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The Source with Kaitlan Collins
Judge Pauses Trump Admin's "Buyout" Offer To Federal Workers; Treasury Secretary Calls DOGE Team "Highly Trained Professionals"; Pelosi Challenger: Democratic Party "Needs A Whole Revolution." Aired 9-10p ET
Aired February 06, 2025 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[21:00:00]
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: --eggs as well, cooking them as well.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, ANDERSON COOPER 360: All right. Sanjay, I really appreciate it. Obviously, yes, it's--
GUPTA: Yes.
COOPER: --frightening to even think about this.
GUPTA: We'll keep an eye on it.
COOPER: Yes, please. Let's -- please. Sanjay, thank you.
Coming up. That's it for us. Appreciate you joining us. See you, tomorrow night.
The news continues right now. "THE SOURCE WITH KAITLAN COLLINS" begins.
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, CNN HOST, THE SOURCE WITH KAITLAN COLLINS: Straight from THE SOURCE tonight.
The Trump-Musk midnight deadline for federal employees to choose whether to resign, just stopped by a federal judge amid an avalanche of lawsuits pitting Trump versus what might be his last line of resistance.
Also, new CNN reporting tonight on Elon Musk and his top lieutenants, and what they tried to do with a critical Treasury payment system, what my source tonight has uncovered.
And meet the challenger, who is fed up with Democrats' response to Trump, launching an uphill battle to unseat Nancy Pelosi. What he thinks Democrats should be doing instead.
I am Kaitlan Collins. And this is THE SOURCE.
The deadline was supposed to be just under three hours from right now. But a federal judge has just stepped in and stopped the clock on the Trump-Musk pressure campaign to shrink the federal workforce. That deadline was for federal workers to tell the Trump administration, if they chose to take what is being described as a buyout offer.
But the judge says, it is paused, so that the legal process here can play out, after we saw unions representing hundreds of thousands of workers file a suit, calling it a, quote, Arbitrary, unlawful and short-fused ultimatum. Basically, resign and get paid through the end of September or potentially be laid off with no severance later.
The judge wants to hear arguments, this Monday, as federal workers got a heads-up just after 05:00 p.m., in this email, that we reviewed here at CNN, with the subject line Fork in the Road: Deadline Extended to Monday.
More than 50,000 workers are said to have voluntarily taken this offer so far. But not enough, apparently, for the White House.
The press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, praised this deadline halt by the judge, telling my colleague, Jeff Zeleny, quote, "We are grateful to the judge for extending the deadline so more federal workers who refuse to show up to the office can take the administration up on this very generous, once-in-a-lifetime offer."
That statement coming after this obvious dig.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We encourage federal workers in this city to accept the very generous offer. If they don't want to show up to the office, if they want to rip the American people off, then they're welcome to take this buyout, and we'll find highly competent individuals who want to fill these roles.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: A lot in that statement that we'll unpack in a moment.
But this comes as we're also learning tonight that the administration is expected to drastically reduce the workforce, on its own, at USAID, the agency that we've been talking about all week, which provides food aid, disaster relief, and health programs, in other countries. Now slashing it to just under 300 essential direct employees out of a workforce that had approximately 10,000 people, virtually eliminating almost every single job.
A pair of major labor groups are now suing to halt the President's efforts to dismantle USAID.
My source tonight represents the collection of federal workers unions in the lawsuit that resulted in that midnight buyout pause, and also the new lawsuit that I just mentioned on USAID.
The President and CEO of Democracy Forward, Skye Perryman, is here.
And Skye, it's great to have you.
Just tell me, one, on this latest lawsuit, where you think that's going to go. And also, your reaction to hearing what the press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said, how she's describing this ultimatum that is facing federal workers tonight.
SKYE PERRYMAN, PRESIDENT & CEO, DEMOCRACY FORWARD, REPRESENTING PLAINTIFFS IN LAWSUITS AGAINST DOGE, REPRESENTING PLAINTIFFS IN USAID LAWSUIT: What we know is that the vast majority of the American people, over 90 percent expect that our federal workers work, and are working based on merit, not political loyalty or ideology.
Yet, what this administration is trying to do is to hollow out that value, and to seek to undermine our civil service, the people that work, by the way, not just in Washington, but in all 50 states, and across the country, doing the work of the American people, keeping us safe, keeping our food and water safe, all of these services that we rely on.
And so, we are encouraged that the judge saw this for what it was, which is an abrupt departure, and something that's both harmful and unlawful, and paused the government's activities here, until he can hear full argument on Monday.
COLLINS: But does this give those workers, any confidence? I mean, it's essentially extended from midnight, tonight, until Monday. I assume they still have a lot of anxiety about what that means, goes forward, in just a few days from now.
[21:05:00]
PERRYMAN: What I hope this suit does is give the civil servants, throughout this country, the confidence, that the American people have their back. The American people want this government to work for people and to be of, by and for the people. Not political loyalists, or unelected billionaires like Elon Musk.
And so, I do think that this suit probably gives folks a sigh of relief, as the judge will consider the merits of the argument, on Monday.
COLLINS: What about the 50,000 people, who have already accepted this, who said, You know what? I don't want to stick around for whatever this entails. And they did take that buyout package.
It's about 50,000 people, which is 2.5 percent of the roughly 2 million federal workers who have been offered this, overall. Do we know how this pause affects them?
PERRYMAN: Well, traditionally, about a 100,000 federal workers seek to retire every year. And so, the 50,000 are likely federal workers, who are already planning to leave the federal workforce.
And the buyout itself, the so-called Fork in the Road, it is so unlawful, it actually is seeking to promise things that Congress has not even appropriated funds for. And so, I think that we'll know more on Monday, after the judge hears argument about the fate of this, what we believe is a harmful and unlawful program.
COLLINS: Because basically, your concern is someone says Yes, to this. And then they say, Actually, we're not going to pay you through September. And there's no legal recourse for those employees?
PERRYMAN: There is such a range of concerns. I mean, it's a one-sided deal that they're seeking to have employees sign. But it's also, Congress has not even appropriated funds for this so-called buyout. And so, there's just a range of concerns. Even for the people that would be signing this, there's a lot of unanswered questions.
And of course, we believe that it's flatly unlawful, which every federal judge in this country that has considered, had the opportunity to consider something that this administration has been doing, over the past 16, 17 days. Everyone that's considered this administration's actions has found them to be unlawful, from immigration, to privacy violations, to a range of other things.
COLLINS: Yes, and we'll see how far it goes.
Skye Perryman, please keep us updated, as this is making its way through the courts. We'll be sure to have you back to see what is going on with this. Thank you for that.
Also joining me here.
Astead Herndon, who is a National Politics Reporter for The New York Times.
And CNN's Senior Legal Analyst, Elie Honig.
Elie, Skye made a really important point there, which I think was how judges are reacting to what Trump is doing.
ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST, FORMER ASSISTANT U.S. ATTORNEY, SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NY: Yes.
COLLINS: Because he's essentially been in this position, where this is the resistance that he's facing. It's not from Democrats. It's not from anything like that. It's from the courts, really.
HONIG: Yes, this is the only resistance that Donald Trump is facing. And thus far, he's 0 for all of these lawsuits. I mean, thus far, every judge to have considered one of these lawsuits has at least put Donald Trump's actions on hold.
And if I could sort of, to digest what we just heard in that very interesting interview. The position of the workers here is essentially, yes, of course, the President runs the Executive branch. However, that does not mean he gets to do everything and anything he wants within the Executive branch. And what we just heard Ms. Perryman say is there are limits put on that, by Congress, that have to ultimately prevail.
Now, the counterargument there is going to be something we call the unitary executive theory, which is this old, popular notion of the conservative-right that says, The President isn't just the head of the Executive branch, he is the Executive branch. Congress be darned, he can do whatever he wants. So, that's the clash we're headed towards. COLLINS: Which seems to be one that the White House is embracing. I mean, you see how they're responding to the judge pushing this deadline.
ASTEAD HERNDON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST, NATIONAL POLITICS REPORTER, THE NEW YORK TIMES: It's one that they've wanted.
HONIG: Yes.
HERNDON: And they've wanted this for a long time. I mean, I think we should see these as an attempt, from the White House, to stoke a fight that has been always kind of what it's been building to.
They've been mentioning unitary executive theory on the trail, things like Project 2025, Agenda 47. When conservatives put down the principles of what MAGA and Trumpism meant, part of that reshaping of the federal government was an empowering of the Executive branch.
They knew these fights with the judiciary were coming. They actually planned ahead to kind of test some of these legal theories, because the belief is that if Congress -- that Congress won't be that line of resistance. They understood that the judges might be though -- might be the only kind of recourse here.
HONIG: Yes.
COLLINS: But is there a point to where this being played out in court, helps that theory that Trump has all the executive power, and can do whatever he wants with -- when it comes to firing people?
HONIG: So, I think there's two issues at play here. One is, he may be trying to change the law. He may be trying to get this up to the Supreme Court. Several of those justices are long-time adherence of this--
HERNDON: Yes.
HONIG: --very broad school of executive power. Maybe he's thinking, Let's take a shot, let's try to expand this.
The other thing that Astead hit on that's so crucial is the incentive structure here is unlike anything we've ever seen before. Donald Trump has basically flipped the script on all these lawsuits. He has not gone through the niceties, and dotted the I's and crossed the T's, and given people notice and hearing, and all these things from the Administrative Procedures Act.
His approach basically is, Heck with it, I'm going to do what I want--
HERNDON: Yes.
HONIG: --And then you, Individual, maybe you're lucky, you have a lawyer, like Skye Perryman or something. But you go hire a lawyer, you go sue me, you sit there through the uncertainty of not knowing what's going to happen to you, on Monday.
And so, he doesn't -- you're right. He doesn't care, and he doesn't care about the outcome. He has no incentive to care.
[21:10:00]
HERNDON: And they've also coming from this at multiple angles. The overall goal of reducing the federal workforce, of reshaping the bureaucracy, or what, in Trump terms, would be, Ridding the Deep State of elected partisans, is one that they've taken from this angle. It's what DOGE is doing with Elon Musk. It's what, the executive order about Schedule F, and kind of the--
HONIG: Yes.
HERNDON: --the reclassifying of some of these workers as political appointees, making it easier to fire them. This has been something that the deluge, the firehose from the executive order.
So, I was looking at that list, I was seeing how repetitive many of them are.
HONIG: Yes.
HERNDON: And partially, I think, and I was reading that some of that is about legal theories, being able to attack things from multiple fronts. This administration that's more organized in terms of implementation, not just ideology.
COLLINS: And it's kind of how we saw Trump's personal legal strategy play out, when he was out of office. A, all of his -- a lot of his attorneys, not all, I should say, are working for the federal government, right now, or going to be.
But it's this kind of either Delay, delay, delay, and just fight out in the courts later, or just, Throw everything, file these motions, and essentially take all of these attempts, to fight this.
HONIG: And let me go even farther back in Donald Trump's history. He came up as a real estate baron in this city, by stiffing his contractors, right?
His theory was, Well, I owe this concrete supplier a $100,000 for this job. How about I just pay you nothing? And then you, concrete supplier, who has less resources than me, less time than me, you go hire a lawyer, you go sue me, and you know what's going to probably happen? Probably settle for a fraction of it.
So, it's really that same litigation tactic brought to the White House.
COLLINS: But what's different is this is the federal government.
HONIG: Right.
HERNDON: Right.
HONIG: Exactly.
COLLINS: And there are different responsibilities. In terms of -- the USAID numbers really struck me tonight--
HERNDON: Yes.
COLLINS: --in terms of, yes, there have been all the arguments about, Maybe this is wasteful, or, Why are we spending money on this as a country?
But to see that there are only 290 people left of an agency that had 10,000 people in it, two weeks ago--
HERNDON: Yes.
COLLINS: --is a drastic amount. And it makes me wonder about the assurances that we've received, and that Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, has offered, saying, We're going to keep this up.
But, I mean, you've virtually eliminated every position there.
HERNDON: They're trying to have their cake and eat it too. They're saying, This won't be a full whole-scale change, essential services would continue. But those numbers kind of betray the point, because there'll be such a drastic reduction in the folks at USAID.
I think what you're saying is important, though, because there was a desire for government reform. There has been a sense government's been wasteful, change is necessary. But is that what we are seeing?
I think that's going to be the big question is really not -- I don't think -- I think there is a mandate for shake-up, right? And I think Donald Trump is right to kind of claim that thing. But I think there's a much bigger question of what the solutions are. And that's the fight that Democrats are really engaging in right now.
Yes, it's a question of resistance to Trump. But the real question is, What should foreign aid look like, right? What does the efficient bureaucracy, what does efficient government look like? And Donald Trump is offering his vision of that right now. The question is going to be the counter-way.
COLLINS: Yes, and we haven't really seen an alternative being offered to USAID, in this sense. As Trump's talking about taking over Gaza, and what that looks like.
But Elie, what we heard from this judge, I thought this was a notable quote from the judge who blocked the midnight deadline, saying, It has become ever more apparent that our president -- to our president, the rule of law is but an impediment to his policy goals. The rule of law is, according to him, something to navigate around or simply ignore, whether that be for political or personal gain.
HONIG: OK. So, first of all, that judge that we're looking at right now, he's a Reagan-appointee. He's not some liberal Democratic appointee.
HERNDON: Yes, he is--
HONIG: Those are pretty strong words. And I think that judge is identifying the same thing we're talking about.
And look at this USAID reduction, right? The law is pretty clear that the President cannot, on his own, create or completely eliminate a federal agency. Congress has to do that.
And so, what does he do? He says, Well, I'm not going to quite eliminate it--
HERNDON: Yes.
HONIG: --I'm just going to cut from 10,000 people to 290 people.
That was done strategically.
And I agree, I think that judge is right. This is all about getting his policy goals, maybe expanding the law, and really sort of throwing red meat to the political base. And again, what's the cost to Trump? He doesn't even have to pay for his lawyers anymore. Now he has DOJ do it for free.
HERNDON: The only question to me is, is there a public response, right? Like, we haven't really seen a kind of engaged electorate, or the type of pushback we saw, back in 2017.
Donald Trump, I think we know what this administration's goals are, and we know that they have a kind of multi-pronged legal and political strategy to advance them. To me, the issue is, where are they going to meet that resistance? We know the courts are going to be one place. But the place that will drive the elected officials will be if there's a public reaction. And we haven't seen that to this front.
And I think it's important to say, is there a story about USAID and these government agencies that people do feel like essential services are being led?
COLLINS: That's such a great point, because Trump is often driven by the coverage, the perception of something. He may not realize in the moment, how something goes over.
I think I'm thinking of Helsinki with -- he was standing shoulder-to- shoulder with Putin. But it was only after the coverage later that he walked back his statement.
Because he's driven by the coverage of this. And so far, maybe they think, Well, we've got tacit approval, essentially.
HONIG: Yes, there would have been a way to do this smart. I mean, there is government blow, there is government waste. I mean, take the FBI. I could point out some people who may not be super-necessary to FBI. Instead he's--
COLLINS: Can you explain really quickly--
HONIG: Yes.
COLLINS: --why a buyout in the federal government is different than a corporate buyout? Because people might be sitting at home--
HONIG: Yes.
COLLINS: --saying, OK, well, corporations do buyouts all the time. Why are you guys freaking out?
[21:15:00]
HONIG: Yes, a lot of people like corporate buyouts. The difference, though, is in the federal government, Congress has to allocate money. It's not just like a water faucet, you can turn on and off. And so, Congress has to allocate both the amount of money, and the time in which it needs to be spent, or cannot be spent.
And here, if this buyout plan goes through, suddenly you're going to see what's the math, 50,000 people times seven months of benefits? I mean, that's probably hundreds of millions of dollars.
HERNDON: Yes.
HONIG: So yes, buyouts are not inherently evil. In fact, they can be quite productive and helpful in the private sector. But here, the real question is, is it constitutional? And that's where I think he's going to run into problems.
COLLINS: Elie Honig. Astead Herndon. That was robust.
HONIG: Thank you.
COLLINS: Thank you both.
Up next. We have some news on a young key staff member of Elon Musk DOGE team, who reportedly gained access to the Treasury Department's central payment system. But just resigned. We'll tell you why.
Plus, the golden gift that everyone is talking about in Washington, tonight, from the Prime Minister of Israel, to President Trump, symbolizing a deadly attack.
[21:20:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: CNN has new reporting, tonight, detailing just how far Elon Musk's team is going to reach their government efficiency goals.
First, we've heard that Trump's Energy secretary has allowed a 23- year-old, access to IT systems, over objections from the department's legal team.
And we have also reporting tonight that emails show that his associates wanted to use this ultra-sensitive Treasury Department payment system, to shut down all payments that were being made by USAID.
In addition to those two measures, The Wall Street Journal is reporting tonight that another key DOGE staffer, who had access to the Treasury Department's payment system that I was just talking about, resigned today, after he was linked to a now-deleted social media account that advocated racism and eugenics.
The 25-year-old left the DOGE team, after The Journal asked the White House about his connection to that account.
My inside source is Vittoria Elliott, who has been reporting on who makes up the team, and what DOGE is doing across the federal government, as everyone is trying to really figure it out. And she joins me now.
And it's great to have you.
As we're looking at all of this, in terms of the level of access that they are getting, and what we're hearing. The new Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, was just confirmed. I want you to listen to just how he described the team at DOGE.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCOTT BESSENT, UNITED STATES SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY: These are highly trained professionals. You know, this is not some roving band going around doing things. This is methodical, and it is going to yield big savings.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: How does that line up with what you have been hearing?
VITTORIA ELLIOTT, POWER AND PLATFORMS REPORTER, WIRED: Well, I think, first off, while it may be methodical, it's certainly not transparent.
And I think there's a couple of things nested here. Musk, during the campaign, was saying that one of the big goals in him supporting Trump was that they would cut back on government waste.
And I think, to put that in perspective, the amount that Musk has said that he wants to cut down, in terms of federal spending, is over $2 trillion. And the federal discretionary budget in 2023 was $1.7 trillion. So, that money is nowhere to be found in the discretionary budget. It will have to come from other places in the federal budget.
So, this idea that somehow DOGE is going to manage to magically fix all of the government spending issues is, I think, a little disingenuous.
And then, secondly, when he's talking about them being highly trained individuals, there's sort of no qualification about what exactly they're trained in.
They may be brilliant engineers, but they certainly have very little experience in government. In fact, the primary experience that we've seen, for most of the young people that we've seen involved in DOGE, has been either involvement in one of Elon Musk's companies, or in companies run by Peter Thiel, the billionaire, who is also very close with Musk.
COLLINS: Yes.
ELLIOTT: He's been a longtime Trump supporter.
So, I think the idea that somehow they're highly trained? Just because someone is an incredible technical -- has incredible technical skills, doesn't necessarily mean they have a deep understanding of privacy law or government systems.
And even if someone is the best at whatever it is they do, technically, the reality is that the earliest any of these people could have been accessing any of these systems was January 20th.
And while Silicon Valley may be the land of move fast and break things, and you know, if you're running a startup, maybe you frustrate some of your customers as you make changes? There are hundreds of millions of people who rely on the government working correctly. Moving fast and breaking things means that a lot of people might be impacted by mistakes--
COLLINS: Yes.
ELLIOTT: --even if everyone has the best of intention.
COLLINS: Well, I guess, a question would also be, how the interactions are going, with people who have deep experience with the Treasury payment system, or at the Office of Management and Budget.
What have you heard about, kind of how these two -- these two groups, whether they are brilliant young former engineers, or what may -- what they may be, how they're interacting with the people, who may have been at these other departments for a long time?
[21:25:00]
ELLIOTT: I mean, what we're hearing, frankly, is that there's very little transparency, which, again, is ironic, because Musk spent much of his time, during the campaign and after, talking about how DOGE would, and the second Trump administration, would be the most transparent of any government that the U.S. had seen. And that is just not the case.
People at the General Services Administration told WIRED that they were doing code reviews, which is when they have to go over their work, with people who were on Zoom calls with them, or with email addresses that weren't even government email addresses. They would sometimes only be interacting with these people, on a first-name basis, because the DOGE members would not tell them who they were.
So, I think there's been a lot of suspicion--
COLLINS: They would not tell--
ELLIOTT: --a lot of fear.
COLLINS: Just to follow-up.
ELLIOTT: Yes.
COLLINS: They would not tell the career employees that they were either talking to or interviewing, or whatever, they would not say their full names to them?
ELLIOTT: Yes.
COLLINS: And did they say--
ELLIOTT: And--
COLLINS: --why that was?
ELLIOTT: Initially no. We've since seen some indication from inside this -- the agencies that are reporting, and the reporting of other outlets has also made members of DOGE more cagey, about sharing the identities of people, who are supporting their efforts.
So, I think, even for the federal employees themselves, they've been incredibly nervous. They've been incredibly upset to see people coming in from the outside with basically no understanding of how these systems work, and seemingly getting incredibly high level of access to them, higher than most people on staff would have, to change systems, to look at data that would otherwise be incredibly sensitive.
And there's concerns that we don't know how that data is being used. We don't know if it's being kept safe. We don't know if they're following the many, many protocols that are put in place, to ensure that stuff that would be considered incredibly sensitive, the payment systems, for instance, at the Treasury. We're talking about payments that go out to businesses, to individuals. If you get a tax return on time--
COLLINS: Yes.
ELLIOTT: --that's coming from that system.
And we have no concept of how deeply into these systems, these young engineers got. But it's certainly not something that just anyone is able to access, and often requires a great deal of experience, and vetting--
COLLINS: Yes.
ELLIOTT: --by the federal government.
COLLINS: Yes. Well, and I mean, even if you're an advocate of this and like it, I think people would want to know what exactly is happening, what that looks like. To your point about transparency.
Vittoria Elliott, keep us updated on your reporting. And thank you for joining tonight.
ELLIOTT: Thank you for having me. COLLINS: Up next. Republican leaders huddled behind closed doors, today, in Washington. Left a meeting there at the White House, with big questions that remain on what they are going to do about President Trump's legislative agenda, even though Republicans control Congress.
[21:30:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: After an intense meeting at the White House today, Republican leaders in the House still have not publicly revealed how they plan to move ahead with President Trump's legislative agenda.
More than a dozen members of Congress were there at the White House today, where we are told the President laid out his priorities. But they did not leave with an agreement, at least not one that is clear to us, on where to start.
Basically, Republicans in the House have been struggling to present a united front, on how to proceed with the President's agenda, while also trying to fend off an effort by Republicans in the Senate to go around them.
My source tonight is a veteran of Republican politics, in the Trump White House. He was Trump's former National Security Adviser. Ambassador John Bolton.
Ambassador, what do you make of how -- you know, we're a month into the new Congress, and it's still pretty clear that they are divided on how to proceed with Trump's agenda. And what we are told is he is not really telling them, explicitly, to do this or that.
AMB. JOHN BOLTON, FORMER TRUMP NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: Well, I think it's a very sharp contrast with the kind of blitzkrieg tactics that Elon Musk is using with some success in the early days, confronting the real political obstacles, on Capitol Hill.
And a lot rides on this. Whether there's an extension of the 2017 tax cuts, what revenues from tariffs Trump is going to propose. And whether the incredibly thin Republican majority in the House can sustain this.
I think it's also evidence of splits within Trump support base. There are really hardcore fiscal conservatives in the House, who want to see dramatic reductions in federal spending, get the annual deficit down, and begin reducing the national debt. Donald Trump has never been a fiscal conservative, never. He likes spending other people's money.
So, there's a lot at stake here for the administration. And, at this point, clearly no direction forward.
COLLINS: From your experience, what is it like, when he's in the room, in terms of offering direction or guidance, or how he typically would handle a moment like this?
BOLTON: Well, on something as technical and important nonetheless, is recon -- the reconciliation process, the legislative process, generally.
He didn't understand much about it, when he became president in 2017. I don't think he learned very much in the first term, if not only today's meeting, but earlier meetings, where he would seem to endorse the House Republican preference for one reconciliation bill, and then talk to the senators and endorse their preference for two reconciliation bills. He doesn't know. He doesn't feel comfortable with it.
And I think as long as the issue continues undecided, the more time that goes by, potentially the weaker a united -- the chances for a united Republican position become.
[21:35:00]
COLLINS: What do you make of just -- I mean, Republicans obviously control the House, as you noted, razor-thin majority, also the Senate.
But we're just seeing a lot of what he is doing by executive order. Now, he's only been in office a few weeks. But Republicans typically have been harshly critical of Democrats, in the White House, when they have used executive orders and the power of the pen. I mean, if they want to get done what Trump wants done, it's going to have to be legislatively.
BOLTON: Right. Look, executive orders really allow the President to control the Executive branch of government, which he is the head of, after all, and order things that already exist within statutory framework.
So, people who are complaining about many of Trump's executive orders really should be complaining about the performance of Congress over the past 100 years or more.
As Congress, during the New Deal, just is one excellent example, ceded huge amounts of discretionary authority to the Executive. The presidencies over time didn't pick all of this up off the ground by themselves. Congress gave up power. And today, you have a lot of question whether many members of Congress would know how to write a bill if that task fell to them.
So, this is a point, where there should be a struggle. That's what the separation of powers is all about. I think the legislative performance to date has been almost non-existent.
COLLINS: Yes, I think it was the least productive Congress in the last one. We'll see what this one looks like.
But I do -- I'm curious, your view. I was in the room the other night, when Trump was standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the Israeli prime minister, talking about the U.S. taking ownership of Gaza, something that he repeated again, earlier this morning, on Truth Social about -- talked about the IDF handing it to Gaza.
It reminded everyone of a moment that happened in a debate, the Republican primary debates of the 2016 campaign, where Marco Rubio, now Secretary of State, was on stage with Trump, talking about Gaza. And this is what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARCO RUBIO, UNITED STATES SECRETARY OF STATE: The Palestinians are not a real estate deal, Donald.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: OK, no, no, no -- a deal -- a deal is a deal.
RUBIO: They're not a real estate deal.
TRUMP: Let me tell you. I've learned a long time ago.
RUBIO: A deal is not a deal when you're dealing with terrorists.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: We're now hearing from Secretary Rubio softening Trump's plan a bit for what he laid out for Gaza.
But I wonder what you -- how you saw what Trump laid out.
BOLTON: Well, I was fascinated that when he talked about Gaza, he read from a piece of paper. That was very clear. I just love to know who wrote that piece of paper, who caused him to say the United States was going to own Gaza.
Look, there are really two issues here.
The first is, what's the U.S. role going to be post-war in Gaza? I don't think it will look anything like what Trump suggested, on Tuesday night. I don't think there'd be any support for it. It'd be very dangerous, in the circumstances he doesn't want to put troops in, which wouldn't be advisable anyway. So a lot of that, I think, you can just disregard.
The issue though that is critical, is whether people are going to continue to insist on laying the basis for a two-state solution, which is utterly failed, utterly dead, and what's going to be done from a humanitarian point of view, from the Palestinians living in Gaza, who have been used for decades, by radical Arab states, beginning in the 50s and 60s, as a weapon to drive Israel into the sea, which isn't going to happen.
So, there's a lot to decide there. And I think simply rebuilding a high-rise refugee camp in Gaza is a prescription for another October 7, in due course.
COLLINS: If you're the National Security Adviser, now though, and Trump tells you that's what he wants the U.S. to do, to occupy Gaza after this war is over. You say?
BOLTON: Well, the only thing you can say, when you're talking to him privately that way is, Well, have you considered the following considerations? The amount of security that would be required for significant U.S. involvement in clearing Gaza, and then rebuilding it. The lack of likely private investors to put billions of dollars into an area that's subject to terrorist attacks.
Remember the saying, Capital is a coward. You're not going to get private investment in a highly, politically risky, non-secure situation. You have to get security before you get the investment. That's why this whole idea of the Eastern Mediterranean Riviera is just utterly unrealistic.
Gaza is not a viable economic entity. It's one reason why the two state-solution was doomed to fail, because Gaza, and a bunch of dots on the West Bank, do not constitute a viable economy.
COLLINS: Ambassador John Bolton, thank you for your time tonight.
BOLTON: Thank you.
COLLINS: Up next. The former House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, is teasing a coming plan for Democrats. What do they do about a second Trump term, as people are getting frustrated with what they're doing so far. The person who is trying to unseat her, though, is going to join me live, next.
[21:40:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: Tonight, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi says that Democrats have a plan to counter President Trump's aggressive political agenda, as her party has been zeroing in on Elon Musk, holding rallies at the very agencies that he has been working to purge.
Now, almost three weeks into the second Trump presidency, the former House Speaker says, Change is coming.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): We're very proud of Hakeem Jeffries, our leader. He has given us guidance on our priorities, what we're here to fight for, but also how we counter the Trump administration with litigation in the courts, legislation on the floor of the House, as well as communication and mobilization at the grassroots level.
[21:45:00]
In about six or seven months, you're going to see such a change. By the time we start our campaigns in this fall for next fall, you're going to see a very different picture about the Democrats, vis-a-vis Donald Trump.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Not everyone believes that the current Democratic leadership can deliver on that.
My source tonight is calling for a new generation of leaders, and is also seeking to unseat Pelosi in a 2026 primary.
Saikat Chakrabarti joins me now, who is the former Chief of Staff and campaign manager, for Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
And it's great to have you here.
First off, that timeline that she offered there stood out to me. What were your thoughts on that?
SAIKAT CHAKRABARTI, FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF, REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO- CORTEZ (D-NY), (D) CHALLENGING REP. NANCY PELOSI IN 2026 PRIMARY: I don't understand why it's going to take six to seven months. I mean, we had four years of a Trump presidency already, back in 2016. We had four more years since then to prepare. I'm not sure why the Democratic leadership wasn't already prepared.
COLLINS: And also, two months since he won the election, I think, some people may look at this and say.
CHAKRABARTI: Yes, exactly. I mean, it's been -- I honestly think the Democratic leaders, right now, are not sure what to do, and I don't think they can do it.
Look, after -- in this past election, I think there's this critical mass of voters, in America, who said they want big, sweeping change. You saw that in 2008 with Obama's election. Happened in 2016. Happened in 2024 again, with Trump.
And the American people are right to demand change, right? They want radical change, because they want their kids' lives to be better than theirs. They don't want to get bankrupted by a health bill.
The American Dream, which used to be, you can buy a house, have a good education, raise a family, that's becoming impossible for a big majority of people. And people want a credible plan to fix that, and they're not seeing it from Washington.
And so, after the election, I thought the Democrats would have kind of a Come-to-Jesus moment, they'd regroup and realize they need to have a big vision for real change for people.
But then I heard Nancy Pelosi, on an interview with The New York Times, say that actually, the Democrats don't need to change, that everything's fine. And I just can't trust that that same leadership is now going to be able to suddenly deliver change?
I think the Democratic Party needs a whole revolution. And I'm not saying a revolution from the center, or the left, or the right, none of that.
I think there needs to be a completely new group of leaders, a new generation of leaders, who are committed, committed to rebuilding this country's institutions, its cities and its industries. And that's going to be especially important, after Trump is done making a mess of it all. And until -- and I just don't think the current leadership is going to be capable of delivering that message to America.
COLLINS: And so what do you -- what does that look like, right now, in your view? CHAKRABARTI: So, well, I think the Democrats need to go on the offense, for once. They're playing this game where they're, again, letting Trump control everything. They're letting Trump control the media.
And I know it's hard. Trump comes out, you know, he decides to buy Greenland, one day, and take over the Panama Canal, the next day. But the Democrats need to take a lesson from the way the Republicans do it.
When the Republicans turned Hunter Biden's laptop into a story, a complete non-issue, into a real story? They made Hillary Clinton's emails into a story? They unified the caucus. They all talked about it. They harped on it. And they went on the offense for months.
And the Democrats, they need to do that. They need to unify. They're going after a million different messages, right now.
And the second part is, after the Kamala Harris election loss, there's all this talk about, should she have gone on Joe Rogan or not? And I don't know if she should have. But I do know, no one's going on there right now.
There's no Democrats going on all -- on all the YouTube and social media shows, right now. There is no one going on Fox News. They have to get out of their bubble. I mean, I don't think you can imagine Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer going on Joe Rogan, and that's part of the problem.
COLLINS: Yes, well, and we saw one Democrat today, criticizing Trump in the Prayer Breakfast, even though, of course, we've seen President Biden and President Obama attend it in the past.
But I want to talk about you. Because you have said that you want to run a very different kind of campaign against Pelosi, who has filed the paperwork. She hasn't said that she is going to run again. But as you know, I mean, she's a powerhouse in your party. So, why do you -- how would you plan to defeat her in a Democratic primary?
CHAKRABARTI: Look, I'm not going to play the usual Democratic political games. I'm not going to be calling donors all day for money. I'm not going to be going around, running around for endorsements. Because, yes, she's the most well-connected Democrat in America.
I'm going to go straight to the voters. I'm asking people to go to my website, and sign up for a Zoom call with me. All the Zoom calls, I noticed, were already filled up today, so I just opened up new slots.
[21:50:00]
And I'm going to go around the gatekeepers, straight to the voters. That's exactly what this plan was, with AOC's race, when she went up against Joe Crowley. And Joe Crowley was a very powerful Democrat. People said the same thing, he was going to ignore -- ignore her, and there'd be no way to defeat him. But it turns out, that's just not the way. The traditional political gatekeepers don't have as much power as they once did. It's possible to reach to voters directly now, and to just do democracy the way democracy is meant to be done.
COLLINS: We will be watching it closely.
Saikat Chakrabarti, thank you so much for your time tonight.
CHAKRABARTI: Thank you very much.
COLLINS: Up next. A golden gift that was given to President Trump, from the Prime Minister of Israel, maybe not something any other U.S. President has ever received from a foreign leader. We'll tell you what it was, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:55:00]
COLLINS: It's typical that when foreign leaders meet, they exchange gifts.
But what the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, brought President Trump, when he visited him in Washington, this week, is maybe more than just a little unusual. A golden pager, inscribed with the words, quote, "PRESS WITH BOTH HANDS," as you can see here.
Clearly, an allusion to the deadly operation that Israel conducted, in Lebanon, last September, when thousands of pagers simultaneously exploded in the hands of members of Hezbollah. 30 people were killed -- 37 people actually were killed in the surprise attack, not just members of the terrorist group, known as Hezbollah, but also some children, as nearly 3,000 people who are around them, civilian bystanders, were hurt.
Now, the gold plaque on Netanyahu's gift to Trump reads, To President Donald J. Trump, Our greatest friend and our greatest ally.
My source is CNN's Harry Enten, and he joins me now.
That's, I mean, that's one for the books.
HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: It's one for the books. Some might call it extremely insensitive. Others might just call it extremely bizarre and weird. I mean, it's just weird. It's a golden pager, celebrating this? And, yes, as you mentioned, obviously--
COLLINS: But they think it's funny, obviously.
ENTEN: Yes, they think -- they think it's funny. I don't think that the innocent bystanders, who are hurt think that it's funny.
And I don't particularly find it funny. I think it's just flat-out weird, because, again, you're celebrating an event that, yes, terrorists were killed, but innocent bystanders, were also killed. People -- a lot of people were hurt. And more than that, the fact that it's gold-plated, I think, kind of is just, it's just flat-out, as I said, weird.
COLLINS: But it's also, I mean, clearly these world leaders know how to appeal to Trump.
ENTEN: Yes, that's exactly right. They know how to appeal to Trump. That's--
COLLINS: That's the point of the gifts.
ENTEN: That's -- that's the point of the gifts. They know anything gold-plated is something that's going to appeal to him. You see the pictures of his apartment. There's gold everywhere. So, this could potentially go in his apartment maybe once he leaves the administration.
COLLINS: It did crack me up, though, to see what Trump gave Bibi in exchange, which was a photo of the two of them, and Trump signed it, To Bibi, A great leader.
ENTEN: That, I mean, isn't that just perfect? Isn't that exactly who Donald Trump is, right? He gets this golden gift. And what he gives off is a picture of himself that is, in fact, autographed by him, right?
But I will say--
COLLINS: I'm also going to give out pictures of myself to people.
ENTEN: Well, actually, I have a little bit of a surprise for you.
COLLINS: For Christmas.
ENTEN: So, I decided to take advantage of the fact, and take a lesson from Donald Trump. So, I got an autograph photo of Kaitlan and me. OK, there it is. And it's signed, To Kaitlan, A Great Anchor, Harry J. Enten.
So, I am expecting the next time that when I come to your office that this is going to be hung up, and you are going to put a nice little thing around it to celebrate this wonderful picture.
I believe you could probably -- my autograph on eBay at this point, probably going for hundreds of dollars. And I think this photo might go for hundreds of dollars, if you decide that you want to make a little extra dough on the side.
COLLINS: You think that autograph goes for hundreds of dollars?
ENTEN: Absolutely. I mean, look at this. Look at this. You're smiling. I look fantastic.
COLLINS: Did you print that picture, like, on your printer today?
ENTEN: I -- you know what? CNN does in fact have printers. We were able. And I will say, Jeff Winter, who, of course, works down on the news desk, was able to put this together. This took a lot of hard work, I want you to know.
COLLINS: And did Jeff say, when you said, I need you to print out this picture for Kaitlan?
ENTEN: He said, For Kaitlan Collins, I'll do anything.
COLLINS: Harry.
ENTEN: Here.
COLLINS: Thank you.
ENTEN: There you go.
COLLINS: This is a great honor of mine. I was just saying, in the White House, they actually put all the gifts that presidents get and government officials, because you can't just accept a samurai sword or whatever you get. You have to put the -- it kind of goes into the government's possession, and you can purchase it later on.
I don't even know how to--
ENTEN: You don't know--
COLLINS: --thank you for this. I'm speechless.
ENTEN: There you go. That's what a great gift does.
COLLINS: But I do wonder, in terms of the gifts that we have seen presidents and foreign leaders exchange before, there are some pretty bizarre ones up there.
ENTEN: Yes, there're absolutely bizarre ones.
Teddy Roosevelt was gifted, I believe, a zebra. OK, that's a particularly odd one.
How about Obama was gifted crocodile attack insurance. That is apparently a real thing when you go down under. And so, he got that. I don't believe he was ever attacked by a crocodile.
And I will note that the -- that Ireland has given presidents since Harry S. Truman, Shamrocks.
COLLINS: Shamrocks, yes.
ENTEN: Which I believe, is good luck.
So my only thing is--
COLLINS: They wear them in their pocket or on their T-shirt sleeves.
ENTEN: They wear them in their pocket, right. Maybe I could wear it for good luck, next month, on St. Patty's Day.
But I think my real dream, coming out of this particular segment, is that this photograph -- once again, I just think this is just such good art. I hope that this photograph gives great look, great look for you, Kaitlan Collins.
COLLINS: I mean, you know -- but I can put it wherever I want, like at a corner or something, right?
[22:00:00]
ENTEN: I think it should go -- you should have some nice gold surrounding it.
COLLINS: Harry Enten, you've done it again, you're ridiculous.
ENTEN: I tried.
COLLINS: Before we go, speaking of, I hope you'll tune in later on, if you're staying up late tonight, to watch me, on Seth Meyers, on Late Night, tonight, 12:35 Eastern. You know the channel. We covered everything, from what it is like being back in Washington, covering the Trump White House, to talking about Pete Davidson's fish tank. You'll just have to tune in to see.
Thank you so much for joining us.
"CNN NEWSNIGHT WITH ABBY PHILLIP" is up next.
