Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Consumer Confidence Dropping; Republicans Face Internal Budget Battle; Employees Resign in Protest Over DOGE. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired February 25, 2025 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:40]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Mass protest resignation. Twenty-one federal employees quit over Elon Musk's DOGE efforts. The workers are described as the most skilled people leading work on critical projects across the government. We will take a closer look at the fallout.

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN HOST: Plus, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth goes to Gitmo, the very base where suspected terrorists have been held now being used to house deported migrants. We will tell you what we know about this visit.

And newly unsealed court documents in the Idaho quadruple murder case. Ahead, we're going to tell you what we're learning about DNA evidence used to find the suspect, along with new details from a surviving roommate.

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

KEILAR: We do begin the hour with breaking news.

More than 20 federal employees who had been working for Elon Musk's DOGE just resigned in what is being seen as a mass protest. These are people who worked for the U.S. Digital Service before the agency became the Department of Government Efficiency.

CNN's Sunlen Serfaty is covering this breaking story.

These, we should mention, are some of the top technology experts in the government. What more are you learning?

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: They are. They are highly skilled workers, Brianna. These are the top of the top that have been in federal government for years. We're talking engineers, designers, data scientists, project managers.

And the way it was described to me, these are people who are taking place and leading some of the most critical projects across the government. Now, this was, according to my source I spoke today, a mass protest, 21 total technology workers, which is certainly significant, and specifically against -- protesting against DOGE's efforts.

The source tells me it is people who don't want to be a part of this. For this group, it is a protest. They just don't want to be a part of this. And the resignation letter, which we have now obtained, notably, the resignation letter -- was specifically spelled out that they addressed this to Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff.

And in the letter, they say, in part -- quote -- "We will not use our skills as technologists to compromise core government systems, jeopardize Americans' sensitive data, or dismantle critical public services." And they go on to add: "We will not lend our expertise to carry out or legitimize DOGE's actions."

And the source that I spoke to about this said that this goes back to, obviously, the Valentine's Day firings that we have reported a lot about. The next Tuesday was the first time the staff meeting was called and led by a DOGE employee for the very first time. And the message from this DOGE employee to this specific team, as part of USDS, U.S. Digital Services, the message was, let's turn the page. I know it's been a hard time, but let's keep going forward.

And this source says that that did not go over very well within the group. And then that set off this discussion on, what can we do? What is there to save? Do we really want to stay here? And that this decision was made among this very small team that we should go ahead and resign in protest on the same day. And that day is today. And the source noted -- who is still there -- noted that they expect more resignations to follow.

KEILAR: Will they have a significant negative impact on what DOGE is doing, or will this just be kind of a drop in the bucket and more symbolic?

SERFATY: This particular team at USDS was 163. They lost 43 on the Valentine's Day firing. And then you dropped down another 21 today. So we're looking at those numbers deteriorating within this team at USDS. But keep in mind, these are people that know a lot of things about how the federal government work. They are engineers, data scientists.

These are people with access to critical information systems. So the sign of -- that many of them are going and potentially many more does not portend a very good future.

KEILAR: Yes, that's a good point. All right, Sunlen, thank you so much for the report -- Omar.

JIMENEZ: Well, Brianna, we're also following shifting guidance surrounding Elon Musk's "What did you do last week?" e-mail and whether federal workers can be fired if they don't respond.

Well, we have learned updated guidance was sent out late last night by the Office of Personnel Management. In this new guidance, which was obtained by CNN, replies to Musk's e-mail are not described as voluntary. And it leaves the door open for employees to be penalized for not responding.

[13:05:00]

Now, the new memo was sent out just minutes after Musk put on X that workers would be given another chance to respond to the e-mail and that -- quote -- "failure to respond a second time will result in termination."

CNN's Rene Marsh joins us now.

And, Rene, look, earlier OPM said one thing. Then another thing comes out. What is actually going on here?

RENE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The question is, what do people do and who do they follow and what will happen to them if they don't follow the instructions or comply with this e-mail?

And the answer is -- it may not be satisfying -- is, it remains to be seen, and it really depends on which agency you're at as far as what instructions you're opposed to follow. So, for example, at the Justice Department and the Defense Department, they told their employees not to comply, but at the Transportation and the Education Department, they told their employees that they should comply.

But this all started over the weekend, but once workers came back to work, the confusion really only intensified. I want you to just take a look at the back-and-forth on Monday alone. They arrived at work after Musk threatened that they must comply with this e-mail or face termination.

By 6:00 p.m., that changed to replying was voluntary. And then about an hour later, Musk doubled down -- doubles down and he says that there will be terminations if they don't comply with his e-mail request.

And by the end of the night on Monday, a new memo stating that employees should send their responses to their agency heads, and agencies -- and I'm quoting -- "should review responses and evaluate nonresponses and consider factors like whether employees are on excused leave."

The bottom line is, this has left the federal work force, which is already sort of mentally shaken from all of the layoffs and the paid leave, now this has just added more chaos and confusion into the mix.

The labor unions who represent a lot of these federal workers, they remain with the stance that this is illegal and that these federal employees are not obligated by law to report to anyone outside of their chain of command beyond their managers within their agencies, and the union calling it just another example of chaos and the callous nature of how the Trump administration is treating the federal employees.

So that's where we're at, but, again, still so many people asking me the question via text message, these are federal employees, whose directions should we listen to, which is unclear.

JIMENEZ: And there's been a lot of direction coming from all sorts of places, going back to even Friday.

Rene Marsh, really appreciate you staying on top of all of it for us. Thank you -- Brianna.

MARSH: Sure.

KEILAR: Let's talk now to a federal worker. Dr. Matthew Brown is a neuroscientist and a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institutes of Health. He's also the recording secretary for the union NIH Fellows United.

And, Dr. Brown, we should note, is speaking in his personal capacity, not on behalf of NIH.

So, Dr. Brown, we should note, here in the last week, 1,100 people have been fired at NIH while research funding has been put on hold. Walk us through what that means.

DR. MATTHEW BROWN, FEDERAL WORKER: Well, Brianna, thank you so much for the opportunity to speak about this. I'm really happy to be here.

But, yes, the funding freezes and the terminations at the NIH will have a dire effect on health care for Americans in the future. The work that we do here at the NIH and the work that goes on at institutions outside of the NIH is things like finding cures for cancer, finding treatments for Alzheimer's, finding preventions for chronic diseases.

And with the halts to funding that we're seeing and the terminations that we're seeing at NIH itself, that work will be put on hold indefinitely or potentially canceled. And that's going to have a dire effect on Americans' health care.

KEILAR: I spoke with one fired federal employee who had a key research position at the Ground Zero health program, which is in charge of tracking, making sure that people who were exposed to toxic air at Ground Zero, some of whom are now suffering very serious respiratory conditions, cancers, that they get the treatment that they should be getting.

Do you get the sense that there was an awareness on the part of the Trump administration about the kinds of people they were getting rid of with this first round of firings?

BROWN: Well, I certainly can't speak to the motivations of the Trump administration, besides the fact that they want to sow chaos and discord among the federal work force.

Here at the NIH, we are working tirelessly, often on nights and weekends, to do these things that I mentioned before, like work on cancer and heart disease. And we shouldn't have to do things like opt into our jobs from e-mails from people who are not our managers sent in the afternoon a weekend in order to continue doing that for the American public.

[13:10:18]

And so whether or not they're aware of the hard work that we do is somewhat immaterial really. What this is, it's an attack on federal workers. They want our jobs to feel more precarious and unsafe than they really are. And no matter what, they want to attack the hard work that we do for Americans.

KEILAR: Did you get the e-mail asking what you did at your job last week?

BROWN: It's funny you should ask. I actually did not receive that e- mail, and among the 5,000 researchers of our union, the vast majority of whom did not receive that e-mail.

But we did receive the six, seven or eight follow-up e-mails telling us how to respond to the e-mail that we never got in the first place. And this really goes to the disordered and chaotic rollout, if you can call it that, of this strange e-mail. It really was not thought out well. It was not meant to improve efficiency. It was not made -- meant -- it was not made to make our government work better.

It actually had a severely deleterious effect on the federal work force.

KEILAR: And so, real quickly, are you going to respond to it then?

BROWN: No, I'm not planning on responding to the e-mail that I never received in the first place.

KEILAR: OK.

BROWN: And I don't think any other federal workers should have to either.

KEILAR: OK so I want to ask you because I was -- and I think a lot of people are reading about some of the things, for instance, that the federal government does or that NIH does.

And one of the things I saw, for instance, was a breakthrough in what is now so popular, these GLP-1 medications, that started actually as research in lizard saliva decades ago. And to that point, I wonder what you would say to people who look at some of these things that kind of look strange as they're being researched, but ultimately might lead to some kind of breakthrough, or maybe they don't, but you're not going to know unless you look at it.

What do you say to people who have questions about that kind of research?

BROWN: Well, it's a valid concern. It's difficult to see the path between lizard saliva and Ozempic. And it's understandable that there would be some confusion over that.

But the fact of the matter is that, at the NIH and at the institutions that are receiving funding from NIH, we are trying to tackle some of the most complex questions that have ever happened in biomedical sciences. There's no easy answer to curing Alzheimer's disease. There's no easy answer to preventing heart disease.

And so to get to these answers, those require years and years of very hard work by some of the most dedicated scientists that I have ever had the pleasure of working with. And getting to those answers is just not always going to be a straightforward path. If there was something easy out there, we wouldn't be dealing with these diseases, right?

And so, yes, sometimes, the path can be complicated and not very obvious at first. But that shouldn't stop us from trying. That shouldn't make us throw our hands up and throw away Americans' health care just so that -- just because it's not immediately obvious what some of this work might end up being.

KEILAR: Dr. Brown, thanks for being with us. It's so important to get an inside look, and we appreciate it.

BROWN: It's my pleasure. Thank you so much.

KEILAR: Ahead this hour on CNN NEWS CENTRAL: gearing up for an intraparty fight and a possible government shutdown, House leadership saying it will vote on its budget blueprint as soon as tonight, despite a number of Republican lawmakers saying they won't support it.

And then later: Court documents have just been unsealed in the Bryan Kohberger case. Hear what prosecutors just revealed about the alleged murder weapon.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:18:38]

KEILAR: Today, President Trump is set to meet with some House Republican lawmakers to ramp up the pressure ahead of their pivotal vote on a huge budget blueprint.

The plan here is a crucial first step in advancing Trump's agenda. It's a big test for Speaker Mike Johnson as he's scrambling to shore up support with a razor-thin Republican majority. Already, GOP hard- liners have threatened to block it.

CNN's Lauren Fox is live for us on Capitol Hill.

Lauren, tell us where things stand right now.

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, there's still a huge question as to whether or not House Republicans are going to be putting this budget resolution the floor in the 6:00 p.m. hour.

That had been the original plan, but just a few short minutes ago, we had heard from Speaker Mike Johnson, who said there may be a vote tonight, there may not be a vote tonight, stay tuned, and then joked with the press corps in the room, "That's why you all get paid to be here."

Obviously, we are all on the edge of our seats, as Speaker Johnson behind closed doors is really scrambling to get the votes that he needs to pass this budget resolution, a critical first step to advancing Donald Trump's agenda ahead in the next several weeks. Now, one of the key questions remains whether or not Johnson can sort

of square this circle around the fact that there are conservatives who believe that this budget blueprint doesn't cut spending severely enough. Then you have some swing district Republicans who are very concerned about the scope of these cuts and what it could mean to programs like Medicaid that a lot of their constituents rely upon.

[13:20:10]

Another key question is, what influence is Donald Trump going to have? We expect that a group of House Republicans are going to be headed to the White House. But it's really interesting, because, a couple of hours ago, one of the key things that emerged was that perhaps Donald Trump is not in the position where he supports steep Medicaid cuts.

In fact, I talked to Representative Van Drew last night. He said he had a conversation with Donald Trump about how he was leaning against voting for this budget blueprint because of concerns about what it could do to Medicare and Medicaid. And when I asked him, what did Donald Trump tell you, he said that Donald Trump understood his concerns.

So it's going to be really interesting. Is this going to be an opportunity for Trump to whip members? Is this more of an opportunity for Trump to listen to members when they all leave the room? Is Donald Trump going to be asking for their support? Or is Donald Trump going to be convinced that perhaps he doesn't want to move forward with this House budget plan?

So despite the fact that Speaker Johnson has done a lot of work to try to convince Donald Trump to be on his side in this House push to try to pass one big bill, it's really unclear right now where things stand and if Johnson's going to have the votes he needs.

And we should just point out that if Johnson cannot advance this very first step, it makes it really hard to see how they can come together to actually legislate $4.5 trillion in tax cuts, how they're going to raise the debt ceiling, which is going to contribute to about $4 trillion in debt over the next several years.

Those are some of the tough questions that Johnson's going to be asking himself if they can't even get this blueprint off the floor.

KEILAR: All right, Lauren Fox, thank you for that -- Omar.

JIMENEZ: Well, a new survey today finds Americans are getting increasingly worried about the economy.

According to the report, consumer confidence dropped for a third straight month, dropping seven points since January. That's really the largest monthly decline in four years. The reason, fears over stubborn inflation and President Trump's aggressive tariffs plan.

Joining us now for more on this is Jeff Stein, White House economics reporter for "The Washington Post."

Good to see you.

So I guess let's just start with the basics. How are Americans feeling and why?

JEFF STEIN, WHITE HOUSE ECONOMICS REPORTER, "THE WASHINGTON POST": I think there's quite a degree, as you mentioned, of pessimism, fear, unease.

And I think it's easy to sort of pinpoint the president and his sort of chaotic economic agenda, particularly with the tariffs. But I think it also goes deeper than this. Even during Biden, there was deep pessimism about the structural forces in the American economy, a sense that people were not only not getting ahead, but falling behind.

And these are sort of large, systemic questions that have been exacerbated by a sense of fear about the sort of short-term implications of what the president has threatened to do to America's very largest trading partners.

JIMENEZ: And so let's dive into that, because, yes, a lot of structural issues with the economy, and it didn't just this -- even if uncertainty is playing a role here, it didn't just start up in the last 30 days.

Is this, do you believe, driven in any sense by, look, we had a campaign where at least many Republicans were promising a drop in prices, or at least a fix, pretty quickly to some of the economic troubles that a lot of Americans have faced, and then it hasn't quite happened as quickly as maybe some might have believed?

Does that play into any of the pessimism, or is it more of, well, we just don't know about what's ahead?

STEIN: I think that's a really fair and good point. You see in the data that Republicans have seen their consumer confidence massively improve, and Democrats have seen theirs massively decline, which is sort of what everyone expected.

But when you look at independents, many of whom voted for Trump and may have expected to see some improvement, they are also becoming more pessimistic. And so that suggests that maybe there was, as you're saying, a sense of optimism, with Trump coming in, that he could do something different, that he would have a change in direction in policies and are being disappointed by what they're seeing.

And what they're seeing, frankly, is the sense that inflation was on its way out, and not just that inflation was on its way out, but that the easing of inflation would allow the Federal Reserve to cut rates, which would allow people to buy homes, which allow auto loans to become cheaper. All these things that could be unlocked by the easing and the abating of inflation now seems forestalled.

And that coupled with a sense that the political solutions are not solvable with the flick of a wand or the stroke of a pen signing a tariff is, I think, part of the gloom that a lot of people feel and are likely to face for the foreseeable future. [13:25:02]

JIMENEZ: Never mind bird flu driving up egg prices or something external like that coming in as a surprise.

Just before we go, obviously, a lot of economic policy ahead as far as what Trump wants, tax cuts, deregulation, cutting government spending, obviously tariffs expected to be a big part of his plan as well. Will it -- will that solve, I guess, some of the structural issues that we have spoken about that led up to his inauguration and, of course, the start of his presidency?

STEIN: Yes, I mean, obviously, the president would say that it would.

I think the buzz from the Hill is that the most likely scenario, according to the sources I speak to, is that they largely just extend the tax cuts already in place. So it's a little hard to see exactly how that generates a turnaround in economic sentiment if the best-case scenario for tax cuts is essentially what people are paying now is the same that they pay next year.

Trump, of course, believes that tariffs will lead to this massive onshoring of U.S. manufacturing and factory jobs. But in the best of circumstance, that takes a long time to happen. And in the worst and sort of most probabilistic circumstance, you're going to see an increase in the price of imports in the short term.

Trump has even acknowledged at points that there will be short-term pain for this to take effect. So I don't want to be the bringer of -- bearer of bad news for the president, but it's just hard to see what levers are at his disposal that he would pull in the short term to get that sentiment number back up, which is something I'm sure President Biden could relate to.

JIMENEZ: Yes.

Jeff Stein, really appreciate the time, reporting, perspective, all the above. Thanks for being here.

All right, coming up next...

(CROSSTALK)

STEIN: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

JIMENEZ: Of course.

Coming up next: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth heads to Guantanamo Bay, as CNN learns only about out two dozen migrants are being held at the Naval base, how the administration's goal of 30,000 detainees is hitting some obstacles.

Plus, yet another miss in our nation's skies, this time at Chicago's Midway Airport. We will bring you the details after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [13:30:00]