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Justice Department Fires Officials Who Investigated Trump; Trump Bars Transgender Americans from Military Service; Snow and Flood Concerns Move into Great Lakes Region. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired January 28, 2025 - 06:00   ET

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


KAYLA TAUSCHE, CNN ANCHOR: It's Tuesday, January 28. Right now on CNN THIS MORNING.

[06:00:32]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The FBI and the Justice Department have become vicious monsters.

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TAUSCHE: On the outs. A Justice Department purge as President Trump fires more than a dozen DOJ officials who investigated him.

Plus --

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PETE HEGSETH, U.S. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: The lawful orders of the president of the United States will be executed inside this Defense Department swiftly and without excuse.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAUSCHE: Full speed ahead. On day one of the job, the president's new defense secretary vows to enforce Trump's to-do list, aimed at transforming the Pentagon.

And --

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TOM HOMAN, TRUMP'S BORDER CZAR: As many as we can arrest and deport. We're going to enforce the law. If they're in the country illegally, they got a problem, and they're not off the table.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAUSCHE: The immigration blitz. The president's border crackdown gears up, with 2,000 arrests in just two days, chilling immigrant communities nationwide.

And then --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: The release of DeepSeek A.I. from a Chinese company should be a wakeup call for our industries.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAUSCHE: The DeepSeek shakeup. The stunning rise of a Chinese A.I. platform tanks U.S. stocks. What it means for the future of big tech's artificial intelligence arms race.

Six a.m. here on the East Coast. Here's a live look at the Washington Monument in downtown D.C.

Good morning, everyone. I'm Kayla Tausche, in for Kasie Hunt. It's wonderful to have you all with us.

It's been just one week since the inauguration, and already, Donald Trump is demonstrating that he is not the president he was eight years ago. No longer is he an outsider, hindered by the norms and traditions of Washington.

Instead, Trump's second term is proving that he now knows just how and where to use the powers of the presidency to implement his vision for America's government.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Success will be my revenge. Success will be my revenge.

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TAUSCHE: Last night, the White House ordering a pause on all federal grants and loans. It's a decision that could impact trillions of dollars in federal assistance for communities in every state.

And the president issuing yet another slate of executive orders, this time designed to reshape the nation's military by barring transgender Americans and by reinstating service members who were discharged for failing to comply with COVID vaccine requirements.

And amid those decisions, President Trump hinting -- maybe joking -- that he might seek an unconstitutional third term in office.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I've raised a lot of money for the next race that I assume I can't use for myself, but I'm not 100 percent sure, because I don't know. I think I'm not allowed to run again. I'm not sure. Am I allowed to run again, Mike? I better not get you involved in that argument.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAUSCHE: Not 100 percent sure. In another era, that comment alone might have dominated the headlines. Instead, the biggest story this morning, the firing of more than a

dozen Justice Department officials who worked on the criminal investigations into Trump's alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election and to retain classified documents.

In a letter to those being terminated, the acting attorney general writing, quote, "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," end quote.

Multiple sources telling CNN that the Justice Department has also launched an investigation into the prosecutors who brought obstruction charges against many alleged January 6th rioters.

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TRUMP: The scales of justice will be rebalanced. The vicious, violent, and unfair weaponization of the Justice Department and our government will end. And, of course --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAUSCHE: One week -- one week in, Donald Trump's use of presidential power has been nothing short of swift and sweeping. As CNN's Stephen Collinson writes, quote, "These moves show Trump is determined to learn from his first term, when he was often frustrated by the checks and balances of government and believed he was thwarted by career officials. A recurring question over the next four years will be whether the unprecedented actions from Trump are those of an anti- establishment disrupter that simply offend normal presidential decorum, or whether they are illegal or corrupt."

Joining me now to discuss: Alex Thompson, CNN political analyst and national political reporter at Axios; Isaac Dovere, CNN politics senior reporter; Kate Bedington [SIC] -- Bedingfield, rather. Sorry, I know you.

[06:05:02]

KATE BEDINGFIELD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: No problem.

TAUSCHE: I -- the prompter just tripped me up. Commentator and former communications director for the Biden White House. And Brad Todd, CNN political commentator and Republican strategist.

Great to have you all. We have so much to get to this morning. But I want to start with the purge of the DOJ -- the DOJ prosecutors.

You know, Alex, you think about the fact that during Trump's first term, he fired his FBI director for the Russia investigation, and he was upset at his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, who had been the first member of Congress to endorse him, all because Sessions recused himself in that investigation.

And so, those were sort of lamp posts for what he could do with the department under a second term. And a lot of this was so well telegraphed.

ALEX THOMPSON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Absolutely. I mean, as you showed that he ran on doing this.

And I think it's a sign that he honestly wanted to fire Jeff Sessions the first time, and now he is really just taking control in a way -- and the guardrails are off.

Now, Donald Trump also just believes that the civil service should be completely loyal to the president in the executive branch. There should not be a professional bureaucracy sort of operating independently, and that's why he is firing, or purging -- whatever word you want to use -- some of these civil servants.

TAUSCHE: Go ahead, Brad.

BRAD TODD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I don't think it's a belief that there shouldn't be an independent civil service. It's that there isn't one. It's that the -- the members of the -- of the federal bureaucracy tend to lean to the left and side with Democrats.

And, you know, I think Republican antipathy to the Department of Justice runs deeper than the investigation into Donald Trump. You remember, under Merrick Garland, they put out a memorandum that said parents who complained at school boards might be terrorists. They said the Catholics who attend Latin mass might be radicalized to become terrorists.

Conservatives, Republicans and right-leaning independents are very, very frustrated with what they think is a weaponization of the Justice Department. So, this is going to get wide support on the right.

BEDINGFIELD: But I think this is also -- this is Donald Trump leveraging that sentiment, which I would certainly disagree with and push back on in many ways.

But I think this is -- what is so troubling about this, is that he's leveraging the sentiment to eliminate accountability for the president moving forward. I mean, that's really -- to me, it's -- I don't -- I think it's less about that he's aligned with hard-right people about how the civil service in the -- in the federal government works, and more that he's exploiting that to lay a precedent that anybody who is working to hold a president of the United States accountable isn't able to do their job.

And that, to me, is what is really, really troubling. And what he's about, what he's signaling here as he moves forward into his term.

TAUSCHE: Republicans have broadly defended his ability to do this and the way that he's gone about doing this. But there was one comment that I found particularly interesting, Isaac. I'd like to get your reaction to it.

It was former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who has advised Trump for the last several years. He -- he largely defended what Trump did, but he also suggested that maybe it should end here. Let's take a listen to what he said.

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NEWT GINGRICH (R), FORMER HOUSE SPEAKER: That would be kind of like maybe there will be a little payback. That's -- that's just human.

Now, I think, however, that on reflection, he will conclude that his destiny, the reason God saved him was not to go after Joe Biden in his old age. God saved him in Pennsylvania by turning his head at the right moment so he could focus on America, not focus on revenge. And I think -- I think deep down, he knows that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAUSCHE: Focus on America, not focus on revenge.

EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: I mean, he -- this is the man who ran saying, I am your retribution. Right? So -- I -- and I -- maybe Speaker Gingrich has spent a lot more time talking to Donald Trump than I have.

But you look at the way that Donald Trump has approached his first four years in the White House, his time in between. And this first week as the president again. And it does not seem like what he takes away from any of these experiences is, that's enough. I'm not going to go any further.

That's not how Donald Trump operates. He is pushing constantly, seeing how far he can go.

And so far, we have seen, whether it's the Supreme Court decision last year saying that there's nothing that he did as president that could be criminally liable, or nominating some of these cabinet positions that have really pushed further than anybody would have expected another president to -- to go -- to go for in terms of their qualifications or their backgrounds, you do not see a president who is backing down.

And in fact, I mean, on top of all this, it's the inspector generals that were fired on Friday night, right? If that was something -- if Donald Trump thought, maybe we're doing enough, you wouldn't fire 12 inspectors.

BEDINGFIELD: Well, I was just -- establishment Republicans like Newt Gingrich desperately want to normalize Donald Trump, because they don't want to accept that Trump is the Republican Party now.

And I don't know what campaign Newt Gingrich was watching, that he thinks that Donald Trump wants to put America's interests ahead of his own.

He unabashedly has said many, many times that he views the office of the president as an engine to pursue his enemies and settle his scores.

And I -- I understand why Newt Gingrich desperately is trying -- is trying to paint him --

TAUSCHE: Maybe he's an intended inception (ph).

BEDINGFIELD: -- with a different paintbrush. But that ain't the canvas the rest of us are looking at.

[06:10:05]

TODD: Too, he's learned a lesson from Barack Obama. In 2014, Republicans were in charge of Congress, and Obama says, Don't worry, I'll just use the pen and the phone. I'll use my executive orders to do all the things that we want to achieve as Democrats.

Donald Trump is taking that playbook and now turning it back on Democrats. And I think right now, so far, the American public likes what they see. He's more popular than he's ever been.

And we even see Democrats. You see a majority of Democrats supporting his policies on immigration, which is a signature issue. This is not the same Donald Trump we saw eight years ago.

TAUSCHE: But do you think that the way that the Trump team is approaching it now opens them up to legal challenges: not notifying Congress of the fact that they plan to fire inspector generals, not even giving these prosecutors any notice. They were fired effective immediately, which essentially is against --

TODD: They're going to lose some things in court.

TAUSCHE: -- the Civil Service Law.

TODD: I think they'll lose the inspector general case in court. I think they'll lose birthright citizenship in court.

But I also think that's OK with Donald Trump, because if he loses a few things in court, then the other things he does, you're going to -- it slows people down in having to fight them.

I think the shock-and-awe strategy is meant to have some things that win, some things that lose.

THOMPSON: Brad's completely -- I just want to say Brad is completely right, that a lot of these things, Trump expects to be challenged in court.

BEDINGFIELD: Yes.

THOMPSON: That is part of the point.

BEDINGFIELD: Wants to be.

THOMPSON: Yes. And wants -- and wants to be.

DOVERE: And if you win in court, then you get the president. And then it's even more powerful than one of these executive orders. TAUSCHE: We're going to talk about that element as it pertains to

immigration, some of these executive orders on the military. A lot more to come with our panel, coming up.

Straight ahead on CNN THIS MORNING, President Trump's border czar promises more raids are on the horizon, sparking fear among immigrant communities across the country.

Plus, gutting DEI at the DOD. Pete Hegseth echoes the president's orders to reform the U.S. military.

And China's new A.I. chatbot rattles Wall Street. How the rise of DeepSeek is pushing the boundaries of big tech's arms race.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): China, for example, is a terrible trading partner. They abuse the system. They steal our intellectual property. They're now trying to -- to get a leg up on us on A.I., as you see in the last day or so. It's -- it's a serious threat to us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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[06:16:47]

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HEGSETH: The dumbest phrase on planet earth in the military is "Our diversity is our strength."

The integration of the military racially was a huge success.

But now we're pushing boundaries and lots of different levels that are different than that, because men and women are different. Because being transgendered in the military causes complications and differences.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAUSCHE: That was now-defense secretary Pete Hegseth prior to his confirmation. And yesterday, his first day on the job, President Donald Trump signed four new executive orders that could reshape the U.S. Military.

His directives include banning transgender service members, gutting the military's diversity programs, and reinstating with back pay members who were discharged for refusing to get a COVID-19 vaccine.

The president claiming these actions will increase military recruitment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I think we're going to have a lot of people that join. We were having a hard time recruiting people, because they were looking at these people that they -- were supposed to be their leaders, and they weren't happy. They didn't like people that fall going up stairs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAUSCHE: Let's bring the panel back in.

Alex Thompson, this is essentially a restoration of a policy that Biden overturned in 2021. But it does go a step further by establishing some rules around gender pronouns and physical and mental readiness for military members.

THOMPSON: What was really striking is that they weren't also just making an argument about fitness for duty, about you know, maybe hormone therapy made it so that you couldn't go into combat or something with physical.

They made an explicit statement about being transgender. The order said, "A man's assertion that he is a woman and his requirement that others honor this falsehood is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member."

It was much -- as much a political statement as it was a policy change.

BEDINGFIELD: It's striking to me, if you listen to what the clip we just saw of Pete Hegseth saying it was -- integrating the military was -- racially was successful. But what we're talking about now is different. There are real differences.

If you took that soundbite, and you took it back to 1940, he would sound like people who were arguing against the racial integration of the military.

So, I just -- there is a -- it feels to me like they are trying to solve for a problem that doesn't exist. Women are serving in combat. They are doing so effectively. Of course, are there physical differences and limitations with women relative to men in terms of physical strength? Yes, of course.

But the military is effectively solving for that in a way that's allowing women to serve.

And so, it -- creating this division and creating this barrier to people who want to serve their country, being able to do so, is solving for a problem that doesn't.

TAUSCHE: He's softened his stance a little bit on -- on women serving in the military, suggesting that, you know, it's just about the standards for --

TODD: There be a physical standard.

TAUSCHE: The physical standard.

TODD: The military has to have one standard, which is lethality. We have to have a lethal fighting force, and that has to be the only standard by which they judge who's in and who's out. Or do you help make the United States more fearsome, more strong, more difficult to deal with in a combat situation?

We're peeling back a lot of the layers of social experimentation. You know, liberals don't really like the military much, so they want to use it to achieve a lot of other political domestic gains.

[06:20:02]

That's what's going to come to an end if Pete Hegseth gets his way. Although the Pentagon's a big bureaucracy. We'll see.

TAUSCHE: Isaac.

DOVERE: The striking thing to me is that we spent a lot of last year during the campaign talking about how Democrats were overly focused on transgender people and that it was such a small group. Why was so much attention to it?

Now, the first thing that the new secretary of defense does and implements when he gets to the Pentagon is executive orders on this.

There are -- whatever you think of it, it is -- there are about 9,000 active-duty people by estimates, who are transgender of a military that's 2 million people. And that is the opening focus for the secretary of defense.

It tells us, I think, something about his focus going forward and about how the administration is looking at this. Again, looking at, just like Democrats were last year, focused on a very small percentage of people, but that has a big political impact.

TODD: If you look at the polls, though, voters agree with Donald Trump on this issue.

TAUSCHE: Kate, I want to get your response to the view that liberals don't like the military. And also, Trump's comment that there was a military recruitment problem for the last four years. Was that true?

BEDINGFIELD: No. Liberals -- I think the idea that liberals don't like the military, that that is absurd. You look at people all across this country, all political stripes who serve their country, who -- who take up the sacrifice necessary to do so.

And I think politicizing the military and suggesting that there are -- there should be political lines drawn here, which I think is what Hegseth is doing here. I mean, this is sort of what I was saying before.

I mean, he's really -- he is trying to create conflict around -- a cultural conflict around an institution that is about sacrifice and patriotism and has historically been a place where people are united behind the idea that America should be strong and -- and able to defend itself and able to advance its interests on the world stage. And so -- so, no, I -- I wholeheartedly reject the idea that liberals

are not supportive of the military. As a liberal who is very supportive of the military, I stand in stark opposition to that.

TAUSCHE: All right. We have to leave this conversation here at this moment. But straight ahead on CNN THIS MORNING, thousands of immigrants rounded up in the first week of Donald Trump's presidency, leaving entire communities terrified.

Plus, the Chinese startup that's shaking up global markets and the world of A.I.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:26:42]

TAUSCHE: Welcome back.

Two weather systems expected to cause one big headache in the Midwest. And the South is finally warming up after weeks of wintry weather.

Let's go to meteorologist Derek van Dam. Derek, where's the good news here?

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: All right. We'll start with the good news. The warm-up coming to the South today.

The bad news: It's going to be a difficult and challenging morning commute across the interior of the Northeast.

Check this out. This is a band of snow that is actually warned at the moment with a shade of pink. That's a snow squall warning moving across central New York.

What's a snow squall, you ask? Well, it's a rapid drop in visibility and intense snow with winds gusting to 35 miles per hour.

Look at this. You can see the difference. Syracuse to Cortland. We're dropping under a mile visibility just with that band of heavy snow and wind that's moving through. It will impact places like the central Hudson Valley through the next couple of hours.

So slow down. Take it easy.

Before this band of snow and the cold front associated with it moved through, the winds were very strong. So strong that it was actually pushing the ice. You can see that from a Southwesterly direction here on Lake Erie, starting to cause some ice jams downwind from that.

So, here's all the wind associated with it. Expect a windy next 24 hours across the Northeast.

The next storm system waiting on its heels. This will be more of a rainmaker for the East Coast, so keep that in mind.

And I'll leave you with this. The above average temperatures, Kayla, that we're all looking forward to. It's coming. We just need to wait a few days if you're along the East Coast.

Back to you.

TAUSCHE: All right. And I saw a little bit of warmth coming to Washington, D.C., too.

VAN DAM: It is. It's coming.

TAUSCHE: Hopefully, that ends up happening. Derek van Dam.

VAN DAM: You deserve it.

TAUSCHE: Thank you, I appreciate it.

VAN DAM: All right.

TAUSCHE: Still to come on CNN THIS MORNING, there's a limited number of days until TikTok is banned yet again. But President Trump says a major tech company could be in talks to buy it.

Plus, immigration enforcement raids are sweeping through major cities across the country.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: They were locating and loading illegal aliens into military aircraft and flying them back to the places from which they came.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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