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Zelenskyy: Security Guarantees By U.S. Could Be Step Toward Peace; Cabinet Officials Caught Off Guard, Frustrated By Musk Directives; Colorado Dem Returns to Cash Vote 4 Weeks After Giving Birth; Supreme Court Hears Oral Arguments in "Reverse Discrimination" Case. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired February 26, 2025 - 09:00   ET

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

LT. COL. ALEXANDER VINDMAN (Ret.), AUTHOR, " THE FOLLY OF REALISM: HOW THE WEST DECEIVED ITSELF ABOUT RUSSIA AND BETRAYED UKRAINE": There's generally continuity. We haven't had a reverse course where we went from declaring somebody an enemy, an adversary, a dictatorship, to now embracing them.

[09:00:09]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Yeah, like sky is blue, sky is green --

VINDMAN: Yes.

BOLDUAN: -- is essentially what it kind of feels like.

VINDMAN: It is -- it is a disastrous about face from that standpoint. Now, whether all this chaos could actually claw back some sort of gains, Zelenskyy's going to be in town in two days, there might be some element of substance to this deal. It's always a good thing for the U.S. to be on sides with an ally for both values. With democracies, we share common values, but also interests. If there is a deal to be had, a fair deal where minerals are coming from Ukraine, Ukraine is getting an investment, it feeds our tech industry, rare earths are extremely important for our economy. If that could come -- if that could be realized, that's a good thing.

I've talked to my senior contacts in Ukraine, one of the most senior former leaders there. He said it's a good deal in that it brings the U.S., puts U.S. -- kind of hooks the U.S. to be involved. But the numbers have to make sense. It can't be this extortion that Zelenskyy's rejecting for aid granted under Biden, and it has to have some sort of promise of continued support going forward.

I think security assurances are a bridge too far, but continued U.S. support could be important. The question is, how do you reconcile that with what Trump has been saying and with his embrace?

BOLDUAN: And how do you reconcile those personalities? As you said, leaders might not get along in private and since the beginning of time, but how this animosity has been showing up in public seems like it's going to be -- I don't know, tough to overcome or not. VINDMAN: I think the book is frankly pretty clear in that it points to the mistakes of both Republicans and Democrats engaging with Russia and most notably with Putin for the past 25 years, and that there are lessons to be learned from these mistakes, that, you know, thinking that you could do more with Russia or succumbing to fears actually puts you in greater risk long term. And the Trump administration has cast all of that to the side and is starting from a blank slate, even though he had four years working with Putin, didn't manage to accomplish that much. I don't know how you could discount all that history.

The prescription is actually to learn the lessons of the past. Some of the things I suggest in the book, figure out that our most important relationships are with our allies. They are the ones that drive our economic prosperity. They give us the strength to withstand attacks from our enemies, like they did in 9/11, after the 9/11 attacks. That's where we should be putting our efforts. That's why I advocate for this idea of neo-idealism and think that realism has been a huge folly for us for the past six administrations.

BOLDUAN: So interesting. It's great to see you and congrats on the book. And thanks for the perspective. Really appreciate it. Thank you.

Sara?

Oh, a new hour of CNN New Central starts now with Sara.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: This could prove to be awkward. The President, his cabinet members, and Elon Musk in just hours, they all gather for the first cabinet meeting of Trump's second term. This unelected billionaire has a seat at the very important table and a lot of Republicans not so happy about it.

All right. A late-night win for the GOP on Capitol Hill, multiple holdouts flipping and siding with Speaker Johnson to pass a budget blueprint, a crucial victory for Trump's sweeping agenda. But now they have to reconcile it with the Senate's budget plan.

And investigations are underway into a pair of close calls at two of America's biggest airports. How a quick-thinking Southwest Airlines pilot stopped what could have been a catastrophe on the runway.

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

Power, influence, and very soon his own seat at a very powerful, very influential table this morning. We're standing by for President Trump to hold his first cabinet meeting in his new term with Elon Musk in the room.

This as CNN is now learning some of the president Trump's Senate confirmed cabinet members who will be there too, are growing more frustrated over Musk's email demand to millions of federal workers. A demand the President this morning says is still, and I'm quoting him, "somewhat voluntary, but if you don't answer it, I guess you get fired." CNN's Alayna Treene has new reporting from the White House for us this

morning. Alayna, what are you learning?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: Well, look, Sara, I think it's very clear if people didn't recognize the massive amount of influence that Elon Musk has. It's going to be further solidified today when he joins that cabinet meeting. But look, to get to some of the reporting of what we're hearing and what you're describing is, I've talked to several White House and Trump administration officials, and many of them acknowledge that, yes, these cabinet secretaries included believe that there is maybe some bloat in the government. They believe that they -- DOGE should be looking at waste, fraud, and abuse in areas where they can cut. But what they are growing frustrated with is the ways in which Elon Musk is carrying out that kind of chainsaw moves to slash the federal workforce.

[09:05:10]

And part of it really stems to that email that you mentioned, that what did you do last week email where Musk sent this over the weekend and said that if people do not respond by a certain date that they could be fired, and then later doubled down on that saying people who do not respond could have their employment terminated.

That's where some of this I'm hearing the frustration really started to grow, because part of this is many of these cabinet secretaries have just been sworn into office. They are still assessing who is under them and their agencies, who, you know, the needs of their agencies, but also, you know, this question of who has the authority to make these firing decisions. I'd remind you that Musk is a special government employee. He was not a Senate-confirmed member of Donald Trump's cabinet or even member of this administration. And so there are questions of whether he has the authority to do that.

Now, we did hear Karoline Leavitt, the Press Secretary, yesterday say that the President supports these different secretaries to make their own decisions and issue guidance to their employees on their own. But that's where a lot of this frustration and annoyance, I'm told, is really stemming from.

But the important thing to keep in mind here is that the one person who is not getting on, or Musk is not getting under his skin, is the President himself. He has repeatedly said that he supports what Musk is doing, and also offered a post of encouragement this morning, saying that he wanted to thank Elon Musk and telling him to run. Elon, run. So it's clear that he hasn't annoyed the person who, of course, matters the most here, and that is President Donald Trump.

Sara.

SIDNER: And it's also clear that he is behind what Musk is doing, even as Republicans are facing some serious pushback in town halls across the country about his behavior. So we'll have to see what happens when it comes to Musk at this cabinet meeting. It ought to be interesting.

Alayna Treene, thank you so much. Appreciate it. Kate?

BOLDUAN: So Republican leaders in the House, they are breathing a sigh of relief this morning after facing an internal revolt over their budget blueprint that brought plans for a vote to a halt. They eventually eked it out with the help of President Trump making some last-minute calls to Republican holdouts. And if that wasn't hard enough, that's just the first step.

This now sets Republicans in the House and Senate on kind of a collision course to finally decide what they're going to do with President Trump's agenda.

CNN's Lauren Fox joining us now from Washington, D.C. Probably with a bit of whiplash this morning. Lauren, where did things go now?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, it was so interesting last night. We were actually walking out of the chamber. There was sort of this mass exodus from Republican members. Democrats were jovial because they thought that the House Republicans did not have the votes to pass this.

And then just as all these lawmakers were leaving, they got called back to the House floor for yet another vote because leadership did believe that they had the votes to pass this budget blueprint. But as you noted, now things get a lot more difficult for Speaker Johnson. This was a huge victory for him. His leadership team really worked during the recess to try to shore up the support that they needed to assuage concerns from swing district Republicans that some of these cuts to programs like Medicaid would come down the line and that they would be very careful about what exactly they were cutting with these immense spending slashes.

But one thing remains clear, they have to find a way to come to some kind of consensus with the United States Senate because the Senate has a totally different budget blueprint that doesn't include raising the debt ceiling, that doesn't include outlining a plan for Trump's tax bill, and instead just deals with spending some money on the border and on defense.

Last night it became clear that Republicans in the Senate do want to make some of these changes to the House's bill. So that really leaves uncertain what the path is forward here. If it was so hard to get the votes on this blueprint with conservatives, can you water it down at all with the Senate and still get the votes you need?

BOLDUAN: And as you well know, just to remind all of our viewers, how many votes you need to get for passage depends on how many people are in the chamber. And there's new reporting on Democrats who are also scrambling to make sure they had as much attendance as possible last night. And even a member coming off maternity leave?

FOX: Yeah, absolutely. There were actually a couple of notable Democratic -- Democrats showing up for this vote because their leadership is arguing to them it's essential you be here because every member on our side that's not here gives Mike Johnson some wiggle room to lose votes on his side. So you had last night Brittany Petterson, who is from Colorado, flying with her one-month-old to make it to this vote.

She has been really fighting hard for remote voting opportunities for people in Congress who are on maternity or paternity leave so that they don't have to be flying back and forth. But the Speaker has repeatedly denied that effort, and therefore she was on a plane with her one-month-old coming to Congress, making herself available for this vote.

We also saw last night another Democrat coming who was recovering from surgery and had to fly on the plane with an IV. I think that Representative Mullin made the case that he also wanted to be present to vote against this budget resolution. But that just shows you the kinds of lengths that members have to go to now that remote voting is no longer an option after the pandemic.

[09:10:18]

Kate?

BOLDUAN: I mean, I'm just -- one, that is an adorable baby with that little head of hair.

FOX: Yes.

BOLDUAN: Two. That's -- I mean, if it's one month old, it hasn't even had all the baby's shots yet. Oh my God, I feel so bad that she had to do that.

FOX: I know.

BOLDUAN: But I'm just going to stare at that. That is delicious. And further proof that women are magical unicorns, as my daughters like to say. There it is. Case in point.

Good to see you, Lauren. Thank you.

John?

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: That is a statement of fact.

All right. Back to the Cabinet meeting, we are standing by for this first Cabinet meeting of Donald Trump's new term. And I just want to remind people what Cabinet meetings were like in Donald Trump's first term. Now, I'm not sure if this was the exact first Cabinet meeting, but it was a very memorable one.

Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE PENCE, (R) U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Mr. President. And just the greatest privilege of my life is to serve as Vice President to a president who is keeping his word to the American people. ALEXANDER ACOSTA, FORMER UNITED STATES SECRETARY OF LABOR: Mr. President, my privilege to be here. Deeply honored. And I want to thank you for keeping your commitment to the American workers.

TOM PRICE, SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES: Mr. President, what an incredible honor it is to lead the Department of Health and Human Services at this pivotal time under your leadership. I can't thank you enough for the privilege that you've given me and the leadership that you've shown.

REX TILLERSON, SECRETARY OF STATE: Mr. President, thank you for the honor to serve the country. It's a great privilege you've given me.

REINCE PRIEBUS, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: On behalf of the entire senior staff around you, Mr. President, we thank you for the opportunity and the blessing that you've given us to serve your agenda and the American people.

GEORGE E. "SONNY" PERDUE, SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE: I want to congratulate you on the men and women you've placed around this table. This is a team you've assembled that's working hand-in-glove with -- for the betterment of America, and I want to thank you for that. These are great team members, and we're on your team.

STEPHEN MNUCHIN, SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY: Thank you, Mr. President. It was a great honor traveling with you around the country for the last year and an even greater honor to be here serving in your cabinet.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Actually, I think we could have played an even longer clip of that. It went on and on and on.

With us now, CNN Political Commentator Karen Finney, also Republican Strategist and former RNC Communications Director Doug Heye.

Added to what will surely be a certain level of adulation today, you have the Elon Musk factor who will be in there. I suppose I could ask, where is that adulation going to go? Is it going to go to President Trump, or is it going to go to Elon Musk?

DOUG HEYE, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: I think we'll hear a lot of what we heard in the clip that you just showed. But look, anytime you've been in any meeting where that one sort of interloper, outsider shows up, you have members or people in that meeting who are saying to themselves, who is this guy? You know, and if there are phones on the table, they're texting each other. Who is this person? Who the hell is this guy? What is he saying? Why is he in this room?

That's what we used to do in House of Leadership when Sean Spicer would come into our leadership communications meetings. This is obviously higher stakes, but there are tensions that have been built because a lot of these cabinet members, they've didn't necessarily sign up for some of the moves that we've seen just over the past few weeks. BERMAN: You think they want him in there, Karen?

KAREN FINNEY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I do not. And I think, look, the images that we're going to see will essentially also mean they own it. They own him just as Trump owns him. And I think I hope Democrats really do that because, you know, Musk's increasing unpopularity and the increasing unpopularity of what DOGE is doing. Each of those cabinet members is now going to own that as they own these agencies. And so and they're the ones who are getting the calls from members of Congress.

Frankly, having worked in the federal government, you get calls from people just around the country who are, you know, have questions about, well, why did this get cut or how come I haven't gotten my tax return? So point being, they're all going to own this wacky guy with that, you know, crazy buzzsaw and sunglasses as part of the administration.

And, you know, I think we also should remember that within a lot of those agencies, he also has contracts that are going, you know, that are going through. In some instances, we know there have been investigations. So I agree that a number of these cabinet secretaries are thinking, oh, my God, how am I going to manage this? And we've heard Trump's about to tell them you've got to make even more cuts, which is going to be unpopular with the American people.

BERMAN: You know, Karen touched on something right there. What should Democrats do about this and how should they approach Elon Musk? And James Carville has got an op-ed in "The New York Times" today where he says the Democrats should roll over and play dead.

I wrote it down just so people could see the words on the screen. I just want to make sure people can see it. I have a longer thing I can read here. I don't know if we have this.

With no clear leader to voice our opposition and no control in any branch of government, it's time for Democrats to embark on the most daring political maneuver in the history of our party, roll over and play dead. Allow the Republicans to crumble beneath their own weight and make the American people miss us.

[09:15:10]

So what do you think about that? Is Elon Musk giving Democrats, Doug, the opportunity here that they need?

HEYE: He potentially is. And I think this could be a slow burn because as people are laid off from government. Those are real jobs in real communities. And so -- I'm from North Carolina. If I see, you know, HHS and CDC jobs, that affects certainly the Research Triangle Park. That also affects community, small community health care centers, right? So you start talking about medical deserts.

You won't feel that immediately, but you may feel that three, six months down the line. And that -- and we talk about V.A. and where there are a lot of veterans in North Carolina, California certainly as well. These kind of slow burns can have a help. But I've never heard of a winning political strategy that just says don't do anything. Much respect to James.

FINNEY: Yeah.

HEYE: Roll over and play dead. Not really viable in politics.

BERMAN: What about that, Karen?

FINNEY: Yeah, I disagree with James. That's not surprising. We disagree on a lot of things. I think that I would say it slightly differently. Stay out of the way of, you know, the dumpster fire and let them burn themselves out. Stay on the, you know, fire metaphor that Doug started. Because, again, as we saw last week, the American people can see and feel with their own eyes that what they're being told is not true as they see people losing jobs and the way that that's also impacting other jobs within their community.

And one quick thing. You know, we talked a little bit about the budget just a moment ago earlier. The layered impact that some of these things are going to have. So you've got these DOGE cuts. Trump wants more cuts. Then when we see what actually ends up in the budget that they pass, the kind of layered impact that that's going to have in communities across the country is going to be the best civics lesson that people could have ever had about who really works in the federal government, what those jobs really do and how it really impacts their lives very directly.

BERMAN: Doug, how important is it at this Cabinet meeting? And it's not like Donald Trump, the president, doesn't have a forum all day, every day to say things out loud. But this is a particular kind of forum to talk about inflation, to talk about the economy, to talk about the issues that got him elected, that voters say they want to hear more about. But they're not honestly hearing from him day in and day out right now.

HEYE: Yeah. And I'd start with the border. You know, Trump has had a lot of success at the border. What we've seen in border crossings, it's massively reduced. And this is something he was elected on very broadly.

BERMAN: Well, it was down to the end of Biden's term. It's basically the same thing.

HEYE: Sure, but now the water's essentially been shut off. And in politics, you claim credit for any good thing that happens. And I'm surprised that Trump hasn't taken credit for this. But I'm not so much interested in what happens at the Cabinet meeting. It'll be political theater. We're used to that. I'm more interested in the conversations that happen when these Cabinet members walk out of that Cabinet meeting. What are they texting each other after the meeting?

BERMAN: Well, hopefully we'll get access to that.

HEYE: Hope it all leaks.

BERMAN: Doug Heye, thank you very much for being here. Karen Finney, great to talk to you as well.

Sara?

SIDNER: All right. An Ohio woman is claiming reverse discrimination after she said she was passed up for a promotion and demoted. She says it was because she is straight. Moments from now, the Supreme Court is going to hear that case.

Plus, some federal workers are fighting to get their jobs back. Details on the Independent Federal Protection Board that is challenging their terminations. We will talk with them live.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:22:56]

BOLDUAN: So next hour, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on a case about reverse discrimination. It involves a woman in Ohio who alleges that she was not hired for a job and actually demoted from -- hired for a new job, and was actually demoted from her existing job because she's straight.

CNN's Paula Reid has the very latest. She's joining us now. Paula, tell us more about this case.

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: OK, this is such a fascinating case, and it comes at a time when President Trump is pushing back against programs that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace. Now, in this specific case, that woman, her name is Marlean Ames. She is a straight, white woman who worked at the Ohio Department of Children's Services.

Now, she says that she was discriminated against by her gay boss. She alleges that her boss denied her a promotion and then demoted her in 2019, and then less qualified gay colleagues got jobs over her. But she is specifically challenging the way discrimination lawsuits have to be filed when you are a member of the majority, which, as a white, heterosexual woman, she is.

At least five appeals courts in this country require you to show what are called background circumstances when you file discrimination claims. So, for example, you'd have to show a statistical pattern of discrimination against members of the majority group, and this is not something that minorities have to do when they file discrimination claims. So it's really interesting that the Supreme Court was willing to hear this case because she did not prevail at the lower courts.

And their decision to hear this particular case comes about a year and a half after they overturned race-based admissions programs, so-called affirmative action. So this is definitely one to watch. I will note that the Ohio Department of Youth Services argues that if you take away this higher bar, this extra requirement for members of majority groups, that that would basically allow almost all discrimination claims to go to court. So definitely one of the biggest cases of the term, and the arguments will get underway in about an hour here. BOLDUAN: All right, so interesting. Paula, thank you so much for laying it out for us. We'll see what all comes out from those arguments today.

[09:25:04]

John?

BERMAN: All right, this morning, three major legal setbacks for President Trump in the span of 90 minutes. And new details on how one obscure agency could help thousands of fired federal workers get their jobs back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: All right, this morning, the administration on defense after suffering three legal setbacks in the span of 90 minutes on funding for USAID, refugees, and the freezing of federal funds.

Let's get right to CNN's Katelyn Polantz for the latest on this.

[09:30:01]

Good morning.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John. The judges are looking at these lawsuits and saying, yeah, maybe the Trump administration.