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Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT) Speaks With CNN Following Protests Outside Office; CEO Warns Aluminum Tariffs Could Cost 100,000 American Jobs; Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) On Senate Vote To End President Trump's National Energy Emergency. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired February 26, 2025 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:30:00]

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: There was a federal judge in Seattle who essentially stopped the administration trying to block the money going to the nation's refugee admissions program. That's one.

The second one -- case that came in yesterday from a judge in Washington, D.C., Judge Amir Ali. He said that there were nonprofits out there working with USAID -- so foreign aid contractors' nonprofits. They were supposed to have money flowing to them up to February 13 and they weren't. They -- that funding was not restored.

And so that judge said to those -- to the federal government you have to turn that money back on. That needs to be paid to these nonprofits and contractors by midnight tonight. And the federal government then came back overnight and said it's $2 billion. We can't just turn the money back on.

So that is a live ball in court. We're going to have to see exactly how the judge responds there.

And then the third piece of this, another very significant order from Judge Loren Alikhan also in Washington, D.C. She was looking at the broad funding freeze that the administration tried to put in place and then rescind. And she said this could have been economically catastrophic, even fatal to nonprofit groups that had sued -- that was -- that they were expecting money from the federal government. She said it just doesn't appear that it was done right. This case is going to continue.

But Judge Alikhan wrote in her opinion, "In the simplest terms, the freeze was ill-conceived from the beginning. Defendants either wanted to pause up to $3 trillion in federal spending practically overnight, or they expected each federal agency to review every single one of its grants, loans, and funds for compliance in less than 24 hours. The breadth of that command is almost unfathomable."

So now, Sara, we do watch to see how the administration responds. As they noted in their filing in response to this order from Judge Ali on the USAID foreign aid funding getting turned back on, it's not that easy to put the genie back in the bottle once they have turned off this funding.

And so these cases do continue in court. There is a long road ahead and potentially --

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Yeah.

POLANTZ: -- a lot more clashes and a lot more people in court saying we need our money now.

SIDNER: Yeah. It's never good when a judge uses the word "unfathomable" about some argument being made by one side or the other.

I do want to ask you about the White House suspending some security clearances. What are you hearing about whose security clearances are being suspended and why?

POLANTZ: Well, this was a memorandum from the president yesterday, signed by him, suspending the security clearances of lawyers that may be working with former special counsel Jack Smith. So this is the prosecutor that brought those two criminal cases against Trump -- classified documents and the 2020 election case. Those cases are now dismissed with no final judgments determined on them.

And Smith, after he left the Justice Department as special counsel, went and got his own lawyers as a private citizen because there have been many threats from both Donald Trump and his allies -- Republicans, especially in Congress -- that there will be investigations of Smith and his work.

And so he's using lawyers from the major Washington law firm Covington & Burling. They're working pro bono. But now the White House says they're going to be losing their security clearances if they have them -- the sort of thing that allows them to do their job related to national security information on a daily basis -- Sara.

SIDNER: Yeah. The retribution tour seems to be continuing.

Katelyn Polantz, thank you so much for all your reporting -- John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. This morning members of Congress hearing anger back home and in some cases getting angry themselves.

More than 100 protesters appeared outside the local offices of Republican Congressman Ryan Zinke in Missoula and Bozeman, Montana. NBC Montana reports, "The group of protesters claimed Zinke puts public figures, including President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, before his constituents."

This comes as some Republicans in Congress are starting to publicly criticize Musk and his ultimatums on the federal workforce.

This was Republican Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) REP. NICOLE MALLIOTAKIS (R-NY): And I think some of this is happening too fast and furiously. There are rash decisions being made. And it needs to kind of slow down a little bit and involve the people who are actually appointed to head these agencies to incorporate efficiencies and changes.

BERMAN: It sounds like you think Musk went too far in this one case.

MALLIOTAKIS: Well, yes, I do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: All right. With me now is the aforementioned congressman Ryan Zinke, a Republican from Montana. Congressman, great to see you.

So when it comes to Elon Musk are you on, like, team Malliotakis that he's going a little too far, or team, sort of, unfettered action?

REP. RYAN ZINKE (R-MT): Well, you know, I enjoy the shakeup. The first thing is to expose fraud, abuse, and I think he's done that. The second thing is confirm it.

You know, at the heart of the matter is we're looking at a budget, right, and you have savings on one side for looking at fraud, waste, and abuse, and then you have new expenditures on tax extensions and some of the campaign promises like no tax on tips. So it's a balancing act.

[07:35:10]

But with the -- with the case of DOGE -- look, I am all for exposing fraud. USAID -- it is unfathomable, to use the previous word -- unfathomable that you would have that degree of fraud in USAID.

I mean, we can argue whether or not taxpayer dollars are sufficient or perhaps useful, or even justified, but you can't argue against fraud, abuse. And what we're seeing is a scale of what's happening in some of our branches of government.

BERMAN: Yeah. Respectfully, that wasn't my question. My question was do you think Musk is going too far and, in some cases, is doing it without any checks and balances? Look, you were secretary of the interior. And to quote Malliotakis, the congresswoman was basically saying that Musk should not be going over the heads of these Senate- confirmed cabinet secretaries.

ZINKE: Well, I don't think he is and they're working in coordination. And quite frankly, you look at the Department of Interior, for instance. You have a secretary and you have very few Senate-confirmed people around it. The Department of Interior has seven, you know -- I'm sorry, 17 Senate-confirmed positions and right now you have one. So you look across the board -- so who is going to do this?

At the end of the day I'm for it. But remember, the president is the President of the United States. Musk is not. And the president is control and to a degree I think exposing it is great. The challenge is once you expose it you have to confirm actually their savings in there. And what he's doing is correct. And then we'll look at Congress doing action to make sure that we correct the overall piece of it.

BERMAN: You were part of the group that passed the Republican budget blueprint last night, barely.

ZINKE: Barely.

BERMAN: How much would you like to see cut from Medicaid?

ZINKE: Well, there is zero mention of cutting Medicaid. There is zero mention of cutting Social Security because you can't. But it is -- again, it's a balancing thing that you -- we have $26 trillion in debt --

BERMAN: Um-hum.

ZINKE: -- and growing. Is -- what you have is the savings by removing the fraud and abuse, right, and efficiency. And then you have what -- you know, the expenditures are the tax provisions. And the tax provisions do cost money.

But we don't want to go in debt doing this. I mean, you have to recognize that $26 trillion -- the reason why we're here is spending, spending, spending. Relax -- you know, pull back on the spending and make sure we have a plan that we don't go in debt with the -- with the taxes provisions extending that -- again, that cost money. And also --

BERMAN: Yeah.

ZINKE: -- the savings, we've got to make sure they balance out. And that -- and that's what the --

BERMAN: You know --

ZINKE: -- argument is about. It's just a simple ledger sheet.

BERMAN: But, of course, you know that this blueprint did call on the Energy Committee, which oversees Medicare and Medicaid -- that they have to cut at least, what, $880 billion. And plenty of people look at that and say you can't get there without cutting Medicaid.

So again, my direct question, which you didn't really address, is how much would you be willing to cut from Medicaid?

ZINKE: It's a balance. Again, it's a ledger sheet.

BERMAN: So some --

ZINKE: If we're going to do tax provisions --

BERMAN: You'd be willing to cut some?

ZINKE: -- then you have to make sure it's balanced. What we're going to do is not go in debt. Now, $850 billion is a goal. Again, it's over a 10-year cycle. Do you

think there's fraud in there at that scale? Likely, there's pretty close. But there's also things we can do like work requirements, like efficiency.

BERMAN: Um-hum.

ZINKE: Government is the last resort, it's not the first. So when you -- when you look at Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, Social Security is off because it's reconciliation. But it doesn't mean you can't make improvements on it. And then you get rid of the waste, fraud, and abuse.

BERMAN: All I'm asking is if you are going to tell your constituents? Again, waste, fraud, abuse. It's some. You're willing to cut some -- look for some cuts in Medicaid, yes?

ZINKE: I will look at getting rid of the waste, fraud, and abuse. And again, Elon Musk has said there could be a trillion dollars with a "t" -- a trillion dollars in waste, fraud, and abuse. But again, that's what he says. We have to confirm that's what it is. And if it is confirmed then you can have the savings of it.

So we're not going to cut benefits. What we're going to do is make it more efficiently. And if there's fraud, waste, and abuse I think America -- I know America doesn't want fraud, waste, and abuse. We see the abuse in USAID. We see it in programs. We see it in the spending. Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security. It's no different if there's fraud, waste, and abuse we have an obligation to go after it.

BERMAN: You know, the other night -- or the other day the United States voted alongside Russia and others against calling Russia an aggressor in Ukraine. And you served all over the world. Do you see Russia as an aggressor in Ukraine?

[07:40:05]

ZINKE: Well, there's no doubt in my mind that Putin is the aggressor.

You know, on Ukraine, I think it's important to look at the context -- is that you look -- fold it back. What was happening?

Number one, we left Afghanistan and we no longer had the respect and certainly not the trust of our allies. You remember Britain censored us. The Parliament censored us. That's the last time that, like, 1812 since that happened.

So I think Russia looked at it. Putin's a war criminal. He said America is weak. And Ukraine was pushing NATO, which in NATO it means is that folks from Montana will go to fight on Donbas, which no one knows where it is, in defense of Ukraine. So that was NATO, and they were pushing the Crimean Peninsula. Those two things along with the horrendous retreat in Afghanistan gave an opportunity.

Putin was the aggressor. I don't think there's -- that's not in dispute in my mind. BERMAN: OK. Just the United States voted against that.

But thank you, Congressman Ryan Zinke from Montana. Great to have you on this morning -- appreciate it -- Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: So President Trump signed another executive order -- this one ordering the Commerce Department to open an investigation into the copper industry, potentially paving the way for another round of tariffs, this one on copper imports.

We already know that 25 percent tariffs on all aluminum and steel are about to set in next month. And about that, the leader of one of the nation's largest aluminum makers is warning those tariffs could costs thousands of American jobs.

That's where CNN's Matt Egan comes in and he's got more reporting on this. Talk to me about what you are learning about the impacts that they're projecting these tariffs are going to have on aluminum.

MATT EGAN, CNN REPORTER: Yeah, Kate. This is a stark warning from a major American CEO. Now we know the president views tariffs as a way to protect American workers --

BOLDUAN: Yeah.

EGAN: -- and, in this case, the aluminum industry. But here we have the CEO of a major aluminum company saying --

BOLDUAN: Who you would think would want to protect the aluminum industry.

EGAN: Exactly. That's why it was so startling. And they're saying that it's going to do the exact opposite.

So we're talking about the CEO of Alcoa. He is warning that these 25 percent tariffs that are set to go into effect on aluminum imports next month would wipe out 100,000 jobs in the aluminum industry.

Now, they say 20,000 directly in the aluminum industry itself. That is significant. That's about 12 percent of the total workforce. Plus, 80,000 indirect jobs could be wiped out. This is in industries that are supported by the aluminum sector, like mining, and construction, and manufacturing.

And the Alcoa CEO -- he did not mince words here. He flat out said, "...this is bad for the aluminum industry in the U.S. It's bad for American workers."

Now what's key here is that Alcoa imports aluminum from Canada -- a lot of it. And so they're worried about how much more expensive that's going to get. The U.S. imports every single year $27 billion of aluminum, including mostly from Canada but also from China, Mexico, the UAE, and South Korea. That's why Alcoa wants an exemption here for aluminum that comes from Canada.

Now, the White House -- they're pushing back, right? They're saying 1) a lot of these international companies that are in aluminum -- they import it very cheaply and that hurts U.S. workers. And they say that these tariffs are necessary to safeguard national security and bring back aluminum jobs to America.

One last point on that front though because the aluminum -- the Alcoa CEO was asked about this, and he was kind of skeptical about whether or not they'll actually be able to reshore jobs because he said they make these decisions based on 20- or 40-year horizons --

BOLDUAN: Oh.

EGAN: -- and there's so much uncertainty right now about where tariffs are going.

BOLDUAN: That's really interesting.

What -- that's the impact on the aluminum industry. What about the impact on the economy overall?

EGAN: Well listen, first off, you're talking about job loss potentially, right? We've heard from not just the Alcoa CEO. The CEO of Coca-Cola has said that they might have to shift to make more of their drinks in glass and plastic and that could hurt some of the canning companies that they support. They're also warning of higher prices.

We've heard from brewing companies, especially craft brewers --

BOLDUAN: Yeah.

EGAN: -- who said that beer cans could get more expensive.

And consumers are starting to get more concerned about this. We learned yesterday that consumer confidence fell in February by the most in 3 1/2 years.

And most notably consumers are expecting higher prices. Look at this. They're now expecting prices to go up by six percent over the next year. That is a major acceleration of what people were expecting just a month ago.

And The Conference Board, which conducts this survey -- they said that one of the reasons for this price spike anticipation that we're seeing from consumers is because of tariffs.

BOLDUAN: It's -- and still, whenever we have the president's trade adviser on, he still says despite knowing that consumer sentiment is down in all of this he still says trust us and just wait and see. And that's the --

EGAN: Yeah.

BOLDUAN: -- response.

EGAN: Well, we'll see what happens.

BOLDUAN: That's exactly right.

[07:45:00]

EGAN: Thank you, Kate.

BOLDUAN: Thank you, Matt -- John.

BERMAN: All right. This morning a couple who was forced to sit next to a dead body on a flight for hours -- that couple is speaking out. Their new claims about the airline's response.

And this morning new details about where to get the best coffee in the world. This is according to a new ranking list. And I've got to say I kind of find this list outrageous.

(COMMERCIAL)

[07:50:00]

SIDNER: All right. Where is the world's best coffee shop? Those cheap, delicious, cafe Cubano places in Miami perhaps, or the edgy New York joints, or perhaps the chill L.A. star-infused shots? Nope -- sorry. You'll have to go to Sydney, Australia. After expert evaluation and thousands of public votes Sydney-based Toby's Estate Coffee Roasters was crowned the best coffee in the world.

But you will never guess where the runner-up -- second in class came. It was Onyx Coffee. It's called Onyx Coffee Lab in Rogers, Arkansas. You guessed it -- no, you didn't.

The cafes were judged on multiple factors including the quality of coffee, and food sustainability, and customer service. Congratulations to you there in Arkansas.

All right, officials in Belize are investigating after the bodies of three American women were found at a resort. The Associated Press reports the women were found at the Royal Kahal Beach Resort in San Pedro, and that police are investigating the deaths as possible drug overdoses. They say the bodies were found by hotel staff and that there were no signs of forced entry or any visible injuries.

And a search is underway for the wife of a California fire captain who was found fatally stabbed in her home last week. According to an arrest warrant surveillance video from the couple's home shows Captain Becky Marodi running from her wife, yelling, "Please, I don't want to die." Authorities say Yolanda Marodi responded in the video saying, "You should have thought about that before."

Yolanda Marodi is believed to have traveled across the border to Mexico after that incident. Marodi was found with multiple stab wounds to her neck, chest, and abdomen.

Yolanda was sentenced in 2004 after pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter in the fatal stabbing of her then-husband.

And two different passenger planes in two different cities were forced to abort their landings yesterday according to The New York Times. An American Airlines flight was preparing to land at Reagan National Airport in Arlington when it suddenly canceled its landing to avoid colliding with another plane preparing to take off from that same runway.

Then almost 90 minutes later, a Southwest flight called off its landing at Chicago's Midway after a private plane entered its intended runway space. The two planes came very close -- about 2,000 feet within each other. Passengers say they are extremely grateful for the quick actions of the pilot.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EMILY NOVAK, PASSENGER ON SOUTHWEST FLIGHT: I just feel very thankful for who we had flying our plane.

CALEY MASZK, PASSENGER ON SOUTHWEST FLIGHT: Yes. And I was already kind of anxious going on a plane just because of what's been happening this year so far with all the flights crashing and things happening. So I was already anxious. And then when that happened, I was extra thankful. Very thankful for the pilot and everyone who was involved.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: Totally understandable.

Flexjet, the company that operates the private jet, says it has launched an investigation into that incident -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Geez, that video is terrifying.

SIDNER: Scary.

BOLDUAN: So today Senate Democrats are expected to force a vote on the Senate floor on an effort to end the national energy emergency that President Trump declared in one of his very first moves in taking office. Democratic Senators Tim Kaine and Martin Heinrich are spearheading this effort and calling it a "sham emergency" benefitting the big oil companies.

Joining us right now is Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia. It's good to see you, Senator. Thank you so much.

SEN. TIM KAINE (D-VA): Thanks, Kate.

BOLDUAN: So this vote --

KAINE: You bet.

BOLDUAN: -- not likely to go anywhere given the Republican majority, and you know that.

What is the point that you were trying to prove then with this?

KAINE: Um, we're trying to point out that Donald Trump is lying about an energy emergency to benefit big oil, but he's going to hurt consumers because prices will go -- will go up and jobs will be cut.

We're not in an energy emergency. The U.S. is producing more energy that we ever have. More oil, more gas, and more renewables. Ninety- five percent of what we added to the grid last year was wind, solar, and battery storage, so we are the energy leader in the world.

But Donald Trump met with big oil executives in August and said if you support my campaign, I will undo green energy on day one, and that's what this is about. He declared an energy emergency that doesn't exist and then he said we need to bypass many environmental laws, like the Clean Water Act, to benefit fossil fuel projects -- specifically, excluding benefitting wind and solar. And, in fact, Donald Trump is unplugging wind, solar, and alternative energy projects all over the country, including in Virginia, in ways that will drive costs up and cost us jobs.

BOLDUAN: So you have that effort, but you also have another effort that you're taking on with other senators. You sent a letter to the transportation secretary asking for a response to questions about the impact the mass firings have happened throughout the government on the FAA and airline safety.

I mean, we were just -- Sara was just reporting on another very close call that we saw happen in Chicago.

I assume you have not gotten a response yet from Secretary Duffy.

[07:55:00]

Do you think airline safety has been compromised by the some-400 firings at the FAA? I mean, do you think it is less safe?

KAINE: Yes. It -- there may -- the Trump administration is making air travel less safe by their actions.

Kate, you know that a year ago I begged with my colleagues don't force more traffic into DCA. It's already way too busy. But members of Congress want to have flights to their own cities and so they forced an expansion of service into DCA when it was way too crowded.

I told folks that if they did this they would regret it. And that accident that killed 67 people never should have happened.

Yesterday you saw a flight into Reagan National and another flight into Chicago have to abort. The DCA flight was exactly like one I was on at the end of June last year. You're coming in for a landing, you're almost there, and the pilot has to pull a dramatic change of direction and pull up and not land because there's too much traffic around there.

So the last thing we should be doing is firing FAA staff and termination the Aviation Safety Committee at the DHS, which Donald Trump also did in his first week in office.

We need more FAA and more air traffic controllers; not fewer. And no -- the administration has not answered my questions about why they are firing FAA staff.

BOLDUAN: The -- we'll wait to hear those responses. They do say that air traffic controllers, while they're definitely still short-staffed and have been for a long time, they're not part of the firings -- just for everyone out there to know.

But continuing that --

KAINE: Yeah, they're -- although they're blaming them. They're saying that because of DEI policies they're trying to blame these actions on FAA air traffic controllers when they're overworked, there are staff shortages, and the Trump administration is taking actions that are -- that is hurting air safety.

BOLDUAN: Virginia has around 145,000 federal workers is the latest that I saw. I saw it's the third-highest share in the nation.

What are the mass --

KAINE: Yes.

BOLDUAN: -- firings going to mean just for the commonwealth?

KAINE: It's a -- it's a massive gut punch to the economy of Virginia, Kate. We also have a lot of federal contractors whose contracts have been frozen. These are people who are doing work at the Pentagon or doing research -- cancer trials with NIH. This is creating a huge problem for the economy here.

And more importantly, it's just hurting citizens that folks rely on. It's getting to be tax season. When you call the IRS with a question you want to get your question answered and get your refund on time. If you're waiting for a Social Security disability determination it takes too long already. You don't want to slow it down. You want to have air traffic controllers.

The administration's -- with Elon Musk at the helm, apparently -- decision to just fire a whole lot of people is hurting the economy but it's also hurting the services that Americans depend on.

BOLDUAN: I saw Moody's say that they think that it could -- it could force D.C. into a recession this year.

Do you think that's what it could do to Virginia?

KAINE: Well, I think -- I think Donald Trump could do it to the nation.

Look, you raise energy costs, you lay off a whole lot of people, you engage in bizarre actions every day -- you know, cozying up to Vladimir Putin and stiff-arming Ukraine. You're going to have tariffs going into effect apparently against Canada and Mexico next week -- deeply unpopular. We saw in Trump's term one that these tariffs hurt the economy.

Yeah, I'm worried about economic effects in Virginia, but I think Donald Trump is a wrecking ball that's already damaging the American economy, and he's going to do even more of it.

BOLDUAN: Let's end on a nonpartisan and bipartisan note. Happy birthday, Senator. Your staff gave us a little heads up.

KAINE: Oh. Well, you're very sweet, Kate. Yeah, 67 years, man, and going strong.

BOLDUAN: Never -- you don't look a day under -- a day over 21, buddy.

Thank you for coming in and sharing your birthday with us. Thank you so much -- John.

KAINE: You bet. Thanks.

BERMAN: All right. New this morning a couple wants answers about their long flight from Melbourne to Doha -- namely why they had to sit next to a dead body.

Let's get right to CNN's Marc Stewart for the latest on this. This is one heck of a story, Marc.

MARC STEWART, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John, this is an upsetting story for so many different reasons. These passengers were on a flight from Melbourne, Australia to Doha, Qatar. Around 10 hours into this 14-hour journey a woman collapsed in the aisle. Attempts were made to try to revive her. Unfortunately, she did die.

So then the crew made a move using a wheelchair-like device to try to move her to the front of the aircraft toward the business class cabin. Unfortunately the aisleway was too narrow. So this woman's body was then placed in a seat next to a married couple covered in a blanket.

This morning Qatar Airways is expressing its condolences to this family and apologizing to passengers about how this all unfolded. Very upsetting for this husband and wife on a vacation heading to Italy.

Let's take a listen to Jennifer Colin. She was with her husband. She explains what happened.