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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Judge Pauses Trump's Federal Worker "Buyout" Offer; Trump in Hours-Long Meeting With Republican Leaders; Judge Slams Trump's Attempt To End Birthright Citizenship; Elon Musk Targets UK PM Keir Starmer Over Abuse Scandal; House Dems Target Elon Musk's DOGE In First Big Bill. Aired 4-5p ET

Aired February 06, 2025 - 16:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[16:00:03]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: They're so sweet if they go way over there. I wonder, it could have been my uncle's backyard. I think I would have heard about that, right? I would have heard. It's not -- it's very. I feel like this is commonplace in Australia. It's just no big deal.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Just like the weirdest animals, everything can kill you over there.

KEILAR: Everything can kill you. But she'll be right, let me say. She'll be right.

SANCHEZ: Not the way not the least of which the breakdancers. Shout- out to Raygun.

KEILAR: So, with the Jake Tapper.

SANCHEZ: We always have room for Raygun.

KEILAR: THE LEAD starts now.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Trump's ambitious, audacious attempt to remake the U.S. government just got something of a reality check.

THE LEAD starts right now.

A judge have blocked President Trump's big plan to shrink the size of federal government. The deadline for federal employees to leave with seven months salary or risk getting fired, was supposed to be 11:59 p.m. Eastern this evening, but now it is not.

So, what now? What about the 50,000 or so who already took Trump up on that offer? Is this entire plan even legal? We're asking it all.

Plus, a new bird flu strain in the United States, this time detected in herds of dairy cows in Nevada. What do you need to know ahead?

And, Oscars drama. The first transgender best actress nominee in the history of the Academy Awards is now accused of bigotry for her own past tweets.

(MUSIC)

TAPPER: Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.

A judge just brought federal employees more time to answer a critical question if they are going to take the Trump administration's so- called buyout offer or risk losing their jobs in mass layoffs coming soon. Until a couple of hours ago, roughly 2 million employees were up against a decision deadline of 11:59 p.m. Eastern tonight.

But a Clinton appointed federal judge just hit pause on that deadline. While the legality of this deferred resignation program plays out in courts, the next hearing is set for Monday afternoon. So far, at least 50,000 government employees have already accepted the package. That's roughly 2.5 percent of those who got the offer.

Let's get some new reporting on this from Jeff Zeleny. He's at the White House for us.

And, Jeff, this deadline pause is a loss of sorts for the Trump administration. How are they taking it?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: It certainly is. At least it's a suspension of what they thought would happen tonight. And overnight, every federal worker in the entire government who is eligible for this received an email saying, you have to decide by midnight. There are no exceptions.

While a federal judge in Massachusetts changed that, he suspended this and said arguments must be held on Monday. So he was reacting to a lawsuit that was filed by three labor unions coming forward and saying this was not a just proposal. There are questions about the actual buyout.

The White House is responding a bit tongue in cheek, perhaps. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt telling CNN this in a statement: We are grateful to the judge for extending the deadline. So more federal workers who refused to show up to the office can take the administration up on this very generous, once in a lifetime offer.

Of course, some people would disagree with that because there are questions about this offer. But at the heart of all of this is deep skepticism and suspicion from federal workers about this offer to shrink the size of government. Federal workers also have been saying that they believe that they have been demeaned in this entire process because of language just like this from the White House.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We encourage federal workers in this city to accept the very generous offer. If they don't want to show up to the office, if they want to rip the American people off, then they're welcome to take this buyout and we'll find highly competent individuals who want to fill these roles.

(END VIDEO CLIP) ZELENY: So rip the American people off. These are federal workers who are working either remotely or not in the office. So that is perhaps one of the reasons this whole atmosphere here in the federal government is that they've only had some 50,000 or so people sign up. We will see if more people sign up before Monday. But of course, the judge is hearing both sides of this argument in court on Monday, Jake.

TAPPER: And, Jeff, the president was meeting with House Republicans today. What do we know about that?

ZELENY: Jake, this is a pretty extraordinary, meeting that was scheduled to begin at 11:00 a.m. today with Speaker Mike Johnson and several other Republican leaders, I'm told was going at least four hours or more. There were no staff allowed to be in the room, so there was very little visibility into what actually was going on.

But at issue here is how Republicans in both the House and the Senate are going to proceed on the budget plan, as well as the legislative agenda. There is deep disagreement on both sides of the aisle.

The Senate wants to see one bill -- excuse me -- the House actually wants to see one bill. The Senate wants to see two bills. That is the whole disagreement here.

The meeting may be ending or may have just ended, but again, no visibility on this because no staff was allowed.

[16:05:01]

But a very first important meeting here, Jake, underscoring how difficult it will be to govern despite Republicans controlling all chambers of government -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right. Jeff Zeleny at the White House for us, thanks so much.

CNN's Phil Mattingly and Rene Marsh join me now in studio. They have been closely covering how Trump's executive orders are playing out among the people who have government jobs.

So, Phil, the president had something of a setback today with this judge putting a hold on the deadline of this news this evening. But won't they just keep fighting this in court up until it gets to maybe even the U.S. Supreme Court?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: Everything we know has seen or have reported on from all of these agencies and from what you just heard from Karoline Leavitt outside the White House and in her statement to Jeff Zeleny, says, yes, they are going to continue to push this. This is, in fact, not just a central element of their kind of opening weeks agenda, but it's also something they deeply believe in. When you talk to, particularly the conservatives that have been working on these types of proposals over the course of several years.

Now, of course, accelerated by Elon Musk and his team and what they've been able to do in these agencies is to kind of go agency by agency, by agency. I think what's been fascinating and at times difficult to report on is when you talk to career officials, the amount of confusion combined with anxiety and kind of an unsettled approach to this moment.

And it's not just because they feel like they're under attack or they don't feel like they're being respected, it's because they don't know whether or not what's been put on the table is actually legit. They don't know whether or not it will last for two days or three days after. If they take it and they don't know what's going to happen with their jobs going forward if they decide to stay.

So, all of that right now is creating a very, very difficult moment for these workers.

TAPPER: And, Rene, you've been following all these agencies, talking to people who work at the agencies. What are you hearing from them?

RENE MARSH, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, obviously, this is a welcome pause that the judge announced today. But -- but let's keep in mind, I mean, Jeff said it at the top, roughly 50,000 have accepted this offer. So in the grand scheme of things, really only a sliver of the general workforce, the federal workforce has even accepted this buyout because, as Phil said, they're skeptical of it.

But I think what this hearing really represents is what I hear a lot of these federal workers telling me, which is they hope that all of these policies regarding the workforce kind of pan out this way. They're all refusing to resign and holding the line, as they've been saying, because they are depending and waiting on the courts to essentially determine if a lot of what this administration is trying to do with the federal government is even legal. So this is just one step and just one part of what the Trump administration is proposing that is coming up against this legal resistance, and this is why they're kind of holding on and refusing to give up.

But the reality is, Jake, even though the labor unions got this win today in court with this hearing, there's still a lot of other stuff going on at these agencies, more agencies, the EPA, we reported overnight, they're preparing to tell more employees that they're placed on paid leave. I just heard from an employee at HHS, same sort of concerns there and then we still haven't gotten to the probationary employees who are also going to be facing firings.

So although this is a win, there is still so much anxiety throughout these agencies.

TAPPER: And so little transparency about what's going on.

Phil, you've been doing a lot of digging into Elon Musk's team with DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency, how they're operating behind the scenes. Tell us more about that.

MATTINGLY: The lack of transparency has made the effort really, really difficult. You don't know exactly what the DOGE team or their detailees at the agencies are doing. We hear from career officials that have some interactions with them that they are very limited. They tend to keep to themselves on separate floors and maybe meet with people one on one. But you don't actually get a window into it.

And that's what we were able to capture with our reporting today. It was at the Treasury Department. We knew the most senior treasury official had resigned a week a week ago at this point in time, due to objections over the pressure he was getting about dealing with access to payment systems inside the treasury. It's $5 trillion of payments that go through this. It's the plumbing of the U.S. financial networks.

We knew that he resigned because of tension. We did not know what the tension actually was driven by. We now know we were able to review emails that were sent between Scott Bessent, who hadn't been confirmed yet, his chief of staff, a DOGE official, and this career official.

And what was so striking when you went through them was one explicit asks for the types of access that they've never had before outside of the Treasury Department, but also the tone and clear perception of authority that the DOGE official was taking in an email to.

At that point, the guy who was his boss and saying very explicitly, I understand you may have legal concerns, you should start thinking about the fact that your department has legal concerns if you don't do what I'm telling you to do right now.

TAPPER: Interesting. Rene Marsh, Phil Mattingly, thanks so much.

Let's take a closer look at some of the legal issues being brought up by the judge's decision today with our legal panel.

[16:10:01]

Elie Honig, ultimately, what legal basis do the plaintiffs have here to challenge the Trump administration's plan? Why would it be illegal for the executive branch to offer buyouts to its employees?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Yeah, Jake, I can see people wondering exactly that because in private industry, this kind of thing happens all the time. Companies offer early buyouts, they offer early retirement plans, and that can actually be a good thing for the people who choose to take them.

However, we have to think differently when we're thinking about federal spending. Federal spending has to be allocated by Congress in advance to the executive branch, and they have to allocate both how much can be spent and when it can be spent. And so, for example, if the 50,000 or so people who've accepted this early package are to suddenly be paid out for seven months worth of benefits, you're talking about tens or hundreds of millions of dollars that Congress has not allocated to be spent right at this moment.

And on top of that, Jake, the plaintiffs are alleging that the government has not given a sufficient reason, a reasonable basis to undertake this plan. That's the legal attack.

TAPPER: And Laura Coates joins me now here in studio. Laura, do you think this pause on the deferred resignation program or

the buyouts would cause the Trump administration to hold off on more mass layoffs that they're talking about, they're hinting about until they see how this plays out in court? Or are they just full steam ahead?

LAURA COATES, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: Well, certainly, the Trump administration has learned from the first time around the idea of the bureaucracy might be slow, but the litigation and court procedures can be often slower and more drawn out. There is a likelihood they could take their chances and wait for there to be some reaction from the courts. Obviously, there's injunctive relief saying, I'm going to pause the status quo to make sure that I have the full briefing, but they could take their chances that way.

But this is quite the mess. I have to just say, this is not the fork in the road. This is the almost Don Corleone giving an offer you cant refuse. That seems to be happening. That's the judges concern here.

You can't tell people that they can take money, and there's not the appropriations, as Elie has talked about. You have to give a legal basis for why you want to under the Administrative Procedures Act. And you have to actually understand the civil service protections of people if they're honestly given an offer that they can contemplate over a period of time with the sufficient guarantees, that's one thing. If they know that if they don't do this, then layoffs are pending, that's a very different scenario for a civil servant and an employee.

TAPPER: And Elie, how long could it take for the fight over Trump's deferred resignation or buyout program to play out in court? And in the meantime, while it's playing out, what happens to all these employees who got the offer?

HONIG: So the pause that was just put in place by the judge is a very brief pause. It only applies until Monday, so 3 or 4 days from now. But I think what will happen at that point is the judge will consider whether to lengthen the pause. From there, it will go likely to a federal court of appeals.

And the other thing that we've seen happening across the country is multiple lawsuits challenging the same executive action in various different districts. Ultimately, I do think this could be headed up to the U.S. Supreme Court. But you raise a really important point, which is in the meantime, and this will take time. All these federal employees remain in limbo.

Ill tell you, I've had people ask me, should I take this buyout or not? Now, I'm not dispensing free legal advice, but frankly, I don't know what to tell them because there's so much uncertainty here and there's so much chaos.

And so, hopefully, the courts will recognize the urgency of this. They have so far and act as quickly as possible.

TAPPER: So, Laura, you heard Elie say there that its probably going to end up before the U.S. Supreme Court. I am not a legal expert like either of you, but I know enough to know that this U.S. Supreme Court is, A, pretty conservative.

COATES: Yes.

TAPPER: B, has an expansive view of the powers of the presidency, and my guess would be my uninformed guess would be they think he can do this.

COATES: And yet you've got this consequential -- consequential power of the purse. The appropriations could be the very linchpin that allows this Supreme Court to look at this differently than, say, other cases, when they have balked at precedent and said there is a more expansive notion of authority under the executive branch of government.

The power of the purse is so sacrosanct, or at least it has been until now in terms of the ability of the legislative branch to decide how money is spent, that that could Trump, forgive the pun and everything else. But there is the very real concern about the motivation and intent. They will always engage in a balancing act, Jake, to figure out what the governmental interest is in a particular problem and what is the means by which they seek to do it.

And have they tailored their particular position in a way that aligns with their stated principle? The Supreme Court would have to go behind that intent and question it. And as stated, they say its about shrinking the administrative bureaucracy, whether that's, in fact, true -- anyone's guess.

TAPPER: All right. Laura Coates, Elie Honig, thanks to both of you.

Join Laura on her show, "LAURA COATES LIVE". Her guest tonight, New York Governor Kathy Hochul. That's tonight, and every weeknight at 11:00 Eastern right here on CNN.

You can ask Hochul about the fact that they're keeping Elise Stefanik congressional seat open, which seems like a real power grab. At least that's what Republicans are saying.

COATES: And it's the perfect question.

TAPPER: Just a -- just a thought, just an idea. Like, why not have a special election to fill that seat unless -- okay, anyway.

[16:15:01]

COATES: Jake, rhetorical questions. I love it.

TAPPER: Anyway, sorry, sorry. Just -- just popped into my head.

Plaintiffs are challenging Trump left and right on his attempts to overhaul federal government. In fact, his actions led to cases in front of at least five different judges today. But isn't this what Trump actually wants? And Democrats in Congress also trying to push back. The new

legislation they're lining up. But it's Elon Musk, not Trump, that they're focusing on. I'm going to talk with Congressman James Clyburn about it, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: In our politics lead, President Trump's ambitious agenda is ending up exactly where he wants it to, in courtrooms. Trump was dealt a loss today, though, as we just told you, a federal judge paused tonight's deadline for federal workers to take Trump's so-called buyouts. Other policies in court today included Trump's order to freeze federal funding. His move, requiring the FBI to hand over the names of agents who worked on January 6th investigations, and his order on birthright citizenship.

Let's go to CNN's Paula Reid.

And, Paula, Trump was just handed another loss in the birthright citizenship hearing. So what's the latest on that and other cases?

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Jake, the losses are adding up. And today, a Reagan appointed judge in Seattle indefinitely blocked Trump's executive order ending birthright citizenship.

[16:20:06]

The judge saying, look, if you want to end this in the Constitution, you have to amend the Constitution.

And the judge here offering the strongest rebuke yet of Trump's use of executive orders, saying, quote, it has become ever more apparent that to our president, the rule of law is but an impediment to his policy goals. The rule of law is, according to him, something to navigate around or simply ignore, whether that be for political or personal gain.

Now, a different judge in Maryland had also temporarily blocked this policy, but these are all adding up, these losses in court. Judges have also blocked the federal funding freeze that was paused amid chaos and confusion about how that would be implemented. Also, his transgender prison policy. A judge blocked the federal prison system from moving three transgender women to a men's prison.

Now, look, Trump lawyers, they told me even before he came into office, they expected that all of his executive actions would be challenged in court. The challengers go to districts where they expect to win and have these policies temporarily paused. I'm told there was a lot of effort put into these policies that they believe over the long term, many of them will survive. They worked harder this time to craft policies that would withstand legal challenges.

But I'm not sure that actually applies to birthright citizenship, because in speaking with sources who have worked on this, legal experts on both sides of the aisle, it's not clear that they're ultimately going to prevail. The Justice Department has a strategy. They believe if they get before the nine justices, that they can convince them. But its not even clear the Supreme Court is going to want to take up this issue that has been settled law for so long.

TAPPER: All right. Paula Reid, thanks so much. Let's talk about this with the panel.

So, Jonah Goldberg, let me start with you. Do you think any of these legal cases, especially the rulings against them, is disappointing for the Trump administration? Or is this just part of the plan to get it all in front of the U.S. Supreme Court?

JONAH GOLDBERG, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I don't think it's particularly disappointing.

I mean, like, if they could have a win where they were ratified, I'm sure they'd prefer that, right? But part of this is not even a legal strategy. It is a just sort of flood the zone. Convey a sense of energy and like that kind of thing. And that's definitely working to distract people. So they have a -- they don't know what to argue about and what to focus on.

And, you know, I think that there are some of these things in these executive orders that will probably pass muster. I don't think the birthright citizenship one is, is one.

I don't know that Congress couldn't do something about birthright citizenship. The precedents are kind of mixed on that. But this court is not going to say, oh, yeah, by executive order, you can overturn Supreme Court precedent. Never mind, some of them are going to say, constitutional interpretation of the 14th Amendment.

And so -- on some of these things, they want the issue more than they want the win, and maybe they get an environment where this creates a, you know, a groundswell in Congress to actually make some real laws about all of this. But you got to kind of take them all case by case, because some of them, I think they're on better legal and constitutional grounds than on others.

TAPPER: What do you -- how do you think Democrats are handling this? Do you think that they should be focusing on these court rulings that were in their favor today, or what's the strategy?

ALENCIA JOHNSON, FORMER SENIOR ADVISER, BIDEN 2020 CAMPAIGN: Listen, I think some of this is having the conversation with our voters about or supporters and people who are Democrats about these issues, right? And continue -- continuing to belabor the point that we're making about how much of a crisis this is and how much there isn't really legal precedent for some of what he is doing.

But I also think Democrats have to continue to thread this through line of the chaos and distractions that this administration is putting forward. The Donald Trump, the -- I'm going to call him President Musk, as people are talking about just the chaos that surrounds the executive branch. And Democrats also have also have to educate our base of how we got here, right? The reason that Donald Trump is okay with these being tied up in the

court is he believes that the Supreme Court will rule in his favor in some of these very egregious scenarios. And so, the way that Democrats leverage this moment is to really flex and show the power of the people and what that looks like at the ballot box, because I'll be honest, I don't think we as a party, actually, I would say both parties, but particularly Democrats, haven't done enough of that education for voters to understand exactly what a vote for president means when it comes to the courts and these issues that they care about.

TAPPER: So Ezra Klein says that he thinks the fact that Trump is doing this all by executive order or executive fiat, or just doing it as they're doing with the trying to winnow down the federal workforce, is actually an admission of weakness by Trump, not strength.

And his reasoning is, look, they control Republicans, the House, the Senate and the White House. If they want to do this legislatively, they can do it. But there might not be the votes for it.

What's your take on it? And as a conservative, do you have any issues with the fact that Trump is kind of just unilaterally wielding his sword against the government?

GOLDBERG: Yeah. Look, I think governing by executive order is stupid.

[16:25:01]

I thought a lot of the things that Biden did were terrible about the executive order, shouldn't have been done by executive order. He should have gone to Congress and get the things he wanted done.

I think Congress has been broken for a very long time, and one of the reasons our system, our politics, are so stupid is that Congress will not do its job and actually write laws which would require some actual compromise and horse trading with the other party to actually have lasting legislative changes.

At the same time, where I disagree just a little bit is I think both parties have this bipartisan consensus that chaos will play to their benefit.

TAPPER: Right.

GOLDBERG: Trump likes the chaos. He is deliberately creating chaos. Musk comes from the Silicon Valley. Philosophy that says break things, you know, and all that kind of stuff.

They like the sense of chaos. It plays into the way -- it plays into good coverage in the media that they care about. And the Democrats are trying to figure out a way to say, rightly, you know, or understandably -- no, no, no, this is not what you voted for. You said you were going to, you know, lower food prices and instead you get all this chaos and government agencies are closing down and we just don't know quite yet whether the chaos is a win for Democrats or for Republicans. But Trump likes it because he likes to have enemies. He likes to pick

fights. He likes to make -- he cares more about the issue than the solution, all these things.

JOHNSON: Well, I mean, this piece about chaos, I just think about, like, who loses in all this chaos? The American people who are screaming about prices around eggs, right? People who they voted for Trump for to fix the economy. People who stayed home and didn't vote for Vice President Harris for a host of other issues, they're not seeing in the midst of all this chaos, any of their biggest concerns being addressed.

And that is going to be the interesting piece that Democrats and Republicans both. But I'm mostly concerned about Democrats communicating to those voters. How do they navigate out of this and get to the things that they felt were important in this election?

TAPPER: All right. Alencia, Jonah, thanks so much. Appreciate it.

Also, today, a new revelation about a critical safety system on the Black Hawk helicopter involved in last weeks deadly crash. The key detail did not come from the NTSB. It came from a U.S. senator, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, briefed on the crash today.

What Senator Cruz revealed that's so alarming? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:31:34]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): In this instance, this was a training mission, so there was no compelling national security reason for ADS-B to be turned off.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: In our national lead, Senator Ted Cruz revealing that a key safety system was turned off in the Black Hawk helicopter that collided with American Airlines Flight 5342 last week.

Cruz is the chairman of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee and thus has oversight. He was one of the lawmakers briefed by investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board and the FAA earlier today into that deadly crash, killing all 67 on board both aircraft.

Let's bring in CNN's Pete Muntean.

Pete, tell us more. What does this thing in the Black Hawk helicopter Senator Cruz was referring to do? And how could it have been having been turned off contributed to the crash?

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: ADS-B stands for automatic dependent surveillance broadcast. It was something that was mandated in 2020, although not mandated for military aircraft. It's a little bit more of a granular readout than what is typically captured by radar, and it can provide some traffic and collision avoidance measures for airplanes in the cockpit.

Cruz revealing this is pretty significant, although he did caveat this by saying this investigation is, so early, it's in its infancy right now. We may or may not know if its a fact, or of course, its something the NTSB will want to look at.

This briefing by NTSB and FAA to the Senate Commerce Committee was huge because they are essentially the board of directors for the FAA. And so they could mandate some pretty sweeping changes here, although right now it's just all very early information coming in.

TAPPER: So the FAA also announced that they're going to be limiting the number of daily arrivals into Reagan National Airport where the crash took place. Could that be a change that the FAA considers permanently?

MUNTEAN: The FAA has made a few changes here, although right now, they're all just temporary. This change essentially limits the rate of planes arriving at a national airport goes from 28 an hour to 26 an hour. What that means for you is that it changes the average delay time. It goes from about 40 minutes on average to about 50 minutes.

So this is a significant change. Although remember, the FAA has made this -- this change temporary. And then they've also temporarily closed the helicopter route that goes to their final approaches there.

Of course, lawmakers really have this vested interest in national airport because they fly in and out all the time. And so they want to know what could potentially change here in the long term.

The FAA doesn't do a lot of changes on a dime. And that's kind of by design. You know, they don't want to do safety changes, shooting from the hip. And so, this is really interesting now when you set it against the backdrop of DOGE. And Elon Musk may be sort of meddling with the FAA, everyone I'm talking to is saying -- is saying DOGE. The imprimatur is cut, cut, cut.

That's not what the FAA needs right now. And so things need to move slowly here before we can sort of take this as inspiration to do any changes at the FAA.

TAPPER: Do we think that helicopters are just not going to be allowed back at National?

MUNTEAN: Here's what I think. I mean, you could move the route a little bit off of the Potomac River, maybe put it over DC 295, maybe do it at different times of the day. There are a lot of big changes for regulators to consider here. And they just have to do it kind of slowly.

Right now, the pause is on really any helicopter traffic going through the D.C. airspace. And remember, this really exposed how close the altitude restriction is on that route. A 200 feet to the final approach there, which is about 300 feet. And so they call this the holes in the Swiss cheese. The holes lined up just so leading to this crash.

TAPPER: Really horrible.

[16:35:00]

Pete Muntean, thanks so much. Appreciate it.

Also, in our national lead, the first of several winter storms expected to slam the U.S. this week brought devastating conditions from the Ohio Valley, all the way across the Northeastern and Mid- Atlantic United States. Officials say flash floods in West Virginia prompted numerous water rescues, and icy roads led to traffic collisions in Illinois, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

CNN's Derek Van Dam joins us now to discuss.

Derek, this is only the beginning of the bad weather.

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: That's right, Jake, a parade of storms will impact much of the country over the next two weeks. The first of four already exiting the East Coast, but not before leaving the damage behind. You can see the flooding there coming out of West Virginia.

It was an active morning across the Eastern Seaboard, but again that system quickly exiting. But right behind it is knocking on the doorstep of the West Coast. This is another major storm system that will traverse from the West Coast to the East Coast in under 72 hours, basically blanketing the same areas with rain, snow, ice and freezing rain across similar locations as to what we experienced today.

That storm system exits, and then we still have the cold air locked in place because of this, what we call zonal flow, the jet stream is lined in a pattern from West to East, locking the cold air to the north and the warmer air to the south. And you better believe that parade of storms will follow the jet stream almost precisely.

So again, through the early parts of the weekend, we've got another mid-Atlantic and Northeastern snow slash rain and snow mix. Perhaps some ice in there as well. But then we look towards Monday and Tuesday. Another storm system will develop, creating a similar swathe of snowfall and potential ice throughout the mid-Atlantic. And then you look towards the second half of next week, with yet another storm system waiting in its wings. So an active weather pattern with winter storms lining up one after another, Jake.

TAPPER: Derek Van Dam, thanks so much. Appreciate it.

From President Trump's first day back in office, Democrats have made a lot of noise about the flood of changes Mr. Trump has been trying to make, but are they trying to do anything about it? I'll ask Democratic Congressman Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [16:41:30]

TAPPER: In our law and justice lead, the United States is not the only country in the sights of Elon Musk. Mr. Musk has been targeting Britain's prime minister, Keir Starmer, over a sex abuse scandal for more than a decade ago, when Starmer was a prosecutor.

CNN's Nic Robertson has more for us now on how Musk's actions are opening old wounds in a town in northern England.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CAR RADIO: Good morning. Demands for a national inquiry into grooming gangs. Very close to the center of which is Elon Musk.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR (voice-over): In these northern English streets, gangs of predominantly Pakistani heritage men groomed and gang-raped vulnerable young girls, exploiting them under the noses of authorities.

It is this painful national scar that Elon Musk has helped reopen using his social media platform X to call for a national inquiry into these awful events more than a decade ago.

His intervention, targeting the UK prime minister, is winning Musk fans.

SAMANTHA WALKER-ROBERTS, CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE SURVIVOR: I honestly can't thank him enough for doing this because we need justice and we can't keep going on year after year, decades on and still getting nowhere.

ROBERTSON: What's different this time?

WALKER-ROBERTS: Everyone's finally listening.

ROBERTSON: Because of Elon Musk.

WALKER-ROBERTS: Yeah.

ROBERTSON: Sam, who was raped by a South Asian grooming gang, doesn't want to show her face, fearing a backlash.

WALKER-ROBERTS: I went to the police station to report a sexual assault that had just happened. There were two men behind me. They interrupted and said, we can give you a lift, which the officer said, yeah, go with them.

ROBERTSON: Do the police handed you over to abusers?

WALKER-ROBERTS: Yes.

ROBERTSON: You were how old then?

WALKER-ROBERTS: Twelve, yeah, I was. Children were meant to trust officials. I was hurt from that. ROBERTSON: Musk appears to have picked Oldham and the abuse scandal to

reignite attacks on UK P.M. Keir Starmer that began last summer, picking up again early January when Musk began accusing Starmer, who was the chief prosecutor, as the child abuse scandal surfaced of failing, tweeting: Prison for Starmer. Starmer must go.

Starmer accused Musk of, quote, lies and disinformation. The region's former chief prosecutor questions Musk's motivation.

NAZIR AFZAL, FORMER CHIEF PROSECUTOR FOR NORTH-WEST ENGLAND: He's just -- just stirring up a racist pot.

ROBERTSON: Worse, he says, Musk's right wing tweets amplifying posts focusing on crimes committed by, quote, migrants, Pakistani Muslim and Asian gangs are putting girls at risk.

AFZAL: When you just focus on the brown guy, you're telling girls, beware of the brown guy, you're not telling them that they're 40 times more likely in this country to be abused by a British white guy.

ROBERTSON: For years, rape was happening in plain sight. Institutional failings repeated.

According to an independent national inquiry, the child abuse scandal spanned dozens of British cities, affected thousands of children through shame on national institutions, heightened racial tensions, particularly in cities like Oldham, historically poorer, with higher than national average immigration.

Oldham, a rust belt type of town, is also pushing back against Musk.

[16:45:04]

ABDUL WAHID, OLDHAM COUNCILOR: Some of the rhetoric is coming out with is probably not helpful.

ROBERTSON: Why is it unhelpful?

WAHID: It's unhelpful because everybody starts pitching against each other.

ROBERTSON: Musk's divisive onslaught has forced Starmer's hand, triggering new legislation and a new but non-statutory inquiry for Oldham.

Sam says it's not enough. What she wants from Musk is to stop enabling the right wing.

WALKER-ROBERTS: He needs to say that this is about survivors, not about everyone else. And too many people are jumping on this bandwagon.

ROBERTSON: A bandwagon, Musk, perhaps figures, might drive Starmer from office.

Nic Robertson, CNN, Oldham, England. (END VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: And our thanks to Nic Robertson for that report.

CNN has reached out to Musk's team for comment. We have not yet heard back. When we do, we will bring it to you.

Up next, the scandal that has engulfed the upcoming Academy Awards, the past tweets from a best actress nominee is now causing problems for people who worked closely on the film.

Stay with us.

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[16:50:33]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D-NY): They are working for Elon Musk and doing the bidding of an unelected, unaccountable, out of control billionaire puppet master.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: That's House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York, claiming that Republican lawmakers are following orders from Elon Musk. And it is Musk, not President Trump, that seems to be the target of this first major legislation being pushed by Democrats.

Today, Democrats unveiled a bill to halt Musk and Musk's aides from gaining access to sensitive systems at the U.S. Treasury Department, systems that write the U.S.'s checks.

With me now is a leading voice for Democrats, Congressman Jim Clyburn of South Carolina.

Congressman Clyburn, why target Musk and not President Trump in this first move by Democrats in the House?

REP. JIM CLYBURN (D-SC): Well, thank you very much for having me.

Well, people voted for Trump irrespective of whether or not I liked the outcome. He did get the votes. Nobody has voted for Musk. Musk has not been vetted. We have no idea who his interests or what his interests are.

And that's why I redirected this at him. The president has been voted upon is one thing, but Musk that nobody has voted for has not been vetted, has not been subjected to any kind of background checks going into everybody's personal business, and nobody knows whether or not he's in the business of his competitors. Nobody knows exactly what he's up to.

So that's why were aimed at him. And he is the one going in and out of these buildings, these offices -- are computers, not the president. TAPPER: So many voters, especially in your home state of South

Carolina, I'm sure, would agree that wasteful spending by the U.S. government should be addressed. That's what Mr. Musk says he's doing. I agree there needs to be transparency.

Mr. Musk should be announcing what he's doing. He should be subjecting himself to interviews and much more. But would you agree that wasteful spending by the government should be addressed?

CLYBURN: It's been addressed ever since I've been alive. If that's not the question here, and no matter what it is that you are doing, it is the way that you do it that makes all the difference in the world. I've been hearing ever since I've been big enough to understand what it meant. We got to get rid of wasteful fraud and abuse who doesn't want to get rid of waste and fraud and abuse? Everybody does.

That's not the question. The question is how do you go about doing it? So that's what the problem is here.

TAPPER: What are you hearing from voters?

"Axios" reports that Democrats phones are being bombarded with calls to, quote, fight harder. What does that fight look like?

CLYBURN: Well, that's what I'm trying to find out. I know what I'm going to do. And I have been meeting with my members talking about ways to do some alternative stuff, because it looks as if we are not going to get a fair shake for most of the established media. Who owns X? That's the guy we're going after, so we can't expect for them to help us get the message out.

And so we are going to look at some alternative ways to do that. I've always already started that. There are some other platforms out there. Maybe they don't have the numbers now. We can't be going after the numbers. We got to be going at the substance.

And so what I want to see us do is use other platforms to deal with the social media thrust that we seem to be coming up short on. We are not going to get it from the enemy. We've got to develop our own friends.

TAPPER: So over in the U.S. Senate, Democrats waged an all night fight to delay the confirmation of Russell Vought. That's the man tapped to lead Trump's Office of Management and Budget. I think he also helped write the Project 2025.

Do you agree with singling out Mr. Vought? I'm sure that there are progressives who are wondering why didn't Senate Democrats do this for RFK, Jr. or Pete Hegseth or Tulsi Gabbard?

[16:55:00]

CLYBURN: Well, there's one thing about being at OMB. You are the hub of all these spokes. There may be HHS, Labor, Defense. Those are the spokes. The hub is the Office of Management and Budget. And this man was a coauthor, and I think the lead author of Project

2025. We warned about those 900 pages before the election of most people that I talked to, didn't think it would ever come to pass. Now we know there's not a single thing that we've seen in the last two weeks that was not foretold in Project 2025.

I referred to it as the National Democratic Convention. That Project 2025 was Jim Crow 2.0. And now we see it.

It is a -- it is wrong to talk about the achievements of African Americans in this country, even trying to whitewash the pictures on the walls, the stuff they said about the Tuskegee airmen. Look, that's the kind of stuff of which autocracies are born. And we saw -- saw it foretold in Project 2025.

TAPPER: Congressman Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, thanks for joining us today. We appreciate it.

We're talking next about that setback for President Trump today. A judge blocking his resignation offer for federal employees. The lawyer for union representing many of those federal workers is going to join me next with reaction to today's developments in court.

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