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U.S. and Ukraine Close to Minerals Deal?; Republicans at Odds Over Budget Plan; Elon Musk Stars in Trump Cabinet Meeting. Aired 1- 1:30p ET

Aired February 26, 2025 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:28]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Lights, camera, Cabinet. The made-for-TV moments from President Trump's Cabinet meeting with guest star Elon Musk in the room, this as we learn that some of those same Cabinet officials are frustrated with DOGE's directives to federal employees.

Plus, it could be a few months before you see the cost of eggs go down. That's the word from the Trump administration as it lays out its strategy on mitigating the spread of bird flu.

JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: And tragedy and trauma on a Qatar airways plane. A woman dies mid-flight and a couple is seated next to her dead body for hours. What they're saying about this whole ordeal.

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

SANCHEZ: Breaking news this hour, President Trump holding the first Cabinet meeting of his second term. And it featured a special guest star, Elon Musk.

The tech billionaire did not have a seat at the main table with Trump and his agency leaders. He sort of sat at one end of the room. Yet in the latest sign of Musk's growing power and influence in the administration, Trump gave him the floor first to discuss efforts led by his government efficiency team and to take questions from reporters.

A reminder, Musk is not a part of the Cabinet, nor was he elected or confirmed by Congress to his position. But Trump defended Musk and DOGE efforts to slash the federal work force, even acknowledging that some Cabinet members disagree a little bit with Musk.

CNN's Jeff Zeleny is live for us at the White House.

And, Jeff, what did Trump say that stood out to you?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Boris, that was the first time we have heard the president acknowledge the fact that some Cabinet secretaries and agency heads may disagree with Elon Musk, particularly what he did over the weekend, which still is causing some confusion really across the federal work force of asking employees to send a message saying what they did last week. He said, yes, you may disagree a little bit, but then the president

went on to joke saying, but if there is any disagreement, you may have to leave the room. So, basically, he was not open for a dissent or discussion.

But, Boris, it was an extraordinary example, the second one we have seen really in the past couple of weeks, of Elon Musk holding court. So, yes, he did not have a seat at the Cabinet table, but the world's richest man was sitting alongside the row of other senior advisers, but clearly has the president's ear and the president had his full support on this plan.

Now, Elon Musk described this as a pulse check, not a performance review, again repeating the accusation that there is fraud throughout the government and that many actual employees are not actual people, and that some people have left the government. Again, there's been no evidence of any of this.

But the president then was asked again about the one million people or more who did not respond to that e-mail. This is what he said:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I would like to add that those million people that haven't responded though, Elon, they are on the bubble. I wouldn't say that we're thrilled about it. They haven't responded. Now, maybe they don't exist. Maybe we're paying people that don't exist. Don't forget, we just got here. This group just got here.

But those people are on the bubble, as they say. Maybe they're going to be gone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENY: So there's no question that this is just one part.

Really, day by day, we have seen this administration, this president try and reshape and remake and shrink the size of the federal work force. Even as we speak now, agencies are working on reduction in force plans for mass layoffs. So this is leading into that.

The president using this very public forum to belittle the federal work force and saying some of them don't exist. But beyond that, Boris, some other headlines as well. The president saying that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will visit the White House on Friday, not saying if that deal with the rare earth minerals that the U.S. would like a piece of has been worked out.

And he also did not say if there are any security guarantees from the U.S. for potential peace negotiations and a variety of other topics at a Cabinet meeting, where the Cabinet, quite frankly, was the backdrop to the president and Elon Musk talking amongst themselves, the president taking a variety of questions.

He also had one moment. He said, this will not be a read my lips moment, of course, referring to George H.W. Bush about raising taxes. He said he would not cut Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid, which, of course, begs the question, how do you get a budget passed without touching those entitlements, Boris?

[13:05:11]

SANCHEZ: Yes, a very important question for congressional Republicans to answer.

Jeff Zeleny live for us at the White House, thank you so much.

Let's turn now to CNN's Rene Marsh.

Rene, Musk said a number of things that were interesting. He specifically seemed to try to lay some charm on these Cabinet officials. What did you make of that?

RENE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, what I thought was interesting was that it had the feel of at times he was almost lecturing these Cabinet officials about what the goals are and what needed to be done on the agency level.

And at one point he was asked if it was his expectation when he posts a directive on X that Cabinet secretaries will follow that order, because, as you know Boris, many Cabinet secretaries essentially told their employees not to comply with the Musk order outlined in that e- mail.

But also he spoke a bit more about what his goal and intention was behind sending that e-mail. Take a listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELON MUSK, DEPARTMENT OF GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY: To be clear, like, the -- I think that e-mail perhaps was best interpreted as a performance review, but actually it was a pulse check review. Do you have a pulse?

(LAUGHTER)

MUSK: Do you have a pulse and two neurons?

(LAUGHTER)

MUSK: So, if you have a pulse at two neurons, you can reply to an e- mail. This is, I think, not a high bar, is what I'm saying.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARSH: And he also took the time to really highlight the support that he does have from the president.

Again, when asked about that e-mail and why he sent it and his reaction to the fact that some Cabinet secretaries told their employees not to comply, Musk at one point said that I was -- and I'm summarizing -- but basically he had spoken to the president about this and had the blessing of the president to send that e-mail, perhaps a subtle reminder to these Cabinet secretaries that he is only carrying out the president's wishes.

He was also asked about what his target number for how many workers he would like to see cut from these federal agencies. His -- Musk's answer to that was that he didn't give a number, but he said that we would like to keep people who are doing their jobs and doing their jobs well, but we do not want to keep people if their jobs are not considered essential.

So it raises the question, which jobs will the administration consider nonessential at these agencies, Boris?

SANCHEZ: Rene Marsh, thank you so much for breaking that down for us.

Let's discuss more with our experts, CNN senior political analyst Mark Preston and CNN chief media analyst Brian Stelter.

Great to see you both.

Mark, let's start with Musk's comments here. He specifically talked to the Cabinet and also to the cameras, but it seemed like a message sent to the Cabinet, when he said this is the greatest collection of individuals in the Cabinet ever assembled in American history. What did you make of that praise? He seemed to try to be potentially swaying some of those who don't love him.

MARK PRESTON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: And he may have got that idea and that language from somebody else who was sitting at that table.

No, look, it was very interesting because he did come in and even though we're all speculating where would he sit, who cares where he sat? The fact of the matter is, is that President Trump has given him an incredible amount of power.

I know we're talking about process and saying, hey, look, he wasn't Senate-confirmed. Well, hey, look, who cares, because President Trump is going to hear what he says. So even if Elon Musk doesn't himself write the note, somebody is going to write the note.

But what is interesting is, is that Cabinet, that room of Cabinet secretaries, although privately we hear some of them are angry, publicly, they were pretty much warned to keep their mouth shut. Let's listen to what President Trump said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Is anybody unhappy with Elon?

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: If you are, we will throw him out of here.

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: Is anybody unhappy?

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: They have a lot of respect for Elon, and that he's doing this. And some disagree a little bit, but I will tell you, for the most part, I think everyone's not only happy. They're thrilled.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PRESTON: And I don't know if they're all thrilled necessarily, the two million federal workers across the country right now who are wondering if they're going to have a job. And also there's no more news coming out that we expect more federal cuts.

And, of course, we have heard Elon Musk say that his goal is to cut $4 billion a day until the end of this fiscal year, which is the end of September. I don't think that's achievable. But who am I?

DEAN: I guess we will see.

Brian, I want to talk to you about the made-for-TV moment of all of this. Obviously, that is Donald Trump's M.O. He knows how to orchestrate a moment that can be broadcast well and that and he wants to make it watchable.

This is typically -- a Cabinet meeting like this, they go in, they do what's called a spray. You kind of just take some video. Maybe they shout a couple -- our colleagues shout a couple questions, and that's that. This was different.

[13:10:05]

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA ANALYST: Yes, very much so.

This was broadcast live for one thing. Normally, these are taped and then shown later. But I think the Trump White House knows they're going to get more attention when these events are live, and they're longer as well. This is in line with Trump knowing that he doesn't just have to be president. He has to perform the presidency and have the appearance of action, the appearance of doing something at all times.

He's also striking to me how he's trying to rewrite the dictionary again. He did this with the word hoax, for example, years ago, trying to redefine the word hoax to mean a true story that he doesn't like. Well, the new word that's being targeted is the word fraud, when they talk about waste, fraud, and abuse.

He's trying to redefine fraud as spending he doesn't like, spending that he and Musk don't agree with or don't approve of, and that's the kind of spending they're targeting. It's not fraud in the criminal definition of the term, but it's spending they don't like. And it's interesting how both Trump and Musk keep going back to those kinds of words.

I was also reminded by the famous movie line, I see dead people. It seems like Musk and Trump see dead people. They believe they are formerly alive federal employees collecting paychecks, even though they're not alive anymore.

And you would think there would be better ways to figure that out rather than send an e-mail to everyone and hope they reply. But this is one of those things where Trump and Musk are doing what they call common sense, even if it's actually nonsense when you think about it,. That commonsense approach does appeal to a lot of people out there.

DEAN: Yes.

And, look, Mark, a lot of people voted for Trump knowing Elon Musk would have a role in this government. Obviously, it is a very, very large, outsized role.

What did you pick up in terms of the dynamics? Every time we kind of have them together, and now to see it with the Cabinet members, it is kind of interesting to kind of put all of those pieces together.

PRESTON: Yes, it's interesting because clearly Donald Trump looks at Elon Musk, perhaps not as a peer, but let's face it, Elon Musk is worth more money than Donald Trump, and Donald Trump really does judge success on how...

DEAN: That's like his language -- his love language, yes.

PRESTON: Right, on how wealthy you are.

Look, let me say this. They are incredibly close right now, but at some point they're not going to be incredibly close. And I'm interested in how Elon Musk performs over the next week or so, but certainly the last couple of weeks, he has been a bull in a china shop. He goes in there, he destroys everything in its wake.

But if you go past and you look at the end of the story, it doesn't work out so well for the bull in the china shop. That bull usually takes a sword to the heart and dies there on the ground.

SANCHEZ: But, to that point, Mark, we heard James Carville putting out this op-ed over the weekend talking about what Democrats should do next. And his argument was, we should just lay down and play dead, because this administration, this majority in Congress is going to fall apart under its own weight.

It seems like with your bull in the china shop analogy, you think that might be the right approach?

PRESTON: Look, right now, we haven't seen anything else from the Democratic Party that's going to show you that they're willing to stand up and try to fight back. Now, look, they don't have a lot of levers to do it.

But at some point, what James Carville is saying, basically don't get caught up in Donald Trump's game. If you're a Democrat, get out of it. This budget, Democrats were being forced and reporters saying you're going to have to support this budget. Fact of the matter is, there's enough Republican votes in there to

pass the budget for Donald Trump. So I think James Carville is saying, stay away from it as you can for now because eventually they're just going to hang themselves.

DEAN: And, Brian, one more thing I just wanted to touch on, and you kind of got at this. The Trump administration and President Trump himself has been very proactive about giving a lot of press availability.

And they say that's openness, that's non-censorship. But there is a difference between being available to the press and always telling the truth and using facts and having a factual back-and-forth with the press.

STELTER: Correct. Correct. Access is important, but access is overrated. We're seeing the White House clamp down on access, by the way, picking and choosing the journalists that it allows into these events.

That is a dramatic change from decades of precedent and it started today with HuffPost and Reuters being blocked from attending this event. Instead, pro-Trump outlets are being allowed in. So the White House is trying to choose who's in the room and who asks the questions.

And when we hear answers that aren't accurate, doesn't really matter what the answers are. That is an important point. Let me add one point to the Musk conversation as well. I was watching the stock market during the Cabinet address. Tesla's stock is down 26 percent in the past month. That's hundreds of millions -- hundreds of billions of dollars of market loss, Tesla down another 2.5 percent today.

In other words, Musk's day job running Tesla, running his other companies, that's where he's vulnerable right now. He's having a lot of fun with DOGE. Trump wants him there as an enforcer, but Musk is vulnerable because of his actual day jobs and the pressure on those companies right now.

SANCHEZ: Interesting perspective there.

DEAN: Yes.

SANCHEZ: Brian Stelter, Mark Preston, thank you both.

So President Trump's Cabinet meeting comes as Senate Republicans are now openly rejecting the House's Republican budget blueprint that President Trump personally helped push across the line, three Republican senators telling CNN they need to see significant changes.

[13:15:09]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Do you think that you guys should just adopt the budget resolution that the House passed?

SEN. JOHN KENNEDY (R-LA): Short answer is likely no. Long answer is hell no.

SEN. JOSH HAWLEY (R-MO): I'm not going to vote for Medicaid cut. Anything that slashes into benefits for people who are working, I'm not going to be for it.

RAJU: Does the House plan go too far?

HAWLEY: Well, it's just a framework, but it'll need to be changed.

SEN. THOM TILLIS (R-NC): When we talk about moving and cutting, we need to talk about how we do that in an orderly fashion.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: So, important to note here, nearly every House Republican falling in line to pass the budget bill to advance President Trump's sweeping agenda. They don't have much room for error, so almost all of them had to fall in line to get it across the finish line.

But CNN's Lauren Fox is on Capitol Hill.

Lauren, I know you just talked with Speaker Johnson. What do you tell you?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Speaker Johnson is giving a stark warning to Senate Republicans, go ahead and make a couple of tweaks to what we passed last night, but be very careful making substantial changes because we're going to have a really hard time getting it through the House if you do.

Here's what he told me a few minutes ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FOX: Open to the tax -- the tax portion of the bill being permanent?

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): Sure.

FOX: I mean, is that something you guys could do?

JOHNSON: No, yes, of course. That's our goal. And that's what the president wants. And I think we do well by the businesses of this country and people who have to make investment decisions to show some clarity and stability there.

So, if you make them permanent, that helps a lot of people and that's our -- that's our objective.

FOX: And what about appropriations? Because Warren Davidson suggested last night that there were some concessions made on what that March 14 appropriations process would look like. Can you speak to that a little bit? JOHNSON: Well, yes, not concessions. I mean, Warren Davidson and I

are on exactly the same page. I just confirmed for him what I have been saying publicly and privately for months. And that is, we are here to reduce the size and scope of government and to reduce spending. And so we will look at every avenue and every ability, every chance we have to do that.

I think, in the appropriations process, sometimes, there are anomalies where you increase spending in certain areas like defense, for example, and you reduce spending in others. What this new Cabinet is finding is lots of areas of fraud, waste and abuse of taxpayer funds and that ought to be factored into the equation. So that's always been our commitment.

And I just reiterated that last night.

FOX: Are you comfortable with Elon Musk running this Cabinet meeting today?

JOHNSON: I didn't get to see it. Is that what happened? I don't know.

FOX: Yes. I mean, he kind of -- he kind of was briefing all of these Cabinet secretaries on what DOGE was doing, but it kind of seemed like he was running this meeting. Is that appropriate?

JOHNSON: I'm not going to comment on that. I met with Elon late last night in his office. We began the meeting after 10:00 p.m., I think. So he's working overtime around the clock, and I think he's doing really good work. And I don't know how the Cabinet meeting went. I didn't get the opportunity to see that, but I think there's a lot of interest among other Cabinet officials on what he's doing, how he's going about it. So I'm sure that was a very informative session.

So...

FOX: Thank you for your time. Appreciate it.

JOHNSON: Thank you. Sure. Sure.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOX: And a couple of different issues that the speaker is addressing there.

At the top, he is talking about the fact that the Senate wants to make some changes specifically to the way that Trump's tax cuts are moved forward in the months ahead. And he did open himself up to this idea that making these tax cuts permanent, which is something that Donald Trump wants, is something that they could do.

We should just note that that would make the bill much more expensive. It could make it much harder to get some of those hard-liners on board. And then we were asking him specifically about an upcoming spending deadline. That's a separate issue from the budget that was passed last night. But one of the questions has been what concessions did the speaker

give to some of the conservatives to get the votes that he needed last night in this upcoming battle? How is that going to complicate the future? You saw there him arguing that he didn't make any concessions, but it's a really interesting point, because it could make that March 14 deadline more complicated -- Jessica, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Yes, that mid-March deadline creeping up fast.

DEAN: Coming down the way, yes.

(LAUGHTER)

SANCHEZ: Yes.

Lauren Fox live on Capitol Hill, thank you so much.

Still ahead: Deal or no deal? President Zelenskyy says that Ukraine will make conclusions on a rare earth minerals deal after his meeting with President Donald Trump. But the president says the deal is done and it's going to be signed when Zelenskyy visits D.C. on Friday.

Stay with CNN NEWS CENTRAL. We will make sense of it when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:23:50]

SANCHEZ: Today, President Donald Trump confirmed that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will be at the White House on Friday to sign an agreement on a Ukraine natural resources and reconstruction deal.

Here's Trump responding to a question security guarantees for Ukraine as part of that deal. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Well, I'm not going to make security guarantees beyond very much. We're going to have Europe do that, because it's in -- we're talking about Europe is their next-door neighbor.

But we're going to make sure everything goes well. And, as you know, we will be making a -- we will be really partnering with Ukraine in terms of rare earth. We very much need rare earth. They have great rare earth.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: CNN chief international security correspondent Nick Paton Walsh joins us now live from Kyiv.

Nick, the interesting thing about that is that, earlier today, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy seemed to indicate that this deal wasn't yet finalized. So where do things stand? NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT:

Yes, I mean, look, this is up and down, back and forth, but it's pretty clear the two men are going to meet on Friday. That is good news, because there has been indications from the White House that really why come to Washington unless you're going to sign the deal?

[13:25:02]

But we did hear from Zelenskyy earlier on today, who was pretty clear that he didn't want to concede or sign up to anything, but considered aid already from the United States as debt. Now, you heard Trump there earlier speaking about how they're going to get repaid and get money in the future, so a difference in perception here, certainly.

And Zelenskyy also too saying he was keen to get us security guarantees. He always has been. And he did say today that he felt some of the latest language in the draft as described to him got Ukraine closer to that.

We have actually obtained a draft copy of the agreement as of this morning. And just to read out a key piece of text to you there, "The government of the U.S. supports Ukraine's efforts to obtain security guarantees needed to establish a lasting peace."

Now, that phrase doesn't say the U.S. will provide them. It just says it's fine for Ukraine to try and get them somewhere. Interesting to hear Trump talk there about how the Europeans will be providing the bulk of that. We have heard multiple separate elements of plans from European leaders suggesting they might contribute to a peacekeeping force.

And he also said, Trump, they won't be contributing beyond very much. Now, that might be leaning towards the desire of Europeans to see some sort of backstop or logistical support for any European peacekeepers here. But all that's quite far down the line on the peace deal path.

What's important is that we seem to have a text which is pretty much what we have seen, a framework agreement. It seems to be more or less amenable to both sides. It puts half revenues from un-yet-specified things into a pot for reconstruction and investment and to pay the U.S. revenues and money as well.

And it has that very loose language about security guarantees. And it also says the really tricky stuff has to be negotiated the minute this first deal is indeed signed. So it kicks the can down the road to some degree, but it also enables this Zelenskyy-Trump meeting to happen, engineered, it seems, really, this rapprochement, by French President Emmanuel Macron.

That was when Trump said he was willing to meet Zelenskyy, sign this deal. It looks like it's going to happen. Can those two men heal their relationship after a very acrimonious week and put the United States back in Ukraine's court, as it were, when it comes to military support?

Utterly key questions for everyone here in Ukraine. SANCHEZ: We will be watching it unfold very closely.

Nick Paton Walsh live for us in Kyiv -- Jessica.

DEAN: So how is Russia responding to a potential natural resources and reconstruction deal between the U.S. and Ukraine?

Let's go now to CNN chief of global affairs correspondent Matthew Chance, who joins us live from Moscow with more.

Matthew, what are you learning from that perspective?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CHIEF GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jessica, in terms of how Russia has responded to the critical minerals deal and rare earth deal, as President Trump calls it, with Ukraine, well, President Putin has come out and made the very good point that Russia has a lot more rare earths in its territory and indeed in the territory it's captured from Ukraine than Ukraine does, and has offered the United States and private companies in the United States access to that as part of a broader detente that's being agreed, it seems, between the Trump administration and the Kremlin.

Nick Paton Walsh there mentioned that President Trump had also spoken about European peacekeepers playing security -- a security role on the ground. Well, that's been categorically rejected already by the Russians. Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, speaking earlier today, said that would not be acceptable.

He also sort of set the bar pretty high when it comes to any territorial concessions that Russia might be prepared to make. He said that the line of control, essentially the front lines at the moment, that there wouldn't be a cessation of hostilities there, because Russia, in his words, has a Constitution.

And, of course, Russia has unilaterally annexed several territories inside Ukraine, even territories that it doesn't control. And its negotiating position as these peace talks, I suppose, get under way, whatever stage we're in of them, is that all of that territory, even territory that Russia doesn't currently control, is part of the Russian state.

And so that's potentially something they could climb down from later on. But, at the moment, that seems to be their position. So, yes, a lot of hard-line rhetoric at the moment, as diplomats from the United States and Russia, of course, prepare to meet in Istanbul, in Turkey, to discuss the sort of infrastructure, rebuilding the embassies in each other's countries.

I mean, the embassy here in Moscow was built for hundreds of people to live and work in, but there's only a skeleton staff at the moment inside. There is no banking resources available to them. They can't hire contractors. Very, very tough.

And I know for a fact, for instance, that quite senior diplomats working here in Moscow have to spend some of their time cleaning the embassy corridors because they don't have any cleaning staff. And so everybody's pulling together here in Moscow to try and keep the embassy running.