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Lawmakers Face Pushback from Constituents at Town Halls; Conservative Leader Likely to be Germany's Next Chancellor; French President Meets with Trump. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired February 24, 2025 - 06:30   ET

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

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[06:30:57]

KAYLA TAUSCHE, CNN ANCHOR: Voters expressing anger and frustrations with how President Trump and DOGE have gone about slashing the federal workforce.

CNN's Isabel Rosales has more.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are all freaking pissed off about this. You're going to hear it and feel it.

ISABEL ROSALES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): A flurry of boos and ire in ruby red northern Georgia as hundreds of voters crowd Roswell City Hall to confront GOP Representative Rich McCormick for his backing of the Trump agenda.

REP. RICH MCCORMICK (R-GA): I came here to have a discussion. You -

(INAUDIBLE).

MCCORMICK: I think a lot of you didn't come here in good faith to have a discussion. You came here to yell at me. And to boo me.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want to say for - from a conservative perspective -

ROSALES: This constituent igniting a fiery exchange over massive federal layoffs led by the administration's newly created Department of Government Efficiency. Just 20 miles away in Atlanta, around 1,000 workers fired at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why is a supposedly conservative party taking such a radical and extremist and sloppy approach to this?

MCCORMICK: And I'm in close contact with the CDC. Those probationary people, which is about 10 percent of their employee base, which is about 1,300 people, which you're referring to, a lot of the work they do is duplicitous with AI. ROSALES: I've read a lot of the comments on X saying that this was a

room full of liberals.

GINNY LIM, DEMOCRATIC 7TH DISTRICT RESIDENT: No, it was not a room full of liberals. It was a room full of average, normal, everyday Americans who are afraid of what is happening with our country.

ROSALES (voice over): Ginny Lim, a Democrat from McCormick's district, tells me this White House post is what compelled her to attend the town hall.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Tyranny is rising in the White House, and a man has declared himself our king. So, I would like to know - rather, the people would like to know what you, Congressman, and your fellow congressmen are going to do to rein in the megalomaniac in the White House.

MCCORMICK: When you talk about tyranny, when you talk about presidential power, I remember having the same discussion with Republicans when Biden was elected.

ROSALES (voice over): Brant Sturgill tells me he proudly voted for Trump three times. But when Trump called Ukraine's president a dictator -

BRANT STURGILL, REPUBLICAN: This is an embarrassment on the world stage, what was said by our president. And I voted for Trump. You can't - you can't do that.

ROSALES (voice over): And on DOGE.

STURGILL: I think it's a mistake to do it too rapidly.

ROSALES (voice over): Maggie Goldman, a Democrat, hopes the turnout is emblematic of a larger movement.

MAGGIE GOLDMAN, DEMOCRAT: Hopefully it's - it's an opportunity to show other states that they can also get out and go to these town halls with their representatives.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TAUSCHE: Isabel Rosales.

Isabel, thank you.

I want to bring in the panel here, who is still with us.

Matt, I'll start with you because, you know, we have seen not only some of the - the uprising from those town halls across the country, but also the nascent frustration with some Republican lawmakers. But this is hardly the cavalry that would require Donald Trump to change course at this point.

MATT GORMAN, FORMER TIM SCOTT PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN SENIOR ADVISER AND REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: No. I mean, as I was saying before, I was here doing House Republican work in 2018 when the health care was really bubbling up. And it was - it was very different. It - when these things succeed, Tea Party, health care, probably the two best examples, it's bottom up, where almost party leaders just all of a sudden see this message on the ground and kind of adopt it as themselves. It's not top down.

And what was telling for me was, obviously the CDC connection, right, where it's 20 miles outside of Atlanta, so you're getting a lot of those workers. But the median Democratic voter - I'm sorry, the median - the median swing voter is not holding fascist signs talking about Ukraine and also not holding preprinted anti-Elon Musk signs.

Look, I think what you're seeing is the 7.3 million folks who did not vote for Hillary but voted for Kamala kind of re-awakening a little bit with this. Maybe Democratic enthusiasm, yes, but this is not a sudden swing voter deluge.

TAUSCHE: Meghan, that -

ALEX THOMPSON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: But I also -

TAUSCHE: Go ahead.

THOMPSON: But I was just going to say, another difference between, you know, Tea Party 2010 is, a lot of those protests were Republicans protesting Republicans.

[06:35:01]

GORMAN: Yes. Yes.

THOMPSON: And saying, you need to dig in. You need to resist. That has not happened yet to Democrats right now.

And also, as someone that was covering sort of the resistance in 2017, you know, I remember going to a town hall in Arkansas with Tom Cotton, and it was much bigger and much angrier than what we just saw right there.

TAUSCHE: Yes, and, Meghan, I - I spoke with a senior Biden official last week and asked about generally the approach of Democrats. And this person said, look, Democrats need to let things be really bad. They need to let the cuts be deep. They need to not try to intervene and soften the blow. That's the only way that they - this - in this persons view that things were actually going to cause voters to vote for change. Do you agree with that position?

MEGHAN HAYS, FORMER BIDEN WHITE HOUSE DIRECTOR OF MESSAGE PLANNING AND DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: I mean it's hard because it's our country and we - I don't want to watch it all fall apart. And I don't want to watch some of these really good things that we do have as a country fall apart.

But I do think the Democrats don't have a lot of power here. Their power right now is in the negotiations on the House side they have a one - the Republicans have a one seat majority, and that's where they hold a lot of power to really stop some of Trump's agenda. Fighting, you know, outside of USAID and making noise there about DOGE isn't going to be helpful to them at this moment because there's nothing actually they can do. So, I think that the - the Congress needs to buckle down, they need to figure out what their priorities are, get on a cohesive message, and then fight the things that are really important to the people in their districts but also what is important to the Democratic Party, because that is where the Democrats have power.

TAUSCHE: So that's going to come home to roost when we're discussing the reconciliation package and some of the actual agenda items on the policy front. But even before you get there in 20 days, they're going to have to figure out how to fund the government. I mean what's the risk that Elon Musk decides that they want to shut down the government and anyone who's deemed nonessential just doesn't come back?

GORMAN: Well, two things. I don't think it will be Elon Musk's decision. I think, frankly, it will be Democrats in large part. I think they're going to need Democratic votes to do this. But I think what's unique about this and different than when it's on the other foot, when Republican votes are needed to fund the government is, Democrats are naturally more inclined to have - keep the government running.

And I would also caution Democrats, I would say, look, if you are nervous about Elon Musk's effect on the government, shut it down and see, because that will - that will make his job a lot easier. It's like shutting off a car at a stoplight. It's - you have to turn right back on. It's a lot more gas to do that.

TAUSCHE: Yes, there have been some recent poll numbers on this. CNN conducted a poll asking respondents whether they supported the role that he was taking - the outsized role that he's been taking in government. Fifty-four percent said that President Trump giving Elon Musk this prominent role in his administration is a bad thing. So clearly that's a pretty decisive number there, Alex.

But the other thing that Elon Musk serving in this role gives President Trump is plausible deniability. If Elon Musk makes some of these decisions, pulls some of these levers, and the outcome is bad, then Trump can say, well, that was Elon. That wasn't me. That wasn't my administration. He was a special employee. He was in this, you know, rarefied role relatively outside of government.

THOMPSON: I don't think Trump minds Elon being the bad cop in this - in this situation. I also - Elon is not a candidate for office. So, if people disapprove of him, I don't think it really matters.

Now, the question is, does Elon become toxic enough or does he rattle the federal government enough that something really bad happens as he's playing around in the gears, but then it affects Trump's popularity? At the moment, we haven't seen evidence that it has yet.

TAUSCHE: We will keep the panel here. We're going to discuss the national security implications of some of this in just a bit. But meanwhile, the conservative party coming out on top in Germany's

snap election, defeating the social Democrats who came in third. Surging to second place, the alternative far right, the strongest finish for the party since World War II. Issues at the forefront, immigration, the economy and the United States. Conservative leader Friedrich Merz now on track to become chancellor and stressing a need for German independence from America.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FRIEDRICH MERZ, LEADER OF GERMANY'S CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATIC UNION PARTY (through translator): My absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that step by step we can really achieve independence from the United States.

But at the very least, after Donald Trump's statements last week, it is clear that the Americans, at least this part of the Americans in this administration, are largely indifferent to the fate of Europe.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAUSCHE: CNN's Melissa Bell joins us live now from Berlin.

Melissa, you have said that - that this incoming chancellor wants to put together a governing coalition by Easter. How likely is that?

MELISSA BELL, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Looking increasingly likely. We understand that he spoke with his potential coalition partners, the SPD (ph), last night. That's according to German media.

And just picking up from what Friedrich Merz, the likely next chancellor of Germany, was just saying there, Kayla, there is this sense of urgency for Europeans. Remember that Germany is Europe's largest economy. It is also a powerhouse of the European Union politically. And as he pointed out last night at his victory speech, because, of course, his party came first, even though that doesn't automatically makes him - make him the next chancellor, there are now discussions to form a coalition.

[06:40:06]

It is because of the stance of the American administration that the world, he said, will not wait for us. And German politics has this tradition of functioning relatively slowly. There is this inherent stability in the system. Coalition talks can take some time. He announced that he believed a coalition could be found by Easter.

And what we understand this morning, from looking again at the results, the fact that two parties have been excluded from the parliament because they did not meet that 5 percent bar of the vote. The reshuffling of the parliamentary seats means that it looks as though the (INAUDIBLE) and the SPD have the seats they need to form a two party coalition, which is likely to prove much more stable than the three party coalition that collapsed at the end of last year.

Kayla.

TAUSCHE: Melissa, the surge in popularity among the far right party is something that President Trump has been celebrating, suggesting it's a global shift toward a more conservative ideology, even drawing some parallels between Germany and the United States. Is that how you see it across the Atlantic?

BELL: There is definitely something that's happened here in this political cycle in Germany that is reflected in other European countries as well, and that is a surge in parties representing the far right that tend to be Euroskeptic, that tend to want to end aid to Ukraine. It is the case of the AfD here in Germany that are much more aligned with the policies of the current - current American administration, and they are making extraordinary headway. The AfD doubled its score on the last elections, it believes, and Elon Musk has just congratulated it, tweeting in this sense as well, that the one to keep an eye on will be the next federal elections in four years' time. The AfD believes that they can continue building on that support they have, specifically in the former - in the parts of the former east Germany where there is a great deal of disaffection about the state of the economy and a great deal of concern about immigration policy.

And I think one of the most interesting things you've seen in this campaign is the whole of the political spectrum here in Germany moved to the right on those questions of immigration, not least the CDU, the Christian Democrats, that are likely to be able to name the next chancellor in the shape of Friedrich Merz.

Kayla.

TAUSCHE: Melissa Bell in Berlin. Melissa, thank you.

Still ahead here on CNN THIS MORNING, assessing the damage. The CIA examining whether Trump administration efforts to cut payroll at the agency may have exposed undercover agents.

Plus, Ukraine marks the third anniversary of its fight for survival against a Russian invasion. How the second Trump administration is changing the reality on the ground.

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[06:47:05]

TAUSCHE: Today marks the third anniversary of Russia's brutal invasion of Ukraine. And for much of the western world, backing Ukraine remains a cornerstone of foreign policy.

This morning, leaders from across Europe and Canada arrived in Kyiv in a show of support for the country. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also hailed the bravery of his countrymen for standing up to Russia's aggression. He spoke about potentially striking a peace deal with Vladimir Putin.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): This year should be the year of the beginning of a real lasting peace. Putin will not give us this peace. He will not give it to us in exchange for something. We must gain peace with strength, wisdom and unity. Through our cooperation, peace cannot simply be declared in one hour. It cannot be declared in one day, today, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAUSCHE: Absent from the ceremonies today, French President Emmanuel Macron, who is holding an urgent meeting in Washington, D.C., today with President Trump as he works to repair the unraveling relationship between Presidents Trump and Zelenskyy.

The Trump administration is signaling an end to U.S. aid for Ukraine and pushing for a deal for Ukraine's natural resources as payback for previous aid. Trump officials are also shying away from blaming Russia for the invasion.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE WITKOFF, SPECIAL ENVOY TO THE MIDDLE EAST: The war didn't need to happen. It was provoked. It doesn't necessarily mean it was provoked by the Russians. There were all kinds of conversations back then about Ukraine joining NATO. The president has spoken about this. That didn't need to happen.

SHANNON BREAM, FOX NEWS HOST: But, fair to say, Russia attacked unprovoked into Ukraine three years ago tomorrow.

PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY: Fair to say it's a very complicated situation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAUSCHE: Joining me now is David Sanger, CNN political and national security analyst.

David, we're seeing this show of support from western leaders in Kyiv today, all while the Trump administration continues to sidestep who is to blame for this war.

I mean, is this being received as a step change overseas or simply a transactional president trying to gain a meeting with Putin in Saudi Arabia in the coming weeks?

DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, Kayla, I think it's a little bit of both, but it has certainly been a remarkable rewriting of history. You know, for anybody - I'm in Berlin right now for anybody who was here in Munich in the days leading up to the war three years ago, watching the negotiations underway or the threats of sanctions underway with Russia, there's no question what happened. The Russians invaded Ukraine. There was no serious prospect at that moment that the Ukrainians were going to join NATO anytime soon, nor is there today. So, this is a rewriting of history. And what it has done essentially

is put the United States and Russia, and to some degree China, on the same side of history and maybe the same side of a U.N. resolution, depending on how that plays out today, and the rest of Europe, indeed much of the rest of the world, sort of recognizing what actually happened.

[06:50:09]

TAUSCHE: And in the rest of Europe, as you mentioned, David, there is also a question about sustainability for aid to Ukraine. Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Germany, who is now the outgoing chancellor, was very vocal in his support for Ukraine and then suffered a resounding defeat in the elections yesterday.

I want to play what the incoming chancellor said about his priorities for the country and for Europe more broadly.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FRIEDRICH MERZ, LEADER OF GERMANY'S CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATIC UNION PARTY (through translator): My absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that step by step we can really achieve independence from the United States.

But at the very least, after Donald Trump's statements last week, it is clear that the Americans, at least this part of the Americans in this administration, are largely indifferent to the fate of Europe.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAUSCHE: We've heard defense ministers and diplomats, David, saying something similar, but how striking is it to have Germany, one of the de facto leaders of the European Union, basically talk about not being able to count on the U.S. going forward?

SANGER: It's truly remarkable. And I was really struck last night when I heard the - we assume incoming chancellor, Mr. Merz, make that statement about the United States being largely indifferent to the fate of Europe. I mean, think about that. Since World War II, the United States has had a pretty consistent policy across Democratic and Republican administrations for the defense of Europe. And Merz and other European leaders are now coping, since last week, with a new reality. And that reality is that they probably need to put together a European defense, perhaps including a European nuclear defense that initially would depend on the British and French nuclear arsenals that is independent from NATO.

So, what we may be seeing here, and it's too early to know how it will play out, is actually the dissolution of NATO, or at least its watering down, 75 years after it was created, and Merz and others think about other ways that they're going to have to defend their nations.

TAUSCHE: That 75 year anniversary that was just hailed this past summer in Washington, D.C., when all of those leaders came here. SANGER: That's right.

TAUSCHE: The British and the French leaders will be in Washington this week, David. If they cannot convince President Trump to reengage with European allies, transatlantic allies, what do you realistically expect they could achieve?

SANGER: Well, Kayla, there are really two questions. First is, what do they get President Trump to say? And I'm sure that while they're there, he will probably say some reassuring things. And then the second question is, what can they trust he would do? If, for example, Russia, after an interval of a few years, assuming we got a peace agreement with Ukraine, as we all hope that we will, decides to go after Ukraine again or decides to try to pick off a smaller NATO ally, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, something like that. And I think their confidence that President Trump would step in and have the United States step in, in a unified defense of NATO, has got to be pretty low right now. And that's really why you're hearing the kind of statements that we've heard from Friedrich Merz and others.

TAUSCHE: One imagines that could be among the questions that President Macron will get when he holds a press conference with President Trump later today. We will wait and see what that brings for now.

David Sanger, our thanks to you for joining us. We appreciate it.

SANGER: Thank you.

TAUSCHE: Fifty-three minutes past the hour. Here's your morning roundup.

An American Airlines flight to India diverted to Rome with an escort from a pair of Italian fighter jets. Officials say it was due to a, quote, "security concern." The plane was inspected, then allowed to leave for New Delhi.

For the first time in more than 20 years, Israel's military sending tanks into the occupied West Bank. The Israelis say residents who were, quote, "evacuated" will be prevented from returning. Palestinian authorities call it an escalation of aggression.

Another shakeup to the FBI leadership late last night. President Trump naming Dan Bongino as deputy director of the bureau. Bongino is a former Secret Service agent turned far-right media personality. And in a post celebrating Bongino's hiring, President Trump said the podcaster is, quote, "willing and prepared" to give up his popular podcast and radio show to take the new job.

The panel is still here with me.

Matt, what do you make of the appointment of Dan Bongino? Do you know much about his policy views and what he said about the FBI and what he would hope to do there?

GORMAN: Well, I took away from it more than anything else was, they kept this very quiet and obviously didn't appoint him until well after Kash Patel was already confirmed, right, so this wouldn't be an issue in Patel's confirmation, possibly maybe sway some of the senators.

[06:55:10]

And I will say it, he is a very, very, very influential voice on the right. His podcast is extremely popular. So, this will be very interesting to see how he does in that role. And obviously also not Senate confirmable.

TAUSCHE: Yes, that is true.

New reporting this morning, a source telling CNN, that the CIA is conducting a formal review to assess any potential damage from an email sent to the White House earlier this month. The email in question, an unclassified message that identified some newly hired employees by their first name and last initial. A move that could potentially expose the roles of people working undercover abroad. Sources previously told CNN that the email was sent in an effort to comply with an executive order to downsize the federal workforce, but critics were quick to call it out as a risk to national security.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JIM HIMES (D-CT): These are people who, in many instances, will have spent, you know, years in training and arguably years in getting security clearances. So just, you know, an absolute unnecessary counterintelligence risk was assumed today.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAUSCHE: Alex, CNN had reported in this piece that is up on our website, which I encourage everybody to go read, that there are several people who have already been dismissed from their jobs at the CIA because there was a worry they were in the hiring process, but there was a worry because of their disclosure in this email that they could be compromised in the future. I mean, is this a one-time oversight, or is this something that you think is of higher concern?

THOMPSON: Well, this is the difference between going in and rebuilding Twitter and the federal government, and that there are, you know, bigger potential consequences when you are going in and trying to just, you know, fire people sort of willy nilly and then trying to rehire them. And that's why you've seen, you know, this is - this is a part of many little mistakes that could have huge consequences this first month. You're talking about, you know, stuff dealing with nuclear reactors and the FAA. And, you know, the hope is that there aren't, you know, dire consequences to some of these changes. But that is the risk.

TAUSCHE: And the treasury payment system also, that has been in focus, this obscure sort of plumbing of the federal government has also been part of this because CNN's reported that a senior Treasury official sent a memo to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent saying, like, look, every single payment from the federal government, whether it's to an asset stationed overseas or a front company through which the government is doing business, all of that goes through this treasury payment system. And if you have a snapshot of what all of those end vendors are, then you could learn a lot that perhaps you don't really necessarily want to know about.

HAYS: Yes, I mean, to Alex's point, these mistakes have real world implications. It has implications not only to people's safety, but our - to our national security, whether it's exposing them by name or whether it's exposing how they're getting paid. That's, you know, one thing about the federal government, there is a paper trail on everything. We don't walk around in cash and just hand out cash willy nilly, like a lot of countries might do with their assets abroad. So, we do have end system payments. And that is a huge problem.

And it's not just a problem that Elon Musk has access to it. No one knows who's working for Elon Musk. And all the reports say there's like a 19-year-old kid running around who doesn't have any understanding or any foresight of what the government actually does and what these things actually mean and the consequences.

TAUSCHE: Matt, the White House has said that Elon's going to be his own cop on the beat, that he will disclose conflicts where needed and that they will be as transparent as they can. What grade would you give them on that mark so far?

GORMAN: I think it remains to be seen. And I think one of the other things that I would - I would consider is the fact that even if they have that standard, they're not going to tell broadly the American people. I think they want to probably keep it in house and keep that internally. I would - I would assume that's where they're going with it.

And one of things other - also jumped out at me in - in CNN's reporting was the fact that the CIA was concerned that some of these people that would be layoffs or buyouts within the CIA would be open to selling secrets to a foreign asset. And that jumped out at me, the fact that they would, you know, this would cause possibly - honestly cause treasonous activity on the part of some of these layoffs. I certainly hope that's not true. But it's something, obviously, to guard against as well.

TAUSCHE: Alex, final word.

THOMPSON: Stay tuned. I think we're in - I can tell you, the Trump team is undeterred by any of this blowback. And we are - and they are just getting started.

TAUSCHE: And we know now about the - the thousands of layoffs coming to the Pentagon, the fact that DOGE is now targeting nonessential workers beyond probationary employees. And so we'll see just exactly how far these cuts go.

Before I let my panel go, what are you watching this week?

THOMPSON: I am still watching DOGE because I think, you know, the fact that Trump said Elon, over the weekend, Trump, keep going - or, sorry, Trump told Elon, keep going, ratchet it up. I think you're going to see it get even crazier.

TAUSCHE: Meghan. HAYS: I think I'm also watching DOGE and the military cuts and at DOD

and seeing how people react to that. People do not like to feel like our national security is at risk, and people like how much money we spend in the military.

[07:00:03]

So, I think that will be really interesting to see.

TAUSCHE: (INAUDIBLE).

GORMAN: Similar to that, if you keep plussing up defense spending, it's a lot harder for Republicans to make an argument on spending. If we keep it the same, it's a lot easier because it hits home for Republicans as well.

TAUSCHE: And then there is the fact that the remote work deadline is this week, so workers will have to come back into the office. We will see whether, in fact, they actually do that.

We'll leave it there. Thank you to my panel for joining us. Thank you for joining us at home. I'm Kayla Tausche. CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.