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Vance Criticizes European Allies at Munich Security Conference; Sources Say, Top DOGE Aide Visits IRS; Purge Widens, Thousands of Federal Probationary Employees Terminated. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired February 14, 2025 - 10:00   ET

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

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PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Vance slams Europe on free speech and mass migration. The vice president just wrapped up his speech in Munich, listing a myriad of grievances, scolding European leaders on their quote threat from within, and joking about Elon Musk.

Plus, Doge and the IRS, mind you, reporting about who got access and what they did there.

And then later, the future of the Department of Education in question this morning. We're answering your questions about your student loans, your federal student aid, and your information.

Good morning. You are live in the CNN Newsroom. I'm Pamela Brown in Washington.

And we begin in Munich where Vice President J.D. Vance just wrapped up a contentious speech, frankly. I mean, he's reprimanding some European nations in front of those very nations. Take a listen.

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J.D. VANCE, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: The threat that I worry the most about vis-a-vis Europe is not Russia, it's not China. It's not any other external actor. And what I worry about is the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values shared with the United States of America. If you're running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you nor for that matter, is there anything that you can do for the American people who elected me and elected President Trump.

And of all the pressings, challenges, that the nations represented here face, I believe there is nothing more urgent than mass migration. It's a terrible story, but it's one we've heard way too many times in Europe and unfortunately too many times in the United States as well. An asylum seeker, often a young man in his mid-20s, already known to police, rams a car into a crowd and shatters a community. How many times must we suffer these appalling setbacks before we change course and take our shared civilization in a new direction? No voter on this continent went to the ballot box to open the floodgates to millions of unvetted immigrants. Trust me, I say this with all humor, if American Democracy can survive ten years of Greta Thunberg's scolding, you guys can survive a few months of Elon Musk.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Join us now with CNN Chief International Security Correspondent Nick Paton Walsh, CNN Senior International Correspondent Fred Pleitgen, and CNN Military Analyst and Retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton. Thank you all for being here.

Nick, to kick it off with you, so Vice President Vance is making his debut here on the international stage, and his comments sounded, frankly, a lot like what we heard during the U.S. presidential campaign railing against illegal immigration and what Vance claims are attacks on free speech and the free will of voters. How do you think his European counterparts viewed this?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, to be honest, it sounded like he was talking about Russia when he addressed the European allies of the United States, talking about them jailing opponents, talking about their desire to see elections interfered with, a bizarre litany of complaints about culture wars and very much a reinterpretation of freedom of speech, which has many laws attached to it in the United Kingdom and around Europe to prevent it turning into hate speech and extremism.

But he was railing very much there against some parts of law changes, of protections put across Europe to protect minorities, not even really dog whistling when it came to xenophobia about migration, non- European migration into Europe. Yes, that has skyrocketed. Yes, that has changed the electorate's view on that issue as well, but that's not something that isn't manifesting itself at the polls.

And I found it very odd for him to be sowing the doubts in the minds of his audience. I think a large number of whom will just not really understand what he's talking about, but sowing the doubts in the audience that potentially wants to agree with him at the idea that elections somehow in Europe aren't free and fair.

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For the most part, they wildly are.

And the case he brought up about Romania is to do with election being rerun because its own judicial system said the Russians had got too involved in feeding misinformation and distorting the playing field.

So, a very odd speech, I think, I would say, and one that shows how far from its European allies this Trump administration is culturally and in terms of its policies.

BROWN: Cedric, to go to you on this, you know, he tried to defend free speech in that in his speech. You know, we were talking about how it's more complicated that given the history there. And you talked about the Romanian elections and you know a lot about that. Tell us why you think he didn't really hit the mark on that.

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes, Pamela, as Nick was talking about the remaining election, it occurred to me that one of the key things that the Romanians were doing is they were trying to protect the integrity of their election. The reason they stopped the vote count and nullified the latest presidential election in Romania was because they knew that the Russians were interfering in the election.

The Romanian Intelligence Service has reported extensively, both the domestic and the foreign intelligence services have reported extensively on Russian interference efforts. They used TikTok to go into the Romanian electorate. They had false accounts. They did all kinds of things.

So, Russian disinformation was a very real thing for the Romanians. And because it was so pervasive, they said, okay, this election clearly was not done under the rubric of a free and fair election because of that Russian interference. And that is why the Romanians used their court system and their legal system to stop the results of that election and to basically redo that election in the next few months.

BROWN: And what about the free speech aspect of this and the broader scale?

LEIGHTON: So, the free speech part is very interesting, because, yes, there is free speech in Europe. The problem that you run into though is that, as Nick was alluding to, you have so many laws in so many historical issues that countries in Europe have to deal with. For example, in Germany, it is a crime to use Nazi speech and to use hate speech. There are also some other more restrictive rules on speech that we would not have in the United States.

But the fact of the matter is Nazi speech is something that actually gets people sent to jail in Germany because they don't want to relive the period 1933 to 1945 of the Third Reich. And that is why they have these rules that are basically an adjunct to the free speech that is guaranteed by their Constitutions.

BROWN: To bring you in, Fred Pleitgen, Vice President Vance is also warning Vladimir Putin about tools of leverage and negotiations to end the conflict with Ukraine. Has Russia responded? What is the thinking inside the Kremlin?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, they certainly have. And I think one of the things that the Russians are essentially saying is that they're getting two different messages right now out of Washington. On the one hand, you've had, of course, that phone call between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, where the Russians essentially heard all of the things they had wanted to heard from the U.S. administration, that they could get back on the international stage, that there would be talks with President Trump, which, by the way, the Russians say they are already preparing for. And then from J.D. Vance, you heard that idea that to if there is no peace agreement that the U.S. might even put troops on the ground inside Ukraine. And I asked the Kremlin spokesman about all this. He texted me actually back just a couple of minutes before we went to air here. And he said, hoping to clear everything up through direct contact, which to me suggests that the Russians are saying, look, in all of this, we are going to listen to what President Trump says.

The Kremlin believes that some sort of meeting, direct face-to-face meeting between President Trump and the Russian President Vladimir Putin, could happen within a matter of weeks. So, they are definitely wanting to prepare this very quickly. They do see a lot of benefits for themselves. And they also believe that with President Trump in office, they could not only get a deal favorable for themselves to end the war in Ukraine, essentially keeping a lot of that territory, making sure Ukraine does not get into NATO, but at the same time also really get back on the international stage with sanctions relief, but then also President Trump, for instance, saying that Russia could get back into the G7, which the Russians say they don't want to get into.

But it certainly shows that as an international actor for the Trump administration, Russia seems very important, Pamela.

BROWN: Absolutely. And as you pointed out, there's been some mixed messages.

Colonel Leighton, you know, when vice president says there are quote military tools of leverage, what are those options? What could that look like?

LEIGHTON: Well, if you take away for a second what President Trump said, as far as not having troops there and what Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, has said, that could include actually putting troops in some kind of a position where they could potentially serve as a buffer between Russian forces and Ukrainian forces.

Now, I'm not saying that's going to happen, but that's a potential option. Other options would be to include providing logistical support to the Ukrainians, basically a continuation of what we see now, ramping up training for things like the F-16, which the Ukrainians now have possession of, doing things perhaps in the air defense sector, in addition to the F-16.

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The Germans have just sent more IRIS-T missiles to Ukraine, same thing with Patriots. So, it could very well mean a more of a use of weapons and moving those weapons forward, more use of American weapons, more use of European weapons that combined European-U.S effort, kind of along the lines of what we're actually seeing already, but something that doesn't stop, whereas if the Russians get their way, they would want that kind of logistical support to stop. And, of course, the other part of it would be intelligence support as well that the Americans would provide to the Ukrainians or continue to provide to the Ukrainians. BROWN: And we should note that Vice President Vance, Secretary of State Rubio, are going to be meeting with President Zelenskyy of Ukraine shortly. How do you expect that to go, Nick?

WALSH: Yes. I mean, look, that is already a tough lift, frankly. We saw Zelenskyy meet the U.S. treasury secretary just a matter of days ago, and seemingly was presented with some kind of deal that he didn't sign. But it seems, from reading between the lines and hearing what President Trump said to be a manifestation of his Ukraine and Russia envoy Keith Kellogg's idea that aid should now become loans to Ukraine so that the U.S. can, quote, and I'm quoting Trump here, get some of that money back. He may seem to want rare earth mineral guarantees as part of that.

So, a sea change in how the money is going to be coming, certainly if indeed it continues to flow, Zelenskyy hasn't signed that deal. And we've just heard Vance berating, frankly Ukraine's European allies for being essentially closer to totalitarianism, jailing their opponents, exactly the things that in reality Russia is doing. But we heard no criticism of Russia in that speech.

So, I think, yes, we're going to be seeing Zelenskyy dealing with that sense of a split screen from what the Trump administration is saying about the reality in Europe, what he's dealing with, and the Trump administration clearly having a peace process, predominantly with Putin, into which he's trying to insert himself.

BROWN: Nick Payton Walsh, Fred Pleitgen, Colonel Cedric Leighton, thank you for your analysis on this, your reporting.

Well, this morning I have new reporting that Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency team is maybe closer to scrutinizing the IRS. A source tells me at least one of Musk's top aides visited the tax collecting agency on Thursday, asking a series of questions about its operations.

Now, it's unclear whether the DOGE employee accessed any IRS systems containing sensitive taxpayer data, but sources I spoke with said employees there at the IRS, they are on edge right now.

Here with me to discuss is CNN's Katelyn Polantz. So, Katelyn, clearly, DOGE is going from agency to agency, right? We don't know again, and I just want to further emphasize this, whether this DOGE employee accessed any sensitive systems, there's lots of checks and balances for the IRS system. But this clearly is following a pattern.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: It is. And, man, Pam, word traveled really fast on this yesterday. There were a number of people that got very worried about this person from DOGE, who was then at the IRS asking questions, like what is the IRS up to, what do they have planned in the coming days.

There is a big question. Is there sensitive access or access to sensitive information that's legally very protected by the law at the IRS that DOGE wants to have access to? There's other questions about that at Treasury and in many other agencies right now. BROWN: Access the Treasury system, right, and then the judge put a block on that.

POLANTZ: There's a lot going on with that, yes. There is a lot of everybody take a beat, let's make sure DOGE doesn't get into any protected personal information. There's actually three court hearings about this just lined up for today about access that DOGE has at Treasury, at the Department of Education, the Labor Department, Health and Human Services Department. All of that's playing out.

But about this reporting that you have of this particular person from DOGE at Treasure Treasury, what's he doing? What does Musk want to do there at the IRS, it's a big question. Because just 11 days ago, this particular person, according to another lawsuit who's at the IRS, he was the one that sent the email apparently out to all of the USAID staff saying, stay home from work, the building, headquarters, at USAID is going to be closed, which has come into play and is now something that is also being looked at by court.

So, what each of these people that's working with Musk and DOGE, what they're doing individually at each of these agencies is a huge question not just for court but for every employee of the federal government.

BROWN: Yes. All the employees are trying to talk to each other. They're on signal. They're trying to figure out what's happening here. And, of course, we're asking DOGE for more transparency on what's going on, you know? Because a lot of what we're finding out is through sources talking to reporters like us.

POLANTZ: Many days later.

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BROWN: Exactly, many days later.

Katelyn Polantz, thank you so much.

Well, still ahead, new firings in the federal government. Thousands now impacted. I'll ask Democratic Congressman Jake Auchincloss about the fears from his constituents and what Democrats are doing to push back about how these firings and cuts to funding, especially at the National Institutes of Health. Will it affect them? Next.

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BROWN: New this morning, thousands of probationary employees of the federal government are waking up without a job. They are people who typically have been employed less than a year or two and have fewer job protections than other federal employees.

CNN's Alayna Treene is at the White House. Alayna, tell us more about these latest casualties of the Trump administration's priority to slash the federal workforce.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Well, Pamela, we did have a sense that this was coming. We knew that once they had closed that so- called buyout program or what they referred to as the deferred resignation program, that layoffs were expected.

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But now we're really seeing it touch all different parts of the federal government, several different agencies.

I want to just walk you through some of the numbers that we've learned from our sources throughout the federal government. We've learned that 3,404 service employees have been laid off, 2,000 at the Department of Energy, 1,000 at the Department of Veterans Affairs, dozens of term employees at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and dozens of probationary employees at the Office of Personnel Management.

Now, one thing that's actually interesting is there had been some conflicting guidance we've heard that was going out from the Office of Personnel Management. It's an agency underneath the White House. They had told agencies initially that they didn't have to fire all of those probationary workers, as you mentioned, people who have been in the government for less than a year, maybe less than two years. We're told that around 200,000 federal government employees have been or are in the government who have been here for less than a year. That's according to OPM data. But essentially guidance that they were giving was that they didn't have to fire all of them.

But now we're hearing that's actually being changed. And that's why we're seeing a lot of these people being laid off. One person, an OPM spokesperson, told CNN that these agencies were taking independent action in light of the recent hiring freeze to support the president's broader efforts to restructure.

But, look, again, this is all part of the president and also Elon Musk under the DOGE umbrella, their goal to really significantly reduce the size of the federal workforce. And what's interesting as well as we were told how these hirings at these agencies were happening. We're told some of them were even told in a group, a mass Microsoft teams meeting, for example. And so we're really getting to hear now the impact of a lot of this. Pamela?

BROWN: All right. Alayna Treene, thanks so much.

Let's continue the conversation about the impact. Joining us now is Democratic Congressman Jake Auchincloss of Massachusetts. Congressman, thanks for joining us.

So, first off, I want to get your reaction to this newest round of job cuts. What are you hearing from your constituents about all of this right now?

REP. JAKE AUCHINCLOSS (D-MA): Good morning. Thanks for having me on. I represent Massachusetts. We do healthcare. And in the last week alone, I've spoken to a physician at the Veterans Affairs Agency in Boston, where they are facing drastic cuts that will affect care for veterans, psychological and physical. I've spoken to a pediatric oncologist who's scrambling with telehealth issues for her patients who are children. I've spoken to Medicaid experts here in the state who are deeply concerned about cuts to at home care should the Medicaid cuts go through Congress.

The federal government, it's not Twitter, right? You can't move fast and break things and all that ends up getting scrambled as software code. This is real people's lives. This is veterans. This is children who are sick. This is our senior citizens who need at home care. And the approach that Elon Musk is taking is cruel and it's counterproductive. Because had they tried to work with Democrats, we also want to root out waste, fraud, and abuse, give him a list of priorities at the Department of Defense, for example, and elsewhere that we could have sat down in good faith and hammered through.

But this approach challenges the constitutional separation of powers, and it makes people's lives more expensive and less healthy.

BROWN: So, you say you could also give a list of priorities to cut. What would that be?

AUCHINCLOSS: Let's look at two, for example. One is the Department of Defense. The Department of Defense is ridden (ph) through with procurement practices that grossly inflate the cost of goods, because they use a cost plus contracting method. If they would subscribe to our Part 10 and other elements of the U.S. Code that require that they pay for performance, not pay for time and cost plus contracting, they could purchase equipment and they could train personnel much more efficiently.

And, actually, Elon Musk probably has good ideas about that. He's a good engineer. He's a good entrepreneur. He would have had bipartisan support. Instead he goes into people's taxpayer refund information, their Social Security checks, their Medicare bills. He has violated the American people's trust. And Democrats are going to insist that he gets out of people's personal information and out of their pocketbooks before we're willing to do business with this administration.

BROWN: What specific information do you have that he's actually accessed Social Security and private data? Do you know that firsthand or are you just looking at what's happening and making a guess?

AUCHINCLOSS: The Bureau of Fiscal Service, which is within the Department of Treasury, outlays $200 billion every single day. And within that apparatus is people's home addresses. It's their Social Security numbers. It's their dates of birth. He has access to that and his programmers have access to that. They have moved over to HHS and requested similar access at the centers for Medicare and Medicaid. They're moving over to DOD and requesting similar access. That is highly sensitive payment and information apparati that someone with as many conflicts of interest that Elon Musk has should not have access to.

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BROWN: And I want to follow up soon on like what Democrats are doing, but just on the cuts, for example, you know, the cuts that have been made, I'm curious if you agree with any of the cuts that have been made that are being proposed. Republicans cite funded programs like gender affirming healthcare in Guatemala and teaching people in Kazakhstan how to fight back against internet trolls. Are these really in the best interest of Americans? Should U.S. taxpayers foot the bill for something like that? Do you agree with those cuts?

AUCHINCLOSS: It's easy to go through USAID and cherry-pick examples that sound outlandish. But the core of what the U.S. Agency for International Development does is Health and Human Services for the world's most vulnerable people. It's HIV treatments. It is domestic violence and sexual violence survivor care. It is helping strengthen the sinews of local journalism and democracy building in countries that are war-torn. And when we stop doing that work, China comes in and backfills it. And we erode our global influence.

The USAID is less than 1 percent of the federal budget. So, for them to claim --

BROWN: And that is true. And that is true. They are less than 1 percent of the federal budget. But just on the specific question, on those specific programs I mentioned, do you think they should be cut? I mean, put aside, you know, that's a separate question about getting rid of the entire agency and the mission and so forth. But those, like, those ones I cited that Republicans are talking about. I mean, are you willing to consider their point of view on why they should be cut?

AUCHINCLOSS: Of course. And this is the Trump. This is Trump's typical tactic. And I said this months ago when he was announcing DOGE is I'm happy to work with DOGE if they're going to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse and try to make the government more efficient. We have a, you know, $1.5 trillion deficit annually. That's not acceptable. That's a tax on the next generation. I want to make the government work more efficiently. But what this administration constantly does is it takes this kernel of legitimate policy and it inflates it into a cruel and counterproductive series of measures that everyone in good conscience needs to reject.

Am I going to sit there and say that every single USAID program was high ROI? Of course not, and I don't think every American can understand that there are elements of the federal bureaucracy that have to belt tighten, but that's very different than just deleting entire elements of the civil service, elements that help sick kids, elements that take care of veterans, elements that provide at home care for senior citizens here and abroad.

That is just something that ends up being self-defeating. And what we need to do is, one, insist that the Trump administration respect the Constitution and Article 1's and Article 3's prerogatives. And, two, that if they actually want to get something done, come work with us.

BROWN: So, you lay out, you know, what you view as a very direct impact on people's lives, what's happening, in a negative way from how you see it. Some fellow Democrats say Democrats like you should be doing more right now. And that what they've been doing, what you've been doing hasn't been working.

Here's what NYU professor Scott Galloway said to my colleague, Dana Bash.

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PROF. SCOTT GALLOWAY, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY: Because it looked more like a senior's home when it canceled jello night. It just wasn't optically a good moment for us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Well, there was more to that sound, but he talked about how, you know, some of the Democrats went and protested outside of government agencies and they were, you know, out there and that it really wasn't moving the needle and it wasn't having an impact. And it does raise the question, do you think there's a leadership vacuum and the Democratic Party right now? Should you be doing more?

AUCHINCLOSS: We have to use a series of measures when we're in the minority in Washington across all three branches. One, we've got to use legislation. We've introduced the Taxpayer Data Protection Act, which would kick Elon Musk out of people's personal information. We've got to use litigation. We got 20 plus pending lawsuits, many of them initially successful. We got to use oversight. For example, we've got RFK who's going to try to ransack our vaccine injury compensation program and take measles vaccines off the market. I'm going to try to work with Republicans to try to prevent him from doing that.

We got to use federalism. I mean, yes, they have the trifecta in Washington, but Democrats have levers of governance in the states. And we need to be demonstrating not just a resistance to Trump but an alternative to Trump. How are we going to make housing and healthcare more affordable throughout the country in contrast to what he is doing, which is going to raise the cost of housing, raise the cost of healthcare, raise the cost of insurance through his tariffs and deportations and inflationary measures?

BROWN: So, do you think there's a leadership vacuum then? It sounds like you do.

AUCHINCLOSS: I think for the first time in 20 years going into not just '26, but actually the 2028 presidential primary that we have a totally open field. I don't view that as a leadership vacuum. I view that actually as an opportunity. I think that's exciting. We're going to have a forest of ambition and there'll be lots of presidential timber there. And I think it's actually an opportunity for the party to reorient and re-engage with the American public.

The focus right now over the next year is to, one, protect the Constitution against someone who has demonstrated zero respect for it, and, two, to make clear to the American people that he has no plan to lower their cost of living, their insurance bills, their housing bills, and we do.

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BROWN: Congressman Jake Auchincloss, thank you so much.