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State of the Union

Interview With Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA); Interview With Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX); Interview With Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL); Interview With Rep. Andy Kim (D-NJ); Interview With U.S. Special Envoy For Hostage Affairs Adam Boehler. Aired 9-10a ET

Aired March 09, 2025 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:54]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST (voice-over): Whiplash, a head-spinning week of pronouncements and reversals.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They go into effect tomorrow. There'll always be some modifications.

TAPPER: As President Trump royals the financial markets and wades into a showdown over Elon Musk's cuts, will Americans have patience for his disruptions? Senator Rick Scott arranged a meeting between Musk and his colleagues and joins me exclusively next.

And moment of truth, after negative reviews for their performance this week...

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): Remove this gentleman from the chamber.

TAPPER: ... Democrats face a choice over a chance to hold up the Trump agenda. Will they take it? Senator Andy Kim joins me exclusively.

Plus: terror talks. For the first time, a U.S. official sits down with terrorist group Hamas.

TRUMP: We're bringing back our hostages.

TAPPER: Is there any sign that negotiating with terrorists will pay off? Trump hostage envoy Adam Boehler led the talks and joins me ahead.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: Hello. I'm Jake Tapper in Washington, where the state of our union is right this moment wondering why President Trump changed everything except for Daylight Savings Time.

And you might already be waking up bleary-eyed and sleepless and wondering which way is up after this week of presidential changes and flip-flops that unnerved the markets and the president's own party. This week, the president imposed, then postponed, then threatened to reimpose tariffs on America's neighbors, after warning his favorite economic tool could cause Americans -- quote -- "some disturbance."

Perhaps a sign he is sensitive to growing economic fears, yesterday, Trump retweeted a commentary from a MAGA supporter headlined that Americans should -- quote -- "shut up about egg prices" -- unquote -- because for president is saving consumers millions elsewhere with proposed tax cuts and tariffs and more.

And on a different way the president is seeking to reform the economy, the sweeping cuts pushed by Elon Musk to federal jobs and services, this week, the president was forced to quell some concerns among his own Cabinet secretaries, telling them that they, not Mr. Musk, have the final say over any cuts after an extraordinary Cabinet meeting first reported by "The New York Times" and later confirmed by CNN during which Trump's handpicked department heads, specifically Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, tangled with Musk over his plans, as well as claims he was making that the two secretaries said were just not true.

Joining us now, a Republican senator who is close to both the president and Elon Musk, Senator Rick Scott of Florida.

Senator, thank you so much for joining us this morning.

So, it's not just Rubio and Duffy, as you know better than I. There are a lot of Republicans on Capitol Hill behind the scenes uneasy with how Elon Musk has been cutting the work force, not the goal of cutting out waste, fraud and abuse, but how he's been doing it.

You organized a meeting between Musk and Senate Republicans to help smooth ruffled feathers, improve communications. I do keep seeing elected officials publicly posting about programs or agencies in their home districts or states being targeted by DOGE, and they plead with Musk to save them.

Here's Congressman Tom Cole showing how he, by going to Musk, saved jobs in his district in the National Weather Service and other federal offices in Oklahoma.

Are you comfortable with Republican elected officials basically going to beg the richest man in the world, an unelected, un-Senate-confirmed person, to have to save American jobs? Is that OK with you?

SEN. RICK SCOTT (R-FL): Well, I brought -- I talk to Elon Musk quite a bit about what he's doing.

And he's doing what I did when I became governor of Florida. You look at every program. So here's what he has said. He is looking at every program he can. He's giving the information to agency heads. And they're making a decision how to go forward.

But let me tell you, Americans are fed up, $600,000 for a menstrual cycle -- or to study menstrual cycles of transgender men, $300 million for a cement manufacture in Gaza, I mean, $800,000 for gardening in El Salvador.

Let me tell you, I just went through the campaign trail. People are fed up with wasteful government spending. And we have had a 2 percent increase in population in five years and a 53 percent increase in spending.

[09:05:04]

We will not get interest rates down, we will not get inflation under control until we balance the budget. That's what we have to do. And Elon Musk is part of the process of balancing the budget.

TAPPER: So I don't doubt that people are fed up with wasteful government spending. I just don't think that they think air traffic controllers are wasteful government spending.

According to "The Times," Transportation Secretary Duffy accused Musk of trying to fire air traffic controllers, even after multiple deadly plane crashes and close calls.

If the secretary of transportation is worried that Musk is not doing this in a constructive and wise manner, why should the American people be convinced of it?

SCOTT: Well, Elon Musk does not have the power to fire people. The president of the United States is Donald Trump and the agency heads are the one who manage each of their departments.

So they have got the decision. That's what Elon Musk has told me time and time again. And the president of the United States was elected, all right, by the American people to basically rein in government, rein in this waste, to bring some accountability, some transparency, some common sense to government.

And that's exactly what Donald Trump is doing.

TAPPER: Right, but I think the question is how Musk and DOGE have been recommending these cuts.

For example, we have seen experts in nuclear weapons fired, then rehired. We have seen air traffic controllers, at least attempts to fire them. Sean Duffy says he stopped that from happening. We have seen people at the veterans crisis line fired, then rehired. We have seen people investigating pandemics, infectious diseases fired, then rehired.

Beyond that, as Musk takes his chain saw to the government, as you know, about 30 percent of our federal work force in the United States, about 30 percent are veterans. And a majority of that 30 percent are disabled veterans.

Meanwhile, the VA is also preparing to slash up to 70,000 VA jobs providing critical services to veterans. You're a veteran. You served honorably in the Navy. Are you concerned about that?

SCOTT: Well, step one is, I very much appreciate anybody that served. My dad did all four combat jumps with the 82nd Airborne in the Second World War. I had the opportunity to serve in the Navy.

I'm very appreciative. When I became governor of Florida, unemployment of veterans was way higher than our unemployment. And we worked every day to make sure we got that below our unemployment rate. And we did it. It took us about a year or so.

So what we -- here's what we have to do. We have to rein in the size of government, right, all right? And then we have to make sure everybody can get a job. Now, you do that by reducing regulation. You do that by streamline the permitting process. You do that by growing the private sector, not growing the size of government in Washington.

Government in Washington is way too big. It's causing our inflation, it's causing interest rates to be high. And there's no -- when Donald Trump took office, I can just tell you, my experience is there was no accountability in government and there was no transparency.

That's what Elon Musk, that's what agency heads, that's what Donald Trump is trying to bring to the table. And they're going to do it. They're going to figure this out. I'm very optimistic that we can get this done and balance the budget.

Donald Trump has promised to balance the budget. I'm very -- I did it as governor of Florida. This is all doable. Now, do some people not like accountability? Sure. Do some people not like transparency? Sure.

I mean, they just want to have a job. But get back to -- by the way, get back to work. This idea that you don't have to go to the office, I mean, if you work in a grocery store, you have to go to the office. I mean, all these other people go in the office. Federal workers have to get back to work.

TAPPER: Yes, I mean, I didn't...

SCOTT: People are -- the American public is fed up, Jake. They're tired of this. There's no common sense. There's no accountability.

TAPPER: You think...

SCOTT: They're tired. I just went through a campaign trail. Nobody said, I'm so excited about our federal government, nobody.

TAPPER: Of course not.

But I guess my question is, are you confident that the way that these cuts have been taking place have been strategic, have been wise, have been careful? How can you look at experts in nuclear weapons being fired, then rehired, and think, oh, this process is working exactly as it should be?

SCOTT: I'm a business guy, Jake. You do your best you can every day. What they're trying to do is rein in government, right, every day.

Are they going to be perfect? No. No one's perfect. Are they -- when they make a mistake, are they going to fix it? Yes. We have a big problem. We have $36.5 trillion for the debt. We have got to be very aggressive at figuring out how to do this.

So I'm very comfortable that Donald Trump, Elon Musk, our agency heads, they're going to do the best they can. And if they make a mistake, they will fix their mistake. These are smart people. They're willing to work really hard to do the right thing.

TAPPER: So, you know better than I, because you actually tried to prompt a conversation about this, and you got hammered by Democrats and kind of cut loose by Republicans, but the money isn't really even in the salaries of VA workers.

The money is in the so-called entitlement programs, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security. And you tried to start a conversation on this few years ago, and then I can certainly understand why you might have backed off a little, because nobody was standing with you.

[09:10:13]

But if that's really the goal to eliminate the deficit and the debt, why the focus on cutting 70,000 jobs from the VA, where they are desperately needed to help veterans? Why not go after where the money actually is?

SCOTT: Jake, you can balance the budget and preserve all the benefits of Medicare, all the benefits of Social Security. You can do that.

You don't have -- I don't believe in cutting them. I actually have a bill to protect them. Not one Democrat will get on it. What's happened is, all these other programs have skyrocketed in size. We're going to -- it looks like we will have revenues about $5.5 trillion, right?

You can take today's spending for Medicare, today's spending for Social Security, all right, get rid of fraud, waste, and abuse, and then look at the other programs and you can balance the budget without cutting any benefits, which you shouldn't, of Medicare or Social Security.

This is all doable, but guess what you have to do? You have to do what you do. You probably look at your credit card statement every month, say, well, maybe I shouldn't spend that, or was that actually a proper payment?

We spend $250 billion of payments to people in this country every year that weren't entitled to it. And nobody's -- this isn't getting solved. What we're doing, we're going to solve this problem. We're going to balance the budget. We have to balance the budget if you care about poor families in this country.

They're struggling with this inflation and interest rates.

TAPPER: Yes.

Let me ask you about tariffs. In the last month, President Trump announced 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico. Then he delayed them. Then he allowed them to go into effect. Then he paused tariffs on caps and goods covered by the USMCA, NAFTA too, only then turn around and threaten new tariffs on Canadian lumber and dairy.

"The Wall Street Journal" editorial board, which is conservative, says Trump is -- quote -- "treating the North American economy as a personal plaything, as markets gyrate with each presidential whim" -- unquote.

And we have seen the effect on the stock market. Is "The Wall Street Journal" wrong? Is there any coherent strategy here, or is the president just making it up as he goes along?

SCOTT: No, there's a coherent strategy. Stop taking advantage of American workers. Stop sending fentanyl across our border.

I mean, it's pretty simple; 78,000 people died of fentanyl last year that came across our borders. That needs to stop. Canada and Mexico can do that. And that's number one. Number two is, if you want to have a free trade agreement with America, then open up and treat our companies the same as you treat -- we allow you to come in and sell ours.

Mexico right now is dumping in our state. It's hurting our tomato growers, our blueberry growers, our tomato growers, our strawberry growers, and they are not complying with the existing law. They're doing it month after month after month.

So I don't -- I don't -- I think Donald Trump is doing what he should. We have got to make this a fair system for the American worker.

TAPPER: Quickly, if you could, sir, President Trump has acknowledged that there's going to be a little disturbance due to his economic policies.

How bad is this disturbance going to be and how long is it going to last?

SCOTT: Well, first off, Donald Trump walked in with a crappy economy. The number of full-time jobs has been dropping almost the entire Biden administration. This is a lot of work.

Now, manufacturing jobs are coming back. That had not been happening under Biden. That's a big deal. The number one thing is, we have got to get American manufacturing back into this country. So I'm very optimistic that we're going to get this done.

Now, is it work to balance the budget? Yes, it's work, all right? We're going to stop wasting money. So people are going to go build -- we're going to go start building the private sector again and stop growing the public sector. That's going to cause some people to have change jobs.

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: Your constituents that are working -- that are living paycheck to paycheck, how long is this disturbance going to last?

SCOTT: Well, the disturbance is the 20 percent inflation under Biden, the fact there's no full-time jobs. So it's already changing. We're already adding full-time jobs. We have already added, I think, 10,000 manufacturing jobs just last month.

I'm very optimistic it's going to happen very quickly.

TAPPER: OK. I mean, inflation was high, but it was not 20 percent.

Senator Rick Scott of Florida, thank you so much. Really appreciate it.

This week, will a showdown over President Trump's policies back Democrats into a corner? New Jersey Democratic Senator Andy Kim joins me next.

And then: unprecedented talks between the U.S. and terrorists. The American who sat across the table from Hamas joins me coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:18:56]

TAPPER: Welcome back to STATE OF THE UNION. I'm Jake Tapper.

It was another tough week for the Democratic Party, more internal divisions over the response of some members to the president's joint address to Congress. In just a few days, the Democratic Party does have its first real chance to push back on President Trump's agenda. The big question, what are they going to do?

Joining us now, Democratic Senator Andy Kim of New Jersey.

Senator, thanks for joining us.

So, Senate Democrats face a big decision this week, voting for a Republican spending bill that makes no concessions for what Democrats want or vote no and block it and likely be part of a vote that will shut down the federal government. How do you plan to vote?

SEN. ANDY KIM (D-NJ): Well, let's look at what we actually want to see get done, which is that, first of all, the Republicans are in charge of this process right now.

And what we have seen with Speaker Johnson is that he walked away from the bipartisan talks. We have talks ongoing right now. And what I support is an effort that's the same thing that the Republican chair of appropriations, Cole, supports, which he says that a bipartisan deal would be better than a C.R.

[09:20:03]

What we see with Chairwoman Susan Collins, she wants to be able to move forward, so what I want to see get done is a 30-day extension for us to be able to continue these bipartisan talks and then to actually be able to come up with a congressional deal, rather than just kick the can down the road with a C.R. for the rest of the year, which is what Speaker Johnson wants, because, again, he's abdicating his responsibility.

He's really showing just how bad he is at governing right now. And it's something that, again, he's the one that's walking away from this bipartisan talk right now. And I hope that he gets back into the talks so we can continue and finish a job.

TAPPER: So, just to be clear, if Speaker Johnson's C.R. ends up on the floor of the Senate, you will vote no?

KIM: No, that's not what I'm saying, Jake.

What I'm saying is, first and foremost, we need to see what happens in the House. Again, I was in the House of Representatives when Speaker Johnson became speaker. He is very bad at legislating, very bad at keeping his caucus together. So I'm not certain what's going to happen there.

But what I'm hopeful is, is that I'm trying to push, and I think a lot of us are trying to push, one last time to see if we can get these bipartisan talks going. I can't tell you how many Republicans that I talk to in the Senate, in the House that are frustrated as well behind the doors that Congress' roles and responsibilities are being whittled away, usurped by President Trump.

And this is a place where we can reassert and say that, yes, we are the part of the good government, the branch of government that's in control of the appropriations and control of the funds. We should reassert that right now. And that's what I hope that the Republicans in the House and the Senate agree to, and we can restart these bipartisan talks and actually get things done.

TAPPER: Right, but that doesn't look like it's going to happen. And you keep talking about asserting. And I'm just saying, if you don't have a bipartisan bill, will that be a no-vote? It's a pretty simple question.

KIM: Well, it's not simple yet, because we don't know what the House is going to do. So, again, I'm going to see what happens, with the House going first, and then we will see what comes over to the Senate, if anything.

But I still do think that there's an opportunity here to try to push. I can't tell you how many Republicans in the Senate are frustrated with this process, want to see us actually go forward. I mean, when we are worried about what's happening with defense spending in terms of what's going to happen with the C.R., when it looks like what we see here is a handing over the keys to the castle in terms of where the direction of funds go, that's where Congress' role is.

So, Jake, what I will say is, we will see what happens with how the House moves forward, but there's a lot of frustration the ground, in the Senate, and I think that there is still an opening for that 30-day extension and for us to actually be able to get a deal going forward.

They're very close. The negotiators are very close to a top-line deal. And I support Senator Murray and others pushing forward for that. TAPPER: Let's talk about the president's speech to Congress Tuesday

night, and more specifically the reaction of some Democrats, House Democrats, on the floor of the chamber.

In addition to the extended interruption by Congressman Al Green waving his cane, House Democrats protested the joint address by they wore matching colors. They held up paddles with various messages on them.

Your colleague from across the river there, Democratic Senator John Fetterman from Pennsylvania, he called the protests -- quote -- "a sad cavalcade of self-owns and unhinged petulance. It only makes Trump look more presidential and restrained. We're becoming the metaphorical car alarms that nobody pays attention to and it may not be the winning message" -- unquote.

Is Senator Fetterman right?

KIM: Well, this was the third time that I was in the chamber for President Trump giving an address to a joint session, and it's just getting worse and worse.

And it's just -- look, what Trump is very good at doing is bringing the rest of this country down to his level. I mean, when we see him start off with just a barrage of personal insults to people, including people in the chamber, you know, he is certainly somebody that set a tone where he is uninterested in civility in this country in terms of how we proceed and be able to engage with one of us -- one another.

And I find that to be really insulting, when I get to work a job, he works a job, we work jobs whose job descriptions are in the Constitution of the United States. That should push us to hold ourselves to the highest of standards.

So, yes, President Trump is bringing the rhetoric and the discourse and the civility in politics down. I don't like that type of behavior that I see across the board across the entirety of that chamber, whether it's what we have seen with Marjorie Taylor Greene in the past or people on my side of the aisle. I do think we want to hold ourselves up to a standard.

But what we see is that it's Donald Trump is the one that's bringing our politics down to a level of incivility that I think the vast majority of Americans can't stand.

[09:25:06]

TAPPER: So let me ask you about a vote you took in the last few days. You and nearly every other Senate Democrat voted this week to block a GOP bill that would have banned transgender athletes from playing in women's sports.

This happened the same week that California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, broke with fellow Democrats and said that, in his view, it's -- quote -- "deeply unfair" to allow trans women to play in women's sports. What do you say to that? Do you agree that it's unfair?

KIM: Well, what I agree is that we want to make sure that these decisions are made by the communities, by the communities, by the schools, and others that are the ones closest to this and understand.

What we know is that we're talking about a handful of people, a handful of athletes around the country. These decisions can be made in a way that doesn't require the entirety of the federal government to come in on top of that.

What I will just say to the American people here is that the Republicans, Trump, in particular, he's trying to make this about safety. But it's not about safety and security of our kids. I have got a 7-year-old and a 9-year-old.

What this -- if it was about safety and security, then maybe we would have seen Trump and the Republicans do something about the 330 school shootings that we had last year, which I'm terrified of, having two elementary school kids, or about the one in five kids in this -- that goes to school hungry and isn't able to have enough food in their stomachs to be able to get through the day.

So it's not about safety and security. It's about politics. And that's what I find just so offensive about this, as someone who is worried about the state of our education system. And we see this right now at a time when the -- President Trump is about to try an initiative to gut the entire Department of Education and trying to damage what I believe is a common good in this nation when it comes to our education.

So that's something that I just really wanted to make clear. This is not about safety and security. It's all about the politics.

TAPPER: All right, Senator Andy Kim of New Jersey, thank you so much. Good to see you, sir.

His job is to bring American hostages home, and that led to an unprecedented official U.S. meeting this week with a group that the U.S. government classifies as a terrorist group. Did that sit-down work? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:31:34]

TAPPER: Welcome back to STATE OF THE UNION.

Last week, a top Trump official sat down for unprecedented talks with individuals in a designated terrorist group, Hamas. Why?

Joining me now is the man who sat across the proverbial table from Hamas, U.S. hostage envoy Adam Boehler.

Adam, thanks so much for joining us. Let's start on these direct negotiations with Hamas. First of all,

obviously controversial to directly negotiate with terrorists. How much sign-off did you get from President Trump beforehand?

And this is just my personal curiosity. As a Jewish American, did you have to steal yourself before sitting down to deal with people who are definitionally antisemitic murderers?

ADAM BOEHLER, U.S. SPECIAL ENVOY FOR HOSTAGE AFFAIRS: Well, I will say, meeting with people, whether they're good people or bad people, is part of my job.

I'm the special envoy. I need to go and have dialogue with anybody, and that includes a lot of people that I would classify as not-so-good people, to help other Americans. And so it comes part and parcel in the job. I knew that I was going to meet Hamas as a result of it, and we discussed it.

Then, I think, when you walk and you sit in front of somebody and you know what they have done, it's hard not to think of it. I wouldn't say it's the most productive. The most productive is to realize that every piece of a person is a human and to identify with the human elements of those people and then build from there.

But it definitely feels a little odd knowing what they really are.

TAPPER: So, thank you for your candor.

So you did get sign-off from President Trump ahead of time, though?

BOEHLER: Of course.

TAPPER: Yes.

What was the result of the meeting? How close are you to a deal to get the American hostages, living and dead, murdered, still in Gaza out? How close are you?

BOEHLER: Well, first of all, I want to note the American hostages that are there, one in particular that's alive, Adi (sic) Alexander, and four dead bodies of Americans, with about 50 killed.

And that's just not acceptable. We live in a place, we live, in the United States, the strongest country in the world, and there are 6,000 Americans in different countries. So one of my views here is, we have got to change that completely.

With respect to the Hamas situation, I do think there's hope. I think that Israel has done a wonderful, masterful job eliminating Hamas, Hezbollah, a number of other enemies in the state that makes things possible that weren't possible before. And I think you could see something like a long-term truce, where we forgive prisoners, where Hamas lays down their arms, where they agree they're not part of the political party going forward.

I think that's a reality. It's real close. TAPPER: Do you have plans to sit down with Hamas again?

BOEHLER: You never know. Sometimes, you're in the area and you drop by.

(LAUGHTER)

TAPPER: All right. It's a very unique pop-in, I suppose.

So you talked about the job Israel has done in trying to negotiate the release of the hostages, living and dead. Axios' reporter Barak Ravid is reporting the top Israeli official Ron Dermer strongly discouraged you from talking directly with Hamas. He said it was a tense phone call.

[09:35:01]

Tell us about that. Do you understand why Netanyahu, Dermer, others might be upset?

BOEHLER: I do understand.

I spoke with Ron, and I'm sympathetic. He has someone that he doesn't know well making direct contact with Hamas. Maybe I would see them and say, look, they don't have horns growing out of their head. They're actually guys like us. They're pretty nice guys.

So he doesn't know me. And there are big stakes. He lives in a country where, if it sets certain precedents, then it will hurt or help a lot of other people. So I understand the consternation and the concern. And I wasn't upset.

At the same time, we're the United States. We're not an agent of Israel. We have specific interests at play. And we did communicate back and forth. We had very specific parameters by which we fell. And the reality is, what I wanted to do is jump-start some negotiations that were in a very fragile place.

And I wanted to say to Hamas, what is the endgame that you want here, not the dream endgame, but what do you think is realistic at this point? Because, until we know that, it's very hard to reach some sort of truce or some sort of end hostilities.

So, in the end, I think it was a very helpful meeting. It was very helpful to hear some back-and-forth. But I think Israel knows walking out of that it's not like Hamas got the world because I thought they were a bunch of nice guys.

TAPPER: Right.

How quickly could something come together in terms of this negotiation?

BOEHLER: I think something could come together within weeks.

I will say that I believe there is enough there to make a deal between what Hamas wants and what they have accepted and what Israel wants and it's accepted. And I think it -- I think there is a deal where they can get all of the prisoners out, not just the Americans.

TAPPER: Before you go, I do want to ask you about journalist Austin Tice, who's been held in Syria for the last 12 years.

BOEHLER: Yes.

TAPPER: Do you think he's still alive? What's the latest on efforts to get him home?

BOEHLER: Truthfully, I don't know whether Austin is still alive.

But, for me, in my job, it's to bring all Americans home, dead or alive. And so Austin is on my list. And I'm going to go to Syria, and I'm going to do the best I can to find out. If he's there, I'm going to bring him home. If he's dead, I'm going to dig up his remains with the FBI. We do it together. And we will bring them home to his mom, because that's the right thing to do.

Our Americans, I don't care where they are, if they're lost somewhere, we're going to come for you. That's one of our ethos. It's one of our most important ethos. And we're going to reclaim that ethos. We lost it a little bit under the Biden administration. But we're going to reclaim that both -- ethos, because, in my mind, we should be getting everybody home. We owe it to each other.

And I'm not going to stop until we get him.

TAPPER: Adam Boehler, thank you so much for your time today.

BOEHLER: Of course.

TAPPER: Russia rains down missiles on Ukraine. President Trump says that's what anyone would do.

My panel squares off that and more -- next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:42:53]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: But we're doing very well with Russia. But, right now, they're bombing the hell out of Ukraine. And Ukraine -- I'm finding it more difficult, frankly, to deal with Ukraine. It may be easier dealing with Russia, which is surprising because they have all the cards.

He's hitting them harder than he's been hitting them. He's doing what anybody else would do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Welcome back to STATE OF THE UNION.

President Trump said Vladimir Putin's continued bombardment of Ukraine is what anybody else would do in his position.

My panel joins me now.

Let me start with you, Congressman Gonzales. You just had Vice President Vance, Director of National Intelligence Gabbard, and Secretary of Defense Hegseth in your district. Did you talk to them at all about Ukraine and Moscow and whether Putin is doing what anybody else would do?

Do you think Putin's doing what anybody else would do?

REP. TONY GONZALES (R-TX): You know, a lot of the conversation on Air Force Two was about the border. The border is no doubt the number one issue.

And I have been at the border five times. I represent nearly half of the overall southern border. I have seen overnight the border become secure. And I think it just gets to the point where this administration is putting our country first. That is OK. It's OK to secure our borders before others.

As far as Ukraine goes, you know I have fought in two wars. There are no winners in wars, Jake, only losers. And whether we support Ukraine or not, Ukraine is going to keep fighting on. They're a tough people.

But you also don't win wars with blank checks, right? So the sooner this war can end, I think the sooner it will be. I think of it as a Texan. Everything goes back to Texas. If Louisiana took part of Eastern Texas, guess what? We would fight tooth and nail until we got every inch back of Eastern Texas. Ukraine is going to do the exact same.

TAPPER: You're a veteran as well, Congressman Auchincloss. What's your take?

REP. JAKE AUCHINCLOSS (D-MA): I was in my district yesterday as well. We were doing a town hall in the biggest city in my district. Democrats still do town halls.

And this city voted for Donald Trump in 2024, first time in 100 years. The most resonant theme of the day that I heard from these Americans was how livid they are about the way that President Trump behaved in the Oval Office with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Zelenskyy flew to Washington, but he walked into the Kremlin.

[09:45:02]

And the propaganda that they heard from the commander in chief made Americans feel less safe and made them feel ashamed. This is an opportunity for congressional Republicans to distance themselves from this abomination and to demonstrate that Americans are going to stand for freedom and democracy, because, with all due respect, people do win wars.

United States won World War II. It made this world safe for freedom and democracy. We are now making it less safe for freedom and democracy by giving Russia all the cards that Donald Trump claims they have.

GONZALES: Well, I would add it's time for America to have all the cards. I don't want to see any -- I don't want my -- I don't want American daughters and sons going to fight wars, just like I did. I want us to take care of home base.

I also want us to take care of our allies. I think we can do both. But this writing blank checks and think that's going to solve things doesn't work.

ASHLEY ALLISON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: But doesn't -- doesn't language and tone and behavior matter?

It feels like you want the president to support our allies. America -- Ukraine is our ally in this. And, right now, it feels like the president is aligning with Putin, Russia, who...

GONZALES: I saw it. The tone was, this is a new United States and we're not going to allow anyone to take advantage of us, ally or foe.

And I'm OK with that. I want us to get back to a point where we...

BRENDA GIANINY, REPUBLICAN POLLSTER: And the data actually backs up what he's saying.

TAPPER: Backs up what the congressman is saying?

GIANINY: Backs up what Congressman Gonzales is saying.

TAPPER: Yes.

GIANINY: Voters don't want to write blank checks anymore. They don't want to say we're just going to give all this money to foreign governments. We want that money -- depends on which wing of the Republican Party you're in -- but we want that money spent here at home protecting our border or we want it to pay down the debt. We don't want to send it overseas anymore.

AUCHINCLOSS: Let me offer a bipartisan path forward on this then. There's 300 billion euros of frozen assets being held in Brussels right now that France and Germany and Belgium have control over.

TAPPER: Russian assets.

AUCHINCLOSS: Russian assets. That's right.

If Congress signaled in a bipartisan fashion that, one, we want Ukraine to win this war, we believe Russia was the aggressor, not Ukraine, and, two, that we support our European allies in giving security guarantees to Ukraine paid for with Russian assets, I think we could get to resolution very quickly.

Congressional Republicans are not stepping up and just saying the very basic sentence of, Ukraine is right, Russia is wrong.

TAPPER: Let me ask you a question, Congressman Gonzales, because Congressman Auchincloss talked about -- he made an illusion to Democrats still have town hall meetings.

There has been a lot about confrontations with members of the Republicans in the House and Senate. And there was advice put out to House Republicans, stop having town halls, or do it the tele-town halls on Zoom. Is that what you're doing?

GONZALES: I think town halls are great. You want to have dialogue. Our founding fathers meant it so, that way, we the people would have a voice. Right, wrong, indifferent, you listen to people.

I love seeing Capitol Hill coming up and all the different advocates and protesters coming up. As fun as that is, that's what this country was meant to be, for us to have a voice and for our government to be transparent. Don't just tell us what we want to hear and don't lie to us.

So I think it's OK. I think it's good for us to have this dialogue. DOGE is very popular in my district. People are going, what is this? I mean, you listen to the State of the Union and President Trump goes down the list, and you're hearing some of these things, money to Zamunda for research on squirrels.

And you're like, no way this could be true. That's a lot of the talk in my district.

AUCHINCLOSS: Is it popular to cut health care for the 40 percent of kids in this country who rely on Medicaid to pay for tax cuts for people who don't need tax cuts?

TAPPER: Yes.

AUCHINCLOSS: That's not going to be popular in your district.

GONZALES: You know well...

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: Let me just bring in Brenda right now.

(CROSSTALK)

AUCHINCLOSS: That is what congressional Republicans are doing.

ALLISON: Yes.

AUCHINCLOSS: DOGE is a misdirection tactic, that the focus of effort is that they're going to take $880 billion out of health care that seniors rely on for at-home care...

TAPPER: Yes.

AUCHINCLOSS: ... that kids rely on for primary care, and they're going to use it to give the 1 percent massive tax cuts.

TAPPER: Everyone obviously supports getting rid of waste, fraud and abuse. So let me remove that from the conversation for a second. GIANINY: Eighty/twenty issue, yes.

TAPPER: Yes.

What about when these cuts start really impacting people where they live and there are slowdowns for the VA because they have got rid of 70,000 workers or Social Security or whatever? What does the data say about that?

GIANINY: Well, you're exactly right. This is not a new issue.

I will show my age a little bit here. Going back, we saw Clinton doing this in the '90s. But they cut 300,000 employees, so that -- this is not a new issue.

TAPPER: But with -- but more surgically, right, more -- with more strategy?

GIANINY: Well, I don't know how you cut surgically cut 300,000 employees.

TAPPER: Well, there were buyouts. It took years. I mean...

GIANINY: I mean, look, at Musk, he took 10,000.

But we have seen consistently this has been important even before Clinton. It is a 80/20 issue. It's hard for me to get 80 percent of voters to agree on anything; 80 percent of voters say we need to cut the federal government by 10 percent.

What the problem is, the problem is with Elon Musk, right? He didn't come in as popular. The whole we're going to eat the rich is very real out there. That's a real sentiment with American voters. He was not the best -- well, he probably is the best face to protect Trump from it.

ALLISON: Yes.

TAPPER: Yes.

GIANINY: He was never popular to begin with.

I think the fault in the strategy comes with Senator Thune and his people did their job too well. They got that Cabinet approved too fast. And now they're taking over. They're not...

(CROSSTALK)

[09:50:06]

ALLISON: I think the premise of your question about why are Republicans being advised not to do town halls is because you're doing unpopular things, and your constituents are showing up, people who actually voted for you, and saying, don't do that.

The question is -- I agree. I want to hear both sides of the argument. When people who voted for you say, don't cut my Medicaid, don't cut my Social Security, don't cut my health care, will you listen or will you stay aligned with Donald Trump and Elon Musk?

TAPPER: So I just have a yes or no for the two congressmen. Are you going to vote for the C.R.?

GONZALES: I think C.R.s are terrible. I also think government shutdowns...

TAPPER: Yes or no?

GONZALES: ... are terrible.

(LAUGHTER)

TAPPER: But...

GONZALES: Yes, so what's going to happen is, we need to pass a budget. We haven't passed a budget since 1996.

TAPPER: So you're not going to vote for the C.R.?

GONZALES: I think C.R.s are terrible, but I also think you need...

TAPPER: Government...

GONZALES: ... to give the president...

(LAUGHTER)

GONZALES: You need to give the president the benefit of the doubt, especially when his policies are working. So it's a game-time decision for me, Jake.

TAPPER: OK.

(LAUGHTER)

AUCHINCLOSS: Jake, I get to give a long-form answer too then. The answer is no in its current form.

Funding the government is the moment of maximum leverage for Democrats in this first year of the administration...

TAPPER: Yes.

AUCHINCLOSS: ... which means we have to get wins for the middle class. We have to protect them from the chaos and corruption of the administration.

TAPPER: OK.

AUCHINCLOSS: We got to protect Social Security, because they're going to try to privatize it, mark my words. And we have got to prevent tax hikes on the middle class, because home insurance, car insurance bills are going up right now. TAPPER: Thanks to everyone for being here. Really appreciate it,

especially on a Daylight Saving morning. Really appreciate it. Thanks.

Things are about to get scandalous. Our latest look at the stories that rock the political world and other worlds, that's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:56:11]

TAPPER: Tonight, I'm proud to bring you a new season of our show "UNITED STATES OF SCANDAL." And this week's premiere episode focuses on the Abscam scandal, the FBI's complex undercover scheme to offer politicians cash bribes through hidden camera meetings with fake sheiks.

Here's a preview.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can't investigate and convict criminals with angels.

TAPPER: So, the FBI takes a gamble. They will let this con man try to earn his freedom by conducting stings on white-collar criminals. But they had no idea how far that would go.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It started in a very humble way. The object was only to recover stolen art and securities. And, to everyone's amazement who was involved in the investigation, three years later, it resulted in the conviction of six United States congressmen and a United States senator.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: The new season of "UNITED STATES OF SCANDAL" starts this evening at 9:00 p.m. only on CNN. And I will see you then.

Thank you for spending your Sunday morning with us, Daylight Saving and everything notwithstanding.

"FAREED ZAKARIA GPS" starts next.

I will see you tonight on "UNITED STATES OF SCANDAL."