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Tonight: Deadline For Federal Workers To Accept "Buyout" Offer; Musk's Team Expands Its Influence Throughout Government; Ex-Trump WH lawyer: "It's A Naked Power Grab....To Flood The Zone"; Democrats Target "Unelected, Unaccountable Billionaire" Elon Musk; Now: House GOP Leaders Meet With Trump At White House; Trump Plots Out Legislative Strategy With House GOP Leaders. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired February 06, 2025 - 12:00   ET

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

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DANA BASH, CNN HOST: Today and Inside Politics, dismantling Washington. That's Elon Musk's goal, as he now is trying carrots and sticks to push federal workers to quit. We've got new reporting on how Musk and his allies are inserting themselves into, what seems like every facet of the U.S. government.

Plus, it's been easy to forget, but there is still a United States Congress and Republicans who do control it have massive legislation that they do want to get passed. So right now, House Republican leaders are at the White House to meet with the president and hash out their plan to cut taxes and spend more money at the border.

And the White House's go to Supreme Court justice. We have new reporting on this as well. Clarence Thomas is the one swearing in so many Trump cabinet officials. Why? And is he actually trying to draw an exceptional amount of attention from the president? If so, it seems to be working.

I'm Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines at Inside Politics.

The clock is ticking for federal workers, literally, they have until midnight tonight to accept what the Trump administration is framing as a buyout, agree to quit their jobs but still be paid through September. But there are lots of questions about whether the offer is legal and whether this administration can be trusted to honor it.

But Elon Musk's DOGE team is trying very hard to convince them to take it. But some might be calling it bullying. They're mocking the work that they do, threatening to eventually lay them off anyway.

CNN's Rene Marsh is in the newsroom with more. Rene, I know you have been talking to federal workers who are trying to deal with this, getting these requests, getting these offers, trying to figure out what it all means. What are you hearing?

RENE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So, as you said, Dana, I mean, it's less than 12 hours before they have to make this decision on whether they're going to accept this offer for a buyout, what the Trump administration is calling a buyout.

So far, we know from the White House that some 40,000 federal workers have accepted the offer. Sounds like a big number, but when you think of how many people are actually in the federal workforce, more than 2 million. That's only about 2 percent who have actually accepted the offer.

The Trump administration is hoping that some five to 10 percent of the federal work force will accept this offer. And what this offer is saying is that if you resign now, the administration would make sure that you are paid through the end of September. But Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill as well as many of these labor unions have been urging these federal workers not to take the deal.

And in fact, several labor unions have filed a lawsuit, hoping to halt this deadline. And I would say roughly under an hour, we're expecting that hearing to get underway, so it could be that federal workers get a Hail Mary, if for some reason this judge makes the decision to halt this deadline, Dana.

BASH: And meanwhile, on a daily basis, almost an hourly basis, seems like you getting new reporting on what Elon Musk's team is doing as they gain access to agency after agency. What is the status right now, Rene?

MARSH: Yeah. We've spoken to so many who have insight on what is happening inside of multiple federal agencies across the government. And we have heard members of DOGE have showed up with a particular interest in these agency IT systems, and they are looking for a variety of things, not limited to but what for -- what we've been able to learn so far.

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They're looking for information on contracts related to contracts that may involve DEI for hopes in cutting those contracts. They're looking at -- they're looking at information on government employees who may be tied to DEI work or initiatives within the agency, and they're also looking at payments to other agencies that they have their site set on cutting, for example, U.S.A.

So that's what we know. That's the extent of what we know is happening there. But the big picture here, Dana, and I would be remiss if I don't say like, what we are seeing now is not like anything that we have seen across federal government. With the reshaping of federal government in modern times.

And when the dust all settles, it remains to be seen what the impact will be on the American people, because it is worth pointing out that the majority of federal workers actually don't work in Washington, D.C. They work in states, and that includes red states that Republicans are in control of. So, in the end, with this, you know, workforce shrink so much, it will be interesting to see what the impact is in many of those states as well, Dana.

BASH: Yeah. Such important points and great reporting. Rene, thank you so much. I'm joined here by three other terrific reporters, John Bresnahan of Punchbowl, CNN -- excuse me, NPR's Tamara Keith and Laura Barron-Lopez of PBS NewsHour. It's funny that I almost messed that up, because our running joke is, I always say Tamara Keith, NPR News Washington. That's your tag line.

OK. Let's talk about Elon Musk. I know, maybe, we've all been doing reporting on it. You had a report last night. I mean, I do want to get into how Rene ended this, which is, you know, everybody is looking at this, and depending on where you're looking at it from, you're saying, you know, yay, this is great.

I'm glad that somebody's finally getting in and cleaning out the deep state, or, oh my goodness, this is an unelected individual with people who are still -- some of whom are still in their teens, going in with him and going into these agencies, and nobody really knows what they are doing.

And just -- let's just start with the latter, because even if, and let's just say, it maybe should not even be contested that the federal government has fat and that could be trimmed. The way that they are going about it, is my understanding, is very clearly a result of lessons learned from the first Trump administration that you just got to go in. You got to do it and not wait for people to tell you no.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, PBS NEWSHOUR & CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yeah. Well, when we take a look back, when you step back, essentially, the big picture is that Elon Musk, at the behest of Donald Trump, is trying to stop payments. Essentially, there's a lot of indication that he does have control over -- that he and DOGE have control over whether or not payments are issued or not issued, and that is potentially a big problem.

BASH: And payments to whom?

BARRON-LOPEZ: Payments to anyone, anyone. So that's the thing is that it's not necessarily just DEI that is in violation of, they say, of the president's executive orders. It's also just payments that they think are fraudulent. They're framing this as there are so many fraudulent payments. No one is disputing that the government issues fraudulent payments. It does.

And the GAO, the Government Accountability Office, has an estimate of more than, I think, 200 billion annually that there are fraudulent payments. But Musk is singling out, well, actually saying it across the board. It's not just USAID, he saying it about.

He's saying it about a bunch of agencies, that there is that a ton of fraud. And if I don't like this specific payment, it must be fraud. Payments to politico are fraud. That's not true. And he is very laser focused on the Bureau of Fiscal Service, where 89 percent of the government payments come out of. That's to individuals, like social security --

BASH: That's inside the Treasury Department.

BARRON-LOPEZ: That's inside the Treasury Department, that's to individuals, that's to contractors, that's to 89 percent of the government payments. They are fixated on that specific bureau because they know -- because -- and they are trying to incorrectly say that you can stop payments there.

That's not what the Bureau of Fiscal Service does? The Bureau of Fiscal Service is just responsible for writing the check. All of the vetting about whether or not a payment is improper or fraudulent comes before that. It's supposed to be at agencies. So, if they were actually concerned about stopping fraud, then they would work within the agencies to stop the fraud. Work within the IRS, which they say they want to delete.

TAMARA KEITH, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, NPR: There are a lot of things that are happening. It's an act first and ask later, kind of situation, typically, the executive branch has to follow what Congress appropriates. Has to follow what Congress sets out. That's the way our country was designed, that is our constitutional order.

There are so many laws and regulations, and you can disagree with some of them, but there are so many laws and regulations about everything from, you know, installing a server, for instance, or who can work on computer systems, or -- just all kinds of rules about how the government operates, designed to in theory, protect the American people and prevent intrusions from outside, to prevent hacking and all of these other things.

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And Musk's team is in many ways, treating the federal government like they treated Twitter, as he has treated business more broadly, which is, yeah, we're going to break things. But in the end, we'll be agile, and we'll go fast, very fast and we'll win. And this says, the government's a different beat.

BASH: Yeah. Completely different, because it's actually governed by very specific laws and checks and balances and things that they're not necessarily following right now. Ty Cobb was an attorney for Donald Trump, one of his counsels. Here's what he said in The Washington Post.

It's a naked power grab consistent with what Trump's advisers have persuaded him to do, which is to flood the zone with as much unconstitutional activity. Again, this is Donald Trump's former lawyer. Unconstitutional activity as possible with the hope that they get away with some or all of it. And that's what we're seeing before our eyes.

JOHN BRESNAHAN, CO-FOUNDER, PUNCHBOWL NEWS: Yeah. They are going to get away with it. I mean, Congress not going to stop, the Republicans in Congress are not going to stop them. I think this is an -- I think Cobb is right. This is a tremendous power grab. And this goes to what Laura has pointed by the Trump White House to control everything inside the White House.

Now this has gotten over the decades. We've seen this in the Clint administration, in the George W. Bush administration, more power has been gone to the Oval Office from the agencies, but this is on a whole dramatically different level.

And you know, they are trying to just run roughshod over systems that have developed over decades to try to provide some checks and balances, not only in in legislating, but in how we hand out contracts and everything.

And what happens when Musk leaves the government? He has all -- what happens over all this information?

BASH: When or if?

BRESNAHAN: Well, if, you know, I mean, he is a special government employee. He has some limits, but --

BASH: 130 days in theory.

BRESNAHAN: What my -- which fascinating me is that I'm hearing on the Hill is, there's a couple different reads on this. Is, is that Trump wanted Musk to take all these arrows at first, okay, that he was, you know, he was happy to have the world's richest man working for him.

OK. But you now, there's also Republicans and Democrats out there saying that Musk is run amok and that the White House there is -- there's problems at the White House staff. They seem Musk going too far because they don't know what he's doing all the time. So, I do think there's different -- there's different group there and don't know exactly where they are.

BASH: So, we've already established which will continue to talk about that the Republicans who are in his party, who run Congress, who are supposed to constitutionally be responsible for being a check on the executive, no matter who is there they, they've abdicated that on these issues. Here is Greg Casar. He is not a Republican. He's a Democrat, and he is giving a little bit of a road map -- a potential road map for what Democrats can do.

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REP. GREG CASAR (D-TX): Fire Elon Musk. an unelected, unaccountable billionaire, now has seemingly unlimited powers. My entire time in Congress, I've never seen Republicans be able to pass a budget. They can never get that together, and they always come crawling to Democrats for help. Well, we are not going to help, Republicans keep Elon Musk stealing our taxpayer dollars. We are not going to help those Republicans that want to keep Elon Musk in charge of the entire federal government.

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BASH: You've covered Congress since I've covered Congress a while --

BRESNAHAN: Yeah, a long time.

BASH: Is that actually a real tactic that can be executed?

BRESNAHAN: We can't fire Musk. BASH: No, no, what I'm talking about is --

BRESNAHAN: Bu they've been in pressure, yeah --

BASH: Not included, you know, slowing things down and saying no to things.

BRESNAHAN: There are -- and there's two pressure points they can do. Government funding runs out of March 14.

BASH: Right.

BRESNAHAN: If you look back on what happened in the first Trump administration, then, then Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, who was also minority leader, were able to put pressure on Trump at that point, who was nowhere near as aggressive as he is now. The government funding they needed -- he needed them to make a deal.

So, we'll see that. And then there's the debt ceiling, which is probably June. And these are where the Democrats are going to be able to put pressure on them because he's right, because our is right. He hasn't been in Congress that long, but that they won't be able to pass government funding without Democrats. They won't be able to pass, they darn sure won't be able to pass debt limit without Democrats. That's where they can make some checks there.

But here's the thing, even if they cut a deal with them, then even if they have a deal, who's to say he's not going to just blow through that at the other side, want to get the deal --

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BASH: I know you want to get in. We're going to have to sneak in a quick break. We have a lot more to talk about. Don't worry. Coming up Congress is fighting over the Trump agenda, not talking about Democrat versus Republican. I'm not even talking about the issues that we have been talking about. Talking about Republicans versus Republican on the actual legislation they say they want to pass. Stay with us.

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BASH: This just in Congress, does still exist. We know that because House Republican leaders right now are meeting with President Trump at the White House, as party infighting is paralyzing a part of the president's agenda, the one that still does need to get through the legislative body to see the light of day.

Punchbowl News puts it this way. Quote, it's not even five weeks into the 119 Congress and the White House and Senate Republicans are already growing tired of waiting for House Republicans to get their act together. How do you think the Republican trifecta is doing? You are Punchbowl News, but you got the last word, so I'm going to come back around to you. But Laura, I mean, I think what we're going to get to is that they're a mess when it comes to the legislating, like making sure that the immigration policies that the president wants are funded tax cuts that he ran on, and he wants to continue get done and other things.

If that -- all of that is true, as is what we talked about in the first segment, is that they are doing other things, just the things that they don't need to have Congress deal with, or in spite of the fact that Congress says the opposite in terms of the law.

BARRON-LOPEZ: Yeah. Although, Republicans are not necessarily getting upset or saying publicly that they're troubled by the fact that the Trump administration appears to be in violation of multiple laws with moving forward, with deciding how they want to spend or not spend money, clawing back money.

You're right, Dana, it's -- and to end on president's final point that he made, you know, it's looking increasingly like, it's going to be a massive mess in the next few months. And that Republicans -- if they don't get Democrats, how are they going to pass any of this? And on immigration, specifically, the Trump administration, I think is very prepared to move forward on immigration without Congress.

Yes, does that make it harder to have the necessary personnel that they might need funding -- the amount of funding they may need. But the administration, Trump is looking at other ways, which is to potentially invoke the Alien Enemies Act, the Insurrection Act, so that way, he can deputize military to do what he wants to do, if they don't give him enough money to fund that, right?

BASH: OK. Right, all of those things and everything's on the table. We obviously know that by watching for the first two weeks. Let's look at what's on the to do list. The Republican Congress's to do list. You mentioned some of this fund the government before March 14, that's when the bill runs out. Bolster defense, border security, energy production, confirm Trump's cabinet. They're doing it that in a OK clip now. This is really one of the key questions, extending the 2017 tax cuts, past California disaster aid package and the debt limit?

KEITH: Yes. That is a very long to do list, and it is the kind of thing that, as we have seen throughout recent history, has required, ultimately, a bipartisan vote. Most of those things have required Democrats and Republicans to vote for it, to make the numbers happen. A reminder on congressional math, Republicans have the majority barely, very barely. And they also need to show that they can function because they are all going to be well the House.

They're all going to be running for reelection again in two years, or less than two years now. And they're under incredible pressure because they feel like they had this mandate. Donald Trump won. He won convincingly in the electoral college. In many of their districts, he got more votes than they did. They have to succeed for Trump, and yet, there's a lot stacked against that success.

So, I think what we're going to end up seeing is a lot of Republicans in disarray, which we saw in 2017 though, in the end, they didn't repeal and replace Obamacare, but they did get that tax cut done, and the desire of Republicans to cut taxes is strong.

BASH: Yeah, but you're right. They're going to have to rely on some -- and even in the House, because the majority is so narrow, some steps of the way they might have to rely on some Democrats. Byron Donald, who is a huge ally of Donald Trump, said the following to the reporters on the Hill yesterday, maybe you were one of them. I think we're stuck in the mud. Call it paralysis of analysis, and I think at this point we just need to make a clear decision.

Lindsey Graham, who is chair of the budget committee now, said the following. I've always believed that one big, beautiful bill is too complicated. What unites Republicans, for sure, is border security and more money for the military. It's important we put points on the board.

Without getting too into the weeds on one bill or two bill and all of the specifics of how the sausage is made. These are the discussions that are leading to, as Byron Donald said, paralysis of analysis.

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BRESNAHAN: Yeah. I think this White House meeting is a big deal for a couple of reasons. One, Johnson -- Speaker Johnson is wholly relying on Donald Trump to get anything done. He has a razor thin majority, as you noted, but he barely got reelected as speaker. He wouldn't have been reelected as speaker without Trump.

Now, some of the folks who are attending this meeting, some of the Republicans include Chip Roy, who's one of the big problems for Johnson in the House Freedom Caucus. These are hard line conservatives. They want trillions of dollars in spending cuts that moderate Republicans are going -- it's going to be a problem for.

The only way they're going to be able to pass, this Johnson, is if Trump hammers these guys. And that's what's starting to happen today. Trump has not waited into this until today, and now today, he is getting into this. He's been focused. He's got all the CEOs. He's meeting with foreign leaders. He's got, you know, he's, you know, just having Musk dismantle the government. But today, he's going to lean in on the legislative side and that will make a difference.

Now, I do think it's going to get real ugly, as Laura talked about. I mean, March 14 is a huge deal. People are, you know --

BASH: It's not that far away.

BRESNAHAN: It's, you know, five weeks away, they're going to need Democrats. So, like, there's a lot of ways this can go, but he's going to any way that anything passes is Trump is going to have to do it because the Republican leadership, especially in the House, can I do it? Mike Johnson can't do it.

BASH: And circling back to how this is all connected. If the Democrats do withhold votes even to keep the government running or to increase the debt ceiling because of what Elon Musk is doing, then they have a bigger, broader problem.

Don't go anywhere. Up next, there is a new attorney general in town. And one of her first moves, shutting down the FBI team, focused on stopping foreign interference in U.S. elections. We have CNN exclusive reporting after a break.

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