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Trump Meets With Governors; What Do Americans Think of Trump and Musk?; Pope Francis Recovering From Pneumonia. Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired February 21, 2025 - 11:30   ET

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

[11:34:19]

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: Right now, we are getting an update on Pope Francis' health. He's been recovering from pneumonia at a hospital in Rome.

Christopher Lamb joins us.

What are you hearing, Christopher?

CHRISTOPHER LAMB, CNN VATICAN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Pamela, that's right.

We're getting a briefing from the medical team treating Pope Francis. It is being led by Sergio Alfieri and Luigi Carbone. And they have just started explaining that the pope was at home with the flu, that he was being taken care of by people at Santa Marta, his residence, and then he was not able to be treated for this infection that led him to come into hospital on Friday.

He's been here for a week at the Gemelli Hospital, and he's now being treated for pneumonia. I was just listening to the beginning part of it and then obviously coming to this to speak to you.

[11:35:06]

I think this medical update is significant and important because, of course, the big question is, how is Pope Francis responding to treatment? We have been given some detail from the Vatican, but this update will give us a lot more detail about the specifics of the pope's condition.

And I think the other crucial question, how long is the pope going to be in hospital, and how long might his convalescence period be? Now, there are all sorts of rumors and speculation in Rome and the Vatican about a possible papal resignation.

Now, I'm hearing that's not on the table for the pope. But, of course, there are questions about how the pope can carry out his functions of office if he has to spend many weeks recovering. Lots of questions, and we hope that this medical briefing will provide some answers, Pamela. BROWN: All right, Christopher Lamb, thank you for bringing us the

latest there. I know you want to go back and listen to it and give any other pertinent updates. Thank you.

Still ahead, our weekly series "Your Voice." Two talk radio hosts, one in Florida, the other in Washington state, tell us what their listeners are saying about what's happening here in Washington.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:41:14]

BROWN: Now to our weekly series "Your Voice."

Every Friday, we check in with talk radio hosts across the country to hear what their listeners are thinking and saying about what's going on right here in Washington. It's a way to get out of the bubble.

Today, we have got independent and left-leaning host Randi Rhodes in Delray Beach, Florida, and conservative Michael Medved in Seattle.

Thank you both for being here with us.

Randi, to kick it off with you, what is the political topic your listeners are really interested in right now? And just tell us a little bit more about who your typical listeners are.

RANDI RHODES, HOST, "THE RANDI RHODES SHOW": So my listeners have been with us forever, OK? We're distributed on a lot of different platforms. So we get them from YouTube, we get them from Free Speech TV. We get them nationally. So it's a wide berth of pretty interesting people who are very plugged in, and have been watching politics for a really long time and are terrified right now and embarrassed.

So that's what we're hearing.

BROWN: About what specifically?

RHODES: Mostly is how embarrassing it is -- well, the Ukraine situation. I mean, saying that Ukraine attacked itself is just bizarre, and the idea that NATO is the reason for Russia having to attack at the same time as saying Ukraine attacked itself, as if, I don't know, its skirt was too tight and so you had to attack it?

I -- it's just so nonsensical that people are stunned and we're embarrassed to see him on the world stage saying stuff like that. So I don't -- I don't understand where this is going.

BROWN: All right, Michael, to bring you in on this, tell us about your listeners who typically calls in and what's the big issue on their minds?

MICHAEL MEDVED, HOST, "THE MICHAEL MEDVED SHOW": Well, the big issue right now does have to do with Ukraine. I mean, people should remember President Trump had promised that this war would be ended in 24 hours and he knew the way to end it.

And what he's done is opened up a new battlefront against not Putin, but against Zelenskyy. And I think that's a bridge too far, even for some of the most conservative listeners, because the percentage of conservatives, of Republicans who actually lean toward Vladimir Putin and believe that he was the aggrieved party and that he was attacked by President Zelenskyy is -- is nonsensical.

And people do not see Zelenskyy as a dictator. They do see Putin as a dictator. And then there are people on the left who see Trump as some kind of dictator. So, basically, I think this is fascinating and compelling to people right now because the war's been going on so long, and it's had so many desperately painful moments and indications of the suffering of the people.

BROWN: It's interesting that you both talk about Russia-Ukraine as sort of the animating issues for your callers.

And I wonder how the economy is playing into -- for your callers and what they're saying about that, because our reporting is that inflation expectations are rising, Americans' confidence in the economy is falling, that that is not a good combination.

Randi, what are your listeners saying about that? Do they -- how much do they care about that also in relation to some of these other issues, like Russia-Ukraine?

RHODES: Oh, it's everything. The economy is everything. It's why some of the people were talked into voting for Donald Trump. They were very unhappy with the economy.

[11:45:01]

They thought that inflation, even though it had gone in the right direction, meaning down, for many, many months in a row, they still didn't think it was happening fast enough, which is what happens when it's hard to pay for things. And they were hoping that he was telling the truth about he knew how to bring down the price of bacon.

In fact, I think I saw him earlier in a clip on CNN saying that things have come down, that your eggs have come down, and your bacon has come down.

But it hasn't come down. And what's scaring everybody is that the idea that he's laying off all these people, government people work in all 50 states, and that he is doing it willy-nilly, really sloppily and carelessly, not efficiently at all, not in the manner that Bill Clinton did when Bill Clinton's streamlined government, took a seven- year effort after six months of job reviews.

And this is just so hairy and crazy that people feel like it's going to cause a recession top of this rising inflation. And it's terrifying. And when you look at bigger businesses like Walmart and Forever 21, and they're starting to react, you know something's cooking that's not favoring us, the consumer. So, they just... BROWN: So, Michael, I'm curious what your callers are saying about that. Many of them, I assume, are Trump supporters. I should note you are a conservative. You are not a Trump supporter.

But what are some of those Trump supporters saying to you about the economy and the prices at the grocery store? And you're right, Randi. In some cases, eggs, for example, the prices are not going down. What are they saying to you? Is it bothering them? Or are they saying, hey, we will just give Trump some more time, it's only been a month?

MEDVED: I think there's a tendency from a lot of callers to blame Biden and to blame Biden for everything.

The difficulty is, that can't go on forever, and particularly the issue of tariffs. I don't think that for people in Washington state, where I'm based, that -- the people are very dependent on foreign trade. And I think many people, including many stalwart conservatives who support Trump on immigration and support Trump on transgendered athleticism in schools and a range of other issues, do not support the idea that somehow the way to attack inflation is adding the cost of tariffs on basically everything that we bring here.

When we had that expectation that there were going to be tariffs on Mexico and Canada, we're not far away from Canada. And our economies are intertwined. And, no, there's no affection among conservatives for Justin Trudeau, but the idea that we were going to have a trade war with our two closest neighbors and our two strongest allies, this is not a productive direction for President Trump to move, for the country or for his own political future.

BROWN: It's interesting now that you say so far...

(CROSSTALK)

RHODES: Well, if I could just add to...

BROWN: Yes, go ahead.

RHODES: No, I was just going to add to what Michael is saying, because it's absolutely 100 percent true that Donald Trump is picking a fight everywhere with our allies.

It looks to us like he's carving up the world and redesigning it in an image that isn't exactly democratic and isn't American. And Americans don't feel comfortable with it. They are telling us over and over again that they want us to figure out how to organize them and how to make our voices so loud that they can't ignore us, saying this is not -- it doesn't feel like democracy to us. This doesn't feel right. Something is wrong.

BROWN: Do they feel like Democrats are doing enough? Are they disappointed in Democratic leadership then in this moment that they see so critical?

RHODES: No, you know, they understand we don't have the numbers. And we don't. And they see the votes are very, very party line, right down the party line, for the whole Cabinet and for this budget last night.

And they understand that we don't have the numbers in Congress. But we do have the numbers in us. And so they're trying to figure out whether or not, on March 14, this government is going to shut down. And, if it does, then we're going to shut down. Then we're going to strike as well.

A general strike seems to be something on the horizon if, if -- and I only say if because, if the government actually stays open and then we strike, and something happens to the economy, it looks like that would be a cudgel, that they would blame us. The Republicans would blame people who -- but if they shut down the government, we're going to shut down too.

And that's how we will be heard.

BROWN: So, Michael, what do you think about that? And what are your callers saying about DOGE, in particular, all these cuts?

[11:50:04]

It's interesting because a lot of the Republicans I have had on have been outwardly -- the Republican members of Congress, outwardly supportive of it, but some are now feeling the heat in their district. We just saw Rich McCormick at his town hall getting some of that heat.

What are your conservative callers, Trump supporters saying about DOGE? Are any of them feeling the impact or are they super supportive of what's going on?

MEDVED: I think it's basically a reaction to Elon Musk's personality.

There is a great deal of affection among conservatives, of course, for President Trump. And President Trump is seen as a winner. There is not that same kind of affection for J.D. Vance, who just endorsed the extreme right party, Alternative fur Deutschland, AfD, in Germany.

And there's certainly isn't that kind of affection for Elon Musk. And I don't know what Trump does about J.D. Vance and the messages that he is going to be conveying, but I think that's a problem for the administration, particularly with this recent trip to Munich, of all places.

And I say that because of the idea of appeasement not working when you're dealing with Russia or America's adversaries. And I thought part of the point that Randi made is very real, that people in the country understand Ukraine is not our enemy.

Russia -- I mean -- pardon me -- Canada and Mexico are not our enemies. And while people on the right can be very happy that the border crossings, illegal border crossings have gone way down -- of course, they went down at the end of the Biden administration too, but they have gone further down even further. People like that. They like Trump's style.

They like the fact that he's upsetting the establishment and things of that nature. But I don't think it's a great idea to have the world's richest man as the number two figure in an administration. And I think that's going to long term have real damage even among some of Trump's most strenuous core supporters.

BROWN: Interesting.

I just want to follow up with you.

RHODES: Yes.

BROWN: Oh, go ahead. Go ahead, Randi.

RHODES: No, I was going to say, the careless way that he approaches our business, our government -- and everybody understands, I think, that Elon Musk does not know how government works, doesn't know how our government works.

He's making decisions to delete congressionally set-up agencies without going to Congress. The whole thing is antidemocratic. The whole approach is shoddy. And people are paying the price, and now it's just starting to be evident in various cities and towns across the country.

The idea that he didn't know that the Energy Department controlled nuclear weapons, the idea that they didn't know that the EPA doesn't regulate automobile emissions...

BROWN: Yes.

RHODES: ... I mean, yes, it's sad and it's scary. And he's got our data, and that's what everybody's reacting to, that he has our data.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: Quickly, because President Trump is speaking at the White House.

Very quickly, Michael.

MEDVED: Well, I don't want to upstage him for long, because I think part of the problem is that Democrats need a more positive vision about what are the alternatives to the current Trump and Elon Musk policies.

And it's more than just criticizing Trump and wringing one's hands, having a sense of how things could operate better and more rational. That would be good.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: Well, a really important conversation.

(CROSSTALK)

RHODES: We saw the '90s. Bill Clinton had the right idea. So...

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: We had a -- that was great. I hope you all both felt like you got your points in, your insights. And it was really interesting, actually. I learned a lot through this conversation.

Michael, Randi appreciate it.

Happening right now, President Trump is meeting with a group of bipartisan governors to strengthen the partnership between federal and state governments.

CNN's Alayna Treene is at the White House.

What can you tell us, Alayna?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Well, he is meeting right now with a series of governors, I will say Democratic and Republican governors that he's meeting with. We're told as well that there are some Cabinet officials and secretaries in the room with him.

We are waiting to hear more. We know that there -- the pool is in there with him now. We're waiting to get some of that audio from what he is saying. But it does seem like the president is discussing a wide range of topics.

But, Pamela, this comes just after we actually heard from the president directly this morning do an interview with FOX News' Brian Kilmeade. It was a radio interview. But he went at -- into length more, expanded more on his comments about Ukrainian President Zelenskyy.

[11:55:00]

He continued to attack him, to argue that he is not a great negotiator, that it's been three years and he hasn't gotten a lot done. But one very notable moment is that -- I was listening to the interview. You could hear the host kind of saying -- trying to press the president to admit that Russia was the aggressor, that Russia was the one who launched an illegal invasion into Ukraine.

Trump kind of ignored the question repeatedly, until he finally admitted, Russia attacked. He said, Russia attacked, but that there should have never been a war. And he repeatedly tried to place some blame as well on Joe Biden for what he said was saying the wrong things and not knowing how to negotiate well with Putin.

All to say, I'm curious to see if there's going to be an opportunity, if he's going to take some questions from some of these governors in the room, hear them out, and whether or not this will be one of those topics that comes up at this meeting, Pamela.

BROWN: All right, Alayna Treene, thank you so much for the latest there at the White House.

And before I go, I have some news of my own to share. Every day, for more than 20 years, you have seen Wolf Blitzer here on CNN in "THE SITUATION ROOM" at 6:00 p.m. welcoming viewers in the United States and around the world.

Well, starting March 3, "THE SITUATION ROOM" is moving to mornings. I'm excited to announce "THE SITUATION ROOM" with my colleague and friend Wolf Blitzer every weekday at 10:00 and 11:00. We will continue, of course, covering the stories around the globe and across the country, the stories that matter to you.

Again, "THE SITUATION ROOM" with Wolf Blitzer and me will start airing Monday, March 3, at 10:00 a.m.

And thank you all for joining us. I'm Pamela Brown. I hope you have a great weekend. You can follow me on Instagram, TikTok, and X @PamelaBrownCNN.

Stay with us. "INSIDE POLITICS WITH DANA BASH" starts after a short break.