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Judge Clears Way for Trump Admin's Firings; Who Is Running DOGE; Trump Says Musk is "In Charge" of DOGE; Luigi Mangione Back in NY Court. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired February 21, 2025 - 10:30   ET

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

[10:30:00]

REP. GERRY CONNOLLY (D-VA), RANKING MEMBER, OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM COMMITTEE: -- responsibility. They're going to be the place of last resort in adjudicating who has what jurisdiction, who has what power, but the kind of sweeping power being asserted by Elon Musk and his co-president Donald Trump, I believe it goes way beyond constitutional norms or acceptable limits with respect to legislation already in the books.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, and Musk his role as a senior adviser. But I want to ask you because I know a lot of Americans, I'm sure you're hearing from your constituents, are concerned about what is happening and that they're overstepping their bounds. But this has gone before some judges and the judges gave DOGE, gave Elon Musk wins.

They analyzed it. They looked at the facts and some of them have said they can move forward with their cuts. Are there any of DOGE's cuts that you do support?

CONNOLLY: I don't support the process DOGE and Elon Musk are employing, which is a wrecking ball. There are plenty of places to trim carefully. But it's got to be done carefully, right? I mean, if you're just taking a wrecking ball to the Senate for Disease Control, you're risking public health. If you take a wrecking ball to the FDA, you're risking the safety of food and pharmaceuticals in America. We know what can go wrong with that. If you're taking a wrecking ball to the National Security Council, you're jeopardizing national security.

BROWN: I'm wondering because your Republican colleague in the House, Rich McCormick, had a town hall in Georgia and several of the constituents there were unhappy with how DOGE is operating, sort of laid out what you just laid out. And I'm wondering if now the reality is setting in with all of these firings and the freezing of aid and so forth what you're hearing from your Republican colleagues privately who may not be coming out publicly saying really what they think right now, but are they expressing anything to you privately about DOGE?

CONNOLLY: Yes, a number of them really, frankly, privately believe that Elon Musk is way beyond his skis here. They believe that a lot of the people surrounding Trump are incompetent and that it's going to get them in trouble. Those from rural America are particularly worried. We mentioned the Postal Service. You know, Postal Service is just an essential service in rural America. But I mean, hospitals are at risk in rural America. Nursing homes are at risk. Airports are at risk. The farming economy is at risk. If you're starting to slap on tariffs and reciprocal tariffs are slapped on so that we're not exporting grain food to our normal customers. You know, in border places, both in Texas and Canada -- Texas and the northern part of the United States with respect to Canada, you know, they're worried about, you know, two-way trade, which is essential for their local economies.

So, yes, there's rising concern that this is kind of mindless and reckless. There's no pattern to it. There's no rhyme or reason to it. And it's going to hurt average American families, especially in their constituencies.

BROWN: Congressman Gerry Connolly, thank you so much.

CONNOLLY: My pleasure.

BROWN: Coming up, who is running DOGE? We were just having that conversation. The White House in that court filing says it's not Elon Musk, but also says he's overseeing DOGE. So, how has he and his allies gained access to government nerve centers? We're digging deeper with new CNN reporting up next.

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[10:35:00]

BROWN: Catching steam and not looking back. The Trump administration's new Department of Government Efficiency, also known as DOGE, looks to be waging a full overhaul of most federal agencies. But who is calling the shots here? Well, the White House is giving mixed messages. Is that by design? Many signs point to Elon Musk. Here, he was on Thursday, talking about potential plans for the money saved from DOGE's spending cuts.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's talk about, let's talk about these DOGE dividend checks that everybody's talking about this week. And I know you tweeted out that you were going to -- has everybody won like a $5,000 check in the mail? That sounds kind of good, right? And the best part about it would be knowing where it came from, that that's five grand that you sent them last year.

ELON MUSK, TRUMP PRESIDENTIAL ADVISER: Totally. It's money that's taken away from things that are destructive to the country that -- and from organizations that hate you, to you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: With me now is CNN's Phil Mattingly. All right. So, Phil, you have been digging into this question, who is running DOGE? Is this by design, keeping it sort of nebulous? Tell us what you've learned.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: You know, we were talking about this during the break. It's difficult given how fast things have been moving in the first month of the Trump administration, particularly with the DOGE work to actually get your head around what they've been doing.

And I think what was most striking by kind of a combination of hundreds of pages of court filings, but there's been a number of lawsuits related to DOGE interviews with government officials, government memos that we were able to obtain, my colleague Tierney Sneed and I recognize that this has been a deeply strategic, intensely planned operation starting from day one.

Day one, everybody was trying to figure out, well, where would DOGE be? Is it outside the government? Is it inside the government? The executive order put it inside the government. That was intentional. That means it's in the executive office of the president. Disclosure requirements basically don't exist, they're protected from them until after DOGE is long gone.

And so, the kind of ambiguity about leadership, about structure, about staff, about organization is a feature. It's not a bug. And in large part, that has been an accelerant to their ability to do what we've seen over the course of the last three or four weeks. The agencies where they've put appointees, the teams that they've had going into various agencies that are detailees, ease, that aren't necessarily tied to any specific agency, but they all have agency e-mails at all of the agencies that they go to.

So, they're in directories, they're working there, they're serving as engineers, they're really leading the DOGE efforts, but no one really knows what specific entity they're tied to. Don't think of that as kind of an ad hoc, kind of half-baked effort, they know what they wanted to do, and they've been implementing it with a lot of efficiency the last month.

BROWN: It's so interesting because then you just heard my conversation with Congressman Connolly, he was saying, look, they're taking a wrecking ball to these agencies, and a lot of people think this is all just kind of him handed the way it's being done. From your reporting, this has been thought out, it's strategic in the way that it's laid out. But at the same time, we have seen some big, you know, stumbles mistakes, firing some of the -- you know, the energy department employees that they try to scramble and get back, you know. I mean, we have seen that in different agencies. What -- how does that square?

MATTINGLY: The way I've kind of reconciled what we've seen the last month is the DOGE officials and aligned political appointees don't necessarily know how Washington works, but they know what makes Washington work.

And that is so essential, because if you look at what happened on January 20th, the first couple of days after President Trump was sworn in, where their political appointees showed up, not DOGE team people, political appointees took senior roles and really wrested control of the entire agencies at places like the Office of Personnel Management, the General Services Administration, places that we don't usually talk about on TV, but those are the places that really underpin the personnel, the technology, the real estate portfolio, the entire kind of nervous system of the federal government, all of those political appointees almost to a person either used to work for Elon Musk at Musk related companies, were close advisers to Elon Musk worked with him on acquisition deals in one case, they are permanently there.

So, they're not DOGE folks, but they are deeply aligned with the DOGE team. And so, their ability to come in on day one rest control of these nerve centers, that's what's driven the mass firings of government officials. That's what's driven the probationary periods. That's what's driven all of the DEI executive order, implementation. They control it now. And I think what we have learned over the course of reporting is government officials who didn't know what they were going to do, weren't sure how it was going to actually operate.

And by the time they started to realize kind of the scale of what was happening, to your point, how they've just kind of gone in and made radical changes, broken some things as they've done it, it was too late. They already had lost control of the Office of Personnel Management and GSA, there were people inside the treasury officials and you've seen them go agency to agency since then. But that is kind of the backbone of the effort that we've seen.

BROWN: So, then what is Elon Musk's role with DOGE? Bottom line.

MATTINGLY: Officially?

BROWN: Yes.

MATTINGLY: Not a role, according to a sworn affidavit in court from an administration personnel official. Look, the reality is this, Karoline Leavitt in a statement to CNN said, he's overseeing their efforts. Donald Trump is directing their efforts. The ambiguity is the point here. They don't necessarily want to have a centralized target, the administrator, who it actually is, what that role actually entails. People like Gerry Connolly would love to know that. They'd love to bring them up to testify. They would love to --

BROWN: Well, Americans would love it too.

MATTINGLY: Exactly. But the lack of transparency, I don't see it as something that they just hadn't figured out. It very much seems intentional. And to try and allow them that level of opacity helps, I think, in their efforts to get into agencies, do the things they want to do as fast as they want to do it without a lot of attention.

I think the reality is though Musk very clearly drives things under Trump's kind of authority, but Musk's top advisers most crucially, Steve Davis, who's been with him for two decades, one of his closest advisers, really kind of the operational manager of things. But it's not a centralized organization. I think it's very diffused. It has a lot of different tentacles, and that's very clearly by design.

BROWN: Phil Mattingly, fascinating, really important reporting as we're trying to wrap our heads around what's going on. Thank you so much.

And still ahead, in just a couple of hours, Luigi Mangione will be back in a New York courtroom to face murder and terrorism charges. What makes these charges so unique? We're live right outside that courthouse up next.

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[10:45:00]

BROWN: Well, this afternoon, murder suspect Luigi Mangione is due in a New York courtroom on charges related to the December murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, was shot and killed on the Manhattan sidewalk last December and what police have called a targeted attack. The 26-year-old Mangione has pleaded not guilty to the state's murder and terror charges.

CNN's Kara Scannell joins us from outside the courthouse where Mangione will appear. So, Kara, this is his first court appearance since he was arraigned. Tell us what's happening in today's hearing. Kara, can you hear me? All right. We got the --

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Oh, hey, Pam.

BROWN: Oh, you got me? OK.

SCANNELL: Sorry, I couldn't hear you there for a minute. We are expecting -- yes, we are expecting Luigi Mangione to appear in court just a few hours from now. This will be his first court appearance since he pleaded not guilty to those 11 state charges for allegedly shooting and killing United Healthcare CEO, Brian Thompson.

And my colleague (INAUDIBLE) inside, she said there's already dozens of women lined up waiting to try to get into the public section of the courtroom. We did see people show up the last time, there was a lot of public interest. Although, it's very cold outside, we are not seeing any protesters or people with signs here just yet, though it's still a few hours to go.

[10:50:00]

What we do expect to happen at the hearing today is, it's going to be relatively quick. It's a status conference. We expect that the attorneys will be discussing the types of evidence that they have in this case and how they've handed that over, including some of the surveillance video that they've said they have thousands of hours of that would be turned over to Mangione's defense team.

That, of course, capturing the suspect leaving the crime scene, heading up Upper Manhattan on his way out of the city. Also, today, they'll likely discuss a motion schedule. What is going to be the next stages in this case and potentially set a trial date. All that, though, yet to play out later today when Mangione is back in court, we'll see him walk down that hallway into the courtroom to see the judge for the first time since he had that dramatic arrival in New York on the helicopter and that very public perp walk. Pam. BROWN: Kara Scannell, thank you so much. Let's continue this conversation. Joining us now is Nick Ackerman, a former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District. Nick, thank you for joining us. So, prosecutors says Mangione left a string of damning evidence, fingerprints, DNA near the scene and the apparent murder weapon in a spiral notebook also found in his backpack when he was arrested. How will his attorneys defend him with all of that evidence?

NICK ACKERMAN, FORMER ASSISTANT U.S. ATTORNEY, SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK AND FORMER ASSISTANT SPECIAL WATERGATE PROSECUTOR: Well, if you're just going based on that evidence, I don't think they have much of a defense. I think the real question here is whether or not he has some kind of a mental defect defense, some kind of insanity defense. We know that for a period of time, he was really off the grid. His family didn't know where he was. He was gone for, I don't know, a matter of months, and seemed to do things that were contrary to kind of his normal way of operating.

So, I'll be curious to see whether or not there's some kind of motion raised today or letting the judge know whether or not there may be a motion that somehow relates to his mental capacity with respect to understanding what he was doing at the time. We'll just have to wait and see.

BROWN: We'll have to wait and see. He also faces federal prosecution and the threat of a death penalty. How much is his defense complicated by this dual track of prosecution?

ACKERMAN: Well, it really doesn't complicate his defense. I mean, the defense is going to have to be the same in both venues. The state is going to go first and there's a good possibility that if he is convicted in the state, which is a likelihood because of all of the evidence that's there, that that would really end the matter and the federal government might not step in.

However, now with Donald Trump as president, who is big on the death penalty, which is the one remedy that you cannot get in the State of New York, the federal government may go ahead with that case on the -- on -- after the state case, even if Mangione is convicted in the state.

BROWN: If you were his defense attorney, would you seek a plea deal?

ACKERMAN: I definitely would. If I didn't have some kind of a mental capacity defense and knowing what the evidence is, I would try and make a deal as quickly as possible. And in fact, I would try and make a deal with both the state and the feds, try and get an all- encompassing deal that would essentially, I think, require him to be in prison for life and would avoid the death penalty. I mean, I think that would be the smart thing to do.

BROWN: It is such a fascinating case. Also, because he received this massive outpouring of support online. Just one single crowd funding site, just one, has raised more than a half million dollars for his legal defense. As a former prosecutor how worried would you be that jurors will be influenced by that same sympathy toward him? ACKERMAN: I don't see it, because what happens in the real world in a real trial, people come in, the judge and the lawyers question the jurors, the prospective jurors to determine whether they can be fair and impartial. It's a process that is done in every single criminal case in New York State. They actually allow the lawyers to do the questioning, whereas in the federal side, it's only the judge that does the questioning.

But it's a pretty thorough process known as jury voir dire, which is translated to mean to tell the truth. And the whole point of that is to try and determine whether you can get a jury that is fair and impartial and certainly, they can do that here. That is going to be the winnowing process that will start with jury selection. They did it with the Donald Trump case in Manhattan. They came up with a fair and impartial jury within two days, I believe. So, there's no reason why it can't be done here.

[10:55:00]

BROWN: Nick Ackerman, thank you so much for sharing your perspective. And in just minutes, President Trump will meet with a bipartisan group of governors at the White House. We're keeping a close eye on what may come out of that meeting, and that's ahead.

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