Return to Transcripts main page
Erin Burnett Outfront
Trump Intensifies Attacks On Zelenskyy, Calls Him A "Dictator"; President Trump On Trump: "Long Live The King"; Small Planes Collide Midair, 2 Dead Amid Safety Concerns At FAA. Aired 7-8p ET
Aired February 19, 2025 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[19:00:41]
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: OUTFRONT next:
Breaking news at war. President Trump lashing out at Ukraine's president, pushing Putin's propaganda. Russia celebrates while some Republicans in Washington push back.
Plus, Trump seizing power, declaring himself king as one of his hand- picked prosecutors threatens anyone who threatens Trump allies.
And a midair accident. Two planes tonight colliding over Arizona. Details still coming in.
Let's go OUTFRONT.
Good evening. I'm Brianna Keilar, in for Erin Burnett.
OUTFRONT tonight, breaking news, a war of words. President Trump attacking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as Trump cozies up with Putin.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: A dictator without elections. Zelenskyy, better move fast or he's not going to have a country left.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: Trump calling Zelenskyy a dictator.
And this coming after Trump falsely accused Ukraine of starting the war with Russia. Zelenskyy responding, accusing Trump of living in a, quote, disinformation bubble.
Trump's VP quickly coming to his boss's defense. J.D. Vance, writing in a statement, quote, the idea that Zelenskyy is going to change the president's mind by badmouthing him in public media. Everyone who knows the president will tell you that is an atrocious way to deal with this administration.
Of course, Trump is badmouthing Zelenskyy publicly, lying about all kinds of things, including that Zelenskyy has a low approval rating. Meanwhile, the Russians are eating it up. Putin adviser and former
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev writing, Donald Trump is 200 percent right, and on Russian state TV.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OLGA SKABEEVA, RUSSIAN STATE TV HOST (through translator): Trump for the first time called Zelenskyy illegitimate and provided sensational data. Support for Zelenskyy is only 4 percent.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: And while Trump's attacks on Zelenskyy are going over extremely well in Russia, they're not going over well with some Republicans. Trump's former Vice President Mike Pence tonight writing: Mr. President, Ukraine did not start this war. Russia launched an unprovoked and brutal invasion, claiming hundreds of thousands of lives. The road to peace must be built on the truth.
And a similar message from some Republicans on Capitol Hill.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. LISA MURKOWSKI (R-AK): I would certainly never refer to President Zelenskyy as a dictator.
SEN. THOM TILLIS (R-NC): That invasion was the responsibility of one human being on the face of this planet. It was Vladimir Putin.
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY (R-LA): To the extent that the White House said that Ukraine started the war, I disagree.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: And close Trump ally, Senator Lindsey Graham, saying he blames Putin above all others. Today, he spoke with Zelenskyy, pledging America's support, according to the Ukrainian president.
Jeff Zeleny is traveling with the president in Miami. Nick Paton Walsh is in Ukraine.
And, Jeff, Trump just doubled down on his comments about Zelenskyy in that room right behind you.
JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Brianna, he did. And this has gone from suspicion that we've heard from President Trump to outright hostility aimed directly at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. It really has ratcheted up hour by hour in some respects. And of course, we saw those posts on social media earlier today when the president called Zelenskyy a dictator.
But hearing him say it out loud at this conference, and the president was speaking at a Saudi-backed investors conference here in Miami, making this point that he believes in his words. He said, Zelenskyy, better move fast or he won't have a country left. Really making clear that there are no options for Ukraine here, or certainly fewer options than they even seem to be a couple days ago.
Of course, that meeting was in Saudi Arabia between U.S. officials and Russian officials. Ukrainian officials were not invited to be there, but it's a little unclear where this goes from here. If this is simply the president of venting, trying to get other European leaders and allies to commit more money. That is the explanation by one Trump adviser I talked to today.
They hailed the response from Denmark sending more money to Ukraine. But Brianna, it's hard to imagine there is actually a strategy behind it other than the American president seems to have a new target and that is Vladimir Zelenskyy.
He has been largely hailed as a hero for the last three years. He's been in Super Bowl ads. He's been in Washington, of course, meeting with presidents. But now, he's become a proxy for Trump -- Trump's anger against Joe Biden.
And Donald Trump also said here tonight, finally, if he was not elected. World War III would have started -- Brianna.
KEILAR: Jeff Zeleny, thank you for the report.
And as Trump's public feud with Ukraine is growing uglier by the hour.
Nick Paton Walsh, who spoke with Zelenskyy earlier, is OUTFRONT in Kyiv.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This was the day it was all meant to get back on track. President Trump's envoy Keith Kellogg coming to town to listen.
KEITH KELLOGG, PRESIDENT TRUMP'S RUSSIA-UKRAINE ENVOY: We understand the need for security guarantees.
WALSH: But he was walking into a storm. Hours earlier, Trump falsely said Ukraine started the war.
TRUMP: You should have never started it. You could have made a deal.
WALSH: And he falsely stated Zelenskyy had only 4 percent approval rating, basically, Kremlin talking points, at which Zelenskyy hit back.
VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): Unfortunately, President Trump, I have great respect for him as a leader of a nation that we have great respect for the American people who always support us, unfortunately, lives in this disinformation space.
WALSH: Trump retorted with extraordinary words, calling Zelenskyy a dictator, refusing to hold elections, falsely repeating half of U.S. aid had gone missing and saying Zelenskyy wanted the gravy train to keep going and had better move fast if he wanted a country left. Russia advancing still both on the front line and on the diplomatic arena, with Trump's top officials in Saudi Arabia. Imagine hearing today's outburst from your main backer while fighting on the front lines, almost ripping up the U.S.-Ukraine relationship and making it harder still to answer the question of what peace deal works for Ukraine.
Mr. President, we've heard the idea of security guarantees again and again from the Americans, but they don't want to put troops on the ground. They don't want to put you in part of NATO. How would security guarantees potentially look given those restraints? Can you explain what would work?
ZELENSKYY: What would work? I think NATO will work, really, but --
WALSH: They won't let you in.
ZELENSKYY: So, yeah, yeah, it's true, it's true. The strongest. But -- but when they said, for example, no boots on the ground, you know, but they have ships but they have air defense. They really have it.
America, they have it. They have air defense. Okay. Can we have 20 systems of Patriot? It's enough.
WALSH: We heard ourselves how the threat is over Kyiv most nights when the Russian drones come.
Let me just pause, let you hear that. This is why a peace deal must be real and urgent.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WALSH (on camera): Air defense is in action again tonight as well. And Zelenskyy has been in his speech this evening trying, I think, to focus on what Kellogg has seen and heard during his meetings with officials today and his display of unity. He says he's had with some European leaders in phone calls. But we're learning more details about a real obstacle in terms of U.S. relations. And that's the rare earth mineral deal. The Trump administration wants him to sign, and he's rejected.
We understand this is really about trying to provide some kind of compensation for money that Ukraine has already received for the United States, for clearing, essentially what the Trump administration views to be past debt. And the document that they're not signing -- well, it was 2 or 3 pages of legalese and then a list over a dozen pages of specific locations and assets that the U.S. was interested in.
So a stark transactional deal, one that Zelenskyy didn't sign and one that appears to really be an obstacle, it seems, in terms of the Trump administration continuing to give aid, without which Ukraine will frankly struggle to hold the front line -- Brianna.
KEILAR: Nick Paton Walsh, thank you for the report from Kyiv.
And OUTFRONT now, Republican Congressman Don Bacon of Nebraska, he is a member of the House Armed Services Committee.
Sir, you had multiple tweets and retweets, fact checking President Trump's false claims that Zelenskyy is a dictator and that Ukraine started this war. What is your worry about the president echoing Russian propaganda?
REP. DON BACON (R-NE): Well, the president needs a do over day and start again. He took a bad turn. I think what he said is wrong, and I just -- and it's a shame. I think many Republicans, I'm not saying all, but many Republicans know what the president said today was wrong.
Putin started this invasion. He is the dictator. He has killed all of his opponents. Zelenskyy was rightfully elected. He is under martial law. And they have under the Constitution that they can postpone their elections while under martial law.
[19:10:02]
Ukraine is the victim and I would ask that our president stand on the side of freedom, the side of democracy, the side of the victim, not the invader, and stick up for what's right. And so I -- I wanted to be very strong in my words today because this Republican does not agree with what the -- what the president said.
KEILAR: You're seeing a bit of a pile on here. Elon Musk, Don Jr., Laura Loomer, really the -- so much of the MAGA base jumping on Zelenskyy. Zelenskyy said this morning, as we mentioned that Trump lives in this disinformation space. The vice president called that from Zelenskyy disgraceful. He said, quote, everyone who knows the president will tell you that is an atrocious way to deal with this administration.
Should Zelenskyy have handled this differently, what he said?
BACON: I think he handled it tactfully. You have to push back. He is the victim. Putin is the invader. Putin's bombing of cities. Russians are obliterating the towns that they have taken over. And they've assassinated or murdered prisoners of war. They've raped and pillaged.
Russia is on the bad side here, and we need a president that has moral clarity when it comes to this war, and right now, I don't see -- I -- I had hoped the president would step up and be better than Joe Biden. I felt like Joe Biden was slow in getting weapons there. He was using rules of engagement that restricted Ukraine. It was really feeding the gridlock.
And I had hoped that this president would step up and try to finish this war in the right way, not in an unknowable way. And this -- this is what we see today is not a noble course of action. We're standing on the side of the dictator, not the side of democracy.
KEILAR: To that point, you posted about the Munich agreement, where the U.K. and others gave the German speaking part of Czechoslovakia to Hitler in 1938, without the Czechs even at the table. So I want to be clear. Are you saying that if Russia just walks away with the territory it has invaded in eastern Ukraine and the U.S. just allows this, that President Trump is in danger of going down in history as a Neville Chamberlain?
BACON: Well, it's a warning. I'm -- I don't personally have a problem with the president negotiating with Putin, as long as he's also given fair time to President Zelenskyy. But what we saw in 1938 was a terrible page in history when Neville Chamberlain negotiated with Hitler, gave away about half of Czechoslovakia and basically directed the Czechoslovakian leadership to accept that deal. And then he said, and then Chamberlain says it's peace in our time.
Then a year later, Hitler took the rest of the country and invaded Poland. It did not work. And my point is, you can't appease a dictator or someone who wants to invade. You got to stand up to the dictator. And I come from the Ronald Reagan wing of our party.
You -- we -- I do believe in peace through strength. You have to stand up to the bully. We don't have troops in Ukraine. I think that's right. But we could do a lot of things to help Ukraine prevail. And it means a lot for our national security in the long run.
China is watching what Trump is doing. Iran is watching. And how you handle Putin sends a great statement to the rest of the world.
KEILAR: Putin is praising the U.S. and Russian delegation, their talks to end the war. Putin said that Trump's team was, quote, open to the negotiation process without any bias, without any condemnation of what had been done in the past. What are you hearing in that comment from Putin?
BACON: Well, I'm not a fan of Putin. If you haven't figured out he's murdered every one of his opponents. He's -- this war has cost him 750,000 Russian soldiers and casualties.
He's a bad man, and he's not only just on Ukraine. He's, you know, been also involved in Georgia and involved in other parts of this periphery and his and his religion. His dream is to restore the borders of the Soviet Union. And that is not in America's national interest.
Further, the countries on the borders want to be part of the western sphere. They want democracy like the Baltic countries. As an example, they want to have free markets. They want rule of law. They want to be part. They want to be aligned with the United States.
So this statement today sets us back, and I hope the president reconsiders and turns this around because we -- he needs to for -- I think his -- his legacy, but also our -- our own national security.
KEILAR: Roger Wicker, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, says Putin's a war criminal who should go to jail for life and even, quote, be executed. Do you agree?
[19:15:01]
BACON: Yeah, he is a war criminal, and I think -- I, Chairman Wicker, is a smart man, and I think he's -- he's got moral clarity on this issue. And I think most Americans do.
KEILAR: Congressman Bacon, thank you so much for your time tonight. We appreciate it.
BACON: Thank you.
KEILAR: OUTFRONT next, breaking news. Trump declares himself king as one of his handpicked prosecutors, is now vowing to go after anyone who threatens the president or his inner circle.
Plus, the fate of New York City's embattled mayor tonight hanging in the balance, appearing in court as Trump's Justice Department tries to get the case against him dropped. So what happened?
And we have the receipts. DOGE claiming that it has saved American taxpayers billions. But we went through the cuts and the numbers do not add up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:20:14]
KEILAR: Tonight. Long live the king. Those words coming from President Trump after he is promised, had his administration moved to kill a divisive congestion pricing plan in New York, posting on social media, quote: Congestion pricing is dead. Manhattan and all of New York is saved. Long live the king, in all caps there.
The official White House twitter account wasted no time responding with this A.I. generated image of what appears to be a time magazine renamed Trump. And Trump is seen wearing a crown, also with the caption "long live the king".
OUTFRONT now, former Republican governor of Minnesota, Tim Pawlenty, and Karen Finney, former senior spokeswoman for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.
Karen, what do you say to this, long live the king?
KAREN FINNEY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think the kids say it's a flex. I mean, you know, clearly Trump is, you know, kind of feeling his power and trying to, you know, through all the various means through which he's trying to intimidate the "AP". And, you know, other media organizations and he's trying to consolidate power. He's trying to, you know, show himself as a strong man.
I would remind us, he did say he was going to be a dictator on day one, although then they tried to say, well, he didn't really mean that. Oh, let's be clear. He -- he means this. He sees himself, as a king.
And the last thing I'll say is its ironic or interesting and probably not by mistake that he made this announcement about congestion pricing in New York on the same day that his deputy attorney general was in the courts in New York regarding the case against Eric Adams. KEILAR: Yeah, there was a timing, coincidence or not, as you say.
And, Governor, we should also note this comes as Trump has yet again suggested he wants to exceed or wanted to exceed the two four year presidential terms mandated by the Constitution. This is what he said just a few minutes ago.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: They're saying that November 5th, Election Day 2024 will go down as one of the most important days in the history of our country. They said in 129 years, the most consequential election. I don't know if they're right about that or not, but it sounds good. I wanted to see if I could get a couple of more years tacked on, but I figured the fight wasn't really worth it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: I guess the question is, how do you look at that? Is that just, you know, trolling or is that something to be alarmed about?
TIM PAWLENTY (R), FORMER MINNESOTA GOVERNOR: Well, I think we all know by now he has lots of grandiose thoughts, and not all of them are serious. And I also think he likes to have fun and goof around. And I think he's basically taunting the fact that people get all wound up about this and we're talking about it tonight on CNN. But if you think about the concept of king, he had a big policy accomplishment in his mind in the lifting of this congestion pricing. So maybe he thinks he's the king of public policy or the king of getting things done.
But, you know, I don't think anybody seriously thinks he's going to be king in the technical or legal sense.
FINNEY: Oh.
KEILAR: Go ahead.
FINNEY: I think -- I think people think he thinks he's king. I think that's the problem.
PAWLENTY: Well, of course he does. But he thinks a lot of things. But you got to also look at what actually happens versus what he says, because oftentimes there's a big gap there.
KEILAR: So what stops it, Governor? What -- what prevents him from -- if he has that desire?
PAWLENTY: Well, the American people, our laws, our Constitution, our institutions and the like. And so if he wants to serve longer, there are clever ways to do it, like running as VP, having his president resign, and then becoming president again so he can get around the two term limit.
But that would require the American people to vote that ticket in, knowing that that's likely to happen. So I am not worried, and I don't think most people in the country are worried he's actually going to become a dictator in America. I think our institutions and laws are strong enough to make sure that if people don't want that, that won't happen.
KEILAR: Yeah, I think we saw something like that in Russia, right?
And, Karen, this also comes. CNN has obtained copies of an internal email from Ed Martin. This is the Trump appointed interim U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C. and in this, he is vowing to investigate anyone who threatens the president or his political allies.
He says, quote, we are the guardians of federal workers. You and I must do whatever possible to assure government work is safe for all involved. We must protect our cops, our prosecutors, our DOGE workers, the president and all other government employees from threats against our nation. How are you reading this?
FINNEY: Well, again, this is another you know, he likes to chart -- offer the charge that then is really about himself. And by that what I mean is, you know, he talked about weaponization of government. Well, this is weaponization of the Department of Justice, which he sees as his own personal law firm, not as an office that is meant to be faithful to the Constitution of the United States of America.
[19:25:11]
He was actually pretty clear about his revenge agenda during the campaign. And again, its another part of this, these attempts to consolidate power, to try to intimidate anyone who might try to cross him so that he can unfold, you know, unleash this agenda on the country.
KEILAR: Governor, he does raise this idea of, you know, going after like a Chuck Schumer. Is that of concern to you?
PAWLENTY: Well, I read these accounts. And, of course, Chuck Schumer did make some comments that many people, credible people thought kind of crossed a line. He did apologize.
But look, even though were now in a world where we have pardons that are politically motivated, commutations that are politically motivated by Biden and Trump and others in the past, and we have arguably lawfare, we shouldn't lose sight of basic common sense. And that is whether you're a Republican, a Democrat, independent or something else.
If somebody makes a credible threat of violence against a public official, regardless of their political background, that person should be prosecuted or at least investigated. We can't tolerate that.
And so I get it. These comments were made in the context of people being concerned about retribution or retaliation. But the fact remains at core, we can't have people making threats of physical violence without some review of those threats.
KEILAR: Do you think that letter reflects sort of the sentiment only that you were expressing here, or do you think it expresses something more? PAWLENTY: Well, I think it's cleverly ambiguous in that regard, and
maybe intentionally so. It certainly covers what I said, and it may be sending a subtle message about what I think you're concerned about and what Karen would be concerned about, which is intimidating political opponents. But the proof will be in the pudding. And so far, it's just a rhetorical flourish.
KEILAR: Yeah, certainly will be.
Governor Pawlenty, thank you. Karen, thank you so much to you as well.
And OUTFRONT next, a tense hearing as Trump's Justice Department presses a judge to drop the corruption case against New York City's mayor, Eric Adams.
The judge, with some pointed questions, some polite questions. So what happens next?
Plus, Trump's DOGE tonight claiming it has clawed back $55 billion. But we went through the receipts. And those numbers do not add up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:31:48]
KEILAR: Tonight, we're waiting for a judge to rule on whether Trump's Department of Justice can drop its case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. Both Adams and Trump's DOJ were in court today.
So far, eight prosecutors have quit in protest of the administrations move to drop the case.
Paula Reid and Ryan Goodman are OUTFRONT. They were both in court today.
And, Paula, to you first, what stood out to you?
PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Brianna, I have covered court hearings for 15 years, and I have never seen anything quite like this. Shortly before we went into court, Attorney General Pam Bondi's office, put out some new legal arguments on Twitter about why this case needed to be dismissed, arguments about how hard it is to successfully prosecute corruption, the resources needed.
So that's what I expected to hear in court today amid this firestorm over this deal. But that's not what we got at all. The Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, he got up and he doubled down, that there is nothing exceptional about this. He told the judge, quote, I don't think there is anything particularly exotic about this decision. This is a standard exercise of prosecutorial discretion. Listening to the guidelines that the president and the attorney general put in place is effectively telling the court, were doing this because we can. And it's because what the attorney general and the president want us to do.
Another extraordinary moment was the judge pressing both sides to say on the record that this was not a quid pro quo? At one point, one of Mayor Adams defense lawyers sort of dramatically offering to put up his right hand and testify that it was not a quid pro quo.
But, Brianna, when you're going back and forth with the judge about whether what you're engaging in is a quid pro quo -- I mean, we are really in uncharted territory here.
KEILAR: Yeah. We are. And, Ryan, you called today's hearing a big cliffhanger. What questions do you still have?
RYAN GOODMAN, JUST SECURITY CO-EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: So the biggest question is, of course, going to be whether or not the judge actually accepts the motion to dismiss. But there's another cliffhanger at the very end of the hearing, the judge basically has left open the question whether or not he would appoint an amicus, basically a third party, to argue the other side. Since the defense counsel and the prosecution on the same side and the judge is not really hearing anything about the underlying record or arguments about that, this is something extremely exotic because eight prosecutors, eight federal prosecutors resigned because they didn't want to submit the motion to dismiss.
So he's not hearing that. And he might then ask for an amicus to present the other side. And then we just have another hearing. That's what's the kind of dramatic next decision point for him.
KEILAR: And so would that be the only other legal recourse for those who are trying to stop the DOJ from dropping the case?
GOODMAN: So, I mean, there's more legal recourse if the judge wants to go further and further down that path. So the judge could say that he denies the motion to dismiss, and then what? Is he going to actually force the prosecution to pursue a case that they're saying they don't want to pursue? There's an argument that he does actually have constitutional authority to appoint somebody independently. That's very unusual.
It's already unusual to deny a governments motion to dismiss, and there'd be even more unusual. But we're in, as Paula said, uncharted territory. This is a most unusual set of circumstances one can almost imagine.
And then, normally speaking, there would be a recourse to Congress as a form of oversight.
[19:35:03]
But there seems to be no appetite for the majority on the Hill to look into this.
KEILAR: And Paula, what does all of this mean for Trump's DOJ going forward?
REID: It does appear that the judge is likely to allow this to go forward, and I would expect that that would really embolden the Trump Justice Department, because this is the biggest controversy that department has seen so far.
One of the biggest of the second Trump term, as you noted, you had over half a dozen prosecutors resign. There was outrage over this. And if the Trump DOJ can fight through this, like I said, they didn't pivot to legal arguments today. They stayed on their same arguments that caused this controversy.
If they can stick through this and prevail, I think we will see an emboldened Justice Department leadership. Sources familiar with the thinking tell me that Acting Deputy Attorney General Bove is just completely unfazed by this outrage and does not care what the so- called establishment thinks of him and what he is doing at the department.
KEILAR: All right. Paula Reid, Ryan Goodman, thank you to you both.
OUTFRONT now, former Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance.
And you hear the judge saying, near the beginning of the hearing, quote, a court has very little discretion here. Do you think the court has any real discretion to stop this, Cyrus?
CYRUS VANCE, JR., FORMER MANHATTAN DISTRICT ATTORNEY: Good evening.
I agree with the commentators who just were speaking with you, that the judge is himself flagged, that it would be very, very unusual. And he did not cite authority, as I understand today, that would give him the right to essentially deny the motion to dismiss filed by the government with the support of -- of the defense. I do think that the court may have this go another round. It was mentioned that there's the possibility of appointing a amicus friend of the court to brief the other side so the judge can say, and would be fully informed of both of the legal sides of this case.
But I do think that the government has the stronger legal argument, given how Rule 48, under the criminal rules has been adjudicated previously.
But the issue is beyond this case, and its the impact of the publics confidence on the Justice Department, the public's confidence in the mayor. I think the real issue here is how is the -- how is the city going to manage what happens if and if or when this case is dismissed?
KEILAR: And at one point during the hearing, Emil Bove said it is, quote, undisputed that there is no quid pro quo.
What do you think about that assertion? Does that deserve further investigation?
VANCE: Well, you know, you do have the detailed letter from the former acting U.S. attorney who resigned along with -- with several other colleagues in New York and also in D.C. Her assessment, which she describes in detail, led her to the conclusion that, as she argues, there was a quid pro quo.
So there is a factual dispute here, but it is both unusual and I think it will be relevant to the judge that Mayor Adams himself was asked under oath that question. And the government takes the same side.
We do have the unusual situation here of really no one objecting to what's happening in court. That's in court. Neither the U.S. government nor the defense. So we don't really have anybody who is standing up for the other side in court and arguing for the other side.
I think this case and its handling has roiled public opinion. It has become a case of significant controversy in the bar. And I think that the Justice Department, having lost eight or more prosecutors, is. Deputy Attorney General Bove may be unfazed, but there will be collateral consequences from this that they will have to manage.
KEILAR: And it certainly was one sided in court today, no doubt.
Cy, do you think your former office, the Manhattan district attorneys office, should open its own investigation here?
VANCE: Well, to be clear, I'm not suggesting that D.A. Bragg should or would open up a criminal investigation, in the aftermath of the federal motion to dismiss. But I think the answer is that he could, assuming that the state crimes, which might include filing false statements or, false statements relating to, you know, election fraud or grand larceny under the theory that illegal contributions were essentially stolen from the public FISC.
[19:40:05]
There may well -- there could be state crimes that would be within the statute of limitations. If that is the case, the district attorney, I believe, legally could. The question, of course, is how much of a lift is that for the office? Does the office feel, without looking at its own resources, whether it feels it should take this on, if it has no cooperation from the federal government in building, a state case that is really going to make it very hard, very expensive and time consuming for the D.A. to take the case and move forward with it.
KEILAR: Do you think Adams should resign?
VANCE: Well, I'm not going to answer that question directly. I think the mayor is acting in a way in which he his decisions here, impact in a very concrete way, the near term future for the city and its government and the voices that are critical of him are many and very strong, but that's really not what today's court hearing was about. It had the typical sort of antiseptic quality of a very legalized hearing and a very disciplined, thoughtful judge, and a bit of chaos on the side with all that happened.
KEILAR: Yeah. Cyrus Vance, thank you so much for joining us tonight. We appreciate it.
VANCE: Thank you very much.
KEILAR: OUTFRONT next, DOGE claiming it just nixed an $8 billion contract. Only we ran the numbers and there are billions of dollars off. We have a special report next. Plus, breaking news. Two planes colliding over Arizona. We're learning
that at least two people have died here. The latest, coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:46:26]
KEILAR: Breaking news: President Trump floating an idea to give American taxpayers a cut of the money that he says DOGE is saving the government.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: There's even under consideration a new concept where we give 20 percent of the DOGE savings to American citizens, and 20 percent goes to paying down debt, because the numbers are incredible, Elon, so many billions of dollars -- billions, hundreds of billions.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: Trump says hundreds of billions are being saved. DOGE claims it's actually 55 billion. But when you dig into their so-called wall of receipts, the numbers don't add up.
Tom Foreman is OUTFRONT.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TRUMP: Also, could you mention some of --
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The White House is rolling out its wall of receipts on the DOGE website, claiming an estimated $55 billion taxpayer dollars rescued through fraud detection, workforce reductions, regulatory savings and more.
TRUMP: Not like a little bit billions, tens of billions of dollars. It could be close to $1 trillion that we're going to find.
FOREMAN: But hold on. A closer look shows big problems. For example, DOGE claimed axing a single immigration and customs contract saved $8 billion, turns out that contract was worth a maximum of $8 million. And that was just a theoretical ceiling for the deal. Less than half that amount was actually slated to be spent.
DOGE corrected that error. But a CNN review of the more than 1,100 contracts listed on the DOGE site found about two thirds made similar inflated claims. And while this alleged outrage dug up by DOGE grabbed headlines --
KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: There was about to be $50 million taxpayer dollars that went out the door to fund condoms in Gaza. That is a preposterous waste of taxpayer money.
FOREMAN: That proved to be dead wrong, as DOGE boss Elon Musk admitted.
ELON MUSK, TECH BILLIONAIRE: Some of the things that I say will be incorrect and should be corrected.
FOREMAN: Still, even with the receipts not all adding up. DOGE keeps filing reports of alleged widespread waste in aid to foreign countries, deals tied to diversity programs, and millions of dead people collecting Social Security.
MUSK: We've got people in there that 150 years old.
FOREMAN: Analysts say that most likely reflects DOGE's misunderstanding of Social Security data, and a former federal official calls the notion laughably false.
MARTIN O'MALLEY, FORMER SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION COMMISSIONER: He has no idea what he's talking about there. There is not like a zombie apocalypse of people, you know, cadavers running around with Social Security checks coming out of their pockets.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FOREMAN (on camera): No one is saying there is no waste to be found. It's just that team Trump is wildly exaggerating what they have found. And there is this to note. Even if all the receipts added up and DOGE really had saved $55 billion so far, they still have a long way to go, because that's just 5.5 percent of the trillion dollars they say they're going to save.
And by the way, Brianna, that number, 20 percent of what they've saved so far, about $33 per person. So don't quit your day job.
KEILAR: Good point. If there was a zombie apocalypse, I know you'd cover it well. Tom Foreman, thank you very much.
FOREMAN: I'd be in it. I do my very best.
KEILAR: You certainly would.
OUTFRONT now, Zoe Schiffer, director of business and industry at wired, who has done extensive reporting on Elon Musk and DOGE.
And, Zoe, you just heard Tom's reports there, reporting there on the errors on this wall of receipts from DOGE. Why do you think Musk's team is doing this with these inflated numbers?
[19:50:06]
ZOE SCHIFFER, DIRECTOR OF BUSINESS & INDUSTRY, WIRED: Yeah. You know, when you talk to people who've worked closely with Elon Musk, what they will tell you is that he's directionally right. He can be wrong on the details, but the overall slant of what he's saying and where he's heading is often on the money.
Unfortunately, now, those details are like billions and billions of dollars, as Tom said.
KEILAR: And so this comes now as there's this scramble to actually reinstate some federal employees in a number of different agencies where they were terminated by Trump through Musk's direction, right. These are workers who were responding to the bird flu outbreak. There were others who were working on the veterans crisis line at the V.A.
You wrote a whole book about Musk's takeover of Twitter. What kind of parallels are you seeing here?
SCHIFFER: Yeah, it's really hard not to draw constant comparisons between how Musk took over Twitter and what he's now doing with the federal government. You know, with Twitter. His primary objective when he first bought the company was cost cutting measures as quickly, as swiftly as possible. And there wasn't a lot of process and methodology like it wasn't -- well-thought out, you could say. It wasn't methodical. Yeah, exactly.
And so were seeing that happen again, you know, with federal employees where they've cut a lot of people and now they're thinking, oh, some of those people were actually quite important, and perhaps they should be offered their jobs back. We see something similar with how they kind of implement zero based budgeting. This is something that Elon Musk does at a lot of his companies. The idea is you cut the budget down to zero, and then you force people to justify every single expense.
That might have worked at Twitter. But when you're doing that with federal programs, things that, you know, save peoples lives in the interim between when you cut the funding and when you possibly reinstate it, lives can be lost. And so it's quite a serious matter.
KEILAR: Yeah. And we're also learning that some of Musk's engineers at SpaceX are now special government employees working inside of the FAA. I wonder what more you're learning about these employees, their vetting, and any questions this raises.
SCHIFFER: Yeah, so the FAA tried to say that this group of four SpaceX engineers was simply touring the facility. But in fact, we have found out that they are special government employees. They are senior advisers to the acting FAA administrator already.
What we also know -- what Vittoria Elliott reported today in "WIRED" is that they were not fully vetted by their start date. And so that is concerning.
KEILAR: Oh, indeed.
Zoe Schiffer, great reporting. Thank you so much for being with us.
SCHIFFER: Thank you so much for having me.
KEILAR: OUTFRONT next, breaking news. Two planes colliding mid-air. At least two people are dead. What happened?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:57:31]
KEILAR: Tonight, safety concerns growing after another plane crash here in the U.S. This one happening at an airport in Arizona. Two planes colliding in the sky. You can see huge plumes of smoke after this happened. And at least two have been confirmed dead at this hour.
This as DOGE was at the FAA today. They visited the command center after Trump fired nearly 400 employees. The FAA's union boss saying the lost jobs will have long term safety implications.
I want to go straight now to Pete Muntean.
And, Pete, what more can you tell us about these safety concerns at the FAA?
PETE MUNTEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna, the FAA's overarching goal is keeping flying safe. So it was an agency considered immune to possible government efficiency cuts.
But today, I was given an internal memo from the acting head of the FAA. And in it, he says so-called special government employees from Elon Musk's SpaceX have been deployed to the FAA to, quote, engineer solutions to what he calls the agency's challenges. No doubt that they are numerous. The FAA is facing a major shortage of air traffic controllers, and many of them are working mandatory six day weeks of ten hour shifts.
In fact, DOGE employees already met with some of them this week. And we know from that memo that this DOGE team toured the FAA command center in Warrenton, Virginia. Also, Potomac TRACON, that's the air traffic control center responsible for the airspace round Washington, D.C. It was that facility that handled American Airlines Flight 4519 just before it was handed off to the control tower at Reagan National Airport.
That mid-air collision happened three weeks ago tonight. And the FAA has made changes to the helicopter flights over D.C. for the foreseeable future, but it's not announced any major, major regulatory shifts since that crash.
The acting head of the FAA, Chris Rocheleau, was appointed to that job in the hours after the crash. And in this new memo, he insists that FAA workers who have already been fired by the Trump administration are not considered critical to safety.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said 400 were let go on Friday, but Duffy says that's out of a total of 45,000 FAA employees. He underscores that all were probationary, meaning they were hired less than a year ago.
But even still, the union that represents many of these workers tells me tonight this is a huge blow to an air travel ecosystem. It's already being stressed to the max, Brianna.
KEILAR: Yeah, we're also learning that some of those probationary employees just across the government were actually not hired a year ago. They may have transferred laterally or been promoted into jobs. So they were in a promotion, a probationary period, which is raising questions. And, Pete, we should also talk about this other crash in the U.S. two
planes colliding mid-air. This is something, of course, that we're seeing after that Delta plane flipped over. These are new images that we are getting there.
Are you learning anything more about this midair crash today?
MUNTEAN: No doubt everyone's jumpy. It's been an incredible string of crashes. Not much connective tissue between them, though. This latest crash in Tucson involved general aviation airplanes.
Mid-air collisions among small airplanes are rare, even rarer among commercial flights like we saw three weeks ago.
KEILAR: All right, Pete Muntean, thank you so much for the latest.
And thank you for joining us.
"AC360" starts now.
