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Republican Budget Battle; Interview With Rep. Becca Balint (D- VT); USAID Workers Given 15 Minutes to Get Belongings; Trump Set to Meet With British Prime Minister. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired February 27, 2025 - 11:00   ET

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

[11:00:52]

ERICA HILL, CNN HOST: Good morning, top of the hour here. You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Erica Hill in New York. Pamela Brown is on assignment.

The special relationship between the U.S. and the U.K. is about to be on display for the world to see, President Trump preparing to welcome British prime minister Keir Starmer next hour in the Oval Office. It is one of the most consequential visits by a British prime minister in recent memory, Trump and Starmer set to discuss security guarantees for Ukraine.

It is, of course, what was also discussed by Trump on Monday with French President Emmanuel Macron at the White House. The big question, will the British leader perhaps have more luck in terms of getting Donald Trump to agree on Ukraine's future and also on distancing himself from Vladimir Putin?

CNN chief national affairs correspondent Jeff Zeleny is at the White House.

Jeff, this is an incredibly consequential meeting, very significant. What needs to happen for it to be a success?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Erica. It's a very important meeting.

And think of it really as the second act in three acts that we have seen and will see this week here at the White House. The first act, of course, was the French president, Emmanuel Macron, coming to visit President Trump on Monday, now, this, of course, the prime minister of the United Kingdom, Keir Starmer, and tomorrow leading into the visit, expected visit, at least, by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

All a piece of the really reset relationship and revived peace talks that are under way, but, more importantly, the particular relationship the U.S. will have in Ukraine if there is a peace deal down the road with Russia, but the prime minister today making clear this is his first meeting with the president here at the White House, but he has started to develop a relationship with him after he was elected.

They dined at Mar-a-Lago, the president's Florida estate, and they have had several phone calls. But this meeting will certainly test the relationship, because the big question hanging over all of this is, if there is some type of peace deal, what are the security guarantees for Ukraine?

President Trump said this yesterday, that it's Europe's burden.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm not going to make security guarantees beyond very much. We're going to have Europe do that, because it's in -- we're talking about Europe is their next-door neighbor.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENY: So, of course, the underlying issue of all of this is, will the U.S. have a role in guaranteeing some type of security, translating that that Putin doesn't do this again and invade Ukraine? So that is the central underlying question here.

But taking steps into this meeting, the British prime minister making clear earlier this week that Britain will devote more of its GDP to military spending. That is something that the American president here has wanted. Donald Trump believes that Europe has not carried its end of the deal.

So, going into this meeting, there are many things being set up for this enduring relationship. But, Erica, we shall see if the president moves away at all or urges Putin to offer any concessions. So far, he has not.

HILL: Yes, absolutely.

Jeff, I did also want to ask you about new this morning the president now threatening to double tariffs on China and saying that those 25 percent tariffs for Mexico and Canada, those will go into effect on Tuesday. What more is the White House saying about that plan this morning?

ZELENY: Erica, if this sounds familiar, it should, because this is something the president threatened a month ago, but then in the final hours put a reprieve on tariffs on Mexico and Canada.

He says that 30-day reprieve is going to be over next week on March 4. He intends to levy these tariffs. Of course, there are big concerns what that would do for the auto industry, big concerns what that would do for the economy overall. A tariff is a tax, of course, that is paid on people who use the goods. So that, of course, is Americans.

So we shall see if these tariffs go into effect. He says they will. But I recall a month ago he also said they would and gave them a last- minute deal. Interestingly, though, the date of March 4, next Tuesday, it would be the day that he is scheduled to give his first joint address to the House and Senate, basically, a new president's version of the State of the Union address.

[11:05:00] So it will be interesting to see if he uses that speech as a moment to talk about these tariffs. But, as for now, at least, the president is once again threatening tariffs on the neighbors to the north and the south of the United States, Erica.

HILL: Jeff Zeleny, one of the smartest at minds I know in Washington, I got to say, you make me feel good when you say the thing that I was thinking too, coinciding with that address. So we will all be watching to see what happens with that. Thank you, my friend.

ZELENY: Great to see you, my friend.

HILL: Also with us this hour, CNN chief national security correspondent Alex Marquardt.

Alex, as we're looking at what is going to come out of -- potentially of this meeting today, this visit from the prime minister to the White House, I know you have been in communication with the British government this week. We're talking a lot about what's expected on the U.S. side, but what does the prime minister hope to achieve here?

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Erica, the prime minister is trying to move the ball forward.

And, of course, I agree with our esteemed colleague, Jeff Zeleny, that this is the second part of this three-part series of these European leaders coming to the White House this week. They're essentially all on a joint campaign to try to get President Trump to stick with Ukraine, to continue the security assistance for Ukraine, and, of course, the big question about security guarantees.

Now, the Brits, of course, have their own unique interests. There will be a lot of discussions about the economy, about trade, about tech. But Ukraine really is the issue of the hour. And I have been told by British officials that Prime Minister Starmer does want to get into some specifics with the Trump administration.

Essentially, Starmer is taking the baton from President Macron just a few days ago. Both of these men want what they're calling a backstop from the Trump administration. If and when there is a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, what would that look like in terms of a deterrent force on the ground to make sure that Russia does not invade Ukraine again?

Starmer and Macron have talked about boots on the ground, some 30,000 troops that they could put into Ukraine as peacekeepers. We have heard President Trump say very clearly he does not want U.S. troops in harm's way. So the big question now, is there anything else that Starmer and Macron can convince Trump to do in terms of American assistance that would help with that backstop, as they're calling it?

Could there be long-range missiles that are positioned, for example, in Poland? Are there big planes, transportation aircraft? Is there intelligence that the U.S. can offer? So this is going to be a British effort to try to get assurances from the American president that we have not yet heard, because the -- Trump has been very averse to committing anything.

We have this big minerals deal that's going to be signed between President Zelenskyy and Trump tomorrow. But the U.S. is making very clear there is nothing in that deal that guarantees American security assistance. So there's a lot of work on the European front that still needs to be done with the Trump administration -- Erica.

HILL: Certainly. I did find it interesting. I spoke with Kurt Volker just about an hour ago, who said he actually wouldn't be surprised that there was some sort of a verbal agreement, not in the signed agreement, but a verbal agreement that President Trump would be a part of to say, if Europe is threatened, that perhaps the U.S. would come to their aid.

It would be interesting to see if that comes out of it. This is all -- this is part two. As you were saying, as Jeff was saying, part three really comes tomorrow when President Zelenskyy visits the White House. There is so much riding on that. There's been so much back-and-forth, the visit only just confirmed, I believe, today by Zelenskyy's team.

What do we expect out of that, given how tenuous this relationship has been between the two men?

MARQUARDT: It's been such a tumultuous few weeks. Just a couple weeks ago, we heard President Zelenskyy at the Munich Security Conference essentially saying we can no longer count on the United States, the relationship between the U.S. and Europe has changed for good.

We have seen President Zelenskyy get a little bit aggressive about what he wants from the Trump administration. I'm not sure that that works with President Trump, but, at the same time, President Zelenskyy knows President Trump very well. He understands that President Trump likes flattery, so I think we can expect to see a lot of that on display tomorrow.

And he understands that President Trump is transactional. And I think that's where the origin of this minerals deal really comes from. And it was offered, it was put on the table by President Zelenskyy before Trump even took office. But it is clear that Zelenskyy thinks that he can give President Trump a win, and President Trump can say we have struck a deal that is beneficial to not just Ukraine, but to the United States as well.

And I think a key component here is President Zelenskyy wanted to make sure that he was the first one to meet with President Trump ahead of President Putin. We have heard Trump say that he plans to meet with Putin at some point. It was rumored for this week. Of course, that isn't happening.

So this is going to be a win in Zelenskyy's book that he gets to meet with President Trump first. He gets to sign this deal. But, of course, he's not getting those assurances. He's not getting those guarantees from the American administration. That's something else that he's going to be working on with President Trump tomorrow, Erica.

HILL: Yes, absolutely. Alex, really appreciate it. Thank you. Happening now in Washington, USAID workers returning to their offices

at the Ronald Reagan Building for the final time. They have 15 minutes, just 15 minutes, to gather their belongings and get out.

[11:10:03]

CNN's Arlette Saenz joining us now.

This is also, we should note for folks not familiar with perhaps Washington, D.C., things are pretty close together. This is happening really just steps from the White House. Walk us through what is happening for these folks today and what comes next.

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Erica, throughout the morning we have seen USAID workers streaming in and out of the headquarters here as they're coming to collect their belongings.

As you noted, these impacted workers, people who have been terminated, laid off or placed on administrative leave have been given specific time frames where they can come collect their items from their workspaces today and tomorrow, mostly in 15-minute increments.

We have seen people coming out walking out of this building carting boxes, tote bags, and as you can see behind me right now, as people are starting to trickle out, there are rounds of applause from the supporters who have gathered here this morning, really just trying to offer some words of appreciation for so many of these USAID workers for their service.

Now, we had a chance to speak with one of the impacted workers a little bit earlier this morning. Her name is Juliane Alfen, 25 years old. She had been participating in the Presidential Management Fellows Program. That is a program that was eliminated by President Trump via executive order just last week.

And, today, she had the opportunity to come collect her belongings, a moment that she called heartbreaking. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JULIANE ALFEN, FIRED USAID EMPLOYEE: It's been horrible. There's been like little to no communication with us. We're being treated terribly. I'm worried about overseas staff coming back. I have heard there's little to no communication with them. There's been no, like, off boarding with us. It's just been very sudden, everything, one day being locked out of the building, the next being told you're on admin leave, things like that.

It's been very difficult.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAENZ: So that provides a little bit of a window into how some of these federal workers who have been impacted by the Trump administration's cuts are feeling in this moment. USAID is a really one of the agencies that has seen some of the most

widespread cuts since Trump has taken office. And, today, these workers are able to come in, trying to collect their belongings while many of them are facing a very uncertain future in their own careers, but also as they wonder what future U.S. aid abroad might look like down the road.

HILL: Absolutely. Arlette, really appreciate it. Thank you.

Still to come this hour: House Speaker Mike Johnson insisting his party will not cut Medicaid, Medicare or Social Security to pay for President Trump's agenda. We're live on Capitol Hill with the budget back-and-forth and also the Democratic response.

Plus, Gene Hackman and his wife found dead in their New Mexico home. What police are saying this morning as tributes to the legendary actor pour in.

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[11:17:41]

HILL: Right now on Capitol Hill, House and Senate Republicans are battling over which blueprint will actually be able to carry out President Trump's agenda, the House GOP passing their version of the budget on Tuesday, and, then of course, just hours later, Senate Republican signaling they may have other ideas.

CNN's Lauren Fox joining us now from Capitol Hill.

So, Lauren, what are Republican senators saying this morning and how are they tackling these differences in the two plans?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Erica, this is going to take some time for Republican leadership to sort out because the plans that the House and Senate have each passed respectively are very different.

For one, the House-passed plan does include a blueprint to continue Trump's tax cuts from 2017. The Senate plan didn't do that, because their thinking was that they would pass the shorter bill first and then they would move on to taxes later in the year. So they have to find a way to square that difference.

The other major change is that the House-passed budget blueprint gives instructions to committees to make much steeper cuts than what was outlined in the Senate bill. And this is where some of that key tension is coming from when you talk to Republican senators. You have people like Josh Hawley who have been warning the House that they are not going to accept a plan that slashes programs like Medicaid.

Now, the speaker of the House has repeatedly argued that he does not want to make some changes to Medicaid, but here's what he said about whether or not Republicans would be moving forward with those cuts.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): The president said over and over and over, we're not going to touch Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid. We have made the same commitment.

Now, that said, what we are going to do is go into those programs and carve out the fraud, waste and abuse and find efficiencies.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOX: But, Erica, just to give you a little bit of sense of how Republicans are going to find it very difficult to sort of square that circle is the fact that the House-passed budget plan does require the Energy and Commerce Committee that has jurisdiction over programs like Medicaid to find more than $800 billion in cuts.

Now, when you look at scores about what kind of reforms in Medicaid get you to that number, waste, fraud and abuse are not going to get you $800 billion in savings, and that is what is making so many Republican senators nervous right now -- Erica.

[11:20:00]

HILL: Yes, and what is leading to so many questions.

Lauren, appreciate the reporting. Thank you.

Joining me now to discuss further, Democratic Congresswoman Becca Balint of Vermont, who's a member of the House Budget Committee.

It's good to have you with us.

Picking up on where we just left off with my colleague Lauren Fox on the Hill, there has been a lot of question, I know specifically from Democrats, about what this could mean for a number of those programs. Lauren talked about what Speaker Johnson said to Kaitlan Collins last night.

Last hour, I spoke with one of your Republican colleagues, Dan Meuser of Pennsylvania, and asked him specifically whether those millions of Americans who currently have benefits from Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, if they would see any changes to their benefits. Here's his response.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. DAN MEUSER (R-PA): Yes, they will see no change to their benefits. In fact, by saving Medicaid, by rooting out the waste, abuse and fraud, which you have heard, but also those who are ineligible, we will have more allocation to those who are truly in need of Medicaid. There will be no cuts to Medicaid or Medicare.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: So you hear it from your colleague there on the other side of the aisle. President Trump says there won't be cut. Speaker Johnson says there will not be. Do you trust your Republican colleagues? REP. BECCA BALINT (D-VT): Absolutely not. Absolutely not, because we

know where the money is. And the money that they would need to cut will have to come from Medicaid.

And so the other thing that I want Americans to know is that Medicaid is a very tight program. There is not a lot of waste, fraud and abuse in the system. And, so, so many experts have looked at this and have said the kind of cuts that they would need to make in order to deliver these tax cuts for President Trump will decimate Medicaid.

And if you just look at their so-called waste, fraud and abuse, it doesn't add up. The math doesn't add up. They know it doesn't add up. And I think it's indicative that they know it doesn't add up, because you have got House Speaker Johnson instructing Republican colleagues to no longer do town hall meetings when they're back home because they know the American people do not believe them.

HILL: I know you were part of a town hall meeting with your Vermont senator colleagues last night. Some 34,000 folks from your state dialed into that.

One of the ideas that is being floated is a shifting in the way basically Medicaid is handled and the way payments are handled, potential changes to federal funding. That could put more of the burden on states specifically.

In your home state of Vermont, could the state handle changes?

BALINT: Absolutely not. Absolutely not. We cannot pick up those costs. We are a tiny state. We have a lot of people who are living on the margins.

A huge number of Vermonters rely on Medicaid, whether it's exclusively or as supplemental to make ends meet for their families. And I just have to say, it's not just Vermont. It is the speaker's own home district. And we were very clear in the Budget Committee of outlining for our Republican colleagues just what their cuts would mean for their constituents.

HILL: We did hear from Republicans prior to this vote, some who ended up voting obviously for the blueprint here. You talk about being in those Budget Committee meetings. And we have also heard from senators, Republican senators. You likely just heard some of them speaking in Lauren's report there.

There is some concern, legitimate concern. They share the concerns that you share about these cuts.

BALINT: Yes.

HILL: How much wiggle room do you think there is with your Republican colleagues? And how -- how are you leaning into that? Are you having those conversations with them, hoping to pull them over to your side?

BALINT: Always. We only need three to come to their senses on this. Look, they know it's bad for their constituents, which is why we know

they were engaged with the president and with the speaker last week. So they know it is going to materially harm their own people, which is why they don't want to be accountable to their constituents right now.

So, always, we are looking for partners across the aisle. But, right now, I got to tell you, it feels like every single time we think we have an agreement or a deal, they backtrack. They are not trustworthy partners right now.

HILL: Is there any area where you see -- even putting this aside for a moment, in terms of policy discussions, is there an area in this last month or so where you have found common ground with your colleagues across the aisle that gives you hope?

BALINT: We -- right. I always have hope because I'm a glass-half-full kind of gal.

But, look, if the president was going to put forward a plan to give tax relief to folks who earn their income through tips, we would be completely on board with that. If the tax plan that he was putting forward was going to help working-class and middle-class people, we would absolutely be there. But that is not the plan that is being put forward. And it's going to add to the national debt.

[11:25:00]

So, I don't want any more Republicans ever lecturing me on the debt or the deficit, because they all fell in line, except for one person, Representative Massie, who actually lived his values on this.

All those people who have said we will not vote for anything that adds to the deficit, they all fell in line and they bent a knee to the president.

HILL: Congresswoman, I appreciate your time this morning. Thank you.

BALINT: Thank you so much.

HILL: Still ahead: Gene Hackman found dead alongside his wife and their dog at their home.

What we're learning now about the circumstances, as the world mourns the loss of this legendary actor.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GENE HACKMAN, ACTOR: If you put your effort and concentration into playing to your potential to be the best that you can be, I don't care what the scoreboard says. At the end of the game, in my book, we're going to be winners.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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[11:30:00]