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New Trump Order Expands WH Power Over Independent Agencies; Trump Tests Limits of Power After Supreme Court Immunity Decision; Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM) Discusses About Elon Musk and DOGE Accountability; Multiple Agencies Scramble to Reinstate Some Terminated Workers After Hasty DOGE Firings; Trump Admin. Makes Sweeping Cuts to Multiple Federal Agencies; Trump Echoes Putin, Falsely Calls Zelensky A "Dictator." Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired February 19, 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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[15:00:01]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Power Play: President Donald Trump signing an executive order that would expand his control over independent government agencies. We'll talk about the potential political and legal fallout.

Plus, President Trump's top national security aide says that relations between Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, are clearly going in the wrong direction. This comes after Trump called Zelenskyy a dictator on social media.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: And paging Ben Affleck, could an asteroid really hit Earth in 2032? The odds actually just went up and reached the highest risk level of any large space rock ever. Don't close your eyes, don't miss a thing and don't panic just yet, though. We're following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

SANCHEZ: Hey, thanks so much for joining us this afternoon. I'm Boris Sanchez alongside Brianna Keilar in the nation's capital. And President Donald Trump is making a play for even greater power by trying to make independent government agencies less independent. In a newly issued executive order, Trump expands the White House's control over agencies that were created by Congress intended to be separate from the president.

KEILAR: And in a further test of the limits of his executive power, CNN has new reporting that Trump is relying on the Supreme Court's decision last year that granted him broad immunity from criminal prosecution. Think of it as a blank check. Already, Trump's personal lawyers and his Justice Department have cited the ruling in several major filings to justify their moves. With us now is CNN Chief National Affairs Correspondent Jeff Zeleny. He's in Miami, where Trump is expected to speak later and we have CNN Contributor and former Nixon White House counsel John Dean with us.

Jeff, President Trump signing this executive order Tuesday to bring independent agencies under closer presidential control and supervision. Tell us about this. Which agencies is he targeting?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Brianna, certainly a very sweeping executive order that President Trump signed yesterday at his Mar-a-Lago resort. He's been spending about five days or so here in Florida working along the way. And this executive order really is an extension of what we've seen during the first few weeks of his time back in office, essentially trying to finish up some of the business that he talked about during his first term but did not get done. But this executive order is quite sweeping because of those agencies that you mentioned.

They may have familiar names to many of our viewers. The Securities and Exchange Commission, the SEC; the Federal Communications Commission, the FCC; the National Labor Relations Board, the NLRB; as well as the Federal Trade Commission, the FTC, all of these agencies are just some of the examples of independent agencies that Congress set up to have independent authority. And yes, they have presidential appointees, but the nominees who serve on these boards span from president to president. They do not serve directly for one individual administration.

So, this is something now that clearly is something that President Trump is using and wanting to flex his executive authority. We've seen it on so many decisions already this year. Many of them have been lawsuits have been filed and judges are weighing in on them. But it is one more example of how the president is really trying to remake what we sort of view as the modern-day government, challenging the idea that it is Congress that has control of the purse strings.

And one more point on this executive order, it also has a provision in there that simply anything that one of these agencies does has to be approved through the White House. So, again, taking the independent nature out of all of these agencies that control and regulate so much of American life.

KEILAR: Yes, so much. And, John, what's your reaction?

JOHN DEAN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, this has long been the dream of conservatives. Ever since FDR put in state place the administrative state, conservatives have been trying to undo it. So this is decades in the making. Now, yes, the Supreme Court did not too long-ago rule that indeed that the White House could have more impact and more control over the regulatory process of the different agencies.

And this is Trump taking a cue from the court, something that they'd already laid out before the court acted in Project 2025, that this is what they plan to do. In other words, give the president control over every inch of the executive branch. What's the problem with it? The White House doesn't have expertise in all these areas. They can't jump one day from an SEC ruling or a clearance of a stock to the next day whether or not a license should be granted to somebody to broadcast.

[15:05:05]

They just don't have that kind of expertise. Under the old rulings, the court said we have to defer to the experts in the agencies. Under the new ruling, the court said White House can weigh in.

SANCHEZ: That's really fascinating. I do wonder what you make of this reporting from our Joan Biskupic that President Trump is viewing the Supreme Court's immunity decision last year amid his personal legal woes as a blank check to broaden his power and to bring these independent agencies under his purview as the executive.

One expert told her that Trump's team is completely misquoting and misunderstanding what the Supreme Court decided there. Do you agree?

DEAN: I do agree that that that is too far. This is the case of Trump versus the United States, where the Supreme Court surprised us with a 6-3 ruling that said presidents have immunity from any criminal prosecution during their time in office for official acts. So it's not very difficult to envision making anything the president does an official act and that's apparently the cue that the White House staff is taking.

The problem with it is if they're literally plotting criminal behavior, which this immunizes and they are doing it with the President, they're not immune. So, if - they indeed could be getting themselves in a heap of trouble when this administration ends, this president won't. Maybe he'll grant everybody a pardon who is involved in anything and everything that he did. That would be the only remedy because they don't have immunity to make these kind of criminal plans, if that's indeed what they're doing.

KEILAR: Jeff, is Trump looking to the Supreme Court to uphold executive actions that further expand his power?

ZELENY: There's no doubt they are. I mean, and let's look at one key piece of the language from that ruling last year that granted the president immunity in the criminal case. It's very instructive here. It said, "As the Court observed last Term, 'Congress' cannot act on and courts cannot examine, the President's actions on subject within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority."

So that is what the White House and White House counsel's office and really the whole idea and narrative of this presidency is using on a variety of things. But the bottom line to all of this, President Trump is eager to expand his executive authority. And most Republicans in Congress, who, of course, complained when Democratic administrations tried to expand their authority, which they do, they're being quiet. But we've never seen anything, at least in the modern day, like the Trump administration is trying to do across the government by expanding executive authority. Brianna and Boris?

SANCHEZ: And firing a ton of folks while they are at it. Jeff Zeleny and John Dean, thank you both.

To that point, you're fired and then rehired. Elon Musk and President Trump's plan to shrink the government is running into serious problems. Let's start at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The agency said in a statement that it's working on rescinding termination letters sent to employees who were working on the nation's bird flu response as hospitalizations for that virus tick up. We've also just learned the CDC has been trying to rescind terminations of workers who had protections or were doing jobs that others simply could not.

A source telling CNN that since Friday, more than 700 CDC employees had been fired. Also today, the Department of Veterans Affairs is now reinstating about a dozen people who had been fired that worked on the Veterans Crisis Line, a critical resource for vets. Over at the National Nuclear Security Administration. A scramble to reinstate more than 300 fired employees who were tasked with managing the nation's nuclear weapons. Two sources tell CNN that except for about 25 staffers, all of them were reinstated.

Most Americans are onboard with fighting waste, fraud and abuse, but some of the White House's claims about what's being discovered are outlandish, unverified or just flat out wrong, like this one about Social Security. Elon Musk and President Trump claim this chart shows 10s of millions of Social Security checks going to people over the age of a hundred, one apparently as old as 369, older than the union itself. When CNN asked where this chart came from, the Social Security Administration did not respond.

According to the SSA's most recent data, the number of beneficiaries, 99 or older, was actually less than 90,000. That lines up with the roughly 100,000 Americans estimated to be a hundred or older.

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Other DOGE claims appear to have some serious errors. The New York Times found that a now-canceled ICE contract, cited by DOGE as being worth $8 billion with a B, was really worth $8 million with an M. And then there's this claim that the White House thwarted $50 million in condoms for Gaza. Trump saying that Hamas was using those condoms in terror attacks. That claim made headlines around the world. But last week, while inside the Oval Office, Elon Musk admitted it was incorrect. The contraceptives, which weren't even condoms at all, were actually worth just over $5 million and they were going to Mozambique, a country where HIV is highly prevalent. Mozambique does have a province named Gaza, so maybe that is where the confusion started.

Joining us now to discuss this and more, Democratic congresswoman Melanie Stansbury. She's the ranking member of the Oversight DOGE Subcommittee.

Congresswoman, thank you so much for being with us. Notably, the White House has said that Elon Musk is not running DOGE, that he is simply an adviser to President Trump. I wonder if you know who the administrator of DOGE is and who should be held accountable for some of the mistakes that Musk acknowledged will happen.

REP. MELANIE STANSBURY (D-NM): Well, thank you so much for having me. I think we're all highly confused about what's going on. And it's very clear that the White House is scrambling to make any legal argument they can to insulate Elon Musk and Donald Trump from accountability and the application of the law, because they are very clearly breaking the law. And as was discussed just a few moments ago, Donald Trump is trying to reorder the Constitution to give himself unchecked executive authority. And it's very clear that Elon Musk is the sledgehammer that he's using to slash and burn the federal government.

And just three weeks ago, Donald Trump signed an executive order, stated very clearly that Elon Musk was leading the DOGE effort. Elon Musk is tweeting about it daily, but in legal filings, they're trying to claim that he's not leading it because they know what DOGE is doing, does not have the authority to do it.

So, it's very clear that Elon Musk is behind it. These unverifiable claims that are being put forward in the public sphere, we have no idea where they're coming from because there's no public oversight. And in the oversight committee and the subcommittee that I'm the ranking member for, we have called upon Elon Musk and even tried to subpoena him, but the Republicans in the House are blocking it.

So, right now, the best we can do to stop them in their tracks is to take him to court and to stop the just complete power grab that the White House is trying to do right now.

SANCHEZ: There are a lot of cases in court related to DOGE, and I want to ask you about that effort to sort of block what DOGE is doing, because when it comes to Judge Tanya Chutkan, she's an Obama appointed judge, she declined to block DOGE from accessing federal data. Her argument was that these 14 Democratic attorneys general failed to show - that they suffer imminent, irreparable harm from DOGE having access to these sensitive systems. Do you have evidence to the contrary?

STANSBURY: Well, listen, one of the challenges with these court cases is figuring out how to define standing and how these cases should be structured. But it's very clear that there is no American that I have met that believes that a private billionaire who has significant conflicts of interest, and millions, and billions of dollars in federal contracts should have access to private treasury payment systems to your private IRS, and business information to your Social Security information, and we don't even know what he's using this data for.

In fact, the folks who actually investigate waste, fraud and abuse are the inspector generals and Donald Trump fired them all on his first week in office. The experts that we talked to inside of the agencies are telling us it is not even possible to identify waste, fraud and abuse studying these data systems. And in the case of, for example, Social Security, it is actually a criminal act for anybody to access those data that is not an authorized person to do so.

So, with regards to this specific court ruling that was handed down a couple of days ago, the challenge, I think, has to do with how the states define their standing and the way in which the case was brought. But there is no question that Elon Musk and nobody should have access to that data because it will cause harm both to individuals and to the national security of the country.

SANCHEZ: What would be the consequence of Trump executing on this unitary executive theory, the idea that these independent regulatory agencies, or at least they were designated to be independent by Congress: the FTC, the FEC, if they fall under the purview of the executive and President Trump, what does that mean for everyday Americans?

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STANSBURY: Yes. Well, I think it's very clear that the President believes he's already executing that authority. You see his advisers like Stephen Miller and Elon Musk going on cable news and arguing that they have this authority, which they believe the Supreme Court has authorized essentially.

But listen, at the end of the day, what it looks like is they're trying to further rig the system. What does the SEC do? It regulates the stock market. Why are billionaires trying to take over control of the stock market? It is the place where money is made. And so, I think it's very clear that the takeover of these independent agencies is really about not only a power grab, but about further rigging the system.

Same with the FCC. This is the entity that regulates mass communications in this country. Why would you want to take over mass communications? If - you wanted to control how media operate and how communication systems operate?

SANCHEZ: Sure.

STANSBURY: So, I think this power grab is not only highly alarming, it should be very chilling for what we're facing democratically in this country right now.

SANCHEZ: I am curious, Congresswoman, because you describe an inability for Congress to subpoena Elon Musk to get records, et cetera. And you are essentially hoping that the judiciary through the court system will block what DOGE is trying to accomplish and will keep the executive branch in check. If these cases wind up before the Supreme Court, though, you know, this is a court that leans conservative. It's one that has shown it is willing to buck precedent. How confident are you that the Supreme Court is going to side with your view of things?

STANSBURY: Well, I think that many Americans, not just members of Congress, but constitutional scholars, people who understand the law, are very concerned that we're going to see a Supreme Court that is going to hand over unprecedented power to Donald Trump. However, what we have seen in the lower courts to date is that even Republican appointed judges understand the Constitution and are defending the separation of powers.

I also want to note that Congress does have the check and balance over the executive branch. And right now there is a three-seat difference in the House between Republicans and Democrats. All we need is three Republicans with a backbone who care about the Constitution and are willing to stand up to Donald Trump to stop him. But so far, we've seen a total unwillingness. And in fact, we're seeing Republican leadership not only supporting, but enabling this power grab.

And I think the warning to my colleagues is that we could lose everything. We could lose our country, and our democracy and our Constitution if they don't stand up to Donald Trump and this illegal power grab that he's doing right now. So, I encourage the public to continue to reach out to their members of Congress, especially on the Republican side of the aisle, because they have the power to stop Donald Trump in these illegal activities.

SANCHEZ: Congresswoman Melanie Stansbury, thanks so much for being with us.

STANSBURY: Thanks.

SANCHEZ: Still to come, President Trump taking on an ally and accusing Ukraine's president of being a dictator. We have fresh reaction from Kyiv.

Plus, multiple people have been charged in a nationwide burglary ring targeting some of the biggest names in sports. And the evidence includes apparent selfies taken by these alleged thieves during their crime spree.

And later, astronomers have just upped the odds of an asteroid hitting Earth that's been nicknamed a city killer. That's the most threatening level recorded in modern history for an asteroid. We'll be right back.

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KEILAR: Today, President Trump unleashed a war of words on President Zelenskyy of Ukraine. He posted on social media: "He refuses to have Elections, is very low in Ukrainian Polls, and the only thing he was good at was playing Biden 'like a fiddle.' A Dictator without Elections, Zelenskyy better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left."

Now, moments ago, we also heard more from Zelenskyy - more from him. Well, he didn't address the dictator remark. He did say the future is not Putin, but peace. Trump's jabs came after Zelenskyy had said that Trump lives in a disinformation space in response to Trump falsely saying that Ukraine had started the war.

With us now is Beth Sanner, former deputy director of National Intelligence.

And Beth, there's actually been some choice words from the Vice President for President Zelenskyy here that I'll share with you in just a moment, where he's basically warning him about criticizing Trump in public. But we'll get to that in just a second. I want to start with Trump's post where he's calling Zelenskyy a dictator because it came after Trump falsely claimed last night the Ukraine had started the war. Fact check this for us.

Beth, can you hear me?

BETH SANNER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, sorry, excuse me, just fact check the entire thing, sure.

KEILAR: No, just fact check about the starting of the war.

SANNER: Oh, okay, well, let's wind back to the very beginning of this when Russia was poised on the border, Brianna. And remember that there was U.S. intelligence that was released at that time. And the point of releasing this intelligence, this intelligence said that Russia was planning a false flag, meaning they were going to conduct an attack and blame Ukraine on it in order to justify the Russian invasion.

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Well, the intelligence community released that intelligence. And what that did was it took all of the plans of Putin to say that it was Ukraine's fault away and he just had to go in. So, you know, of course, there's no absolute no justification for this. But that is a - you know, it's almost opposite worlds because that was the plan all along by Russia to blame Ukraine. And it didn't work except now in this narrative, which is completely false.

KEILAR: And, of course, Ukraine before 2014, this was Ukraine before 2014. And when Russia was poised there, you can see that it had taken over some land already. So it had already started things previously. And that Trump claimed falsely as well that half the money Ukraine has received from the U.S. is missing and that Zelenskyy is admitting it. What he's referring to is Zelenskyy saying the Ukraine got 70 of the $175 billion dollars in U.S. aid. But that's actually because a lot of that money was paid to American weapons producers to make weapons for Ukraine and it's actually well accounted for, this is according to ...

SANNER: Right.

KEILAR: ... Trump's own Ukraine envoy. What is Trump doing here?

SANNER: I am not sure who is giving him this information. It is not true that the United States has given $300 billion. In fact, the EU and the U.S. combined is about 250. And the U.S. and the EU are roughly equal on this front. And so - and as you said, depending on the study you look at and how you count, you know, 70 percent of that money that has gone to Ukraine has actually gone into Americans' pockets, into U.S. industry. It has helped us rebuild our defense industrial base, we've opened up new defense lines.

I mean, a lot of people say I agree completely with this idea that without the war in Ukraine, we would be so much further behind in preparing for the war on China because we've given them old equipment and we're building up new equipment with new industrial base factories.

KEILAR: And then, I also want to touch base on what we just learned, which is that Vice President J.D. Vance, who did some print interviews today, cautioned Zelenskyy against criticizing Trump in public. He called it disgraceful. He said it was counterproductive. "The idea," this is the quote, "that Zelenskyy is going to change the President's mind by bad mouthing him in public media, everyone knows who the President will tell that that is - everyone who knows the President will tell you that is an atrocious way to deal with this administration." I mean, I wonder because we should note exactly what Zelenskyy has said here. He has said, unfortunately, that he lives in a disinformation space. I think we should note he did say some kind of nice things about respecting the presidency, respecting Trump, respecting America. But that thing he said was no doubt going to get under Trump's skin. What was Zelenskyy's calculus on that?

SANNER: Well, let's start with the idea that Vance is right about this. And Zelenskyy said one thing that pushed the biggest button for President Trump that he has, which is that he's a tool of Russia. And let's be frank that there is a lot of disinformation in this space that is American, right? Like, we don't need Russia to make this stuff up for us because we have Americans saying these things on their own at this point. So, you know, that is, I think, part of the problem here.

KEILAR: All right. Beth Sanner, thank you so much. We do appreciate it.

And next, the key hearing that could determine the fate of the federal corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams just wrapped. We are live from New York next.

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