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The Lead with Jake Tapper
U.S. Joins Russia In Voting Against U.N. Resolution On Ukraine; Trump Avoids Calling Putin a Dictator After Calling Zelenskyy One Last Week; Federal Workers Face Midnight Deadline To Respond To Musk's Job Performance Email; Trump Voter Has Trust Issues With Trump & Musk Over DOGE; New Vatican Statement On Critically Ill Pope Francis. Aired 4-5p ET
Aired February 24, 2025 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[16:00:07]
OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN HOST: Welcome back.
The Vatican says Pope Francis is showing signs of slight improvement. They say he is in critical condition, though the pontiff's mild kidney issues are not a cause for concern.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: They also added he resumed working. He called the priest of the Gaza parish, with whom the pope has been in contact. He has spent the last ten days, Pope Francis has, in a Rome hospital.
THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER starts right now.
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JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: On the three-year mark of Russia invading Ukraine, the United States sides with Russia.
THE LEAD starts right now.
In a stunning move, the U.S. voted against a U.N. resolution condemning Putin's war in Ukraine, as the president himself digs in just days after calling Ukraine's president a dictator. Today, he refused to do the same for Putin.
Plus, another DOGE disruption, this time conflicts among Trump's own people. First, Elon Musk tells federal workers to explain their work or risk getting fired. But then some Trump secretaries and directors are telling others to disregard the order. So which is it? As employees try to keep up with the chaos.
And a deadly standoff inside a Pennsylvania hospital, medical staff zip-tied before the gunman was killed. Did shortfalls in the health care system push a man to the brink? What we're learning from a physician assistant who says he was there.
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TAPPER: Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper. And we start today with our world lead. Three years to the day since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, the Trump administration publicly sided with Russia and against its European allies at the United Nations General Assembly. The United States joined Russia to vote against a Ukrainian and European-backed resolution marking today's gruesome anniversary. The United States then abstained from a vote on its own resolution, which was amended to add stronger language on behalf of Ukraine's territorial integrity.
Moments ago at the White House, Trump said he wanted a ceasefire, then a full peace deal. And at an earlier event, Trump said Putin would accept European soldiers in Ukraine.
Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: European troops may go into Ukraine as peacemakers. But I don't think that's going to be a problem. I will be meeting with President Zelenskyy. In fact, he may come in this week or next week to sign the agreement. They're very close to a final deal. It will be a deal with rare earths and various other things. And, he would like to come, as I understand it, here, to sign it. And that would be great with me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: President Trump was joined there by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, who was hoping to bend Trump's ear as the U.S. president upends longstanding policy towards Russia and Europe.
But Trump continued paying deference to Vladimir Putin. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: You called Zelenskyy a dictator. Would you use the same words regarding Putin?
TRUMP: I don't use those words lightly. I think that were going to see how it all works out.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: This as Trump also touts his, quote, serious discussions with Vladimir Putin over the end of the conflict and what Trump proposes as, quote, economic development transactions with Russia. We're covering this major news all over the globe, from the White House, to Kyiv, to Moscow, to Paris.
Let me start with Kaitlan Collins at the White House.
Kaitlan, President Trump and French President Macron just wrapped up their press conference. Macron characterized their meeting as a very important step forward.
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, almost a turning point. He even said at one point, and that is because one of the biggest concerns that weve heard from European leaders, as the president here at the White House has made clear that he wants to get towards a peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia, is what the security guarantees in all of this are going to look like.
In essence, what is going to ensure that this doesn't happen again? That is when the big concern that we've heard from the British prime minister, who is coming here next in just a matter of days, he's the next world leader to come and visit with President Trump.
But other European leaders as well, who have watched how the U.S. has handled this, and instead of necessarily being in lockstep, as we had seen previously, when this war first broke out, there's a real question of the difference in strategy here. And really, this whole day has kind of been this display of this dance of diplomacy between President Macron and President Trump, where they have known each other for a very long time, Jake, since President Trump was last in office, watching them in the Oval earlier, where at one point the French president interrupted President Trump to -- to clarify when Trump was saying that Europe is going to be paid back for the money and the guarantees that it has sent to Ukraine, and the French president broke in to say, no, that's not actually true. Here's really what this dynamic looks like.
But then just after a two-hour meeting between the two world leaders inside that press conference in the room of key question of this was how this strategy is moving forward, how different their paths have been.
[16:05:00]
And of course, ultimately what the terms of any agreement are going to look like. And the French president talked about security guarantees and basically what he thinks this deal means if there are not any. Listen to what he told reporters.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EMMANUEL MACRON, FRENCH PRESIDENT (through translator): This peace must not mean a surrender of Ukraine. It must not mean a ceasefire without guarantees. This peace must allow for Ukrainian sovereignty and allow Ukraine to negotiate with other stakeholders regarding the issues it affects.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Essentially, what he was arguing there, Jake, is that just getting a deal is not enough. Getting a ceasefire without any security guarantees is going to be a weak deal. And he harkened back to 2014, when Russia illegally annexed Crimea when President Obama was in office. He was referencing himself and President Trump. He said our predecessors -- predecessors negotiated that, and there weren't enough security guarantees in there, and essentially urging him not to make the mistake this time again.
But as you watched as he interacted with Trump, he often referred to him as Donald. He commended him on several occasions, praised him, making sure to fold that in with his clear statements that he's made today about needing those security guarantees, and also in the Oval Office, earlier, Jake, saying that Russia was the aggressor here, of course, something that we have not heard President Trump say in recent days.
TAPPER: All right. Kaitlan, thanks so much.
Nick Paton Walsh in Kyiv.
What are Ukrainian officials telling you about this rare earth minerals deal? Is there any hope that entering into this agreement will provide greater insurance, that the U.S. will continue to stay involved in Ukraine's defense?
NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: So much of this been about the mood music, Jake, and this has dramatically changed since we've seen Macron essentially give a series of appearances with Donald Trump, where the U.S. president seems to be significantly more in favor of better relations with Europe and Ukraine entirely.
Now that press conference, an extraordinary change for many here who have been, frankly, terrified as of this morning, that that rare earth minerals deal might not necessarily provide security guarantees, and it would just sour the mood that was already pretty horrific between the United States and Ukraine.
Interestingly, during Zelenskyy's meetings here with 13 world leaders as G7 sort of spin off meeting in which we saw Donald Trump appear by video call to that meeting with Emmanuel Macron next to him, very chummy in that meeting, everybody sort of trying to improve the mood and then suddenly catapult forwards. We have Trump saying he's willing to meet Zelenskyy.
That deal itself, it seems like, frankly, is just going to paper over the cracks initially. It's going to be called, as far as we understand, from Ukrainian sources familiar with the negotiations, a framework deal for Ukrainian reconstruction. But the really ugly bits about money, about what, who, where and how that's going to be left to future negotiations and deals. It's not going to contain security guarantees.
Earlier today, officials were saying they hoped that would be a conversation between the two presidents, hoping that would happen. Well, now it might occur. And so a radical transformation, frankly, in Ukraine's fortunes, with the caveat we've been here before and next week could be entirely different, Jake.
TAPPER: All right. And Matthew Chance in Moscow. President Trump promises, quote, economic development transactions, unquote, with Russia. Putin actually spoke about this just in the last hour.
What did he have to say?
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CHIEF GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. Well, Russian officials generally have been riffing off that idea. You know, President Putin talking about how there are plenty of opportunities for the U.S. government and for U.S. private companies inside Russia, particularly in rare earths and critical minerals, you know, sort of basically saying that, you know, Russia has far more of those kinds of resources than Ukraine has, also suggesting that there are business deals to be done in what he called the new territories of Russia, the occupied areas of Ukraine that have been annexed by Moscow. It's not clear whether that's, you know, Putin baiting the West in some way or whether there are serious discussions underway with U.S. officials to try and sort of exploit the resources there.
Nevertheless, you can sort of hear the glee with which Russian officials are talking about and -- and watching the developments unfolding before them. You know, not just are they potentially looking at alleviation of the years -- from the years of crippling sanctions that their economy has been suffering with over the past couple of years because of the full scale invasion of Ukraine and other issues as well. But also, you know, kind of watching Western unity sort of buckle in front of them, particularly with that United Nations resolution which saw United States side with Russia on that resolution condemning the invasion of Ukraine.
So all very positive here from the Moscow point of view.
TAPPER: And, Melissa Bell, you just returned from Germany, where there was a highly consequential election on Sunday. The country's mainstream conservatives, as polls predicted, won the largest share of votes. Notably the far right AFD party, which has been backed by Elon Musk, won the second largest share of votes.
What are you hearing from the leader of the winning party when it comes to working with the United States?
[16:10:04]
MELISSA BELL, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jake, the votes hadn't even been counted when Friedrich Merz, the leader of the CDU, and the likely next chancellor of Germany, made those remarkable comments, saying that it was time for Europe to achieve independence from the United States. The current administration, he explained, clearly, was indifferent about the fate of Europe. There's this important NATO meeting coming up in June. It would be time, he suggested, for Europe to consider perhaps a different approach to its security than the architecture that has existed essentially since World War II.
The good news for Europe is that as the dust has settled this morning, it looks as though the CDU will be able to form a much more stable coalition and more quickly than anyone could have anticipated at this time. Yesterday, with its Social Democrat partners, it will be a two party coalition because of the parliamentary arithmetic in the way that's unfolded this morning.
Then the last, which involved three parties, and that, of course, is good news for Europe, even as it seeks to stand more firmly in its positions against Washington -- Jake. TAPPER: All right. Melissa Bell, thanks to one and all, covering the
news as only CNN can do.
So, Kaitlan is working on more reporting and you can look for that on "THE SOURCE" with Kaitlan Collins tonight and every weeknight at 9:00 p.m. Eastern, only here on CNN.
But first, here on THE LEAD, federal workers under tremendous pressure explain what they did last week by midnight or risk getting fired. But are some agencies telling their staffs to ignore the Musk order? So what is a Trump administration official supposed to do? We're going to try to sort out the confusion.
Plus, a new update from the Vatican on the pope in critical condition.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:15:31]
TAPPER: Our politics lead, President Trump defending an email sent out over the weekend directed by Elon Musk, apparently asking federal workers to list the five accomplishments they made in their job last week.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: The last email that was sent where he wanted to know what you did this week, you know why he wanted that, by the way. I thought it was great. What he's doing is saying, are you actually working? And then if you don't answer, like you're sort of semi-fired or you're fired, because a lot of people are not answering because they don';t even exist.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: Now, the email with a deadline of midnight tonight was sent out by the Office of Personnel Management. Elon Musk announced that the email would be sent out in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, saying, quote, a failure to respond will be taken as a resignation, unquote.
Now, the response across the federal government on how workers should respond to that Musk directed email is split. Some agencies are telling their employees to respond. Other agencies and their leaders, including FBI Director Kash Patel and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who are Trump appointees, both of them told their employees to ignore the email.
This email crisis or confusion now forcing workers to ask the question, who is really in charge here? Why is there so much confusion?
CNN's Rene Marsh is with us.
And, Rene, we just got some new reporting about the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, and its leadership. Tell us.
RENE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. So this was happening at a hearing in which, lawyers for the government were essentially trying to defend DOGE's access to the Treasury Department's sensitive systems. They were asked by the judge, what is Elon Musk's role with DOGE and the defense -- the government struggled to answer this. And at one point even said it really is not relevant to the matter before the judge.
To that, the judge says, quote, it does seem to me that if you have people that are not authorized to carry out some of these functions and they're carrying them out, that does seem to raise an issue. I would hope by now you would know the structure. Who is the administrator?
Again, the government not able to answer. What exactly is Elon Musk's role when it comes to DOGE? But back to what you said at the top there, Jake, lots of confusion across the federal government. We have a count of some seven agencies, including the department of defense, the FBI, who have told employees not to respond to that email sent out by Elon Musk, asking them to list the five things that they accomplished at work last week, due to the sensitive nature of the work that they do at those agencies.
I would love to point out here, Trump ally, FBI Director Kash Patel telling his workforce who is in charge, saying in an email that the FBI, through the office of the director, is in charge of all of the review processes and so that they should pause in any responses.
There's lots of confusion at agencies like HHS, where employees were first told that they should comply with Musk's email. Then they were told to not comply, the union telling employees to respond, not to respond. But you should respond if your manager tells you to respond. So, lots of confusion here.
We should point out that Elon Musk is not an elected official, not Senate confirmed to run any agency, and is asking employees to report outside of their chain of command. And that is what these unions are saying is essentially illegal. And now these unions are suing. And we learned about them amending an existing lawsuit.
That hearing for that lawsuit against this email sent by Elon Musk over the weekend is set for a hearing this Thursday, Jake.
TAPPER: All right. Very confusing. Rene Marsh, thanks so much. Appreciate it.
With me now to discuss, Republican Senator John Curtis of Utah.
Senator, thanks so much for being here.
You're out with an op-ed this weekend in which you write about the DOGE cuts, the staffing cuts, quote, what President Trump is doing now is something any responsible executive would do. But then you go on to say, quote, I agree with those concerns that the DOGE approach has appeared reckless and rash, and that we should show more compassion and dignity to those affected by its mission.
Where are the issues of not showing compassion and dignity that you're concerned about?
SEN. JOHN CURTIS (R-UT): Well, look, if -- if you lose your job, it could be the worst day of your life or certainly a very bad day. Imagine going home and telling a spouse, and you don't want to tell that spouse that you found out via email. You don't want to read about it in the paper. And I think how we communicate these things is just as important as what we do.
[16:20:01]
And I think it's a false choice to say we can't make these cuts and be compassionate and do them the right way as well.
TAPPER: I also wonder if you have any concerns about the way that these cuts are being made. A lot of members of Congress are getting an earful at town halls last week. Republican Congressman Mitch McCormick of Georgia faced an angry room of constituents in his district.
Today, he said, quote, I think were just moving a little too fast. That's quoted in "The Atlanta Journal Constitution". What are you hearing from your constituents? Let's just posit that, like there's always fat that can be trimmed from the budget. There's I'm sure that there are staffers out there who are low performance, but that doesn't mean that all of them are, right? I mean --
CURTIS: Of course, any organization has good and some degree of bad that needs to be cut.
I think what I'm hearing back represents a lot of people, and that is we have tried so many times to do this and we don't. And the debt that were accumulating $36 trillion and growing by over $2 trillion a year, it scares people. And maybe we need some dramatic changes and things that we've not done before that its a shock to the system. But the system, I think, needs a shock.
TAPPER: Yeah. I mean, I don't -- I don't disagree, but it doesn't seem as though there's a lot of care going into who is being fired. We have already seen hired, fired and then rehired people dealing with veterans crisis lines, people dealing with the FAA, people dealing with nuclear weapons, people dealing with tracking down infectious diseases. It doesn't seem like it's being done in a particularly responsible way.
CURTIS: So listen, I'm not going to argue with any of that, but there's a reason we haven't done this before. And that's because it's hard. And government doesn't do the hard thing very well.
What I'm a little bit more worried about is that this is actually distracting us from what I think is a more important question on the budget, things that we do need to be talking about. For instance, even if Elon Musk is wildly successful, there aren't enough dollars there --
TAPPER: Oh, no.
CURTIS: -- to do what he's doing. So why aren't we having a broader conversation?
TAPPER: About Medicare? About Social Security? Right.
CURTIS: Yeah. Yeah.
TAPPER: So that's where the money is.
CURTIS: Yeah. In my op-ed, I actually bring this up and I think this is a huge misunderstanding that we have that somehow if we talk about these things, we're going to take benefits away from those who really need them.
Can we not have a conversation about the 23-year-old who decided not to work during COVID and is receiving benefits?
I have six children, most of them in their 30s. They want me to have a conversation about Social Security, and we're not being fair.
TAPPER: To save it.
CURTIS: Yes, and we're not being fair and not we're not being honest when we say we're not going to touch this. And then I'll add another very, very important thing is, like we say, it's -- it's cruel or whatever we say to do this. But I actually think not doing it exasperates the cruelness. These decisions can be made by choice now, or they will be thrust upon us down the line and be much cooler than they are now.
And I also think that another thing -- like -- like my head is so many things I want to share with you. The other thing is like we're a couple of weeks away from a shutdown or CR and nobody is talking about that. And like you can -- you can tell your listeners to bookmark this right now. I can tell you its going to happen in two weeks. It's very predictable.
Since 1974, we've done our constitutional responsibility with the budget four times. And when we don't, you have a C.R., you have a shutdown.
TAPPER: Continuing resolution, yes.
CURTIS: Or an omnibus.
TAPPER: Yeah.
CURTIS: That's what's going to happen in every continuing resolution, and shutdown ends with an omnibus. We're fooling ourselves if were not having this conversation.
TAPPER: Just for the record, we did talk about this yesterday on State of the Union when we had on Democratic House Leader Hakeem Jeffries. We did talk about it.
Senator Curtis, thanks so much for being here. Good to have you.
CURTIS: Let's do it again.
TAPPER: Welcome to Washington.
Some breaking news now about federal employees. That confusing direction, the email from OPM ordering you to explain what you did last week or get fired. Now, we're hearing that's voluntary.
The updated memo just coming in. We'll bring that to you next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:27:51]
TAPPER: We're back with our breaking news in our politics lead. The Office of Personnel Management has just notified all federal employees that do not -- they do not have to respond to the "What did you do last week?" email. That is the notification they sent out. You don't have to respond to it. What Elon Musk directed sent -- was sent to them over the weekend.
Let's go to CNN's Hadas Gold.
Hadas, so this is so confusing. Elon Musk says everybody has to send this message. Everybody needs to respond to this in the federal government and then the Office of Personnel Management sends it out. And then agencies and people who are Trump allies, Trump administration officials tell their staffs, no, you don't. You don't have to fill this out. What is going on?
HADAS GOLD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, there's so much confusion. Everybody from these different agencies are getting different messages from their superiors.
But today, there was a meeting of the chief Human Capital Officers Council. This is the top HR people for all of the different departments and agencies. And they had a major meeting this afternoon.
And according to an email I obtained, it was actually sent to Department of Justice HR officials. They said that in the meeting, they were notified that they can inform agencies and employees that the responses to the OPM email is voluntary. Employees who elect to respond to the email must not include any confidential, sensitive or classified -- classified information. They also say that OPM clarified that a non-response to the email does not equate to a resignation.
So, essentially, this is running exactly counter to what Elon Musk said over the weekend, where he said that everybody had to respond to this email with those five bullet points of what they did in the past week, and that failure to respond will be taken as a resignation. So for all of these federal employees out there, they're trying to figure out who is in charge, who are they responding to, what are they going -- what are they actually supposed to do? And this is something were also hearing, of course, in court earlier about who is actually in charge of DOGE. Even the Department of Justice lawyers can't necessarily answer that, Jake.
TAPPER: All right. Thanks, I wish I could say that cleared things up for me, but it's not your fault.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch where we find CNN's John King, one Colorado Trump voter seems to think Musk and Trump are moving a bit too quickly with all these changes.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID HAYES, COLORADO VOTER: I tried farming for a while and going back and forth drove me nuts.
JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): David Hayes is a funny man.
HAYES: I would rather get run over by a bison, you know.
[16:30:03]
KING: The northern Colorado ranch has been in his family since the 1880s.
The White House in Washington are far away. Yes, Hayes wants the government shrunk, but he doesn't see a coherent plan. And he doesn't trust Elon Musk, doesn't believe what he says, doesn't want Trump letting Musk poke around Social Security or tax files.
HAYES: I don't know how many people he's fired. And you know, Musk's keeps saying, well, I found $1 billion of waste here and Social Security. There's hundreds of -- hundreds and hundreds of people that are collecting it that are between 100 years old and 150.
Can you believe any of that crap? He can't substantiate it. But you can't believe it. So that's a trust issue.
KING: A blue collar rural guy in the nation's most competitive congressional districts, a three-time Trump voter who calls the president unfocused and arrogant. But Democrats should hold the celebration.
But if you had a do over tomorrow and you had to pick again between Trump and Harris, what would you do?
HAYES: I would still do Trump.
KING: So a conservative independent, is that fair?
ESMERALDA RAMIREZ-RAY, COLORADO VOTER: Very conservative independent, yes.
KING: So would Esmeralda Ramirez-Ray, she smiles when asked about Trump's frenetic first month.
RAMIREZ-RAY: I voted for that, I love it.
KING: What did you vote for?
RAMIREZ-RAY: I voted for a president that was going to put America first. I voted for a president that was going to secure our borders, and I voted for a president that was going to make sure that we were respected throughout the world. And I believe I'm getting that.
KING: Greeley is the northern edge of Colorado's eighth, a congressional district. That is 40 percent Hispanic and has a significant undocumented population. Ramirez is a court interpreter for defendants who don't speak English. She agrees with Trump that some who crossed the border illegally are violent criminals, but she wishes he would add that the overwhelming majority are good people.
RAMIREZ-RAY: I was raised as a migrant worker working in the fields. Those are the people that are out there picking their crops. So even though I support Trump, I don't believe that he's the end all, be all savior of humanity. Nobody is.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KING: It's a fascinating visit, Jake. That district is one of the most competitive in the country. So Trump won't be on the ballot in 2026. But we wanted to talk to Trump voters about the frenetic, tumultuous first month, to try to get a sense of what's the climate for the new Republican congressman.
And again, 40 percent Latino. A lot of people wish Trump would change his tone on immigration. But it was interesting. Half of the Trump voters we spoke to raised some questions about Elon Musk and about what's going on and about what they see as chaos.
And so I wouldn't shoot up any flares yet. We're only a month in. But if you're a Republican in Congress, pay attention to those people.
TAPPER: Yeah, and Trump's numbers are going down. I mean, not they're still higher than they were at any time during his first presidency, but they're still not where you want them to be.
John's going to stick around. We bring in Jonah Goldberg, who's co- founder and editor in chief of the dispatch, and CNN's Kasie Hunt, whose new show, "THE ARENA WITH KASIE HUNT" will take over this very timeslot one week from today, while at THE LEAD are going to move one hour later. We're going to start at 5:00 p.m. and go until 7:00.
So, Jonah, that first Trump voter listed some genuine concerns with Trump and Musk, as you heard, though, as of now, he'd still vote for Trump over Kamala Harris. We keep seeing more DOGE cuts or DOGE directed cuts be made and then retracted. People rehired.
National Park Service just laid off 1000 employees. How far can they go? Trump and Musk when it comes to taking a scythe to the federal workforce, the way they have been?
JONAH GOLDBERG, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It remains to be seen. I think they get, you know, I think one of the things that the way the Democrats talk about it and a lot of people, the media, talk about it as if this story here is about these federal workers who are the victims.
And I think some of them have been treated really poorly. But, you know, like there was a -- I saw something the other day about how, this is -- this email from Musk is unfair because, by federal law, federal workers don't have to look at their email over the weekend. And you say that to, like a lot of normal Americans are like, well, I have to look at my boss's email over the weekend, right?
TAPPER: Right.
GOLDBERG: And there are a lot of these things that trying to turn federal workers into this sort of protected class of victims, I think is a bad spin. Like this is a country with massive private sector churn. People lose their jobs all the time. And to say this is all outrageous, I don't think has the political salience that it does.
Where it's going to matter in all of this is competence. When does it seem like these guys are doing all of this chaos stuff for chaos's sake, rather than actually making the government more efficient and more responsive to peoples needs? And time will tell on that.
TAPPER: Yeah. No, it makes me think of like the end of the Bush administration, competence was a big issue. The first -- the Trump administration, how he handled the pandemic was an issue.
KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST, "THE ARENA WITH KASIE HUNT": To Inject bleach.
TAPPER: And then and then, Joe Biden's approval ratings never recovered after the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
HUNT: Yeah, that, I think was a huge turning point for Biden --
[16:35:01]
TAPPER: On the competence issue, though, in some way.
HUNT: Exactly right. Like on are you qualified basically to lead the country?
And now, I do think one of the really interesting things -- things in your piece, John, that that, you know, I keep coming back to as someone who's covered, you know, the what now, ten years that Trump has been on the stage, the protections that voters give to Trump, the -- what they extend to him, what they are willing to put up for or put up with for him. It doesn't extend to anybody else.
TAPPER: Yeah.
HUNT: Others will try to, you know, emulate it. They will try to hug him as tightly as possible so that some of it will rub off on them. It never does.
Now, if Donald Trump sours, you know, Elon Musk has a lot more going for him in terms of all of those billions of dollars that he can use to Trump's advantage, right? There's Trump has a lot of incentives not to break with Elon Musk. But if his voters, I don't think its out of realm of possibility that his voters will start to turn on Elon Musk in a way that they simply will never turn on Trump.
TAPPER: And, John, lets get back to the breaking news about the Office of Personnel Management responding to the -- what did you do last week and email saying that that's voluntary. We should also note that President Trump, made fun of anybody who was upset by the name. Five things that you did.
He posted or retweeted a picture of SpongeBob SquarePants writing a list it says cried about here. The five things cried about Trump, cried about Elon, made it into the office for once, read some emails, cried about Trump and Elon some more. I'm not going to, you know, were not going to take the bait on every single Trump meme.
But, I mean, there are Trump federal -- Trump supporting federal employees. We've talked to a number of them.
KING: I think Jonah made the key point. You know, some people have been treated badly. Some people been treated harshly. I think the test is going to be, do people show up? Do they get their Social Security checks? Do they show up somewhere for a federal service and they can't get it? Is their life disrupted by this, too, not just the federal workers? That will be the political price.
But I do think its interesting that the OPM has now reversed course and essentially said, pay no attention to Elon Musk, right? That tells you that somebody in the Trump administration, people that only happens when someone says, we see some evidence this is hurting us.
HUNT: Right.
KING: We see some evidence this is not good for us. At least hit the pause button. Well see if it's a pause button or a stop button. But you don't do that unless you say there's something in the water.
TAPPER: And, Democratic Senator Tina Smith of Minnesota, who announced she's not running for reelection. So, is unleashed, one could say.
GOLDBERG: Born free.
TAPPER: Tina Smith slammed Musk over his email demand. She tweeted, quote, this is the ultimate -- I'm quoting here, people. So don't get mad at me. This is the ultimate dick boss move for Musk, except he isn't even the boss. He's just a dick.
Quote: I bet a lot of people had an experience like this with a bad boss. There's an email in your inbox Saturday night saying, prove to me your worthiness by Monday, or else I'm on the side of the workers, not the billionaire asshole bosses. Again, I'm quoting here people, unquote.
Then when Musk replied asking her, what did you get done last week, Senator Smith replied, I hate to break it to you, but you aren't my boss. I answer to the people of Minnesota, but since you bring it up, I spent last week fighting to stop tax breaks for billionaires like you paid for by defunding health care for moms and babies.
What do you think?
GOLDBERG: Well, you know, she's actually getting, regardless of the ad hominem stuff, the fact that OPM did this and also Kash Patel ordered his staff not to respond to this thing. And there were a couple of others like that. This politically, it's hard to figure out what this means for Musk, but legally this might be of some help because in court, a lot of people, these lawsuits are saying that he needs to -- this is --this is the equivalent of a Senate confirmed position. He has too much power and all of that. The fact that people are saying no to him is evidence that he, in fact, doesn't have all that much power, which could help him in some of those weird lawsuits in a counterintuitive kind of way.
HUNT: Yeah. The only other time we've seen this so far, I think, in the Trump administration was the funding freeze, right, which went out across the country and --
TAPPER: Only other time. It's only been four weeks. That's two major times.
HUNT: It's a -- it's a very good point. But I do think to John's point that they do that when they realize there's a price to pay, right? And they're clearly, I think, paying something of a price. And again, like tax refunds are supposed to go out in, what, six weeks, eight weeks?
TAPPER: John?
KING: Trumps-haustion is back. You say it's been four weeks. Look, I found it fascinating just to be with Trump voters again. They do give him broad license.
They accept a lot of things that make them cringe, because they think that he's the one who will fix the border. They think he's the one who will bring them a stronger economy. But again, I do think the question here is you've had the Republicans in Congress just essentially go mute. What do you want, sir? You jump how high?
And they're the ones on the ballot next time. And you know, again, this is it's not fair to President Trump to say, well, prices aren't down yet. It's his fault. It's only been a month, but prices aren't down yet. And you know and so that's what people are going to look for in three months and six months when you start to do it.
And if they blame the chaos, if they think he has Musk running through agencies or he's doing this, that and the other thing and not fixing the economy, securing the border, fixing the economy, securing the border. That's why they voted for him. They know a lot of other stuff comes with it, but that's what they want.
TAPPER: Yeah. Thanks one and all. Look out for Kasie's new show, "THE ARENA WITH KASIE HUNT", which debuts in this very time slot next week, one week from today, 4:00 p.m. Eastern on Monday, March 3rd.
[16:40:03]
THE LEAD is also on the move. We're going to slide an hour later, be on the air from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. eastern every weekday only here on CNN.
Coming up, the layoffs for a major brand. Why Starbucks says it needs to cut hundreds of employees from its payroll and change its menu.
But first, with the Vatican saying now about the pope and his condition in the hospital.
Stay with us.
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[16:44:31]
TAPPER: In our faith lead, the Vatican says Pope Francis is showing slight improvement, though he remains hospitalized in critical condition. It's providing little clarity on the 88-year-old pontiffs growing list of medical problems. However, statements over the weekend said that the pope had an asthmatic respiratory crisis and was showing mild signs of kidney failure.
CNN's Vatican correspondent Christopher Lamb is in Rome for us.
And, Christopher, does this afternoon's update add anything new? What are you hearing from your sources?
CHRISTOPHER LAMB, CNN VATICAN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jake, Vatican sources are saying that the pope is alert, that he's not bedridden.
[16:45:05]
He's out -- getting out of bed. He's eating normally. We had this update from the Vatican tonight to say there's been a slight improvement. We're told that he called the Catholic Parish in Gaza that he resumed some work activities.
But clearly this is still a critical condition for Pope Francis. It could go either way. And its a complex medical picture. There has been an outpouring, too, of concern for the pope, prayers and well wishes. Behind me, here in St. Peter's Square, there was a service tonight for the pope, led by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, a top Vatican official. People showing their concern and prayer for Pope Francis, not just Catholics and Muslim leader. The grand imam of Al-Azhar, the seat of Sunni Islamic learning in Cairo, Egypt. He is also praying for the pope.
It's a complex picture and were hoping for further updates from the Vatican in the coming hours -- Jake.
TAPPER: Christopher, "The New York Times" reports that in his Sunday sermon, Cardinal Timothy Dolan said something the Vatican has not that the pope probably is close to death. What is going on behind the scenes at the Vatican?
LAMB: Well, I'm not sure Cardinal Dolan has additional or privileged information. I mean, what is interesting is the Vatican in the past has been fairly opaque about the health of popes. This time, it is interesting that we are getting a detailed medical information.
And my sources are saying that that is at the direction of the pope himself. He wants the world to know as far as possible, his medical situation. And of course, it has been difficult to understand what exactly is going on, because at one point we were being told things are getting worse, and then were being told there's an improvement. But I understand, and I'm told that the pope wants people to know he doesn't want to hide the reality of his very critical and difficult health condition -- Jake.
TAPPER: All right. CNN's Christopher Lamb in Rome for us, thank you so much. Coming up, disturbing accusations coming out of Texas. A prosecutor for ICE reportedly is behind a racist, anti-immigrant social media account. We're going to get into this story next.
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TAPPER: In our national lead, the person behind a racist, anti- immigrant account on Twitter or X is reportedly a prosecutor for the federal agency Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "The Texas Observer" reports that an ICE prosecutor in the Dallas area is behind the username Glomar Responder on X. Glomar responses can either confirm or deny is that's what it means.
Among the posts on X, the user wrote last month, quote: America is a white nation founded by whites. Our country should favor us, unquote.
Back in March, she said, quote, nobody is proposing feeding migrants into tree shredders. Yet. Yet -- give it a few more weeks at this level of evasion, and that will be the moderate position, unquote.
When reached by phone, the individual identified by "The Texas Observer" instructed CNN to speak with ICE public affairs. In response to CNN, the ICE spokesperson said, quote, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will not comment on the substance of this pending further investigation to include whether the owner of the referenced X account is a current employee. Notwithstanding, ICE holds employees to the highest standards of professionalism and takes seriously all allegations of inappropriate conduct, unquote.
Let's bring in "The Texas Observer's" Steven Monacelli.
Steven, remarkable reporting. How did you first connect this anonymous racist X account to a prosecutor for ICE?
STEVEN MONACELLI, SPECIAL INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT, THE TEXAS OBSERVER: Thanks for having me, Jake.
The big break in the story for me and my research partner, Kyle Fallon (ph), I think was a series of tweets that this account had made regarding their displeasure with the dismissal of a federal lawsuit against the federal government by federal workers regarding the COVID- 19 vaccination mandate. And this individual had even posted saying that they were party to that lawsuit, to a lawsuit in which they had to prove that they had a natural COVID immunity after getting COVID. And that provided us with a very narrow list of names from which we could then compare a large number of details that had been gleaned from the posts made by this account, Jake.
TAPPER: I would wonder if immigration attorneys who are prosecuting the government, prosecuting ICE or whatever might find evidence in these social media posts to challenge anything that this ICE prosecutor has done. Is there concern from immigration attorneys on either side of the -- of the partisan line here, or the political line here on this individual sending out these offensive tweets?
MONACELLI: Yes, I have been contacted by lawyers, immigration lawyers, both from Texas and other states, bringing up the point that, uh, this sort of behavior could raise questions about any case that this individual had been a prosecuting attorney on in immigration court due to potential allegations of bias and prejudice as it relates to their work.
And so I can tell you for a fact that at least one lawyer well, I can confirm that one lawyer has submitted a complaint to the D.C. bar, or this individual holds their license. And I have been told informally by other lawyers they have also submitted complaints to the D.C. bar, as well as to ICE directly.
TAPPER: Based on your reporting and the statement that ice gave us, it does appear this person is still working for ICE, right?
MONACELLI: As far as I can tell, that is true. I can say that their name appeared on a schedule that the office of the principal legal advisor releases, that shows where their attorneys will be -- which immigration courtrooms they'll be in every week.
[16:55:01]
And I can say that I've been told that at least one person at the federal courthouse saw this individual today there. I have not received any additional information from ICE. They have provided no further comment. But what I can say is that three congressmen have shared letters with me that call upon DHS and ICE leadership to conduct an immediate investigation into the findings of our report.
TAPPER: Steven Monacelli, thank you so much. Fascinating report there in "The Texas Observer". CNN has not independently verified "The Texas Observer's" reporting, identifying this individual behind the exit count. Thanks so much.
The confusing situation for federal employees is changing even more. In the last hour alone, the Office of Personnel Management said that. Explain what you did last week. Email is now voluntary.
Plus, the Justice Department is unable to say exactly who leads the Department of Government Efficiency where all these are orders are apparently originating from. We'll have all the latest on this next.
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