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Trump On Gaza: "No Soldiers By The U.S. Would Be Needed"; House Republican Search For Plan On Trump's Agenda; USAID Expected To Shrink From 10,000 To 300 Employees. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired February 07, 2025 - 05:30   ET

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

[05:30:00]

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: But he's talking about the people who live there staying there and he's being explicit about not putting U.S. troops in Gaza which, I mean, makes sense to me based on what he said during the campaign and what a lot of his voters believed.

But what's your read on how this is all unfolding?

MICHELLE PRICE, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, ASSOCIATED PRESS: I mean, the stunning thing is it's been two days of this and we still don't have a lot of clarity on some of these huge questions here.

The press secretary yesterday -- in some of her appearances she referred to this as a plan and said that they expect partners in the region to get on board with this plan -- the plan, which details we still don't have. But in another appearance she said it was an idea that they were starting to discuss, and it sounded more like a negotiating starting point.

You know, we've heard some of the officials in the administration say it's an out-of-the-box idea. He's a bold thinker. He's a great dealmaker. So we don't have a lot of clarity, and it sounds like some of them don't have a lot of clarity about how seriously he is committed to this plan.

But there are questions about who is going to pay for it if it's not U.S dollars? Who are the partners that are going to manage it? His post yesterday referencing fighting that would occur and that the U.S. would take over after fighting. It's not clear what fighting he has anticipated.

So there's just many questions still about what his intention is here and how seriously committed he is to it. But his idea of this long- term ownership is something they have not backed away from at this point.

HUNT: Yeah.

Michelle, let's listen to Congressman Dan Crenshaw, a Republican -- obviously, a military veteran -- and what -- his sort of conception of what Trump is actually doing here. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) REP. DAN CRENSHAW (R-TX): This is -- this is pretty typical unorthodox Trump policy being thrown out there, but it could end up exactly where it should end up, which is the Arab world has to take responsibility for this. I think the White House is -- I'm trying to keep track of the White House statements just like you are and from what I understand they've walked that back pretty significantly. There's not going to be anybody forced to leave. There's not going to be any U.S. troops on the ground.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: So he's talking about the Arab world taking responsibility for this. And this is perhaps the big picture question in the way that Trump negotiates trying to set out a different paradigm entirely. That said, it -- doing it could have unintended consequences.

I mean, what have seen from the Arab world in terms of how this is impacting their willingness to deal with the continued negotiations for the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and also the sort of bigger question around normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia and some of the bigger projects in the region.

PRICE: It has been pretty unequivocally a nonstarter for the way that the Arab world countries have been reacting to this. This is something that is -- that is not on the table for them. That they want Palestinian people to remain in that area. And the Palestinians themselves have said that -- that they do not want to leave their homeland. That this is where they would like to be. That -- you know, there is a question about there is so much destruction there that what will happen in the aftermath here.

But as these ceasefire negotiations continue we are waiting to see how those talks -- if they've been upended by this kind of a metaphorical bomb that President Trump has thrown out there.

Steve Witkoff, who is his negotiator for the region -- he is meeting with the Qataris today. We're waiting to see if this has upended these discussions or if it has kind of sat some brash new idea on the table that they're looking at as a negotiating standpoint and maybe they are coming to the table. We just don't know yet.

HUNT: We don't. OK.

Michelle Price, thank you very much for being with us this morning.

PRICE: Thank you.

HUNT: I really appreciate your reporting.

All right, let's turn now to this. After a marathon meeting at the White House on Thursday, Republicans in the House and Senate still at odds it seems on the best way forward for the president's legislative agenda.

The Senate Majority Leader John Thune and the House Speaker Mike Johnson both plotting their own paths for President Trump's plans. The Senate wants to do it with two bills, but the House wants what the president calls "one big, beautiful bill."

Speaker Johnson talked about what's next after the four-hour meeting at the White House.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: Our message to our friends and colleagues in the Senate is allow the House to do its work. We are moving this as quickly and as expeditiously as possible. Very positive developments today. We're really grateful to the president for leaning in.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Setting the Senate aside there is a significant obstacle for House Republicans -- the smallest House majority in recent memory. Right now, Republicans have a three-seat majority that could last through April when Florida has special elections to fill some of the vacated seats they have.

Some House Republicans who weren't invited to the White House meeting say that they need to see more before they agree to anything.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MANU RAJU, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: What is your level of frustration for not being a part of this meeting at the White House today?

REP. TIM BURCHETT (R-TN): I'm incredibly frustrated. Am I frustrated with it? Yes. And I surprised? Heck no.

RAJU: Are you -- as a result, it could cost your vote?

BURCHETT: Absolutely. I mean, not for ego, just because they're not telling me what's in the dadgum bill. I'd kind of like to know about it if I'm -- if we're -- we have a three-person majority and we have a bad case of flu running through the Capitol, and we're out of the majority and legal. I mean, literally, that's how close it is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[05:35:00]

HUNT: And anyone who has small children right now knows that the flu is actually a very real issue going around.

Joining us now to discuss Max Cohen, congressional reporter at Punchbowl News. Max, good morning.

MAX COHEN, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, PUNCHBOWL NEWS: Good morning.

HUNT: Nice to see you.

So this is -- this one bill, two bills -- lots of procedural fighting. But the bottom line is -- question is whether or not this agenda that Trump is putting on the table can pass the Congress. And for Mike Johnson, already discontent is bubbling. There have been several contentious meetings on the Hill in the last week.

Where does that -- where does it stand? Because I think the Senate has been watching them do that and basically, they said you know what? Like, sorry -- we're just going to move forward on our side if you can't get it together.

COHEN: Sure, and the Senate, as you just mentioned -- they're impatient. They see the House as a dysfunctional body with a slim majority and they think we can be the adults in the room, right?

HUNT: I wonder why that is?

COHEN: However, yesterday was a big development, right? Mike Johnson and other House leaders went to the White House and that's going to be key for this to move forward. They're going to need President Trump to lean in. He is the undisputed leader of the party and when he makes a declaration on this thing, he can get a lot of House Republicans on his side to move forward.

Mike Johnson and other GOP leaders are saying now that Trump's involved we can get an agreement, maybe even by early next week they might release something -- even by today. We have no idea. But it seems like there has been a shift just in the past couple of hours.

HUNT: Max, what are the president's top priorities here? I mean, what did we learn about what he wants to see in this package?

COHEN: What he really wants is his campaign promises, right? No tax on tips. No tax on Social Security. Some SALT relief for people in coastal areas where there are these high tax states, right? He wants those things.

He's not as detailed oriented in the cuts. That's more of a House GOP conservative proposal. But again, Trump has details that he wants but they're the campaign proposals.

The nitty gritty here is the Freedom Caucus. The far right of the Republican Conference says we want up to $2 trillion in cuts. The leadership said we kind of want more like $1 trillion. That's where the discrepancy is here.

Trump needs to lean in and just say hey, here's the plan -- and I think we're getting closer to that.

HUNT: Right, because the cuts are always where the rubber meets the road. That's the hard part, right? It's a lot easier to go home and say to your constituents hey, like, I've spent this money for you. And trying to figure out that balance has historically been the things that really holds this up.

Max, I also want to talk to you about -- a little bit about what we were just talking about with Gaza because you have some new reporting out this morning about this meeting that Steve Witkoff, the Mideast envoy, had with members of Congress and with Republican senators. So this -- you write this. "We heard from other Republican senators

Witkoff sent mixed signals on whether U.S. personnel would be involved in any operations in Gaza. Some of Witkoff's assertions received pushback from senators in the room, we're told. One GOP senator in the meeting told us Witkoff was 'Not very well received at all.'"

It seems like this open question of U.S. boots on the ground in Gaza -- the president seems to be trying to answer it kind of overnight here because it doesn't sound like it's been well received.

COHEN: Totally correct. What Republican senators heard earlier this week from Witkoff was confusing, they told us. And what many told us is look, Witkoff doesn't know the plan because it doesn't seem like the president knows the plan himself.

HUNT: Does it seem like there's actually a plan at all?

COHEN: Right. And we're seeing this --

HUNT: Just concepts of a plan? Is that the phrase?

COHEN: Exactly. We're seeing evolve over the past couple of days, right? Things are shifting. I think what most Republican senators think and what most members of Congress think is this is just an initial negotiating ploy for Trump to get something happening in Gaza.

And most Republicans say look, we want this to change. We want this area to be habitable. We want peace in the region. But what they heard from Witkoff was someone was trying his best to interpret what President Trump wants and no one quite knows exactly the details.

HUNT: Steve Witkoff and the rest of America, and probably the rest of the world, in this case.

Max Cohen, thank you very much for your reporting this morning. I appreciate it.

All right. Still ahead here on CNN THIS MORNING, with USAID being thrown into what Elon Musk calls the "woodchipper," how those cuts ripple across the world. A former official with the humanitarian agency joins us live to discuss the cuts.

Plus, Super Bowl weekend finally here. One player on my Birds -- on the Philly Eagles has a chance to make history.

(COMMERCIAL)

[05:43:45]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's been run by a bunch of radical lunatics and we're getting them out. USAID run by radical lunatics and we're getting them out.

(END VIDEO CLIP) HUNT: USAID employees and contractors waking up this morning with so much uncertainty. Most of them likely to end up on leave or be fired. Sources tell CNN the Trump administration expected to keep fewer than 300 employees. Now, how many are there right now? Ten thousand workers.

One agency official told CNN, "It's the worst-case scenario of essentially one person for each field mission and a few D.C. folks."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARCO RUBIO, SECRETARY OF STATE: We're not trying to be disruptive to people's personal lives. And we're not -- this is -- we're not trying to -- we're not being punitive here, but this is the only way we've been able to get cooperation from USAID. We are going to do foreign aid. The United States will be providing foreign aid, but it is going to be foreign aid that makes sense and is aligned with our national interests.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Secretary of State Marco Rubio was named the agency's acting director.

USAID has employees around the world. Just bringing all of them back to the U.S. could cost taxpayers millions of dollars. Employees and experts say such severe cuts could cause the U.S. irreparable damage on the world stage.

[05:45:05]

Former USAID administrator Samantha Power had this to say in The New York Times. "Unless these cruel and immensely counterproductive actions are reversed by the administration or Republicans in Congress join Democrats in an effort to roll them back, future generations will marvel that it wasn't China's actions that eroded U.S. standing and global security, paving the way for Beijing to become the partner of choice around the world. Instead, it was an American president and the billionaire he unleashed to shoot first and aim later, eliminating an institution that is a cost-effective example of what once distinguished the United States from our adversaries."

Joining me now is Bama Athreya. She's former deputy assistant administrator for the USAID. Bama, thank you very much for being here. I appreciate it.

BAMA ATHREYA, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR, USAID: Thank you so much.

HUNT: This is obviously going to be an incredibly difficult day for so many people that you were working with as recently as a few weeks ago until President Biden left office, and the political appointees obviously left the agency.

Tell us a little bit about what you're hearing from people on the inside about today and the coming days. ATHREYA: It will be tragic both for people who have devoted their lives to public service for the U.S. people and it will also be devastating for people around the world who have relied on lifesaving assistance.

Just talking about what we were hearing as of last night from people this ordered departure -- this recall of all of our worldwide staff has not been handled with clarity. And what I mean by that is even as of last night people did not know what they were expected to do.

We -- as you said, we've got over 10,000 people worldwide. Virtually all of them asked to return to the United States. But without clarity about whether they can get their documentation, their travel in order, how much time they will have to wrap up their affairs and move themselves back to the United States -- none of that. Because the only thing they received was an unsigned, unclear email telling them that they had to come home within 30 days.

Now, Sec. Rubio is aware of this and frankly, he could change that situation with the press of a button and a clear email that clearly had his authority that provided people with the time they need to responsibly -- and I stress that word -- responsibly wrap up their work and relocate their families. And that might be as little as three months, but it is a far cry from 90 days.

Now, when I say responsibly, I really think every American taxpayer should take heed of this as well. I am here to tell you this workforce around the world is our insurance against waste, fraud, and mismanagement. Forty billion dollars is a lot of money. And for our current 13,000-strong workforce that comes to $3 million that -- you know, for each and every individual to have responsibility to manage if you just averaged it out.

Think about that. Think about having a small business and having one person to run it for a $3 million business. That is the workforce they're now trying to downsize.

And what that means is that all the checks and balances that are in place right now -- all the different people who have eyes on each dollar to make sure it is responsibly spent -- the budget analysts, the financial analysts, the program specialists are all gone. So who is going to be there to be sure that money is spent responsibly? It took me a month of training before they would let me push the buttons to even file a quarterly financial report.

I think Sec. Rubio might do well to give our people the time to hand those functions over responsibly to the State Department if, indeed, State Department is going to take care of those functions in the future.

HUNT: Can I ask you what your understanding is of why it is that Elon Musk, in particular, is so focused on USAID to the point where he called it "a ball of worms?"

ATHREYA: It's a mystery to all of us. What we can see and, you know -- so I don't want to speculate what goes on in anyone's head. What we are seeing in practice is a very shallow understanding of the nature of international development.

We are seeing a small handful of very young men being deployed and, as far as we can tell, authorized to make decisions about lifesaving assistance, which gets to the second part of my concerns this morning. Making decisions about assistance that is keeping people from dying. That is keeping them from being the victims of dangerous attacks. And I think doing that in a room -- you know, in your bedroom on your computer -- on your laptop is probably not the best way for those young people to be making those decisions.

What they all need to do, including Mr. Musk, is get there around the world and see what that impact of those actions are. Come with me. Come with my colleagues. Come see what is happening right now in Jordan or Syria, in Bangladesh or in Myanmar and decide on the basis of what you're seeing what responsible action to review and to alter those programs might look like.

[05:50:10]

HUNT: I want to talk briefly about the -- USAID obviously, and you've touched on this, does all of this work to help so many people around the world. It was originally conceived as a tool -- a Cold War tool of soft power to help people around the world feel like America was a place that was supporting them in this sort of great struggle.

Liz Cheney retweeted something that Elon Musk put up and she says, "I'm proud of what America did to win the Cold War, defeat Soviet communism, and defend democracy. Our nation stood for freedom. You may be unfamiliar with that part of our history since you weren't yet an American citizen." Now, she's taking a dig at Elon Musk there.

But this piece of it -- I mean, talk a little bit about what China is doing in this way and whether this means that the U.S. is seeding ground to China in this kind of back-and-forth.

ATHREYA: It's -- that history is so interesting. And I grew up in the 1980s, and so it was the Reagan era, and still the Cold War. And so there still was this sense that we needed to have friends in the world because we were in a global contest with the Soviet Union.

Now you might think moving into the 1990s, 2000s, and then coming all the way up to 2025 that the world has changed, and do we really need those friends in the world anymore? But the fact is we still do have a number of threats that we face not only from the People's Republic of China but Iran, other -- and certainly still Russia that are, in fact, cultivating that influence worldwide.

They are spending the money. They are spending the money in these other countries, and they may be spending it in other ways than we choose to do. But I think we need to decide if we want to still have those friends and those alliances in the world, and that is largely what USAID is set up to do.

HUNT: All right, Bama Athreya. Thanks very much for spending some time with us this morning. We really appreciate it.

ATHREYA: Thanks for the opportunity.

HUNT: All right, time now for sports. Say hello to Super Bowl weekend. The Kansas City Chiefs seeking that unprecedented three-peat. The Eagles -- my Eagles are looking for redemption. All of it will unfold with a special guest in attendance.

Andy Scholes has more from New Orleans.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Well, Saquon Barkley needs just 30 yards on Sunday to end up with the most rushing yards ever for a player in a season and playoff. So you know the Chiefs are going to try to be gearing up that defense to stop him, which means Jalen Hurts is going to need to have a good game for the Eagles if they want to be victorious in Super Bowl LIX.

And two years ago in the Super Bowl Hurts was fantastic against the Chiefs. He threw for more than 300 yards and had four total touchdowns. But, of course, the Eagles fell short in that one.

Well, Hurts says he's used that loss to fuel him to be even better in the biggest moments.

JALEN HURTS, QUARTERBACK, PHILADELPHIA EAGLES: My mentality and my approach is always to -- is always to better myself. And it's always looking internal first and then looking at my teammates and how I can better the guys around me as well. So I've always been focused on what I'm going to actually do and can I do it at a high level. And then also process it in the way that I'm being taught to see the game and that how I already see the game. And then obviously you have that burning desire to win. So all of those things are a priority to me.

SCHOLES: Now only two players have ever been able to beat Patrick Mahomes in the playoffs. That's Tom Brady and Joe Burrow. Hurts is certainly hoping he is the third come Sunday.

Now, President Trump is coming to New Orleans on Sunday and he's going to be the first sitting president to ever attend the Super Bowl. And Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce think that's pretty cool.

TRAVIS KELCE, TIGHT END, KANSAS CITY CHIEFS: That's awesome. It's a great honor. I think no matter who the president is, I know I'm excited because it's the biggest game of my life, you know? And having the president there -- you know, it's the best country in the world. So it will be pretty cool.

PATRICK MAHOMES, QUARTERBACK, KANSAS CITY CHIEFS: It's always cool to be able to play in front of a sitting president -- someone that is at the top position in our country. And so I didn't see that clip but obviously it's cool to hear that he's seen me play football and respects the game that I play.

SCHOLES: And on Thursday we had the Kendrick Lamar Super Bowl halftime press conference. It wasn't a traditional press conference like years past. No questions came from the media. And Lamar said his performance on Sunday will be like his career and focus on storytelling.

And he didn't give any hints on any surprise guests that may show up. But Taylor Swift and Lamar -- they did collaborate on that 2014 Bad Blood remix, so a lot of Swifties are certainly hoping that she shows up at halftime. We'll have to wait and see.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HUNT: Indeed, we will.

Our thanks to Andy for that.

All right. Our here -- up next here on CNN THIS MORNING a gift for the man who has everything. What Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu presented to President Trump.

[05:55:05]

Plus, a federal judge delays the president's deferred resignation program setting up more court battles for the new administration.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MARK WARNER (D-VA): The idea that these buyouts where there's no money, there's not legal authority. The government potentially shuts down March 14. My fear is these folks are going to get scammed and then be the first to be fired because they've raised their hands.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL)

HUNT: It's Friday -- we made it -- February 7. Right now on CNN THIS MORNING --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We encourage federal workers in this city to accept the very generous offer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Buyout roadblock. A judge gives federal workers more time to decide if they want to take President Trump's deal.