Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Elon Musk Will be Present at President Trump's First Meeting with His Cabinet; Federal Worker for Veterans Affairs and Her Attorney Interviewed on Losing Her Job and Lawsuit She Filed to Get It Back; New Database to Register Certain Undocumented Immigrants, ICE Carries out New Round of Operations Near Houston; Interview with Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA). Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired February 26, 2025 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

MARC STEWART, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Let's take a listen to Jennifer Colin. She was with her husband. She explains what happened.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JENNIFER COLIN, PASSENGER ON QATAR AIRWAYS FLIGHT: Yes, I'm not a great flier at the best of times, but when my husband turned around and said, move, move, we've got to move, I was really shocked. And I said, are they going to put her there. And luckily, a lady behind me on the other aisle, she said, darling, darling, come here. A lovely English lady. And I sat next to her. But, so Mitch was across the aisle then from me for the rest of the flight.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEWART: Unfortunately, while not common, these things do happen from time to time. John, we are looking back in the archives. At one point in time, one airline actually had a special compartment for some of its long haul flights where in the event of a situation like this, a corpse could be stored for the remainder of the flight. Obviously, a lot of questions still to be asked here.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: I never heard of that before. It is really just such a tragic story. Marc Stewart, thank you so much for that.

A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: The first cabinet meeting of President Trump's new administration featuring a man who is not in the cabinet, hasn't been elected to any office, and has not been vetted by Congress at all. Elon Musk's big seat at the big table.

NSA chatrooms meant for discussing security matters instead used as, quote, sexually explicit chat rooms. We have new details behind the decision to fire more than 100 intelligence officers.

And Monica Lewinsky with a new interview in one of the world's most popular podcasts. The damage she says her scandal has caused other women, and how she thinks President Clinton should have responded.

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

BERMAN: All right, this morning, we are standing by for President Trump's first cabinet meeting in this new administration. He will be sitting in a room full of Senate confirmed individuals. And then there will be one person not confirmed, not elected, and according to some people, not constrained in any way. Elon Musk will be there. Unclear where exactly he is sitting at the table. The White House says he will be there to talk about the government efficiency effort that the White House now somehow says he is not actually the leader of.

CNN has learned that some of the president's Senate confirmed cabinet members are feeling frustrated with Musk. This morning, "Puck News" calls it Musk's Icarus moment, in other words, flying too close to the sun. And they say they found deep distrust with Musk, widely viewed as weird, radical, and selfish. Thats directly from "Puck News" this morning.

With us now is Tara Palmeri, senior political correspondent at puck. To what extent, Tara, is Elon Musk crashing the cabinet meeting this morning?

TARA PALMERI, SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, "PUCK": Yes, I would say he's a crasher. I mean, he's also invited by the President of the United States, but his role is clearly a layer above cabinet and closer to the president. But he was an unelected official and he wasn't Senate confirmed. And yet he is telling these cabinet officials what programs they need to cut, which employees they need to fire. And these people are just getting into their roles right now, and they're just managing the situation, trying to figure out how the place works, right? And here you've got Elon Musk and 40 people, a very small staff that does not have the time to actually go through and understand these departments, these agencies, these programs, these grants, and figure out what is needed and what's not. And they're just haphazardly getting rid of things.

And here you have department heads taking calls from members of Congress, senators who are saying, don't let him cut these programs. Like Katie Britt, the senator from Alabama, you know, she's been backchanneling to cabinet secretary, saying if he touches NIH funding that goes to University of Alabama, like, do not let him anywhere near that because it's hundreds of millions of dollars that her state gets.

And I think, in rhetoric, Republicans are fiscally conservative. But if you actually try to touch the programs or the entitlements that their constituents use, that's very unpopular.

BERMAN: Yes, it does seem as if in the last week or few days, something has changed. Again, you guys called it the Icarus moment, crossing some kind of a line there. "Washington Post" reports that some people inside the administration are frustrated. We're getting the same thing here at CNN. We're hearing that cabinet secretaries are frustrated by this. So is it in a new phase now, do you think? PALMERI: Yes, I do think so. I think he's crossed the line,

especially these emails, bullying email, respond with the five things you did last week, without any consideration of what this could expose, by the way. A lot of people work on very sensitive topics, some of them related to public health, public safety, national security.

[08:05:03]

You had Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, one of Trump's close allies, Kash Patel, the FBI director, another very close Trump ally, telling their staff do not respond to this email because what you were working on, there's a very good chance it was classified. And the email, you're supposed to cc your manager on it, which could expose the entire government organizational chart to hackers.

And let's not forget that the email that it was going to, it was one single email to the Office of Personnel Management, which has been hacked recently, in 2015. Like, these emails are easily accessible. And the Health and Human Services, their administrator wrote to employees saying, please, if you're going to respond, do not talk about any of the programs that you're working on, the drugs, the experiments, whatever you're doing, do not actually provide any real detail, because you have to assume that whatever you send will most likely be hacked and then used by scammers. And it could end up in the -- this is the stuff that China spends billions of dollars trying to understand how our government works so they can mine it as a map. And this is just giving them more intel.

BERMAN: Tara Palmeri, it will be a fascinating cabinet meeting. We need a body language expert to analyze how everyone is seated and where. We appreciate your time this morning. Great to see you. Sara?

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: All right, the fallout from DOGE and its mass terminations are hitting the courts and hitting families hard. Our next guest is Gail Schechter. As of last week, she worked for the Department of Veterans Affairs and says why she was fired was neither fair nor based on fact. She joins us now with her attorney, Pamela Keith.

All right, I'm going to start with you, Gail. You're here with me in the studio. How did you find out that you were not only being fired, you were also being given some -- a bad review at the same time?

GAIL SCHECHTER, FORMER VETERANS AFFAIRS EMPLOYEE SUING TO GET HER JOB: So I was after work, and I was online, just like everybody else, just reading, and something in my gut told me to go back and sign on to my computer. And I did. And there was an email from someone I don't know saying I was being terminated effective immediately for performance.

SIDNER: Had you ever had a bad performance review in the past?

SCHECHTER: So the short answer is no. I've worked for the V.A. since 2006. I've always had a really strong sense of purpose and mission and been really tied to what we do and the work we do, and it's important work. And I've always had really great supervisors and great bosses and had a great rapport with them and had nothing but positive, well, none, you know. But all positive reviews and, yes.

SIDNER: So ultimately there was a determination made by someone somewhere. Did you see a name on this email? Was there any indication of who it was? Did it say DOGE or did it say Elon Musk? Or how did you know who was sending it?

SCHECHTER: So it was signed by someone in human resources who I don't know. But I called my boss right after, and I said, what's going on? And he had no idea.

SIDNER: So he wasn't even told. You just got it.

SCHECHTER: No. I told him.

SIDNER: OK. Let me go to your attorney, who is also with us. Pamela, is this sort of being sent out like a, I don't know, a cover letter where the names are changed and they're just saying poor performance, and it's an excuse? Are you seeing this happen in other cases?

PAMELA KEITH, ATTORNEY FOR WOMAN SUING TO GET JOB BACK AT DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS: Absolutely, Sara. What we're seeing is that a form letter was drafted. The words may be slightly different depending on the employee, but basically all of these letters are accusing all probationary employees of being poor performers, because our regulations protect government workers. Probationary workers may not have the same level of protection as those that have passed that probationary stage, but they still have due process rights. And our regulations say they can only be terminated for either poor performance or poor conduct. And the thing is, you don't manufacture poor performance or poor conduct by simply putting those words on a piece of paper.

SIDNER: And that is precisely why you are suing on behalf of Gail.

Gail, I'm curious to get your take on this. There have been some very nasty words said about federal workers, not just from the DOGE guys, but also from a Congresswoman, Marjorie Taylor Greene. I want you to listen to what she said about federal workers. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE, (R-GA): Those are not real jobs producing federal revenue. By the way, they're consuming taxpayer dollars. Those jobs are paid for by the American tax people, who work real jobs, earn real income, pay federal taxes, and then pay these federal employees. Federal employees do not deserve their jobs. Federal employees do not deserve their paychecks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[08:10:00]

SIDNER: What would you like to say to the congresswoman, who is also, by the way, paid by the American public? SCHECHTER: So I'm not a political person. I'd rather probably have

Pam handle that. I can tell you that I work very hard. As I said, I'm very dedicated to the mission. My coworkers and colleagues work very hard. We pay federal taxes as well. And I can't speak for the entirety, but, I mean, our mission is to provide the best care anywhere to patients. And I think that we do that every day. So.

SIDNER: I want to get your response, Pamela, just what you thought of the congresswoman's words there about all federal workers basically saying they do nothing, they deserve nothing.

KEITH: Well, I think she's fundamentally confused as to the role of the U.S. government. Our government workers serve the people. They're not there to make revenue for the government. They're not private employees in a private enterprise. They serve the American people. And the missions of our federal workers are established by the people through Congress, through appropriations for the things that they do.

So if there is a federal worker, there was a Congress somewhere that decided that their job was important enough to create and invest in. And for these many years, and all of us know personally federal workers that have served in any number of critical roles. I just think that Miss Greene is just deeply confused. And if she has that much antipathy for government, perhaps she should rethink the job that she has.

SIDNER: All right, I just, one last thing. Just quickly, if you can tell me, how are you doing after this? I mean, how is your family doing?

SCHECHTER: So we're not good. I mean, I'm trying. I've been applying for jobs. I've been trying to kind of reckon with what's going on, and at the same time trying to stay strong. And we take it day by day. I really am very hopeful that this will get resolved and I'll get my job back. I miss my clients, my customers, my staff, and my coworkers. And I miss being able to serve the veterans. That's really what it comes down to. So I just take it day by day. But I appreciate you asking. I appreciate you having me here to tell the story. So thank you.

SIDNER: Thank you. I know it's hard to do this with all the lights and strangers asking you personal questions, so I really do appreciate it. Thanks to you as well, Pamela. And we'll be checking in on the suit and how it goes.

Over to you, Kate.

BOLDUAN: New this morning, a Ukrainian official now telling CNN the United States and Ukraine have agreed on a deal over Ukraine's rare earth minerals, just as Ukraine's president is about to head to Washington.

And some are calling it the largest immigration crackdown ever in their town. More than 100 immigrants arrested in an ICE raid on one Texas community.

And the Trump administration is offering up an alternative pathway to citizenship for a price, as in $5 million.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:17:34]

BOLDUAN: This morning, DHS has just unveiled a new registry and is demanding certain undocumented immigrants submit their details to this database, or else, failure to comply could result in criminal prosecution.

This comes as we're also learning new details about the ramped-up ICE raids occurring in operations happening across the country. Police in a town North of Houston are now saying that they just saw the largest immigration crackdown, possibly ever in their community.

CNN's Rosa Flores is joining us now from Houston. And Rosa, as we know, and you have been covering, ICE has been conducting these operations all over the country. What stands out about this one?

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kate, two things. First of all, 118 arrests according to ICE, is a significant number in this area in North Houston.

And then, secondly, Texas Governor Greg Abbott took credit in part for this operation. He actually took to X to say that he and Tom Homan personally worked on this for months.

I, of course, had a lot of questions. I contacted both of their offices to learn more about this operation. I didn't get any answers. I also contacted ICE with a lot of questions. I didn't get many answers there either.

What we did learn from X was, according to ICE, was that 118 people were arrested in this community and some of the associated crimes.

According to this post on X: ICE said that these individuals had criminal sexual conduct charges or homicide charges or weapons offenses. There was a list of things. But what I asked for was a list of all of the individuals who had been arrested, their demographics, and also the associated charges.

What we did get from ICE was a statement highlighting one individual only. And this was a 39-year-old man from El Salvador and according to ICE, they had arrested this man on a criminal warrant for repeated sexual abuse of a minor over an eight-year period, but these were allegations.

Now, the other thing that's notable about these arrests in this particular area is that this is a development that's predominantly Hispanic, that has been targeted by right wing media in the past with unsubstantiated claims that this area has been targeted by the cartels.

ICE, in fact, also included that in their tweet, saying that they had -- this was a known location for cartel activity. I asked ICE about that too, about this cartel activity. What is this cartel activity? Were some of these arrests associated with the cartels? Again, I did not get answers to a lot of my questions, but I will leave you with this. Because we do have video, the video that you were just looking at, a lot of empty streets, Kate, in this community. And that's exactly what we've been hearing from a lot of Hispanic communities around this country, where some of these enforcement actions have happened.

[08:20:29]

There's a lot of fear. People are afraid to leave their homes and that's one of the reasons why we are asking all of these questions to ICE, Kate, is because transparency could help knowing who is being arrested and the associated crimes could help curb some of those fears -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Rosa, thank you so much for following it. We'll stay on it with you. Thank you -- Sara.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: All right, President Trump has an idea. He says his administration will now offer gold cards like immigration green cards, but for rich people. Trump says they will charge $5 million apiece and that will get you on your way to immigration status in the U.S.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: Would a Russian Oligarch be eligible for a gold card?

DONALD TRUMP (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Yes, possibly. Hey, I know some Russian oligarchs that are very nice people. It's possible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: Russian oligarchs would be welcome to buy their way into America, while refugees trying to escape war are going to have to go through the years long process and maybe never get their chance -- John.

BERMAN: Got it. All right, as we see more demonstrations and protests around the country to Elon Musk and his efforts, Marjorie Taylor Greene comes to his defense. She says, "federal employees do not deserve their jobs."

And then, new details on the allegedly obscene chat room messages that led to a hundred people getting fired from the Intelligence services.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:25:21]

BERMAN: All right, this morning, POLITICO calls it Elon University. Elon Musk will attend President Trump's first Cabinet meeting this morning, despite not being a member of the Cabinet, we think. This comes as were hearing of administration officials behind the scenes getting frustrated with Musk and from Republican Congressmembers very publicly now voicing some of that frustration. CNN chief data analyst Harry Enten is here.

When you start hearing it from Republican Congressmembers, you start wondering what they're hearing from voters.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN POLITICS SENIOR WRITER AND ANALYST: Yes, that's exactly right. You know, when it comes to Elon Musk's power in federal government decision making, I mean, if he's attending the first Cabinet meeting, my goodness gracious, sometimes I feel like the smallest number on the screen can tell the story.

So, Musk's power in government's decision making. Just three percent of Americans say he has too little power. They're like, oh, I need more Musk. There's not really that crowd. There are more who believe that we faked moon landing. Too much, look at this 55 percent of Americans believe that Elon Musk has power in government decision makings. My goodness gracious, right amount comes in at 36 percent. You add the two of these, its 39 percent -- this 55 percent is the runaway.

The bottom line is Americans do not like how much power Elon Musk currently has in government decision makings and very few Americans think he should somehow have more power.

BERMAN: So, too much power. Where are they concerned that he might be using this power?

ENTEN: Yes, so, you know, you're talking about DOGE, right? DOGE is access to people's personal data through the government databases. You know, e.g. your Social Security, your tax income information. Take a look here, 63 percent say they are concerned. They are concerned about DOGE's access to potential personal data. And that includes 37 percent, my God, of Republicans and leaning Republicans in the electorate. So, there is a slew of the Republican base who is concerned about DOGE's power.

These are the types of numbers that I think really should make Republicans worry, because that's what we're seeing at the town halls. That's what you're seeing a lot of Republicans react to. There's a good portion of the Republican base who's like, you know what, Elon Musk, maybe you should take a little bit of a step back.

BERMAN: You know, it's interesting. "Puck" this morning called it Elon Musk's Icarus moment. In other words, flying too close to the sun. But there's some evidence he's very much in the spotlight right now. His moment in the sun.

ENTEN: It is absolutely Elon Musk's moment in the sun. And we talked about this a few weeks ago. Is Elon Musk becoming the face of this administration? I want you to take a look at monthly changes in Google searches. JD Vance, the Vice-President of United States, he's down 70 percent from a month ago. How about Donald Trump? Google searches for him. He's down 35 percent from a month ago. But Musk or DOGE, look at this, up 167 percent from a month ago.

The bottom line is he is not a popular guy and is becoming more of a face of this administration.

BERMAN: Interesting to see these numbers. Thank you very much, Chief.

ENTEN: Thank you.

BERMAN: Sara.

SIDNER: All right, joining us now is Massachusetts Congressman Jake Auchincloss. Thank you so much for being here.

Look, let's talk about what is happening with DOGE. Nearly 40 percent of contracts Musk and his team claim to have cancelled aren't expected to save any money and five of the biggest cuts they posted, they have now deleted. So, something happened there. What does any of this indicate to you?

REP. JAKE AUCHINCLOSS (D-MA): Good morning. Thanks for having me on. DOGE is about misdirection. The chaos and the corruption from Elon Musk and his team, where they're firing federal aviation administration authorities while there's near misses on runways, they're firing public health officials while we've got measles outbreaks in Texas and Georgia.

It is about distracting Americans from what is happening in Congress, where Congressional Republicans are axing Medicaid.

That is health care for kids, that is health care for new moms, that is health care for individuals struggling with substance use disorder. And they're going to gut it to pay for tax cuts for people who don't need tax cuts.

And Donald Trump is going to use Elon Musk to distract the American people from that until Elon Musk runs out of usefulness, in which case he'll kick him to the curb.

SIDNER: Congressman, I was curious about that if you think that he is using Musk as a stooge, basically so that he can be blamed, but not Donald Trump, even though this is Donald Trump's choice and he has publicly backed these firings, publicly backed Musk many, many, many times. So, will it work with the American people, do you think?

AUCHINCLOSS: Donald Trump is not on the ballot again remember that. Congressional Republicans are on the ballot next November.

And so, the feedback that is coming up to the White House from Congressional Republicans, and I'm hearing this from my colleagues on the House floor is, we're being fed to the wolves here.

Every time Elon Musk goes out there and tweets and attacks, you know, EPA regulators who are keeping PFAS out of our water supply or attacks air traffic controllers who are trying to keep planes from colliding in mid-air, we have to answer to our constituents and that's before they took the vote on taking $880 billion out of primary and preventative care for children.

[08:30:32]