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CNN Live Event/Special

Trump's Address to Joint Session of Congress; Interview with Doug Burgum; Interview with Representative Maxwell Frost (D-FL); Trump Delivers Speech to Congress; Veterans Fired by Trump Administration Speak Out. Aired 12:30-2a ET

Aired March 05, 2025 - 01:00   ET

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

[00:30:00]

DAVID URBAN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: They made their lives on Title IX and, and getting women to where they were and they feel like patently --

ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: Equal funding for women in sports.

URBAN: Yes, it's patently unfair, what's been going on. So, it's not just a Republican issue.

Listen, I think what the president did masterfully here is use the gallery to tell us -- tell the story, to weave the narrative that -- about what they've accomplished and what they're looking to accomplish. Right? By -- by going up to the gallery and pulling people out and weaving their stories into the overall narrative.

I think he did it probably better than anyone I've seen it do it in recent time. They had a lot of people up there, but I think they were all very useful in telling the story.

And some of it was on the transgender: the woman who got, you know, a concussion, a head injury from getting the volleyball spiked in her head to -- to the woman who -- whose daughter was raped and murdered by the -- by the, you know, the gang members who are now classified as terrorists to, you know, just -- you name an issue that he and he'd go up to the crowd and pull somebody down.

And so, he brought it in and made it very personable. And -- and the reason that's important is because nobody watches, nobody consumes this other than us in, like, a two-hour block.

BURNETT: In its totality. Fair.

URBAN: This is going to be consumed in bytes and on Twitter and on -- on, you know, Instagram reels and in TikTok. And you're going to see that little Secret Service guy. You're going to see the kid going to West Point. And those are going to just live for a long time.

And the Democrats are going to see the angry, you know, get off my lawn. You know --

BURNETT: Al Green.

URBAN: Al Green with the cane and, and you know, and Jack Crockett (ph) and the congressman there walking out. Like, nobody's paying attention to that. Right? So, Trump wins the day on this, clearly, to me.

KATE BEDINGFIELD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It was -- I thought it was notable, though, that, you know, Trump spent a fair amount of time in the address, you know, talking about the transgender issue, talking about some of these cultural issues that, admittedly, are 80/20 issues for him, if you look at the polling on some of this.

And you -- then you look at Elissa Slotkin in a -- in a purple state, in a purple town within a purple state, intentionally chosen for that reason to be the backdrop of her speech. And she didn't touch any of that.

URBAN: Right.

BEDINGFIELD: She essentially tried to defang some of -- of, I think, what Trump does in being very divisive on these -- or maybe won't even say divisive, because 80/20 issues, but being aggressive on these cultural issues.

And she, instead, really tried to start to prosecute a case on the economy. You know, she really started to, I think, take on Musk and DOGE in a really direct way.

She got at cuts to Social Security, which I think some of what Musk has said about Social Security is going to continue to bite him. And I would imagine Democrats are going to really pounce on it.

So, you know, I thought it was interesting to see the sort of juxtaposition. Trump kind of doing what he did successfully on the campaign trail. And -- and at least the official Democratic response, you know, was essentially, we're not going to -- we're not taking that on. We're going to talk about what -- how he's not -- he's not doing what he said he would do on the economy. And I think there's a lot of potential in that.

JONAH GOLDBERG, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: So, a couple of quick things. One, I take a back seat to nobody at this table or anywhere else about my admiration for Ronald Reagan.

But I think the worst legacy of his presidency was using human beings as props in the gallery. He's the guy who introduced it. It's gotten wildly out of hand. I felt this way when Democrats do it, when Republicans do it.

Using these people, I have nothing but sympathy and empathy for the plight of some of these people. But it is turning into bread and circuses stuff, and it's getting wildly out of hand.

That said, I think, look, this was a win for Donald Trump. I don't think there's any -- to the extent it matters at all. I mean, remember the last State of the Union -- and I know the pundits union will not let us call this a State of the Union. We have to call it an address.

BURNETT: To a joint session of Congress, Jonah.

GOLDBERG: That said, these things typically do not matter. The last State of the Union, Joe Biden, was all hopped up on B-12 or whatever it was. And everyone said, fiery Joe, that this is going to -- this proves he's ready for another four years.

And what was it? Three months later, he was out of the race.

So, like, I don't think it matters very much. And in fact, I think the thing that may matter the most historically, that gets up in terms of what really has long shelf life is if the markets keep responding to the way -- to Trump's protectionism. Dow's down 1,300 points in two days.

BURNETT: Yes.

GOLDBERG: He's now said this is all going to really kick off on April 2. He's not backing down. He says we need tariffs to save the soul of this country, which I think is the most amazing mixture of romantic nonsense and economic illiteracy I've heard in a presidential speech in a long time.

If the -- if we go into a total trade war, and the world economy starts shuddering to a stop, the line you're going to hear Democrats play forever is "There may be a little disturbance."

VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: That's right.

GOLDBERG: You know, because that's the thing that's going to say -- that's the thing.

URBAN: So, you know, what you saw in this, I think, and what you're talking about, Kate, is, you know, the way I looked at it, Donald Trump got elected for two reasons, basically: to fix the woke and the broke. Right?

And so, this speech was heavy on, we're fixing the woke. We're doing all these things right.

And then what Kate's saying is you didn't really talk about fixing the broke, though, a lot. Right? And I think that's what we're getting to here.

And then the coming weeks and months is how do you fix the broke part. Right? And people want to see that pocketbook issue.

JONES: So far, zero answers.

BURNETT: Final word, Van.

JONES: Well, and so far, zero answers on that. A lot of this, you know, being mean to everybody, you're not talking about the price of eggs and taking responsibility for things getting worse. BURNETT: All right. Well, next, three veterans fired as part of the

DOGE cuts, who were in the chamber for Trump's speech tonight, are going to join CNN live. Just a couple of minutes.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[00:39:08]

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to CNN's special coverage of President Trump's first joint address to Congress of his second term. I'm Abby Phillip.

LAURA COATES, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Laura Coates. President Trump delivering a lengthy and partisan speech to America tonight before a bitterly divided Congress.

He touched on every issue that's dominated these first few weeks of his presidency: from tariffs and trade wars to DOGE cuts.

PHILLIP: And we will, of course, get to the analysis of all of it: the good, the bad, and your takeaways.

But first, speaking of DOGE chaos, joining me now are three veterans who were all fired just in the last month from their federal jobs, but they were all invited by the representatives in Congress to attend Trump's first address to Congress tonight.

We have with us, retired Army Sergeant Alexandria Hunt. She was a supply technician at the Virginia V.A. Medical Center, six-year Air Force veteran. Chris Wicker, he was a deputy director at the Small Business Administration at the Minnesota district office. That was his dream job, he said.

And also with us, a 20-year Army veteran, Adam Mulvey. He worked at a Chicago federal health center as an emergency management specialist who developed safety plans.

Alexandria, I want to start with you. As you guys were just sitting here, you were introducing yourselves to each other, realizing you both worked for the V.A.

Tell us about what it's been like to be on the receiving end of these DOGE cuts and also be on the receiving end of the kind of vitriol, including some, frankly, that we heard from the president tonight in his speech.

ALEXANDRIA HUNT, VETERAN FIRED BY DOGE, ATTENDED TRUMP ADDRESS: Oh, well, yes, ma'am. I want to say, first and foremost, it's an honor being here. Thank you all for having me.

Those cuts were taken very personal for me, because, yes, I am a military veteran. But also, on that receiving end of also working the same job that I did in the Army as a 92 Yankee, which is a supply technician. I also gave that -- you know, that etiquette of logistic role and five plus years of experience. I gave that to the V.A. hospital. So, being cut, I feel as if I was not human. I felt like I was just a

number; that one minute I'm here, the next minute I'm gone.

And to say that -- it was the way that they went about terminating us. They locked our accounts. They didn't tell our supervisor. You know, my supervisor boss had no idea. You send the email out, but I didn't receive a tangible copy of that email.

PHILLIP: And they said that you were underperforming or suggested that?

HUNT: They said I was underperforming.

PHILLIP: Yes. And that's despite you -- I -- my understanding is that you had actually volunteered to come back and do extra work.

HUNT: Yes, ma'am, I did.

So, that snowstorm that we had -- was it, like, maybe a week ago? -- in Virginia. A lot of my workers, coworkers, you know, they -- they have kids, and they have other family members they need to take care of. So, I decided to stay back to try to help manage the supplies and, you know, fill certain closets. We have 24-hour closets.

So, like, our COC, or our hospice, our spinal cord injury units, a lot of those patients need those diapers. They need those fluids.

PHILLIP: They need 24-hour care.

HUNT: Yes, ma'am. So being that -- I just decided to stay back, and then I came in to work that following Saturday to help out. Came to work one day like normal, only to realize that that was my last full day of working. And find out on the 25th of February that I was cut for lack of performance.

PHILLIP: So, Chris, when you heard -- first of all, I want to get your take on the president's speech tonight. But as you know, I mean, the Republican Party, in particular, they talk about veterans a lot and about honoring them, giving them services.

But you found yourself on the receiving end of cuts. So, what has that been like for you?

CHRIS WICKER, VETERAN FIRED BY DOGE, ATTENDED TRUMP SPEECH: Yes. So, first of all, just like Alex started, thank you very much for the opportunity. Really appreciate the forum to talk about this.

The name of the game here is chaos. Absolute chaos. There was no direct agency coordination with the Small Business Administration where I was working. I was one of those really unlucky people who got a termination email on a Friday evening that said, you have two weeks' notice.

Then on Monday, in a management call, they rescinded that notice, and I got another email saying, oh, don't worry, you haven't been fired. And then, the next day, the following day, on a Tuesday, I got fired

again in a different form. And each time saying the same thing: You've been underperforming. You lack the fitness for continued government service.

And that's after receiving two positive performance reviews from my direct supervisor, who, by the way, had no idea that this was coming.

So, it has felt absolutely chaotic. As a mission-focused veteran, it's felt like a let-down for me.

And then most importantly, I really hate looking at the communities that I served as the deputy director and knowing that they're the ones who are going to pay the ultimate price.

PHILLIP: I want to play a little bit about what President Trump said about federal workers tonight. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: We have hundreds of thousands of federal workers who have not been showing up to work. My administration will reclaim power from this unaccountable bureaucracy, and we will restore true democracy to America again.

We are draining the swamp. It's very simple. And the days of rule by unelected bureaucrats are over.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: You are a 20-year veteran. You don't live in Washington?

ADAM MULVEY, VETERAN FIRED BY DOGE, ATTENDED TRUMP SPEECH: No, I live in the Chicago area.

PHILLIP: You live in Chicago. So, what's your reaction to that?

MULVEY: Well, first, thank you for sharing some of these stories. Because unless someone has a military background or a military family or has someone that they know who works in the government, these are just numbers in a spreadsheet somewhere.

And I definitely like what you said where you said we were terminated. We weren't fired. Fired is when you're fired for cause, when there's a reason for your firing.

[00:45:07]

We were all terminated, which means we were let go as part of a layoff, regardless of what they put on the paper. You know, mine said the same as -- as Chris's did, that I was fired for -- or terminated for poor performance, right after I had been given a performance evaluation that said I was exemplary in meeting all of the standards.

Day before yesterday, I received my final federal check, and on the bottom, it included a bonus for performance for the year. So, my supervisor didn't know that I had been terminated. I told him

before he knew. His supervisor didn't know. My hospital director didn't know.

I understand there are cuts that need to be made, and that there's areas in the budget that can be trimmed, but you don't go about it by just getting rid of every new employee, regardless of what their skill set is or what their tasks are. You make a plan, and you adjust the system based on it.

PHILLIP: So, everybody's been hearing a lot about probationary employees. Who among you were in that category?

MULVEY: I think we probably all were.

PHILLIP: All three of you. Right? OK, so --

MULVEY: Those who aren't in the government service probably don't understand probationary. It's not academic probation. It's not a legal probation. It's just the status of being a new employee into the organization.

PHILLIP: So, how close were you to not being probationary?

MULVEY: I was one month away from not being probationary.

PHILLIP: What about you?

HUNT: I had six months left.

WICKER: I had four months left.

PHILLIP: Yes. So, you guys were -- you were, like, almost there.

MULVEY: And probationary employees don't have the same rights to due process. You can't argue or appeal the situation as much.

The employees who were terminated were terminated, because it was easier in the paperwork and in the bureaucracy to get rid of them. Not for performance, not because there was a cut needed that needed to be made at their facility, but because probationary employees, those without a year, don't have a right to due process, so we can fire them without cause.

PHILLIP: So, the Democrats invited you all to Congress for this speech. Are you hearing a plan from them? Are you hearing answers? Are you hearing what you want to hear about what comes next?

WICKER: So, I can speak on behalf of myself. I come from Minneapolis, Minnesota, where my congresswoman is Representative Ilhan Omar. She has been a committed representative of mine in the Fifth District of Minnesota the entire time.

Every time I've communicated a concern, I know that she has made an effort to try and communicate that to the party at large, or to at least find some sort of a solution. But at the end of the day, we're watching political roadblocks get in

the way of really commonsense government and even business practices.

PHILLIP: Yes. Alexandria, what happens when a facility that you work at experiences indiscriminate cuts, including the job that you did?

HUNT: That's honestly a good question, because truth be told, the mission itself still has to go on. Those V.A. providers still have to do their jobs to the best of their ability.

It's kind of like a -- well, we lost this amount of people, but you still have to lace your boots up and keep it pushing.

But at the same time, I just think about those vets that we were able to build those relationships with. Like, a couple of the military vets I was able to, you know, get past the hardcore shell of them, some of them being Vietnam, you know, infantrymen and just getting to learn them on their behalf.

And then having to tell them, hey, I'll see you tomorrow when I finally see them. It's like, yes, I won't see you again. And, you know, seeing them, like a grown man cry like that, it hurts.

Or like there was one lady, she -- she said to me, she said, you're -- you're breaking my heart. You're leaving me. Like, that's -- that's hard. That's hard to hear.

But I want to -- I do want to thank my congressman, Bobby Scott, for granting me this opportunity, because he has, you know, led a lot of the way of, you know, me being so resilient in this difficult time.

PHILLIP: It is a difficult time.

Adam, Elon Musk, he was in the chamber tonight, applauding incredibly enthusiastically at some of these moments. But what would you want to say to him?

MULVEY: I would want to know that there's a plan, that there's a guiding hand on what these cuts are going to mean and how we're going to go forward.

And he and others are always talking about how much money is being saved and how much waste is being found, but no one is talking about what cuts we're willing to accept.

Are we willing to accept less care for veterans? Are we willing to accept small businesses that fall under? No one's talking about the price that's going to be paid.

We have to make budget cuts. That's understandable. But what are we willing to accept not having in the future?

I would like some of the representatives to stand up and say, yes, I support continuing care for veterans, or I don't support continuing care for veterans. I appreciate representative Brad Schneider from Illinois. the first

thing he asked me was about my family. Is my family taken care of? What can he do to help?

He's put me in contact with employers in my area, and he's talked to my V.A. facility to try and -- and see what can be done about my getting employment back there again.

[00:50:04]

There's a lot of roadblocks, as -- as Chris said. No one knows what's going to happen next.

I've talked to the employees that still work at my facility, and everyone is scared. They don't know if they're going to be working the next day or the next week. They can't make plans, but they're all veterans. They all work with veterans. They have to take care of each other.

You know, the medication's going to get a little bit slower from the pharmacy. The supplies are going to be delivered a little bit slower or ordered a little bit slower, but the care still has to go on. It's just going to be at a harsh cost.

PHILLIP: Yes. All right. All three of you. Thank you very much. Alexandria, Chris and Adam.

Laura, back to you.

COATES: Thank you. Abby. That was really powerful to hear about their personal experience.

I want to get our panel in this discussion, as well.

David, I want to start with you, because you have a particular view about who is being terminated and the level of empathy to extend.

URBAN: Listen, look, I feel terrible for those folks right there. Right? Because there are good people being let go from the federal government.

But I don't think that the Trump administration is targeting veterans specifically. Those happen to be three veterans. Obviously, the Democrats know what to do to pull on everyone's heartstrings. They invite veterans in.

But, you know, firing takes place in corporations all over the United States.

And -- and in this instance, right. The Trump administration's saying, look, the federal workforce is too large. And so, the only people they can touch, right, because of the way that -- the way that the rules are set up, are probationary employees, right? Which means the people who were hired recently. No, no, the people who are hired recently.

And sometimes those probationary employees are three, four years in their probation. And so, they can be let go. But those are the only people --

COATES: Van, why are you raising your hand?

URBAN: They're the only people they're the only people that are being let go. Those are the only people that can be fired.

JONES: I don't mean to be rude.

COATES: But?

BEDINGFIELD: But?

JONES: This is. I am shocked to hear you say this.

First of all, you have people who have given their lives to help America be better and stronger, and they are doing work that's important. And they're being let go willy-nilly.

First of all, when -- in the private sector, somebody's probationary, it's six weeks, eight weeks. You have people three, four, or five years into the job. They're still technically probationary, so they can be thrown in the garbage can. It doesn't mean it's right to do it. You have the right.

URBAN: That's how the rules --

JONES: Yes, but -- but -- but here's reality. That African-American woman is not by herself. There are a lot of people -- veterans, women, people of color -- who the corporate sector didn't work out for them, or they didn't want to go there. They wanted to do something to help America.

They are now being thrown out. I'm talking about people who have one degree, two degrees, three degrees. They've been working there for many, many years.

And to pull the rug out from under them, not because they did something wrong, not because they were doing a bad job, not because their job is not needed. Just because somebody named Elon Musk, who I don't know why the hell he thinks is qualified, decided we're just going to force reduce all these people. It is not the right way.

And I guarantee you right now, we haven't seen the impact. There will be devastating impacts for normal Americans who are not getting the services they need.

COATES: Kate, is that persuasive to you?

BEDINGFIELD: Yes, it is, because I think, look -- I think slashing the size of government is one of those things that, in the abstract, people agree with. You ask people, is the government too big? Is the bureaucracy too big? Is it bloated? People say, yes.

And I think that's sort of part of what's fueling Musk here.

But when it -- when it comes down to stories, powerful stories, human stories, and don't forget, more than 80 percent of federal government jobs are not in Washington, D.C.

I mean, these are people who work in communities all over the country. There are going to be, you know, moderate Republican members of Congress who are going to have people losing their jobs in their district, who are going to be hearing from those people. It's going to potentially have economic impact.

I saw some news about some National Weather Service centers in Oklahoma that were -- were being targeted to be shut down.

I mean, there -- there will be waterfall economic impact here.

And so, I think as the stories continue to come to the surface, and it's less about the numbers and more about the humans behind the stories, I do think that there will be -- there will be political blowback.

GOLDBERG: I'm a little more sympathetic to David's point. But where I -- where I disagree is that I think it's a mistake to constantly talk about the story being what's happening to the federal workers, even though I think what's happening to the federal workers is unfair.

The -- to me, the problem is it's an approach to public policy.

Donald Trump and the Republicans control government. They are the ones who are there to govern right now. And a vast swath of what they're doing is stuff to government; is they are -- they're like the -- the caddies at caddy day at the Bushwood Country Club, running in, jumping into the pool, tearing everything down, rather than saying -- like, what they're doing at NIH is a crime as far as I'm concerned.

JONES: Thank you.

GOLDBERG: What they should be doing is saying, what can we do to make government better? And if it requires firing people, fine. Right? But what can we do to govern better?

Instead, they're treating it as if they are raiding Vikings, heading into a village, just slashing and burning.

JONES: Can you say that --

GOLDBERG: If you send emails out to people saying you'll get a buyout if you take this, and you have eight months off before, you know, we stop paying you. The people who are going to take that offer aren't the people you want to let go.

[00:55:00]

JONES: That's my point.

GOLDBERG: And the people that you want to get rid of aren't going to take the offer.

COATES: But one of the -- hold on, hold on.

JONES: They are.

URBAN: But you can't start with, you're going to be fired.

COATES: One of their points was they said they felt like just a number. They weren't human. The name of the game was chaos. There was no coordination.

One person was fired twice. You heard him talk about that. He was brought back and forth.

JONES: Fired, rehired, fired.

COATES: And then there were supervisors who were not informed.

But I think your larger point is what I've heard continuously now, David, is the idea of, well, this is how corporate America does it.

What do you all think about the distinction between how the federal government should be rightsized and how a corporation should be? Should there be a distinction?

JONES: Well, listen. So --

URBAN: Wait. Hold on. In corporate America, you could be fired for -- You know this law -- any reason at what's called an at-will employee.

JONES: Any reason at all.

URBAN: Ay reason. As long as it's not violative of public policy.

JONES: Right.

URBAN: In the federal government, you can't. You're "protected." OK?

COATES: Why? Why the air quotes? That's intentional.

URBAN: Because you're protected. Because you're protected. And so --

JONES: Can I tell you why?

URBAN: I don't know why. I'd like to hear why.

JONES: It's not just because people like bloat. It's because in the old days when people didn't have those protections, you had what was called patronage.

And every time a new mayor came in, or a governor or president, they would get rid of all the qualified people; and they'd bring in their cousins, or next-door neighbors, or whatever.

And Americans got sick of that. They said, could we actually just have a professional workforce that wasn't going to be subbed out every time, you know, this mayor came in.

And we got used to having -- and guess what happened? When you had a professional civil service, which had no bribes, no corruption, you have a great government. You go to other countries, it's not that way.

So, what you're doing is you're reintroducing the system that our grandparents got rid of. But now you're going to throw anybody out you want to and bring in loyalists and bring in people that have got to give loyalty oaths. That's not America.

(CROSSTALK)

COATES: A couple things. Corporate layoffs --

URBAN: But then you can't fire the bad people.

COATES: Corporate layoffs are treated very -- I mean, they are -- they're not. They may be chaotic to those who are experiencing the layoffs. But they are far more structured. There is far -- there is more advanced. There is often shareholders who are part of the discussions, as well.

This seems to be more haphazard. Doesn't that occur to you as being problematic, or is this in line with what you think should happen?

URBAN: Listen, I think that -- I wish that there was -- the system allowed bad -- bad employees. I wish the system allowed the Trump administration to go through and systematically eliminate bad employees. Go through their -- go through their --

JONES: You can't fire for cause?

BEDINGFIELD: Why not?

URBAN: It is -- it is incredibly. Listen --

BEDINGFIELD: I mean, there are departmental views (ph) that they could take into account.

URBAN: You are -- you are incredibly naive --

BEDINGFIELD: Of course they could.

URBAN: -- if you think that you can remove a federal employee within five years. It is a -- it is like -- it is -- it's like getting rid of --

GOLDBERG: And you know who can.

URBAN: -- a terminal cancer (ph).

(CROSSTALK)

GOLDBERG: It's Congress.

COATES: Somebody -- somebody tell that to --

GOLDBERG: Congress can write legislation.

URBAN: You can write legislation -- Joe. Again, Jonah. Right? Like -- GOLDBERG: Well, I know, but look --

URBAN: I could -- I could -- I could be 6'5" and have my hair grow back. Right?

GOLDBERG: Yes.

URBAN: Neither of those things are happening, you know. So -- so it's not happening.

GOLDBERG: And a one-armed clown has a hard time making balloon animals. I agree with you. But it is the role of Congress to write legislation.

URBAN: Right. What they have here, the government is bloated, which the determination this -- the Trump administration says we need to make change. The American people say we want to have change. The only way to change it is in this draconian method.

JONES: It's not true. Here's the deal.

URBAN: It's no way to fire people, unfortunately.

JONES: You can fire people for cause. If Elon Musk is telling the truth, that you've got people on there that they're stealing it. Show the proof and fire for cause.

That's not what they're doing. They are dumping good and bad out the back door, and they're doing it in a way -- and when you talk about the National Institutes of Health, how are you going to parade that poor kid with cancer out there, and then turn around and destroy the National Institutes of Health, who's doing all the medical research?

This stuff doesn't make sense. It's going to hurt a lot of people. It's going to set America back.

And it's not just crying about the people who lost their jobs. They were doing jobs Americans need. Now, if they could do it better, that's great. But you throw them out the door, it's the wrong way to do it.

COATES: What about Kate's point, though? And you made this, about the idea of the premise of eliminating fraud and waste is almost universally accepted.

JONES: I'm for that.

COATES: But the idea here is the vehicle by which you do so. And so, you have some of the veterans. People have been talking before about this. I've interviewed them myself about the idea of they didn't necessarily realize they'd be the collateral damage in this way, although the premise they agree with.

How do you, as Democrats, address that very point, knowing people are on board with waste being eliminated, and yet, there is collateral damage? BEDINGFIELD: Well, some of it is elevating the stories. I think some

of it is Democrats making sure that there are human faces. That --

COATES: But they know there's human faces. Right? We know that, conceptually.

BEDINGFIELD: Well, but I think they're going to continue. I think over time, they're going to continue to -- to lift. I think you're going to continue to see people like we just saw who are willing to step forward and say, this happened to me.

I think there will be, you know, people who will have sympathetic stories, who will be unafraid to come out and tell them.

And I think as people hear those stories, it will become less an exercise in, you know -- in shrinking, you know, in shrinking budget lines and more in humanity.

But I also think there are really politically powerful ways to talk about how what DOGE is doing is -- is potentially going to hurt people.

And I think Elissa Slotkin actually did this really well tonight in raising Social Security, which, you know, Musk has said is the ultimate Ponzi scheme.

I mean, Social Security historically has been a political third rail in this country. Multiple, you know, Republican administrations have tried to privatize Social Security. People react incredibly poorly when they feel like hands are being laid on their Social Security.

JONES: That's right.

BEDINGFIELD: And I think that is one avenue that where, from a messaging perspective, where Democrats can talk about these cuts being haphazard and going at things.

[01:00:00]

KATE BEDINGFIELD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Poorly when they feel like hands are being laid on their Social Security.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's right.

BEDINGFIELD: And I think that is one avenue that where, from a messaging perspective, where Democrats can talk about these cuts being haphazard and going at things that are fundamental to people being able to survive. So there are more politically resonant ways to talk about.

JONAH GOLDBERG, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: There's an irony there, right. Which is that right now the Trump administration is sounding like that they can eliminate 40 percent of the deficit with 17 percent of government expenditure in terms of what payroll and compensation is. It's just a tiny part of the budget that will not balance the budget in any way.

And the only way you can actually get close to eliminating the massive deficits in this country is by figuring out some reforms for Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid. That's where the -- that's what's driving us into fiscal insolvency. And instead they're pretending, the Democrats are saying, and now Donald Trump saying, you can't touch any of that, instead, that somehow we're going to balance the budget when total compensation is like $400 billion a year and the deficit was over $1 trillion. It just doesn't. The math doesn't work.

LAURA COATES, CNN ANCHOR: It sounds like we're going to have a continued conversation on what the electorate thinks their tolerance for pain is. Everyone stand by.

Well, we are six weeks into Donald Trump's push to reshape America as we know it, and tonight, the president's telling the nation he's just getting warmed up. I'm Laura Coates.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Abby Phillip. President Trump spoke for nearly 100 minutes in his first address to Congress since returning to power. It was the longest congressional address in modern American history.

Trump leaned into culture wars. He praised Elon Musk and the DOGE firings. He doubled down on his trade war. And he made a big reveal about Ukraine. He said a lot of things. It will not come as a surprise to you that are not true. And he's vowing that there is a lot more to come.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: We have accomplished more in 43 days than most administrations accomplished in four years or eight years, and we are just getting started.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: Well, President Trump's appearance at the Capitol was contentious from the moment he walked in. One Democrat held a sign saying, this is not normal as the president walked to the daisy. But not all the protests were silent. A short time after the speech started, Congressman Al Green was removed from the chamber after heckling Trump and then refusing to sit down.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R) HOUSE SPEAKER: The chair now directs the Sergeant at arms to restore order. Remove this gentleman from the chamber. Members are directed to uphold and maintain decorum in the House.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: All right, let's talk about those Democratic antics. Astead Herndon, what did you make of that? I mean, there was a big debate going on privately, maybe a little publicly among Democrats about what they should do. Should they hold up signs, should they throw eggs, should they scream and yell? Al Green decided to scream and yell.

ASTEAD HERNDON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, I think we saw the evidence of his disjointed party just by the range of the responses. I honestly think what Al Green did will be appreciated by some of those in the base. And it makes more sense to me to either go or stand up like that congressman did. Then they kind of do what they did in between. Right. With these signs --

PHILLIP: The church fans.

HERNDON: The church fans. It reminded me of just how farther Donald Trump is in those made for TV moments. And Democrats still haven't found out what their response to that is. And so I think the contentiousness, that the devolving of decorum, all of that are things that are legacies of Donald Trump. Democrats did not invent that. But I don't think tonight, if you're a Democrat looking for how your party is getting out of the wilderness, Al Green, and I think more than that, just the juxtaposition, the fact that those Democrats left with him, like it didn't seem like a unified, cohesive response.

Like, you take what Slotkins have some interesting points in it versus some of that theater. I still think it's a party that's mostly focused on performance rather than policy.

PHILLIP: They were trickling out at the end, but probably more because of boredom than anything else. Toward the end, you could see some of them, they were on their phones. And I think that some people noted that there were some moments when they could have given something, some really emotional moments with the moms of victims of crime, migrant crime that Trump likes tout, but victims nonetheless. That little boy who was battling cancer.

[01:05:00]

There were so many moments, you know, the American who was detained in Russia. Were those missed opportunities?

JOSH ROGIN, LEAD GLOBAL SECURITY ANALYST, WASHINGTON POST INTELLIGENCE: Yes, I think it came off to some people as cheap theatrics. And I think we reach a point in our politics where there's no such thing as bad attention. And so any way to get into the news cycle, even if that means, you know, getting escorted out of the State of the Union by security, is considered a smart move in today's media environment. But I don't think a race to the bottom is where the Democrats want to be when it comes to Donald Trump. And I think by showing grace and showing some fortitude and showing

some manners, especially in those moments that you mentioned where there are things that they could clearly get behind would actually do them more good than just, you know, following this pattern of just, you know, lashing out and sort of, you know, making sure that they're being disruptive just to say we could be disruptive too, because in a race to the bottom, the Trump people are going to win. They're going to win that race to the bottom, if that's what it becomes.

PHILLIP: Were you surprised? I mean, some of the insta polls that we got out of this showed that. I think it was 44 percent said that they had a favorable view of what Trump had to say tonight. That's lower than he's got for his previous remarks to Congress.

I was a little surprised by that. It's a slightly more Republican audience watching tonight. I think a lot of Democrats have turned this thing off, but they were kind of so about it.

MARK PRESTON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, they're so about it because it hasn't sunk in right now. And everybody knows that Donald Trump goes out and makes these grandiose statements. I mean, these statements that are, let's go beyond not factual. I mean, there's just no way that they could ever be put into place. He talked about balancing the budget, you know, and we just heard Jonah Goldberg just before us talking here, talking about.

PHILLIP: How there's no credible plan to do that.

PRESTON: There is no credible plan to do that at all. And Donald Trump just seems to thrive off of this, Abby. He just seems to be able to thrive off of the chaos, throw a bunch of stuff out there and then just let it lie. I will tell you this, though. The poll tonight was not reflective of the Republican Party as a whole. Right now, the Republican Party as a whole is 88 percent behind Donald Trump, and he has Runway to try to get his agenda through, at least through the next six months.

PHILLIP: At least among Republicans. But you're starting to see some cracks, right? I think people have been -- a lot of the polling that I've seen, it's pointed to the same direction. Most Americans just think he's not focused on the right things. They agree that he's doing a lot of stuff. They just think he's focused on certain things that are not as important to them.

LEAH WRIGHT RIGUEUR, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: And they're absolutely right. And so I think one of the things that we saw tonight was a great performance. Right? This is what Donald Trump is known for, his showmanship. There were moments that were flat out just untrue. There were lots of declarations. There were people that were brought in and celebrated. I think someone described it at one point as like Oprah's famous favorite things and things being just given away and celebrated.

But it was also completely divorced from reality. Right? So you're talking about we're going to have the strongest nation in the world, we're going to have the strongest economy in the world on the day that the market is essentially in the toilet, that people are losing their 401ks. And don't look at it, don't take a look at it.

That people are looking at things like, you know, Trump has really touted cryptocurrency and bitcoin and these things are in AI and those things are also in the toilet. There's a lot of instability that's going on there. So is because people are looking and listening to what Donald Trump is saying. They're also saying, this doesn't reflect what is actually going on in my life, what I'm experiencing.

And so I think actually a really great example of this is that Donald Trump, in the middle of the speech, brings up this idea of the cost of eggs. And he said, these are Biden's eggs. The problem with this is Biden's eggs.

The problem with that is Donald Trump made a promise that on day one that the eggs were going to be the focus, the price of eggs were going to drop, and were going to see better eggs than we had ever seen before. Have we seen that? No. Have people seen that? Absolutely not. It's actually increased by 41 percent since his first in the office.

PHILLIP: I mean, when he talked about the economy, I want to play this side. He talked about inflation, and it was all really backward looking. It was basically saying, this is what I inherited.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Tariffs are not just about protecting American jobs. They're about protecting the soul of our country. Tariffs are about making America rich again. And making America great again. And it's happening, and it will happen rather quickly. There'll be a little disturbance, but we're OK with that. It won't be much.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HERNDON: I thought his acknowledgement of the possibility of disturbance was interesting, and it seems to be the baseline for what we've already seen. Because Doge has been so chaotic, because tariffs threaten to not only, you know, ruined 401k, but increased prices at Target that they're announcing next week. I think it was some acknowledgment of the reality that we've seen some Republicans feel uncomfortable on this point.

[01:10:03]

But, you know, the Donald Trump of this State of the Union is the Donald Trump that we have known. And I think most Americans have known, too, and it's the one that Americans chose over the Democratic Party. And so for whatever the reality of his lies, of the lack of, you know, the lack of clear plan on things like balancing the budget or even the chaos that we have seen even in relationship to Ukraine and things like Friday, I also think that it's come at an expectation that a lot of people already have of him. And so one thing I think is a not effective strategy for Democrats to do is to pretend to be surprised, because I don't think actually most people are surprised.

I think you have to deal with the reality of what it is, and you could certainly tell stories about the impact. It could be different than what I think most people voted for him for because they were in a binary choice. But this is Donald Trump and he's going to roll with him. We know this. We already know that he's going to choose himself.

ROGIN: I mean, there's a level of familiarity with the first term with the tax tariffs and the bellicose rhetoric. But there's something different this time. I spent all week talking to people about these tariffs, especially China and Mexico and Canada tariffs. And they all said the same thing. Business leaders, lawmakers, they said, this time is different because there's no strategy, there's no plan, and everything changes every five minutes. It's one thing to have a tariff strategy. Oh, this is good, this is bad. We can plan for this, we can hedge against this, but this time it's like, oh, 10 percent, 20 percent, 40 percent 50 percent, 60 percent, 2 percent. And also, and that's chaos is not good for anyone.

PHILLIP: But his advisors also, they don't fully buy into it.

ROGIN: I mean, this is clearly Trump's personal hobby horse. I mean, you had --

ROGIN: They don't know what he's going to do.

PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, you had a member of his cabinet on tonight with Kaitlan Collins basically saying, well, this is about reciprocal terrorists. Well, actually, no, it's not. The 25 percent on Mexico and the 25 percent on Canada, not reciprocal. It's just because Trump likes them.

PRESTON: Exactly, exactly. And you know what's interesting too, is that, you know, Donald Trump goes out, makes these, you know, these grand statements, and instead is absolutely right. Because if we go back to his first term and he would make these statements, we'd say, oh, you know, maybe it's good that world leaders are afraid of Donald Trump because, oh, he's so unpredictable.

But the reality is he's not going to go to war. He's not going to do this. He's not going to cut a deal Putin. Right now it's like if he says he's going to do something and you don't think he's going to do it, then you're the fool.

PHILLIP: And that is, in a way, what Trump has accomplished tonight. He sends a message, I'm doing things that I want to do, and whether you like it or not, that is --

ROGIN: He's going to change his mind tomorrow about what that is.

PHILLIP: Yes. But whether you like it or not, the message that's coming through to the American people is effectiveness. It's effectiveness. So I think that's what Democrats have to combat.

Coming up next, we've got much more of our special coverage of President Trump's joint address to Congress, including his claim that he's bringing back free speech, even though he's also, at the same time threatening to jail people.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [01:16:58]

COATES: Well, tonight, President Trump claims to be the champion of the First Amendment. But his first month and a half in office --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Stopped all government censorship and brought back free speech in America. It's back.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: But his first month in office, month and a half, so to speak, doesn't actually reflect that. Trump signed executive orders attempting to ban DEI programs from both inside and outside of government. His early actions have also tried to control what can and what cannot be taught in schools. He banned the Associated Press from the Oval Office and Air Force for using the words Gulf of Mexico instead of Gulf of America.

Now today he even threatened colleagues in colleges that allow, quote, illegal protests. Let's talk about all this now with my panel here. Can he can both be true?

GOLDBERG: No.

COATES: What are you talking about? That was the question. Go ahead.

VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: He be lying. I mean, it's late at night. We could just talk honestly. He be lying. That makes no sense. He says he's bringing back free speech as long as you agree with him. That's not free speech. That's the opposite of free speech. And I think that you do have Republicans who are honestly concerned that there's these speech codes from the left that if you speak out, you might get canceled. That's a real thing.

I think the left needs to look at itself on that. But Donald Trump is not the answer. He's the chancellor in chief. He is literally doing the opposite once again of what he says he's going to do.

BEDINGFIELD: He's also notoriously thin skinned. Right.

JONES: Yes.

BEDINGFIELD: I mean, he's somebody who is -- he's, as we've seen, he can be very easily wounded by criticism. And so I think the idea that he's sort of the champion of free speech, I mean, in more seriously, I think just the directive to ban protest on college campuses, even again, there's, you know, as a Democrat, I look at some of the protests that happened, you know, after October 7th on college campuses, and I was horrified by a lot of what I saw.

But the idea that would ban protests on a college campus, that is sort of the opposite historically. That's kind of the opposite of free speech in the United States. DAVID URBAN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: But I think your point's well

taken in terms of what protests are being banned, right? I don't think they're banning, you know, all protests. I think they're specifically geared towards the anti, rampant, antisemitism on lots of college campuses.

BEDINGFIELD: I think that's not what the language of the EOs. That's not the language of the EOs.

GOLDBERG: The problem is that protest really isn't by itself a very meaningful legal word. I will say is the only person on this panel who Donald Trump tried to have fired from both National Review and Fox News.

COATES: The night is young.

GOLDBERG: Yes. No, he believes in canceling people. And I think it's a little ironic J.D. Vance had just went to Munich and lectured the Germans about how stupid they were and illiberal they were for not having a laxer view towards free speech from, say, neo Nazis.

[01:20:00]

And his wife is coming out with a program that I completely endorse about cracking down on digital revenge porn and AI images that are grotesque and all that kind of stuff. But that's coming down on speech, too. Now, my problem is the way we talk about censorship in this country is everybody is in favor of censorship. They just don't call the things that they think they're -- they don't call the censorship. They're in favor of censorship.

But like, I think we're all agreed that kiddie porn can be banned, right? We can, we ban all sorts of things. We can curtail some speech. The question is, where do you draw the lines and all that kind of stuff? And the Trump administration draws lines that fit a political agenda on speech rather than any sort of clear delineation of principle. And that's the problem.

URBAN: Jonah, to be fair, the Biden administration, right. I mean, think about back during COVID I mean, this is not --

GOLDBERG: They weren't great either.

URBAN: Isn't David Urban speaking? This is, you know, all the social media companies saying, sure, hey, were called in by the White House and said we can't have certain search terms. And, you know, we can't do that. You can't look at this, you can't look at that. You look at Ivermectin, we're going to send you to different websites. Right.

I mean, so I'm happy to condemn that too. I mean, this isn't like, this is a pox on all houses.

GOLDBERG: Yes, for sure.

COATES: So then what are the lines that Democrats. You mentioned, Van, that you thought that Democrats do some self-reflection as well on this very issue, is what he's saying, even though it seems a little bit for me, not for thee, in terms of free speech, are Democrats missing the mark in terms of what the people think should be those boundaries?

JONES: I think that Democrats got in a situation where were so intolerant of people we thought were intolerant that we became intolerable ourselves in the way that we handled that. And I think that paid. It cost us. So you did have voters, working class voters, non-college voters, who started to feel like, man, I can't open my mouth around these progressives if I don't -- if I'm not somebody that went to college, eats kale and does yoga, I just better be quiet.

And so I do think that became a part of the backlash against progressives. But that conversation from the right is hard for me to hear when you have people in Florida trying to ban books with government action, trying to attack corporations and tell them what they can and can't do with government action.

So it's just -- I think I have no problem looking in the mirror on our side, but I have a hard time hearing Donald Trump or anybody from the right lecturing the left about free speech when they're banning books and all the other stuff that Donald Trump is doing.

COATES: By the way, this is not novel, though. I mean, we remember when then former president Barack Obama was still a former president, was speaking about the giving an admonition about being too controlling about the language and intolerant about what could be actually said generationally.

And so, Democrats were on notice that this may have been intolerable, to use your words, even from somebody who was a leader of their party. So now what's the course correction?

BEDINGFIELD: Well, I think we're trying. I think we're going to see some of it. Yes, she did, I think a very nice job tonight speaking to people's core economic concerns, talking about, you know, being, you know, from a working class community.

But I think you're, I mean, your point about Barack Obama is absolutely right. And he was, I mean, he was vocal about the dangers of cancel culture --

JONES: Early on.

BEDINGFIELD: -- long before this last election cycle. I mean, he's somebody who really, I think, saw where the Democratic Party was making big mistakes and really called it out. And, you know, I do think that was one of the lessons that leaders in the party took from this last election cycle. I think that's a good thing that they did. And I think that there will be an attempt at course correction. But because ultimately --

URBAN: Where do you see it? They don't see this? Well, you saw it, Slotkin. But the young guy we just saw --

JONES: Max. URBAN: Yes, Max. He's not talking that same way. He was terrific.

BEDINGFIELD: He was actually terrific.

URBAN: Slotkin didn't come out and say, hey, listen, we hear you. We get that, you know, people are afraid if you misgender somebody, you're going to get canceled. Right. We, we get we overplayed our hand as Democrats. Right. She's not reading the back of the people. No one is saying no one in your party --

COATES: Our (INAUDIBLE) overlaying their hand and the assumption that this is the appropriate correction because there's got to be a balance.

URBAN: No, I think the balance is like people just want to say like, Merry Christmas to people they don't want to worry about, like saying, listen, if you're pronouns or whatever they are, that's great. I'm not -- I don't feel compelled to call you by your pronouns. But don't get mad at me if I don't. Right.

So I don't think that's an over course correction too much at this point. I think that's kind of coming back to the center.

JONES: You guys jump up and down the same pogo stick about these people and their pronouns. Meanwhile, they're literally banning books. You can't even read Tony. You can't read Tony.

Yes, but you can't read Tony Morrison. You can't read Tony Morrison.

URBAN: The federal government's not banning books. Local. Hold on. Local Republicans. Local school boards who are elected. Yes.

[01:25:00]

So if you get elected, your school. Listen, education is a distinctly local function. And, and so school boards vote on what they determine. They establish book councils and they say this is what we deem appropriate for our schools.

(CROSSTALK)

Oh, look at Jonah and I agreeing.

GOLDBERG: There are excesses all over the place. There were excesses from like the woke left about books that they didn't like in various schools.

JONES: And that was dumb too.

URBAN: Yes. Mark Twain and --

GOLDBERG: America have -- America -- both left and right in the country have in a liberal isn't problem is that.

JONES: I agree with that. GOLDBERG: And the thing is, you know, Kate was saying how she likes

cranky Jonah. Well, one of the curmudgeon Jonah. Curmudgeon Jonah. So one of the biggest pieces of BS in this culture in the last 25 years has been all of this Banned Book Week nonsense. If you actually look at what PEN America and the American Library Association, which is a crazy left wing organization, if you actually look at their examples of banned books over the last 25 years, like 98 percent of them are about PTAs telling librarians these books are age inappropriate for little kids and that kind of stuff, and they call them banned.

JONES: But that's not Toni Morrison. Listen, I agree with you. There's a bunch of nonsense, but you literally have Toni Morrison, who's a. What Nobel Prize or Pulitzer Prize? I don't know, God prize winning author. But she writes about the black experience is called woke. And you can't get it in the library. That's wrong.

GOLDBERG: I agree.

JONES: It's wrong. That's wrong.

GOLDBERG: I agree.

JONES: That's wrong.

URBAN: Again, I'm not calling you out, but like, show me the libraries, because I'm not sure that where Jonah. Jonah, I agree with Joan on this much more because I've seen this in school districts, right? They get book lists that are complete. If you look at them, you'd look at your kid, you'd say, I'm not so sure my kindergarten needs to be reading this. Right?

And so that's what banning books is called.

JONES: If something is too sexually explicit, that's not my problem. I'm talking about if it's talking about Native Americans, we can't. It's woke. Talking about black folks. It's woke. It's talking about this. It's woke. If it's explicit, that's gross. I'm not for that. I'm talking about basic history stuff. If the left is saying that Mark Twain can't be taught because he used the N word, that's stupid.

COATES: But what about federal government? Hold on. You question the federal funding. Federal hook. What about federal funding being taken away from schools that are not adhering to the principles that he is talking about? That's a hook. That's more than a local school board. How about the idea of the Education Department, what he's trying to eliminate?

And it also has repercussions of a very variety of titles that will have impacts on things. I mean, you can talk about the book banning in a very nuanced way, but there are thematically deeper and larger issues. So away from book banning, are you all, you're in agreement that this is just a localized issue that --

URBAN: No, I do. Listen, I think it's mostly localized issue. I think the federal government's role in education, look, when you know, the National Teachers Union when the Department of Education was formed, opposed it. Right. So I think Department of Education should be shuttered and money should go back to the local government -- state, local governments. You know, it's much more effective.

Schools are much more effective. Local control is much more important than somebody in Washington.

COATES: How about the Department of Defense? You're a veteran yourself. And so in that respect, Department of Defense, they have talked about not having certain defense funded schools having this sort of quote unquote woke, including, isn't there a book about freckles by Julianne Moore that can't be a part of it. I don't know why that's so woke.

URBAN: I don't know book you're speaking about. But you know, I think, look, there's -- and I'm not sure who's making those calls. Right. And I think it's up to the individual, like school districts and the PTAs and the local folks to make the decisions for themselves. So I don't know if it is a DoD policy. I'm not familiar with it. I'm not familiar with the book. But look, if it's bad, if it's intolerant, then it's bad. I don't -- I'm not --

COATES: Come back to this moment though. I want to talk about what happened tonight and this idea of the President Trump saying he stopped all government censorship and brought back free speech in America. It's back. He signed executive orders to ban DEI programs. Yes, obviously hyperbolic. But --

GOLDBERG: He also knows the budget, which is also 10 times crazy.

COATES: I hear you. And yet this is a state. This is somebody addressing a joint session of Congress. And you have voters who are looking at this and thinking about a kind of victory lap.

BEDINGFIELD: Yes.

COATES: And so, Democrats have something they have to do in response. Republicans have to respond in some way in kind. What is the appropriate way?

BEDINGFIELD: Well I think it's, I mean, to your point it's a rhetorical message gift directive to his base. He's basically -- it's another way to say I have shifted the cultural conversation. We're bet you're back to being able to say the things that, you know --

URBAN: Merry Christmas.

BEDINGFIELD: -- that you feel like you want to be able to say without being judged. I mean he's -- to me that's what -- it feels like it's all part of that message. Now obviously as we've been discussing here it runs counter to a lot of what they're doing substantively on policy but that's from a rhetorical standpoint I think that's what he's trying to signal.

[01:30:00]

And so for, you know, for Democrats I think they've got to look at where, you know, where is the Trump administration making cuts or instituting policy that is going to have a detrimental impact on people's lives and make those arguments.

I don't think getting sucked in to every single rhetorical argument that Donald Trump makes and every piece of bait he throws out there for his base is going to be a winning strategy because ultimately, you're just playing on his playing field always, right? Always.

DAVID URBAN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: And the question for Van and for you Kate -- so, you know, Trump made big inroads amongst communities of color in this election, right.

And so how much of that was on cultural issues, right? And some of these things not about the freckle book or color of your skin thing, but on some of the more sexually explicit things.

And so I think when you're Democrats, you're trying to message that, right. You got to be careful because it's a message that resonated with a lot of people who are not traditional Republicans, right.

VAN JONES, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: You're the one that said, you know, focus on woke and broke. I think that non-college voters who used to be the bread-and-butter for Democrats got away from us.

And I think we made the wrong bet. We thought that these both these parties are hypocritical (ph). You've got the Republican Party supposed to be the party of Lincoln, but you got a bunch of white nationalists in there. How'd they get in there?

And then were supposed to be the party of the working class, but you got a bunch of elitist college folks in our party. How did we get them.

We thought your hypocrisy is going to blow you up first. Instead, our hypocrisy, the elitism, the cultural snobbery blew us up first.

So now you guys are riding high for a minute, but you still have a bunch of problems in your party. You just kind of mask them over because you got a bunch of bluster.

We have to fix this elitism problem in our party. You can love everybody. You can respect everybody. You can stick up for everybody without putting anybody else down.

We got in this trap. In order for me to praise a black person, I've got to say, all whites are racist. In order for me to praise a woman, I've got to say, all men are toxic. In order for me to praise -- and you start putting people down to lift somebody else up, that did not work.

So we get away from that.

LAURA COATES, CNN ANCHOR: But that's -- I mean just to stop a second, that is a hyperbolic narrative that when people were talking about equality, I know you're making a larger point here, but I think the narrative has been that Democrats were exclusively trying to have these, you know, either/or scenarios as opposed to some of the nuances.

I understand that Democrats missed the mark on a number of things. Republicans -- I appreciate the self-awareness on the part of Democrats here -- Republicans --

(CROSSTALKING)

JONES: Waiting, waiting, waiting.

COATES: -- on your part. But do you think that you are -- I mean, I'm not looking at you, I'll look this way. The point is, though, do you think that Democrats are being too critical on themselves in a way that's going to inure to the benefit of Republicans?

JONES: I don't -- I don't think so.

COATES: Not pointing at you. This one?

JONES: I don't think so. Look, the Internet exactly -- you know, makes things worse, right? So somebody tries to make the subtle point that like, there is unconscious bias or whatever, but by the time it gets refracted through Twitter and everything else, it sounds like you're saying all white people suck.

And so we have to deal with how this stuff gets hurt, not what we mean and what we say, but how it gets transmogrified into stuff that's -- and so, Dr. King -- no, Dr. King -- no, Dr. King was a master of being able to stick up for the underdog and still bring everybody with him.

And we don't have that mastery right now in our party.

COATES: We have to stop it here.

(CROSSTALKING)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- in 2024, by the way.

COATES: I got to stop here. Its 1:00 in the morning and Van just said transmogrified.

JONES: Hey, listen. That's right.

COATES: I know he's from California, but its 1:33 on the East Coast, my friend.

Look, the president seemingly breaking some news tonight talking about a letter Ukraine's president sent him after their Oval Office spat. Did it change his mind about Zelenskyy and U.S. support for Ukraine? That's next.

[01:33:39]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: Now, after last week's contentious Oval Office meeting, President Trump is seemingly shifting his frustration from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Congressional Democrats.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The United States has sent hundreds of billions of dollars to support Ukraine's defense with no security. Do you want to keep it going for another five years? Yes, yes, you would say Pocahontas says yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Mr. Trump also read part of a letter where Zelenskyy wrote that Ukraine is ready to come to the negotiating table. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Earlier today, I received an important letter from President Zelenskyy of Ukraine. The letter reads Ukraine is ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible to bring lasting peace closer. Nobody wants peace more than the Ukrainians, he said.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: This very special letter was also sent out on X by the Ukrainian president. But what does it mean?

JOSH ROGIN, LEAD GLOBAL SECURITY ANALYST, WASHINGTON POST INTELLIGENCE: Well, it means that President Trump's strong-arm tactics to extort Zelenskyy are working. He cut off U.S. military assistance to Ukraine in the middle of the war, which is a pretty serious thing to do. People can die behind that.

And so Zelenskyy did what Trump wanted. He said, ok, you're right. I'll do whatever you want. I'll come, you know, well sign the deal. You don't have to give me any security guarantees. Just don't cut off the vital aid while our people are fighting and dying.

But there's something else going on behind the scenes that viewers may not be aware of. This is first on CNN.

There's a concerted effort inside Trump world. There's a battle because it's not just Democrats, there are a lot of Republicans, even Trump, people who support Ukraine and want to help Ukraine, want to figure out a way to get Trump to help Ukraine.

And that's what the minerals deal was. It was the way to get Trump on board with helping Ukraine.

Meanwhile, there's another group of people who are trying to get rid of Zelenskyy. And they're working with members of Zelenskyy's opposition who are in the ear of people like Don Jr. and Vance and Tucker Carlson to try to convince Trump that he can get rid of Zelenskyy.

[01:39:51]

ROGIN: I think it's crazy. I think it's destructive. I don't think it's going to happen, but that's part of what's going on here.

Zelenskyy is getting attacked by his own people, working with parts of the Trump administration. A lot of people don't know about that. And that's the subtext here, is that half of Trump world is trying to get rid of Zelenskyy, and the other half is trying to get Trump to support Ukraine.

PHILLIP: Yes. And I want you guys to weigh in. But it's --

(CROSSTALKING)

ROGIN: It's pretty interesting, right.

PHILLIP: I mean that's -- that's fascinating. And it's important because the push to sideline Ukraine is not just about aid. It's also about getting rid of Zelenskyy as well for some people.

MARK PRESTON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Oh and you're absolutely right in two of the three things you said. It's destructive -- whatever destructive word they use.

And then you said, I don't think it's going to happen. I actually think it might happen. And I --

PHILLIP: You don't think what's going to happen?

PRESTON: I mean, I think that Trump will successfully push out Zelenskyy. I mean, I think we've seen over the last 72 hours that Donald Trump has basically taken a war that was, you know, I mean, you know better than anyone that it was at a standstill or, you know, moving in Russia's direction, but not -- not swiftly, certainly. And Donald Trump has just given Russia the win.

I mean that's it. And I think Zelenskyy, in order to save his country, in order to save his own people, he is just going to have to sacrifice himself publicly.

ROGIN: I don't think he's going to do that. I don't think he's going to resign. I don't think that they want to set a precedent that when Donald Trump says you know, the president of your country has to go, that they're just like, ok, I got to go because that's a really bad precedent to set.

PHILLIP: And he is --

ROGIN: And it's a sovereign country. They get to choose their own leader.

PHILLIP: -- he is generally popular though.

ROGIN: What's that?

PHILLIP: He's generally very popular. Not --

ROGIN: More popular now.

PHILLIP: Not as popular as he was, you know, three years ago --

ROGIN: But much more popular than he was two weeks ago.

PHILLIP: But this is the thing with Trump. I mean, he understands where public opinion of the United States has gone on this issue. More people are saying, ok, maybe we can't do this forever. Maybe we need to pull back a little bit.

But I also saw some more recent numbers just this week suggesting that the American people are not particularly in favor of the United States just pulling out of our support for Ukraine.

I do think they get the stakes here of this conversation. but Trump sees this as -- I think he sees it as an 80/20 issue, when it's really not actually that kind of issue.

ASTEAD HERNDON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: It's not an 80/20 issue but I do think we should be a little less sure that it's a kind of clean for the American public. I don't think the numbers really bear that out.

And frankly, my experience on the campaign trail really reflects a country that was wrestling with, I think, how much investment was going to other places. It was often tied to inflation concerns.

Folks saying, you know, why are we sending all this money here rather than keeping it at home? And I honestly think that whether Donald Trump's individual actions on Ukraine or even Israel have -- are going to be seen as popular, that the America First viewpoint has won.

And so I think that is actually something that goes beyond the individual ideology. And I think there's some numbers.

I saw some Harry Enten numbers that backed it up. The share of people who want compromise has gone to 31 percent, up to 50 percent. Trump's rating is 20 approval points higher than Biden's when it comes to handling Ukraine. I mean, those aren't fake things.

Even connected back to the last conversation, the places where polling shows that the support for Ukraine the weakest is with black and Latinos, and even less so than the general public.

And so when I think Democrats are talking about how do they represent their base, we should be more honest. A big chunk of that base, a big part of the people they lost in that kind of working-class decline are the type of people who do not see America's investment abroad in the same way.

ROGIN: Here's the problem with that number -- those numbers. One, everybody was against Afghanistan until the Biden people bungled the withdrawal and Afghanistan got taken over by the Taliban. Then everyone was against that.

So people don't like to see America lose wars. They don't like to see American allies get trampled and run over and get killed by dictators.

So the polls will shift when the Ukrainians realize what -- when they realize what, what's going to happen when Russia rolls over Ukraine. So I wouldn't -- those polls are people who are going to have a different view when it gets really, really ugly, which is what's about to happen.

PHILLIP: So to Astead's point, ok, a lot of non-interventionists, a lot of peace-loving Democrats don't love us being involved in foreign wars. But when that's coupled with extreme cuts at home, I'm not sure that that's the bargain that Americans think they're going to get when they pull out from overseas and they're also getting slashed at home, too.

LEAH WRIGHT RIGUEUR, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I also think that there's -- that last week's kind of debacle in the White House with Zelenskyy and with Trump and with J.D. Vance, did a lot of damage in the larger public imagination about what the war in Ukraine is supposed to be doing. What is the role of Donald Trump? What would it mean to pull out?

And I think when you couple that with the large-scale slashes that are happening across the board with other organizations, if you look at, for example, the slashing that's happening in the federal government, if you look at the explosion in lawsuits, there are increasing concerns that I think to -- I think to earlier points are not necessarily showing up in the way that we would imagine them on polling.

[01:44:47]

RIGUEUR: One way, though, that I think is showing up, is that increasingly we are seeing people that are unhappy about the way that Donald Trump is handling things, whether it be handling Ukraine, handling firings that are going on across the federal government.

This idea, you know, Trump spent a lot of time today talking about he won the war against DEI and against wokeness. And what we're also seeing though, is that there is a large segment of the population that is really unhappy about how that is being rolled out, because it feels authoritarian.

In fact, Americans have discovered what the word authoritarian finally means, right? It has come across. So I think there is a larger picture that we have to begin to see.

And the other thing that I'll say here, too, is that for a lot of people, they have this image of what America should be in the world. There's something that we have been fed by all governments left, right, Republican, Democrat from the time that we are children. And it is ingrained into our kind of patriotic, nationalist education that we have in this country.

Part of what we are seeing with Donald Trump is an undoing of that. And I think for many people, that is alarming in a way that they did not expect from the campaign.

PHILLIP: Yes. Look, this is the system that America created. And now Trump seems just about ready to dismantle the whole thing. So that's the reality of what we are facing as a country here with this new administration.

Up next for us, we're going to hear from voters across the spectrum about what they thought of that speech and some of their answers might surprise you.

Stay with us.

[01:46:17]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COATES: Well, you heard what our panelists think. But what do average voters think? Well, CNN's Boris Sanchez is in Bucks County, Pennsylvania with a panel of both Trump and Harris voters. Now, Trump flipped that county red for the first time since 1988.

Boris, what did your voters say?

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Laura and Abby, we're live at the original Golden Eagle Diner in Bristol, Pennsylvania. This is all- important Bucks County, a county that Donald Trump flipped from -- from blue to red by about 300 votes, the first time a Republican has done that since 1988.

It's the biggest swing district in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, one that helped deliver Donald Trump a second term in the White House.

We're here with a focus group, eight of my closest friends now, we've got four Democrats, four Republicans, and they had a variety of opinions about President Trump's joint address to Congress tonight.

And I want to start with Gerald over at the end here.

What did you make of the speech? What did you think?

GERALD, MEMBER, FOCUS GROUP: So I have to start by saying you know, I have to question everything he says. Can I trust what he says?

You know, he's -- the evidence shows that he just isn't trustworthy. And he promised all these things today. But actions speak louder than words.

I don't see any success here at all. I see a country, fearful, people being laid off, questions about people's health, the measles outbreak.

All these things are happening under Donald Trump's watch. And it's very concerning you know, domestically and of course, internationally what's happening in the world as a result of him being In office.

SANCHEZ: You were a Kamala Harris supporter.

GERALD: Yes.

SANCHEZ: Mary Anne, you were a Donald Trump supporter. You were pretty effusive in your praise about his speech. What did you think? MARY ANNE, MEMBER, FOCUS GROUP: Well, I was I was very happy to hear

about his plans for the future. I mean it's 40 days in, he's done more than he ever did really in the last time that he was elected. He had a lot of bumps on the road.

I really respect what he's trying to do. Sometimes, he's a little bombastic, but I think he's sincere. I think his message about unity and getting this country back in order is long overdue.

And yes, it's probably going to be ugly to, you know, set the course again, reset our economy, reset our budget.

But I think we're going to get through it. And I think there's a method to his so-called madness.

SANCHEZ: And Mark, you are a cattle and hog farmer And Trump had a specific message for farmers.

He said, bear with me. Yes, there's going to be some disturbance as he levies tariffs on other nations. I wonder what you took from that And also his message on immigration, because I know that is a specific focus for you as an agricultural employer.

MARK, MEMBER, FOCUS GROUP: Yes. yes. We went through this in the first -- his first four years when he put in those tariffs and stuff. But halfway through, our agriculture commodity prices jumped up, doubled, almost tripled what they were at when he first came in four years ago.

And we know that for commodity prices the other countries are going to put tariffs on our agricultural products.

But we also know that United States farmers, we produce the most food. We are the breadbasket of the world. They want our products. Ok.

So they're going to -- they're going to hold us hostage on our agriculture products, but they're going to come back and they're going to buy them.

SANCHEZ: So you're not worried about tariffs?

MARK: I think -- I think we're going to take a dip in our products. But it's going to come back.

SANCHEZ: Emma Jean (ph), I imagine you were a Kamala Harris supporter. I wonder what you think of how Democrats did this evening, how they responded to Trump. There were some very obvious protests, some quiet protests and a disturbance in the middle of Trump's speech by Congressman Al Green. What did you think?

EMMA JEAN, MEMBER, FOCUS GROUP: Well, I'm a big proponent of decorum, and I think that sometimes actions do speak louder than words, but I think that they should have respected the office and not disrupt it in that respect. And so that gave me a little bit of a pause.

And I just, I just think that sometimes you get more accomplished in a quiet way. SANCHEZ: And Carolyn, you were perhaps the most enthusiastic of our guest focus group today. I wonder what you made of Trump's speech from the perspective of what he could have done better? Would you have any constructive criticism for the president?

[01:54:50]

CAROLYN, MEMBER, FOCUS GROUP: Well, his theatrics, of course. I mean, I think -- I think the last even the four years when he was president, before he was kind of the same.

But I think because he is a president that -- there's never been anybody more attacked than him in the last four years, not one in the history of the U.S.

And I think what happens with that is he just keeps -- he's like the Teflon guy. Nothing ever sticks. He just gets up.

And is it always right? No, but he does come ahead regardless of what they throw at him. So -- and I think the whole Butler thing, yes, I think he was saved for a reason.

I'm also -- take homeless vets off the street. So when we're spending $60 million on illegal immigrants and $3 billion on veterans, that's a problem.

SANCHEZ: Sherry -- Sherry, speaking of the theatrics that we saw with Trump, I wonder what you made of some of the folks that he highlighted.

SHERRY: I thought those were really moving touches. I was moved by those. But even that attempt really didn't bring the unity that I really think that America is craving right now.

I think that he could have done more than, you know, those few highlighted individuals to bring the country together. I think that's what is really needed right now.

COATES: Boris, thank you so much and also to your focus group as well.

And hey, thank you all for watching.

CNN's special coverage of President Trump's joint address to Congress continues right after this.

[01:56:23]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)