Return to Transcripts main page

The Situation Room

Deadline for Trump Admin. to Pay USAID Partners; New Details in Idaho Student Murders; Bills QB Josh Allen Signs $330M Deal. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired March 10, 2025 - 10:30   ET

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

[10:30:00]

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Elliot, what exactly does this judge's order mean for the legal fight over USAID?

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR AND FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL: It's hard to say because there's a few different legal fights happening overall. It's one, the bigger, broader question of the president's funding pause -- blanket pause on funding across the federal government, how ought that to work? Is it lawful in the first place?

Then there's a second, smaller one about -- with respect to USAID, in terms of funding for work that's already been done, for people that have done work. This is the $2 billion. You've heard this term learn about, what about that when people have already done work, can that be reimbursed? And so, that's the legal fight happening. There's sort of happening in concert. So, much to watch over the course of the next day.

BROWN: So, let's just take a step back, look a big picture here. This is just one of many legal fights over Trump's push to slash the government. What do you make of the way that the courts are responding to Trump's move so far?

WILLIAMS: What I find so remarkable is that so many of the questions are over what you call temporary restraining orders or preliminary injunctions. All having to do with the speed with which they're moving. These cuts are happening at a breakneck pace, far faster than Congress can keep up, or the courts can keep up. And it's really putting the courts in a position of having to make spot decisions on these vast questions of how the government ought to work.

Frankly, I think, you know, the administration's been quite sloppy in some of the work they've done in terms of some of these cuts they've made, and that's the position that the courts are in. And so, I think the courts are doing their best to keep up, but this is a profound challenge for American government right now.

BROWN: Certainly is. Elliot Williams, thank you. Wolf?

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: And thank you, Elliot, as well for me. Let's get some more right now in the story from two former USAID workers who were both fired last month. Joining us now are Linden Yee and Benjamin Thompson.

Linden, I want to read part of a statement posted by the U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio this morning. I want to read it to you and listen to this. After a six-week review, we are officially cancelling 83 percent of the programs at USAID. The 5,200 contracts that are now cancelled spend tens of billions of dollars in ways that did not serve, and in some cases, even harmed the core national interests of the United States.

You're a former USAID worker now. What's your reaction to that?

LINDEN YEE, FORMER USAID EMPLOYEE: Sure. Thank you so much for asking me that question. I think that when we're talking about lifesaving aid programs, saying that we're going to cut 83 percent of USAID's programs, we are going to put lives in jeopardy. There's no way that that is not going to harm millions of people's lives. When USAID takes on programs, we always did it in order to save lives, improve lives. And save lives in the long run, this is things like disaster risk reduction. The world is only going to get more chaotic in terms of extreme weather events, so we cannot be gutting these programs right now. This will have a devastating impact, Wolf.

BLITZER: Benjamin, can you ever recall a time when the work that you personally did for USAID actually harmed the U.S. national interest?

BENJAMIN THOMPSON, FORMER USAID EMPLOYEE: I cannot, no. The underlying assumption to Rubio's statement is that these programs are full of what they're referring to as waste, fraud, and abuse. If that were actually the case, if that were their genuine intention, they would have gone about this in a very different way. They would have worked with existing personnel. They would have worked with the inspector general to review our programs, our funding streams. Instead, they immediately fired the inspector general and then terminated, as Linden said, lifesaving aid without any kind of official review process.

This -- I'm glad Elliot mentioned the pace with which this is happening. That is intentional. That is a strategy and a shock and awe campaign that is meant to overwhelm you. The only genuine purpose to this is fear mongering. They're not trying to achieve any specific policy objective.

BLITZER: And, Linden, let me ask the same question. Did you ever do something at USAID specific program that you concluded actually harmed us national interests?

YEE: 100 percent no. I'll say that I and the people that I served with, we all had the same mission that was to make the world safer, more peaceful, more prosperous for everyone, but especially for our fellow Americans. Everything we did was for that purpose. We worked across partnerships to make everyone stronger together. And as I said, it is only going to get more chaotic in terms of natural disasters. And this means that we all need to be in this together. Human survival is not promised and America has, in the past, benefited from foreign aid, notably after 9/11, after Hurricane Katrina and just recently, Canada and Mexico both gave foreign aid for the wildfires in California.

So, when the time comes, America will also need to ask for foreign aid, and we do not want to be the country that cut everyone else's lifesaving programs.

BLITZER: Let me get Benjamin to weigh in on this as well. So, 83 percent, it's almost all. 83 percent of all USAID contracts have now been canceled according to the statement from the secretary earlier this morning. What's that going to be? What's the impact of that?

THOMPSON: I don't think we can yet know how drastic the impact of that will be. I know we're already seeing incredibly negative impacts. I know that you all have done stories on PEPFAR or HIV programs. We're seeing immediate impacts with that as well as with the halt on our food aid.

[10:35:00]

I know that often the administration's response to that is that they've issued what they're calling lifesaving aid waivers for those kinds of programs and they're claiming that those are continuing. That's not the case. Our partners are not receiving the funds they're supposed to be receiving. The logistical issues alone that these actions have created and the confusion that has been put on our loyal partners has been really devastating to see, and we're going to see the ramifications of that.

BLITZER: And, Benjamin, what do you make of the fact that Rubio goes on to say that the remaining programs, there are not many, but the remaining programs will be administered more effectively by the State Department. What do you make of that?

THOMPSON: I think it goes back to the earlier point that they're assuming that USAID workers are out to get them or out to resist their policy goals and state would somehow be a better implementer for this. It's been very shocking and demoralizing, frankly, to see that the people that I worked with, good people from all walks of life that are committed to serving American interests be demonized in such a public way.

BLITZER: How many years did you work at USAID?

THOMPSON: I'm relatively new, only a couple years. Before that I was at the State Department.

BLITZER: And, Linden, what about you?

YEE: I am also in the same boat, two years at USAID, before that at the State Department.

BLITZER: And tell us about the way you were terminated, your jobs, the way you were fired.

YEE: 100 percent. So, our contract was terminated with only five minutes of notice.

BLITZER: What does that mean?

YEE: We were told that we would not be able to report to work the next day with just five minutes notice. We were to close down all of our laptops and our work phones. Those were to be thrown away. So, there's -- that's waste right there. And we were not able to report to work. We were not able to give notice. I work very closely with U.N. partners in my role previously, I was not able to give them any kind of notice that I would be leaving. We had to leave things half finished. It is not the way we would have wanted to go about closing these programs down.

BLITZER: And, Benjamin, the same for you?

THOMPSON: Yes, it's very similar situation for me. When we were sent in to gather our stuff, we were given very short windows to do so when we were there. The security situation, the personnel they had throughout the building, it was very clearly meant to intimidate, to threaten, which just seemed wildly out of place and inappropriate.

BLITZER: So inappropriate indeed. I've known many USAID employees over the years, and most of them were -- almost all of them were so dedicated, hardworking. They wanted to help people all over the world and wanted to save lives, which is what USAID is all about. But to both of you, thanks for all your important work. We appreciate it, and thanks for coming in right now.

THOMPSON: Thank you very much.

BLITZER: Pamela.

BROWN: Thank you so much. Just ahead, it's the most important evidence prosecutors have against Bryan Kohberger. We'll speak to a forensics expert on how the DNA found at the Idaho crime scene will be put under a microscope in court. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:40:00]

BROWN: Let's take a closer look this morning in the case against Bryan Kohberger. That's the man accused of killing four University of Idaho students in November 2022. And we're learning more about a DNA sample taken from a knife sheath left at the crime scene, which could be the make-or-break piece of evidence in this case.

For analysis, we're joined by Joseph Scott Morgan, distinguished professor of applied forensic at Jacksonville State University, as well as a former investigator with the Fulton County Medical Examiner's Office in Georgia. Professor, thanks for coming on. So, the Idaho State Lab located this single source of male DNA left on that knife sheath found on the bed next to one of the victims. The DNA of Brian Kohberger is a, quote, "statistical match" to that DNA. How will prosecutors focus their case on this DNA evidence?

JOSEPH SCOTT MORGAN, DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR OF APPLIED FORENSICS, JACKSONVILLE STATE UNIVERSITY AND FORMER INVESTIGATOR, FULTON COUNTY, GA MEDICAL EXAMINER'S OFFICE: Well, first off, thanks for having me. But yes, with that particular bit of DNA that comes off of the knife class, which is the area where actually it snaps together to hold the knife itself in place, that's touch DNA, which means that it's a tiny fragment of DNA that essentially rubs off of a point of contact with the accused. All right.

So, they would have had to have searched this microscopically very, very thoroughly. And when they came up with that hit, I'm sure that they were quite amazed. This is a very bloody scene. And the fact that this knife sheath was immediately adjacent to these poor, beautiful young women tells us a lot.

I really -- I've thought about this for a long time. I really thought -- I wonder if perhaps he had just kind of discarded the knife sheath after he had attacked them. And at some point in time, he had been flipping this thing back and forth. He'd been very careful other than that. But they've got him with this, I think.

BROWN: Well, you say they got him. What can Kohberger's defense team do to raise doubt about regarding the DNA evidence found on that sheath? As you well know, it's all about raising doubt, right?

MORGAN: Yes, it is. And so, this is going to go back to the trash pulls that were conducted in Pennsylvania. You know, regarding his father and going through the forensic genetic genealogy. You know, we've been doing this for a while. However, there are still many questions about it where we begin to look back generationally. Some people have often said that you can be named as a suspect as a result of one of your cousins. Just let that sink in just for a second.

[10:45:00]

So, these are open-source databases that they're utilizing in order to facilitate this. And this is probably where the defense is going to make the most hay in this case. They're going to say that this is not accepted, that it's bad practice, those sorts of things. And they're going to beat this horse as long as they possibly can.

BROWN: What other evidence can Kohberger's defense use to argue on behalf of their client?

MORGAN: Well, I think some of it is going to come down to placement relative to the timeline. You know, where, in fact, was he at any given time? There's been some question about that, CCTV evidence, the driving about up in, you know, Moscow where he's, you know, essentially circling back and forth. Is there anything wrong with doing that? No, there's not.

But, you know, it's kind of fascinating, Pamela, he actually dropped a bit of information at some point in time. That same night, he claimed that he had gone out to a secluded area in order to do stargazing. Well, you look back at the meteorology reports that night, you had a ceiling of about 400 feet. There was actually ice falling and you had fog. I don't know about you guys, but I don't think I could appreciate any kind of celestial bodies at that point in time. And he's hanging his hat on that saying that that's actually where he was. BROWN: Interesting. I want to just really quickly go back to the DNA. You know, it's not just about detecting it, but also preserving that evidence. Help us understand how investigators work to preserve and maintain that DNA evidence once it's discovered, given how central it is to the case and how small the sample is.

MORGAN: Yes. Well, this is the way I like to -- I teach my students is actually. I tell them, listen, you -- anytime you walk onto a scene, you have to treat every bit of evidence. I don't care how minuscule it is, as if it's unstable Nitroglycerin, it could blow up in your hand at any point in time. So, everything there would have to be treated with (INAUDIBLE) gloves.

Some of the stuff that I witnessed relative to the process in the scene, I'm not a big fan of, you know, there's one classic image of them removing one of the mattresses from the from the house and actually putting it into the open bed of a pickup truck, and that's not within industry standards. I have -- you know, there's a real problem with that.

And also, you know, before Kohberger was actually hooked up on charges and brought back, they, the authorities, were already attempting to clean that apartment. They had actually hired a service. And you know, our friends can go back and take a look at this. There's this plastic tunnel that they had created so that the crime scene cleanup people could go in. And that's a really bad practice. And then, you couple that with the fact that the authorities there allowed them to tear down this house, which I think is a bad decision.

BROWN: Yes. Joseph Scott Morgan, thank you for coming on.

MORGAN: My pleasure. Thanks for having me, guys.

BROWN: Wolf?

BLITZER: And coming up, he's been the MVP in my hometown of Buffalo long before the NFL gave him the title officially. And it now looks like Bill's quarterback, Josh Allen, is going to be sticking around Buffalo for quite a while. CNN Sports Anchor Coy Wire, himself a former Buffalo Bill, has a look at this record deal what it means for all of us.

COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Let's go Buffalo, the man with the rocking --

BLITZER: All right. Stand by, stand by.

WIRE: All right. We're coming up.

BLITZER: We're going to discuss this right after a quick break.

WIRE: Oh, OK. Let's do it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:50:00] BLITZER: What a month for a Bill's quarterback, Josh Allen, just weeks after winning his first NFL Most Valuable Player Award. Allen has just signed a record-breaking deal. Let's go live now to sports anchor Coy Wire. He's joining us right now. Coy, glad to see Josh Allen getting his due after another great season for my Buffalo Bills and your Buffalo Bills as well. What makes this deal though so historic?

WIRE: First of all, I have to say, I love when we get to talk Bills because Wolf Blitzer smiling is the best TV we can absolutely see. Listen, Josh Allen wasn't being paid him on the top 10 quarterbacks and salaries. So, this record breaking six-year $330 million deal, it includes the largest guarantee ever given at NFL player. $250 million. Here's a list of the most guaranteed QB money. Allen still had four years left on his current deal, but this extends him through the year 2030 now, bringing him closer to the top of the yearly market for top QBs as well.

Allen, as Wolf has mentioned, has been the MVP in Buffalo for quite some time, given his all on the field, but also giving back to the community. This was the moment he was surprised with a message of congrats from kids at Oishei Children's Hospital back in Buffalo, just after he won the MVP. He had a message for them as well. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSH ALLEN, BUFFALO BILLS QUARTERBACK: Oh, man. I mean, just pretty cool. I don't know what else to say. My job is not that hard. I play football. What you guys have to go through and continue to fight through is much harder than I do. And I look up to you as much as you look up to me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WIRE: He's got a rocket arm and a heart of gold. Listen, he's had an incredible few months. He got engaged to actor Hailee Steinfeld, became just the third Bills' player ever to win MVP, and now he is locked into Wolf Blitzer's Buffalo Bills with this new record-breaking contract.

BLITZER: So, you like let's go, Buffalo or simply go, Bills? What's your favorite?

WIRE: I'll say let's go, Buffalo, you say go, Bills.

BROWN: What about me? Where do I fit into this?

[10:55:00]

BLITZER: You say could go what?

BROWN: Go, Buffalo. Go, Buffalo Bills . I don't -- do I need to become a super fan like now?

BLITZER: You do. BROWN: All right.

BLITZER: If you want to be my co-anchor, you got to be a huge Bills fan.

BROWN: And you got to be a Kentucky Wildcat fan.

BLITZER: I will be.

BROWN: And that means, because we all know Wolf Blitzer is the Buffalo Bell super fan. You know that during the season. He is watching.

WIRE: There it is.

BROWN: This is Wolf's setup. 10 out of 10. No notes.

WIRE: Oh, my gosh. Look at -- that TV, I think it's from the '90s.

BROWN: Yes.

WIRE: But look at that smile. Look at the Bills swag.

BLITZER: Look, the most important thing, Coy, is the Bills won, and I was so happy.

BROWN: That's true.

WIRE: That's right. My dream is to get Wolf in Buffalo doing maybe bowling ball shots with Pinto man (ph) out of his bowling ball or breaking a table, something, next time you're there, but in Buffalo hit us up, Wolf. We're there.

BLITZER: I love our Buffalo Bills.

WIRE: All right. Let's go, Buffalo.

BLITZER: All right. Coy, thanks very much. And go, Bills. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:00:00]