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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Will Paramount Settle Trump Lawsuit Against CBS?; Bird Flu Found In At Least 6 Cattle Herds; Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX), Is Interviewed About Netanyahu Saying U.S. Troops Not Needed For Trump's Gaza Plan. Federal Employee Unions Urge Workers Not To Take "Buyout"; White House: 50,000 Federal Workers Have Agreed To Resign; Judge Pauses Trump's Resignation Offer To Federal Workers; Clarence Thomas Is Trump's Go-To Justice To Swear In Cabinet; Netanyahu Gifts Trump a Golden Pager. Aired 5-6p ET

Aired February 06, 2025 - 17:00   ET

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

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[17:01:11]

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Welcome to The Lead. I'm Jake Tapper. This hour, are eggs safe to eat in the United States? When will egg prices finally stop climbing? And how worried do you and me really need to be about bird flu?

So many questions today after six dairy herds in the U.S. tested positive for a new variant of the bird flu virus that's with severe infections in humans. Our medical team is here to dig for answers. Plus, one of the richest men in the world visiting the White House today just a few weeks after attending President Trump's inauguration. But what was on the agenda?

And leading this hour, Trump's expansive plans to reshape and shrink the federal government are getting something of a reality check as judges are stepping in. The latest ruling coming this afternoon as a federal judge delayed tonight's deadline for federal workers to take this legally questionable buyout offer. The White House says more than 50,000 federal employees have accepted the offer so far. Let's go straight to CNN's Jeff Zeleny live for us at the White House.

And Jeff, all of this as President Trump and Republican leaders just finished meeting behind closed doors?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Jake, we're told it was a very long meeting. It was on the calendar for about an hour or so, scheduled to start at 11 a.m. I'm told it was -- it actually got started slightly after that, but went for several hours. Now, this was President Trump meeting with House Republicans. They were making their argument to him about his budget plan and one for his legislative agenda.

They are arguing to do one big bill. We've heard the president talk extensively. He calls it one big beautiful bill. Well, the issue here is the Senate would like to split it up into two bills. I am told the president did not make a decision adopting the idea of one bill as House Republicans were arguing him.

Basically, he was saying, work it out yourselves whatever accomplishes our legislative agenda. So, we're not sure what was solved by this meeting. The president is going to be meeting with Senate Republicans tomorrow evening in Mar-a-Lago, of course, hearing from their plans as well, even as the Senate Budget Committee begins next week markup on the budget plan.

So, Jake, what we have here, the bottom line explaining all this into English, yes, Republicans control both houses of Congress, but they have not yet found a unified front going forward, how to accomplish the president's agenda. And he said first among all of his ideas is extending his 2017 tax cuts.

TAPPER: Jeff, one of Trump's favorite tech billionaires was also at the White House today. Tell us more.

ZELENY: We're told that Mark Zuckerberg, of course, the META chair was here on matters of artificial intelligence. We do not know if he met with the president directly. Of course, there is an AI czar here at the White House. The president, as we know, was meeting with House Republicans. Unclear if he stepped out to meet with Zuckerberg.

But we do know that Mark Zuckerberg, of course, has settled a lawsuit that had been filed against Meta. He, of course, was on hand at the inauguration. We saw him standing just a few feet behind the president.

So, the first time we believe he's been here at the White House in this new Trump administration. We'll find more about that meeting and let you know, Jake.

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

This as a federal judge delayed tonight's deadline for federal workers to accept that legally questionable resignation offer from the Trump administration. Joining us now is Rushab Sanghvi, the general counsel for the American Federation of Government Employees, who sued to stop Trump's offer. The deadline was supposed to be 11:59 East Coast Time this evening.

Rushab, what's your response to the ruling?

RUSHAB SANGHVI, GENERAL COUNSEL, AMERICAN FEDERATION OF GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES: We're very happy. It's a temporary ruling. The judge just delayed the deadline and delayed implementation of the program until further hearing on Monday in Boston.

TAPPER: And do you think it's legal?

SANGHVI: No, we don't. And that's why -- you know, we sued, right? You know, we're not against the president moving forward with a program to provide, you know, separation incentives to employees. We're also not necessarily against this program, but we're against how they've done it, the confusion they've done and the fact that it doesn't seem to us that it's right. It's, again, we want them -- if they're going to do this, we want them to do it right.

[17:05:25]

We don't want them to do something that's just trying to sort of eviscerate federal employees for the purposes of, you know, putting in Musk's lackeys.

TAPPER: Today, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told CNN, quote, "We are grateful to the judge for extending the deadline so more federal workers who refuse to show up to the office can take the administration up on this very generous once in a lifetime offer." Is it your impression that this buyout, or whatever you want to call it, is aimed just at federal workers who refuse to show up to the office? Because it seems to me like they sent it to many more than that.

SANGHVI: No, they sent it to everyone. And we're making clear it's not a buyout, right? It is not actually a buyout. It's, you know, it's a scam in some ways, right?

TAPPER: How is it a scam and why is it not a buyout? If you're saying -- my understanding is they're saying if you leave now, we'll pay you through September, and if you don't leave now, you run the risk of being fired later and you won't get anything.

SANGHVI: Well, yes. So, Jake, if you look at what OPM has put out over the course of the last week with respect to this offer, it has continually changed. We've continually asked questions. Employees have continually asked questions, and OPM has continually changed their position. They -- you know, again, they don't have the funding to pay employees till September. Appropriations lapse in March.

Initially they said people would be put on administrative leave. Now they're saying that some agencies will accept people from being put on administrative leave if they take this offer. They initially said that, you know, you could potentially rescind the offer. Now they're saying that you can't. They didn't -- initially didn't have people wanting to sign agreements.

Now they're saying that people would have to sign agreements that they can revoke at will. So it's clear that how they're doing this is not well thought out. This is just sort of Elon Musk trying to do what he did at Twitter. But, you know, this is the federal government. These employees, they shouldn't be -- a gun shouldn't be put to their head to make this decision, this momentous decision without the right information in a reasonable amount of time.

TAPPER: Certainly is --

SANGHVI: We want them to do it right.

TAPPER: It certainly is confusing. Rushab Sanghvi, thank you so much. Appreciate it. Joining us now to talk about the bigger picture impacts of President Trump's efforts to drastically reduce the size of federal government is Jeremy Konyndyk, a former USAID official under the Obama administration. Also with us, Hagar Chemali, former spokesperson for the United Nation -- U.S. Mission to the United Nations under President Obama.

Hagar, let's start with you. You've worked for the federal government in a range of senior national security and public affairs positions. Roughly 2 million federal employees have received this offer. The White House has said they expect as many as 200,000 people to accept it. I think the number right now is about 50,000.

What are the impacts that this could have?

HAGAR CHEMALI, FORMER SPOKESPERSON FOR U.S. MISSION TO THE UNITED NATIONS: Sure, Jake. Well, I was just actually in Washington and I was speaking to many of my government friends, and I've learned from them that the majority have accepted this buyout tend to be either those who are retiring soon, those who've moved out of the D.C. area who don't want to return to the office five days a week, for example, there was a general sense of calm, which surprised me, but that might because I spoke to mostly national security folks. And national security folks tend to have their jobs somewhat secure.

And the problem that you have with something like this, again, as Rushab said, I'm not against at all trimming the fat. There is absolutely fat to trim, and reviewing processes and auditing them is a good thing. But it's the chaos and the unknown that has caused this disruption.

And the problem with disruption is that you see that play out in our foreign policy abroad. So you're seeing programs that we have in Sudan and Africa related to AIDS and famine being halted in their tracks, things like that. And those are tools of our soft power. And we don't want our adversaries or other governments and partners around the world looking at us as a banana republic, for example, or that we can't function as a government even with a change in administrations.

TAPPER: So, Jeremy, There are roughly 1,400 USAID employees overseas, direct hire employees overseas, who will be placed on administrative leave in order to return to the United States tomorrow night including their families. Tell us about that. Explain the real world impact.

JEREMY KONYNDYK, SENIOR FELLOW, CENTER FOR GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT: Well, we're seeing huge impacts already of the rollback and the funding freeze. All work was ordered stopped about 10 days ago. And that has meant things like research into an HIV vaccine. There was a phase one trial about to start across eight countries in Africa into an HIV vaccine. That has stopped the transformative potential you would get with an HIV vaccine, not just for the world, but also for HIV here in the United States gone.

Famine relief in Sudan is being halted. Kids are on malnutrition treatment that's funded by the United States. In Darfur right now, that is beginning to end. Those kids go off that treatment, they will die. So we are seeing those kind of real world impacts already in the immediate term of this pullback.

[17:10:12]

TAPPER: And Hagar, can you talk about what happens when the administration, or any administration takes such a massively broad brush approach to so many agencies at once? Are you concerned that this will make the average working American question the idea of whether or not they should ever even go into public service?

CHEMALI: Well, yes, I would say that it definitely undermines faith in our institutions if U.S. government services are being halted or if they just see just from a human aspect, if you see what a U.S. government employee has to go to, a lot of those employees live paycheck to paycheck. And if they just facing this kind of unknown and is on one hand it's difficult for them, on another hand, it is absolutely going to disrupt services.

And on the third point and the final point that I would make, it's really important, is that you do have adversaries like Russia right now touting what the Trump administration is doing. That is not a good look. You don't want the Kremlin praising the dismantling of USAID or this kind of takedown of the U.S. government because that plays into them. If things are chaotic back in Washington, they know that someone might not be keeping the eye on the ball. And that's very risky for those reasons as well.

TAPPER: And Jeremy, how much does it cost to bring all these USAID employees who are overseas home with their families?

KONYNDYK: So there will be a huge expense because you're talking about thousands and thousands of personnel. You're talking about pulling kids out of school. It's February, a second semester just started. When USAID personnel go overseas, their families often go with them if it's a family post. So pulling kids out of school, pulling spouses out of second -- out of their jobs, enormous cost to relocate them, losing the housing.

They all have to now come back here and find housing. But there are security risks here as well. You know, the president of the United States and the richest man in the world have been saying now for a week that USAID is a criminal organization.

TAPPER: Yes.

KONYNDYK: In a lot of unsafe countries that poses direct material threats to U.S. government personnel.

TAPPER: Yes. It's not a criminal enterprise.

Thanks to both of you.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is meeting with top congressional leaders in Washington, D.C. today. What he had to say about the possibility or need for U.S. troops on the ground in Gaza and the gift that he gave President Trump during their one-on-one. Plus the Oscar scandal that has divided the cast of one of the best picture nominees. Stay with us.

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[17:16:35]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And I'd also like to thank Justice Clarence Thomas and his incredible wife who's here someplace. There she is. Incredible, highly respected wife too.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Back to back to back to back to back swearing in ceremonies for President Trump's cabinet have been performed by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas at the specific request of Donald Trump, the president, according to a source, giving Thomas and his longtime conservative activist wife Ginni precious time with the president and his new cabinet in these crucial first 100 days. Traditionally, most new cabinet members are sworn in by the vice president gentleman named J.D. Vance. Our panel's back with us.

So Jonah, we obviously remember Ginni Thomas' full throated support of Trump after He lost the 2020 election. She was involved in a lot of that nonsense. What's your take on what we're seeing here?

JONAH GOLDBERG, CO-FOUNDER AND EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, THE DISPATCH: Look, I have nothing kind to say about Ginni Thomas' performance related to January 6th or any of that stuff. I'm going to herniate myself trying to care very much about this story. First of all --

TAPPER: Well, don't do that.

GOLDBERG: -- one of the reasons why Kristi Noemi was sworn in by Clarence Thomas, because she was so late that J.D. Vance had to go to something else, right? So, like -- but look, Clarence Thomas is very popular with a big segment of the MAGA right and with the broader right in general. He's the most based justice for a lot of these people. So, you know, Trump cares about optics, but I just don't think it's that big a deal.

I don't remember who Ruth Bader Ginsburg swore in when, you know, she swore in people. It just doesn't mean much to me.

TAPPER: Do you give any credence, Paul, to theory that Thomas might retire during this term? He's the oldest justice at 76 years old, making way for Trump to nominate somebody else.

PAUL BEGALA, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: He might, but he didn't the last time. And he was most senior justice then. He'd been at this a very long time. And I'm kind of with Jonah that I have no problem. It's an honor for the justice.

It's an honor for the cabinet member. It's a big deal. I have no problem with that. Here's my problem. Ultimately, the questions, particularly of ethics and conflict of interest are being litigated as we speak across the executive branch. They're going to get to the Supreme Court. Justice Thomas is going to have a vote on that. He's not going to be swayed because he swore in Kristi Noem. My problem is he's not bound by a binding ethics law either, and neither is the rest of that phony court.

OK, Mr. Trump, he may be violating in the eyes of some, but he is bound by ethics laws. Mr. Musk is bound by ethics laws. Who knows if he's following him? Let's wait and see. Congress is bound by it.

The one part of our government that literally puts itself above the law is the Supreme Court. That's my problem, is that he seems -- and the rest of his colleagues, not just him, seem to want to put themselves above the law and not have any binding ethics code. The country wants one. And so I've seen polling on it.

GOLDBERG: I don't think in this time when the Supreme Court is going to probably be the only thing that stands up to Trump on a lot of things and when Democrats have been sometimes quite rightly saying Trump is threatening the legitimacy and undermining trust institutions free to refer to the Supreme Court as a phony court. It's a legitimate court.

BEGALA: It's a legitimate court, but their rulings are nuts. OK. I listened to the oral arguments in the --

TAPPER: You disagree with them?

BEGALA: They're indefensible. They go back -- the immunity case --

TAPPER: Well, not literally.

BEGALA: The immunity case goes back to -- it takes us back before the Magna Carta. It says the president is a king and he's above the law. Justice Sotomayor, an otherwise sober person, literally said in her dissent that the president now can order SEAL Team SIX to murder his opponents. So my faith in the court, like a lot of Americans, when you look at that immunity case, has been shaken to the core. And they're going to have to restore it with a lot of Americans by ruling on ethics.

[17:20:18]

And the fact that they themselves are not bound by ethics makes me very suspect.

TAPPER: Jonah, I know you disagree --

BEGALA: They are legitimate. You're right.

TAPPER: I know you disagree with everything he just said. I just want to bring up one other thing because it is kind of interesting. So Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave President Trump a golden pager during their meeting yesterday. This is an allusion to that obvious top secret operation carried out in September by Israel and Lebanon, targeted pagers used by members of the group recognized as terrorists by the U.S. Hezbollah. The pagers exploded, thousands were wounded. Dozens were killed.

Any thoughts on this gift, Jonah?

GOLDBERG: I think it's kind of creepy and weird. I thought the pager operation is entirely defensible. It was one of the most brilliant masterstrokes of modern military statecraft and espionage. But you know, if it was a hand grenade, you'd think it's really weird. And that's essentially what that thing was, right?

BEGALA: Yes, you know, to defend Netanyahu and Trump. Two guys I'm not very close to. You remember when President Obama gave the order to take out bin Laden? Bill McRaven was the head of Special Forces. He's an admiral. To identify him, bin Laden was a very tall guy.

They actually had to have a Navy SEAL lay down next to him because they didn't have a tape measure. So Obama gave -- President Obama gave Admiral McRaven a tape measure on a plaque. OK. That's about killing a guy. I'm very glad we killed him.

So I give the prime minister, the president, a pass on this.

TAPPER: Fair enough. Well, I don't want one if you want to -- either tape --

BEGALA: You don't want a pager or a tape?

TAPPER: I don't want a tape measure or a golden pager. But I have lots of other gift ideas for you for me. Thanks to both of you. Appreciate it.

Perhaps the most legendary and influential broadcaster of all time once warned what T.V. could do for good or for ill. And now his former network is being sued by President Trump. The parent company Paramount is barreling towards a decision that could have a drastic impact on freedom of the press. Stay with us.

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[17:26:38]

TAPPER: In our politics lead, there's a story playing out between Paramount and CBS News, President Trump and the Federal Communications Commission that any American who values a free and independent press should care about, including Trump supporters who should not like the precedent that is being set. The story started last fall when "60 Minutes" interviewed then Vice President Kamala Harris. Then candidate Trump did not agree to sit down with the news magazine, but nonetheless, he protested how "60 Minutes" edited the Harris interview, specifically the answer she gave after correspondent Bill Whitaker asked the vice president why Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not listening to the Biden administration. Now, in a preview clip that ran on CBS's "Face the Nation Sunday Morning," Harris was shown answering like this. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAMALA HARRIS, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The work that we have done has resulted in a number of movements in that region by Israel that were very much prompted by or a result of many things, including our advocacy for what needs to happen in the region.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: But during 60 minutes airing, Harris gave this answer to the same question.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: We are not going to stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Now, CBS News explained the discrepancy by saying they had merely run two different parts from the same longer answer. And that is indeed what the transcript revealed. Now, CBS News did not post the transcript at the time, but they did turn it over to the FCC this week, and the FCC released the transcript to the public yesterday. But that is far from what Donald Trump alleged happened.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: They took the answer out in its entirety, threw it away, and they put another answer in.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Now, that is, as we saw from the transcript, obviously not what happened at all. But still, Donald Trump called this incident, quote, "The greatest fraud in broadcast history," unquote. Mr. Trump said, quote, "CBS should lose its license," unquote. And then Trump sued under news distortion rules for $10 billion. Now, the suit is widely regarded by legal and First Amendment experts as, well, as one put it, quote, "a frivolous and dangerous attempt by a politician to control the news media."

Broadcasters have a right to edit interviews. It's editorial judgment. For example, Fox in June 2024 aired this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Would you declassify the Epstein files?

TRUMP: Yes. Yes, I would.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: But that wasn't Trump's actual whole answer. It was a taped interview. And as Semaphore noted at the time, Mr. Trump, in the full, unedited version sounded a lot less definitive about releasing the Epstein files. Here's the whole answer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Would you declassify the Epstein files?

TRUMP: Yes. Yes, I would.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All right.

TRUMP: I guess I would. I think that less so because, you know, you don't know. You don't want to affect people's lives if it's phony stuff in there, because there's a lot of phony stuff with that whole --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

TRUMP: -- world. But I think I would. Or at least do you think that --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Would you think that would restore trust, help restore trust?

TRUMP: Yes. I -- I don't know about Epstein so much as I do the others, certainly about the way he died. It would be interesting to find out --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sure.

TRUMP: -- what happened there, because that was a weird situation and the cameras didn't happen to be working, et cetera, et cetera. But you'd go a long way toward that one.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Quite different right? Now, look, "Fox" had every right to make that edit. Now, did that edit make Trump look more decisive, less equivolating -- equivocating? Did it make Trump therefore look better? Yep. Was that why "Fox" did it? I have no idea. Maybe they just had some timing issues.

Either way, it's "Fox's" right to do it, just as it was "Fox's" right to do it when they had Trump's surprise visit to a Bronx barber shop on air, which they also cut down significantly. And coincidentally or not flatteringly, "Fox" had the right to do it. And not just because cable and broadcast networks have different rules.

Now, the "60 Minutes" editing case would almost certainly fail spectacularly in court, according to legal experts. But Paramount Global, which owns "CBS News," is currently trying to merge with Skydance Media. And in order to do that, Paramount will need the approval of the Trump administration, specifically the FCC, which under its new commissioner, Brendan Carr, has suggested that Trump's views -- Trump's news distortion complaints will be considered by the FCC before any merger can be approved.

Enter Shari Redstone, the owner of Paramount, who stands to make about $8 billion if this deal goes through. Said one "CBS News" employee to me about this quote, everyone expects Shari settles with Donald Trump. She is not concerned about her legacy, democracy, or the work we do. It's only about the deal, her pocketbook. The only way she wouldn't settle is if Skydance sent her a smoke signal to hold off. Surely they realize a settlement diminishes the brand and value of 60 Minutes, which they claim to admire and want to own, unquote.

For Paramount to settle this suit would be hoisting a white flag of surrender. It would be the network of Edward R. Murrow, at the behest of its owners, saying, we will not speak truth to power. We will acquiesce to power at the expense of truth. President Trump has sued any number of individuals in the news media over the years and the regular media, Bill Maher, journalist Tim O'Brien, CNN. And he has almost always lost because it doesn't seem like the point is actually to win, it seems like the point is to make people think twice before they will say anything critical about him.

But his latest lawsuits represent a dangerous escalation. Mr. Trump is also going after the Des Moines Register and its former pollster, Ann Selzer, for, quote, brazen election interference, unquote. Why? Well, because of a faulty poll that wrongly suggested before the election that Trump would lose Iowa. The Des Moines Register is fighting that lawsuit, though, while it looks like Paramount will settle.

The "CBS News" employee expressed their opinion about all of this to me, saying -- saying, quote, let's call it what it is. It's a bribe. Now, we should note, representatives for Paramount and Shari Redstone and Skydance continue to decline to comment on any of this.

You know, you live long enough and you see how eroded standards that politicians think work for their side always end up being wielded against them. And at that point, it doesn't even matter who started it. It just matters that corporations are leaning on news divisions to supplicate themselves to whomever's in power because of their bottom line and the implied threat from the government.

As a great "CBS" newsman once warned about television, this instrument can teach, it can illuminate, yes, and even it can inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise, it's nothing but wires and lights in a box, unquote. Shari Redstone seems to have taken the wrong lessons from that speech. If Shari Redstone settles, she may as well take the wires and lights and the box and sell them for parts.

[17:35:07]

A new variant of the bird flu has shown up in dairy cattle here in the U.S. It's a variant that has been associated with severe infections in humans. What do you need to know, that's next.

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TAPPER: In our Health Lead, the new strain of the bird flu that has now spread to cattle. Six different dairy -- dairy herds in Nevada tested positive for the H5N1 avian flu that's behind severe infections in humans. Let's bring in CNN medical correspondent, Meg Tirrell, to talk about how much we should be worried about this. Meg, this isn't the same avian flu variant that's been infecting other dairy herds. Why are experts so worried that this variant has appeared in these cattle herds?

[17:39:59]

MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Jake, there are a few reasons they're worried. One is that we had thought that the virus circulating in cows had basically been transferred from birds at some point and that it was the spread among cows of that one variant that we'd been seeing since early last year.

Now that we know that a second strain has been detected in cattle that suggests that at least for the second time, we don't know if it's happened before. A different strain has been passed now from birds to cows. So it suggests that might be easier than we previously thought. And scientists say that could make it a lot harder to contain this virus in cows.

Now, the other reason they're concerned about this is because of the strain itself that's been detected. It's called D1.1. And in the rare cases we have seen severe cases of bird flu in people, it's been this strain. There was a Canadian teenager who had a severe case of bird flu, and that there was the person in Louisiana, an elderly person, who died from their case of bird flu. And that was also the strain of D1.1.

Another thing we saw in both of those cases was that while those patients were in the hospital, the virus mutated and acquired changes that could make able to infect other people. They didn't infect other people, but it showed that this is potentially possible. So there's a lot of concern about this. Right now, we have not seen spread of this strain of the virus from cows to people in Nevada. People are watching that very closely.

This was picked up through the USDA's National Milk Testing Program. So now we've seen cows in 16 states be infected with bird flu, most recently in Nevada and California. In terms of the human impact, we know that 67 people have had confirmed cases of bird flu in the United States, most of those from dairy herds. So there is that real concern about exposure for those workers, Jake.

And of course, concern generally because we are not necessarily getting the same amount of public health communications from the CDC as we normally do. Jake?

TAPPER: All right, Meg Tirrell, thanks so much.

President Trump said today that once Israel's war with Hamas is over, Israel will, quote, turn over the Gaza Strip to the United States. So how's that going to work? Will U.S. troops be sent to help? How is this going to function? I'm going to ask a Republican congressman who, when he was in the military, served in the Middle East. Stay with us.

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[17:46:53] TAPPER: In our World Lead, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in Washington, D.C. today meeting with U.S. Senators. Netanyahu says U.S. troops on the will not be necessary to carry out President Trump's plan to turn the Gaza Strip into what Trump calls the Riviera of the Middle East. We turn now to Republican Congressman Dan Crenshaw of Texas. He serves on the House Select Committee on Intelligence, and he's a retired Navy SEAL who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Congressman, good to see you. Do you agree with Trump on -- on Gaza, on the U.S. taking over? And if so, how are Palestinians already displaced from their -- their homes? How are they supposed to leave?

REP. DAN CRENSHAW (R-TX): I think there's a lot of questions of what it means to -- to take over. There's -- there's a few things we know for sure. OK. So the third phase of this peace plan, nobody actually knows how it's going to get implemented. Does that mean Israel takes over? Israelis don't want that. People live in Gaza certainly don't want that. That's not really possible.

I think what Trump's announcement did, again, whether he intended it this way or not, what it's really done is expose this massive hypocrisy in the Arab world, which is showing that nobody in the Arab world wants to take responsibility. They want to -- they want to claim like they care for -- for Gazans. They want to claim, like they support this -- this Palestinian state, but they don't want to do anything about it. They don't want to take any refugees. They don't want to take any -- any ownership of it. They don't want to put the funds toward it that would be necessary.

So when President Trump comes in there and says, fine, we'll do it. Everybody freaks out. Everyone's like, no, we absolutely don't want that. Well, then, guess what? Now there's an off ramp. Now there's a place for you to come in, since you -- now since we've exposed that hypocrisy. So, look, this is -- this is pretty typical, unorthodox Trump policy being thrown out there, but it could end up exactly where it should end up, which is the Arab world has to take responsibility for this.

TAPPER: I understand the point you make about, you know, this being maybe a negotiating gambit as well as the hypocrisy of the leaders of Arab countries, but he's not, but Mr. Trump is not saying -- President Trump is not saying we will form this Riviera of the Middle East for the Palestinian people. He's saying the Palestinian people will leave and will form this for the people of the world, I think he said. And that -- that's quite a significant difference.

CRENSHAW: Yes, I think the White House is -- I'm -- I'm trying to keep track of the -- the White House statements just like you are. And from what I understand, I mean, they've walked that back pretty significantly. There's not going to be anybody forced to leave. There's not going to be any U.S. troops on the ground. I think it's a, look, there's precedent for this, by the way.

In the last administration, President Trump announced an idea for like a $52 million Riviera of -- of the Middle East. Again, it's using the same language wherein Hamas demilitarizes and infrastructure and -- and -- and development comes in. This isn't that different from that proposal. It's just -- it's just that it's coming on the heels of a very hot war.

And so, again, what really needs to happen here is that Arab states, if they're -- if they're going to say no to everything, well, then they have to -- they actually have to show up to the table and take some responsibility. And I think that's going to be the end game that we're looking for here.

TAPPER: So but you would agree with the idea that the Palestinian people either voluntarily being expelled or whatever that means, or forcibly expelled, like this -- this land is -- is for the Palestinian people, right, I mean?

[17:50:12]

CRENSHAW: Yes, well, like I'm not moving there. I don't think you want to move there. So Israelis don't want to move there. Nobody wants to move there. And also, you know, Jordan, Egypt, they -- they don't want to take any resettlement, they don't want to take anyone from Gaza. They've been pretty clear about that.

So look, this -- this isn't that, while -- while I think the headlines and there's -- there's a lot of chaos right now and how this is being messaged, this isn't that different from past proposals when it's all said and done.

TAPPER: I do want to ask you about USAID just because foreign aid has made such a difference in the lives of Afghan people, Iraqis, you served in -- in both of those countries in the military. Obviously we can go through line item by line item and find USAID programs that seem ridiculous or not a good use of taxpayer dollars.

But as a general Reaganesque tool of -- of diplomacy, are you -- are you against foreign aid the way that President Reagan, I mean, President Trump seems to be right now?

CRENSHAW: Well, no. And also I don't think he seems to be. I -- I, you know, I would -- I would take Secretary Rubio's words at this, that what they're doing is -- is an operational pause, which I think is very necessary. Because, you know, well -- well, I have seen a lot of good come from USAID when it's used for strategic purposes, when it's used as a tool of foreign policy, I have seen plenty of times as a -- as a member of the military going through embassies and then as a member of Congress going through embassies where it's just not really used that way.

And I don't think anybody's nefarious about this. I think it's young staffers who think they're doing good and think it's good to spend money when indeed it's not being connected properly to a U.S. strategic goal. And I think there's a lot of benefits to somebody like Secretary Rubio saying, look, I'm taking control of this right now and we are going to go line item by line item because when we authorize USAID and -- and -- or -- or appropriate it from Congress, we don't -- we don't do line items.

We don't -- we don't -- we don't tell them exactly what project to do. That's up to State Department. And so it's also up to State Department under a new administration to say, hey, let's do a pause on this real quick and see where this money is going and make sure it's attached to strategic value. I don't think it -- I -- I don't -- I don't think -- I haven't heard this administration say we shouldn't do foreign aid at all. And there's no purpose to it.

TAPPER: All right. Republican Congressman Dan Crenshaw of Texas, thank you so much, sir. Good to see you as always.

CRENSHAW: Appreciate it, Jake.

TAPPER: Could a best actress nominee get the cold shoulder from fellow cast members and the director at the Oscars? Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:57:03]

TAPPER: The director of an Oscar nominated film is now distancing himself from perhaps its biggest star, CNN's Elizabeth Wagmeister explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELIZABETH WAGMEISTER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): "Emilia Perez," Netflix's big Oscar contender with 13 nominations now reduced to a tearful apology from its breakout star, Karla Sofia Gascon, whose controversial tweets shocked Hollywood at the height of her Oscar campaign. The tweets, uncovered by an independent writer, included this 2016 post. Islam is becoming a hotbed of infection for humanity that urgently needs to be cured.

Alongside a Muslim family photo, she called Islam a deep, disgusting humanity. During protests over the police killing of George Floyd, Gascon called Floyd a drug addict swindler whose death has served to once again demonstrate that there are people who still consider black people to be monkeys without rights and consider policemen to be assassins. They're all wrong.

In an exclusive interview with CNN and Espanol's Juan Carlos Arciniegas, Gascon apologized and said she's not a racist.

I have been condemned and sacrificed and crucified and stoned without a trial and with no option to defend myself, she said, tearfully adding that she thought the public made her out to be a terrible monster.

It's a stunning turn of events for Gascon, who made history just last month as the first openly transgender actor to ever be nominated for an Oscar.

CLAYTON DAVIS, SENIOR AWARDS EDITOR, VARIETY: The reconciling of the moment is like this historic nomination we're supposed to be celebrating. She would have been prominently displayed and cut to during the Oscar telecast.

WAGMEISTER (voice-over): In another resurfaced post, Gascon mocked the Oscar telecast itself, calling it a vindictive film awards ceremony. I didn't know if I was watching an Afro-Korean festival, a Black Lives Matter demonstration or March 8th, apparently referring to International Women's Day. The Academy immediately unfollowed Gascon on social media, and her co-stars in the film's director are distancing themselves, too.

ZOE SALDANA, ACTRESS: He desires to remain anonymous.

WAGMEISTER (voice-over): Zoe Saldana, who won the Golden Globe last month, is now vying for her first Oscar and spoke to Variety's Clayton Davis.

SALDANA: I'm very sad. I'm -- I'm also disappointed.

WAGMEISTER (voice-over): Despite the growing backlash, Gascon says she won't pull out of the race.

I cannot step down from an Oscar nomination, she said, because I have not committed any crime, nor have I harmed anyone. Few doubt the power of Gascon's performance. She plays a complex role, a cartel leader both as a man and a woman. But now many are asking how Netflix missed a huge landmine on its road to Oscar gold.

[18:00:05]

DAVIS: All that work and money was flushed down the toilet just a week ago.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WAGMEISTER (on camera): Now I've reached out to Netflix and have not heard back. And Netflix has not publicly commented on this at all. Now, Jake, I am hearing from sources that Netflix is actively distancing themselves from Karla Sofia in an effort to salvage this campaign for the rest of the hard-working casting crew.

TAPPER: All right. Elizabeth Wagmeister, thanks so much.

The news continues on CNN with Jim Sciutto in for Wolf Blitzer in the Situation Room. See you tomorrow.