Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

White House Freezes All Federal Grants and Loan Disbursements; DHS Chief Noem Joins Agents for New York City Immigration Crackdown; Trump DOJ Fires Officials Who Investigated Him. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired January 28, 2025 - 10:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:00:00]

JIM ACOSTA, CNN ANCHOR: Power grab. President Trump's administration is pausing all federal grants and loans, sending shockwaves of confusion throughout the government. Programs that are possibly in jeopardy, federal assistance for needy families.

Plus, Trump's retribution, dozens of officials who worked on criminal investigations of the president now fired, and January 6th, prosecutors are now being investigated themselves.

And right now in Kansas, a potentially historic tuberculosis outbreak, this latest on the unprecedented public health risk.

Good morning. You are live in the CNN Newsroom. I'm Jim Acosta in Washington.

All right, we begin the hour with CNN's Phil Mattingly. He joins us now. Phil, this is a stunning coming in from the Trump administration, a pause on federal grants and loans. What does it all mean?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: It's a -- honestly, that's the question. A lot of people who administer these loans and administer, get these grants out the door were asking last night. That's how surprised people were.

Look, we have seen a number of pauses, particularly on foreign assistance on issues related to the executive orders that President Trump has signed in the initial days in office. But this is so wide ranging and so large scale. But I think a lot of people last night including some career officials in the OMB were trying to figure out exactly what they were going for. And the reason why is this. The actual two-page memo that was put out and signed by the acting director wasn't exactly clear on the scope of what this order is going to do.

Here's what we know at this point in time from talking to probably more than a dozen people over the course of the last 12 hours, all loans and grants from the federal government, federal assistance. will be paused. We're talking about rental assistance, school breakfast and lunch programs, head start federal grants for water infrastructure. What is not included in this is Social Security payments, Medicare payments, and, according to the memo, any payments to individuals, they don't really define that much further.

But the reality right now is there are lawmakers and constitutional lawyers who are saying you shouldn't be able to do this. This should be illegal. This isn't under your authority. And the administration very clearly moving forward with this review.

ACOSTA: All right. Phil Mattingly, thank you very much.

I want to go now to Congressman Mike Quigley of Illinois Congressman, good to have you on this morning.

I do want to ask you about the immigration crackdown that's in full force right now. We're going to talk about that in just a moment because it's happening in your state, but I do want to ask you about Phil Mattingly and what he was just saying a few moments ago about all of these federal assistance programs that are apparently being frozen.

We're not getting a whole lot of information from the administration at this point. But, you know, if I could ask the control room to put that graphic back up on screen that was showing some of these programs that might be impacted potentially, I believe, we're talking about Head Start, school breakfast and lunch programs.

My goodness, Congressman, these are programs for needy kids, for hungry kids. We're going to stop giving kids a breakfast? We're going to stop giving kids a lunch when they need one? That sounds outrageous.

REP. MIKE QUIGLEY (D-IL): You know it is. I can't imagine this is what the American people wanted when President Trump said he had a mandate. Kids not eating isn't a part of any deal, kids being part of a political pawn game. I was just at a food pantry last week where among the concerns of food security is the cuts that are being proposed, now a delay and programs that are barely scraping by and long-term threats of this. And there was a sign on the door talking about ICE agents coming. And we're hearing that people are afraid to go to social service agencies because they're afraid they might get scooped up or their kids might get scooped up. It is the agents of chaos and fear and it's having its effect.

ACOSTA: Well, you mentioned those ICE raids that are happening right now. Our understanding is that the Homeland Security secretary has been participating in some of these raids. What's your response to that?

QUIGLEY: Look the Biden administration averaged about 300 arrest a day of people with criminal convictions. No one has a problem with that. The migrant community is about 40 percent to less likely to commit crimes. But if they do, then they should be held accountable just like anyone else. But what we're talking about here is mass arrests of people who are simply undocumented. 11 million people are under target.

So, again, we have people afraid to go to work, afraid to go to school, churches, any places where there's gathering.

[10:05:00]

We have neighborhoods being referred to as ghost towns. This won't help who we are as a country. It certainly won't help our, our economy. And it's a real problem that we're facing, not just here, but across the country.

ACOSTA: And, Congressman, over the weekend, we saw talk show host Dr. Phil of all people posting videos of himself participating in a ride along with immigration agents in Chicago. It looks like this is turning into a dog and pony show.

QUIGLEY: Yes, when I say agents are told to wear clothes appropriate for television and Dr. Phil talked about it doing for transparency. Look, if we're going to talk about transparency, don't, in the same week, get rid of all the inspectors general with more to come. This is an opaque administration in the first four years, beginning that way, the beginning of this administration as well.

ACOSTA: And I do want to ask you about some of the efforts underway inside the Trump administration to go after people inside the Justice Department, apparently firing prosecutors who worked on the Jack Smith case. And so we're going to talk about this with Evan Perez in just a moment. It sounds like when Donald Trump was out on the campaign trail saying, I am your retribution, he meant it. It sounds like we're in the middle of his retribution campaign. What's your response?

QUIGLEY: Yes, so much for an independent law enforcement. Clearly, the first Trump administration wanted to go after their enemies. They wanted to overturn a lawful election. And if it wasn't for some brave people in the Justice Department back then, they might have been able to do just that. So, we're seeing it at the beginning of this administration.

What I fear is that President Trump imagines he's not going to make the same mistake. He's going to be more emphatic than ever. He's going to go after people who he sees as enemies, and he's going to use the Justice Department as a weapon.

So, look out below. It's a great concern. He's not going to bring on anybody who isn't a total sycophant in those spots, and it's a real concern for the rule of law.

ACOSTA: And, Congressman, he's out there joking at events that he's going to run for a third term. What do you think of that?

QUIGLEY: Yes, absolutely, nothing surprises me. What I told people during the campaign cycle was when an autocrat tells you what he's going to do, believe him, all right? He's already attempted to invalidate the Constitution, the 14th Amendment. And, you know, I appreciate the fact that a federal judge struck that down. But, obviously, he's appointed a lot of judges who will do his bidding. My concerns are the Supreme Court in an extraordinary moment in history will agree with them on one of these egregious ideas and our Constitution will be very vulnerable from then on. ACOSTA: Yes. And based on my experience covering Trump, he doesn't tell a lot of jokes. I should clarify that. So, we're not sure exactly what he meant by all of that.

But in the meantime, Congressman Mike Quigley, Democrat of Illinois, thank you very much for your time this morning. We appreciate it.

As I mentioned this morning, we're getting a clearer picture of how Trump's retribution agenda is impacting the Justice Department. More than a dozen officials who investigated the president have been fired. So, now there's a special investigation into prosecutors involved in the January 6th cases. Can you keep up with that?

Let's talk about this more now. Joining me now, CNN Senior Justice Correspondent Evan Perez and CNN Senior Legal Analyst Elie Honig.

Evan, what has the acting attorney general said about these firings? I mean, is he literally -- are they literally firing these people? Is that what's happening?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: They are firing these people, and one of the things that they're saying is that the reason is and they're saying this in the letters that they sent out that it is because they were working on cases prosecuting Donald Trump when Donald Trump was not in office. And, you know, again, the new administration took office vowing to end weaponization of the Justice Department. If you ask the people who received these firings they think that this is what this is.

I'll read you just a --

ACOSTA: They think this is weaponization.

PEREZ: This is -- right. This is now the, the acting attorney general, Emile Bove -- I'm sorry, he's the deputy attorney general. He said -- this is what he says in his letter. You played a significant role in prosecuting President Trump. The proper functioning of government critically depends on the trust superior officers place in their subordinates. It says, given your significant role in prosecuting the president, I do not believe that the leadership of the department can trust you to assist in implementing the president's agenda faithfully.

Now, of course, the Justice Department is a part of the executive branch. They are supposed to follow the orders of the president, but there's also traditionally been a level of independence so that you make sure that whatever justice is being meted out from the Justice Department is not politicized.

[10:10:02]

And that's traditionally what has happened in Democratic and Republican administrations. That is clearly a break with that tradition in this -- if you read this letter.

ACOSTA: Yes. Elie, what do you think is going on here? I mean, they complained a lot inside Trump world about weaponization of the Justice Department, weaponization of the government. This sounds like weaponization.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, Jim, there's two things about this that strike me as especially unusual. First of all, it is perfectly normal and acceptable for a new presidential administration to fire the political appointees of the prior administration, the attorney general, the deputy A.G., and the U.S. attorneys. But these people who have been fired here are not political people. They're long time career, nonpolitical DOJ prosecutors, like I once was.

The other thing is if you look at the letter, there's no substantive reason offered. Usually, if you're going to fire somebody, you say you've engaged in misconduct. You've performed poorly. Here, the letter, it's just a very blunt, one page. It just says you participated in the prosecution of Donald Trump. Therefore, you have offended us. Therefore, you are out of here. So, it's really pretty obvious, I guess, give them credit for making no pretext about the motivation here.

ACOSTA: Yes. Evan, we're also learning about a special project being undertaken by the interim U.S. attorney in D.C., Ed Martin, who was just appointed last week, apparently he has a history with the Stop the Steal movement. What's going on there?

PEREZ: Well, he says that he's launching a project, which is essentially the first step of the investigation of the investigators. Now, what he's focusing on is the 1,512 charge, obstruction of justice charge, that was brought against people who rioted at the Capitol. It was also brought against Donald Trump. If you remember, the Supreme Court last summer invalidated or at least limited how the Justice Department can use that charge. And so, as a result, they're having to pare back on some of these charges in the January 6th cases. That, of course, is before the pardons.

And what Martin is saying is that he is asking for all documents, all emails, everything, to be preserved and they've assigned a prosecutor to start doing a review of this to see -- to get to the bottom of it, is what he says. Now, it's very odd. It's not a very -- it's not normal for you to launch an investigation without first identifying that there is some kind of wrongdoing. In this case, this law was being applied like this over decades. And it was just until the Supreme Court decided that they need to restrict it, that the policy changed, right? And so, if you're a prosecutor of the Justice Department, I assume you would have been following the rules in good faith until the Supreme Court changed the enforcement of that.

ACOSTA: And, Elie, I mean, let's listen to the -- look at this, a career DOJ official tells Politico this. It feels like a nonviolent war. It's just wild. Everybody's a sitting duck and these people have no power or control over the situation. People are just in a state of shock and devastated. It's unlike anything I've ever seen. Nothing that happened during the first Trump administration came anywhere close to this.

Elie, this sounds like a purge. It sounds like the purge is on. HONIG: Well, a lot of this is certainly unprecedented, including going back to the first Trump administration. I mean, if we think back four years ago, right now, almost to the day, within a few weeks, is when Robert Mueller was appointed to investigate Donald Trump. Now, however that case was received, it was ultimately allowed to play out to its ultimate end.

Now, what we're talking about with this other story, this idea of a special project to investigate some of the January 6th prosecutors. That's not a thing. That's just a made up term, a special project. They just came up with that title and slapped it on it. There's no legal significance to that.

What's happening here, though, is, essentially, DOJ lost a legal argument in the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court said, well, the obstruction statute that was used to charge a bunch of these January 6th rioters should not have applied to this specific circumstance.

But that was a good faith legal argument. People have been kicking that back and forth in good faith on both sides of this for many years now. And the fact that DOJ loses an argument in the appeal court and the Supreme Court has never before been used as a basis to, well, let's now investigate the people who made this good faith argument and happened to lose. I mean, if that was the case, we'd have DOJ prosecutors being investigated all the time for simply going into court and getting the losing end of a decision. So, that's what's so unusual about this particular move.

PEREZ: And real quick, just one quick addition. I would say that it's not just, you know, sort of perceived liberals that are being targeted in this purge. It's like you have people who were appointed by Bill Barr who are in career positions inside the Justice Department. I know people who are Republicans probably voted for Trump who got removed simply because their names are attached to a filing that had to do with the president.

[10:15:00]

And so that's what's going on. I'm hearing from conservatives, people who served in the department, who are very, very puzzled about how these people got placed on hit lists. So, it's not just like, you know, again the normal careers that Republicans tend to have a problem with, even conservatives are getting targeted.

ACOSTA: All right, puzzling indeed, troubling as well.

All right, Elie and Evan, thank you both very much.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ACOSTA: Returning now to our top story, an overnight memo from the Trump administration ordering a sweeping pause on all federal grants and loans that could impact trillions of dollars in federal assistance for people in every state. Let's bring in Democratic Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut.

[10:20:02]

Congresswoman, great to see you. Thank you so much.

I understand you're the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee. What is going on with these programs that are going to be impacted by this? We were looking at a graphic earlier that showed Head Start, breakfast and lunch programs for needy children. Say it ain't so.

REP. ROSA DELAURO (D-CT): Well, it is so. And thank you so much for inviting me to be on, Jim. I think this is really outrageous. And this administration is really hurting hardworking Americans. The actions are causing chaos. I can't tell you how many calls I've had from mayors, from colleagues, et cetera, of what is going on.

And when you ask the agency what funding is safe, their response is, we don't know. And if they don't know, then nothing is safe, and nothing is safe, you should know. I'm going to make a point to you, Jim, that, but that's not really -- he is breaking the law. This is -- the Appropriations Committee has voted bipartisan House, Senate, signed by the president, and this is law, and he's taking it into his hands to thwart that system, and he will continue to do it.

But your point is, and my point is, how is it affecting Americans. And you highlighted some. I am now sitting for this interview in a Title 1 school district and that takes care of three schools in my community. I'm about to speak to kids here this morning. And what does it mean if the Title 1 funds are frozen? That means that teachers don't get paid.

You talked about Head Start. It's child care. It is the after school programs. And more examples, SNAP, food benefits, so families can feed their children, the WIC program, which deals with women, infants, and children, housing and programs that deal with housing assistance. Veterans? Writ large, homeless provider grants for them. There is nursing home care, transportation programs, suicide prevention programs. You know, I can go on and on, Jim.

This is reckless, reckless in terms of the services that the federal government provides to hardworking Americans. And my constituencies, my constituents, you know, who are going to be hurt. And this is in every city and town across this country. And it is in violation of the law and violation of the Constitution.

ACOSTA: Well -- and you and Senator Patty Murray of Washington State wrote a letter to the White House saying, quote, we can put this on screen, we write today to urge you in the strongest possible terms to uphold the law and the Constitution and ensure all federal resources are delivered in accordance with the law.

And I guess you touched on this earlier, Congresswoman, and for the folks at home, maybe help me explain this. When the Congress passes something, when they appropriate money to certain programs and that is signed into law by the president and, yes, that may have been Joe Biden, now there's a new president here, another president can't come in and just say, well, we're throwing stuff out the window here. Wouldn't you have to pass yet another law and have that law signed by the new president? If you want to get rid of Head Start and food stamps and all of those things, President Trump, you got to do this through the proper methods.

DELAURO: Absolutely. It's spot on. This was appropriated, that means the funds are there. It's now the agencies have to carry that mandate out and that is their responsibility by law, is to carry out these programs. And so they're flying in the face of the law and of the Constitution because it is Congress who has the power of the purse of expending the money.

Now, they can question and so forth, but freezing it all, as I said, the effects of that, and that's what people need to know. This is not -- I don't want to make constitutional arguments. That's not what people need to hear. People need to know how this is going to affect their family, their kids and their way of life. What are we about here?

ACOSTA: Well -- and that's what -- I was told by all the smart people in Washington that this election was about putting food on the table, the price of groceries, the price of eggs and meat and potato-type issues. This is talking about taking meat and potatoes from the kids. This is about taking food off the table.

DELAURO: Off the table, that's right. And, you know, when they talk about energy programs, you know, one of the programs, there was the rebate program to put money directly back into the hands of families if, in fact, they deal with improving their homes and, and be able to save money with regard to energy.

[10:25:11]

The program there was set to save households up to a billion dollars per year on their energy bills.

So, this is contrary, contrary to what the election was about and that's the cost of living. And what -- it really flies in the face of everything. For those who voted for President Trump, it flies in the face of what he told them that he was about and he was going to do. This is an about-face and it will hurt people and American families enormously.

ACOSTA: All right. Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, thank you very much for your time. We appreciate it. Give those kids in Connecticut our best. Thank you.

We're following breaking news, consumer confidence dropping by more than five points in January. We'll talk about that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:30:00]