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CNN This Morning
Federal Judge Pauses Trump's Deferred Resignation Offer; House Republicans Search for Plan on Trump's Agenda; Western U.S. Storm to Move Across Country. Aired 6-6:30a ET
Aired February 07, 2025 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: It's Friday. We made it. February 7th. Right now, on CNN THIS MORNING.
[06:00:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAROLINE LEAVITT, CNN 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.
And this --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): We're working on a one-bill strategy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Will it be one big, beautiful bill? Republicans in the House and Senate at odds over the best way to get President Trump's agenda through Congress.
And this --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We will defend the proud tradition of female athletes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Full-court press. The NCAA taking a cue from the president: banning transgender athletes from women's sports.
And later --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: You are the greatest friend Israel has ever had in the White House.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: An unusual gift. Why Israel's prime minister gave President Trump a gold-plated pager.
All right, 6 a.m. here on the East Coast. This is a live look at the Superdome in New Orleans. Let's be real. This is all anyone is really focused on this weekend.
Kansas City Chiefs going to take on my Birds. I'm not nervous or anything. I swear.
Anyway, good morning, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us.
Two men, President Trump and Elon Musk, moving incredibly fast and breaking things across the U.S. government as the third branch of said government is lumbering into action and, quite frankly, struggling to keep up.
The judicial system, federal judges across the country, halting some pieces of the Trump-Musk agenda for now.
Following a ruling by a federal judge in Boston, the government's roughly 2 million civilian employees will now have until at least Monday to weigh that so-called buyout offer.
And the dismantling of USAID now facing a federal lawsuit on behalf of some of the agency's employees. The president has claimed the foreign aid agency is corrupt and run by the, quote, "radical left." The head of DOGE, Elon, calling it, quote, "evil."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We're catching them left and right. We're catching them. We're catching them to a point where they don't know what the heck is going on. They can't believe they're getting caught.
And I have great respect for the people that are doing it. Elon Musk is helping us on it, and he's pretty good. He's pretty good.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Today, the Trump administration expected to drastically reduce the workforce at USAID. Multiple sources telling CNN that the agency, which employs around 10,000 workers around the world, will be reduced to fewer than 300 employees.
President Trump's effort to end birthright citizenship has also been halted by federal judges, one of whom said the president was treating the rule of law as, quote, "something to navigate around or simply ignore, whether that be for political or personal gain."
Some, if not all, of these cases beginning a lengthy journey -- what's likely to be a lengthy journey to the Supreme Court. That possibility, encouraging to some Democrats. Here was Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. ED MARKEY (D-MA): The courts, if they interpret the Constitution correctly, are going to stop Musk, are going to stop Trump. I mean, Article I is the Congress. Article II is the president. Article III is the judiciary. There's not an article 3.5, where Elon Musk gets to do whatever he wants to do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: So just how will the conservative-majority Supreme Court, three members, of course, appointed by Trump himself in his previous term, rule on challenges to the president's attempts to redefine presidential power?
Here's what CNN's Stephen Collinson writes this morning: quote, "The growing storm of lawsuits means some of this young administration's most extraordinary applications of unilateral presidential power could be reined in. But the litigation also conjures a scenario that no one wants to think about. What would happen if the administration refused to recognize court rulings, even one handed down by the Supreme Court?"
All right. Joining us this morning, Annie Linskey. She's White House reporter for "The Wall Street Journal." Elliot Williams, CNN legal analyst, former federal prosecutor; Kate Bedingfield, CNN political commentator, former communications director in the Biden White House; and Brad Todd, CNN political commentator, also a Republican strategist.
Welcome to all of you. I feel like, Elliot, this one's for you this morning.
ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes.
HUNT: Because, look, I mean, let's take USAID as an example. And I understand we can have a political conversation about foreign aid and where American voters are on that.
But if you think about literally what is happening and how our system is supposed to work, they want to -- they came in. They want to break USAID. We've heard what they think about it. They want to take it from 10,000 to 300 employees.
There are going to be lawsuits. We don't know if it's legal. But they're about to start getting 10,000 people, approximately, on planes, pulling them out of countries around the world.
That's not something that, like, a court can -- a court can't put that back in the bottle, right? Like, the system can't really keep up with what's going on here.
WILLIAMS: Yes. The court can't put it back in the bottle. A court can stop it from happening prior to its happening, assuming that it's unlawful. [06:05:08]
But, you know, there's the bigger question, and you touched right on it, Kasie, which is that what we're talking about here is separation of powers.
Can the president unilaterally decide how to direct spending in the federal government?
Congress dictates which agencies exist, how much they're funded for, how that money is spent, and over what period of time that money, that money ought to be allocated for.
Now, if we want to start shrinking the sizes of agencies and reducing the size of government, fine. Have at it. Work it out with Congress. There's been, frankly, centuries of precedent in the United States of doing that.
But we are stepping up to serious questions of pushing the bounds of presidential power that I do think the courts are probably going to step in at some point.
HUNT: So, let's touch on kind of the politics, the politics piece of this. Because as much as, you know, the legality is in question, Democrats are apoplectic about this, there is kind of a broader sense in the country that doesn't oppose shrinking government, right, that thinks that it's gone too far.
Here was Joe Rogan talking about what the president and Elon Musk have been doing over the last couple of weeks. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE ROGAN, PODCAST HOST: What's fascinating right now is we're getting a chance to see what happens when you take a business approach to the government in the White House.
You're seeing a politician, a president who's coming in, who can't get reelected. So, he's just going ham, and he's just cleaning out everything. And people are freaking out.
The same people that said, we need radical change.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.
ROGAN: "We need radical change. We've got corruption. We need radical change."
OK, well, here's your radical change.
"We don't need this."
But you do.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
ROGAN: The government does. They need oversight.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Of course.
ROGAN: And they haven't had that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Brad Todd.
BRAD TODD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: You know, in October I was working on a Senate race in Pennsylvania, and I had -- got to see a lot research: focus groups and polling.
We tried to decide at the end, what should we talk about? Should we talk about immigration? Should we talk about the economy? No, the voters said talk about change. They wanted serious change, period. Stop. Full story.
They were skeptical that they would get it, by the way. They didn't know that -- they didn't know if it was possible. I think a lot of American voters have begun to think Washington is this thing that never can be reshaped.
They're going to give Donald Trump a pretty wide latitude to make a few mistakes in how he reshapes it and how he pulls it back.
KATE BEDINGFIELD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: But here's the thing, OK, 80 percent -- a little more than 80 percent -- of jobs in the federal government are not in Washington, D.C.
I mean, this is not -- it is very easy for Joe Rogan to sit on a podcast and say people want to slash and burn the U.S. government. That sounds appealing, I don't disagree.
There was obviously a mandate for change. People are hungry for a sense that Washington function differently, broadly speaking, than it does right now. Don't disagree with that at all.
I do think there will be real, tangible political consequences as this starts to impact people's lives.
I also think the other thing people said they wanted was lower costs. They wanted prices to come down. Prices are not coming down for any number of reasons.
HUNT: And that's part of change.
BEDINGFIELD: Absolutely. And Trump -- and there's the perception that Trump is not at all focused on that. So, that to me, that is a place, first of all, that Democrats -- a message Democrats should coalesce behind. He's not doing the thing he said he was going to do.
But I do think that there will be some -- some real meaningful political blowback here, because this impacts people's lives in a way that I think it doesn't. It doesn't necessarily come through when you're kind of like gun slinging on a podcast about it.
WILLIAMS: Yes. And more of the point, it's almost not worth it to get into the debate over affecting people's lives. Because I think people don't have their heads around what USAID does, other than the fact that they don't like it. Right? It's just something that doesn't stick well with people.
Lost in this whole debate is the fact that foreign aid directly ties into America's strategic national security --
BEDINGFIELD: No question.
WILLIAMS: -- and foreign policy interests. If you like --
HUNT: Liz Cheney was out reminding us of that. She said, hey, Elon, you might have forgotten. You weren't a U.S. citizen in the Cold War, so you might have missed it.
WILLIAMS: But even more to the point that cobalt in your Tesla battery came from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, probably. And odds are, if the United States isn't providing foreign aid there, China is. That is not good.
(CROSSTALK)
TODD: Marco Rubio said that we're going to continue the programs that advance our foreign policy, though. That's -- that's -- that's the thing that comes after the --
(CROSSTALK)
BEDINGFIELD: Not a -- not one, one employee per mission in the field around the world. Marco Rubio also said in 2017, foreign aid is not -- is not charity. Humanitarian aid is not charity.
And that's that is -- it is -- it's not. It is leverage around the world against our adversaries. It's helping prevent diseases from coming to our shores.
TODD: The question is, do these people --
BEDINGFIELD: It's not a hand-out.
TODD: -- have to be the ones doing it? People who are not aligned with foreign policy. I think the answer to that question is no, they don't have to be.
WILLIAMS: You've got agree.
BEDINGFIELD: So, the 25-year-olds who work for Elon Musk get to determine what is and is not good foreign policy?
HUNT: Yes. I do want to talk about those people for a second, because this is, of course, the other -- the other question. And I'm interested to see how, you know, Elon is going to continue to be perceived. [06:10:03]
But like, Kara Swisher was on our air, talking about what this actually is. And she says that the way that Elon is going about this, Annie, is a feature, not a bug. Let's watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KARA SWISHER, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: You know, there's an expression in -- in technology. It's not -- it's a feature, not a bug.
This -- this is what they do. They are careless. I don't believe any bit of them when they say they vetted these people. And they just there are people that will listen to whatever Elon says and do whatever he wants and thinks it's a ball to do this. And very funny.
And so, they're willing to do things, say, adults wouldn't be willing to do or to cross lines that they wouldn't be. He wants these malleable -- malleable young men, in particular, in order to do this.
And they think it's fun. And it probably is for them, you know, being able to hang out with Elon Musk and, you know, take down government agencies for them. And the arrogance is massive, and the ignorance is even bigger.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNIE LINSKEY, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, "THE WALL STREET JOURNAL": Yes. I mean, I'm glad you played that from Kara.
I think right now in Washington, D.C., if you want to understand Elon Musk, the bible that people are reading is Walter Isaacson's book about Elon. It's 600 pages, so it's a long, long slog to get through. But it's well-written.
And he -- what he's doing is sort of almost exactly what he did at Twitter. And the chapters about Twitter apply directly to his approach to USAID, which is to go in and fire an enormous amount of people.
It remains to be seen, of course, whether those firings will hold up -- hold up to legal scrutiny. But like, this is what he has done in other places. And he's been pretty successful doing it.
I mean, there was a mandate for change and to shake things up. And even if -- even if down the road, judges decide that this is not something you can do, I think almost every person in America will have learned that Donald Trump came to town. There's a new sheriff in town, and things are going to be much different.
And that's -- that is the future. That's what he's trying to get across. And he's been successful at it.
HUNT: I mean, my question is, do we want -- do we want this applied to, you know, a mistake at a social media company? The stakes are a lot lower --
LINSKEY: That's true.
HUNT: -- than when you're working with the Social Security number and bank account numbers of every American that files taxes.
TODD: I find it interesting, though, that some new people are now worried about unelected bureaucrats having too much power. As conservatives, we've been worried about that for a long time. So, I welcome everybody else to the party.
HUNT: I don't know that these guys are constitute bureaucrats. I mean --
TODD: He's a temporary employee. He's a federal government employee.
HUNT: OK. Coming up here on CNN THIS MORNING, President Trump wants transgender athletes out of women's sports. What that might mean for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
Plus, passengers evacuated after a train burst into flames. That's one of the five things you have to see this morning.
And one bill, two bill. Red bill, blue bill. The GOP still disagreeing about how to get their agenda passed.
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TRUMP: I think there's a lot of talk about two and a lot of talk about one, but it doesn't matter.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:17:07]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I like one big, beautiful bill, and I always have. I always will. But if -- if two is more certain, it does go a little bit quicker.
Whether it's one bill or two bill, it's going to get done one way or the other. I think there's a lot of talk about two, and there's a lot of talk about one, but it doesn't matter.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: One bill, two bills doesn't matter to President Trump. And I mean, let's be honest, he's probably channeling his voters and the American people, who also don't care.
But he is trying to get Republican majorities in the House and Senate on the same page, because he does care about passing his legislative agenda.
We should note, though, the details are incredibly important on the Hill. House Speaker Mike Johnson wants to do one bill where he puts everything together, because he has got to get the slimmest of slim majorities to take one really difficult vote.
The calculus is different in the Senate. Speaker Johnson and other House leaders met at the White House for more than four hours on Thursday to try to map out this path forward.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHNSON: 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: Speaker Johnson says that they hope to start what's called marking up a budget bill -- writing it, editing it -- next week.
Republican senators want two bills, and they're getting impatient. They want to move soon. Majority Leader John Thune told reporters this: quote, "We just need somebody to move. And we've been trying to get the House -- give the House the space to do that. Hopefully, they can come up with some agreement today that would enable that to happen."
Complicating efforts in the House is that three-seat majority for Republicans. And look, the infighting already starting to spill out into the open, as some feel that the process is leaving them in the dark.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MANU RAJU, CNN 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. Am I surprised? Heck no.
RAJU: Are you? As a result, it could cost your vote.
BURCHETT: Absolutely. I mean, not -- 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, you know, we have a bad case of flu run through the Capitol, and we're out of the majority. And legal -- I mean, literally that's -- that's how close it is.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Brad Todd, getting "dadgumit" in the banner is a little bit tricky.
TODD: It's my native tongue. HUNT: Also, you're from Tennessee.
Look, Speaker Johnson probably has the hardest job in Washington right now, trying to get this together. But, you know, I think big picture, the fact that they can't even get the same page on how to do this really illustrates just how hard this is going to be.
TODD: Well, senators love to deliberate, and House members love to obfuscate. And that's what we're dealing with right now.
And, you know, if you're Mike Johnson, it's -- is it easier to make one half-court shot in basketball or two? Obviously, it's easier to make one. And that's what passing a bill through a three-seat majority is like.
I suspect the senators will get this out of their system. They'll pass something that will prod the House to move forward. We'll end up with probably one bill in the end.
[06:20:06]
WILLIAMS: Counterpoint.
HUNT: Yes, counselor.
WILLIAMS: And we are -- we all know, everybody here, having worked in and around Congress at some point, that the bigger something is, the harder it gets to pass. Every single member of Congress starts getting their own interests in it.
And I asked a Republican source about this. I said, hey, you know, how are you guys going to get.
HUNT: Look at you, being a reporter.
WILLIAMS: Look at that, right?
HUNT: I'm so proud of you.
WILLIAMS: Babies first sourcing. Right?
No. And how are you guys going to figure out a way to get to 218? And he said, Well, do you want to be the one to sink Donald Trump's agenda?
And it's like, now you're relying on vibes and -- and good feelings to sort of get this massive bill passed. That's incredibly hard.
BEDINGFIELD: So also enter the Senate parliamentarian, who will have a say, because it's a reconciliation bill, on what can and cannot be included.
So, the idea that they're going to be able to include, as a -- as a veteran of this process in 2021, when we were trying to do Build Back Better, the Senate parliamentarian is going to say, no, you can't do this via a budget reconciliation bill, and strip things that people want that are going to help get to that -- that final 218 out.
So, it's -- it's -- they don't even get -- they don't even have full control here over what one --
(CROSSTALK)
HUNT: Just the CliffsNotes on reconciliation for everybody at home. Basically, you can get around the Senate filibuster by using something that's based on tax laws.
So, the parliamentarian will look at it and say, this is a policy thing. You cannot simply decide you're going to, you know, build a tower here, because that doesn't have anything to do with taxes.
But if it does have something to do with taxes, then you only need 51 votes in the Senate.
LINSKEY: Yes. Yes. Also, I wouldn't --
HUNT: Fifty votes, I guess.
LINSKEY: I would not underestimate the power of vibes right now. I mean, right now, Donald Trump's political capital is as high as it's ever going to be.
I mean, every day that passes, things will happen. You even saw this with Gaza, where his sort of support began to break apart a little bit. There was some --
HUNT: Republicans were like.
LINSKEY: -- opposition to put U.S. --
HUNT: Troops on the ground in Gaza. What?
So, I mean, this is -- you know, he has momentum now, and people are -- are afraid to stand up to him now. This is a -- you know, this is where you want to push fast. And he's got the -- he's got the support of his caucus.
WILLIAMS: And if the national debate is over the Senate parliamentarian, Donald Trump wins that.
(CROSSTALK)
TODD: I will say something about the vibes. The vibes that are going to happen is Tim Burchett's cell phone vibrating in his pocket. It's going to be Donald Trump calling him and saying, you've got to go back in there and vote for that bill.
That's the vibe that's going to happen. Donald Trump's going to wrangle the last 4 or 5 votes -- just wait.
LINSKEY: Personally. He'll do it personally.
TODD: Personally. WILLIAMS: You've got guys who are conservative on the economy, hawks
on foreign policy. Pick your issue, and you can only lose one of them out of 218, or 2.
TODD: It could be a soap opera? But Donald Trump will get the last two votes.
HUNT: Soap opera. That's what it is. We played a bit earlier where I think it was actually Burchett who said, like, hey, like we got a bout of the flu going on here. Like we're out of the majority. Not wrong.
All right. Still ahead here on CNN THIS MORNING, President Trump now downplaying the idea that U.S. troops would be involved in his plans for Gaza. But details on turning Gaza into the Riviera of the Middle East remain elusive.
We're going to talk to Michael Smerconish because, of course, it's Friday.
Plus, forget car chases. How about a horse chase? One of five things you have to see this morning.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:27:36]
HUNT: All right, 27 minutes past the hour. Five things you have to see this morning.
A commuter train near Philadelphia bursting into flames Thursday night. There were 350 people on board. Everyone evacuated. No word on the cause.
Thousands of people fleeing the Greek island of Santorini. Intense earthquakes over the past week have forced officials to declare a state of emergency.
Millions of tourists visit Santorini every year, but today it is almost empty.
A New Jersey officer rescued an 11-year-old from an icy pond. The boy had plunged through the ice. The officer said he didn't even notice the cold, because he was so focused on reaching the boy.
Also, this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get in there. Get that bad man. Get that bad man now! Get him! Get him now! Hey! Get off!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: It's a scene out of an old Western. A police officer on a horse named Nash chasing down a suspect in Florida. They caught the guy.
Safe to say, Nash earned his paycheck. Or, you know, maybe his favorite snack. Maybe. Who knows?
All right. A winter breeze bringing freezing rain and snow from Chicago to New England. This video from Massachusetts showing the dangerous driving conditions, with the roads covered in snow. Yikes.
They actually do know how to drive in snow up there, so it shows you just how bad it is.
And as the Northeast recovers from that winter storm, the country bracing for more bad weather. Here's a live look at LAX in L.A., getting some much-needed rain this morning.
Let's get straight to our meteorologist. Our weatherman, Derek van Dam.
Derek, good morning.
DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Good morning, Kasie.
Beneficial rain for Los Angeles, but not too much to cause some serious issues. So that's good news.
The ice that you showed, the snow and rain on the East Coast. That's No. 1 of a five winter blitz stretch. There's five consecutive storms that we're counting over the next two weeks. I'll show you which in just one moment. So that was No. 1.
This is No. 2, bringing the rainfall to Southern California as we speak. And that storm is quickly going to move from the West Coast to the East Coast, followed by the Jet Stream that will separate the cold air to the North and the warmer or milder air to the South.
So, we're going to focus our snow potential across the Northern tier of our country. In fact, you can see how it picks up moisture, produces snowfall over the Western U.S.
Great news for the ski resorts. But once it finally reaches the East Coast by late Saturday into early Sunday morning, look what happens. Kind of blows up into a disruptive winter storm for some of the major East Coast cities, New York to Boston.
We have a good potential of accumulating snow. Could reach over a half a foot in some locations, especially in the Hudson Valley, Boston, New York. That's still a question mark, but definitely an impactful storm heading for the weekend.
And then ice to the South of that. This is just the blitz of winter storms we have ahead of us.
No. 3, No. 4.
HUNT: I'm sorry, Derek
VAN DAM: No. 5.
