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Inside Politics

Trump Ramps Up Dramatic Cuts & Power Grab Despite Pushback; Trump On Ukraine War: "We're Pretty Close To A Deal". Republicans Grapple with Anger Over Trump's Cuts; Vance Settles in as Trump's No. 2 Amid Speculation Over Future; GOP-Backed Bill Would Hand Control of D.C. to Federal Government. Aired 8-9a ET

Aired February 23, 2025 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:02]

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Anderson Cooper's interview with Bill Gates airs on the whole story tonight at 8:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, right here on CNN.

And thank you for joining us this morning. I'll see you back here next Saturday.

INSIDE POLITICS SUNDAY WITH MANU RAJU is next.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(MUSIC)

MANU RAJU, CNN HOST (voice-over): Under fire.

ELON MUSK, TECH BILLIONAIRE: This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy.

RAJU: Trump orders a Pentagon purge and directs Elon Musk to get more aggressive as his cuts spark blowback.

Trump's calling himself a king.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Should I run again? You tell me.

RAJU: But is he bleeding support?

SEN. SUSAN COLLINS (R-ME): This is a big problem.

RAJU: Plus, sea change.

Trump pivots to Putin as Ukraine scrambles.

TRUMP: Zelenskyy better move fast or he's not going to have a country left.

RAJU: And making his mark.

J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm glad you guys liked it. Not everybody liked it.

RAJU: Does the V.P. have eyes on 2028?

INSIDE POLITICS, the best reporting from inside the corridors of power, starts now.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

RAJU (on camera): Good morning. And welcome to INSIDE POLITICS SUNDAY. I'm Manu Raju.

One month down, just 47 to go. And in month two, President Trump is only ramping up his unprecedented push to effectively take a wrecking ball to the federal government, laying off thousands, even removing leaders from positions that are supposed to be nonpolitical like a late night Friday night purge at the Pentagon that saw the firing of the nation's top general, C.Q. Brown.

And just yesterday, Elon Musk took it even further and issued an extraordinary threat, saying that every federal worker must explain, quote, what they got done last week, by tomorrow night or resign.

All this some of Trump's moves have been paused by the courts while getting some big wins, including a judge's decision that allows him to move forward with dismantling USAID.

So how does the American public feel about this? Trump's net approval ratings in recent polls have begun to sink a bit underwater. But yesterday, Trump made clear to conservative activists that he is not backing off.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Elon is doing a great job.

People said, well, what official position does he have? He said, patriot, we're removing all of the unnecessary, incompetent and corrupt bureaucrats from the federal workforce. If they don't report for work, we're firing them. In other words, you have to go to office.

We've also effectively ended the left wing scam known as USAID, the agency's name. Has been removed from its former building, and that space will now house agents from Customs and Border Patrol.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: All right. Let's break this all down with a great panel this morning. CNN's Alayna Treene, Ramesh Ponnuru of "The National Review", "Politico's" Dasha Burns.

Good morning to you all. Thanks for being here. There was a lot of news this. I mean, this email from Elon Musk yesterday, just sparked so much attention. It just -- it was vague. This is what it what it said to went out to the entire federal workforce asking them to reply with five bullet points of what you accomplished last week, CC your manager and said the deadline is Monday at 11:59 p.m. It does not say, as Musk said in his tweet, that you will -- you're

essentially forced to resign if you do not respond to this. It sparked all this confusion. This is dealing with air traffic controllers, federal law enforcement, scientists. I mean, everybody in the federal government.

What is the ultimate goal here of Musk and Trump? Is it to get them to these federal workers to trip up, potentially lead to a pretext for more firings? What are you hearing about the actual motivation behind this?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Well, it's -- what I hear is that. it's essentially. He's trying to do to the government what he did -- what we saw him do at Twitter when he just fired mass employees.

I mean, the idea is that he believes that there are a lot of people in the federal workforce. Obviously, there's more than 2 million federal workers who aren't doing enough work.

I've actually been told that, in the first week of the Trump presidency, just days after the Donald Trump was sworn in, Musk was going around, as were his top advisers. People working with DOGE into different agencies and popping his head into their offices and saying, what are you doing? Hi, I'm Elon Musk. What are you doing?

RAJU: You say you do around here.

TREENE: Exactly. And now we're actually seeing that in practice, in writing. I think, you know what's really interesting to me, and this is what I'm hearing from a lot of different people at different agencies. What they're concerned about is you might not see the impacts of what is happening right now, but you are going to feel it, whether it be weeks from now or months from now, even years, you're going to see a lot of the unraveling of what's needed to do on a day to day basis, and these people being fired.

[08:05:06]

But I think their goal is to very swiftly shrink the federal workforce. We're not really seeing a lot of these reviews happening beforehand. And so that's where I'm hearing a lot of this kind of concern, even among some people who were brought in as political appointees.

DASHA BURNS, WHITE HOUSE BUREAU CHIEF, POLITICO: And that's the thing. It's going to be a delayed impact. So when he goes in, they're saying he's going to, you know, take the chainsaw and break things, they want him to break things. But when you break something that's a little bit too valuable, you might not know until it's a little bit too late.

I mean, "Politico" was reporting this week that at the FAA, they got rid of some people that are critical to safety. I mean, people are already terrified of flying given some of the headlines that we've seen recently and the thing that the White House is saying, I'm hearing from some of the officials there that, look, we're still in the early stages here. They don't feel like they are yet at the point of catastrophe that something actually valuable has been broken.

Some people might take our argument with that. The White House doesn't feel that way, but they feel like one official told me that they're at the edges as he's going into now, that not so much the low hanging fruit. USAID, they were thrilled about that, right? That was an easy one. That's something that the base supported.

But as they get deeper into the government, they hit DOD. They hit some of these critical agencies, safety folks. That's when it starts to be not so cut and dry. And it might blow back.

RAJU: And it's interesting because some of these agency heads don't -- don't seem to have been consulted about this Musk directive. Even Kash Patel, the newly sworn in FBI director, urged his colleagues to say pause on any responses.

That is pretty remarkable because look, what if people are on leave? What if people are on vacation and they don't check their emails? They're not on X, they don't see that they're going to be forced to resign in this from this vaguely worded email.

But the fact that the agency heads are sort of at a loss, what does that tell you?

RAMESH PONNURU, NATIONAL REVIEW EDITOR: Well, I think it tells you about how haphazardly this is being implemented. But I do think that there are two goals that are being served here. First, it's shrinking the federal workforce because the buyout offer was a dud. It did not get the kind of numbers that Musk had been saying it was. So they're finding other ways to get people to either resign or create a pretext for them to be fired.

But the second thing is there's this age old appeal, especially on the right of running the government like a business. And this controversy is helpful because a lot of Americans are going to look at this and say, what's so terrible about coming up with a list of things you accomplished last week? I do that, or I could do that. Why can't they?

RAJU: Right. And that's a great point, that you saw the pushback coming from folks in Trump world saying, oh, its five points. You should be able to respond to that. We'll see what that ultimately leads to.

But then how does the American public view all of this and a bunch of Trump actions? There have been questions in recent polls, including a CNN poll that came out good thing versus bad thing.

At one point in there, I want to direct you to attempting to shut down agencies 28 percent. Only 28 percent say that's a good thing. 53 percent say that is a bad thing. Yes, there's probably share the goal of cutting waste, cutting fraud, cutting abuse. But this wholesale effort to shut down agencies does not seem to be going over well.

How does the White House do? They just brush off polls like this? TREENE: They have been, I mean, and publicly, of course, we're

hearing them laud these efforts widely, but even privately. Look, when I talk to different White House officials, I feel like they are excited about this idea of cutting what they argue is waste, fraud and abuse. They believe that these are good efforts. But there is, again, I do hear a lot of skepticism again, from people who worked with the president on the campaign who are close to Donald Trump, who are a little bit skeptical of what this is going to look like moving forward.

I think there's a lot of people who also, you know, are very close to the president, sit in the West Wing that don't necessarily know exactly what Musk and DOGE are doing on a daily basis. I've heard that a lot, too. They don't exactly know, you know, when some of these things are going to be happening.

And so --

RAJU: Like agency heads.

TREENE: Like Patel.

RAJU: Yes.

TREENE: We saw the U.S. attorney say something similar to -- to their -- to the employees in that agency. So it's unclear.

But I do think broadly, they, they think that this is going to be a good effort. I think the question is how big does this go? As Dasha was saying, you know, were getting to that point where maybe we have to concerns might be a problem.

But for now, I think they're -- they're happy with it.

RAJU: I do want to talk about what happened on Friday night, this purge in the pentagon. This is something that Trump fired the top military officer here in the country, C.Q. Brown, but also Lisa Franchetti, navy admiral, another general James Slife of the Air Force, three Pentagon, three leaders of the Pentagon that were fired.

This is what Congressman Don Bacon, who is a Republican from Nebraska, himself a military veteran, told me. He said, I was a colonel in a one star with C.Q. Brown. He did not deserve to be fired. The military is resilient. I'm just worried about the lack of decency and class.

[08:10:02]

So there's some bipartisan pushback about these efforts. But then there was also this other move as part of this Trump and Hegseth, Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, replaced these military attorneys known as JAGs, from the Army, Navy and Air Force, which is -- these are the people who are tend to make sure that the battles of what's happening on the battlefield are within the law. What is the purpose behind all these firings?

BURNS: Dismantling the guardrails. I mean, I think we've seen that from the I.G. firings to -- to what you're talking about here. It's -- it's breaking down any potential roadblocks in the government for what Trump wants to do.

And let's remember, this is something that has been planned for a long time. Actually, I had a source tell me that the fact that Trump didn't get reelected in 2020 was, in some ways, the reason that were seeing all of this now, because groups like Heritage, like FPI, Russell Vought, they had four years to plan this, and see exactly where they want to make these cuts.

I mean, the challenge is, I think I don't think Vought or any of these guys were expecting the chainsaw. I think they were hoping for a scalpel, right? And I think we saw very clear message that were not getting the scalpel. They're going to keep hacking away at it in these really big strokes.

But that's the goal. That's been the goal. And its actually something that has -- has been in the works for a long time. And precisely what they came into the White House to do.

RAJU: What do you make of the Pentagon purge?

PONNURU: Well, I think that in general, I think that that was a great setup because the guardrail idea is just antithetical to the way a lot of conservatives and the way that this administration particularly views the executive branch. Your job is not to be a check on the president. If you work for the executive branch, your job is to implement the will of the elected leader, at least insofar as the law allows it.

RAJU: Yeah, and they have gotten rid of a lot of those folks or the inspector generals, these military attorneys. And there's been some pushback. We'll see if there are any lawsuits on this front, but some bipartisan pushback.

All right. Next. The new world order under Trump 2.0, and what it means for the future of Europe.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:16:36]

RAJU: Tomorrow marks three years since Russia launched an unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. And this weekend, we're learning the U.S. proposed its own U.N. resolution marking the date.

Now, the draft seen by CNN does not condemn Russia as the aggressor in the conflict. And it comes as Trump has begun to speak more warmly about Russian President Vladimir Putin. While he upped the pressure on Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to make a rare minerals deal with the U.S.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I'm trying to get the money back. That or secured. I think were pretty close to a deal, and we better be close to a deal. (END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: All right. My panel is back.

What's interesting is this new U.N. resolution that we've learned about the U.S. is proposing this, talking about what's happening in Ukraine. Did not -- the U.S. did not back a separate one that was backed by Europe. This draft resolution does not condemn Russia as the aggressor in the conflict. It does not make any acknowledgment of Ukraine's territorial integrity. And it says that it -- Marco Rubio, the secretary of state said in a statement that the resolution is consistent with President Trump's view that the U.N. must return to its founding purpose and says that its consistent with Trump's view on maintaining international peace and security.

What does that tell you about -- how Trump is trying to shift the world order here, shift what's happening in Europe and breaking with Europe on this issue?

PONNURU: Well, I think one thing is it is a stark change from the idea that was a bipartisan idea that our foreign policy was based on American ideals and values and toward the idea that it's based on pretty narrowly defined interests.

And so, the old idea --

RAJU: Very transactional right now.

PONNURU: -- we're going to punish aggression against sovereign states. New idea, we want your minerals.

RAJU: Uh-huh. And how is that going over right now, that Trump says that they're close to a deal? Are they actually close to a deal? It doesn't -- the Ukrainians don't seem to agree that they're close to a deal.

BURNS: Yeah. Look, what you hear from Trump publicly. The president has a way of using social media, using these statements more as a negotiating tactic than necessarily giving us the tick tock of where things actually stand.

I was in Munich last week and at the Munich security conference. Talk about a shift in the world order.

I mean, every single European that I met there was on pins and needles waiting to hear what Vice President Vance was going to say, waiting to hear what President Trump was going to say because they feel this incredible sense of uncertainty, of serious concern about a lot of the institutions, the partnerships, the intelligence alliances, by the way, talk about Five Eyes and our partners in some of those intelligence sharing projects, terrified that it was all going to fall apart.

Meanwhile, for Ukraine, the big push is not necessarily for peace talks, is not necessarily bringing folks to the table. It was this mineral deal. You had Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent go and push Zelenskyy on that.

Then at the Munich security conference, you had J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio push on it. And then I was in the briefing room this week when you heard from Mike Waltz. He dodged the question on whether or not Putin was a dictator, whether Zelenskyy he agrees that Zelenskyy is a dictator and whether or not Russia is actually the aggressor. But what he did say is Ukraine needs to come to the table on this mineral deal.

RAJU: What's interesting is that some of the Trump surrogates or Trump allies, advisers, officials, their message to the Europeans in these private meetings sometimes are different than what were hearing from Trump publicly.

[08:20:04]

Marco Rubio tried to reassure some Europeans, according to some public reports, Kellogg was over there, much different. Yeah.

TREENE: Yes. I mean, look, when I talk to White House officials and people who are with the president about this, even I remember the day of when we saw the president post on Truth Social, calling Zelenskyy a dictator. That was because he directly said he wanted to respond because he was so frustrated.

A lot of this is coming down to Zelenskyy's getting under Donald Trump's skin. And that's why you're seeing this public pushback to this. He hated that Zelenskyy said that he lived in a different information space. It really got him annoyed.

You could hear it, actually. Trump did an interview with Brian Kilmeade on Fox News Radio on Friday. You could hear the anger and frustration with Zelenskyy coming out during that discussion. All to say, that's where a lot of this is coming into play.

But privately, a lot of the people who are part of this U.S. -- that U.S. delegation in Riyadh like Rubio, like Kellogg, seeing him in Kyiv earlier this week, they know that they need to convince Ukraine that we still want to move toward a peace deal, because the big goal here, of course, is to find an off ramp to the war.

And Zelenskyy and Ukraine and the United States, European allies are all part of that.

And one thing I just want to mention as well is what's going to be very telling, is what we hear from his Trump's meetings with Macron tomorrow, and then the U.K. Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, on Thursday. There's a lot of talk about needing to shift the tone, I'm being told, when they come here --

RAJU: For Trump to shift, yeah.

TREENE: For Trump to shift the tone, at least, you know --

RAJU: Good luck.

TREENE: We'll see what he says publicly. But at least in those private meetings that he's expected to have, they need reassurances that, you know, the United States is still going to stand with Europe in this effort.

PONNURU: Well, his tone does shift sometimes, but rarely because somebody told him it needs to.

(LAUGHTER)

PONNURU: I think that Alayna is exactly right, because, look, there's a strategic argument for saying, look, you're not going to end up in a settlement where Ukraine returns to its 2013 borders. You're not going to end up with a settlement where Ukraine is a near-term member of NATO.

You can make a case for that. The stuff about, well, Zelenskyy is a dictator anyway, and who -- you know, it's his fault that the invasion happened. That makes sense only in terms of personal pique. But the one thing that's kind of interesting here about the mineral deal also is that if it's made, it means the U.S. has an additional continued interest in Ukrainian sovereignty, which does change things.

BURNS: And that is one of the interpretations that I heard from a Trump ally saying, look, our base, the MAGA base does not love the idea of us being involved here. So the mineral deal is a way to say, hey, were going to be involved. We have a stake in this now, but it's also a business state that could be beneficial to Americans, and its easier for the administration to message it to the America First base that doesn't want us entangled in this at all.

RAJU: I want you to listen to how some members of Congress are talking about Putin. Well, first, let's see how the how the view -- voters view Vladimir Putin, Trump is suggests that Trump -- that Putin wants a peace deal here.

Does the American public agree with this? Just 9 percent of voters believe that he that U.S. should trust Putin, 81 percent of voters say they should not trust Putin here.

This is what some of Trump's allies on Capitol Hill have said about that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Do you think that Putin can be trusted in these negotiations?

SEN. ROGER WICKER (R-MS): No. Putin is a war criminal and should be in jail for the rest of his life, if not executed.

REPORTER: Senator Wicker said that Putin should be executed. Do you agree with that?

SEN. JOHN KENNEDY (R-LA): I wouldn't cry. Vladimir Putin has a black heart. He clearly has Stalin's taste for blood.

RAJU: Is it accurate that Ukraine started the war? SEN. KEVIN CRAMER (R-ND): It's clearly not. I mean, it is so clear

that Vladimir Putin, a dictator, who wants to reassemble this Soviet Union or his version of it.

SEN. THOM TILLIS (R-NC): This man is a cancer and the greatest threat to democracy in my lifetime.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: So is Trump speaking warmly about Putin because his allies say he's trying to cut a deal here? Or is this actually something that he disagrees with what his colleagues are saying there?

TREENE: It's interesting. One thing I've heard is that part of the reason Trump is so careful not to say that Russia in illegally invaded Ukraine. He is trying to what his allies at least are telling me, of course.

And the people who are talking to the president every day is that he doesn't want to turn Russia off of these negotiations. He thinks that the whole point of what Donald Trump is always saying, you know, they didn't say the right things. Joe Biden and Zelenskyy, this war would have never happened before. They were the ones who could have talked Putin out of it.

That's where some of this is coming into. He thinks I need to be this -- the dealmaker, the chief negotiator. And I have to be careful with my words when I talk to Vladimir Putin. So that's where some of this is coming in. But some of it as well, again, is really coming from that frustration with Zelenskyy. So much of this does come down to that.

RAJU: All right. We shall see how it plays out. Maybe Trump's strategy will work.

All right. Coming up, the pressure back home is getting intense for some Republicans over the DOGE cuts and federal firings, especially ones facing reelection next year, issuing warnings like this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: What kind of impact are the federal firings had on Maine, Senator? Would -- how would you characterize the impact of the firings?

SEN. SUSAN COLLINS (R-ME): I'm very concerned about the impact on the state of Maine, on everything from our national parks to biomedical research. So this is a big problem.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

RAJU: House Republicans have spent the past week back home, and some have been facing angry and unnerved constituents beginning to feel the impact of President Trump and Elon Musk's dramatic cuts to federal programs. As Senate -- and Senate Republicans say their phone lines are burning up like Senator Lisa Murkowski, who held her own virtual town hall last week and told me concerns in her red state of Alaska are running deep.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LISA MURKOWSKI (R-AK): There's concern about being able To be ready for the wildland fires that we experience earlier and earlier every year. National Park Service, the abrupt terminations that we have seen for those has really been detrimental.

If you're going to have a reduction in forces and let people go because you have too many employees, you have redundancy, there's bloat in it. We get it, whatever.

But you do not disrespect those who have worked hard, who have done good and honorable public service by suggesting that somehow or other, after 18 years of good performance, now it's shoddy performance and you're going to have that black market -- black mark on your record. And so there is a way that you do this with dignity and respect for your federal employees.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: So pretty strong words from an Alaska Republican there. Of course, not always in line with Donald Trump, voted to convict Donald Trump in the second impeachment trial.

But Dasha, this is what a White House official said to you about the feedback they're receiving from some of these members, saying that "We're in the early phase and it's way too early to say it's going to fall apart." There's a feedback mechanism and were fielding that feedback. Sometimes you break something valuable and you have to fix it. The question is, is there a point when there's a deep whack that is catastrophic?

But if you can hear there from Senator Lisa Murkowski, some of this is catastrophic already.

DASHA BURNS, POLITICO WHITE HOUSE BUREAU CHIEF: No, that's exactly it. What is catastrophic to the White House might be very different than what's catastrophic to some of these members.

And that White House official told me they are monitoring to see at what point the level of hostility against what DOGE is doing gets untenable for some of these lawmakers.

At the end of the day, though, the White House is there to protect President Trump. And they think that at this point still, the majority of Americans support broadly what Musk is doing.

And to your point, earlier, Alayna, there's going to be a delayed impact. So by the time -- you know, six months from now -- oh, wait a minute, what's happening at the National Institute of Health and why isn't valuable cancer research still ongoing?

Well, that's a cut that was made six months ago that wasn't seen as catastrophic and now is.

RAJU: And how do members who are up for reelection in difficult races deal with this? We heard Susan Collins talk about the concerns she had, saying some of these firings are a big problem in Maine.

But some of the headlines from some of these areas, there are some Republicans in swing districts, they're getting hammered by protesters outside their offices. Maybe this is some ginned up by the left -- that's what some of the Republicans are saying.

But still they are going to hear about it. And the question is, does that force any policy change at the White House?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: That's the key question. And that's the thing as well, that I think, you know, we have to keep reminding people is sometimes people think of the federal government as being D.C., of being Washington, D.C.

These are -- obviously that's not true. You have federal employees in red states. You have employees, you know, in Alaska, wherever. And a lot of the feeling is going to -- or a lot of what's happening is going to be felt in those red states.

It's just something to keep in mind as we're hearing all of these. I think the local reports have been so important to tell these stories out there, not just make it a Washington story.

And that's where I think the big question is, you know, more and more, I haven't heard -- I don't know if anyone has heard differently -- I haven't heard many Republican lawmakers calling up Trump with concerns yet. I do think that is likely going to happen at some point.

And again, I think the point -- I kind of made this earlier. But, you know, I think it's the nature. Senator Murkowski kind of summed it up perfectly, the nature of how some of this is being handled.

You know, for example at OPM, a lot of these people who were fired, there was an example of them being on a Microsoft team call with hundreds of other employees being told you're being laid off.

I mean, the nature of how this is happening, how it's happening without, again, some of these deep review processes, all of that. You can hear the concerns percolating, but I don't think it has hit that peak yet where you're kind of getting a lot of these calls directly to --

(CROSSTALKING)

BURNS: And how public this is, is a double-edged sword. I mean, Elon Musk has made this a national story that everyone is watching at every step. That's something that Trump loves.

At the same time, that's why you're getting hundreds and thousands of people showing up at these town halls when normally, you know, one of the senators I talked to said, normally we get like 20 people. And right now were getting these huge groups. [08:34:52]

RAMESH PONNURU, NATIONAL REVIEW EDITOR: So I think part of what's happening here is that a lot of rank-and-file Democrats in particular, are really frustrated at the idea that their party's leaders aren't doing enough to stop Trump.

Now, the fact is, there's a limit to what they can do, but that frustration being expressed, you know, Republicans may say, oh, this is being ginned up by the left. But one of the things that happens in midterm elections is that the out party is more mobilized and agitated than the party that won the last election.

RAJU: This reminds me of Obamacare 2009, going into 2010. I remember vividly an Arlen Specter town hall when he was out there, and he got hammered at that town hall, and Republicans won the House. We'll see what happens in 2026.

You know, one of the questions, too, is cuts that are coming on some of these issues. Medicaid is an issue that Republicans are going to have to grapple with as they move forward with Trump's agenda.

The House is moving forward with the budget blueprint this week. On Tuesday, they're going to vote on that. That's going to set the stage for moving with Trump's larger agenda. And in his larger agenda are steep spending cuts. And this proposal that Trump himself has endorsed, about $1.5 trillion in cuts.

Where do those spending cuts come from? Well, they could come from the program Medicaid. And that is causing ample concerns within the ranks.

There's a letter that was sent to Speaker Johnson from Hispanic members of the House GOP conference saying, quote, "Slashing Medicaid would have serious consequences, particularly in rural and predominantly Hispanic communities where hospitals and nursing homes are already struggling to keep their doors open."

There were eight members who signed this letter, including Congressman Tony Gonzalez of Texas led that effort. But they're going to have to deal with -- they're going to have to cut Medicaid if they want to achieve these goals.

PONNURU: Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri has sounded the alarm against cutting Medicaid, conservative Republican. And interestingly, J.D. Vance, back before he was even a senator, let alone vice president, was against Medicaid cuts during the first round of Obamacare repeal back in 2017.

This is going to be a big problem for the Republican coalition, particularly because Medicaid is expanded and because the Republican voting base has shifted toward the working class. Those things combined mean there's a lot of Republican voters who depend on Medicaid.

BURNS: And that's exactly the new challenge for Republicans. They have a new coalition. They've brought in more working-class people, more people of color, and those are the people that are most impacted by some of these programs.

I mean, this would have been a completely different conversation in the Republican Party 15, 20 years ago, even five years ago. Now, all that they're celebrating about the big new tent that they have is also the new challenge they're going to have to grapple with.

RAJU: Yes, it really is. It's such a good point. It's a -- you know, this is something they have to deal with, and they're going to make some decisions on what to cut very soon.

All right. Coming up, one adviser calls him Trump's Swiss army knife. As 2028 speculation swirls, what's next for Vice President Vance? Well, we have new reporting coming up.

[08:37:46]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think they really like it.

J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm glad you guys liked it. Not everybody liked it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ok.

VANCE: You guys liked it? Not everybody likes it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Vice President Vance stunned European leaders last month when he scolded them by saying that the biggest threat to their security was, quote, "from within".

But back at home this past week, he basked under the glow from a friendly audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference or CPAC.

It all comes as the VP is settling into a new, more vocal role and prompting talk about what could come next.

My panel is back with me.

So Alayna, you and our colleague Steve Contorno out with a piece this weekend about the new J.D. Vance role. He was sort of quiet in the transition. He's become much more outspoken now.

This is what one -- someone told you said, a close advisor to Vance said J.D. is President Trump's Swiss army knife. Whatever Trump needs at the time, that's the role J.D. fills.

TREENE: Yes, and I think it's actually -- we've kind of seen that in practice. One of the great anecdotes we have in the story is how he came to get the TikTok portfolio, literally, the president and J.D. Vance were sitting in the Oval Office. Someone brought up TikTok. And you know how Trump's trying to figure out a deal and to save TikTok. And he turns -- the president to the VP and says, you are a VC guy. I don't have the exact quote in front of me, but you were a VC guy. You're a deal maker.

RAJU: Figure it out.

TREENE: You take TikTok and that's how he came to own TikTok. That's exact -- and so he is. He's kind of taking on whatever the president is giving him.

One part though that is interesting about this so far is we haven't really seen Trump give J.D. Vance anything that is politically unsavory yet.

You know, you saw with Kamala Harris, for example, Joe Biden gave her immigration. We've seen --

RAJU: That didn't go so well.

TREENE: Trump gave Pence COVID. You know, these are issues that are kind of very difficult to navigate. We haven't really seen Vance be given something like that yet.

But then, of course, behind the scenes of all of this is looking forward to 2028. One thing that was very telling, remember that Fox News interview with Bret Baier? Baier asked Trump, you know, do you think he'll be your successor, essentially something -- he was like, no, which caused a lot of like.

It wasn't -- I'm told a lot of people were frustrated with Baier for asking that question. He's like Trump's two weeks into the presidency, you're going to make him a lame duck if he's already talking about who's running in 2028.

[08:44:44]

TREENE: But of course, all of that is -- it's kind of a weird dynamic with Vance --

RAJU: Yes.

TREENE: -- because he's a -- he wasn't Trump's VP the first time around. He is now. It's just going to be an interesting thing to keep an eye on.

RAJU: You were in CPAC, so what were -- does the MAGA base feel that he's MAGA enough for them? Yes, he won that straw poll. It doesn't -- it's not always indicative of where the rest of the base is.

But do they see him -- when you were talking to folks -- as the heir apparent?

BURNS: Yes. Right now, they do feel like Vance is the guy to carry the MAGA mantle, in part especially because he was initially someone who rejected it and then came over. That's something that I've heard from Trump officials, too, saying that that is a -- is a special characteristic because it shows and he's so good at articulating how he came to --

RAJU: He has the zeal of a convert.

BURNS: -- he has the zeal of a convert. That that's exactly right.

It's funny, though, the contrast at CPAC versus the Munich Security Conference, because I was in the room there when Vance said, you know, the biggest threat is from within.

My goodness, the entire room erupted in groans, eye rolls, some unsavory language. And that is exactly what the White House wanted. That is the reaction -- he loved it.

RAJU: Trump loves that.

BURNS: And Vance knows how to deliver that for Trump.

PONNURU: The cheering at CPAC is the flip side of the booing at Munich, right? I mean, one of the reasons they are cheering for him is because he draws that kind of negative attention there.

Look, I think that Vance -- I mean, if you step back and think about it, he is more likely than any other person in the world to be the next U.S. president.

And I would not read too much into that Bret Baier interview comment precisely because, of course, Trump doesn't want to be a lame duck.

And he also doesn't want to anoint Vance this far out, even if I think pretty clearly he picked Vance for a reason. And one of those reasons is he can be the standard bearer, right?

TREENE: Right. That was something I remember from covering and talking to a ton of people in Trump's orbit when he selected J.D. Vance. The reason he went with Vance, ultimately, I was told repeatedly by people close to Trump, was because he thought he could carry the MAGA torch moving forward. That was the reason that he selected him.

The other thing, though, just about this, that I didn't get to this before what you were saying, how he's more vocal now. One thing that's been interesting to watch as well is particularly on the transition, Vance was operating very much out of the public eye.

You saw Elon Musk, you still see Elon Musk, to be honest, he's far more visible.

(CROSSTALKING)

TREENE: Around -- right, I mean people -- even Republicans are like, you know, is Musk kind of the de facto VP? There's been those questions.

PONNURU: But there's been -- there hasn't even been the barest whisper from Vance or Vance's people that they're upset about that.

TREENE: No, it's actually though I think it's very smart and something that Vance does very well because he's so close with Donald Trump, Jr. He is friends with Musk as well and other people. He knows how Trump operates, and he knows that he is not the star. He

needs -- Trump is the star, and he's doing what he is doing behind the scenes. It's very strategic.

RAJU: Vance seems like he wants to be the enforcer. Online, he's tweeting a ton. You can see on your screen right there, attacking people and defending Donald Trump every chance he gets on social media.

BURNS: And one thing that a lot of Vance advisors will point to as the influence that that Vance does have with Trump, is that moment in one of the briefings where someone asked about the DOGE staffer who was fired, Vance wanted him back, and Trump said, do what Vance wants, I trust him.

RAJU: Yes. We'll see. Let's see how long that trust lasts. Maybe it will be for the next four years.

All right. Up next -- Greenland, Canada, and now D.C.? My new reporting on what Congress thinks of the president's desire to take control of the nation's capital and the push to stop him.

[08:48:20]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

RAJU: First it was Greenland and Canada and then Gaza. And this past week, Trump proposed the U.S. government control yet another location, this one closer to home.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think that we should govern the District of Columbia. It's so important the D.C. situation.

I think that we should run it strong, run it with law and order, make it absolutely, flawlessly beautiful. And I think we should take over Washington, D.C. Make it safe.

People are getting killed. People are being hurt.

I like the mayor. I get along great with the mayor, but they're not doing the job.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Now, D.C. is not a state and does not have voting representation in Congress for its roughly 700,000 residents who do pay federal taxes. But it has, for more than 50 years, an established local government, a city council and a mayor, thanks to the District of Columbia Home Rule Act enacted in 1973. Though Congress still has final say over D.C. laws.

But some conservatives on Capitol Hill now want to take it a step further, abolishing D.C. Home Rule altogether to pave the way for a full federal takeover of the district. Republican Senator Mike Lee, one of the sponsors of such a bill, says now is the time to act.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: What's your reaction to Trump's support of getting rid of D.C. Home Rule. What's your reaction to that?

SEN. MIKE LEE (R-UT): I support it. I've got a bill to do that -- the constitution puts that authority in Congress. We've delegated it. It hasn't ended well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Now, Republicans cite crime rates as one reason why D.C. should cede power to the federal government. But police data does show violent crime in Washington down 35 percent last year compared to the year before.

[08:54:40]

RAJU: Now Democrats, who have long pushed to make D.C. the 51st state are vowing to battle the effort. They might have wanted that delay tactic known as the filibuster gutted when they were in the Senate majority. But now they say the 60-vote requirement in the chamber will come in handy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D-CT): This administration seems to be on a path to subjugate and subvert democracy and depriving people in the District of Columbia their right to self-governance, I think, is not only unwise, but it's unconscionable.

To preserve democracy ironically, we need to use an anti-Democratic tool.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: So will Senate Majority Leader John Thune bring the bill to the floor? Well, the South Dakota Republican told my colleague Sarah Farris, quote, "I have to think about that, I don't know. That's an issue I have not been asked about."

That's it for INSIDE POLITICS SUNDAY. You can follow me on X @mkraju, follow the show @INSIDEPOLITICS and follow me on Instagram @manu_raju.

If you ever missed an episode, you can catch up wherever you get your podcasts. Just search for INSIDE POLITICS.

Up next "STATE OF THE UNION WITH JAKE TAPPER AND DANA BASH". Jake's guests include special envoy Steve Witkoff and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

Thanks again for sharing your Sunday morning with us. We'll see you next time.

[08:55:57] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)