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CNN This Morning

Today: Musk Joining Trump At First Cabinet Meeting; Funeral For Slain Hostages Shiri, Ariel & Kfir Bibas; U.S. & Ukraine Reach Deal For Minerals, Reconstruction; Andrew Cuomo Preparing To Announce Run For NYC Mayor. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired February 26, 2025 - 05:00   ET

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

[05:00:34]

KAYLA TAUSCHE, CNN ANCHOR: It's Wednesday, February 26th.

Right now on CNN THIS MORNING:

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REPORTER: Can you tell us who the administrator of DOGE is?

KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Again, I've been asked and answered this question. Elon Musk is overseeing DOGE.

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TAUSCHE: Who's the boss? The White House finally identifies who's actually leading DOGE. And today, President Trump holds his first cabinet meeting with the world's richest man at his side.

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REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: A lot of hard work ahead of us, but we are going to deliver the America first agenda.

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TAUSCHE: Speaker Mike Johnson gets a win, convincing just enough Republicans to pass President Trump's budget blueprint, but there are potential roadblocks ahead.

Plus -- one final goodbye, a moment many hoped would never happen. Mourners lining the streets of Israel to honor three slain hostages, Shiri Bibas and her two little boys.

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TAUSCHE: It's 5:00 a.m. here on the East Coast.

You are looking live at the Capitol Dome in Washington, D.C. Good morning, everyone. I'm Kayla Tausche, in for Kasie Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us. In just a few hours, President Trump will host the first cabinet

meeting of his second term, 18 of his 22 cabinet nominees have been confirmed so far, but no Senate confirmation is needed for Elon musk, the world's richest man turned special government employee who will also get a seat in the White House cabinet room.

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LEAVITT: The president and Elon is his entire cabinet, are working as one unified team, and they are implementing these very common sense solutions.

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TAUSCHE: But Musk's most recent move, threatening federal employees with their jobs if they don't respond to an email, may not be going over well with some cabinet attendees. Quote, a Trump administration official tells CNN the move led to some annoyance among not only top officials, but even some cabinet secretaries, adding that the secretaries are in charge of their own agencies and need to conduct their own reviews for where cuts may be needed.

DOGE now also facing blowback from team members within the government, 21 staffers from the U.S. Digital Service, which was the precursor to DOGE, resigned in protest Tuesday over the lightning fast cuts for Musk and his team. Despite the controversy, Musk still seems to have the confidence of the only person he needs.

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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think it's a very smart thing and it says if you don't answer, essentially, you know, there's a penalty to pay, like that's the end of the job.

REPORTER: Musk has said that. The order itself doesn't say that. I think that's part of the confusion. Is he speaking for you when he says you'll be terminated?

TRUMP: Yeah, yeah, everybody speaks for me. I'm the one -- I'll take responsibility. You know the old statement, the buck stops here, right?

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TAUSCHE: Joining me now to talk about all this is Margaret Talev, senior contributor at "Axios".

Margaret, good early morning to you.

MARGARET TALEV, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Good morning.

TAUSCHE: Thank you for being here.

Set the scene for this cabinet meeting today and why its so different from others. TALEV: Well, now that the cabinet is in place. You have got a series

of new heads of agencies who thought that they were taking the job because they were in control of what happened to the people who work under them.

So as you remember, in President Trump's first term, there was that cabinet meeting where everyone was instructed to go around the room and talk about how great President Trump's leadership was.

TAUSCHE: That could happen again today.

TALEV: It could -- it could definitely happen again today. But I think what we're beginning to see and what we've seen over the last few days, is this pushback from newly minted cabinet officials instructing their teams, you don't need to comply with that or you shouldn't comply with that, or we don't know whether you should comply with that. We're waiting for more guidance, or you can comply with it if you want to. But don't actually put any sensitive information in there because malign foreign actors could get access to the email.

And so this is either going to be the first confrontation or the first kumbaya moment. It will either be for the cameras in a way that solidifies Elon Musk's standing or for the cameras in a way that doesn't. And so there's a lot of anticipation around what we're going to see. But I think behind the scenes, regardless of what we see, there is mounting resistance, both from these new cabinet officials who do not want Elon Musk to be in charge of them and to handicap them, but also for members of Congress who have begun to see some of this resistance play out in town hall meetings.

TAUSCHE: There's historically been a focus on a president's first 100 days, but perhaps this time, it will be the first 130 days, the time in which Elon Musk will be serving as a special government employee and issuing some of these instructions to different agencies.

[05:05:13]

We've also learned that there's an executive order forthcoming that will instruct some of these cabinet secretaries to prepare for what CNN has reported will be large scale firings.

Do we know what that will look like at a practical level?

TALEV: Yeah, I think -- I mean, I think were all including the cabinet secretary is about to find out. And we saw yesterday, the -- the U.S. government finally naming a person who works for the U.S. Digital Service. That is not a household name and I don't think will become a household name to say, well, this is the person who is actually in charge of DOGE.

TAUSCHE: And it was apparently news to her. Her name is Amy Gleason, at the -- at the precursor to DOGE before she was named as a champion of change by the Obama administration and reportedly was in Mexico on vacation when she received word that she had been tapped for this role. What do we know about her? TALEV: Well, we know that it that Elon Musk is the person who is in

charge, but he is not in charge because of the process by which he's been hired. So this is like make decisions first and then figure out how to technically justify it for legal purposes after the fact is, is really, I think, what we're beginning to see going on.

But there are two things going on at the same time. And one is that Trump is empowered musk to be the front man on this, whether it's with the chainsaw at -- at a group of party faithful or whether it is without the chainsaw in other more public events, but to set the tone and to set the scene.

And the second is that what we heard even before the beginning of this administration was from the president's outside advisers as well is that there is a real desire to reduce the size of government. If that happens to happen naturally, because government employees get so anxiety ridden or confused about what they're supposed to do, that they just go off and find another job. That's okay with a lot of these folks, too.

So I think were seeing all of these strategies and tactics kind of come into play at the same time. And, so far, they have some running room from the courts. They may be hemmed in some ways, but in other ways they're proceeding apace.

TAUSCHE: Before I let you go, you had previously served as the president of the White House Correspondents Association. For those in the American public who are reading the news about some of the changes to the press pool and the fact that the White House wants to control the small group of journalists that's going to be with the president at all times, how do you see that changing the information that the public will receive? Will it change it?

TALEV: There are -- there are two important aspects of independent free press being able to be in a room with the president. And one is that the people in that room can validate and verify for themselves what they see, what they hear, conversations that are going on.

But the other is the ability to ask questions of that president, whoever the president, to hold them accountable on difficult decisions they make, to get them to weigh in about big matters that are happening in the world. And most of the press's interaction with the president tends to be in these limited space gatherings. You have a -- you shout a question on the tarmac on Air Force One, you are able to ask a question when the president is passing you.

Journalists don't have free reign to walk around the White House and knock on the president's door and say, can I come in and ask you a question? And so, that really is a big part of what's important here. This is not about the business of relative business leverage of individual news organizations. News organizations function as the voice of the people and the eyes and ears of the people.

And when you see any administration try to limit and we haven't seen it in our lifetimes. Like this. What's happening when you see an administration try to limit who can get into those rooms and, and ask those questions, it -- it is concerning because of the potential for a larger chilling effect and the potential that the public will be able to receive less vetted, fact-checked information.

TAUSCHE: Margaret, we appreciate that context and we appreciate you being here with us.

TALEV: Thank you.

TAUSCHE: Thank you so much, Margaret Talev.

Ahead on CNN THIS MORNING, the DOGE effect, the Trump administration expected to tell federal agencies to prepare for more large scale firings.

Plus, two near plane collisions. A few airliners avoid catastrophe at some of America's largest airports.

And Ukraine's president making travel plans. He's on his way to the White House to meet with President Trump.

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TRUMP: I hear that. I hear that he's coming on Friday. It's a very big deal. It could be $1 trillion deal.

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TAUSCHE: Right now, Israel and Hamas reaching an agreement to exchange the bodies of four hostages for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. That happening possibly as early as today. It comes as final goodbyes in Israel for three Hamas hostages who did not survive.

You're looking at live pictures from funeral services for Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, Ariel and Kfir. Thousands of mourners lined the streets as their caskets passed by. The remains returned last week as part of a hostage deal between Israel and Hamas.

The young mother and her two sons, now becoming a symbol of the brutality of the Hamas attack on October 7th.

CNN's Jeremy Diamond has more.

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JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Behind me is indeed that funeral procession for Kfir, Ariel and Shiri Bibas, who were killed in Hamas captivity. You can see hundreds of Israelis at this very junction, but thousands of Israelis have been lining this entire procession.

As we now see, these vans coming through, carrying the bodies of Kfir, Ariel and Shiri Bibas, their mother. They were both -- they were all three taken hostage from kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7th, and for 16 months, so many who we've spoken to here have held out hope that perhaps they would return alive.

But instead, this is a very somber moment where so many Israelis are now devastated, as they learned last week, that they indeed returned dead from Hamas captivity.

Hamas has claimed that they were killed in an Israeli airstrike. The Israeli government says that they were killed by Hamas captors with their bare hands. But right now, just very somber, very emotional scenes as we watch, as people bow their heads in grief and in solidarity with the Bibas family.

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TAUSCHE: Devastating scenes. Thank you, Jeremy Diamond.

And later this hour, I'll speak with the father of Israeli American soldier Itay Chen, who was abducted and killed by Hamas.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy could be visiting the White House by the end of this week. A source telling CNN and the U.S. -- that the U.S. and Ukraine have reached a deal on revenue from Ukraine's mineral resources and reconstruction. President Zelenskyy, already making travel plans.

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TRUMP: I hear that he's coming on Friday. Certainly, it's okay with me if he'd like to. And he would like to sign it together with me. And I understand that's a big deal. Very big deal.

It's -- it's a very big deal. Look, it could be $1 trillion deal. It could be whatever. But it's rare earths and other things.

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TAUSCHE: CNN's Salma Abdelaziz is live in London.

Salma, the U.S. has viewed this deal as payback for prior support, but the Ukrainians have suggested that this is leveraging future generations. How did they get to this point? And what do we know about the deal?

SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, let me start by explaining that this is a deal that has been reached, but it is a framework. At this time, we haven't had official confirmation from U.S. sources. I know you heard from President Trump there, but we haven't had an official statement from either side.

What we understand is in, again, this framework is a -- the ugliest parts of the deal. The thorniest parts of the deal have been removed. That's according to Ukrainian officials. You may remember that this all began when President Trump wanted to exact the toll of a $500 billion mineral deal from Ukraine, something that President Zelenskyy said was unacceptable, something that he said was absolutely nowhere near the actual figure that the United States has contributed to Ukraine.

So you can expect that that number, that assessment has been downgraded to a figure that is acceptable to both sides. We also understand in this deal that there will be an agreement for a joint exploration. The U.S. and Ukraine exploring rare earth minerals together in that country. A fund will be created and portions of that fund could be used to back reconstruction efforts in the country.

You may notice that I haven't mentioned the most important part, which is security guarantees. That's why President Zelenskyy refused to sign these deals. In the beginning, he says he wants something back. He wants protection from the United States, from Russia's aggression in exchange for this deal.

President Trump did indicate yesterday in the Oval Office that there would be later conversations on that security guarantee. He even said that he had discussed the possibility of a security guarantee with Russia, which I'm sure has raised a few eyebrows.

But now it's about the next step, really. President Zelenskyy should be arriving in the White House this Friday, potentially, and you have to keep your eye on how the relationship unfolds between President Trump and President Zelenskyy, because it has been less than friendly in the last few days.

TAUSCHE: Well, of course, be watching that body language on Friday. Salma Abdelaziz, thank you for your reporting.

Ahead on CNN THIS MORNING, House Republicans passing their first major legislative test, narrowly pushing President Trump's so-called big beautiful bill over its first of many hurdles.

Plus, more than 100 intelligence officials about to be fired. Details on the sexually explicit messages that allegedly occurred in government chat rooms. That's ahead.

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[05:23:54]

TAUSCHE: Twenty-three minutes past the hour. Here is your "Morning Roundup".

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TULSI GABBARD, DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: They were brazen in using an NSA platform intended for professional use to -- to conduct this kind of really, really horrific behavior.

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TAUSCHE: Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard announcing that more than 100 intelligence officers will be fired for participating in sexually explicit conversations in internal chat rooms hosted by the National Security Agency. A senior Trump administration official telling CNN that rank-and-file members of the intelligence community brought the issue to Gabbard's attention.

Acting IRS Commissioner Doug O'Donnell plans to retire on Friday. The announcement, coming after the Trump administration slashed 6,000 jobs at the agency during the height of tax filing season. President Trump intends to name former Missouri Republican Congressman Billy Long to be the next IRS commissioner. Long favors wiping out much of the nation's tax code.

Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is preparing to announce a run for New York City mayor.

[05:25:02]

A formal declaration is expected as soon as this weekend, according to four sources. Cuomo resigned from his job as governor in 2021 amid a sexual harassment scandal, a scandal in which Cuomo denied all wrongdoing.

And another peaceful night in the hospital for Pope Francis. The Vatican says he is resting this morning and receiving treatment for double pneumonia. On Tuesday, the pope reportedly showed a slight improvement despite remaining in critical condition.

Straight ahead on CNN THIS MORNING, the Supreme Court ordering a new trial for an Oklahoma inmate on death row.

Plus, House drama. Republicans providing President Trump with an early victory lap in the budget battle.

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REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: Thank you all for staying on a -- on a long night. We got it done. We're going to celebrate tonight. And well roll up our sleeves and get right back at it in the morning.

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