, the New York Times.
TUFEKCI: Right.
COOPER: Zeynep Tufekci, I appreciate it.
TUFEKCI: Thank you.
COOPER: Really fascinating.
TUFEKCI: Thank you.
COOPER: More now on the subject, another unseen function. The government embodied by a limestone mine in Pennsylvania, where apparently all federal retirement paperwork is processed.
During an Oval Office event last week, Elon Musk talked about the mine, that some of the workers tell CNN are not true. They say that does not mean the system is perfect. CNN wasn't allowed inside the mine. Our reporter was outside.
Gabe Cohen has the story.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
GABE COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Beneath the rolling hills of western Pennsylvania.
COHEN: Really is just off some rural road.
COHEN (voice-over): An old limestone mine houses one of the most remote and secure government offices.
COHEN: You can see the entrance. It looks like that's about as far as you can get before you have to go through security.
COHEN (voice-over): Nearly 700 civil servants here process almost every retirement from the federal workforce.
COHEN: We're here in Butler County because of recent comments that Elon Musk made about this facility and about the people who work here. Comments that have really rocked this rural area.
ELON MUSK, TRUMP PRESIDENTIAL ADVISER: There's a limestone mine where we store all the retirement paperwork.
COHEN (voice-over): From the Oval Office last week, Musk criticized the operation as one that epitomizes government inefficiency.
MUSK: It's like a time warp and the elevator breaks down sometimes and then nobody can retire. You could do practically anything else and you would add to the goods and services of the United States in a more useful way. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is this the freaking Flintstones?
COHEN (voice-over): Those comments got a lot of pickup.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Musk wants to rescue these government gremlins from working underground.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Does President Trump promise we're going to shut this cave down?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, he does.
COHEN (voice-over): The federal workers here are on edge. They got a memo warning them not to talk to reporters.
COHEN: Are you ready?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
COHEN: OK. How are you feeling?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Good. Better.
COHEN (voice-over): And yet five of them and a former supervisor sat down with us because they say many of Musk's claims were false. We're masking their face and changing their voice because they're scared of retaliation.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Everybody's kind of been silenced at this point. We all need these jobs.
COHEN: Tell me about that elevator.
MUSK: And the elevator breaks down and then -- sometimes and then nobody can retire.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's no elevator. No elevator at all. You walk down into the mine. It looks like any other office building.
MUSK: The most number of people that could retire possibly in a month is 10,000.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm not sure where that number came from.
COHEN: There's no limit.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's no limit.
MUSK: All the retirement paperwork is manual.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That is not true. It's not.
COHEN (voice-over): Built in the 1950s, transformed from a mine, it was renovated over the years into a temperature and climate controlled facility. It's owned by a company called Iron Mountain and private companies also store vulnerable items like film reels and photographs. But it's not just Musk who criticizes the processing of retirement claims. For years, this office has been criticized for processing too slowly over reliance on paper and insufficient staffing. Some of the workers we spoke to agree the system needs updating.
But completely shutting this facility down would devastate Butler County, where the federal government is the biggest employer. It's also Trump country. He got nearly two-thirds of the vote here and the mine is just 20 miles from the fairgrounds where he was nearly assassinated.
COHEN: Did you support --
JASON MCBRIDE, MARION TOWNSHIP BOARD OF SUPERVISORS: I did.
COHEN: -- President Trump?
MCBRIDE: I did support President Trump, yes. I think he's the president of the people. That's the message this area has.
I need two large for the underground.
COHEN (voice-over): Jason McBride is a supervisor in this tiny town.
MCBRIDE: Thanks for choosing McBride's. Can I help you?
COHEN (voice-over): And runs the only restaurant, this pizza shop.
MCBRIDE: OK, buddy. What's your number, Darren (ph)? I'll give you a call when I'm entering the mines.
COHEN (voice-over): They deliver into the mine almost daily.
MCBRIDE: And I just would hate to think that a stroke of a pen in Washington, D.C. could change the future of our area. Whether you're the gas station or you're the pizza guy, it's -- it'd be detrimental to all of us.
COHEN: If he shuts down that facility, will you still support him?
MCBRIDE: I don't know. We'll have to wait and see on that. Good people dedicated their lives to this facility for the federal government and they deserve to be heard.
COHEN: Who did you vote for in November?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Trump. First time I ever voted.
COHEN: First time you ever voted.
[20:45:02]
I was never even registered to vote before that. When he talked about government employees, we didn't think that was going to be us. I wish I could take it back. Because I feel like now, my whole livelihood could be changed because of him being president.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
COHEN (on-camera): Now, Anderson, at this point, we don't know if the White House has taken any more steps to start shutting this facility down, even though it has been a week now since Trump's press secretary said that they are promising they are going to close it.
Now, since then, the agency that actually runs that office has told me they are, quote, "evaluating methods to enhance the efficiency of the retirement process". We don't know exactly what that means. Maybe that means bringing in engineers to try to start digitizing more of that work.
But to do that, they're going to need cooperation from a lot of government agencies because it is all of their paperwork coming into this facility.
COOPER: Gabe Cohen, fascinating. Thank you.
Coming up, the man accused of killing a healthcare CEO on Manhattan Street appeared in court, as did his supporters.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:50:10]
COOPER: Luigi Mangione, the alleged killer of healthcare CEO, a husband and father of two, Brian Thompson, appeared in a New York state court today for a pre-trial hearing. Thompson was shot early December 4th on a midtown street in Manhattan.
Today, Mangione's supporters lined the streets and were inside the courtroom. He's facing 11 state charges in the killing, as well as federal charges, which brings the possibility of the death penalty, though prosecutors have not said if they'll seek it in this case.
I want to get perspective now from a Senior Legal Analyst, Elie Honig. So the defense raised a lot of concerns about whether Mangione is going to get a fair trial.
ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, I think it was very fair of Karen Friedman Agnifilo, our former colleague, now the defense lawyer, to raise those concerns. I mean, remember the day when he was perp walked. They flew him in on a helicopter. It landed on a dock. He's in shackles.
Eric Adams is trailing behind. I mean, that was an outrageous spectacle. She's right to raise it, but it's not going to be serious enough to undermine this case, to cause the case to be dismissed. I'd actually be more concerned the other way, the prosecutor side.
I mean, we just saw some of those images of the -- it's not even, it's beyond a fan club. It's almost a quasi-cult following that he has. And I would be very worried about one of those people who has donated to him, who wore the same color as him today in solidarity. I'd be very worried about one of those people getting onto the jury.
COOPER: The -- Karen Friedman Agnifilo, his attorney said that she wanted more time to look at the prosecution's evidence.
HONIG: Totally fair. Things move very slowly, especially when you're looking at a potential life sentence in that state case or across the street in the federal case, a death sentence. So yes, she -- it's her job to do that. And I think her requests are totally fair for more time.
COOPER: What happened with the Menendez brothers today?
HONIG: So a bad turn for Menendez brothers. The prior district attorney who just lost his election, he had been on board with a resentencing for the Menendez brothers that would have put them basically a half step away from being released from prison.
However, that D.A., Gascon, lost his election. And now there's a new D.A. who has taken a much more adversarial position. And today the new D.A. announced, I'm not on board with a new trial.
And, in fact, he put out a brief and a statement where he is quite skeptical of some of these claims that the Menendez brothers are making. So their chances of getting out have gone down substantially.
COOPER: So is that the end of it?
HONIG: No, the judge ultimately has the say. But it matters a lot if the prosecution is on your side. And the prosecution's objection here is basically the so-called new evidence. There's two new letters that go to the claim of sexual abuse.
First of all, the D.A. says they're not really new. They've been around for years and the defense has known them for years. And second of all, he says they wouldn't really have changed the calculus because in the first trial, there was extensive, horrifying testimony about that sexual abuse.
So this is really more of the same. So it's a tough call. You know, as a prosecutor, I get why technically what they've offered up is not enough for a new trial. But when you look at all the circumstances and the horrible abuse they went through, I do understand the notion of enough is enough.
COOPER: Yes. Elie Honig, thanks so much. Appreciate it.
HONIG: Yes. Thanks, Anderson.
COOPER: Bill Gates talks about his early years that form the basis of his new memoir. We'll have some of that ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:57:17]
COOPER: An update now to a story we brought you last night. There was shock and confusion and horror when Israeli officials reported that one of four bodies transferred to them by Hamas yesterday was not, as Hamas claimed, Shiri Bibas.
She was the mother kidnapped by Hamas on October 7th along with her two children, Ariel and Kfir. They were the two youngest captives taken during the October 7th massacre. Their remains were also transported.
Their dad, who was also kidnapped, his photo is there on the left, Yarden, he was released earlier this month. Forensic testing confirmed the boys' remains yesterday but Israel said the body, believed to be that of their mom, was not hers and didn't match any other Israeli hostage.
Tonight, Israel says it has received a second set of remains, a second body. Hamas says that it is Shiri Bibas. The body is now at the Tel Aviv Forensic Institute where it has yet to be confirmed. CNN will update the story the moment Israel does provide confirmation that it is indeed her.
Before we go, a preview of this weekend's edition of The Whole Story, my one-on-one interview with Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates, who's opened up in a way he rarely has before about his formative years in a new memoir, "Source Code: My Beginnings".
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
COOPER (voice-over): At annual summer vacations with family friends, Gates learned early on that he loved competition. But he liked math more than sports and books more than socializing. Above all else, he loved thinking and learning.
And he'd started to understand the power of his own intellect. And that led to conflict with his parents, especially his mom. By nine, he was openly challenging her and refusing to follow her rules.
BILL GATES, MICROSOFT CO-FOUNDER AND PHILANTHROPIST: By then, there's things I actually understand a little bit better than my mom does. Like she's on a bank board, and I'm saying to her, how do you do the loan risk calculations? And, you know, maybe you shouldn't be on that board.
I'm just playing with mom (ph).
COOPER: Oh, and maybe you shouldn't be on that board?
GATES: Yes.
COOPER: Nice.
GATES: Because you can't do the math.
COOPER (voice-over): His father would later tell him that he seemed to become an adult overnight around the age of nine, an argumentative, intellectually forceful, and sometimes not very nice adult.
His parents did something very rare for anyone in 1964, but especially for a child. They sent him to a therapist.
GATES: All the other people he was seeing were like couples who were arguing. I was kind of unusual.
COOPER: Do you remember what you said to him?
GATES: I said, I'm at war with my parents. They're imposing arbitrary rules on me. And --
COOPER: And you were nine years old.
GATES: And he said, you're going to win. And I was like, what?
COOPER: The therapist told you, you're going to win?
GATES: Yes. At the end of the second session, he's like, what are you after here? You know, isn't it kind of more being recognized or succeeding and aren't they really on your side? And he refocused my energy utterly that giving my parents a hard time was not the path to anything.
COOPER: He appealed to your logic.
GATES: Exactly.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
COOPER: The Whole Story airs this Sunday night at 8:00 p.m. Eastern. The news continues. The Source with Kaitlan Collins starts now. Have a great weekend.
