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Source: First Migrant Flight To Guantanamo Bay Expected Today; Trump Pauses Tariffs On Canada, Mexico For One Month; Treasury Sued Over Musk's Access To Sensitive Data; Trump, Musk Dismantling Agency That Oversees Foreign Aid. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired February 04, 2025 - 12:30   ET

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


[12:30:00]

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: -- facilities. This would be in the Migrant Operations Center area of Guantanamo Bay. We have used -- and by we, I mean the United States, has used tent facilities along the U.S. southern border before when there have been surges. It has been for a very short amount of time before they can process them out.

Tent facilities are exactly what you would imagine. They are meant to hold people for very short periods of time. And the question with Guantanamo is how long will someone be there? Now the Homeland Security Secretary said over the weekend they will not be held there indefinitely, but a lot relies on countries taking people back.

This is something that President Donald Trump talks a lot about. He just struck a deal with Venezuela to have these deportation flights. Well, that also happened during the Biden administration and then from one day to the next Venezuela stopped doing that.

So if you were in a situation like that, what happens to those who are already there and without access to legal service providers, which is unclear if they will have them, as well as other services because everything comes into Guantanamo Bay and it's not just there.

There's still a lot of unanswered questions here, but they are very much planning all of it. It could take about 30 days for them to get all of the facility up and running, but we are told that they're going to start sending them there now.

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: 30,000 people, singles.

ALVAREZ: Single adults.

BASH: Single adults.

ALVAREZ: We're not anticipating families, but again remains to be seen.

BASH: OK. So I want to talk about this and broaden it out to the almost trade war that President Trump had with Mexico and Canada over several issues, including and especially the issue of illegal immigration, particularly when it comes to Mexico. This is the way the press secretary at the White House described it. "Canada is bending the knee just like Mexico." Then there is a very different way of looking at it, the way our colleague Stephen Collinson analyzed it.

"In the face of a trade war with America's neighbors, Trump blinked. There are two things to remember when assessing Donald Trump's presidencies. First, nothing is more important than the commander in chief looking tough. Second, nothing is really what it seems. Despite a White House victory lap, there's a more convincing case that it was really Trump who backed away from a fight that could have caused severe economic pain."

Jeff Zeleny?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: There absolutely is a lot of evidence to suggest that the President backed away from an economic fight. He watches the markets very carefully. I asked him yesterday if the market reaction caused that. He said, oh, how did the markets do? We know he watches very carefully.

So --

BASH: Because as soon as they announced -- forgive me, but as soon as they announced that there was even a discussion happening with --

ZELENY: With Mexico, the markets began to have a pulse, no doubt. But even inside this administration, the Treasury Secretary Steven Bessent, Stephen Miller, a top adviser to the president, a deputy White House chief of staff, they were all urging the President to find a deal on this. Because Stephen Miller, interestingly, thought that this trade war with Mexico would hurt the broader immigration cooperation that they're seeing.

So, look, the president had many reasons to back away from this. And it's unclear actually what they got out of it. I mean, the Mexican president agreed to send 10,000 National Guard troops, which isn't nothing, obviously.

BASH: Yes.

ZELENY: Justin Trudeau later in the day --

BASH: But they were already happening.

ZELENY: -- said that he is going to create a fentanyl czar.

BASH: Yes.

ZELENY: There's a fraction of the fentanyl that comes to the U.S. from Canada.

BASH: Yes.

ZELENY: So the bottom line is at the White House yesterday, there was a feeling that the President -- you know, he said on Friday, no concessions went through this, but then clearly pulled back from the brink --

BASH: And --

ZELENY: -- which many people think is not a bad thing. I mean, there were Republican senators calling up the White House. Chuck Grassley, many others from farm states, other places saying this cannot go forward. It really rattled a lot of businesses yesterday and boardrooms.

BASH: I mean, look, Fareed Zakaria was on the show yesterday saying something that I'm now going to say over and over, quoting him, of course, that so much of this is performative.

ZELENY: For sure.

BASH: And he wants the headlines like -- and I'm going to put this up on the screen while you talk, that he's getting from the very conservative media praising him for this, despite the reality that we were just discussing.

JASMINE WRIGHT, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, I mean, I think that this is Donald Trump's M.O., and it's why he believes it's effective, because nobody knows exactly where he's going to go. He changes his mind frequently. There's -- the messaging is often unstable. His team will say one thing, then he goes back and kind of walks it back or says a completely different thing.

And so that's why he feels that he is so successful when it comes to negotiating with these countries, because they don't know where he's going to go and they don't know where he's going to land. I mean, even if you just look at the timeline, he'd said no concessions on Friday, and then on Sunday, there were exceptions for oil and other things.

BASH: Right.

WRIGHT: In my conversations with some of his advisers and people close to the President in the last 24 hours, it's really been difficult for them to identify what new promises that he has been able to gleam from both Canada and Mexico after that trade deal. But of course, they say, wait for 30 days. Let's say what happens.

[12:35:08]

BASH: All right, let's -- we're just going to have to sneak in a quick break. Up next, we will talk about the man who is wielding unparalleled power in Washington. You know who he is, Elon Musk. We have new reporting after a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BASH: Elon Musk's free reign over the United States' checkbook is facing legal challenges.

[12:40:03]

Three union and advocacy groups already filed a lawsuit against the Treasury, but little is expected to change anytime soon because the President essentially gave the richest man in the world keys to the kingdom, even though he said this yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Elon can't do and won't do anything without our approval, and we'll give him the approval where appropriate. Where not appropriate, we won't.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

BASH: Jeff Zeleny is still here, along with CNN's Phil Mattingly, who is here to discuss some terrific reporting that he and other colleagues of ours have done on going inside what Elon Musk is doing.

I want to just first start, Phil, by putting on the screen, and just for the sake of time, I'll put it up there. I think everybody has a pretty good idea of what moves he's been making that we know about, and then read a quote from your piece.

"They have managed to break so many rules and so many laws with some fairly simple actions that a lot of lawyers and a lot of people in the media and politicians and everyone get tangled up on. You're basically punching smoke when you're trying to litigate against that."

That is such a good way to put it, and also chilling.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR & CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: It is extraordinarily complicating as a factor for lawyers, for lawmakers, for the courts in general, as they trying to get us -- as lawsuits start to come. It's also very difficult to cover, to be candid if you're --

BASH: Yes, it sure is.

MATTINGLY: -- in this -- a lot of respect to folks across several organizations who have been doing great work. And the reason why is this, and I said this to one of our colleagues the other day, I think I had a failure of imagination about what was possible to some degree coming into this.

You know, we were told about the efforts by a DOJ representative to get into the Treasury Department to look at their payment system, which is quite literally the plumbing of the U.S. financial system. It's $5 trillion. It's payments that just go out automatically.

There's a stop payment system as well, contrary to what Elon Musk says. And we were flagged about that by somebody who was very concerned about it early on in the transition and never thought -- we've been reporting it out, obviously it spilled into the public this week, and just didn't necessarily have my head around just how aggressive they plan to be.

And it's Treasury, it's the GSA, it's OPM, it's -- he's got a representative of OMB as well. These are kind of the nerve centers of the U.S. government and places that a lot of people don't know about, but are absolutely critical to the day-to-day operations.

We've seen a lot of the workforce stuff because it's become public. The fork in the road email that may mix or echoes is, I think Jeff was the first one to point out in our shop, the 2022 Twitter email. That obviously has unsettled a lot of people, but that's not happening in a vacuum.

You tie that into what's happening at these agencies, where senior career officials who do have a lot of authority traditionally are completely boxed out. They are not -- they don't have access to systems, they don't have access to leadership. They're finding out about senior DOJ officials who are setting up in their agencies because all of a sudden they show up in the directory.

That's how a GSA official found out that Steve Davis, who was one of Elon Musk's, for two decades, closest advisers, was at GSA. And so was Steve Davis's wife, Nicole Hollander, who was also a Twitter official. They have now really taken control of everything.

What people, I think, are having a tough time getting their heads around is, this is somebody who donated $280 million --

BASH: Exactly.

MATTINGLY: -- to a campaign. This is somebody with tens of millions of dollars in government contracts. This is somebody with relationships and direct lines to foreign adversaries. Now, inside the systems, and it's very, very hard to figure out trace and the opacity is problematic.

ZELENY: And even the President is finding out some of this in real time after the fact. That's what I think is so fascinating about all this reporting.

BASH: You know, maybe he was (INAUDIBLE) in the Oval yesterday --

ZELENY: He did. He said, oh, he knows and he would not be allowed to overstep. The reality here is the White House is playing catch-up to this. They have so many other things going on. Elon Musk is well ahead of them.

So President Trump is not driving this train at all. He's watching what Elon Musk and his contemporaries and employees are doing.

BASH: Yes, I mean, really. I encourage everybody to read Phil's piece online. It is really important that we all know about it.

Thanks to you both. Thanks for coming on.

Coming up, what, if anything, are Democrats going to do about Elon Musk's push to dismantle the entire federal government, including and especially what my next guest cares a lot about, which is USAID Senator Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, is here next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [12:49:03]

BASH: USAID has been a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy across parties since it was created in 1961. Now President Trump and an empowered Elon Musk have it on the chopping block. Here's what Donald Trump said Sunday night.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

TRUMP: USAID run by radical lunatics, and we're getting them out.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

BASH: Senator Jeanne Shaheen is the leading Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and is leading the effort to save the agency. Thank you so much for being here. So explain why you believe Elon Musk and Donald Trump, maybe to a lesser extent here, are wrong. Why does the United States need USAID?

SEN. JEANNE SHAHEEN (D), RANKING MEMBER, FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE: Well, this agency was created because we provide a lot of services and programs that make a difference for Americans around the world. And they make a difference for Americans because they help us here at home by being good stewards abroad.

[12:50:05]

One example, right now the U.S. is hit with a bird flu epidemic. It's causing the prices of eggs to rise. A lot of chickens have been destroyed. Well, we track that bird flu around the world. That program is shut down right now. Nobody's tracking to see whether it's going to get worse overseas and make it worse here at home.

Another example is Ebola. There's an Ebola outbreak in Africa. Many of us remember when -- in the early 2000s when Ebola came to the United States. We don't have a team on the ground now because that has been suspended because of this cut on this program that we're providing to try and ensure that the diseases that are happening overseas, not only can we help with, but we don't bring them back to the United States.

BASH: So you've given a couple of examples of worthy programs. And I know that there are a lot of Republicans who you serve with who agree with that. I'm sure you saw the White House put up a list, put out a list, of what they called waste and abuse in USAID.

I'm not going to go through it because a lot of it is --

SHAHEEN: Made up?

BASH: -- a red herring --

SHAHEEN: Yes.

BASH: -- just the way they describe it.

SHAHEEN: Right, BASH: But you did see and you have heard some legitimate questions about some of these programs and whether or not United States taxpayers should be spending money on some of them. So do you concede that that is true? And should there be a review regardless of how it's done?

SHAHEEN: Listen, I'm always in favor of making sure that we are as effective and efficient as possible when it comes to government programs. And a review is appropriate. But to stop everything just immediately without thinking about what the consequences of that are, I think is the problem.

Assistance programs employ 100,000 people in the United States. Last year, they put out over $100 billion in contracts that small businesses primarily in the U.S. got from those contracts. So there are huge economic impacts in addition to the other effects of stopping these efforts. And what really gets affected is what happens with our allies and partners.

You know, one of the things that makes America strong is the fact that we have such strong allies and partners who help us. If they feel like they can't rely on the United States when we make a commitment to do something, then they're going to look elsewhere. And I'll tell you who's ready to fill in that vacuum, and that's China.

BASH: And Russia.

SHAHEEN: And Russia, absolutely.

BASH: We heard from --

SHAHEEN: We saw former President Medvedev --

BASH: Exactly.

SHAHEEN: -- who said that they were rejoicing the opponent's (ph) over this decision.

BASH: I want to ask about checks and balances. And, you know, one of the things that I am hearing over and over again, if I'm hearing it, I know you're hearing it, is where's Congress? There's -- you tell me, I don't see any legal basis for the DOGE Group or people who -- Elon Musk or people who work for him, to be doing this the way that they are, given the fact that these programs were approved by Congress and signed into law. Is there anything you can do?

SHAHEEN: Well, that's what's so disappointing, Dana, because our foreign assistance programs have been something that has had bipartisan support since we really started, as you pointed out, back in the 1960s. We've had congressional support in a bipartisan way for congressional oversight of agencies, for recognizing that it's only Congress that can create agencies and not delete --

BASH: But Republicans -- forgive me, but we're running out of time, and I just want to get some clarity on this, because obviously Republicans have said -- SHAHEEN: Well, that's the problem. The problem is that they've --

BASH: -- given that reality, and you're in the minority, Democrats are in the minority in the House, is there any mechanism, whether it's constitutional or, well, I guess, through the courts or whatever it is?

SHAHEEN: Well, there are a number of lawsuits that are going forward, and I think those will be important. We will do everything we can to continue to call public attention to this because we need to see the public express concern.

When Elon Musk can go in and get access to my grandmother's information about her tax return and her health concerns and anything that the Treasury Department has, that is a very bad situation for everybody throughout the country. And what they're really trying to do is to keep people who object from saying anything because they're worried about retribution, and that's what's happening with our Republican colleagues.

[12:55:06]

BASH: They're worried about retribution.

SHAHEEN: They are afraid of Donald Trump and Elon Musk, and they're worried about retribution.

BASH: Thank you for coming on. This is definitely the beginning of this conversation.

SHAHEEN: It is.

BASH: A lot more to discuss. Appreciate it. Nice to see you in person.

SHAHEEN: Nice to see you, too. Thanks.

BASH: Thanks, Senator.

And thank you for joining Inside Politics. CNN News Central starts after the break.