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Trump's Gaza Takeover Proposal Causes Worldwide Disbelief, Outrage; Bondi Sworn in as Attorney General Amid Turmoil at Justice Dept.; CIA Offers "Buyout" to Entire Workforce; Federal Layoffs Loom Before Trump's Deadline to Resign Tomorrow. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired February 05, 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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[15:00:57]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Fulfilling a polarizing campaign promise. Minutes from now, President Trump is set to sign a new executive order that bans transgender women from competing in women's sports. We'll bring that to you live.

And new fallout from President Trump's explosive comments on Gaza. This hour, Israel's prime minister visits the Pentagon.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: And Full Steam Ahead: Attorney General Pam Bondi asserting control over Donald Trump's Justice Department. We have details on what that could look like.

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

KEILAR: And we are watching as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu heads to the Pentagon. These are live pictures that you see here. He will soon be meeting with the new defense secretary, Pete Hegseth. This is Netanyahu's third day in Washington, and his visit comes as the world really gasps in disbelief after President Trump proposed taking over Gaza, relocating two million Palestinians so the U.S. can develop the area into the, quote, "riviera of the Middle East."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it, too. We'll own it.

I envision world people living there, the world's people. I think you'll make that into an international, unbelievable place.

KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: This is an out-of-the- box idea. That's who President Trump is. That's why the American people elected him.

(END VIDEO CLIP) KEILAR: Trump's plan would upend decades of U.S. policy in the Middle East and further complicate Israel's delicate ceasefire deal with Hamas, and has some people wondering, quite frankly, if it's just all a big distraction. CNN's Oren Liebermann is live for us now at the Pentagon.

So, Oren, we're waiting for Netanyahu to arrive. We just saw live pictures of that. What are you hearing about this?

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, until there are orders to invade, occupy, take over, rebuild Gaza, this is all right now President Donald Trump's out-of-the-box, as you heard it there, idea, or musing, or whatever you want to call it. It has certainly gotten its fair share of both attention and criticism.

It's worth noting that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was standing right next to Netanyahu when he made those remarks, appeared to be a little cautious when he responded. He said it's an out-of-the- box idea and an idea that's worth pursuing. He did not give it the sort of full-throated endorsement that you heard from some on Israel's far right, Israel's foreign minister, who threw their weight behind this, Netanyahu a bit more cautious in his sort of backing of Trump's out-of-the-box thinking and his different ideas on how to approach the region.

Of course, the Pentagon here is watching to see if there are orders that back that up, but nothing of that sort at the moment. Netanyahu's sort of making his rounds here with the top levels of the Trump administration, obviously meeting Trump. Earlier today, he met the National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz, as well as the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, I believe, and Vice President JD Vance - I'm sorry, not Rubio.

So, he's making his rounds here. Now he'll meet the new Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, as he effectively makes sure he is close to those in Netanyahu's orbit.

KEILAR: And what's Netanyahu looking for in this meeting?

LIEBERMANN: Part of it might be a little more direction on what was meant by those comments about Gaza. But realistically, the focus will be on Iran, as it has been for Netanyahu for so long. Testing the waters on what Hegseth thinks should be done about Iran. Is it the diplomacy approach that Trump has floated, a new Iran nuclear deal or is Trump willing to entertain the idea of an Israeli attack on Iran, what kind of support would the U.S. give. All of these are topics that Netanyahu will look to get a little more clarity on, a little more ideas on how the administration is thinking through how to handle Iran.

[15:05:04]

And then, of course, where is it possible to expand the support and the cooperation we have already seen between the Israeli and the U.S. military for years and does that expand, of course, to include other countries in the region. KEILAR: Oren Liebermann, our Pentagon correspondent, our former Jerusalem correspondent, your world's colliding today over there at the Pentagon. Boris?

SANCHEZ: Let's get the latest reaction from Capitol Hill with Democratic Congressman Jake Auchincloss of Massachusetts.

Congressman, thanks so much for being with us.

Just your reaction, to start, to President Trump proposing the U.S. could take over the Gaza Strip, saying, we'll own it.

REP. JAKE AUCHINCLOSS (D-MA): Good afternoon, thanks for having me on. Two decades ago, George W. Bush made promises about nation-building in two countries that had harbored terrorists. And it led to 20 years of forever wars that cost $2 trillion and thousands of American lives. Now, Donald Trump is proposing the same irresponsible concepts, where he wants to send U.S. troops on a nation-building exercise to the Gaza Strip. It's irresponsible. Congress is not going to approve it. And it distracts from the issue that is truly at hand, which is, who is going to govern Gaza after Hamas, because it's not going to be Hamas and how do the Arab states support the reconstruction of Gaza so that the U.S. taxpayer is not funding that redevelopment.

SANCHEZ: I have a number of things to ask, as you might imagine. You served in Afghanistan as a Marine. And as you noted, Trump hasn't ruled out sending U.S. troops to Gaza. The White House is framing it as though Trump has not explicitly said that he wants U.S. troops in Gaza. They've also said they do not want U.S. taxpayer funds to pay for this reconstruction. They say that they want Trump to cut a deal with regional allies. What do you imagine that might look like?

AUCHINCLOSS: It hinges on the completion of phase one, which is the return of some of the hostages under already agreed-upon terms, where Israeli forces have moved to the perimeter of Gaza, but then also the execution of phase two. And phase two is always going to be the toughest part of this deal, because phase two is where there needs to be agreement between Israel, between the Arab states, between the United States on the transitional governance structure for Gaza.

It cannot be Hamas. It cannot be people who terrorize Israelis and Jews globally. But it does need to be Palestinian-led and Arab- financed. I do agree with Trump that the American taxpayer should not be funding redevelopment in Gaza. It should be the Arab states that have for 70 years neglected the Palestinian people and have helped Hamas access the world's finances. They should be the ones paying for this.

SANCHEZ: From - hold on for a moment, Congressman. I just want to let our viewers know that these are live images of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu now arriving at the Pentagon, where he is set to meet with a number of Trump administration officials, including the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, who you see there, set to receive Netanyahu.

Congressman, I do want to get your perspective on Trump's outlook that the past few decades of U.S. policy in the Middle East have not worked. It is pretty clear from his insistence on the U.S. taking over Gaza that he does not see a two-state solution as viable. Do you think there is some merit to the idea that the U.S. has to explore something beyond that policy?

AUCHINCLOSS: The blanket statement that it hasn't worked I don't think is instructive. What I would say is the United States' support for Israel has been a pillar of our Middle Eastern policy, and that should continue, and it should have bipartisan support in Congress as well.

I agree with the President that our orientation towards Iran has not worked. It's whipsawed between different administrations. First, Bush invaded Iraq, it created a regional power vacuum that Iran filled and then we had the JCPOA. Then, we didn't have the JCPOA and then we had a bit of a middle way through - under Biden.

We need a bipartisan consensus on how we approach Iran, and at this moment what that means is maximum pressure. They cannot be allowed to develop nuclear weapons, and we should be supporting Israel in strikes that would disable their oil export terminals and their nuclear facilities if Iran will not back down.

SANCHEZ: Sure. And right now we're watching Secretary Hegseth alongside Prime Minister Netanyahu standing outside the entrance to the DoD.

As we're watching Netanyahu, Congressman, I do wonder what you make of the position that he's in. As you noted a moment ago, there are these negotiations looming over phase two of the ceasefire deal. If that goes forward and it's completed, there is a chance that Netanyahu would lose his governing coalition.

[15:10:04]

And further that - what happened on October 7th would be further investigated, that he would be potentially in trouble for some of the corruption charges that essentially were put on hold after the war began. Do you think that he has the incentive to move forward with actually putting peace, long-term peace, into effect?

AUCHINCLOSS: The Prime Minister's domestic political problems are his problems. My concern, I think the concern from Congress, needs to be on, one, completion of hostage release, so phase one and then phase two. And yes, to your point, that does require U.S. pressure to, I think, ensure that phase two is completed because it's going to require some tough negotiations.

And then, secondly, how do we bring in Saudi Arabia into the Abraham Accords, get Saudi Arabia to be a productive partner in Gaza reconstruction, and continue to marginalize the Ayatollah and the IRGC hardliners in Iran by cutting off their oil export capabilities and by strengthening the Persian middle class, which wants to look beyond the nihilistic agenda of the Ayatollah.

These are all areas that we can agree with on - with the Prime Minister, but it's going to require continued close collaboration between the United States and Israel, and it needs to be bipartisan.

SANCHEZ: To that point about close collaboration with Israel and efforts to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, after the news of Trump's aspirations for Gaza came out yesterday, we saw this statement come out from Saudi officials essentially saying that there is no path to normalization without a two-state solution. So, how do you square that circle that Trump seems to reject that idea altogether, and yet he's trying to persuade the Saudis to make this peace deal?

AUCHINCLOSS: The irresponsible rhetoric from Trump, both on forcible displacement of the Palestinian population from Gaza and about the United States taking over the Gaza Strip, one, they make it harder to get the hostages home, because Hamas now is going to consider that they need the hostages for continued leverage. And two, to your point, they derail, potentially, Saudi Arabia's involvement in the Abraham Accords.

Now to be clear, Saudi Arabia is not demanding an immediate two-state solution before it would ever normalize with Israel. But if you close off that possibility in perpetuity, yes, it's going to make it a lot harder for Riyadh to be behind that. The ultimate winner there is Iran. What Iran really does not want to see is Saudi Arabia deeply - more deeply vested with Israel and the United States in the region, particularly with air defense systems and with economic engagement.

SANCHEZ: Congressman Jake Auchincloss, we have to leave the conversation there. We appreciate you sharing your perspective with us.

AUCHINCLOSS: Good afternoon.

SANCHEZ: Brianna?

KEILAR: The clock is ticking for staff at the U.S. Agency for International Development. Employees around the world will be placed on administrative leave Friday in order to return to the U.S. The directive coming as the Trump administration has begun dismantling the agency and has frozen almost all foreign aid. Secretary of State Marco Rubio says he is acting administrator of the agency, confirming the de facto takeover by the State Department.

When asked about the future of the agency, here's what President Trump said from the Oval Office.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It sounds like you're going to wind down USAID?

TRUMP: It sounds like it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Now if USAID is winding down, that would end a decades-long mission for the agency, which was created by President John F. Kennedy at the height of the Cold War. Kennedy wanted to use foreign assistance as a way to counter Soviet influence. Ironically, the agency would eventually outlive the Soviet Union.

Fast forward to today, with the U.S. spending roughly $40 billion in foreign aid annually. Sounds like a lot, actually accounts for less than 1 percent of the U.S. budget. The agency has its critics, chief among them Elon Musk, who controversially claims that USAID funding has allegedly been used to launch deadly programs and has called it a criminal organization.

Criticisms aside, there are many regions around the world that are already feeling the very real impacts. For example, a project involving access to clean water in places like Kenya has been disrupted. In Sudan, food kitchens funded by USAID are shutting down. Projects to control and eliminate malaria in 24 of the hardest hit African nations are now halted.

A source tells CNN that life-saving programs for 145,000 vulnerable women in Afghanistan are now frozen. Funding has been disrupted for schools and heating systems in Ukraine. In Latin America, non- governmental aid workers say projects to counter immigration and combat the influence of cartels in Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras have been halted.

All of this turmoil and uncertainty leading back to the mission of USAID.

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It was to counter the influence of a global adversary. So - adversary, I should say - so what will China and Russia do now if the Trump administration does in fact wind down USAID? We will see.

Still to come, promising to make America safe again, Pam Bondi sworn in as Trump's Attorney General. How she's expected quickly to move to assert control of the Justice Department.

Plus, more buyout offers for federal employees, the CIA becoming the first National Security agency to send its entire workforce offers to quit their jobs and receive about eight months of pay.

And later, new clues into what went wrong when a passenger jet collided midair with an Army helicopter near Washington, D.C. We'll have that and much more coming up on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

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[15:20:12]

SANCHEZ: After being sworn in this morning, Pam Bondi is now the nation's attorney general. Taking over the Department of Justice amidst questions about the fate of thousands of FBI employees, multiple lawsuits and the recent firings of federal prosecutors. But she's wasting no time getting to work with a list of expected actions and rollbacks of policies installed by the Biden administration.

Joining us now is CNN Chief Legal Affairs Correspondent, Paula Reid. And Paula, Bondi is getting ready to take serious action regarding cases brought against President Trump. What can you tell us?

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, look, she's walking into this agency that is in crisis. You just mentioned the firings of agents and prosecutors who worked on cases related to Trump and the riot on January 6th. So, she has an opportunity here to maybe change the tone, but she has laid out in a series of memos efforts that she wants to undertake to, quote, "curb the weaponization of the Justice Department."

Now, these include reviews of the cases Trump has faced, including the two federal criminal cases, one into the alleged mishandling of classified documents, the other into election subversion, the Manhattan district attorney's criminal case, the so-called hush money case where he was convicted, as well as a civil case against Trump brought by the New York attorney general that resulted in a $450 million judgment.

Now, look, it's unclear if she is beginning these steps to sort of appease the boss. We know he's very unhappy about the fact that he faced these investigations. Or is this part of something more serious, potentially? Is this an initial step in trying to potentially prosecute some of the folks who are involved specifically in the federal investigations?

You cannot underestimate the distrust and the bitterness that Trump's criminal lawyers, many of whom now are going to work in the Justice Department, feel towards those who are involved, especially in those federal investigations.

SANCHEZ: What are going to be some of her biggest challenges looking forward?

REID: Well, I think one of the hardest things is defending some of Trump's executive orders in court, because he tends to play at the edges ...

SANCHEZ: Right.

REID: ... of the executive power. We saw this in the first term. Now, we were assured that this time around, they were taking more care to tailor these executive orders in a way that would survive court challenges ...

SANCHEZ: Not so much.

REID: ... but that is not so much. They have lost pretty much every case so far. Now, I will note that these cases are often brought in districts where the challengers expect that they will win, right? They do form shop in that way. But even when it comes to birthright citizenship, one of Trump's big campaign promises, most legal experts are pretty sure he is not going to prevail on that issue, but that falls to Pam Bondi. She oversees the team that will be responsible for defending that.

So, I think that's her biggest legal challenge. Of course, her biggest other challenge is her boss, right? SANCHEZ: Yes.

REID: That is a perpetual challenge and has been for all of Trump's attorneys general.

SANCHEZ: Indeed. Paula Reid, thank you so much. Brianna?

KEILAR: The CIA's new director under President Trump, John Ratcliffe, is opting in to efforts to shrink the federal government. The agency is the latest to offer these so-called buyouts that tell federal employees they can quit their jobs and then receive roughly eight months of pay and benefits. CNN's Katie Bo Lillis is here with us now.

All right. Katie Bo, so the offer's won out. The decision is tomorrow. Is it tomorrow for them?

KATIE BO LILLIS, CNN SENIOR INTELLIGENCE REPORTER: Well, so there's still a lot we don't know about the ...

KEILAR: For other federal employees, it's tomorrow.

LILLIS: Yes, I was going to say, this offer is - the offer that CIA, the CIA workforce has received is a little bit different ...

KEILAR: Interesting.

LILLIS: ... than the one that the broader sort of civilian workforce of the federal government has received. It's not at all clear that the entire workforce at the CIA is actually going to be eligible to take this buyout, even though they've all received the offer. According to our sources, there are likely to be a lot of restrictions or are expected to be a lot of restrictions on who is actually able to say, like, yes, I'm going to take this and wave sayonara to federal government work.

And a lot of that we anticipate is going to depend on the career track that they're in, the area of expertise that they have. So there's very clearly a recognition here that there are some roles in the federal government that are simply too vital to National Security to allow to resign.

KEILAR: Does it say that in the letter or did they all just get this blanket letter? Is there any fine print in there that says you may not be able to accept this? So what we know from our sources at this point is that the text of this letter that the CIA workforce has received is different than the than the language that sort of the rest of the civilian workforce, at least that we know of at this point, has received.

So there are still sort of a lot of questions about kind of how the mechanics of this are going to work for agency employees. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, their workforce also received kind of similar guidance that essentially was like, look, you might be eligible for this, but you might not be. We might not actually let you resign if you're doing something that we consider to be important enough. [15:25:04]

And I think, Brianna, what's, like, important to think about here is there's kind of two things going on when it comes to the CIA and sort of the broader intelligence community in this buyout offer, right? Like, there's both, okay, look, the President clearly wants to shrink the size of the federal government overall. And, of course, particularly when it comes to the intelligence community, he and his allies have viewed it as a deep state that needs to be cleared.

The CIA specifically also there are National Security officials in the Trump administration who believe that it has become too focused on analysis and not enough on covert action. This may be part of kind of the effort to sort of shift that balance towards let's get the CIA back into the business of doing covert action.

KEILAR: Don't they need analysis to do covert action or to make conclusions about threats they should stop, et cetera?

LILLIS: Well, it's always a balance, right ...

KEILAR: Yes, sure.

LILLIS: ... like in between. You have a finite budget, right?

KEILAR: That's right.

LILLIS: You're balancing how much you're spending on one priority versus another here. And I think their sense is within some National Security officials in the Trump administration that that balance has gotten out of whack. Now, obviously, that's going to be a big debate.

KEILAR: That's an interesting debate to have. How they're doing it is very interesting.

All right. Katie Bo Lillis, thank you so much. Boris?

SANCHEZ: The deadline for federal employees to accept the Trump administration's resignation offer is tomorrow. Two administration officials aim to put the pressure on, telling CNN that workers who don't accept will risk losing their jobs anyway and without a resignation package to fall back on. CNN's Jeff Zeleny is live for us at the White House.

Jeff, is this a signal of larger layoffs coming and what do we know about the legality of these moves?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Boris, that really is one of the central questions hanging over all of this, certainly among many federal workers who have been offered this buyout, if you will, to be paid until September if they do not want to comply to the return to office policies. But there are some questions about whether it is indeed legal and whether the payouts would happen.

Actually, one of the largest unions of federal workers is warning its employees now 24 hours before that deadline in a very explicit message, let's take a look at that. This message says, "There is not yet any evidence the administration can or will uphold its end of the bargain, that Congress will go along with this unilateral massive restructuring, or that appropriated funds can be used this way, among other issues that have been raised."

That's from the American Federation of Government Employees. So, a lot of chatter here, a lot of discussion if this is legal, if the payment will come. Of course, the government is only funded until March or so, so that's one of the issues. But on top of all of this, the Trump administration is warning of the potential of larger layoffs for people who may not accept this deal. We've seen and we know the bottom line. They want to restructure, reshape, dismantle, resize, whatever word you want to use, the federal government. The question is, many federal employers are protected by unions and other agreements here, so how much they can do that, that's the question.

But Boris, over all of this, is the government ready for a disaster, which we've seen, of course, in the last week and other things. How much will that affect that? So it's not just letting people go. There's more to it than that, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Jeff Zeleny live for us at the White House. Thank you so much.

We are watching the White House closely this afternoon because President Trump is expected to sign a new executive order that bans transgender women from competing in women's sports. We're actually going to discuss with a transgender athlete soon. Stay with us.

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