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The Lead with Jake Tapper

21 DOGE Tech Workers Resign In Protest Of DOGE; White House Claims Unity On Musk's Email Demand Despite Mixed Messages; Speaker Johnson On Budget Blueprint: "We Will Get There"; Source: Ukraine's Zelenskyy Plans Trip To D.C. Aired 4-5p ET

Aired February 25, 2025 - 16:00   ET

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

[16:00:01]

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN HOST: Beautiful.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: I see what you did there. So last year, they were 0-3 on their eggs. It was so sad. But I think now, as we are officially on what's called pip watch because they pip. That's when the eggs start to hatch.

I think they're going to do okay this year. I think it's really going to happen for them. And fun fact here, shadow will actually try to lure Jackie off the nest with these treats like sticks so that he can take his turn on the eggs, right?

You know who loves the eagles?

JIMENEZ: I do.

KEILAR: And I mean, really.

JIMENEZ: Yep, no question.

KEILAR: THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER starts right now.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Twenty-one federal employees with what is now DOGE just resigned in protest over DOGE.

THE LEAD starts right now.

Technology experts quit en masse from DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency. Skilled workers who say they refuse to legitimize DOGE's budget slashing action, slashing actions and attempts to gain access to Americans personal data.

So what does the Trump administration have to say about these resignations? These tech experts are revealing about how they were brought on and what DOGE ordered them to do.

Plus, Richard Glossip, the Oklahoma death row inmate, spared execution nine times. We've told you his story and we've told you about the serious questions about his case. And now, big news on the matter from the U.S. Supreme Court. And another very close call. See a split second decision while coming

in for a landing, barely missing a private jet. We have new audio on the near collision and we will explore the question. You're wondering what the hell is going on with air travel these days?

(MUSIC)

TAPPER: Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.

Elon Musk's crusade for mass firings and budget trimmings across the government has apparently led to a mass resignation from his own camp, kind of. Today, 21 workers who were part of what was called the U.S. Digital Services, which is the agency that became DOGE. They quit in protest of DOGE actions. That's according to a source who tells us that these are skilled workers, engineers, data scientists, designers who handle top priorities.

The resignation letter reads in part, quote, we will not use our skills as technologists to compromise core government systems, jeopardize American sensitive data, or dismantle critical public services. These resignations drop as millions of federal employees remain in the dark over whether DOGE front man Elon Musk has the power to fire them for not responding to that email, demanding that they document five work accomplishments from the previous week.

Failure to respond would be considered a resignation, Musk said, but others in the administration took issue today.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt responded to the confusion.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: President and Elon, is his entire cabinet are working as one unified team and they are implementing these very common sense solutions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Working as one unified team, she says. Well, we're going to lay out the progression of events so you can make up your own mind on the truthfulness of her assessment. One unified team.

Saturday, Elon Musk said any federal employee who doesn't respond to that email from the office of personnel management demanding to know five things that they accomplished the previous week would be considered resigned. And the deadline was last night before midnight.

That announcement Saturday set off a scramble. Multiple agencies, including the Departments of State, Energy, Defense, Homeland Security and Justice, as well as Kash Patel's FBI, told their employees do not respond to that email from OPM. Others directed employees yes, reply. That includes the head of the Department of Transportation, DOT, which includes already overworked air traffic controllers.

And on that subject, by the way, another close call involving two planes today, this one at Chicago's Midway Airport. And well bring you more on that story.

But back to this, yesterday afternoon, the Office of Personnel Management issued new guidelines saying the email responses were in fact voluntary. Okay, so never mind.

But that wasn't the end of it because then Elon Musk posted this, quote, subject to the discretion of the president, they will be given another chance. Failure to respond a second time will result in termination.

Okay, got it? All cleared up?

Shortly after that one, the Office of Personnel Management once again changed course, telling workers that in fact, some people could be penalized for not responding and that employee should send responses to the head of their own agency. If you're confused, you're not the only one. As one Veterans Affairs employee tells us, quote, no one knows who is in charge and who to listen to, unquote.

[16:05:04]

The notion that they're working as one unified team is an interesting one, as if saying it makes it so.

Let's bring in CNN's Rene Marsh and Jeff Zeleny at the White House.

Jeff, what more is the White House saying about how or if, or when or why the 2.8 million federal employees should send an email documenting what they accomplished the previous week?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Jake, there's not much clarity on any of those questions at this point, except the White House is insisting that they're on the same page. But clearly you have laid out how they are not.

But White House officials do say they were not surprised by this. On Saturday, they got a heads up a couple hours before the email went out, those six words that really shook the federal government, but the agencies did not get word of that. Many of them did not and were alarmed by that.

Perhaps all of this will come into some clarity tomorrow, when all the cabinet secretaries and another guest attends the presidents first cabinet meeting. We asked the White House press secretary about that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENY: I was wondering if, is Elon Musk going to attend the president's first cabinet meeting tomorrow?

LEAVITT: He is. As a matter of fact, I spoke to the president about that before coming down here as well. And Elon, considering he is working alongside the president and our cabinet secretaries, this -- this entire administration will be in attendance tomorrow just to talk about DOGE's efforts, and how all of the cabinet secretaries are identifying waste, fraud and abuse at their respective agencies. (END VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENY: The question is, what role will Elon Musk play at that cabinet meeting? It's not unusual, Jake, as you know, for to have advisers in the room. But will he have a seat at the table? He certainly has been driving many of these actions here, certainly much more so than -- than a cabinet agencies and officials.

But the White House is now saying for the first time that if you work at a national defense agency, you do not have to respond to these, but the rest of the government, apparently you do, Jake.

TAPPER: All right. I'm still confused.

Rene, what are the practical impacts of this confusion and all this mixed messaging? Elon says do something. Maybe you're a federal worker. Your boss says you don't have to do it. Elon says you got to do it. The OPM says, do it.

I mean, what are agencies? What are federal employees supposed to do here?

RENE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They don't know. And that is the simple answer there. As Jeff said, as you have laid out, there is just still this widespread confusion.

It really depends on which agency you're at. You will follow the directions of that agency leader. Perhaps, however, I have spoken to some employees who say that they will not follow and they will not comply, even though their agency has instructed -- instructed them to because they're afraid whatever information they put about their job and their accomplishments would later be used and weaponized against them, and they would end up terminated anyway.

I'm also getting a picture within these federal agencies of more employees spending a lot more of the work day, sending emails asking for clarification from their managers, and at places like the IRS, not 100 percent of their time being devoted to tax season and processing phone calls and anything else that needs to be done within this season at this agency. So, certainly, a distraction for many of these federal employees, and the other thing that I've heard a lot at several agencies is many people are now looking for new jobs, and that may be the end goal for Elon Musk. But when you put that together with the mass firings and the paid leave, we may be on the verge of seeing a lot of these career employees putting in their resignation.

And that -- what that will mean is skeleton crews at these federal agencies, and that will eventually trickle down to the communities, because these agencies touch every aspect of Americans lives -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right. Rene Marsh and Jeff Zeleny, thanks to both of you.

Let's talk about all of this with Kara Swisher, host of the podcast on with Kara Swisher. Also joining us, Dasha Burns, "Politico" White House bureau chief. Kara, Elon Musk doesn't like to lose a battle, but there's a real

chance he could lose out in this email ultimatum fight, given the fact that people who are heading up major agencies are saying you can ignore his email, what do you think is going through his head right now?

KARA SWISHER, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, he's used to where he walks into a place and he kicks some trash cans and everybody does what he says, and then he leaves, and then they tend to do what he wants. That's a description from someone at one of his companies to me.

And so he's not used to sort of collaboration in any way. He runs his companies as he wants to. And -- and in this case, he -- he hasn't been able to. So this is his typical thing is to create chaos, and upset and fear and things like that and not knowing what they're doing.

So he's unused to dealing with a government situation, and those cabinet officials have gotten not want to roll over given they're running, they're running their agencies.

TAPPER: And, Dasha, today, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, was asked about that court filing we covered yesterday in which a Trump administration lawyer said they didn't know who the administrator of DOGE actually is.

[16:10:13]

Karoline Leavitt was asked about that. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: Can you tell us who the administrator of DOGE is?

LEAVITT: Again, I've been asked and answered this question. Elon Musk is overseeing DOGE. There are career -- there are -- no. Elon Musk is a special government employee, which I've also been asked and have answered that question as well.

There are career officials at DOGE. There are political appointees at DOGE. I'm not going to reveal the name of that individual from this podium. I'm happy to follow up and provide that to you, but we've been incredibly transparent about the way that DOGE is working.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: How can they claim to be incredibly transparent about the way the DOGE is working? They wouldn't even give the name of the person who's running it. They don't. I mean, it's just -- it boggles the mind.

DASHA BURNS, WHITE HOUSE BUREAU CHIEF, POLITICO: Yeah. I hate to break it to you, Jake, but you're not the first to point out that contradiction there. Look, she was asked about this twice and both times refused to answer. I'll tell you, all of the reporters that were -- were sitting in that briefing room afterwards. A lot of us were confused why this is such a sticking point of a

question. Why? Why not answer it? But this goes to the description that I've heard of DOGE from both folks inside and outside of the White House, which is that it is a black box. It's very difficult to understand exactly what is happening there, the billions or millions of dollars that Musk claims to be coming from the government.

Where is that actually coming from? Where is the evidence of that? And I asked Karoline Leavitt today, Musk is a special government employee, as she mentioned there. He is limited under those rules to working 130 days. I asked her if the government expects him to work beyond that. She said, ask me that in 100 days.

So this is the challenge with DOGE for cabinet members, for, by the way, people working for Trump in the White House who are trying to figure out how to work with a guy who is not used to process, who is not used to checking in or telling anybody what he is doing. It's a little bit different, though, to do that in the government than at a company like X.

TAPPER: Yeah, and speaking of transparency, I mean, David Fahrenthold from "The New York Times" notes that DOGE quietly deleted from their website the five largest spending cuts they were celebrating last week. So that's -- that's bizarre, too, because that's not transparent. And obviously it's not accurate.

Kara, Musk is going to be participating in Trump's first official cabinet meeting Wednesday. He's going to be face to face with some of the secretaries who told their employees to ignore Musk's email. How do you think he's going to handle it?

SWISHER: I don't know, I think he's doing it to unsettle people. That's something Donald Trump tends to like. I haven't covered Donald Trump, but that's sort of the thing on him. He likes to put, you know, everybody in a box and have them fight it out. Sort of crabs in a box.

And Elon is a great junkyard dog for him throughout the world, you know, and he takes focus away from Trump himself in a way that's good for Trump. Even though Trump is a one man circus, he does -- he does create a heat shield in that regard. You know, he'll sit there and he'll probably say, you know, you know, probably act like the president.

He'll do what he did in the Oval Office last time and try to be first among, I wouldn't even say equals first among period. He's the first best friend. And so, it will be difficult for these cabinet members. I would suspect.

TAPPER: And, Dasha, you have some new reporting today about a group of prominent military contractors who are pitching the Trump White House on a proposal to carry out mass deportations through a network of what they call processing camps. Tell us more. And is this likely to be implemented?

BURNS: So, look, Jake, I think we were all of us who covered Trump on the campaign trail expecting that immigration was going to be the big first hot button issue, because that is what he promised on the campaign trail. Instead, all we've been talking about, really, for the last 30 some days is DOGE, and all of this other stuff has either been on the back burner or happening, while we haven't been watching as closely.

Now look, this is an idea -- this was an unsolicited proposal that we got our hands on over at "Politico" from the guys behind Blackwater, the logistics and training and operational private contractor, military contractor that worked with the U.S. government in Iraq and Afghanistan. Pretty controversial group.

Erik Prince and Bill Matthews are behind this proposal. That is a pretty aggressive proposal to deport 12 million people by the 2026 midterms, which includes a small private army, as it was described of private citizens, former law enforcement officials and the like deputized to apprehend and repatriate migrants.

And the Trump White House has said that they have not engaged with this proposal. The Erik Prince and Bill Matthews said they haven't gotten engagement. But this is an example of -- of the kind of work that might be necessary to carry out at scale the deportation operation that Trump promised on the campaign trail.

TAPPER: All right. Thanks to both of you. Really appreciate it.

Coming up, the Democratic governor who warns authoritarianism may be brewing in the United States.

[16:15:05]

He'll join me with his take.

Plus, in a matter of hours, the big, beautiful bill that President Trump dreams -- dreams up -- dreams of, that's about to get a wake up call. And it's a House speaker, Mike Johnson, left to deal with the fallout.

And the lottery ticket bought with a stolen credit card. If it was your card, would you split the earnings with the thief in exchange for the ticket? That half million dollar offer, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: In our politics lead, Democratic Governor J.B. Pritzker of Illinois delivered a stark warning to the citizens of Illinois about the perils of authoritarianism in America.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. J.B. PRITZKER (D), ILLINOIS: We don't have kings in America, and I don't intend to bend the knee to one. If you think I'm overreacting and sounding the alarm too soon, consider this, it took the Nazis one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours and 40 minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic. And all I'm saying is that when the five alarm fire starts to burn, every good person better be ready to man a post with a bucket of water if you want to stop it from raging out of control.

[16:20:05]

The seed that grew into a dictatorship in Europe a lifetime ago didn't arrive overnight. It started with everyday Germans mad about inflation and looking for someone to blame. I'm watching with a foreboding dread what is happening in our country right now.

A president who watches a plane go down in the Potomac and suggests, without facts or findings, that a diversity hire is responsible for the crash.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: And Governor J.B. Pritzker is with me for his first interview since delivering that address.

Governor, very stark warning that you're delivering there, obviously invoking the Holocaust, obviously invoking, you know, a horrible, horrible thing that took the lives of ancestors of yours and ancestors of mine is evocative. I would also think it might be controversial. People might think, how can you possibly compare what happened in Germany in World War II, to what's going on here in the United States?

PRITZKER: We're talking about the death of a constitutional republic. That's what happened in Germany in 1933, 1934. And we're seeing today that you've got an administration in Washington that's ignoring court orders, literally ignoring when a judge says, you can't do this. They're going ahead and doing it anyway.

The question is, where does that stop? The courts don't have the ability to enforce their orders. And the president is supposed to obey them, but he's not.

So this is just one piece of a very long story that's developed over the last six weeks of the ignorance of constitutional norms and indeed, disobeying the Constitution, announcing that we're going to do away with birthright citizenship that's been established. Well, it's in the Constitution, for goodness sakes.

So I really think -- people need to wake up to what's happening in Washington. And I felt like, based on my own experience, I led the building of a Holocaust museum. I worked with Holocaust survivors for a decade to open that museum. I know what happened day by day, almost, that led to the Holocaust.

And I'm not suggesting that's exactly where were going. But I know what happened in the early 30s with the death of the German democracy, and that could happen in the United States.

TAPPER: And what do you think would result? I mean, obviously, it is important for us to be upholding norms. And obviously, if the president is told by a court, you can't do that or whatever, he has the right to appeal it, but he doesn't have the right to ignore it. Where do you think this ends? PRITZKER: Well, that is the question. The question is, will people

wake up? Will people show up to, uh, you know, to protest, to make sure that their representatives understand that they can't go along with this?

This is literally the end of the republic as we know it. If we don't allow -- if we don't stand up to Donald Trump in his, you know, decision to essentially break down the government according to what he wants and according to what he believes is in the best interests of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the country. We need people to get out there and have their views known. And that's really what I was talking about when I spoke up at my state of the state speech.

TAPPER: So today, you're pressing the Office of Management and Budget for answers on frozen funds that were allocated to Illinois that you say are no longer -- you're no longer able to access them. What exactly is frozen here and how is it impacting Illinois?

PRITZKER: Well, it goes across a whole bunch of agencies. You know, this is what -- what has happened ever since that one day, as you recall, that Tuesday, you know, when everything got frozen and --

TAPPER: When they froze the grants, right? Yeah.

PRITZER: These -- right. But I mean, it's across the board in agencies that, you know, people don't even think of sometimes. And, you know, what's happened is some of them haven't been unfrozen, even though they announced that, oh, no, they're rescinding that order.

We had a situation in Illinois where the meat processing and poultry processing industry couldn't get inspectors because they're not getting paid. And so that's a huge industry in my state.

TAPPER: Sure.

PRITZKER: So people lose their jobs. The supply chain for that food gets broken. And we all have experienced that. Prices go up as a result of that.

And then, you know, there's the danger of contamination in the food if you don't have those inspectors. These are the kinds of things that, you know, people like Elon Musk don't understand. And frankly, it doesn't seem to affect them. I'm sure they've got -- he's probably got a taster for his food.

The fact is that he -- he doesn't care about any of these things that that affect average Americans every single day. You know, we've got to speak out about this. The biggest thing that were seeing is that in agency after agency, there's some piece of it that either, you know, its either because they're incompetent or cruel, they're just turning things off, and we have no control over it at the state level.

[16:25:02]

And so we're making sure that the author of the Project 2025 plan, who is now the head of the OMB, knows what we have lost 1.8 billion has not been paid to organizations in Illinois that that people rely upon sometimes for everyday things. And this is happening in all 50 states, I guarantee you, we just happen to have added it all up.

TAPPER: So what do you say? The answer from Elon Musk would be, like there's a lot of fraud. There's a lot of waste, there's a lot of abuse. There are people being paid who aren't even showing up to work. We're getting rid of the fat. We're getting rid of low performance employees.

What? What's your problem with that?

PRITZKER: Look, were all in favor of getting waste, fraud, and abuse out of the budget, right? And not paying for waste, fraud and abuse. But this isn't how you do it. Shutting down programs entirely is not how you do it.

In fact, it's very hard to root out waste, fraud, and abuse. You got to work on it every single day and it's in the details. It's not in programs where you just shut them down and hey, I got rid of a bunch of waste. The greatest example of this is, of course, that they want to shut down Medicaid, the expansion of Medicaid, 700,000 people in my state depend upon that, right? Something they've been depending upon for -- for many years.

All of a sudden, 700,000 people may lose their health care. Now they're saying, oh, well, there's waste, fraud and abuse in Medicaid. Well, that's not how you get rid of the waste, fraud and abuse. You don't take away people's health care. You work on it every day. And there's -- it's -- again, it's in the details. It's in the -- you know, the kinds of things that get spent in the agencies, in the departments, you know, within the offices, within a department.

It isn't like shut the whole thing down. And, hey, we've done away with. There's no line in a budget, by the way, that says waste, fraud and abuse. Let's cross that out.

TAPPER: Right. All right. Governor J.B. Pritzker, Democrat of Illinois, thank you so much for being here. Really appreciate it.

PRITZKER: Thanks, Jake.

TAPPER: One single vote. That's all house Republicans can spare, and a vote coming up in just a few hours. The delicate act this sets up for Speaker Mike Johnson as priorities for the president loom over him.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:30:59]

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I favor one bill. I also want to get everything passed. And you know, there are some people that don't necessarily agree with it, so I'm open to that also. My preference is one big, as I say, one big beautiful bill.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

TAPPER: One big beautiful bill. B-B-B.

In our politics lead, Trump's one big beautiful bill is in jeopardy. Today, House Speaker Mike Johnson and House Republicans plan to pass a budget resolution with some of Trump's priorities. But four House Republicans have said they're going to vote against the bill as it currently stands.

Let's bring in CNN's Manu Raju on Capitol Hill.

Manu, just a one vote -- one-vote margin for Republicans. So is this vote even going to happen if four are against?

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's really uncertain at this moment. But now the speaker is behind the scenes, trying to lock down those votes, trying to flip those holdouts. The president himself has spoken to several of those members today, and several of them are still uncertain, like Congressman Tim Burchett of Tennessee said that he is still weighing what to do here.

But I just talked to two Republican members who say -- they'll still say they plan to vote no. Victoria Spartz of Indiana, Warren Davidson of Ohio, both of them indicating that they are still planning to vote against it. And it also depends, Jake, and the number of members who actually appear for this vote. Remember, Johnson can only afford to lose one vote if all members are present in voting.

But if there are absences, that could change the threshold. If there are enough Democratic absences, he could potentially afford to lose two Republican votes. So that means potentially he could get over the finish line if he can flip some of these holdouts.

Now, the question ultimately is if they don't, what will plan B be? And that's uncertain at this moment either. But I caught up with the speaker in the aftermath of his lobbying efforts to persuade some of these Republican holdouts to come on board, and he indicated that that effort is still ongoing, even as he said that he does not plan to change the underlying budget blueprint that's coming to the floor later tonight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHNSON: I'm meeting with a couple of those guys again and within the next couple of hours, and we're trying to work through concerns and issues.

RAJU: Are you making any changes to the budget resolution?

JOHNSON: No. It's passed. The rule just passed. We're moving forward.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: And, Jake, remember why this is so significant? Because they need to pass this budget blueprint first in order to move on the larger Trump agenda in the House and the Senate have to agree on one budget blueprint. They're using this process so they can circumvent a filibuster in the United States Senate, meaning they can pass it along straight party lines. And as part of this sweeping proposal, Jake, it includes $300 billion in funding for defense programs and border programs, $4.5 trillion in a massive tax overhaul, as well as raising the debt limit for two years and $1.5 trillion in spending cuts.

But the blueprint is supposed to be the easy part, Jake. If they pass this, they have to actually draft the details of the legislation. And that's where the even trickier part will come through. If they can even get past this first hurdle tonight.

TAPPER: All right, Manu Raju, thanks so much.

And to illustrate just how tight the GOP majority is, President Trump's pick to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Elise Stefanik, who is a New York congresswoman, she has yet to resign from Congress. She's still in Congress. Her confirmation vote is not even scheduled yet because they need her still voting in the House.

Let's bring in Jonah Goldberg, co-founder and editor in chief of "The Dispatch", and CNN's Kasie Hunt, the anchor of "THE ARENA WITH KASIE HUNT", which launches next Monday at 4:00 p.m. right in this time slot. THE LEAD is going to slide an hour later and be on from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.

So, Kasie, we have seen this big budget battle before. I feel like I would do this same story every, every three months. And Johnson thinks he has the votes and then he's running down the hall and people are saying, do you have the votes? And he's like, were trying to trying to have the votes. There's always like 4 or 5, maybe even more vote against it.

Big test for Speaker Johnson, because he has he's got President Trump in the White House now.

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR, THE ARENA WITH KASIE HUNT: I think it's a real -- it's a real human drama, honestly. And this is really a test of whether his power and the combined power -- of fire power of President Trump can overcome the individual needs and desires of these members of Congress to have public profiles which has proven to be really difficult.

[16:35:09]

Now, Trump, I think, could be -- could change the game a little bit here. I think some of this is also back and forth between the House and the Senate. And Johnson wants to prove that they can do it his way, and it's going to be more successful.

But, I mean, I got a lot of questions about whether he's going to go to the floor tonight.

TAPPER: Yeah. Well, if he doesn't have the votes, there's no sense in -- in doing it. Jonah, here is what Speaker Johnson said about why Elise Stefanik is still in congress, even though she's been nominated to be the U.N. representative.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHNSON: If we get the budget resolution passed this week which is the plan, then I think it's possible that Elise Stefanik would go ahead and move on to her assignment at the U.N. as the ambassador there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Nothing really is going on in the international world for Elise Stefanik to be worried about.

I mean, this is the so tight that that they cant even let her go to work at the U.N.

JONAH GOLDBERG, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah. I mean, let us not exaggerate the importance of the U.N., though, but I agree with you.

TAPPER: Well, there was that U.N. resolution that just happened the other day.

GOLDBERG: She's probably very happy that she was not -- have her fingerprints on that shameful and dishonorable U.N. resolution.

That said, look, like this is one of these things that, like, Biden didn't understand, that Trump doesn't understand is like the system is not set up for wildly ambitious partisan things on a party line vote, people say, oh, we want another new deal, another FDR. FDR had massive majorities in the House and the Senate.

He could lose like 15 senators in his own party and still beat the filibuster because he had like 89 Democrats in the Senate, right? And so you can do massively huge things if you have the votes. They're swinging for the fences on this, much like Biden did, was swinging for the fences on a party line vote. And one of the political consequences of this that I think is going to stick is that that means Trump owns it, right? Because he's going to have to call individual congressmen and tilt their arm and say, this is, for me, a whole party is galvanizing around him, and he's the guy who campaigned saying he wasn't going to touch entitlements and they're going to be Medicaid cuts in this thing.

Now, it may be in favor or not of the Medicaid cuts, but like, they're not going to be popular. And he swore up and down not to do it. And it just puts his fingerprints all over this thing.

TAPPER: Yeah. And just to be clear, that because they're avoiding -- avoiding all of the tough decisions, even though it's still a lot of, you know, they're moderates that are worried about voting for this in the Republican Party. Yeah. It doesn't say Medicaid cuts. You're 100 percent correct that it will have to be Medicaid cuts. It's like $850 billion needs to be cut from anything overseen by the energy and commerce committee, which will mean, you know, but like, my point --

GOLDBERG: It's the single biggest funding thing for the state in the budget. TAPPER: Yeah, my point is they're not even willing to admit it.

HUNT: Yeah.

TAPPER: And the -- and the moderates, by the way, even if they vote for this blueprint, who knows where they're going to be when the devil -- when the details and the devil in the details are -- they're explained.

HUNT: And when you listen to them talk about this, they will explicitly say, I don't support the Medicaid, the idea of cutting Medicaid. I was -- I was listening to one Republican member talk about how, yes, they were on board with waste, fraud and abuse and a couple other concerns, but just blanket cutting Medicaid. They're not for, right? I mean, everyone --

TAPPER: My favorite D.C. band.

HUNT: -- waste, fraud and abuse.

But I mean, look, this is -- this has been the story of the House Republicans kind of all the way along, right? The people that are yelling and screaming and maybe going to sink Johnson here are not the people who actually are at most risk of losing their seats, right? And this is one of the big differences between, you know, really good leaders in the House of Representatives and ones who are not as powerful.

I mean, Republicans have had a huge, huge issue with this. You know, Nancy Pelosi, she -- she ran the House so that she could stay in the majority, right, on things like this, right? She crafted things that allowed her moderates to leave when they needed to.

She also knew when she could let some members of the squad go because it was untenable for them. Johnson -- he came out of nowhere. His experience in situations like this is relatively limited compared to other people who spent their whole careers trying to do it, and he has quite literally the hardest scenario.

GOLDBERG: And I don't necessarily disagree with any of that. But like, literally, even if you want to let some Republicans off the hook, he cant he literally there's no -- there's no room there, you know?

TAPPER: There's none. There's none.

HUNT: But he has to kowtow to the right --

GOLDBERG: Right.

HUNT: right? He can't protect the people that he needs.

GOLDBERG: Right.

TAPPER: Kasie Hunt, Jonah Goldberg, thanks so much.

And look out for Kasie's new show, the arena with Kasie Hunt, which debuts in this time slot 4:00 p.m. eastern next Monday, March 3rd. It doesn't mean she gets to steal all my panelists like Jonah.

THE LEAD also is on the move. We're going to slide an hour later. We'll be on the air from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. Eastern, every weekday, right here on CNN.

Some breaking news coming in. President Trump plans to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy here in D.C. this week. This, after a major deal apparently has been agreed to between the two countries having to do with rare earth minerals. The breaking details just coming in next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:44:21]

TAPPER: Some breaking news. Just in, we are learning that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy plans to come to the Wash -- to the United States, to Washington, D.C. this week. The news one day after what could be a major deal emerging between Ukraine and the United States.

Let's get right to CNN's Nick Paton Walsh, who is in Kyiv, Ukraine.

Nick, you told us about the outline of this potential deal with rare earth minerals. Tell us more.

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. I mean, at this point, we understand from Ukrainian official that Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy plans to travel, on Friday, saying that the White House had proposed that date for a meeting, potentially, I imagine, with President Donald Trump.

[16:45:01]

Now, at this point, the White House are aware, we understand of these plans by Ukraine, but there doesn't appear to be word from them that a meeting is definitely on. Now, this is clearly, I think, a bid by Kyiv here to keep the momentum going on what we've been hearing over the past days and specifically to seize upon the offer from President Trump yesterday, the suggestion that there would indeed be a meeting to sign this rare earth deal with President Zelenskyy in the Oval Office this week or next.

So remind you, Jake, that about 2 or 3 weeks ago, we had another suggestion from Trump that he would meet Zelenskyy. It left Kyiv scrambling to kind of actualize that particular offer. It didn't happen then. Now they seem to be slightly more direct, pushing forward this idea of a Friday meeting saying the White House have proposed that.

As I say, it's not clear if the Trump team have agreed that particular date. But what's important is we are learning that this deal seems to be agreed between both sides, according to a Ukrainian official who said that the most unacceptable things for Kyiv have been taken out of the deal. But there aren't security guarantees in there necessarily. But there's more terminology that spells out security for Ukraine. We haven't seen the full text. It's been very contentious. But the

Macron meeting with Trump seems to have improved some of the situation here. We just have to see if Trump makes good on the offer he made next to Macron to meet Zelenskyy, and whether this Friday date is what's really happening, Jake.

TAPPER: All right. Nick Paton Walsh, thank you so much. Reporting from Kyiv for us.

Alarming news in our health lead the measles outbreak in the western part of the country now stands at 124 cases, Western Texas. It was 58 just one week ago. Most of the cases are with children between the ages of five and 17.

Also, while most cases are in unvaccinated individuals or those with unknown status, there were four cases of measles in people who said that they believed that they were vaccinated. There is currently no known connection to another measles outbreak in New Mexico, which has grown to nine cases as of yesterday.

In our national lead, watch this, the fast acting crew of a Southwest Airliner managed to avoid disaster at Chicago's Midway Airport today by aborting the landing and pulling up because a small jet was about to cross the runway in front of them. Scary.

We've learned the business jet did not have permission to cross that runway. It's just the latest in a series of either deadly crashes or scary near misses over the past two months.

Ahead, that winning lottery ticket bought with a stolen credit card. The offer to split the prize with the thieves, that's next.

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[16:51:29]

TAPPER: Our money lead now. Police in France are on the hunt for two thieves who broke into a man's car in Toulouse, stole his credit card and then used that credit card to buy a lottery ticket. That ticket turned out to be a big winner worth more than $500,000.

And now the victim of the thievery is offering the thieves quite the deal. Come forward, face no charges, and we can split the earnings.

And joining us from now is the victim's lawyer, Pierre Debuisson.

Monsieur Debuisson, thanks for joining us.

I think, first of all, a lot of our viewers are probably wondering, how did the victim find out that the lottery ticket that had been purchased with his stolen credit card was worth $500,000? How did he even learn that?

PIERRE DEBUISSON, ATTORNEY REPRESENTING JEAN-DAVIDE ESTELE: In fact, my --my clients didn't realize immediately that his credit cards were stolen. It didn't block the credit card after the bank. It took 1 or 2 hours to do it, but he had the idea to have a look on his bank statement, and he realized that, the two thieves who seems to be like, homeless people went to a bar and about stupid things, cigarettes and, this winning ticket for 500,000 euros.

TAPPER: And if they come --

DEBUISSON: Then he went to he went to the bar and, he had a conversation with the owner, who was smiling at him and saying, okay, I will tell you the truth. The thieves who were looking for, they just won, the maximum they could get with the scratch, ticket of lottery.

TAPPER: It's incredible. Do you think that these thieves might come forward to take the deal that you and your client are offering?

DEBUISSON: We hope so. We don't know exactly when would be the deadline, but, uh, its a its a good deal for them because, at the beginning, my client went to the police and filed a complaint. Now, of course, these two guys, the thieves would be the best friends of my client if they accept the deal. And splitting the money 50 percent each would be a good thing for them. A miracle, because they seem to have financial problems.

For my client, it would be a wonderful gift, too. So I think it's -- from a legal and a moral point of view, splitting equally would be a good thing because without the money, these guys would never have been able to buy these tickets. But without the will of buying these tickets, they will -- nobody would be able to win or to earn money.

But now we need to say that, we launch this appeal, in our France. And he had the (INAUDIBLE) all around the world because I saw in China, in U.S., in India, in Norwegia (ph), everybody is speaking about that, but we are still looking for those guys. We can't locate them in France.

I know that, policemen are trying to locate them. There are many investigations, going to try to find them, but, and I'm sure that everybody knows that France is aware about that, but I'm still waiting. They call, and I send them a message of serenity, saying that you can call me without any problem. We will do the best to amend the charges and -- and to talk to the prosecutor to -- to make the way the thing the best way possible.

TAPPER: Well, good luck, Pierre Debuisson, in France.

DEBUISSON: Thank you very much.

TAPPER: Appreciate it.

The breaking news this hour, sources tell CNN that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is going to travel here to Washington, D.C. this week.

[16:55:04]

The plans, you'll recall, one week after the Trump administration opted to meet with Russian officials first and only in an attempt to negotiate a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia. The breaking details just coming in ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.

This hour, a massive update to a story we've been covering here on THE LEAD for years. Richard Glossip, a man sitting on Oklahoma's death row for a crime he's always insisted he did not commit. He's now getting a new trial. His lawyer is going to join us, live in moments to share Glossip's reaction to this big news.

Plus, brand new details from the Vatican about Pope Francis's health after the 88-year-old pontiff got a cat scan today. He remains in critical condition.

We're going to start this hour with breaking news. President Trump moments ago speaking about a potential deal between the United States and Ukraine.