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Prospects For Ukraine-Russia Peace Deal?; Surging Egg Prices; Elon Musk Causing Chaos and Confusion in Federal Government. Aired 11- 11:30a ET

Aired February 25, 2025 - 11:00   ET

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

[11:00:32]

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: Good morning to you. You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Pamela Brown.

And we begin with the chaos and confusion in the federal work force after a day of conflicting guidance about Elon Musk's e-mail ultimatum. CNN has now learned that the Office of Personnel Management sent out new guidance to employees late last night and left the door open to possible punishment if they don't reply.

And that came just hours after the same office informed agencies that responding to the Musk e-mail was voluntary and that ignoring it would not -- quote -- "equate to resignation," like he claimed.

But the multibillionaire seems to be doubling down. He posted that workers will get another chance and claimed failure to respond a second time would result in termination. The contradictory statements have left many government workers angry and unsure about whom they should be listening to.

CNN's Jeff Zeleny is at the White House.

So, Jeff, how is President Trump responding to all of this?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Pamela, another day, another round of confusion for federal workers.

President Trump, for his part, is supporting Elon Musk, even as those questions that persist all over those six words that were sent out to federal workers over the weekend, what did you do last week, that is carrying over into this week, the confusion over just how to respond.

There's just been a variety of contradictory information for federal workers who are already, obviously, under considerable strain, as mass layoffs have already occurred. But the president was asked about this. He called what Elon Musk is doing genius.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I thought it was great, because we have people that don't show up to work and nobody even knows if they work for the government. So by asking the question, tell us what you did this week, what he's doing is saying, are you actually working?

And then, if you don't answer, like, you're sort of semi-fired or you're fired, because a lot of people are not answering because they don't even exist. They're trying to find -- that's how badly various parts of our government were run by -- and especially by this last group.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENY: Of course, there is no evidence that there are vast numbers of federal employees who do not exist, and it is unclear what you're either fired or semi-fired actually means.

But, going forward, employees in a variety of agencies, particularly ones with the national security connections like the FBI, like the Department of Justice, like the Department of Homeland Security, are being advised to not answer these e-mails, because, in part, they do not report to the Office of Personnel Management or to Elon Musk.

So, Pamela, there are many questions about this. I expect that this will be one of the key topics of the White House briefing coming up this afternoon, but there is no doubt the president at least is standing by Elon Musk, even as some members of his Cabinet and others are wondering if they can run their own agencies, Pamela.

BROWN: Yes, a fascinating dynamic at play right now, as you just laid out, Jeff Zeleny.

So, I mean, just help us understand, because there's been so much happening, where do things stand right now? Will these federal workers have to reply to this e-mail?

ZELENY: Look, that really depends agency by agency. Again, the national security-connected agencies like DOJ and FBI are being told not to respond. Others yesterday, the Commerce Department, responded. Interior Department employees responded, by and large. But it is -- Transportation as well.

But it is sort of a patchwork approach, if you will. But it really is underscoring all the questions here about if this is actually an appropriate e-mail or if it's simply to keep some of the federal workers off-balance, if you will.

But there's actually the first Cabinet meeting tomorrow of this new administration. So it will be interesting also to see if Cabinet secretaries raise this with the president, Pamela.

BROWN: All right, Jeff Zeleny at the White House.

Thanks so much, Jeff.

Well, the lawsuits against DOGE are piling up and now a federal judge is demanding answers, as she weighs if it's even constitutional.

CNN's Katelyn Polantz is following it all for us.

Katelyn, what more do we know about these lawsuits and the questions this judge wants answered?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Well, Pamela, there just aren't many answers right now. That became clear in a hearing yesterday, where for, about 30 minutes, Judge Colleen Kollar- Kotelly of the federal court in Washington just grilled the administration's lawyers, asking anyone in the courtroom, does anyone know what DOGE is and what Elon Musk is doing, as the person who's holding himself out there as the director of DOGE?

[11:05:07]

So the judge was asking questions like, where is Mr. Musk in all of this? Things that were happening at the Treasury Department is what she was asking about, people working with DOGE within Treasury. Also asking, is there an administrator of USDS? That's the U.S. Digital Service, now known as DOGE at the present time.

That's important because the administrator is referred to as the person in charge in Donald Trump's executive order establishing DOGE. Also stating very clearly to the Justice Department, what is his, that's Musk's, position? He's not the administrator. And, as I understand it, he's not an employee of USDS, but he seems to be speaking on behalf of USDS.

So, Judge Kollar-Kotelly nailing the big questions here, but the legal questions are very important, Pamela. This isn't just an existential question about what is going on with Musk. It's a legal question of who is giving these people that are saying they're working with DOGE authority to do what they're doing? Who is giving them direction?

And that matters under the law because those people are supposed to be nominated by the president, confirmed by the Senate. All the Justice Department lawyer was able to say as far as answers to Judge Kollar- Kotelly yesterday was that Elon Musk was an adviser to the White House. That's it.

BROWN: That's really telling. And, by the way, American people deserve to have these answers, right? They're very simple, basic answers, particularly when you're dealing with this private, sensitive data like this.

Katelyn Polantz, thank you so much.

And now let's bring in CNN senior legal analyst and former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District in New York Elie Honig.

All right, so let's talk about this. I find it fascinating.

This judge is asking very basic questions that you would expect, right? And the DOJ lawyer, Katelyn, just said, look, Elon Musk is an adviser, not really specifically answering those questions. How do you see this playing out?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, I definitely sympathize for that DOJ lawyer having to go into court without the answers that he would need to be able to provide to a judge. But I think we can look forward to seeing more of this, because what

we have seen so far, Pam, has been the preliminary phases. The people who have challenged the actions taken by the Trump administration, by Musk, by DOGE, they have all been in the posture of asking for emergency relief. They're asking for injunctions.

And so we have seen this series of dozens of rulings where judges either are or are not hitting the pause button. But now we're starting to proceed to the next phase of litigation in these cases, where we're getting into what we call discovery, or where judges say, I need to know some details and some facts.

And so I think more and more we're going to see, A, judges asking the kind of questions that Katelyn just laid out that Judge Kollar-Kotelly asked. And, B, we're going to start seeing some of these plaintiffs get access to internal documents, get the opportunities to depose certain government and officials in order to determine just the basics. Who's who here, who is acting under what authority and who's calling the shots?

BROWN: And our reporting indicates that opaqueness is basically by design when it comes to DOGE. But with these judges, can they essentially force the Trump administration to reveal what's going on behind the scenes? I know you mentioned discovery. That could be one way to do it, right?

HONIG: Sure. Or judges can even just more directly say, I need to know this. I need to have a hearing. I want someone in here to answer questions from me.

So, yes, judges do have the authority to compel the executive branch to turn over information. But that in itself will become subject of legal battles, because watch for the administration -- and administrations across party lines do this -- to push back, to say that's privileged, perhaps that's subject to executive privilege, or we believe that that request is overbroad.

But we are going to learn more. One of the great benefits of the courts here is, they do tend to shine light on internal governmental workings in a way that sometimes Congress can't and sometimes the executive branch itself is not willing to give us.

BROWN: Right. And, of course, reporters like myself are also trying to have that transparency with our reporting behind the scenes.

HONIG: Yes.

BROWN: I want to turn to D.C.'s interim U.S. attorney, Ed Martin, who, by the way, to remind our viewers, helped organize the Stop the Steal movement.

Yesterday, he posted -- quote -- "As President Trump's lawyers, we are proud to fight to protect his leadership as our president. And we are vigilant in standing against entities like the AP that refuse to put America first." The AP is a long-running member of the free press in this country. There has been a lot about cry that he's referring to U.S. prosecutors as Trump's lawyers. As a former federal prosecutor yourself, how do you respond to this?

HONIG: Well, I'm going to ring the alarm bell here about this guy Ed Martin, who is currently the acting U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C. I'm working on a piece about him right now.

[11:10:02]

I think he's extraordinarily dangerous. He has zero prosecutorial experience, but he also has no clue what he's talking about. Take that one posting that you just put. He said, we represent the president. No, we don't.

I was with DOJ for years. You didn't go into court and say, Elie Honig representing George W. Bush, Elie Honig representing Barack Obama. You said representing the United States. The president in his individual capacity or even his professional capacity is not your client. Your client is the people of the United States.

But Ed Martin so far seems to be viewing this job as just a platform to carry out political agendas and to seek vengeance against disfavored political forces. So I think he is someone who we need to watch very carefully. I think a lot of things he's said and posted show a fundamental misunderstanding of what the job is.

BROWN: I mean, that's a charitable view, is a misunderstanding, right?

Because it could be more cynical. We don't know. We do know that he's a big Trump supporter. Again, and I emphasize this, he was an organizer of the Stop the Steal movement. The election was not stolen. And he is in a tremendous position of power, right? I mean, tell us about the position he's in and the amount of power he has now in this role.

HONIG: Yes.

So he is the top federal prosecutor in Washington, D.C. And, of course, that's an extraordinarily sensitive district, because a lot of these political disputes will come through there. If we look at some of the other things that Ed Martin has done and said, one, he has floated the possibility of criminally prosecuting Chuck Schumer and Representative Garcia, both for political statements that they made in public, I think inappropriate, irresponsible political statements, but we're nowhere near criminality.

He's essentially trampling on the First Amendment to lodge these threats of prosecuting these individuals. Ed Martin, also, if you look at his Twitter feed, his X feed, it's essentially filled with paeons to Elon Musk. He is basically kissing up to Elon Musk on a daily basis, and, oh, it was such an honor to meet with you, and we will hunt down to the ends of the earth anyone who bothers you, anyone who acts unethically. None of that is the job of a prosecutor. I mean, he's in charge of Washington, D.C. There is plenty of very serious crime in Washington, D.C. And the fact that he seems to want to act as Elon Musk's personal police force, I think, is very dangerous and we need to keep a close eye on.

BROWN: And we absolutely will. And, yes, the e-mail that he had sent to his work force when -- over the weekend when Elon Musk was asking for the five things they did, even in that e-mail, he said...

HONIG: Yes.

BROWN: ... what they're doing here is historic. He really kind of made that clear at the top that he thought it was great.

And that's fine. But I think you have to look at the whole body of evidence here, past comments he's made, what he's posting online, his role before this. It just -- as you said, it's something that we should be keeping an eye on.

Elie, thank you so much.

HONIG: Yes. Thanks, Pam.

BROWN: Still ahead this hour: After his meeting with President Trump, the French president says a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia could be made in just weeks. A live report from Kyiv next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:17:38]

BROWN: A key U.S. ally is voicing new optimism for a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, French President Emmanuel Macron telling FOX News that a truce could be reached in -- quote -- "weeks."

That comment coming after his meeting with President Trump Monday at the White House.

CNN's Nick Paton Walsh joins us from the capital of Ukraine.

Nick, what is the reaction in Kyiv to President Macron's very optimistic time frame here?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, there's no doubt that we have been hearing from Ukraine officials the desire for what they call a just peace or at least a sustained peace. So there will be optimism that that could be sooner, rather than later, owing to the fact that Ukraine is losing slowly on the front lines and losing large numbers of soldiers and civilians because of Russian aggression here.

But realism also, I think, will greet some of those comments too. I think Macron was trying to suggest that the accelerated timetable that Trump is so keen to see deployed to both his deal with the Russians, but also, as part of that, the Ukraine peace deal is something that Europe is invested in as well.

But there's a huge amount of wariness here about whether Russia can be trusted. We did also hear Macron speaking about the need for steps that are sort of verified, things that they can see the Russians do and they can quantify and have as kind of confidence-building measures that could potentially enable a peace process to move forward, step by step, essentially.

And it did sound a lot like Macron's conversations with Trump detailed some of the European planning and thinking around exactly what sort of stage-by-stage process you would need to have the Ukrainians confident that the Russians wouldn't simply use a pause in fighting to refit before launching another attack.

But we don't know about that in public, and we don't know how that aligns with the separate, quite fast track being spoken of by Trump officials around their separate dealings with Russia, so a lot, I think, of optimism here as a result of that Macron meeting.

He does appear to have, frankly, turned Trump around from being deeply negative towards Europe, along with some of his closest officials in the week beforehand, and very negative about Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, about whom he launched a litany of falsehoods, frankly.

And now we have flipped suddenly after the Macron intervention to a rare earth deal that now appears to be so much closer to being signed than before. It hasn't happened yet, and, most importantly, Trump saying that Zelenskyy would come to Washington to sign that deal with him in the Oval Office this week or next.

[11:20:06]

No date for that yet, but a remarkable transformation in that relationship, owing to Macron's intervention, given the fact that it was landing in a disinformation circle the previous week and Trump responded falsehood there and suggesting Zelenskyy was a treasury secretary trying top get this rare earth minerals deal signed, also a falsehood.

So, huge transformation. Whether it's the sustains, whether it's the same next week, unclear at this point, so much changing so fast.

BROWN: So much changing so fast, and you just saw yesterday at the U.N. the U.S. joining Moscow to vote against a U.N. resolution to condemn Russia's war against Ukraine. Wow.

Nick Paton Walsh, thank you so much.

Still ahead this hour, if you think eggs at the grocery store are expensive, imagine if your livelihood depended on them. I will talk with a bakery manager who says the 150 eggs he needs every day cause double what they did a year ago.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:25:42]

BROWN: Well, if you're a fan of the Grand Slam breakfast, prepare to pay a little bit more, because there are reports that some Denny's are charging more for eggs due to that nationwide shortage. It's unclear how many of the 1,500 locations will add the surcharge or how much it'll be.

Earlier this month, Waffle House told its customers they are going to have to pay an extra 50 cents for every egg. While big chains appear to be charging more for eggs, small business owners are facing this terrible choice, raise prices and risk losing customers, or risk losing their business altogether as rising costs eat into their bottom line.

Let's discuss this with Scott Auslander. He is the general manager of Bread First. That's a local bakery in Washington, D.C.

Hi, Scott.

So tell us how this egg shortage has affected your business.

SCOTT AUSLANDER, GENERAL MANAGER, BREAD FURST BAKERY: Yes, well the egg shortage started a little while back, as everybody knows, and we have seen a real doubling of the prices of eggs over the last year.

I looked this morning before I came home with you. Same week last year, I was paying $3.30 for a dozen eggs, and this morning we paid about $7.50. Here at the bakery, we used about 1,000 eggs a day, and that's going to be a couple hundred dollars a day, $300 a day, $2,000 a week. That's real money that is going to get passed on to the consumer a little bit.

BROWN: That's a lot of eggs. Are you having trouble getting the eggs, by the way? I ask because we were trying to get eggs the other day, and there were, like, none at the grocery store. What is going on here?

AUSLANDER: Just like everybody at home, we have to jockey a little bit. So it used to be we called our broadline supplier. He had eggs. He sent us eggs at a fair price. The price fluctuated a little bit, nothing huge.

But now every day I'm meeting with my pastry staff and we're saying, well, where do we go to get the eggs? Who's got a good price? In prior years, when this would happen, it would go for a short time, couple weeks, maybe even a couple of days, and maybe we'd call our local farmer. And the local farmer would have a better price on eggs.

He'd bring us 10 cases of eggs to get us through a couple of days until the prices came back down. But now the local farmer is having the same problem with bird flu, can't get a better price. So we spent a lot of time jockeying.

BROWN: That's so fascinating what you have to do behind the scenes to wrangle eggs for your bakery, and you're just talking about having to raise the price, a little bit of a price hike, right, for your customers.

How are your customers responding to this?

AUSLANDER: I think the nice thing in this particular case is, eggs are something everybody uses, something everybody buys. That's why they're in the back of your grocery store.

So people know the eggs -- price of eggs, eggs are hard to come by. They know eggs are a little bit more expensive. So when you go to your local bakery and the egg sandwich is a dollar more, you understand. There's a lot of stuff like we're doing here today, talking about it, and it's something people are aware of.

So we have tried to be really targeted, just raise a few of our prices. I'm here in Washington, D.C., where people are definitely concerned about higher prices right now. I don't have to tell your viewers. So we have tried to really target any kind of price hike in terms of eggs for our customers to the items that use a lot of eggs.

BROWN: So I apologize if this is a foolhardy question. I am not a baker. I appreciate baked goods. Love them. Don't bake myself.

So most baked goods, I know, though, require eggs. Has your bakery even considered making changes to recipes so, you don't have to rely on so many eggs?

AUSLANDER: For us, there's really no substitute. We are interested in doing quality work, and you can't substitute fake eggs or powdered eggs on an egg sandwich for breakfast. It's too obvious.

So, in our case, we're just hoping that the prices come down. In these kinds of situations in the past, our vendors have said, hey, it's going to last a month, it's going to last two months. But, in this particular case, they're telling us we don't know when the prices are going to come back down.

So that's why, about a week ago, we raised prices of something like an egg sandwich or a quiche very modestly to cover the cost, hoping that at some point prices will come down or at least moderate a little bit.

BROWN: You talked about how you really feel from your customers there that they're concerned about prices right now.