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Inside Politics

Hegseth Slams Media, "Disgruntled Former Employees"; Ex-Hegseth Aide: "Full-Blown Meltdown At The Pentagon"; Hegseth Shared Details Of Yemen Strike In 2nd Signal Chat; Pope Francis Dies At Age 88; Trump Calls Powell "Major Loser" As He Pushes Fed To Lower Rates. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired April 21, 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]

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: -- Pete Hegseth ended there, which is the people who were fired, and presumably the people he is talking about, they're not just kind of employees that he inherited when he joined the Pentagon. These are people that he chose, the quote unquote "disgruntled employees", and many of them have been very close friends with him, I'm told, like -- almost like brothers, for a decade.

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is a really, really important point here, because Dan Caldwell, who was one of the employees who was fired last week, he's a senior adviser to Secretary Hegseth, he has known and worked with Hegseth for about a decade now.

They date back to the years working together at Concerned Veterans for America, which is a veteran's organization. Same with the other individual who was fired that was part of Hegseth's inner circle, Darin Selnick, who was the deputy chief of staff at the Pentagon, also worked with him at Concerned Veterans for America.

So these are people that Hegseth brought on, these are people that he hired and brought into the Defense Department. The same goes with John Ullyot, the person who wrote that op-ed last night, that scathing op- ed, saying that the last five weeks or so at the Pentagon have been absolute chaos.

This is really a message that they are trying to send here, in addition to the statement that was released by Dan Caldwell, by Darin Selnick, and by the third official who was fired last week, Colin Carroll, essentially saying that their character and their reputations have been slandered here.

And that any notion that they have done something wrong by leaking information to the press, which is one of the rationales that we were given last week when it came out that they were fired, is flat-out untrue. Something that John Ullyot also wrote in his op-ed.

And so I think that now we're seeing Hegseth respond in the only way that he knows how to do, which is to attack the media for reporting on something that he actually has not denied the substance of, which was the fact that he had the second signal chat set up, that his wife, his lawyer, and his brother were in it, and there was no really rational explanation for why they should be read in on a very sensitive military operation.

BASH: And I just -- so there are so many sort of tentacles to this. One, of course, and perhaps the most important, is what was this document? How sensitive was it? And the people on the text chain, whether they should have had access to it.

But then the other is just chaos, dysfunction, whatever John Ullyot, who also left on Friday, describes at the highest levels of the Pentagon. I mean, this is Game of Thrones, House of Cards, like, you know, pick your Washington show or some kind of palace intrigue that you would never think would happen in real life is happening real time.

STEPHEN COLLINSON, CNN POLITICS SENIOR REPORTER: Right. And I think that you've got two dimensions here. You've got the political and the grave national security implications. What you saw there on that clip was the reason that Hegseth got picked in the first place, because he can do the defense, the theatrics.

He was there at the East Egg Roll performing, in many ways, the way that the President wanted to perform --

BASH: That's right.

COLLINSON: -- when he picked him, using the classic Trumpian defense. It's the swamp against us, even though, as you were saying, the facts don't support that. On the politics of this, Trump for now is standing by him. But as we know in the past, the President stands by people until he doesn't.

I don't think he can let him go despite the implications of all this, because if he does, he would be admitting a mistake, that he picked someone unsuitable for the Pentagon in the first place. But to your first point, look at the backdrop, the worsening international situation.

We've got the peace talks with Ukraine, talks with Iran, the building clash with China over tariffs that threatens to go into something bigger, into a superpower clash. If you have that level of dysfunction at the top of the Pentagon, from someone who perhaps doesn't have the confidence of everyone in the ranks, despite, you know, this conceit that he's the Defense Secretary for the enlisted man and woman, that is going to be a problem.

BASH: And the fact that it was -- given to the New York Times, you and our colleagues have done great reporting since then, I am told that that is one of the reasons why Trump is with him for now. Because he can look at that and say, oh, just kind of like what we heard from Secretary Hegseth, oh, it's just, you know, the media out to get him and it looks like a hit job and these are people who don't want us to succeed, so on and so forth.

The question to your point, Steve, is how long is that going to last? BERTRAND: Yes, I think that the question of how much patience the White House is going to have with Secretary Hegseth as things like this continue to come out is a really relevant one here, because it is true that the White House does not necessarily want to go through another confirmation hearing, right?

That is, it was very, very messy the first time around. It was very difficult to get Pete Hegseth through. They used a ton of political capital to do that.

[12:35:01]

But at the same time, Hegseth keeps doing these things that make him look very amateurish and that are raising questions, not only among people who were in his closest inner circle about his judgment, but also increasingly people in the White House who are saying, why does this keep happening?

BASH: Yes.

BERTRAND: Why is this the second time that we're seeing this very sensitive, classified national security information apparently being put into a signal messaging group?

BASH: Yes. And then sort of the broader question about the chaos well beyond the Pentagon and how things are going down. I just want to remind people, because it is like drinking from a fire hose, about some of the other examples that have only happened over the past several days.

The President's pick for acting IRS commissioner, he was outed, just -- ousted, I should say, just days after his appointment. The Trump White House apparently are blaming this whole confrontation that they're having with Harvard, which is now escalating because the President is doubling down on a mistake that an official mistakenly sent the letter to Harvard in the first place with the threats.

And then, of course, the Trump advisers sort of what's going on behind the scenes, trying to take advantage of Peter Navarro's absence to push for a tariff pause, which was a great story by Josh Dawsey in The Wall Street Journal. Again, these are just examples in the past few days.

COLLINSON: Yes. And the -- at the beginning of the administration, a lot of people were talking about how this was different this time. It was planned. They -- Trump had the people he wanted. He knew what he wanted to do. And that was true to some extent.

You know, the early rollout of all those executive orders was far more professional than it was during the start of the first Trump term. But now you're seeing -- administrations always reflect the person at the top, in my experience. And this is the way Trump has run his business, his life, his first administration, competing forces. And that is naturally going to sort of erode into this kind of chaos. You know, when you're in the middle of an administration, it's often difficult to spot the turning points because the drama is so much. In this administration, the Trump era, that's even harder. But we could look back on some of the things that are going on now and the President's impulsive, you know, imposition and then taking off of tariffs as it may be a motif for the entire term.

BASH: Yes. And the fact that he is just full speed ahead and they are going to make mistakes when you do that --

COLLINSON: Yes.

BASH: -- and they are making mistakes.

Thank you so much for your reporting. Appreciate it.

Up next on Inside Politics, we will speak with the former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi about the passing of Pope Francis. She is one of the most prominent Catholics in the United States Congress.

And President Trump ordered flags to be lowered to have staff to honor the Pope's passing.

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[12:42:29]

BASH: My next guest is one of the most prominent Catholic lawmakers in American history. Joining me now is the former Speaker of the House, Democratic Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi. Thank you so much for being here.

I just got to read your lengthy and really heartfelt statement that you and your husband Paul released on the death of Pope Francis. And I just want to say to our viewers if they don't know, but I'm sure they do. You've always been so open and public and proud about your deep Catholic faith. What are your most important reflections of Pope Francis?

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D), CALIFORNIA: Well, it's so sad. It's heartbreaking for us to see him wish everyone Happy Easter yesterday and then go on to heaven. I've been -- Paul and I and our children have been with his holiness a sum total of four times, sometime with some of the grandchildren, other time others.

And then just on a long visit with him where he spoke about immigrants and refugees again and again, something that was very such a high priority for him. So when he has left us now, I think of all the times that we met him, it would always say, pray for me, whether it was leaving the Capitol or with my grandchildren, whatever, he would say, pray for me.

Excuse me. And we'd be like, well, no, you're the one who should be praying for us. No, pray for me. And now we will pray to him.

He was a saintly man, cared about faith, hope and charity and peace. He was a blessing to the world and to the Catholic faith. And he again saying goodbye and Happy Easter and then going on to heaven. It's just so remarkable.

BASH: What does it say about him as the Pope that he would say to you and others, pray for me?

PELOSI: Humility. It's about his humility. But he was a confident Pope. You know, he was a first in so many ways, as you have indicated, first non-European and 1,300 years to be pope. He was a -- he talked about climate. He talked about God's creation, whether it was the poorest of the poor, as reflected in the Gospel of Matthew, or whether it was God's creation that we had to protect it so much.

[12:45:00]

So important was it to him that he did an encyclical on it. And that's what he spoke about when he came -- that's one of the things he spoke about when he came to the Capitol. So you have this man of great confidence, first Jesuit, first great (ph) confidence, but great humility.

BASH: You received communion during a mass at St. Peter's Basilica in 2022. And that happened despite the fact that the archbishop of San Francisco said that you couldn't receive communion because of your support for abortion rights. What did it mean for you to receive communion that day during the papal mass?

PELOSI: Well, it was the feast of St. Peter and Paul, which in Rome is a national -- is a holiday. It's a civic holiday. And so all faiths come together in the Vatican and St. Peter's. They placed us in the front row and at the front row next to us was where his holiness was seated.

But before them -- and we had our family, we had we had staff, we had the security because it was an official visit that we were on before I went on to a family visit. In any case, before the visit, before the mass, I mean, they asked Paul and me to go outside through the vestibule or something before you go into the church and we were standing there and then his holiness came in.

He was in a wheelchair, far away door. He stood up and walked over to us.

BASH: Wow.

PELOSI: And we had a lovely private visit with him, which -- and they took pictures. You're not allowed to bring a camera. They took pictures which they -- the Vatican released, which was at that sensitive time with my own archbishop in San Francisco.

And then we received communion. I received communion right there in that front row on Feast of St. Peter and Paul --

BASH: He was trying to send a message.

PELOSI: -- in the presence of the Pope. BASH: He was clearly trying to send a message.

PELOSI: I'm sorry.

BASH: I said it seems as though he was trying to send a message.

PELOSI: No, he did send a message.

BASH: Yes.

PELOSI: I think that that he effectively did. I mean, the message was received by so many people saying, you know, see it -- well, it is -- I do receive communion, say, in Washington at Holy Trinity Church, where the bishop cardinal then had said we will not use religion at a -- communion as a weapon.

And I -- this was probably -- this -- nothing is done casually by the Vatican. When we went to see him on a codel (ph), a different visit, they said to me, you would obey these rules as you go in that are 400 years old. This is how we do it.

So, again, there's nothing casual about it. But they knew exactly the message that would go out of his holiness and was in a conversation with Paul and me privately on that feast, and then that we would receive communion.

Actually, the photo they sent out, I think, had his holiness, the next series of bros over, but in the picture when we're receiving communion. So in any event, this is a person of -- I mean, so beautiful, so lovely, so joyous. He would laugh about so many things.

And I found it a great privilege to meet with him at least four times, sometimes with -- he loved children, as you know, and sometimes with my grandchildren and children, sometimes with my husband, sometimes by myself, or sometimes as part of the leadership in the Capitol.

When we had -- when John Boehner was speaker, and we had the visit of his holiness to the Capitol, that was the most thrilling occasion of all.

BASH: Yes. Well, I know that your mother wanted you to become a nun, and you decided to go a different direction. But obviously, your Catholic faith does guide you. And I really appreciate you coming on to talk about your memories of this man who you obviously really adored on a personal level.

Thank you so much, Madam Speaker.

PELOSI: May he rest in peace. Thank you, Dana. Thank you.

BASH: Thank you.

And still ahead, we're going to go to a different story that is really remarkable, and you see it there on your screen. A very rough start this week on Wall Street. Markets are taking a dive right now. We'll explain after a break. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:54:13]

BASH: Right now, stocks are down almost a thousand points. One big reason is President Donald Trump unleashing a fresh attack on Fed Chair Jerome Powell this morning. Here's part of what the President wrote.

"With energy costs way down, food prices, including Biden's egg disaster, substantially lower, and most other things trending down, there is virtually no inflation. With these costs trending so nicely downward, just what I predicted they would do, there can be almost no inflation, but there can be a slowing of the economy unless Mr. Too Late, a major loser, lowers interest rates now."

Vanessa Yurkevich is here with me. I assume that -- I think everybody assumed that Mr. Too Late is the chair of the Federal Reserve, a man whom President Trump put in place in the first term.

[12:55:03]

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS & POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: That's right. This is just another attack on the Fed Chair Jerome Powell. And markets opened rattled this morning because Beijing essentially warned its trading partners not to work with the U.S. to try to isolate China in this trade war.

So you had that, and then you have this Truth Social post by the President essentially trying to direct the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, to lower interest rates. And I cannot stress enough, Dana, that the Federal Reserve is independent from the federal government. It was designed that way. It was set up that way.

It's sort of like a checks and balance for the U.S. economy. And many investors, many traders see the Federal Reserve as independent as that safety net to try to course correct if it is needed in the economy.

But you see there, just by the numbers reflected on your screen, that traders and investors are nervous that the President is putting pressure on the Federal Reserve, potentially indicating that he wants to remove the chair of the Federal Reserve, which would really create even more uncertainty, Dana.

You think what you're seeing on Wall Street is bad now? If that were to happen, and there's no precedent for that, Dana, if that were to happen, it would make what you're seeing right now a lot worse, Dana.

BASH: Vanessa, thank you so much for that reporting. We are out of time.

Thank you so much for joining Inside Politics. CNN News Central starts after the break.

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