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Judge Hears Arguments on Federal Buyouts; Trump Announces Tariffs on Steel and Aluminum Imports; Rep. Val Hoyle (D-OR) is Interviewed about DOGE; Hegseth Travels to Meet with NATO Allies; CFPB Workers Ordered to Stand Down. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired February 10, 2025 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: The performance, saying no one involved with the production was aware of the individual's intent. He was tackled by security, as I mentioned, and will be banned for life from NFL stadiums and events.

So, I didn't know this was a thing, but it is a thing. A giant blockage of fat, grease and rags in a sewer has forced Grammy winning singer Bryan Adams to cancel a sold out show in Perth, Australia. Authorities warned that what they have dubbed the fatberg could have caused the venue's toilets to overflow and pose a serious health hazard if the concert went on and took place. Fans said they were left waiting for hours outside the stadium before they learned that the show was actually canceled. So, there's that problem. Fatbergs apparently form over time as items that cannot be broken down are flushed or washed down drains instead of being disposed of properly. The more you know.

Time to gather up all of those pennies collecting dust in your drawers. President Trump has ordered the Treasury secretary to stop producing the coins, saying that they cost just too much to make. The U.S. Mint says each penny costs nearly $0.04 to produce. That's not to talk about how much it costs the nickel to be produced. It's unclear if Donald Trump can - actually has the power to do this. Add that to the growing list fitting into that category.

A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts now.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: So, we're standing by for legal arguments on whether the White House plan for so-called buyouts, whether that plan is against the law, as new questions are raised on whether the president will even obey legal rulings.

So, a huge day for metals. New tariffs on steel and aluminum. And you just heard Kate talk about major developments for zinc and copper. The president announces he wants The Mint to stop making pennies.

And this morning, multiple zoo animals dead and a shutdown of live poultry markets amid a bird flu outbreak. How worried should you be?

I'm John Berman, with Kate Bolduan and Sara Sidner. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: In just hours a judge will hold a hearing on whether Trump's so-called buyout offer to federal employees is actually legal. The Trump administration has given the employees until the end of the day today to accept or reject the deal or face the potential of being fired. Last week, the same federal judge pushed Trump's deadline to tonight after pausing the administration's move. That ruling will have a massive impact on the president's plan as he tries to gut and reshape the government. Plans led by billionaire Elon Musk and his government efficiency team.

CNN's Paula Reid is joining me now.

We've already heard once from this judge. Now the question is, what will happen in this particular ruling, which could potentially be a far bigger ruling depending on what the judge says.

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Sara, this is a huge day, not only for the Trump administration, but also for the federal employees who are contemplating whether they should accept this deferred resignation offer.

Now, this judge is being asked to delay this. He already delayed it once from last Thursday to today. He's being asked to extend this deadline. But remember, a lot of unions are encouraging their employees not to accept this offer, questioning the legality. I mean, in theory, this offer says that if you resign from your job, that you will be paid through September. But the unions have said it's not clear that the Trump administration, the government, has the authority to make good on that. So, they've been encouraging their employees not to agree to this.

So, the judge today being asked not only to decide, OK, what's the final deadline for this, but also to get from the government assurances that they can actually enforce this. The unions have called this offer an arbitrary, unlawful and short-fused ultimatum.

Now, as we've seen, most of the Trump policies have been challenged in court. Now, usually these challenges are filed in places where the challenger expects that they will win, that the Trump policy will be blocked, at least temporarily. But one thing that's been really interesting in covering this particular case is when you talk to employees who are contemplating this, they're not necessarily looking at the litigation and what the courts are doing. A lot of people say, look, if I don't take this offer, I'm worried that I could get fired for cause somehow. People are worried about losing their pensions. So, certainly the immediate impact of just putting this offer out there has been instilling a lot of fear in government workers.

SIDNER: Paula, I'm not sure that you can still hear me, but what - what does come next for the federal workers, knowing that actually in March there is going to be a vote on whether or not to fund the government as a whole.

REID: It's a great question. Yes, I can hear you. I have my - my IFB came out of my ear, but I can still hear. Look, obviously, this is going to continue to be litigated, right?

Whoever loses in Boston will likely appeal this up the food chain.

[09:05:01]

Now, it's possible you might get some clarity from the government and some assurances about the legitimacy of this buyout. But this offer, the fact that even unions aren't sure about it, the looming possibility of a government shutdown in a few months, all of this, again, it has created so much chaos and confusion, which really manifests itself in fear of federal workers trying to make sure that they can pay their mortgage, buy their groceries, as there's so much uncertainty around their jobs. And really the only shred of certainty they're likely to get is from the courts. But it takes time to get the final word on a lot of these big questions.

SIDNER: Yes. And we know that you'll be watching what happens in court today. We'll be paying attention to all of that.

Paula Reid, thank you so much. Appreciate you coming on this morning.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Also today, President Trump is set to announce new tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports coming into the United States. The president says that he's also planning to separately announce this week new reciprocal tariffs to match what other countries have on U.S. goods, dollar for dollar, every country, he suggests.

CNN's Alayna Treene has more from the White House.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: That's right. The president said yesterday that he is planning on implementing 25 percent tariffs on all steel and aluminum coming into the United States. Just the latest overhaul of United States trade policy.

But I think one thing to keep in mind here is how this is going to impact the United States trading partners, specifically our northern and southern neighbors. Both Canada and Mexico are some of the largest suppliers of steel to the United States. That's in addition to Brazil and South Korea and Vietnam.

Bu, of course it comes after the president had hit pause on some of the blanket 25 percent tariffs he was initially saying he was going to impose on Canada and Mexico, saying that he wanted to work out an agreement. So, of course, this is just the latest escalation to, you know, those negotiations after he had hit pause on that.

But another thing to keep in mind as well is Canada is the largest supplier by a large margin of primary aluminum metal to the United States, accounting for more than 70 percent. So again, Canada really going to feel the brunt of a lot of this.

I also want to remind you that we saw the president do something similar during his first term. He had imposed tariffs of 25 percent on steel, 10 percent on aluminum. However, the difference there was that it wasn't blanket. He did have some exemptions with different countries. So, really, the key question of course today is what will that look like? We know when it comes to tariff and trade policy, the devil is really in the details. So, we have to kind of stay tuned to see what the impacts of that could be and how this is going to actually work out.

Another thing that we heard the president say this weekend is that he is planning, at some point this week on imposing reciprocal tariffs on other countries, essentially saying that any country who puts a tariff on the United States, we are going to hit them back with the same type of tariff.

Take a listen to how he put it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'll be announcing probably Tuesday or Wednesday at a news conference reciprocal tariffs. And, very simply, it's - if they charge us, we charge them. That's all.

REPORTER: When is it going into effect, sir?

TRUMP: Almost immediately. If they are charging us 130 percent, and we're charging them nothing, it's not going to stay that way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TREENE: Now, without naming specific countries, the president said that he would potentially be open to some exemptions if he could work out some sort of satisfactory agreement with these countries. But again, I think one of the key things that we're all waiting for is, what will the impact be on American consumers? We know Wall Street, economists, people on Capitol Hill, including Republicans, many of them warning that the impact is really going to be felt on American consumers and their wallets directly.

So, really waiting to see what exactly this is going to look like, and if there are any sort of exceptions in the details of that when he announces them later today.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, our thanks to Alayna Treene for that.

So, this morning, the president is standing by Elon Musk and pushing him to find new ways to slash spending, even as courts have stepped in and paused a lot of Musk's actions over questions on legality.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm going to tell him very soon, like maybe in 24 hours, to go check the Department of Education. He's going to find the same thing. Then I'm going to go - go to the military. Let's check the military. We're going to find billions, hundreds of billions of dollars.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: All right, with us now is Congresswoman Val Hoyle, a Democrat from Oregon, who was a member of the bipartisan DOGE Caucus, a group of bipartisan representatives trying to support at least the - the spirit of the efforts from Elon Musk, the so-called DOGE Caucus. But now, Congresswoman, you have left that group. What pushed you over the edge? Why?

REP. VAL HOYLE (D-OR): Well, I think that there's two different missions. Certainly the bipartisan group, most of my colleagues, I would say, truly want to find efficiency in government, right? We have three different branches of government.

[09:10:01]

And as the legislative branch, we came here to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars, to make good policy, and, again, work in good faith to find efficiencies, whether that's investing in IT or, you know, combining agencies or departments, you know, making sure we don't have too much bureaucracy.

But fundamentally, you can't do that while government is being blown up from the inside. And let's be clear, Donald Trump and Elon Musk have a different mission. They say it's about efficiency and saving taxpayer dollars. It isn't. It's about intimidating workers, breaking our government and installing loyalists that are loyal to Donald Trump and Elon Musk, and not to the American people or the Constitution.

BERMAN: So, some courts have stepped in and paused or blocked some of the efforts by Musk here. Over the weekend, Elon Musk retweeted this comment about judicial activity. It reads, quote, "I don't like the precedent it sets when you defy judicial ruling, but I'm just wondering what other options are these judges leaving us if they're going to blatantly disregard the Constitution for their own partisan political goals?" It seems to raise the possibility of ignoring legal rulings.

What about - what do you think about that?

HOYLE: Well, and J.D. Vance, I think it was this weekend, also said, you know, how dare the courts tell our attorney general what she can and can't do. That's unconstitutional. They're throwing these words around. They're using the cover of, you know, again, efficiencies and the Constitution when they are blatantly disregarding it.

We have a separation of the branches of government so that we have checks and balances. And what is really concerning, and every American, regardless of party, should be concerned with is that this unelected billionaire, Donald Trump, and his administration have made it clear that they don't intend to follow the rulings of the court if the court doesn't go along with what they say. That's concerning.

And as a member of Congress, I was elected to represent my people. I swore an oath to the Constitution. And I'm really hoping that my Republican colleagues will find a backbone and stop bending the knee and do the job that they were elected to do. BERMAN: What - what can you do about this? There are some raising the

possibility of shutting down the government in March when some of these funding bills come up for a vote. Do you think Democrats should stand in the way?

HOYLE: I think Hakeem Jeffries, I do trust him to be, you know, our - he is our leader and we will use whatever power we have. They will need Democratic votes to pass this budget.

BERMAN: Yes.

HOYLE: And fundamentally, we're not going to vote for something that undermines the American people.

BERMAN: I do want to ask you, there's an interesting moment in President Trump's Super Bowl interview, when he was asked a direct question about when Americans would feel prices coming down. Inflation. He ran on inflation. He largely won because of inflation. And I want you to hear the question and the answer here.

Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If all goes to plan, when do you think families will be able to feel prices going down, groceries, energy, or are you kind of saying to them, hang on, inflation may get worse until it gets better?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: No, I think we're going to become a rich - look, we're not that rich right now. We owe $36 trillion. That's because we let all these nations take advantage of us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: I'm not sure I heard an answer about inflation there and prices. Did you?

HOYLE: Nope. There was no answer. And I think Elon Musk, which again nobody - nobody voted for Elon Musk. He bought the election. But fundamentally he had put out on Twitter that, you know, people are going to have to suffer in order for us to make America great again. Meaning, they have no intention of lowering prices, at least not in the short term. Nothing they have done has addressed prices for consumers or the economy. It's all about retribution. Renaming the Gulf of Mexico does nothing to bring down the price of eggs or milk or rent or childcare.

So, you know, again, these people say one thing while they're doing another. And I don't think that they're serious about that. Look at Project 2025. That is their playbook. That's what they're following. And people should pay attention to what's happening in those ways as opposed to the distractions and the shiny things where, you know, they're - Donald Trump is trying to take attention away from the fact that they're destroying our government. BERMAN: Shiny things, like coins, this morning.

Congresswoman Val Hoyle, nice to see you. Thank you very much for being with us.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, ahead, today, the U.S. secretary of defense makes his first official trip overseas.

[09:15:04]

What is expected to happen when he meets with foreign leaders?

Plus, Trump's shut down targeting the nation's top consumer watchdog. One former official says this leaves $18 trillion in consumer debt largely unchecked.

Plus, Super Bowl 2025 had it all, big plays, a halftime show that had social media buzzing. And President Trump versus Taylor Swift?

Those stories ahead.

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[09:20:03]

BOLDUAN: So, right now, the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, is on his way to Germany. It's the first stop of a week-long trip abroad. And this is his first foreign trip since he took the job. He's expected also to stop - make stops in Belgium and Poland and meet with NATO allies. It comes at a time of great uncertainty over what President Trump wants to do about those very alliances, especially when it comes to the war in Ukraine.

CNN's Natasha Bertrand is at the Pentagon with much more on this first big trip.

What are you hearing about it?

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Kate, this is going to be the U.S.' first real test on the world stage, and particularly Hegseth, when it comes to engaging with NATO allies in this new Trump administration, right? I mean the question is going to be, what kind of pressure does Hegseth place on European allies, on NATO allies, to take on a greater burden in terms of defense spending, in terms of supporting Ukraine in its war against Russia? So, these are going to be top of mind for the secretary as he travels to Germany, Belgium and Poland. This week he is also going to be meeting with U.S. troops.

But this is really going to be an opportunity for these NATO allies, these European allies, to get a sense for how Hegseth operates behind closed doors and, of course, how seriously the Trump administration is going to be pushing for them to increase their defense spending to 5 percent of their budget, which is something that has been a top priority for the new administration, as well as increasing, as I said, that burden sharing when it comes to providing more security assistance to the Ukrainians. This is something that the U.S. has wanted to pull back from.

And in an example of that, the Ukraine defense contact group is going to be meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Wednesday. And for the first time, the United States is not going to be chairing that forum. It's going to be chaired by the United Kingdom. So really a stark example here of how the U.S. is kind of wanting to pull back from these responsibilities that the Biden administration saw as a really key part of its foreign policy, of course, when it came to Europe and Ukraine. And so it's going to be interesting to see how Hegseth interacts during that forum, during the defense ministerial as well on Thursday at NATO headquarters, and what kind of pressure he is placing on these NATO allies to take on more of that burden.

And so, while this is Secretary Hegseth's first time really on the world stage, he is not going to be alone necessarily. We also expect to see Secretary of State Marco Rubio making his first appearance in Europe at the Munich Security Conference as well later this week.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: All right, a big week ahead. Thanks so much, Natasha.

John.

BERMAN: All right, this morning, the Trump administration shutting down the country's top consumer watchdog, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Basically just closing it. Every worker there was ordered to stay home.

CNN's Vanessa Yurkevich is with us now with the latest here.

What's going on?

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: So, these employees, they get an email saying that they are not going to be showing up to the office. And they're also being instructed not to do any more work as it relates to the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, which, of course, as we know, is exactly what it sounds like, to protect everyday Americans from financial fraud, combating some subprime mortgage crises and helping to end junk fees for everyday Americans.

This is an effort led by Elon Musk and DOGE at the direction of the Trump administration. There was a tweet that Elon Musk sent out on Friday that was sort of foreshadowing what was to come. It was essentially, you can see it right there, it was a CFR - CFB - CFPB RIP. Sorry, a lot of acronyms there. But essentially foreshadowing that this was the next agency that the - that DOGE and the administration was going to be looking at.

Also, we should note that the website, the homepage, is down. They've taken their X handle off and they're essentially stopping any more incoming funding into the organization. You can see just what people essentially get there from the CF - I got to get this acronym right, the CP - CPFB. And essentially it is to protect Americans, 200 million Americans protected, about $636 billion that is funneled into providing veterans with financial relief because they have been defrauded. And about $6.1 billion in estimated savings in overdraft fees for everyday Americans. So, there's something there.

BERMAN: Didn't this come out (ph) of the financial crisis? This is one of the things that they came - you know, which was pretty bad for America.

YURKEVICH: Right. Right. But then people tried to get rid of it. Republicans tried several times through Congress to get rid of this. It didn't work there. But could it work here? You never know. There's a lot of employees that have filed lawsuits about this. This can move pretty quickly. We know that judges have stepped in and put pauses on things like with USAID. Could that happen here? We'll see.

BERMAN: All right, Vanessa Yurkevich, thank you very much.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, ahead, the NTSB working towards its preliminary report on the rare midair crash in D.C. This morning we're hearing from the father of one of the pilots of that American Airlines plane, now forced to mourn his son as one of the 67 people who were killed.

[09:25:06]

And live poultry markets have been temporarily shut down in New York City following several cases of bird flu. Why officials still believe, though, at this point there's no immediate public health threat.

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SIDNER: A preliminary report from the NTSB on that rare mid-air crash that took 67 lives, it's expected by the end of this month. This week, a memorial service is planned in Georgia for Sam Lilley. The 28-year- old was serving as the first officer on board American Eagles Flight 5342 when it collided with an Army Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan National Airport.

[09:30:01]

American Eagle operator PSA announced Lilly would be posthumously promoted to honorary captain for demonstrating, and I'm quoting here, "the highest.