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21 Employees Resign "In Protest" from DOGE; Chaos, Confusion Over Whether Federal Workers Must Reply to Musk; House GOP Leaders Scramble for Votes to Advance Budget Plan; FAA to Use Musk's Starlink System to Upgrade its Networks. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired February 25, 2025 - 12:00   ET

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

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DANA BASH, CNN HOST: Today, on "Inside Politics" who's the boss? Millions of federal employees are in limbo today. They don't know whether to listen to their supervisor, their government, HR Department or Elon Musk and their jobs may be on the line. Plus, Elon Musk's Starlink system is scoring a major new contract with the FAA while directing cuts at that very agency.

Remember, this is the same person who promised to avoid any conflict of interest, and that's what frenemies are for we have new details on a potential feud brewing between the President and the Governor of Florida over who should lead the Sunshine State, a close Trump ally, or the current First Lady of Florida. I'm Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines and "Inside Politics".

And we start with some breaking news. 21 federal employees just resigned in protest of the Elon Musk led DOGE efforts. CNN's Sunlen Serfaty is breaking the story now for us. Sunlen, who are these individuals? Where do they work? And what did they say about their decision to resign?

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Dana, this is certainly significant, because it is pointing blank being called a protest resignation by these 21 federal employees. These are employees that were had been in the federal government for years under the United States Digital Service, USDS.

Now these are people who work in technology, a source describing to me, these are engineers, designers, data scientists, project managers, in the words of one source within that agency, these are people leading critical work and critical projects across the government. And they resigned, according to a source in mass today.

21 employees total, making it known that they are not comfortable with what DOGE is doing and what they are being instructed, importantly, to do. Now, according to the source who told me this information, they said it's people who don't want to be a part of this. For this group, it is a protest. They don't want to be a part of it.

And according to a letter obtained from "The Associated Press" their resignation letter spells that out more clearly, saying, we will not use our skills as technologists to compromise core government systems, jeopardize American sensitive data or dismantle critical public services. Adding, we will not lend our expertise to carry out or legitimize DOGE's actions.

And the source tells me, Dana that after the Valentine's Day federal firing, those mask firings that happened, of which they lost 43 people within the office, it was the Tuesday after that happened, that was the first time that DOGE employees led their staff meeting. And the message there was clearly to try to turn the page, to acknowledge that this has been hard few weeks. We kind of rally of the troops.

But that message, according to the source, did not go over well, and it was then that this small group of people started to discuss ways that they could really, in essence, make their voices be heard, and saying, what should we do together? What can we do?

And the message clearly pointed to today's resignations. They all decided to make a point of resigning enmasse today, and the source, Dana, tells me that they potentially anticipate more people to do the same in the coming days, Dana.

BASH: Wow, it really is a very important development. Thank you so much for that Sunlen. I'm joined here by a talented group of journalists, CNN's S.E. Cupp, David Gura of Bloomberg News, Harry Enten, who was just promoted to CNN's Chief Data Analyst. Congratulations.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN CHIEF DATA ANALYST: Thank you.

BASH: And Abby Livingston of Puck, and I'm proud to say, a former producer here. We'll talk about that later. I just want to under coming at this is one of those moment a beat and just underline. Are you good?

(CROSSTALK)

ENTEN: Thank you.

BASH: You're doing your breathing exercises, OK. Underline and highlight what Sunlen just brought us, which is S.E. 21 people intentionally enmasse as a group, wanted to make a point. And these are people who work in what was formerly just the digital service, and now it has been taken over by DOGE, saying that they don't want to use their own talents, their tech talents, their engineering talents, to do whatever it is that the DOGE Representatives, Elon Musk want them to do.

[12:05:00]

S.E. CUPP, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And I think you just made the most important point, that whatever it is, there's such a lack of understanding of what is happening and what is coming? The incompetence and the chaos are, I think at least what I'm hearing is getting to these people the most. It's not that they feel as if Trump's politics is steering them to do

something they don't want to do. It's that they don't know who's in charge and what is coming that kind of incompetence, whether you don't know if you're going to be fired, semi fired, resigned, not resigned. It's no way to work. It's an embarrassing look for our government.

BASH: And just to put a finer point on it, we don't know, but there is a bit of a clue in the following sentence, and that is that as technologists, they don't want to use their skills to compromise core government systems, jeopardize Americans sensitive data or dismantle critical public services. I mean, let's just zero in on one of these things jeopardize Americans sensitive data.

If I'm just an average voter out there, whether it's somebody who voted for Donald Trump or somebody who didn't, I'm not so sure I want my sensitive data to be in the hands of these people who the technologists are saying could be used. They don't know how it's going to be used. It could be used for things that are dangerous.

DAVID GURA, ANCHOR & CORRESPONDENT, BLOOMBERG NEWS: And this has been an issue from the very beginning, so I think back on what happened at the Treasury Department in the earliest days of this administration, when the DOGE team deployed a couple of workers there to look at sensitive payment information.

And on Bloomberg, in an interview with the Treasury Secretary, we got an assurance that no personal data was being reviewed or taken. Since then, we've seen members of Congress push back on that, skeptical of what Scott Besson said in that interview, Elizabeth Warren chief among them.

So, there's a very real sense, yes, it's chaos. Could be incompetence. It's just ambiguity about what's happening here. And I think that that's the thing that's most likely to be salient with Americans this fear that they don't know what's going on. The people doing this work don't know what's going on, and could have very real effects.

And so, it's happening. And treasury, it's happening across the agencies. And I think back just on the latest news about that first Elon Musk email, give your five bullet points, and the response from one of the agencies, which was, don't say anything here that could be viewed by a foreign adversary, also incredibly alarming, also having to do with sensitive data.

BASH: Yeah. And Abby, I do want to kind of given the other perspective, and I'm guessing it's like a countdown clock, which Elon Musk likes, from ten to one, about how long it's going to take for them to say, well, these are employees who are part of the deep state, who -- you know are people who don't like the idea of what we want to do politically.

Who knows? And we don't know who these people are, and we don't know what their political point of view is, and it shouldn't matter. What matters is that they are people who are data specialists who are very upset about the way they're seeing the data being used. ABBY LIVINGSTON, CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT, PUCK: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think that one of the key things is these are very specialized people. And when you remove whether it's by their resignation, and it's up to the individual. Do you stay on as long as you can to hold things together, or do you resign publicly in protest?

But I've been a part of organizations where they clean out the institutional memory, and things are never the same, and it can take years, if not decades, to rebuild that. And I think the American public right now, this feels like a food fight. It's playing over social media, but in the coming weeks and months, at best, you may be inconvenienced.

You may need to go freeze your credit and take time out of your day to do that, because your Social Security might be on -- number might be on the internet, but people are beginning to be afraid to fly. These are having major societal consequences.

ENTEN: I was just going to say one word or one phrase I might just use to describe this is what a mess? I mean, that is what is coming across to the American people. It's no big surprise that among the opponents of Donald Trump, the number one thing they're opposed to is DOGE Musk, these federal freezes and these federal cuts, and even amongst voters overall, what are we seeing?

We're seeing that Elon Musk is becoming a detestable figure amongst them, right? His net favorable rating is way down. I think it's like minus 12 points, according to latest Quinnipiac University Poll down from minus 5 back.

BASH: We have that.

ENTEN: Yeah, I think you have it. There you go. You could see it. You could see it right there. Look, that favorable rating is down to 38 percent the un-favorables up to 50 percent so the American folks know that something is up, and I think it's only going to get worse from here, given that the American people so far have been saying, wait a minute, what's cooking? You get resignations like this, and you go, this is just a giant mess.

CUPP: Well, let me -- let me just a bit of a devil's advocate here.

GURA: Please.

CUPP: I think -

BASH: It's important.

CUPP: And I've heard from a House Democrat who was worried about how Democrats will message this, because I think what Trump and Musk are betting on is there is a sentiment and its long goes back in conservative canon for decades of sort of resentment toward federal workers and animus toward federal workers.

[12:10:00] The sense of entitlement among federal workers that they can't be fired for cause, they get taxpayer pension, you know, funded pensions. They have a job for life that exists. And if you don't parse out who these people are, right? If you don't parse out, these are very highly skilled workers that we're talking about in this instance.

If you don't do any of that, it's really easy to sort of lump all these people together. And this House Democrat that I was talking to is worried about how they're going to message against a group of people that might not have as much sympathy, right?

BASH: Right. So, as much as you are saying rightly, that you're looking at the data, because that's what you do -

GURA: That's what looking at the data, people resign, yes.

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: Well, resigning, but also about how people feel about Elon Musk, we can't lose sight of the point that you just made S.E. It's really critical, and that is no surprise, a point that we are hearing on conservative media and from conservative communicators on Capitol Hill.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS HOST: How do you resurrect your party, though, by protecting red tape and the bureaucracy, by trying to gin up sympathy for federal workers who need to get real jobs in the real world, like most of America. Ever heard of it?

REP. LISA MCCLAIN (R-MI): Democrats are soliciting sob stories from bloated bureaucrats with six figure salaries. Give me a break.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: That said, just look at what has happened since yesterday, and it really speaks to the chaos. This is yesterday. The President of the United States called the email that you referenced, or somebody referenced to federal workers over the weekend, saying, defend your jobs. Pretty ingenious.

An hour later, the Office of Personnel Management clarified that responding to the email is, quote, voluntary. That night, they sent yet another memo suggesting some may be penalized for not responding. And then, of course, after that, Elon Musk said that subject to the discretion of the president, people will give -- be given another chance to respond, meaning everything that everybody has said could be true, but the chaos with which it has been done.

Yes, it is signature Elon Musk, yes, it is signature Donald Trump, but for a country that is looking for just a weak, teeny bit of stability. This is not helping.

GURA: It is not a stable process by any means. And I think back on what the rhetoric was surrounding this at the beginning, it was this DOGE apparatus was going to take an audit. The federal government was going to look for places where there might be kind of people doing duplicate work or unnecessary work, suggest cuts.

And I think where you see Elon Musk, the businessman, coming in here with quite a blunt object, is an impatience with that process. He doesn't want to wait for all of that to play out. So, you look at the bureaucracy, federal bureaucracy. It's huge, millions of people. It would be hard to go through that with a fine-tooth comb, but what we're seeing here is a lack of, kind of a nuanced understanding of the way this government works.

And you were hitting on, I think the ambiguity of this moment, there are people here who just don't know how to proceed. Do they have jobs? Don't they? Could they do something to jeopardize not having that job? How thoughtful should they be in an email with five bullet points about what they've done in the last week? What if that last week was spent preoccupied with anxiety surrounding what might come with their positions and their work for the U.S. government?

So, it's all happening so quickly, and I think that we and people in Washington are accustomed, perhaps over these last few weeks, to the pace at which this is happening, but for this apparatus, which is spread out, not just across the country, but around the world, it's having very real implications in that ambiguity.

BASH: Speaking of chaos and ambiguity coming up, Mike Johnson and his incredible shrinking majority face a major test today. Can they deliver Donald Trump's legislative agenda? Plus, it seems like the sky is the limit for Elon Musk's power. We're going to tell you about the FAA contract he just scored, raising some pretty big concerns about conflicts of interest. Stay with us.

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BASH: Today is a major test for both President Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson's ability to corral the very slim Republican majority in the House. Now, Johnson says they could hold a vote on their massive bill laying out Trump's legislative agenda as soon as tonight, that despite growing concern that the vote will fail, and there are at least four GOP lawmakers already saying publicly they won't vote for it.

And just to give you an idea of how slim this is, a reminder, Republicans can only afford to lose one vote. I want to go now to CNN's Chief National Affairs Correspondent Jeff Zeleny. He is at the White House. I want to start, of course, on Capitol Hill with CNN's Chief Congressional Correspondent Manu. What are you hearing from your sources about whether this vote actually happens, and what's likely to take place if it does?

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Dana Speaker Johnson said this morning, there may be a vote tonight or there may not be a vote. And that sort of sums up the dilemma that he is in right now, having to only afford to lose one Republican vote on this expected to be party line vote, and several members saying that they will vote against this measure, and this is essential to unlock the larger Trump agenda.

They must pass this budget blueprint first in order to pass this massive bill that includes roughly $300 billion in new spending for defense and border spending, as well as a $4.5 trillion worth of tax cuts, more about a $1.5 trillion in spending cuts.

[12:20:00]

But those spending cuts don't go far enough for some members on the far right and but there are folks in the middle who are concerned the cuts go too deeply on issues like the Medicaid program, which is why he is in this dilemma. Now, some of the top members in the House GOP Conference, are telling me today that the holdouts must fall in line or the whole agenda will fall apart.

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RAJU: You're warning to these members who are threatening to sink this tonight is what?

REP. JASON SMITH (R-MO): It's not a warning. It's just a reality. There's 207 million people that really care about whether their taxes go up or not, and that's who you need to be paying attention to.

RAJU: And the Senate plan cannot pass the House. Is that what you're saying.

SMITH: That it won't ever have the votes.

RAJU: What's the message it would send to your voters if you guys don't get the votes for this?

REP. DAN MEUSER (R-PA): It won't be a good one. It will be that the mandate that they voted for November 5th is not being carried through. We really need to pass this, and I think we will.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Supposed to be the easy part passing the budget blueprint, which lays out the broad parameters of the agenda going forward. Both the House and the Senate have to first agree on the budget blueprint before they can actually draft the details of the legislative tax and all those broad categories that I laid out, whether it's taxes or spending, border, spending cuts and the like.

All those issues still got to be worked out, but they first had to pass this blueprint, and if they can't pass this, the whole thing could fall apart, which is why this moment so critical for Mike Johnson and President Trump, and he tried to put the pressure on these members to fall in line.

BASH: Yeah. And on that note about President Trump, Jeff, you have some new reporting about his engagement now, because he is well aware that this is a question about a loyalty test for him. Never mind the future of his agenda. JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Without question, I mean, presidential legacies and successes are built on legislative wins not signing executive orders as much as he loves doing that every day. So, the reality is, the White House is well aware of how much their future political capital basically relies on votes like this.

But the president, I'm told, is going to be meeting with some House Republicans here later this afternoon. It's really wanted a series of meetings. He has legislators and Republican legislators in here, to the White House, into the Oval Office most every day he is in Washington, and this is no exception. I'm told he's likely to meet with some first-or-second-year members, just hearing some of their concerns.

One official described these sessions to me as more of a listening session and less of an arm-twisting session. But the question is, when does that arm-twisting begin if those votes do not come in? But all these deep cuts that Manu was talking about Medicaid in particular, that's what Republican members of Congress are hearing from constituents.

Their phones are ringing off the hook about these deep cuts for the program that provides health insurance for some 72 million low-income Americans and disabled Americans. So, these are real concerns. So, the bottom line is, for all the discussion of waste, fraud and abuse, even those claims that are accurate, you cannot cut your way through the budget with just those programs.

Some deep cuts have to be made, some tough decisions have to be made. So, we will see how the president continues to increase his engagement. Again, there is a meeting here this afternoon, but it's an open question if there'll be a vote tonight.

BASH: All right, it sure is Jeff and Manu. And the fact that Speaker Johnson said yesterday that the designee to be the U.N. - U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Elise Stefanik has not been voted on because every single vote matters, and she is a member of the House that speaks volumes. All right, thanks to both of you appreciate your reporting.

RAJU: You bet.

BASH: Coming up, Elon Musk's Starlink scores a major deal with the federal airline agency. Our panel will untangle the increasingly complex web between Musk's private businesses and his role in Washington. Stay with us.

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[12:25:00]

BASH: Elon Musk is about to do even more business with the U.S. government. The Federal Aviation Administration just agreed to use his Starlink system to upgrade the technology uses to manage air space, even though Musk is simultaneously recommending cuts to that very FAA. CNN's Pete Muntean joins me now. Pete, what are your sources telling you about this seemingly conflict of interest? And how, or if they are at all, trying to explain it away?

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: It's not really the first time, Dana, there have been conflict of interest concerns when it comes to Elon Musk and the Federal Aviation Administration. Remember that SpaceX and all private space launches are overseen and certified, by the FAA, so this really only fuels the fire for members of Congress who have been calling on the Trump Administration to put the brakes on any conflicts that could potentially benefit Musk.

Just last night, five Senate Democrats called on Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to detail how he's dealing with this. Now even more poignant after this latest announcement by the FAA, it just said it is testing Starlink satellite internet at three locations, the FAA's Test Center in Atlantic City New Jersey, also what it calls two non-safety critical sites in Alaska.

This is timely, because getting reliable weather information in Alaska has been a major issue for pilots. That was just highlighted earlier this month after the crash of a bearing Cessna Caravan that killed 10 people.