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February Jobs Report Out, Giving Snapshot of Labor Market Health; Trump Tells Cabinet They, Not Musk, are in Charge of Staffing; South Carolina Man Set to be Executed by Firing Squad; President Trump Preparing to Order Closure of Department of Education. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired March 07, 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]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: He's a 12-year-old boy who nearly drowned in a hotel pool. I'm Kate Bolduan with Sara Sidner and John Berman. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Right now, we're standing by for a jobs report brought to you this morning by the letter U for uncertainty. Uncertainty over what the numbers will show and uncertainty over what the numbers could trigger next for a U.S. economy right now reeling from a tower of terror style drop this week on Wall Street due to Trump's ever-changing tariff policy.

And then there's the letter D for drama ad DOGE. The president issuing a new directive as Elon Musk and Republicans face fresh backlash over the massive job cuts and funding freezes. What does this mean for millions of federal workers now? CNN's Kevin Liptak is at the White House tracking all of the things.

There will be a first full jobs report of Trump 2.0. What is the mood at the White House? What are they looking at and concerned about?

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, jobs day at the White House, always kind of an anticipatory one. I don't sense a great deal of anxiety about this particular jobs report, but certainly Trump allies see as much as anyone these blinking warning lights that are going off in the economy in large part because of some of the actions that the president has taken, whether it's this whipsaw approach to tariffs that's causing the markets to tumble or whether it's these mass layoffs within the federal government that Elon Musk is helping to execute.

Those won't necessarily be reflected in the jobs report today, but certainly they could have a major effect on the economy. And it is those layoffs, this question of who has the responsibility for firing and hiring that the president did try clarifying yesterday. He does still support Musk in this task, but what he is saying is that the heads of these cabinet agencies, the Senate confirmed bosses at the departments that make up the federal government will have the final say in this matter. And this is so notable because it is really the first time we've seen Trump try and reel in Elon Musk to try and temper what has so far been somewhat of an indiscriminate approach to how this is all being carried out. Certainly you had heard a lot of consternation from Republicans on Capitol Hill who had been facing heat from their own constituents, but also some of these department heads who said, look, we just got into this job. We need to have the power to manage our own staffs.

And that all kind of culminated yesterday in this 90 minute meeting inside the cabinet room here at the White House. That's the same room where Musk sort of held court before cameras a week ago. There were no cameras rolling this time around, but Musk did say with Musk present that it would be these cabinet officials who had the final say and that he wanted the approach to be somewhat less haphazard.

He said they can be very precise as to who will remain and who will go. We say the scalpel rather than the hatchet. So describing a much more finite tool than that chainsaw that we saw Musk wielding at a conservative conference saying that he would be slashing through the federal bureaucracy.

Now, how this all plays out going forward, I think, will be something to watch, because while Trump did say that his cabinet officials had the final determination, he also said that Musk would be making his own recommendations. What he is essentially describing is a new phase of the DOGE effort. Listen to exactly how he put it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Elon has been really teaching everybody about the numbers that you can do. But what I want is I want the numbers, but I also want to keep the good people. We want to get rid of the people that aren't working, that aren't showing up and have a lot of problems.

And so they're working together with Elon. And I think we're doing a really great job. We're cutting it down. We have to for the sake of our country. You can't have that kind of fat. It's bloat.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIPTAK: So later, the president said that if these cabinet members don't do the cutting themselves, that Musk would do it for them, essentially saying that he would continue to be looking over their shoulder to make sure the plan is being carried out. You can see that leading to some power struggles down the line. But the president said that he would continue these meetings. He would convene them every two weeks going forward.

SIDNER: All right. The rollercoaster ride continues. Thank you so much. Kevin Liptak there from the White House -- John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. With us now, Republican strategist, former RNC communications director Doug Heye and Democratic strategist and co-founder of Lift Our Voices, Julie Roginsky. I just don't think you can mistake at all the shrinkage in the size of the cutting implements that are being used by Elon Musk and his efforts.

I mean, he went from the chainsaw that Elon Musk was famously holding on that stage to now President Trump saying a scalpel.

It is a change, Doug.

[08:05:00]

The question is why?

DOUG HEYE, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Well, one great Seinfeld reference, obviously. Look, I've been saying for weeks now, you can't do this with a scalpel. You just can't. And you shouldn't do it for obvious reasons with a chainsaw.

What we need is a good chef's knife to go in and cut the fat without cutting too much of the meat. And somebody who knows how to do that, how to use that knife. That ultimately is the House of Representatives.

And there is nothing sexier in politics than Tom Cole and the House Appropriations Committee. But this is a function of Congress, of how do you do this and how do you implement this.

This also should be, I think, an opportunity in Washington for firms and think tanks and companies to say, how can we do this better? Arnold Ventures put out, here are 10 ways that we can save billions and billions of dollars and 10 ways we can bring in more revenue.

That's, I think, an opportunity for a lot of companies and organizations to highlight what their priorities are.

BERMAN: You're making an argument for why. I guess what I'm asking is, the president buckled. The president changed here. Was it that he was hearing from people like you, from members of the House? Was it looking at the wild swings in the stock market?

HEYE: I think you're hearing a lot from members of Congress where there's just uncertainty. They hear things back in their district that they don't necessarily know about. And we hear from governors as well.

You know, as Trump announces these things, governors, Republican governors, don't want to criticize Trump but they'll say, I have a lot of questions. When a politician tells you they have a lot of questions, it means they have a lot of concerns and they're not necessarily happy.

BERMAN: All right, Julie, I want to read you again. And I read this once before from Axios this morning because I think it sums up this atmosphere that Doug was just talking about, uncertainty. President Trump is building a reputation as the flip-flopper and chief. They called it the rug-pull presidency. The president, who after announcing a bold new policy today, might well reverse it tomorrow. Why it matters in a chaotic world, the federal government normally acts as a stabilizing force. Under Trump, it's driving chaos.

JULIE ROGINSKY, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: This is no way to run an economy. I think we can all agree that you can't run the economy on a whim. That's exactly what the president is doing.

He wakes up one day. He decides he's going to have tariffs. He wakes up another day. He decides he's going to use a scalpel, not a chainsaw. Look, the reality is, you're absolutely right, Congress should be in charge of this. But notably, Congress is not in charge of this.

Even now, the president is basically telling his cabinet where to cut and how to cut it, despite the fact that the government has been appropriated money by the United States House of Representatives and by the United States Senate, who are not part of this discussion, which is unconstitutional, for lack of a better description.

The problem here, of course, is that none of these people are profiles in courage. And Elon Musk is going to be looking over their shoulder, translation, Elon Musk is going to be using his massive platform on Twitter, or X, whatever he calls it today, to tweet out criticisms of any cabinet official who doesn't do what Musk says.

And none of them is going to want to put themselves into harm's way by having a bunch of crazy MAGAs coming after them, their families. They've all said privately, these Republicans, that they're terrified of the chaos that can be unleashed on them personally. So I, you know, this is a very nice face-saving way for the president to basically give Elon Musk the same power he's always had, but just to shift the blame from Elon Musk, whom obviously he's trying to protect now, onto his own cabinet.

BERMAN: He brought up tariffs. There was something of a full retreat, at least for a time being, on tariffs from President Trump yesterday. I want to read from the" Wall Street Journal" editorial.

He's treating the North American economy as a personal plaything, as markets gyrate with each presidential win. It's doubtful Mr. Trump even has the power to impose these tariffs, and we hope this afflatus gets a legal challenge.

I left that last sentence in there because I had just never seen the word afflatus before. I had to look it up. It's basically a divine whim. So thank you for teaching us something.

The markets, investors, economists, and I think voters also now reacting, not necessarily to tariff policy. They may or may not like it. There are a lot of investors and economists who don't like it, but what they really don't like is just the wild back and forth.

ROGINSKY: This is not a serious man. I don't know how else to describe it. This is not a serious man who is looking at the United States economy and the global economy in a serious way.

This is somebody who is using his personal grievances, his personal acrimony towards Mexicans, his personal acrimony towards Justin Trudeau, whom he clearly doesn't like, to bring the rest of us, the world, into chaos. And that's the difficulty with dealing with somebody who is not taking the presidency seriously but is using this as basically a revenge scheme to even scores with people that he hasn't liked in countries that he hasn't liked his entire life or for the last 10 years.

That's a problem because it's our stock. It's our 401ks. It's our savings that are going to evaporate. And you know, whatever issues mentally Donald Trump has with the people he's going after, we're all being affected by it. And I think that's a tragedy and a travesty for the world economy.

BERMAN: And Doug, to what extent is he becoming the boy who cried tariff here? Because he said he was going to impose them, then he paused, then he did, then he pulled them back a little, then he pulled them back a lot. Why should anyone believe he's going to impose them in full on April 2nd if he keeps seeing the market tanking and Howard Lutnick saying things?

HEYE: Well, believe it or not, you have to prepare for it. And that's the reality, whether you're talking about Canada, certainly Mexico, or U.S. businesses, right? I'm going to be -- it won't surprise you -- I'm going to be at a wine festival this weekend, Daniel Jonas's throws every year, La Paulette, there's going to be a lot of French winemakers there.

[08:10:00]

ROGINSKY: I think he's showing off.

HEYE: I am. They are concerned, obviously, of what tariffs may come into France. And that's not just about French winemakers and fancy champagnes and burgundies or whatever.

That's about American distributors, American retailers, people who delivering those products. It's about American jobs, ultimately. So when you show a Canadian retailer saying we're going to get rid of all the Jack Daniels and Tito's vodka, that's not just a talking point. That's American jobs.

BERMAN: Yes, and it is seemingly having an impact. And we're watching the markets very closely today. Futures had been up. They seem to be dipping back toward the middle, maybe even down this morning. Investors not happy.

One last question on pure electoral politics here. Politico has got a little bit of a look on what former Vice President Kamala Harris might be doing and whether she's going to jump into the gubernatorial race in California in, I guess, a year and a half now.

Politico said, quote, she said to people, I'm staying in this fight, she told allies in phone calls and at private gatherings at a pre- Oscars party last weekend.

Harris was asked by another party goer when she would make a decision about jumping into California's governor's race. She gave a definitive answer, according to two people with knowledge of the conversation. The end of the summer, she would decide by then.

It's a big choice.

ROGINSKY: Yes, and look, I think if she were to jump in, she cleared the field and probably become the next governor of California. She has to decide whether she's going to do that or she's going to run for president again or she's going to do something else and become kind of a an minence grise.

Sorry for the French but you inspired me.

HEYE: It's great.

ROGINSKY: Yes. But to be somebody who wants to be a thought leader in the Democratic Party, and I think she has an ability to do all of those things, California is probably the least risky for her personally, because that is probably the best success that she will be guaranteed to have.

HEYE: And John, every concession speech after a campaign says this fight is not over, right? Every candidate says this. But I think the answer for Democrats, clearly the message that voters are sending them is not more Cal Bell.

BERMAN: Understood. All right, Doug Heye, have fun at the wine festival.

HEYE: I will.

BERMAN: Make good choices. Julie, thank you.

ROGINSKY: I'll just be sitting at home and bored. So living vicariously.

BERMAN: Appreciate both your time. Have a great weekend -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Ahead for us, an impossible choice between barbaric methods. That is what the attorney for a death row inmate now says as South Carolina prepares for the first time in 15 years to put a man to death by firing squad.

And RFK Jr. has been pushing unconventional treatments for measles, seemingly taking cues from a doctor who has faced disciplinary action for, quote, unusual use of risk filled medications.

And later today, a first of its kind playing out at the White House, a summit hosted by the self-proclaimed first crypto president.

[08:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SIDNER: Tonight, a death row inmate is set to be executed by firing squad. It is the first time this has been done in about 15 years. Convicted South Carolina killer Brad Sigman had three choices. Lethal injection, the electric chair or firing squad. He says he didn't want to be cooked alive and a court denied his legal team's request for a fuller hearing to learn more about lethal injection. So Sigman chose the firing squad. He has asked the governor and the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene, but it is unlikely that will happen.

Death by firing squad is allowed in five states but is rarely chosen. That could soon change. Idaho may make it the state's primary method of execution.

Joining us now is CNN legal analyst Joey Jackson. I got to tell you, hearing firing squad in 2025 sounds absolutely barbaric. I didn't realize that inmates had a choice in some states.

JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, you know, it does vary. Good morning to you, Sara. It varies by state.

But firing squad, you would think, hey, how inhumane. There's a school of thought, Sara, which would suggest that this is even more humane than other methods. Why?

You're familiar with. We talked about old Sparky in Florida where they were having issues with respect to the electrocution, the electric chair, what it was doing and burning people. That's probably what this person who's going to die alluded to.

And then, of course, there's been issues as it relates to the cocktail, and that is the drugs that they put in your body and what it does in terms of the experience that you have right before you die and whether that's humane or inhumane. And it's felt by many that this is quick, fast to the point, somewhat brutal and perhaps graphic. But at the end of the day, that's a policy choice as it relates to which one is best, worst or otherwise.

SIDNER: And the inmate gets to choose. I do want to sort of go over what his attorney says that he is aware of, which is death by firing squad means broken bones, destroyed organs and a terrible mess to be cleaned up.

Meantime, you know, usually you are allowed to have witnesses as well to this, either the victims or the family of the of the inmate. And so it would be a horrible thing to witness.

What, though, does it tell you about inmates fear of lethal injection? Because there have been a long fights over the cocktail of drugs used. Even at some point, the whole thing was stopped as it went through the courts about whether or not one drug was used or not.

JACKSON: Yes. You know, Sara, that's a great point, right? Because the reality is, is that in picking as some states you can, as you noted, the reality is, is that many are fearful by the sensations you get from the cocktail.

Some instances not working. Some they have to apply even more. Some suggesting that they have this -- it creates a drowning sensation and other unpleasantness.

[08:20:02] And so this is really a policy debate. Right.

Look, elections have consequences. The people who are in elective office get to decide, are we going to have a death penalty? Twenty seven states in this country do. If we do have a death penalty, what is going to be our method of killing someone and what's appropriate and what's not? And we could debate night and day whether this is barbaric, whether it's not what it should be permitted.

And that's ultimately up to the jurisdictions. And in this case, South Carolina.

SIDNER: Idaho is now saying this is going to be their potentially their their main method. If a bill that is awaiting the government governor's approval is signed, what does that mean? Does that mean you don't have a choice or that it's a fallback?

JACKSON: So I think that it means that it's an option. And with regard to having an option, what it means is that, you know, if you select or you have really death by firing squad, I mean, some would say it's highly problematic. I'm probably one that believes that where they literally put a target on your heart and then you have multiple shooters who shoot and then you die.

And so, listen, I don't know what society is becoming. I know we see a lot of these things on TV, but this is real life. And the Supreme Court, I should say the United States Supreme Court, is really loathe to get involved in these cases.

They leave it to the states. And in this particular case, the governor in South Carolina will have the ultimate say with regard to whether the governor provides clemency or what have you or lets us go forward.

SIDNER: And so far in this particular case in South Carolina, it does not look like there is going to be a stay. So we will have to wait and see what happens ultimately. But it does certainly sound barbaric when you hear the word firing squad in 2025.

JACKSON: Yes, it does. And that's why it's the first time in 15 years, yes.

SIDNER: Joey Jackson, it's awesome to see you. And I'm so glad you're here on a Friday because we're going to party afterwards.

JACKSON: Amen, amen.

SIDNER Thank you -- John.

BERMAN: All right, quote, it makes me physically ill to think about the changes that could be coming. The new message from one teacher this morning as President Trump prepares to dismantle, we think the Department of Education.

And new this morning, deadly strikes in Ukraine as Volodymyr Zelenskyy prepares to present plans for a cease fire.

[08:25:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: New today, the education secretary, Linda McMahon, is speaking out, saying that she does not know exactly when President Trump will sign his executive order trying to dismantle the education department, the department she now oversees, only saying that she is sure that he will. Here's what she told Fox News last hour.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do we need this department?

LINDA MCMAHON, EDUCATION SECRETARY: No, we don't.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What about your employees? Forty one hundred employees, what are they saying? I'm sure they're fearful they're going to lose their jobs.

MCMAHON: Well, I think any time there's talk about shutting a department down, you know, the employees that are there are concerned about their jobs, but they're good off ramps for them. And in a country where we right now have over eight million openings and jobs, I think there'll be a lot of places for them to go. We'd like to help them get there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: But lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have cautioned about the fallout and ramifications of eliminating the entire department. And this also throws, well, states, students, teachers and school administrators into another area of uncertain, unchartered territory with the new administration.

Joining us right now is one of the millions of educators with questions this morning, special education teacher Lisa Quandt, who's been in the profession for 32 years working in Illinois. She's also was a guest of a Democratic member of Congress at President Trump's joint address earlier this week. Lisa, thank you for being here.

A lot has been said about the Department of Education, about public education, where it is succeeding, lacking and the range of ideas of where it needs to head. What's your reaction to hearing that from the new secretary of education this morning?

LISA QUANDT, SPECIAL EDUCATION TEACHER, BELLEVILLE TOWNSHIP HIGH SCHOOL: It's very troubling. It's not only troubling, it's disturbing and it makes me so sad for our kids. I don't understand why we're talking about dismantling things when honestly, what we should be doing is strengthening them. It makes no sense at all.

It's not fair. We have to protect our kids. We have to protect our families and our teachers. This is how people learn. And we have to give them equal rights to learning.

Getting rid of the Department of Education would get things -- rid of things of Medicare or Medicaid and the IDEA, which gives our kids so much funding. It's seriously troubling.

BOLDUAN: It seems -- I want to play something else that we heard from the secretary this morning, because the way she views it, the way she's talking about it is she sees dismantling the department as strengthening education for children. Let me play this. She was asked about what it would mean dismantling the department for students and parents.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCMAHON: I think we will see scores go up. Our nation's report card, which is called NAEP, which came out the end of January, is what showed how far down -- you know, since the Department of Education was established in 1980, we've spent over a trillion dollars to see our scores continue to go down. We are not doing something right. And it's time to change it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Would it affect the teachers if there's no more Department of Education?

MCMAHON: No, teachers would be there in the classrooms. They're they're hired locally. They are supervised on a local basis. The Department of Education doesn't have anything to do, you know, with hiring teachers. That's all done at a local level.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: She says it's not going to impact teachers like yourself at all.

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