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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Elon Musk Dominates First Trump Cabinet Meeting; Musk: Trump Told Me To Be "More Aggressive" In Federal Cuts; Texas Reports First Measles Death As Cases Spread Rapidly; New Strategy To Combat Bird Flu, Lower Egg Prices; Supreme Court Signals It Will Make It Easier For Americans To File "Reverse" Discrimination Lawsuits; Hamas Expected To Release Bodies Of 4 Israeli Hostages. Aired 4-5p ET

Aired February 26, 2025 - 16:00   ET

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

[16:00:01]

JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: But, yeah. No, that's -- yeah, it's very gold. They will serve their time. No justice for the toilet.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: I do wonder what kind of cleaning solution is used for this sort of toilet. Because you have to think that, like Clorox wipes and the stuff you use to clean your toilet at home, it will probably degrade the precious metal, right?

DEAN: But tarnish -- you don't want to tarnish it.

SANCHEZ: Yeah.

DEAN: That would be sad.

SANCHEZ: Yeah, you got to polish it.

DEAN: Oh, man.

SANCHEZ: We did a good job filling up that minute of extra time that.

DEAN: We did. We're here for you on the gold toilet.

SANCHEZ: Thanks for joining us this afternoon, Jessica.

DEAN: Thanks for having me.

SANCHEZ: THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER starts right now.

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JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: President Trump says some members of his cabinet disagreed with Elon Musk. I wonder who.

THE LEAD starts right now.

The very first cabinet meeting of Trump's second term and a starring performance for Elon Musk, the richest man in the world. What the tech billionaire revealed about the president telling him to be more aggressive, and the president himself hinting at a clash among his cabinet.

Plus, the first death stemming from that measles outbreak in west Texas. A young child has died. Should you be worried about this highly contagious disease coming to a neighborhood near you?

And an international hunt for a woman accused of killing her wife and then crossing the border into Mexico. How her guilty plea in a different killing 20 years ago is now getting more attention.

(MUSIC)

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

And we start in our politics lead today with President Trump sharing the stage with first buddy Elon Musk during the first cabinet meeting. This meeting comes as Musk, the head of the Department of Government Efficiency, is pushing more mass layoffs across almost every federal government agency and facing some controversy for sending an email, asking all federal workers to list five things they accomplished in the previous week.

The president cracking a joke with the cabinet about Musk dominating the meeting and then asking if anybody was unhappy with Musk's work.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And, Elon, let the cabinet speak just for a second.

ELON MUSK, TECH BILLIONAIRE: Yeah, exactly.

TRUMP: Is anybody unhappy with Elon? If you are, we'll throw him out of here.

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: Is anybody unhappy?

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Musk later explaining a bit about that controversial email, clarifying he did not intend it to be seen as a performance review.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MUSK: I think that email perhaps was misinterpreted as a performance review, but actually it was a pulse check review. Do you have a pulse? Do you have a pulse and two neurons?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: This all comes as the Trump administration showing no signs of slowing its efforts to reduce the federal workforce. Rather, the Office of Management and Budget is issuing a new memo telling agencies how to conduct additional mass firings and reclassifying potentially thousands of top career positions to political appointee roles, which would theoretically increase the number of workers who would be seen as loyal to president Trump and his agenda.

We're going to start with CNN's Jeff Zeleny at the White House.

And, Jeff, a lot to unpack from that meeting.

Plus, were learning some new details from Chief of Staff Susie Wiles about how Trump and Musk work together.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jake, some cabinet secretaries, were told, came to this first cabinet meeting prepared to make remarks. Most of them sat in silence as the president welcomed Elon Musk in to describe his new DOGE effort. That really has caused so much consternation and confusion across the government. But the president made clear from the opening moments of the meeting that he was squarely behind Elon Musk. There was no question about that.

He was essentially holding court. He was not at the table. He was at the side by the advisers, but he was treated as a first among equals here. But throughout this more than an hour long session, as the president was asked question after question, most of the cabinet members sat in silence. It was 56 minutes into the meeting before the vice president spoke up.

But later it became clear as Republican senators on Capitol Hill were having a lunch with the White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles, they raised some concerns to her just explaining the structure of Elon Musk. How is this all working? Of course, they have heard from constituents about concerns over the freeze in programs and the layoffs in federal agencies.

And Susie Wiles made clear to senators that Elon Musk works for the president, not the cabinet secretaries. So, so, Jake, that pecking order was very clear, expressed by the White House chief of staff. She was also sitting at the table, but she too was silent today, Jake.

TAPPER: And President Trump was also asked about his negotiations with Russian -- Russian President Vladimir Putin about ending his assault on Ukraine. What did he have to say?

ZELENY: He was. Of course, we've seen this a relationship really a flourish in the last couple of weeks. He met with him six times. The first time he was president. But the president was asked directly what it's like doing business with Putin.

[16:05:05]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: He's a very smart guy. He's a very cunning person. But I've dealt with some people that -- I've dealt with some really bad people. But I will tell you as far as this is concerned, we've -- you have to understand he was -- he had no intention, in my opinion, of settling this war. I think he wanted the whole thing. When I got elected, we spoke, and I think we're going to have a deal.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENY: So kind words there. Certainly dictator did not come across the president's lips as he described what it's like to work with Vladimir Putin. But the president did say that he expects to welcome Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy here to Washington on Friday if that deal does get worked out, Jake.

TAPPER: All right. Jeff Zeleny, thanks so much.

Last week, we told you that there was going to be a phase two of these mass layoffs of federal employees. Today, we are seeing the Trump administration take its first step towards that phase two, with the office of management and budget issuing a memo instructing agencies on how to handle these new firings while also converting potentially thousands of top career roles to politically appointed positions.

CNN's Rene Marsh is with me.

And, Rene, what exactly does this memo lay out?

RENE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jake, these are two different memos, two directives with the goal, again, of shrinking the federal workforce and ensuring that the people who do work at these agencies are loyal to Trump's policy agenda. Now, the first one walks agencies through how to prepare for so-called large scale terminations, which the president nodded to today at this cabinet meeting, when he said that the EPA would be cutting 65 percent of its staff and that they were going to speed up the process of firings.

Now, the OPM today instructed agencies to submit lists of agency divisions and employees who are not considered essential during the government shutdown and also for divisions and agencies that are considered essential. But they need to have a plan for how to reduce the staff there.

Now, OPM is also asking agencies to come up with talking points and strong arguments to convince Congress to agree with the major restructuring efforts that they are proposing at these agencies. And the deadline for all of this work is just two weeks from now. And while all of that is happening, the Trump administration is also making moves to ensure that more people who are on staff at these agencies actually agree with his policies. In this second memo to agencies this week, it instructed them to begin the process of reclassifying senior top career political positions, senior top career positions as politically appointed positions, positions that would be appointed by the president.

We do know that by law, and according to this memo, at least 3,500 career positions must exist government wide.

But Jake, there are roughly more than 8000 career roles, so that could mean thousands of jobs across the government could be changed to politically appointed positions, positions not usually held by political appointees. And the reason for that is so that the agency's work is not impeded

when the administration changes from every four years. So, again, there is some concern about that. But two major things happening on the agency level, Jake.

TAPPER: All right. Rene Marsh, thanks so much.

Let's bring in the brand new secretary of energy, Chris Wright, who was sitting at the table in that cabinet meeting at the White House.

Secretary Wright, thanks for joining us.

I have questions about energy in one second. But I do want to ask you just about the dynamics of that interesting cabinet meeting, because Elon Musk didn't actually sit at the table. He kind of towered over it. He essentially led the meeting for parts of it.

How -- how is that for the cabinet secretaries? Are you guys okay with Elon Musk providing direction?

CHRIS WRIGHT, ENERGY SECRETARY: Oh, Elon Musk and President Trump are working together with all of us in the cabinet to figure out how to run Americas government, more like Americas business, efficient, better services, better delivery, more efficiently done.

And, Jake, I should also chime in. What you saw was the press conference at the start of the cabinet meeting, not the actual cabinet meeting that started after all the press left. There was a wide ranging dialogue around the table from the cabinet members, the president and the vice president.

TAPPER: Good note, good note. Appreciate it.

Let's talk about your energy agenda. Your background is in fracking. So you are obviously for the continued production of export and export of coal, oil and gas. You have visited two national labs in New Mexico this week to push for the use of nuclear energy as a reliable and affordable source of power. You also want the tech sector using that energy to become a leading force in the development of artificial intelligence.

DOGE has obviously initiated the reduction of the federal workforce, including at the Department of Energy. How are you going to be able to do all of this with so many cuts happening at your agency and others?

[16:10:04]

WRIGHT: Oh, I don't think we'll be impaired at all. The last administration, President Biden, grew the DOE workforce by 20 percent in his four years there. Energy prices went up. Opportunities for Americans went down. We made appliances more expensive and lower performance. So it's not -- the output isn't directly related to per person. We're going to do sensible common sense regulations to drive innovation, increase energy prices, expand choice and opportunity for Americans, and drive down prices.

And I'd love to elaborate on the lab trips as well, if you got time for that.

TAPPER: Yeah, tell us about that because that's interesting. Is there going to be a real push for more nuclear energy in this administration?

WRIGHT: Absolutely.

TAPPER: We want to launch the American nuclear renaissance in this administration. But I was at the two largest national labs. First, Los Alamos, that is the birthplace of Americas national lab system. And that was the headquarters of the Manhattan Project. We're in a rushed effort. We developed an atomic bomb in a race against Nazi Germany. We won that race, helping bring the war to a conclusion and setting us up to win the cold war.

The next Manhattan Project is A.I. We need to lead and win that race as well. The consequences are equally dire if we fall behind in this race, and it's going to take a lot of energy, a lot of intelligence, a lot of investment, a lot of innovation, a lot of American spirit.

TAPPER: Yeah, I mean, it does take a lot of energy. And I know that there are individual areas of the country that are reluctant to allow these new power centers to fuel up to fuel A.I., and the A.I. demand that's coming. How are you going to resolve that?

WRIGHT: Yeah, I think Americans are rightfully concerned. In the last four years, electricity prices went up over 20 percent with hardly any demand growth. Now we have rapid demand growth with A.I. and reshoring of manufacturing coming online. Americans are rightfully worried about what's going to happen to our electricity prices during that.

So we are working fervently to grow this supply of electricity at least as fast and hopefully faster than the demand, so that we can accommodate A.I. and the reshoring of manufacturing without any further increases in electricity prices. I think we can do it.

TAPPER: I know that you said that the department of energy grew 20 percent in the last administration, the Biden administration, but still, there must be concerns within the Department of Energy about these cuts.

What is the feeling? How is morale in the agency? I believe that your agency was one of the few that told employees they did not have to reply to that email, justifying their -- their employment and citing five things that they did in the previous week.

WRIGHT: Yeah, all the agencies are different. But look, the nuclear stockpile of our weapons, what powers our submarines and our aircraft carriers, that's all in the department of energy, as is our basic scientific research. So, it's just very different purview for all the different agencies. And they're all going to do their own approach and their own method.

DOGE is like consultants. They're like auditors coming into your business to gather data, identify trends for you. And then each secretary is going to use that information differently to make their department leaner, but more efficient and higher output.

TAPPER: There's something I wanted to ask you about. And it's not -- it's not a Department of Energy regulation, but -- but it is relevant to what you do, which is there are reports that the General Services Administration is shutting down 8,000 electric vehicle chargers on federal properties and deleting websites about electric vehicle efforts.

Does that make sense to you to reduce the number of electric vehicles? I understand that the administration doesn't want to force electric -- electric vehicles, the Trump administration. But there are still a lot of people out there who use them, and it is part of the future of energy in this country.

WRIGHT: Oh, absolutely. Jake. Yeah, this administration is about more choice, more, more empowerment of American citizens. We have nothing against electric cars. Every American that wants an electric car should buy one. And they are.

But today, most electric cars are bought by well-off individuals, and it's not fair to have all Americans subsidize wealthy people to buy electric cars. We just want to make it a level playing field. But we have nothing against and have no plans to stand in the way of the growth of electric vehicles or any other novel idea American entrepreneurs have. I'm all for it.

TAPPER: Energy Secretary Chris Wright, thanks for joining us. We appreciate it.

WRIGHT: Thanks. Thank you, Jake.

TAPPER: When Elon Musk spoke today, he revealed a key conversation he had with President Trump and their pressure that they're putting on federal employees this week to justify their jobs in an email. We're going to play that in a moment.

Plus, a new plan from the Trump administration to battle bird flu, us also to battle the skyrocketing cost of eggs up 50 percent this year.

And the workplace discrimination lawsuit before the U.S. Supreme Court involving a woman who says she was passed over for a promotion because of her sexual orientation, because she's straight. We'll get into the debate behind this case.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:18:54]

TAPPER: We're back with more on politics. Elon Musk dominating the public part of President Trump's first cabinet meeting today. I want to play this moment where Mr. Musk discussed the mass firings of federal workers happening across federal agencies.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MUSK: Last week, the president encouraged me via Truth Social and also via phone call, to be more aggressive. And I was like, okay, you know. Yes, sir, Mr. President, we will indeed do that.

The president is the commander in chief. I do what the president asks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: With us now, CNN political commentator, co-founder and editor in chief of "The Dispatch", Jonah Goldberg, also with us, CNN's Kasie Hunt, who's going to anchor a brand new show starting next Monday, March 3rd, right in this time slot, "THE ARENA WITH KASIE HUNT", 4:00 p.m. Eastern. THE LEAD is going to slide one hour later to the 5:00 hour.

So, Kasie, you just heard Elon Musk say the president told him to be, quote, more aggressive. Also, making it very clear that the president is in charge, not Mr. Musk. But -- but how do you think the other cabinet officials felt watching all that?

KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST, THE ARENA WITH KASIE HUNT: The salute was really -- was really a touch there from Elon Musk.

I mean, I think you could see some of the tension on display in the room, right?

[16:20:04]

I mean, some of the -- the questions and answers some of the ways in which they reacted to him made clear that they're not on the same page here. I mean, it was a subdued but very clear dynamic I think. I think it's going to be up to each one of these individual cabinet officials.

I mean, your conversation with the energy secretary was interesting. I mean, they have nowhere near the public platform that Elon Musk has. And we all know how Donald Trump evaluates someone's ability to get things done. It's just as much about what you can do in front of a camera as it is your actual actions.

TAPPER: And yet, when I asked the energy secretary about the fact that his agency told its employees they didn't have to respond to that, tell us five things you did last week. He kind of just blew it off and moved on. He was praising Elon Musk, et cetera.

JONAH GOLDBERG, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah. Well, I mean, that's -- that's the order of the day. I mean, there was at one point in the cabinet thing where he kind of taunted people to have a criticism of Musk just so he could slap it down. And no one really took that bait because they're smart about it.

Look, this -- this gets at the -- first of all, just a very minor constitutional nitpick. He says that Trump is my commander in chief in that little clip.

TAPPER: Yeah. GOLDBERG: Trump is -- the president of the United States is not the

commander in chief of anybody except people in the uniform military, right? He's not my commander in chief. Nor was Biden, nor is any president.

Anyway. Be that as it may --

TAPPER: He's new to our country, Jonah.

GOLDBERG: That said, the problem is, is that Trump and MAGA world generally likes the performative stuff more than the substantive stuff. And so long as that's the dynamic, the drama of all of this stuff is going to be more important than the nitty-gritty of actually getting the policy stuff right. And that's the dilemma that the cabinet people are in, is they have to stay on the right side of all this performative stuff. Well, actually like figuring out how to actually govern. And that's a real tension.

TAPPER: So also, Kasie, take a listen to this exchange from the public part of the cabinet meeting.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: Is it your view of your authority that you have the power to call up any one of, or all of the people seated at this table and issue orders that they're bound to follow?

TRUMP: Oh, yeah, they'll follow the orders. Yes, they will.

REPORTER: No exceptions.

TRUMP: No exceptions. Well, let's see, let me think.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. She'll have an exception.

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: Of course. No exceptions. You know that.

(END VIDEO CLPI)

TAPPER: I don't really understand the question either, to be honest.

He is the president.

HUNT: He is the president of the United States. It is his cabinet. There are sure, though I'm sure, instances where he may call them and ask them to do or could, I should say he could call and ask them to do something that would be contrary to a law that Congress has passed. But what the agency is supposed to do, and I think it's clear there that he didn't seem to have any qualms about that idea.

We don't really know what the scope of that could be, but that's part of why there was so much concern about who was going to be the -- the defense secretary, right, who was going to be the chairman of the joint chiefs because so many questions. I mean, on January 6th, there were so many questions about the chain of command, about what kind of orders were being given, about what the president was doing or not doing, and those officials and what they do in response to what the president says is a huge question.

I mean, you saw it in, you know, books and other writings. Just call up Mark Esper or John Kelly, who I know you've done a ton of reporting with and about the potential consequences of what he said. There are -- are not nothing.

TAPPER: You know, you talked about how the performative part, the in front of the cameras, the TV show is so much more important to some part of some parts of MAGA world.

And we've seen these firings, they fired, you know, pandemic investigators and then rehired them, nuclear weapons experts and rehired them, people that work on the veterans crisis hotline rehired them on and on and on.

Elon Musk actually addressed this during the cabinet meeting. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MUSK: We will make mistakes. We wont be perfect. But when we make a mistake, we'll fix it very quickly. So, for example, with USAID, one of the things we accidentally canceled very briefly was Ebola -- Ebola prevention. I think we all want Ebola prevention. So we restored the Ebola prevention immediately, and there was no interruption.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: I mean, kudos for acknowledging the mistake, but how about just having a process?

GOLDBERG: Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. Like, I think its actually a sign of progress that cabinet secretaries in the OPM are now saying, let's have an actual system here, how were going to, you know, do layoffs and downsize the federal workforce.

The problem with the performative approach to this, or as, as Musk describes it, is there's -- there's a lot of stuff as a conservative, I'm directionally fine with. But some of the -- it's -- it's like playing Jenga, right? Its like, oh, I pulled out that thing. Nothing bad happened. It's fine, right?

Eventually, you can pull out some piece that causes -- has really big, real world, real world ramifications or could at the FAA, who knows where?

[16:25:05]

And that's the political Russian roulette that's going on here, is waiting to see if they actually accidentally fire people that can't be fired. There are a lot of people who can be fired without toppling the Jenga thing, but every now and then you could run into somebody at some place where the political ramifications, the real world ramifications, will swamp or could swamp the performative stuff.

TAPPER: There's also, I think, something to be said about people who are experts. There are people who serve in the government because they're lazy, and they're stupid, and they can't get a job anywhere else, whatever. Of course, like in a lot of places.

There are a lot of people in the government who are really good at what they do and are serving out of a sense of patriotism, trying to help the country, and we don't want to chase them out of the public sector if they're doing vital work.

HUNT: If they're doing vital work. And, Jake, I would also underscore and I was talking to some sources today about this, there are elements to our government that drive the competitiveness that we have with other countries around the world, especially China. And this is one area in terms of health research, much of which, honestly, can -- can sometimes be applied to our armed forces and other things. The Chips Act, right, where we're trying to compete with China with these very advanced microchips there in the Commerce Department today looking at that.

And people that have been working there are very concerned about keeping up with China in terms of how standards are being set for these chips, for how A.I. is used. And there's a lot of discussion about whether DOGE is going to come in and fire all those people.

I mean, I do think there are some really big picture ramifications here that, as you noted, as Elon Musk noted, well, they're making mistakes. They're going to have to fix them. But if all these people have to clarify why they should exist, some of it's too complicated for a single sound bite like Ebola.

TAPPER: Yeah. Look, I've made plenty of mistakes in my life. Ive never made one involving Ebola prevention. I mean, so that's at least I got that going for me.

Kasie Hunt, Jonah Goldberg, thanks to both of you.

We're getting closer to the launch of Kasie's new show. It's called "THE ARENA".

Look at that. Look at that. Oh, we got a graphic. It's nice. "THE ARENA WITH KASIE HUNT".

She's looking off thoughtfully and wistfully. Debuts in this time slot, 4:00 p.m. Eastern, next Monday, March 3rd.

And THE LEAD is going to slide one hour later. We'll be on the air from five -- less wistful in that picture. I'll be on the air from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. Eastern every weekday right here on CNN.

Coming up, the very first death related to that measles outbreak in west Texas, a child, amid the alarming increase in cases.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:31:56]

TAPPER: We have some troubling news topping our health lead today. The Texas Health Department today reported the first death in the ongoing measles outbreak in West Texas. As of Tuesday, the number of cases had more than doubled in the space of just one week. It now stands at 124.

CNN's Meg Tirrell is keeping track of the developments.

Meg, what do we know about this poor victim who died?

MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Jake, we were just hearing a press conference from officials in Texas who are facing this outbreak right now. And, you know, they expressed surprise that they saw a death so early on in this outbreak. But it was a school aged child who was unvaccinated and who had been hospitalized. Those were all the details they were giving at this point.

As you said, now this outbreak has spread to 124 cases in those west Texas counties. We know of nine more in New Mexico, 18 hospitalizations in Texas. And this first death, which is the first death from measles in the United States since 2015. So in a decade.

And now we know that the county, Gaines County, where this is really centered, has a lower vaccination rate than many in Texas. And its important to emphasize, as the health officials in Texas are now, that the MMR vaccine, measles, mumps, rubella is incredibly effective, 97 percent with two doses and it is safe.

And measles can be a dangerous disease. So if you look at 10,000 children who will face measles infection, estimates show that 2,000 of them will be hospitalized and 10 to 30 children of those, 10,000 will die from measles. From the MMR vaccine, the estimates are that three children may experience seizures related to fever, and less than one will have an allergic reaction or a blood clot, Jake.

So it's really important they're emphasizing vaccination can prevent measles.

TAPPER: Earlier today, we heard from the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, RFK Jr., on this measles outbreak. Take a listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT F. KENNEDY, JR., HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY: There have been four measles outbreaks this year in this country. Last year, there were 16. So it's not unusual. We have measles outbreaks every year.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: What do you make of that? TIRRELL: It is unusual what we're seeing right now, Jake. Measles was

eliminated from the U.S. in 2000. And though we do see every year at least a few dozen cases, right now, what we're seeing, as we said, is the first death in ten years. So this is unusual.

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

Also on our health lead, the Trump administration is spearheading a new approach to trying to contain bird flu, which is behind the skyrocketing cost of eggs. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins unveiled a five part strategy today in a "Wall Street Journal" op-ed.

CNN business senior writer Allison Morrow joins us now from New York.

Alison, tell us more about this plan.

ALLISON MORROW, CNN BUSINESS SENIOR WRITER: Thanks, Jake.

Yeah. This agflation that we've all been dealing with is not new, and it's not going to go away overnight. But the government did roll out $1 billion, five-point plan, as you noted. And I'll just run through some of the highlights of it right now.

Number one is biosecurity. And this is just a fancy term for making sure that farms are following proper protocols to prevent the virus from hitting their flocks in the first place.

Secondly, there is $400 million earmarked for financial relief for farmers.

[16:35:06]

We're talking about potentially vaccinating chickens. Now, that's a kind of controversial option, in part because it doesn't have 100 percent buy in from the poultry industry. So that's a wait and see.

Number four, we're going to ease regulation on egg producers, which naturally helps boost supplies. And then further importing eggs from places like Canada and Turkey, which will help fill grocery shelves more immediately. So we're not walking in and seeing just emptiness.

But zooming out on all of this, the bottom line here is that there's not one thing that's going to fix high prices. We've seen bird flu before, and it sometimes just takes time.

TAPPER: How quickly might this bring down egg prices? Is the summer a realistic U.S. landmark?

MORROW: I wish I could say yes. Unfortunately, this does take time. We've seen with bird flu in the past the only real way to bring prices down is to fully contain the virus. And you know, with all of these efforts, this is just to stabilize the market. And we could see that happen by the summer. So the -- the rise may slow down, but we may see these record high prices go even higher before they come down.

TAPPER: All right. Allison Morrow with our business unit, thanks so much.

A woman in Ohio claims that her boss, who is gay, passed her up for a promotion because she is straight. Her lawsuit made it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court today. We'll tell you about that. And today, we may have gotten some hints at how the justices may decide this one. We're going to dive into the case next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:41:02]

TAPPER: Our law and justice lead now, the U.S. Supreme Court this morning heard arguments in a case that could reshape workplace discrimination law. At the center of it, a straight white woman who claims that she was passed over for a promotion because of her sexual orientation.

Marlene Ames says her gay boss favored less qualified LGBTQ colleagues, but lower courts threw out her suit, citing a higher legal bar for workers who are in majority groups, such as white people or straight people. Now, the high court indicated that it could make it easier for those majority groups to bring discrimination claims. It's a ruling in the comes, of course, amid a political backlash against diversity programs led by president Trump.

At our table right now, CNN chief legal affairs correspondent Paula Reid and former federal prosecutor Elliot Williams.

And, Paula, tell us about the arguments and some of the sticking points.

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, what's really interesting today is we saw something rare and that is unity across the bench.

I mean, it appears pretty clear that Ames is likely to win this suit, and it could even be a unanimous verdict because he or she is challenging this standard, the additional evidence that members of a minority group. So, as a white woman, as a heterosexual, she is considered a majority individual that they have to provide in lawsuits that are brought in at least five different circuits.

Now, this additional evidence could be in the form of statistics showing a pattern of discrimination against members of the majority. This is not something that members of the minority have to do. The philosophy behind this, though, was it was more likely that you were going to be discriminated against if you were a minority. But the justices appeared very skeptical of this two tiered system, including Justice Sotomayor. Lets take a listen to how she pressed lawyers from Ohio.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

JUSTICE SONIA SOTOMAYOR, U.S. SUPREME COURT: Judge Kethledge basically said, you have a situation here where she alleged she was a member of the majority group. She was 20 years her employee. Great reviews. And then all of a sudden, she's not hired. And someone is hired who's gay, doesn't have her level of college experience and didn't even want the job. It's -- something suspicious about that. It certainly can give rise to an inference of discrimination.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

REID: And we heard that kind of skepticism across the political spectrum. In fact, Justice Gorsuch quipped at one point, he said, we are in radical agreement today.

TAPPER: Interesting.

Elliot, from a legal perspective, if the U.S. Supreme Court does rule in favor of Ames --

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yeah.

TAPPER: -- the straight woman who claims she was discriminated against by a gay boss, how might that alter the landscape of discrimination law?

WILLIAMS: So the bar would be a little bit lower in these five circuits around the country that Paula had noted that sort of put this additional requirement on majority groups seeking to sue. Now, the challenge here, and this is sort of the broader question, what constitutes discrimination?

Many people are forthright about saying that even a hiring program for interns that considers historically Black colleges might be a form of discrimination. So there is a concern that some have raised that this would sort of open the floodgates for more lawsuits.

But again, the unanimity on the court made clear this is somewhat of a no brainer.

TAPPER: And, Paula, the case is unfolding, obviously in the middle of Donald Trump trying to get rid of DEI policies, not only in the federal government, but exerting pressure on private companies to get rid of DEI programs. So is this part of a broader cultural fight?

REID: Absolutely. And in order to win the political fight, whichever side you're on, it helps to have legal opinions in your favor. And the issue here is that the federal law doesn't say you have to have this, this different standard. The Supreme Court has never said it. So if they can get a Supreme Court precedent knocking this down that would be significant. But we know that fighting diversity equity and inclusion, that is a priority for the Trump Justice Department.

In fact, just minutes ago, the attorney general, Pam Bondi, just announced that they're going to dismiss lawsuits against various police departments and fire departments that have been sued over different tests and standards they have imposed.

[16:45:05]

Even though there's no discriminatory intent, there have been statistical disparities in terms of how people perform on those tests. There've been a lot of questions about that. She says that she wants all of these dismissed.

This is just another example of how they're pushing back against DEI efforts.

TAPPER: So correct me if I'm wrong, though. Okay. But so the U.S. Supreme Court, they're not going to like, award her a penalty, right, or award her boss a penalty if they side with. They're just going to say, you can't have that different standard for people in the majority group.

So what happens? It goes back to the first court.

WILLIAMS: Right, it would just go -- it would just go back down. And you know, and this broader question of and the NAACP legal defense fund said in their they filed an amicus brief here saying, look, we can acknowledge that minority groups suffer more or face more discrimination. Now, it's not clear what the standard ought to be for working through that.

Clearly, it seems that these five circuits across the country got that wrong. And the Supreme Court might possibly unanimously find that way. But no, it will just go back down for more -- for more proceedings. It's not clear that she's going to win, even if she does sue again.

TAPPER: Oh, interesting. So it's not really about whether she was discriminated against. It's about whether or not there should be a higher standard for people in the majority.

WILLIAMS: It's just like all process and wonky lawyer stuff. Not as much.

TAPPER: Does it go back to whatever that first courtroom was?

WILLIAMS: It would be the district court.

TAPPER: The district court. Very interesting.

All right. Paula Reid, Elliot Williams, thanks so much.

Some breaking news from Israel where busses are standing by. The terrorist group Hamas is expected to release the bodies of four more murdered hostages.

Plus, an overwhelming memorial for the Bibas boys, the children who were murdered by Hamas and their mother, Shiri. Hear the heartbreaking words today from the father and husband.

We're back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:51:11]

TAPPER: Breaking in our world lead. Busses have moved in places. Israel gets ready to receive the remains of four hostages, kidnapped and then killed by the terrorist group Hamas. Their bodies coming back home, more than 509 days after they were kidnapped.

Earlier, we saw thousands of mourners lining the streets of Israel ahead of the funeral for Shiri Bibas and her two very young sons, Kfir and Ariel, also kidnapped and brutally murdered by Hamas.

CNN's Jeremy Diamond reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): His voice trembling with emotion, Yarden Bibas summons what strength he has left to say one final goodbye. His wife Shiri, and their two children, Kfir and Ariel, are finally being laid to rest, 16 months after they were all abducted from their home near the Gaza border.

(SPEAKING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

DIAMOND: Apricot, Yarden says, calling his wife by her pet name, who will help me make decisions without you. Do you remember our last decision together in the safe room? I asked if we should fight or surrender. You said fight, so I fought. Shiri, I'm sorry -- I couldn't protect you all.

Yarden was also taken hostage on October 7th, but held separately. Now, just weeks after regaining his freedom, heartbreak.

I'm sure you're making all the angels laugh with your silly jokes and impressions, he says to his eldest, Ariel. I hope there are plenty of butterflies for you to watch, just like you did during our picnics.

I'm sorry I didn't protect you better, but I need you to know that I love you deeply and miss you terribly. I miss nibbling on you and hearing your laughter.

Yarden Bibas is not alone in his grief. An entire nation joined in mourning the deaths of the youngest Israeli hostages and their mother, who came to symbolize the horrors of October 7th. Their bodies carried to their final resting place in a single casket, surrounded by Israeli flags and the orange balloons evoking those red headed babies.

Thousands of Israelis have been lining this entire procession, as we now see these vans coming through, carrying the bodies of Kfir, Ariel and Shiri Bibas, their mother.

As Shiri, Kfir, and Ariel are laid to rest, their family are not done asking questions.

(SPEAKING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

DIAMOND: Our disaster as a nation and as a family should not have happened and must never, ever happen again, the voice of aunt Ofri says, they could have saved you, but preferred revenge. We lost our image of triumph will never happen.

As one hostage family buries their loved ones. Another reuniting after 491 days of captivity, Or Levy is back in his brothers arms.

MICHAEL LEVY, BROTHER OF OR LEVY: He's getting stronger. He's finally eating.

DIAMOND: His brother Michael, now sharing what he has learned about why he emerged emaciated from Hamas captivity.

LEVY: They were intentionally starved. It's as simple as that. And they're -- the terrorists next to them ate all the time. They ate next to them.

DIAMOND: Really?

LEVY: Yeah.

DIAMOND: Next to them.

LEVY: Next to them. They even laughed when they saw them looking.

DIAMOND: So their captors were eating full meals.

LEVY: Full meals.

DIAMOND: And what were they getting?

LEVY: Chicken, meat. They had everything. They were getting nothing.

DIAMOND: Those conditions now driving both brothers to push for the urgent release of the remaining hostages.

LEVY: It is right now concentrated in on two things. One is Almog, his son, getting back to being a father.

[16:55:05]

The second is to bring back all the hostages.

DIAMOND: Jeremy Diamond, CNN, Tel Aviv.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: And our thanks to Jeremy Diamond for that report.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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

This hour, an international hunt is on for an American woman accused of killing her wife before fleeing the United States. What surveillance video reveals about the moments before the alleged murder.

Plus, national security chat rooms allegedly used to send sexually explicit messages. And now the new director of national intelligence says more than 100 people in these spy agencies will be fired over, quote, really horrific behavior, unquote.

And leading --