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Trump Meeting With Bipartisan Group Of Governors; White House Getting More Pushback To Mass Federal Firings; Musk Gets Rock Star Treatment At MAGA Gathering; Blowback Grows From DOGE Cuts, Funding Freezes; Food Prices Still Rising As Trump Takes Over Economy. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired February 21, 2025 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

DANA BASH, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS: Today on Inside Politics, dodging DOGE. Some Republicans are getting an earful from their constituents as thousands of federal workers are laid off, not just here in Washington, but all across the country. There are signs the White House may be rethinking some of its plant cuts.

Plus, the war in Ukraine turns three years old this weekend. It began, as we all know, with Russia's unprovoked invasion of its neighbor. But now members of the Trump administration are telling America's European allies that the official U.S. stance is to not blame the war on, quote, Russian aggression.

And the battle of the billionaires. Elon Musk and George Soros are investing millions of dollars in a state Supreme Court race in Wisconsin. Why do they care about Supreme Court in Wisconsin? You ask, well, we're going to explain why. It's actually something you should watch carefully.

I'm Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines at Inside Politics.

Right now, President Trump is meeting at the White House with a group of bipartisan governors as he begins his second month, now back in that office on the agenda today the tens of thousands of federal workers being fired.

Now remember, as I mentioned, these are people who live all across the country, not just in Washington. And this week, we saw mass layoffs at agencies like the FAA, FEMA, the IRS and more. And that's on top of the thousands fired earlier this month, and the 75,000 workers who took a so called buy out. But today, CNN has learned the Pentagon is rethinking a plan to fire thousands of civilian workers that was expected to start today.

CNN's Jeff Zeleny is outside the White House on the North Lawn with more. Jeff?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Dana, the president is in about entering a little more than a half an hour addressing this bipartisan group of governors. We're getting some reports from inside the room. We'll see him speaking later. But talking about his accomplishments during his first month in office, but so far, not talking about some of the concerns that are really being voiced to many of those governors from across the country.

We've been talking for the last month about this wave of federal layouts from agency to agency. Well, that is not, as you said, just impacting Washington. It is impacting every corner of this country. I've talked to aides to a handful of governors, both Democratic and Republican, who said their offices have been hearing an ear full about some of the consequences, not only from the layoffs, but also the freezing of many of these federal programs.

It's an open question if the president will hear from these governors. Normally, governors are allowed to ask questions and have an exchange. So far, the president is doing all the talking. But members of Congress are getting an earful from some constituents that became clear last evening, just in Georgia, with the new Republican member of Congress, Rich McCormick, hearing about some of those concerns about the layoffs at the CDC and elsewhere.

Let's take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What's not reasonable is taking this chainsaw approach, which they obviously admit, when they fired these people and then decided, oh, we fired the wrong people.

REP. RICH MCCORMICK (R-GA): My understanding is when you say you had this many employees that you have to cut, that organization decides who they're going to cut. Now, they made to make -- they made to make --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What you Congressman and your fellow Congressman 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.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENY: So, the House is in recess this week, and several members have heard from several constituents about these. So, Dana, it's an open question if we are hearing the beginning of what could be a wider backlash, or if it's just some constituents speaking out to their members. But there's no doubt, the president so far has been very defensive of DOGE and Elon Musk's role in this.

But as we go forward, the actual real-world impact of all of this could still affect the White House. The bottom line is, the White House is chiefly concerned about to bringing down prices and inflation, and nothing that he has said, at least so far has tempered any concerns about that. Dana?

BASH: Yeah. People still feel what they feel when they go to the grocery store and beyond. Thank you so much, Jeff, for that reporting. We are waiting to see and hear for ourselves what Donald Trump is talking about with the governors. Meanwhile, Elon Musk, the man behind many of these cuts to the federal government was given a hero's welcome at CPAC yesterday, and he brought props.

[12:05:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELON MUSK, CEO, TESLA MOTORS: I was living the meme. It's just like, this living the dream, and there's living the meme, and it's pretty much what's happening, you know.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're like, I think your --

MUSK: I mean DOGE started out as a meme. Think about it. You know it's real. Isn't that crazy? People ask, how can you find waste in like in D.C.? I'm like, look, it's like being in a room and this target, the wall, the roofs and the floor, are all targets. So, it's like, you can close your eyes and go shoot in any direction because you can't miss.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And it's a picture of inside of the mind of a genius, like, how do you do this? Can you answer that question? It's not an easy question.

MUSK: I mean, my mind is a storm.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah.

MUSK: So, it's a storm. This is the chain saw for bureaucracy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: It's pretty on the nose. I'm joined now by some terrific reporters, Hans Nichols of Axios, PBS NewsHour Laura Barron-Lopez, and Zolan Kanno-Youngs of the New York Times. Happy Friday, everybody. We made it.

Let's pick up on the Elon Musk of it all and look at some of the polling that we released yesterday, polling related to one month into the Trump administration, specifically about Elon Musk. You see there questioning whether or not Elon Musk's prominent role is a good thing. 28 percent say yes, bad thing. The majority plus say -- 54 percent say bad thing, neither 18 percent.

And I also just want to, as we start our discussion, show something else, which is we've seen people who are sort of watching this have seen some of what Jeff Zeleny played in his live shot from Congressman McCormick in Georgia. It's not just Georgia. We are seeing headlines from across the country, from Indiana to Georgia to Ohio and beyond, Republicans hearing from their constituents.

And so, Hans, I think it is important to say, we don't know which way this is going to go. This could be a blip, and then America can move on. Or this could be the beginning of a big outcry.

HANS NICHOLS, POLITICAL REPORTER, AXIOS: Yeah. And it could be similar, we've talked about at this table before, similar to 2010 when there's the Tea Party movement that presage the -- it started in '29 -- 2009. I'm looking at this in two ways. One, to what extent are the activists? To what extent are they being organized by outside groups? There's always this debate in politics. How much is grassroots? How much is astro turf? We don't know the answer to that question.

I think what we'll find out over the weekend and maybe even the next 24 hours, is, how do the Republican responses differ? How do they vary? Because what I heard from Congressman McCormick, there was someone not necessarily backing down.

Now, some of the other quotes, the Congressman are backing down. And you know, some of these guys have just been through an election. Let's give them the benefit of the doubt. They know how to read their districts.

And so, what I'm really looking for is not necessarily crowd sizes and angry town halls, although that's interesting. I'm looking at how lawmakers react and what the spectrum in is, and if there's a divide in the Republican Party.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, PBS NEWSHOUR & CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yeah. I mean, I think that it may take a while to see Republicans fully accept what they're hearing from their constituents, because again, how much are the constituents going to be upset, not just about what DOGE is doing, which we're seeing some reaction to Elon Musk himself, but also to the still the existing funding freezes, because there are still funding freezes when it comes to money coming out of infrastructure bill, coming out of the inflation Reduction Act, money that impacts farmers and other Americans across the board.

And so, the more that they see a lapse in that funding, the more that you'll potentially hear them talk to these Republicans. But I think that Republicans are probably going to hold out for a while, given that a lot of them are also simultaneously afraid of primaries from Elon Musk, who is threatening them. And also, you know, there's significant reporting suggesting that they're afraid privately expressing this for their lives and for potential threats against them and their families.

BASH: Wow. And then there's the question that should underlie all of this, which is the reason why Donald Trump became president, mostly the economy, and specifically inflation and the crisis of affordability that people felt during Joe Biden, particularly at the end, and people are still feeling.

And on that note, questions about how Donald Trump is handling that issue of the economy. 42 percent in Gallup, 45 percent in the Washington Post. Those are the approval ratings there. And then just back to CNN numbers, because I think that this is really the most important number that we saw in our poll yesterday, and that is, has Trump done enough to reduce prices. Not enough. 62 percent. 62 percent. I mean, that's almost two thirds of Americans saying, get focused on why we elected you, sir.

[12:10:00]

ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES & CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Sure. And remember during the campaign, there was another day one promise as far as the economy and as far as consumer prices to bring them down. We have seen, you know, Zeleny was mentioning that Trump has not hedge concerns at this point. He has tried to hedge expectations.

You've seen a change in sort of the language coming from him, as well as J. D. Vance, trying to tell voters. J. D. Vance said, Rome wasn't built in a day. This is going to take time, and it is early in the administration at this point to be fair, that said, he set the high expectations during the campaign. And when, you know, the previous administration was dealing with high inflation and citing supply chain issues and the global pandemic.

Well, at that point during the campaign, it was easy just to say, you're in office. Trump said, you're in office, you are responsible. Well, now you're in office. And voters tend when it comes to high consumer prices, to blame who is in office despite all of the other factors that may be continuing -- contributing to high prices.

You group that with the layoffs that you smartly said is not just impacting D.C., but impacting people throughout the country, and it's understandable why you would have frustration right now.

BASH: Yeah. Because it's layoffs not just of federal workers, but the ripple effect of people with federal contracts, people who were promised grants, farmers that you mentioned smartly, who are -- many of whom are in red states who voted for Donald Trump. There were a lot of senior Trump officials who went into the White House briefing room yesterday, including Kevin Hassett, who does economic issues. He's a senior person on economic issues for Donald Trump.

Listen to what he said about inflation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEVIN HASSETT, NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL DIRECTOR: So, we're addressing inflation. We didn't have to address it in the first term because it was always in the ones, almost always. But we're going to get it back there. And how are we doing it? Well, we're doing it with a plan that President Trump and I and others have talked about in the Oval that involves, like, every level of fighting inflation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Translation?

NICHOLS: They want more -- they want oil prices to come down. That's the quick translation. That's the way they see unlocking the inflation is really bringing down oil prices, having an energy explosion in this country. But the question is, what do they do on tariffs? Because it's not debatable, the tariffs are inflationary. And what do they do about just sort of the vibes out there? And this is what's so hard about inflation, is that once Americans' voters, consumers, anyone starts expecting inflation. It's a self- fulfilling prophecy, and that is the sort of snowball challenge that they'll be in. And one thing that the treasury market is telling us pretty clearly is that the expectations for more inflation are pretty high, and that's a concern.

So, we can talk about the Michigan survey, and whether or not, Michigan is a good barometer for what's actually happening there. The treasury market is getting not flashing red, but it's giving some warning signs that inflation could be in the high twos for some time.

BASH: Yeah. All right. We're going to take a break. But all you have to do is look at what happened yesterday with Walmart saying that they're worried about 2025, and then the market --stock market not reacting very well.

Up next. He called it a chain saw for bureaucracy. President Trump's envoy to Ukraine met again today with President Zelenskyy. But with tension rising between Washington and Kyiv, can he dial down the temperature? And most importantly, does the president even want him to? Stay with us.

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[12:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BASH: Russian aggression. That is quite literally what started the war in Ukraine. It began when Russia, well, aggressively invaded its neighbor in a brazen land grab. The Trump administration now appears to be trying to rewrite that history. Sources tell CNN, the United States is resisting using those two words, Russian aggression in a joint G7 statement to mark the third anniversary of the war.

Nick Paton Walsh has been covering the conflict for all three years and joins me now from Kyiv. Nick?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. Startling, of course, to this basic fact of the invasion here re-legislated by the most powerful man in the world and the occupant of the White House that has been the key military and financial back at Ukraine, resisting Russia in the Biden administration.

Today, though, the further comments from President Trump talking about how he was, frankly, sick of it, the idea that Zelenskyy no longer has cards to play, paraphrasing here, and that it was no longer important for Zelenskyy necessarily to be at the meetings.

And that same interview with Fox News, he did concede that Russia attacked, but he said it was essentially the result of missteps by Biden and Zelenskyy that could have prevented Russia from making that move.

Untrue, Russia clearly had a strategic plan and thought it could move into Ukraine in a matter of weeks and take the majority of its territory, but found significant Ukrainian resistance and western support made that plan fall apart quite fast.

[12:20:00]

But this remarkable consistent and enmity between Trump and Zelenskyy has really been overshadowing the past week. We've had Trump call Zelenskyy a dictator, say that he was on a gravy train that money was going missing here in Ukraine, and even suggest Zelenskyy was asleep rather than meet his treasury secretary.

All of this undermining Zelenskyy, overshadowing key meetings with Zelenskyy with Trump's envoy to the Ukraine conflict, General Keith Kellogg. They were supposed to be talking the nuts and bolts of a peace plan here. Indeed, their meetings do appear potentially to have come to an end here.

In that Kellogg has tweeted from his personal x.com account, not his presidential envoy one, that he considered Zelenskyy to be embattled and courageous, and saying that long, intense days of talks are over. He also praised Zelenskyy's talented national security team, rare, frankly, over the past days, where we've heard nothing but criticism from the Trump team, to hear someone from that same circle praise the Ukrainian leader.

But this is all really, it seems, about increased pressure to get Ukraine to sign a rare earth mineral deal, that's increasingly the focus of all U.S., Ukrainian relationships. Now, Ukraine officials saying, they're now dealing with several drafts. Well, they've gone through drafts to get to a place where Ukraine potentially is happier.

Security elements, some Ukraine once added, but that seems to be the main focus, frankly, of talks right now, a great sense of urgency to get that signed without it. It may stall or entirely derail Ukrainian, U.S. relationship, Dana.

BASH: And just real quick, Nick. I think that all of these details are so important, and the obvious shift over the past week in U.S., Ukraine/U.S. -- U.S., Russia relations. But I want to just quickly -- I want you to talk about the forest, and not just the trees here about how consequential and frankly, monumental a shift this is.

PATON WALSH: Yeah. Look, I mean, there's three things really here. Firstly, is the war as it is fought right now, where Russia is winning slowly, but Ukraine is losing. That's true. They've got enough -- not got enough people, and we may at some point see a larger advance by the Russians. The Ukrainians cannot persistently hold out like this forever, particularly with morale crumbling the way soldiers must be seeing their main U.S. back wobbling like this.

Secondly, there's the larger question. What does this mean for Russia's influence over Ukraine? Could they potentially push harder towards its main cities in the summer or winter ahead after that? But more widely, a big debate now raging across Europe as to whether the United States, the guarantor of security across Europe, through NATO, can be relied upon. They're certainly wobbling, it seems, when it comes to defending Ukraine, which is now really the bulkhead of European security, against an aggressive Russia.

And does that mean that if down the line, the Russians push towards a more vulnerable eastern NATO member, like the Baltic states. The Americans will step in, as has always been the security plan for decades that's actually in doubt. And we have many European leaders flying around the world now to here to Washington to address those urgent concerns.

BASH: Yeah. And that last point is really the key about -- I'm not sure that people realize what a huge shift this is since World War II through now, about the way that the U.S. really sees the importance of alliances in Europe. Nick, thank you so much. Appreciate that.

PATON WALSH: Thank you.

BASH: And while President Trump's envoy strikes a diplomatic tone in Kyiv, his national security adviser is delivering a different message in front of the president's diehard supporters at CPAC, sign a deal to hand over half of Ukraine's national -- excuse me, natural resource wealth or else.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE WALTZ, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: Here's the bottom line. President Zelenskyy is going to sign that deal. What better could you have for Ukraine than to be in an economic partnership with the United States? Number one. What better could you have for Ukraine to stop the killing? Number two. And you know what, we have an obligation to you all, the American taxpayer, to recoup the hundreds of billions of dollars that have been invested in this war.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: OK. Our smart reporters are back here. And what you just heard from the president's national security adviser is what Nick Paton Walsh was talking about. Is that really seems to me that when it comes to Ukraine, what the president cares most about right now is that deal, is the economic deal, the land deal.

KANNO-YOUNGS: And for rare earth minerals as well, right?

BASH: Exactly.

KANNO-YOUNGS: I mean, he said even last week that when it came to previous aid that the U.S. has sent to Ukraine, that he wants rare earth minerals in exchange for that. That's not even talking about future aid, right? And there is a question when you have these statements, the rewriting of history, about this war as well, turning Ukraine from victim to villain, criticizing Zelenskyy as a dictator, while engaging in talks with Vladimir Putin, who, obviously, most American officials would say, is the dictator in this situation.

[12:25:00]

You know, are you laying a framework in trying to shape perception for potentially, you know, pulling back aid in the future as well. That's something that you need to watch here as well as just, you know, I think the broad point about the concern among European officials when you have all these different statements coming from top Trump administration officials is something really to look at, particularly at the Munich Security Conference.

My colleague was there, and some European officials were questioning. Hey, what is now this going to mean, if Putin decides to attack another NATO member? Will the U.S. actually step up and support that nation? Those are the doubts from allies right now amid all of these comments.

BASH: Yeah. On that note, I want you to listen to what Emmanuel Macron, the President of France said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRES. EMMANUEL MACRON, FRANCE: Donald Trump creates uncertainty for others because he wants to make deals, find agreements. Donald Trump creates uncertainty for Vladimir Putin. That's a very good thing for us. What I am going to do is, I'm going to tell him, basically, you cannot be weak in the face of President Putin. It's not you, it's not your trademark.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: So that's also Macron, who, I think probably pretty successfully got Donald Trump in the first term. You know, had him over and did the big parade for him, is trying to send a message with language that Donald Trump will understand. When this is in The New York Post, a very popular New York paper and one of President Trump's favorite, not to mention the fact that it's owned by Rupert Murdoch. This is a dictator. I mean, that kind of tells you everything you need to know about how most Republicans really feel.

BARRON-LOPEZ: Right, including people within Donald Trump's own administration. And that was addressed to the president. The New York Post said, President Trump, this is a dictator. But I also find striking is, Mike Waltz, the National Security Adviser.

Just yesterday, I believe it was in response to Kaitlan Collins said, essentially disowned his prior statements when he was pressed on how in the past, he had said that Russia was the aggressor, that Russia started this war, and essentially back tracked on all of that.

And I also found it striking that Keith Kellogg is tweeting that out that statement in support of Zelenskyy on his personal X account, instead of his public or his official X account. And I think that there are starting -- we're starting to see some signs of some fracturing with the president and what he wants and what J. D. Vance wants with some members of his administration.

BASH: And just to kind of broaden it out beyond the Ukraine issue. And just look at the way that the Trump administration sees and hopes to see governments in Europe go. There is a election in Germany this weekend. And this is a story from Kate Brady from the Washington Post. Elon Musk and J. D. Vance's comments supporting a far-right party there, are also just so bizarre and absurd that it does not resonate with German politics. This way of acting and interfering is unknown to Germans.

NICHOLS: Look, I don't know whether or not outside -- and like, do U.S. presidents really control elections? Do they really move public opinion in Germany? I'm pretty skeptical.

BASH: Is the fact that they're trying.

NICHOLS: They're trying. They also, in Musk's case, owns a popular social media platform that, you know, we have this big conversation in this country about TikTok and can algorithm like, actually, you know, predetermined outcomes. To me, the broader question with the German elections is just, what's the number that the AFD is going to get.

And you know, when you talk to sort of colleagues in Germany and try to get a sense for things, no one really knows how far they will go in the actual balloting, polling is pretty broken in this country. I think we can all, you know, with a slightly off, but it's never really.

No one really knows in Germany where they're going to come in. And that's a great deal of uncertainty heading in into Sunday, they're not expected to win. It's just a question of how high you'll go. But we should all be prepared for an outcome that could shock us.

BASH: Yeah. No question. Guys don't go anywhere. Up next. The outrage in Israel over murdered hostages, including a toddler and a baby after Hamas returns the wrong body instead of their mother.

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