Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Soon: Senate Judiciary Cmte Votes On Advancing Patel As FBI Nominee; Scores Of New Firings At Federal Agencies As Trump, Musk Reshare Govt.; NATO Chief: Allies Are Stepping Up After Trump's Call With Putin; Trump: Negotiations To End Russia-Ukraine War Will Start "Immediately". Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired February 13, 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]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: It was a drone that found a heat signal in a cornfield almost four miles away. The heat signal, nestled in deep snow, was Aurora. What good news that is.

Aurora, we think you're fantastic, even if Westminster doesn't. And pet detectives using drones is, in fact, a sign of the apocalypse.

A new hour of "CNN News Central" starts now.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: After a big delay and a top Democrat accusing him of possible perjury, President Trump's pick to lead the FBI is about to face a critical vote.

And job today, gone tomorrow. President Trump and Elon Musk first started with paid leave in an effort to dramatically shrink the government workforce.

Now there's a new wave of firings overnight.

And there are new details this morning about the phone call between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin and what it could be setting in motion for Ukraine. What does Ukraine have to say about this?

I'm Kate Bolduan with Sara Sidner and John Berman. This is "CNN News Central."

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: All right, any moment now, a critical Senate committee vote for President Trump's nominee to lead the FBI, Kash Patel. The Judiciary Committee is expected to advance his nomination to the full Senate floor.

That is despite the committee's top Democrat, Senator Dick Durbin, lodging some serious allegations. Durbin saying multiple sources have told him that Patel had already ordered FBI firings even though he's not been confirmed for the job. It's also a big day for some of the president's other picks.

The full Senate expected to vote on Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s nomination for Health and Human Services secretary. And there's a committee hearing for Trump's pick to lead the Department of Education, Linda McMahon.

CNN's Lauren Fox is covering all of this on Capitol Hill.

An extremely busy day. You have these three nominees. What are you learning?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (on-camera): Yes, I'm actually standing outside of the room where the Senate Judiciary Committee is going to vote in just a couple of minutes on Kash Patel's nomination.

Now Democrats have been opposed to this nomination from the start and it was really unclear when he was nominated, whether or not he would get the support that he needed from Republicans. But so far, many of the Republicans, including all of those on the Judiciary Committee, have said that they are supportive of Patel. And that leaves Democrats with very few options to slow down this nomination.

What they had done is held over a voting committee by a week. That is something that typically Democrats or Republicans in the minority do when they are dealing with a contentious nomination vote. But that is really the limit of how far they can go, at least in the committee side, to try to slow walk these nominations.

Here is the top Democrat on the committee, Dick Durbin, on what Democratic options are right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. DICK DURBIN (D-IL): Because he's not at cabinet level, it's two hours of debate before the vote. And we can try as we wish, but there's only a limited amount of opportunities to delay.

And so, I can't say when he'll be scheduled for a floor vote, but likely with limited debate under the Senate rules.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOX (on-camera): And there you have him talking about this floor process because of the nomination process and the rules in the Senate being changed a couple of years ago. Democrats can't stop these nominations because they only require a simple majority vote, which leads us to a very key vote that's going to happen on the Senate floor in just over an hour.

And that is for RFK Jr. to lead the Health and Human Services Department. We had expected that he potentially may not have even made it out of the Senate Finance Committee a week ago. But then Senator Bill Cassidy, a Republican on that committee who had expressed deep reservations about his nomination, ultimately came to the conclusion that he was ready to back RFK Jr. And after that hearing, that really has cleared the way for him to get confirmed.

Now yesterday, all of the Republicans voted to advance this nomination to a final vote. But we are keeping a very close eye on Senator Mitch McConnell. He is a Republican, the former Republican leader, who actually has voted against a number of Trump's nominees, including Tulsi Gabbard, just yesterday on the floor.

So, we're going to be watching Mitch McConnell's vote very closely today to see whether or not he backs RFK Jr. Of course, Mitch McConnell, a polio survivor and huge advocate for vaccines for children. And of course, was a huge advocate for the COVID-19 vaccine when he was the Republican leader.

SIDNER: All right. Lauren Fox, thank you so much. A lot going on there. And you are outside the room where it is going to happen. Appreciate it.

John?

BERMAN: All right. With us now, CNN senior law enforcement analyst Andrew McCabe.

And Andy, we are monitoring this committee vote on Kash Patel. It would be surprising, frankly, if they do not vote to push this nomination forward to a vote on the full floor, even after the minority leader of this committee, Dick Durbin raised these questions about Kash Patel orchestrating the dismissal of some people in the FBI, even before he's conferred, even after they bring questions raised about honesty in his initial testimony in the confirmation hearings.

[09:05:23]

What do you make of all that?

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST (on-camera): Well, John, I share your expectation that he will likely pass through this portion of the of the -- of the confirmation process. There's not been a single Republican voice speaking out, indicating even any kind of concern with his nomination, which is really shocking to me.

But honestly, I think the letter from Senator Durbin in the last few days is I'm just surprised it took as long as it did to get there. I think anyone who watched that hearing, you know, could -- could identify several things, many things that Kash Patel said under oath during that hearing that were that were misleading, quite frankly.

And, you know, that's the purpose of the confirmation process. It's not to course through everything somebody ever said. And they lied. Did they lie then or did they not lie? Now, the -- the issue is to bring up issues that senators should consider before they put this person, in this case, Kash Patel in the role of FBI director.

And the fact that he appears to have misled the committee on numerous facts and numerous answers, where I, as senator on that committee, I'd have a really hard time pushing that guy forward.

BERMAN: If he is confirmed right now, what you're watching as a committee vote, if they vote, yay, then it will move to the full Senate floor vote sometime later. But if and when he is confirmed, Andy, what checks exist within the FBI or the Department of Justice on his power? What's to keep him from doing certain things? MCCABE (on-camera): The FBI director has very, very little limits on his ability to influence and direct the activities of the FBI. Right? So, he's not a cabinet level position. Technically, the director reports to the deputy attorney general, and there is obviously a degree of oversight that comes there from the deputy attorney general and the attorney general. They can fire the director as they did with Director Comey.

But day to day, the director has an enormous impact on the direction, the culture and specific investigations within the bureau that the director chooses are worthy of his or her attention. So, if Kash Patel decides, he wants to unleash the FBI, it's awesome investigative power and its legal authority in an effort to get back at Americans who he thinks have somehow insulted or been disloyal to the President. He can absolutely do that.

Will FBI people go along with it? I suspect that many of them will not. They will likely be quickly fired.

So eventually he'll come up -- he'll be able to identify a cadre of people who will execute his will no matter what it is that opening investigations that lack adequate predication or are overtly political. I suspect he'll be able to do those things if he chooses to.

BERMAN: What breadcrumbs or Easter eggs, either way, either metaphor, have there been either in his testimony, in his writings or in the actions of Attorney General Pam Bondi in the days that she has been officially in office? How does that indicate that he may behave quickly when he is confirmed? What are the first things you think he might do?

MCCABE (on-camera): Well, unlike his -- his Senate confirmation testimony, which I think was misleading, at least, I think, in his prior statements and writings, he's been very clear about what he intends to do it to the FBI. He has a very dim view of FBI headquarters, has talked about closing it and opening it as a some sort of a museum.

He has said repeatedly that he wants to throw most of the FBI out of the Washington area and out of headquarters. He doesn't want people to actually have to come through headquarters to be promoted. He views people who have served in the FBI in FBI headquarters or in leadership positions very negatively. It refers to them as the deep state. He's, he's comprised -- comprised an entire list of people. He thinks are in the deep state.

He put it in his own book. He describes deep state people as the greatest threat to American democracy. It's not China, not Iran, not terrorism, not the fentanyl crisis, but Washington bureaucrats that he thinks are somehow conspiring against Republicans. And he has pledged to, quote, unquote, defeat them.

So, I think he's told us exactly what he's going to do. It's the sort of things that we have not seen an FBI director do since J. Edgar Hoover, the sort of activity that prompted decades of reformation of the FBI.

But nevertheless, that's -- that's what he has maintained he's going to do if he's -- if he's confirmed.

[09:10:00]

BERMAN: You know, in a vacuum what reforms do you think the FBI requires at this moment?

MCCABE (on-camera): The FBI can always be improved. And it's very typical when we get a new director. I experienced this many times in my time and 21 years in the Bureau. New directors come in and push things in a new direction. They change the size of the bureaucracy. Louis Freeh was famous for having pushed many agents from headquarters out to the field. Robert Mueller did the exact opposite. He felt we needed more central direction and leadership over national security programs particularly. Jim Comey reopened the FBI to the American people. It was much more transparent and clear about what we were doing and why we were doing it.

So, all of those things are good ideas at the time. The FBI could be reduced. It could be more efficient. It could be, I believe, more transparent with the American people. But you're not hearing Kash Patel talk about any of those things.

Really, what he's confined his comments to are political retribution and basically waging war on the men and women of the FBI.

BERMAN: Andrew McCabe, we appreciate your insight in all of this. We continue to watch the Senate Judiciary Committee, and we will update all of you if there is anything surprising from that.

Sara?

SIDNER: All right. First, they were told to resign. Now they're just being fired hours after a judge cleared the way for the Trump administration's buyout plan.

Federal employees are finding out they no longer have a job, as President Trump and Elon Musk carry out their plan to dismantle entire government agencies.

The target overnight, the Small Business Administration and the Department of Education, which Trump has vowed to close entirely.

Let's get right to Alayna Treene at the White House for us.

Alayna, what are you learning as these federal employees wake up to find out they do not have anywhere to go?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER (on-camera): Right. This is significant, Sara. I mean, as you mentioned so far, all of the, you know, layoffs, so-called layoffs we've seen, have been placing these employees on paid administrative leave.

This is not that. And this is really starting with, from what we're learning, the Department of Education and the Small Business Administration. I mean, scores of people who were on what they were placed on earlier this year, probation, and now being told that they are being fired and their contracts being terminated.

That is new. And I'm told it's starting there, but it's going to be spreading to other agencies as well.

Now, also, this isn't entirely surprising. We had actually broken the story last week that this was coming. They had been planning really shortly after the administration was going to close the deadline for what they were referring to as buyouts or the deferred resignation program, essentially allowing more than two million federal government workers to place themselves on paid administrative leave and get paid till the end of September. Once that deadline was hit, that was supposed to be last Thursday, but it got tied up in the courts. They were going to begin with these sweeping layoffs.

As I mentioned, that deadline was initially delayed, but we did see a judge, you know, order or lift, really, the pause on that deferred resignation program. And then soon after, they closed that at 7:00 p.m. last night, and that's when we began to see some of these sweeping layoffs.

Now, I do want to just get to kind of the big picture of this all. Obviously, this has been a core goal of the Trump administration and President Trump himself, but also a core goal of Elon Musk and DOGE, which is working very hard right now to try and reduce the size of the federal government and the workforce. We heard Elon Musk himself talk about this and kind of frame some of these firings, particularly, though, the paid administrative leave program, the deferred resignation program as being a generous offer to these workers.

Take a listen to how he put it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELON MUSK, CEO, TESLA & SPACEX: If people retire, they get paid all the way through September. They can go on vacation. They can get a second job. They can do whatever they want.

There'll be, like, some disruption, but at the end of the day, we'll have people move from, like I said, from low to negative productivity roles in the government sector to higher productivity roles in the private sector.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TREENE (on-camera): Now, I will say, Sara, that last line from Musk where he said these, you know, lower productivity roles in the government, wanting them to be more higher productivity, we do know some federal workers had reached out to CNN saying that kind of chafed them. They felt that that was disvaluing some of their work. But all to say, this, again, has started in these two agencies, the Education Department and the SBA, but is expected to be more widespread.

So far, we don't know the exact number or the scale of these firings, but they are expected to continue.

SIDNER: OK. Elon, they are sort of throwing salt in the wound of some of these federal employees.

Thank you so much, Alayna Treene. Appreciate it.

Kate?

BOLDUAN: So, a key vote on Capitol Hill. Today, Senators are about to take up and decide if Trump's pick to leave the FBI gets to advance.

We're going to take you there live as soon as it happens. You're looking at live pictures from Capitol Hill right now.

And Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is meeting with U.S. allies and defending President Trump, already publicly taking things off the table in terms of how to end Russia's war in Ukraine.

[09:15:06]

Trump's words prompting this from his former national security adviser.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN BOLTON, FMR NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: Well, I think Putin couldn't be happier. I tell you, they're drinking vodka straight out of the bottle in the Kremlin tonight. It was a great day for Moscow.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: New this morning, NATO Secretary General says, European nations are stepping up to support Ukraine. This is after Donald Trump declared negotiations to end Russia's war on Ukraine that it will start immediately once he wrapped a 90-minute phone call with Vladimir Putin yesterday.

[09:20:08]

And also, this morning Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, he's defending his and Donald Trump's public pronouncements that some say is hurting Ukraine's negotiating position.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY: But there is no betrayal there. There is a recognition that the whole world and the United States is invested and interested in peace, a negotiated peace. As President Trump has said stopping the killing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Joining me right now is a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, John Herbst. Ambassador, it's good to see you again.

I want to play for you two things that we heard from President Trump just yesterday.

Listen to this, please.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you view Ukraine as an equal member of this peace process?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES: It's an interesting question, I think they have to make peace that people are being killed and I think they have to make peace.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: I said that was not a good war to go into. And I think they have to make peace, that's what I think.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Would you support Zelensky ceding territory or exchanging territory in any agreement to end the war?

TRUMP: Well, he's going to have to do what he has to do, but, you know, his poll numbers aren't particularly great to put it mildly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Ambassador how do you interpret now how President Trump is setting up the negotiations to end this war?

JOHN HERBST, FMR U.S. AMBASSADOR TO UKRAINE: Oh, I think that the best way to negotiate in this situation where Ukraine has expressed a readiness to compromise about the elements of Trump's approach. And Russia's not demonstrated any interest in compromising along the elements of Trump's approach is to put leverage on the Kremlin. Trump did that very effectively with his criticism of Putin as being the obstacle piece a couple of weeks ago. I think that the events of the last 24 hours have clouded that very smart approach.

BOLDUAN: Interesting. German -- Germany's defense minister spoke out this morning and called the public concessions that have been put out there by Hegseth and Trump. They described it was regrettable. And here's what else he said, it would have been better to discuss a possible NATO membership for Ukraine or the country's possible territorial losses only at the negotiating table and not to take it off the table beforehand.

What is left for Ukraine to gain in the negotiation to end this war after what they have already taken off the table, Ambassador?

HERBST: But I agree with -- with the German Defense Minister Pistorius. He's a very sound geopolitical thinker. The thing is that we've known for maybe two months now the general approach Trump was taking or is taking. One is a compromise on Ukraine's part. They'll lose territory and also a moratorium on Ukrainian membership in NATO for 20 years. That's not my preference, but this has been out there for two months now. But then he's demanding of Russia compromise to because we know that Putin's of game objective is to take effective control of Ukraine. Maybe in pieces bit by bit, but that's his goal.

So, to stop that Trump has said there should be a demilitarized zone between Russian and Ukrainian forces where European troops would be deployed and Ukraine should be armed to the hills.

So, if that's the approach and you realize Putin is the principal obstacle then you double down on leverage on the Kremlin. We have not seen that in the last couple of days and statement made by Secretary Hegseth that, you know, U.S. troops would not be involved in making sure Ukraine is free of Russian aggression is the same thing the Biden team did when they said U.S. troops would not be involved. Even if that's your intention, why tell the Russians that now? That enhances the hardliners in Moscow and makes them less willing to compromise?

So, it was a serious negotiating mistake just as Trump's emphasis on him meeting Putin and not so much his meeting Zelensky sends the wrong message about whose interest meaning Putin's interest will be given greater consideration. But Trump did not say that, he did not say that.

To my mind the best thing of the last week has been Trump's interest in reaching an understanding with Ukraine on getting Ukraine Critical minerals rare-earth minerals which they have an abundance and perhaps sending U.S. weapons to Ukraine for that. That would be very much an American interest now would send a message to Putin. He cannot win this war by continued military operations.

BOLDUAN: How should or do you think will Europe respond to what seems to be you know, some clear terms that President Trump is now laying out for these negotiations.

HERBST: Oh, Europe hopefully will step up. Trump's idea of a DMZ, demilitarized zone with European troops is a good one, but the Europeans are not used to taking this initiative. This is an exceptionally difficult crisis for them. They don't have the military power of the United States.

[09:25:17]

So for them to consider doing this, which is risky on their part, they will need some clear guarantees from the United States, not just about logistical support, not just about intelligence support. But what we would do to make sure that they are protected, if the Russians start shooting at them. Which I think is a good chance to happen.

And I'm not sure that the Trump team has considered that. And certainly, what Hegseth said about no U. S. troops, is a problem if we're trying to persuade Moscow that this European force would be a -- a true deterrent to future Russian aggression.

BOLDUAN: Ambassador John Herbst, thanks for coming in.

John?

BERMAN: All right, we are standing by for the committee vote to see if Kash Patel's nomination will advance to the Senate. He, of course, has been picked to lead the FBI.

We are also expecting Senator Dick Durbin to speak after accusing Patel of lying under oath. That could be fiery.

And then wasted tax dollars on the future of solar energy. That is the debate this morning as the world's largest solar thermal plant is now shutting down.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:30:00]