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Sources: Trump Admin Moves To Begin Dismantling Dept. Of Education; Sources: Trump Admin. Drafting Executive Order To Start Process Of Eliminating Education Dept.; Trump's Actions Echo Project 2025 Despite His Previous Denials; Trump Signs Executive Orders At White House; Trump Signs Order Withdrawing U.S. From UN Human Rights Council. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired February 04, 2025 - 15:00   ET

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

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[15:01:54]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: We have some new reporting that President Trump plans to dismantle the Department of Education. We'll show you what moves are already being made in the department and the potential impact that they could have on schools across the nation.

Plus, Beijing punching back after President Trump imposes tariffs on Chinese imports. China hitting U.S. energy exports and blacklisting two American companies in particular.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: And FBI employees fighting back, filing a class action lawsuit against the Department of Justice over possible efforts to purge the workforce. But some of that controversial information that DOJ was requesting may have already been turned over.

We're following these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

KEILAR: New developments now as President Donald Trump moves full speed ahead to reshape the federal government. His administration now taking steps to begin dismantling the Department of Education as the world's richest man wields seemingly unfettered influence over how the country should operate. We're only about two weeks into this new administration and we're seeing major changes every day with Elon Musk at the center.

In the past several days, Musk and his allies have gained access to the Treasury's payment system, threatened to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development, actually really shutting it down and planning to move it over to state, offering federal employees a sort of buyout plan and pushing aside career civil servants in several agencies.

Now, just a reminder, Musk was never confirmed by Congress and he has several huge conflicts of interest with the federal government. And he's tasked with making these massive cuts with next to zero oversight. CNN's Rene Marsh is here with us now.

And Rene, the Department of Education is actually on the chopping block as well. Tell us about this.

RENE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. We have reporting that the President is working on crafting an executive order which would essentially dismantle the Department of Education first. The first phase would be to essentially ask the security, the secretary of the Department of Education to diminish the department and ways to diminish the department through executive action.

The President would also call on Congress to create legislation that would enable him to further dismantle the agency, Brianna.

KEILAR: And there's also dozens of employees at the Department of Education who have already been told to stay home. Is it clear why they're on leave and what is the agency saying about that?

MARSH: Right. We have reporting that some 75 employees from the Department of Education have been placed on leave. And that is a lowball estimation, that coming from the union president representing these employees.

[15:05:06]

And the reason for this being just a lowball estimate is because this individual doesn't have full visibility on non-union members. We do know that they received these emails, essentially said they were being placed on paid administrative leave. Their email accounts were shut down. They were told that they would be on leave indefinitely.

And the reason for this is because of some sort of link or tie they had to DEI. But the union president says their actual job duties had nothing to do with DEI. What they all had in common was that within the last several years, they attended diversity training, some of them back in 2019 under the Trump administration and additional training under the Biden administration.

And because of that training, in some cases for just two days, they believe they were targeted. I spent a lot of time speaking with many of these employees. Many of them have been with the federal government for decades. They say they love their jobs and were willing to work with this administration, but now they find themselves on the sidelines.

And when we talk about some of them not having jobs having to do with DEI, we're talking about individuals who worked on AI and integrating that into education, someone working in a grant office. So, a wide range of individuals impacted here, according to their union. Again, Brianna, didn't do any daily work on the issue of DEI itself.

KEILAR: All right, Rene Marsh, thank you so much for that.

And just in now, President Trump is signing executive orders at the White House. We have CNN Chief National Affairs Correspondent, Jeff Zeleny, joining us live now.

Jeff, tell us what you're hearing. JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna, we know that President Trump again today is in the Oval Office, as we've become familiar with seeing this pattern really holding court as he signs executive orders. The education executive order that Rene was just talking about, we do not believe, is on today's agenda. But that certainly will be coming.

But today, at least so far, that the President has signed a very tough executive order on Iran. He said that Iran should not have a nuclear weapon and very tough language. We will hear from him directly once that video is released from the Oval Office, but also on U.N. funding, again, wanting to review the funding that the United Nations gets.

So, a series of foreign relations type executive orders on the day, really an hour before, the President is scheduled to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu right here at the White House. You can see the color guard assembling here. And Mr. Netanyahu will be coming into the grounds of the White House for that first meeting of a foreign leader that President Trump has in his second term. Obviously, the ceasefire is front and center in their discussion.

They're also scheduled to be holding a news conference later today. But the President still at this moment signing executive orders and answering questions from reporters, Brianna.

KEILAR: All right. Jeff Zeleny, thank you for that live for us from the White House. Boris?

SANCHEZ: As these dramatic cuts to the federal workforce start to take shape, Elon Musk remains on his mission to revamp the federal workforce. He's also sowing confusion and chaos within government ranks. The White House calling Musk a special government employee working only at the approval of the President. What remains unclear, though, is whether an unelected businessman can wield this level of authority.

Joining us now, former defense secretary and CIA director under President Obama, Leon Panetta.

Sir, thanks so much for being with us. The White House, obviously, with the help of DOGE, has targeted OMB, the Treasury, USAID and all federal employees across the country. Ultimately, what do you think their goal is?

LEON PANETTA, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF, CLINTON ADMINISTRATION: Well, I - there's no question that their goal is to create a great deal of turmoil and uncertainty. Look, the problem is, at least in my experience, that presidents are really not able to produce change through executive orders alone. He's issued a tremendous amount of executive orders. But in most cases, those executive orders either confront the Constitution or confront the rule of law, and so you're going to see lawsuits challenging them. Joe Biden ran into the same thing when he was trying to change student loans.

So, the bottom line here is that it does produce a lot of chaos. It does produce a lot of uncertainty. It can weaken markets, it can weaken our economy and it certainly can weaken our alliances. So, real change, ultimately, only happens when the President is willing to work with Congress and work within the boundaries of the law.

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SANCHEZ: Secretary, I apologize. We're having some audio issues here where we can't hear you, but it does sound like your audio is coming across on air. So, we'll have to pause the conversation there. We do appreciate, Secretary Leon Panetta. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to get these audio issues fixed and we'll be right back.

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SANCHEZ: In the context of efforts to rework the federal government and the federal workforce, a new CNN investigation finds that some of President Donald Trump's executive actions closely align with Project 2025, despite the President saying previously that he knew nothing about it.

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KEILAR: The lengthy conservative proposal called for sweeping transformations of the federal government. CNN's Tom Foreman has the details.

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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're getting rid of all of the cancer. I call it cancer. The cancer caused by the Biden administration.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Reforming or doing away with the Federal Disaster Relief Agency, FEMA, dismantling diversity programs, rolling back environmental restrictions, accepting only two genders, replacing nonpartisan federal workers with administration loyalists and aggressively pursuing undocumented immigrants - all of those ideas are being pushed by President Donald Trump.

And according to CNN analysis many reflect deep ties to Project 2025, the 900-page plan of action put out by the conservative Heritage Foundation.

During the campaign, Trump repeatedly denied any ties to the project.

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TRUMP: I have nothing to do with Project 2025. That's out there. I haven't read it. I don't want to read it purposely. I'm not going to read it.

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FOREMAN: And yet, of the 53 executive actions in his first week in office, CNN's analysis found more than two thirds align with the project's proposals, including the use of active-duty military personnel along the border. At least 140 Trump administration officials and dozens of allies helped craft that document, including his new CIA director, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, and Tom Homan, the border czar.

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TOM HOMAN, BORDER POLICY ADVISER: We're going to go we got to go, whether it's a school, a church or a hospital.

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FOREMAN (voiceover): More specifics. When the South American country of Colombia initially refused to accept military planes loaded with deportees, Trump quickly and aggressively threatened to impose a punishing tariff, right on script with what Project 2025 proposed.

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TRUMP: As you know, in Colombia, they agreed with us almost immediately after I got involved.

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FOREMAN: Trump immediately revoked the security clearance of top government officials suspected of not supporting his goals. And he's talked up more oil drilling in the far north, where the Project 2025 plan says Alaska is a special case and deserves immediate action.

For all that, a Trump spokesman still insists the new president had nothing to do with Project 2025, and he's just securing the border, restoring common sense, driving down inflation and unleashing American energy.

FOREMAN (on camera): Of course, some White House critics would just call that Trumpsplaining, saying this administration, for all of its claims to the contrary, has been following the Project 2025 roadmap pretty closely.

Tom Foreman, CNN, Washington.

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SANCHEZ: Our thanks to Tom Foreman for that report.

Back with us now is former Defense Secretary and CIA Director under President Obama, Leon Panetta.

Secretary, thanks so much for being patient with us and sticking through those issues.

Obviously, a huge part of Trump's effort to rework the federal government, to re-engineer it, if you will, is led by Elon Musk at DOGE. I wonder what you make of his status as a special government employee with a top security clearance and limited ethical transparency obligations. PANETTA: Well, you know, look, presidents always have had advisors, but normally those advisors have a position within the government that allows them to exercise whatever power the president gives them. When you have somebody who's outside of the government that doesn't really in any way have any official status within the government, then it's going to raise a lot of questions about whatever he says or does.

SANCHEZ: Some of his allies have taken over the Office of Personnel Management's data systems, locking out some senior career employees at OPM. I wonder what could they be looking for? Do you have any security and oversight concerns?

PANETTA: Well, you know, look, let's just stand back and look at everything that's going on. I've worked - in 50 years, I've worked for nine presidents, Republican and Democrat alike. They wanted to operate by strength, but they also wanted to operate by stability. The last thing they wanted to do was to create turmoil that would undermine markets, undermine the economy and undermine our alliances.

And so, they really tried to operate within the law. A lot of what's going on now raises challenges to the law. Executive orders, sure, presidents can issue executive orders, but as Joe Biden found out, when you're up against the law, the courts can also stop those executive orders from producing change.

[15:20:07]

I think a lot of what they're doing violates the Constitution and violates the law. And I think ultimately it will be challenged.

And so, if the President really wants to produce real change, he's going to have to operate as other presidents have operated by working with the Congress to produce change in the law. If he's not willing to do that, then we are not sure any of what he is proposing or threatening can actually happen.

KEILAR: And, Secretary, I'm sorry to jump in here. It's Brianna, but we're having some communications issues where Boris cannot hear you, but I can, so I'm going to continue on here. I know at one point, obviously, you served as OMB director. I think you've had so many jobs in government, you're probably watching what is happening with a vantage point that not many people have. And a federal judge extended a temporary ban on Trump's attempt to freeze federal funding.

In your eyes, does he have the authority to do that?

PANETTA: Well, you know, again, this is a proposal that runs right into the provisions of the Constitution, which is that the Congress has the power of the purse, not the administration, but the Congress. And therefore, when you suddenly decide to freeze all federal spending, what you're doing is violating that constitutional provision, which says that only Congress can deal with that kind of funding.

So, you know, ultimately, the court is not going to allow a president on his own to basically determine what is funded and what is not funded. That violates not just the Constitution, it violates the Budget Act.

SANCHEZ: Secretary Leon Panetta, we appreciate you riding this roller coaster with us. With all due respect to you, Secretary, I think Brianna could have gone on pretending to be me and no one would have noticed.

KEILAR: I think someone would have noticed.

SANCHEZ: Thank you so much, Secretary Panetta. I appreciate your time.

PANETTA: Thank you. Great to be with you.

SANCHEZ: So, we are closely watching the White House this afternoon, because just minutes from now, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is going to meet with President Trump at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Their sit-down comes as negotiations begin in this crucial second phase of a ceasefire deal in Gaza. Stay with CNN. We'll be right back.

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[15:27:17]

KEILAR: Right now, we are actually awaiting President Trump signing an executive order, a series of them. He just signed a number of them in the Oval Office, as he has been doing since he re-entered the White House. And we're now looking at tape of that playing back from moments ago. Let's listen.

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TRUMP: We're dealing with lots of different people on lots of different things. We had some terrific people in today and trying to solve some of the problems that are going on in the country and outside of the country. We're doing very well with respect to other countries really behaving on taking the criminals that they sent into our country, and we're getting them out. These are some of the worst people on earth, and they're getting out, and they're being accepted back in their countries, as you heard, without exception. So, a lot of people thought that was not going to happen, but it's happening very full force.

Now, we're getting some very, very dangerous people out of our country, which is very important. Will, perhaps we'll go through the first one, please.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, sir. So, earlier today, before the press came in, you signed a commission appointing Chris Wright to be your next Secretary of Energy. We have another commission prepared for your signature, sir. This is Doug Collins to be Secretary of the VA, Doug Collins of Georgia.

TRUMP: Two very good men.

Okay.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, sir.

Next up, in light of numerous actions taken by a number of bodies of the United Nations which exhibited deep anti-American bias, we have an executive order prepared for your attention that would withdraw the United States from the U.N. Human Rights Council, would withdraw the United States from the UNRWA, which is a refugee organization, and would also review American involvement in UNESCO, which has also exhibited anti-American bias.

More generally, the executive order calls for a review of American involvement and funding in the U.N. in light of the wild disparities in levels of funding among different countries that, as you've expressed previously, is deeply unfair to the United States.

TRUMP: So, I've always felt that the U.N. has tremendous potential. It's not living up to that potential right now. It really isn't - hasn't for a long time. It has - there are great hopes for it, but it's not being well run, to be honest, and not doing the job.

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