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State of the Union
Interview With Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ); Interview With U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem. Aired 9-10a ET
Aired February 09, 2025 - 09:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[09:00:39]
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DANA BASH, CNN HOST (voice-over): Notorious outpost. The White House demands a ramp-up of deportations, including to here.
KRISTI NOEM, U.S. HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: Everybody, I'm down here at Guantanamo Bay.
BASH: Inside the race to house 30,000 migrants on a remote U.S. base. Is Trump's plan safe, legal and potentially indefinite?
Fresh back from her trip, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem joins me next.
And incoming. Trump overwhelms the system, and Democrats scramble.
SEN. CORY BOOKER (D-NJ): Our voices matter.
BASH: Is the Democratic Party missing the most crucial moment in a lifetime? Senator Cory Booker is ahead.
Plus: court clash. Elon Musk tries to nix entire government agencies.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I will tell him to go here, go there, as judges start to hit the pause button. But is the sweeping Musk overhaul permanently changing the United States? Our panel of political experts will weigh in.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BASH: Hello. I'm Dana Bash in Washington, where the state of our union is everything everywhere all at once.
We are three weeks into Donald Trump's second term, if you can believe it, and the president, along with Elon Musk, are keeping up their relentless push to reshape the country, including late last night directing employees at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to stop work, even as the judicial branch pauses some of their actions.
We're going to dive into all of that in a bit and the response from Democrats. But I want to begin with perhaps the president's top priority, and
that is deportations. You are looking at some of the first pictures of what's going on right now at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Tents are going up and more migrants are transported to the base this weekend, and they're going to continue to do so.
Here with me now, just back from Guantanamo Bay, is Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
Thank you for being here.
(CROSSTALK)
BASH: It's nice to see you in person.
So, you and the president have said repeatedly that the worst of the worst will be held at Guantanamo. There are a few dozen people there already, I believe. They're right now being held in cells formally used to house terror suspects. So can you give more specifics about who's there right now, what crimes have they committed, and how long you're going to detain them?
NOEM: So, there are several planes that have transported individuals to the base. And they are in the system and the facilities that a lot of our worst terrorist criminals have been incarcerated for many years.
These individuals are the worst of the worst that we pulled off of our streets.
BASH: Who are they?
NOEM: Murderers, rapists.
When I was there, I was able to watch one of the flights landing and them unload about 15 different of these criminals. Those were mainly child pedophiles, those that were out there trafficking children, trafficking drugs, and were pulled off of our streets and put at this facility.
So, very thankful that they are off the streets of the United States and that we have safer communities.
BASH: And how long will they be there? Are they going to be...
NOEM: They will be there until we work with arrangements to take them back to their countries, where they belong, and have consequences dealt with them there. So they will be treated much like many other individuals in this country that are those dangerous criminals that don't belong here.
BASH: Do they have legal counsel?
NOEM: They have due process. Everybody has due process and every individual has the right for that. And my job is to make sure we're following the law in every single
individual that we're bringing into custody and transporting back to their home country.
BASH: So, since they're there now, they have already gotten access to legal counsel?
NOEM: Yes, they followed all the same process they would with anybody else that has come in through these systems that any administration has done it. Every step is being followed and due diligence being done, even with these individuals that are so dangerous.
BASH: You're building tents for a lot more than -- how many are there now?
NOEM: Well, they're putting up tents that will have the capacity to go up to 30,000 people. That's not stood up yet, because a lot of our soldiers that's got there received orders just days ago. I think they have been putting up facilities for the last five days.
So they have got a lot to do yet, but they have the capacity to start taking individuals.
BASH: So, when I saw those tents first thing, and I saw the pictures of you in the tent, the cots...
NOEM: Right.
BASH: ... first thing I thought is, how are the worst of the worst as you and the president describe it going to be in those tents? How is that even safe?
[09:05:02]
NOEM: Well, we're following all the same standards and procedures that we have always had with our detention centers, whether they're in the United States and now to be utilized here at Guantanamo Bay.
So, those facilities, I think we need to be really transparent about and make sure that people know what they're like, and we're going to be encouraging people to continuously -- If you're in this country illegally, you should go home. You should go back to your home country. Don't wait until we have the opportunity to sweep you up because you have overstayed your orders, you have final removal orders, or you have been committing crimes in our communities.
We do not want you here and you should leave. And many of the countries we have been negotiating with, they have been willing to come to the table and said, yes, we will take them back.
BASH: So there are two -- there are lots of different buckets of people, if you will. You're right now talking about, as you say, again, the worst of the worst, people who you say committed crimes.
But it's still unclear how, first of all, whether there are 30,000 people who fit that description. NOEM: Right. Right. Correct.
BASH: Are there?
NOEM: You know, we are going through the process of identifying those that are on our radar.
The president committed during the campaign that he believed we needed to have mass deportation.
BASH: So...
NOEM: We're going after those that have been the violent criminals, perpetuating crimes in our communities, also those with final removal orders, and then we will continue down the priority list.
BASH: And will they be held in the tents?
NOEM: It's -- potentially, but we're going to keep people safe too. So it depends on how dangerous they are and how they act in these facilities.
So we have beds in the United States today that we're using and that we will continue to use that are ICE detention facilities. But we have got a lot of local law enforcement, a lot of communities and states that want to partner with us too, saying, we have facilities, if you would like to partner.
And I think that's fantastic, because that's really what we need, is the federal government working with those local officials, because they know where these dangerous criminals are.
BASH: I just want to ask you about that before I move on. There are reports that ICE is over capacity.
NOEM: There have been reports, but, remember, we're continuously busing people back to Mexico, continuously flying people out of the country and repatriating them back to their...
(CROSSTALK)
BASH: So there's still room?
NOEM: So there's still room, absolutely.
BASH: The Laken Riley Act requires you at the DHS to detain individuals who have been charged with, but not convicted of nonviolent crimes like theft or shoplifting.
ICE -- you talked about ICE facilities, it comes and goes, but at some point they're likely to be at capacity. So could those people end up at Guantanamo?
NOEM: You know, I don't know what the president will decide as far as utilizing it. We want to have the capacity. The facilities will look different. BASH: He's going to decide exactly...
(CROSSTALK)
NOEM: They certainly will not be used if -- in these prison systems. We have different camps at Guantanamo Bay, different levels of incarceration.
We will have some facilities that will be up to the same standards as other detention facilities in the United States. And I don't think the president's going to tie his hands on what he needs to do to make sure that America is safe.
He truly does believe and knows that the American people want to be put first for once, and that illegal aliens and criminals should not continue to live without consequences in our country and receive the benefits of being a citizen without making sure that they're doing things the correct way, that nobody is placed above anybody else.
All laws apply to everybody equally.
BASH: Undocumented immigrants detained in the United States, as you mentioned, have a right to legal counsel and due process.
But one of the questions is about whether or not Guantanamo -- you have the law on your side to actually use Guantanamo for this purpose. We have seen -- obviously, we know about the 9/11 detainees there. We also know that, when somebody who is trying to get into the United States illegally is interdicted at sea, they have been brought to Guantanamo.
I don't believe that people who are already on U.S. soil have been brought to Guantanamo.
NOEM: No, well, Guantanamo Bay has been used for migrants in the past, you're right. When they have been coming to the United States, they have been used there.
(CROSSTALK)
BASH: But do you have a basis? Are you comfortable that you -- it is legal to bring people who are already on U.S. soil to Guantanamo?
NOEM: I am, and the president's comfortable with that, and his legal scholars are. And, obviously, there will be people that will be critics of that.
But we are standing up the operations, believing we have all legal right and authority to do so. And that facility has been used for migrants in the past. The direction that they're flowing and the agreements that we have with their home countries will continue to keep that population changing.
BASH: A lot of this, as you said, the timeline for how long people are going to be there, depends on whether or not anybody's going to take them. NOEM: Right.
BASH: So it could be that some people are going to be there indefinitely.
NOEM: You know, what's interesting to me is, the previous administration knew who these people were that were committing these crimes. They knew where these folks that had final removal orders were in our country, could have negotiated agreements with these other countries to take them back home and didn't.
And we saw countries like Venezuela release their prisons and their mental health individuals to come to the United States.
(CROSSTALK)
BASH: What are you doing now? Are you comfortable that you're going to be able to not keep them there indefinitely?
NOEM: I'm super thrilled that Secretary of State Rubio has been actively going out and negotiating taking people home.
[09:10:03]
So that's part of all the decisions on when we identify people in communities, as soon as we're able to go get them and return them back home as quickly as possible. So my goal is that people are not in these facilities for weeks and months.
My goal is that there's a short-term stay, they're able to go incarcerate them, take them, follow the process and get them back to their country.
BASH: That's your goal.
NOEM: Yes.
BASH: But you're not ruling out that they could be there for weeks?
NOEM: I'm not. I'm not going to rule that out, because we are going to continue to make sure that we're talking with every single country, but it's not an option for us to leave people here illegally anymore.
American citizens have been put behind people who have chosen to come and break our laws, and that's not going to happen anymore.
BASH: You run a very big agency.
NOEM: Yes.
BASH: Immigration is one of the parts of it, and FEMA is another.
On X this morning, Elon Musk said -- quote -- "FEMA is broken," and he said so in response to the suggestion that he shut down FEMA entirely. FEMA is, of course, funded by Congress, has repeatedly been authorized in statute, including by laws you voted for when you were in Congress. Can and should Donald Trump shut it down?
NOEM: He can, and I believe that he will do that evaluation with his team, and he's talking about it, which I'm grateful for.
He will work with Congress, though, to make sure that it's done correctly, and that we're still there to help folks who have a terrible disaster or crisis in their life. It's -- he's been very clear that he still believes there's a role for the federal government to come in and help people get back up on their feet.
But there's a lot of fraud and waste and abuse out there. And since President Trump has taken over and come back into this administration, we have seen incredible changes.
(CROSSTALK)
BASH: What's your recommendation to him?
NOEM: No, he's talked a lot about doing block grants to states and to local officials. I was a governor, and when I was governor of South Dakota, we saw 12 different natural disasters that hit our state that were FEMA-related, that we had FEMA disaster -- so I know it from that level.
And I knew every single time that I and the local county emergency management directors, the mayors, the city councils, and the county commissioners, they made way better decisions than the people in Washington, D.C.
BASH: If the president came to you and said, you're my DHS secretary, do you think I should get rid of FEMA -- excuse me -- get rid of FEMA, what would you say?
NOEM: I would say, yes, get rid of FEMA the way it exists today. We still need the resources and the funds and the finances to go to people that have these types of disasters like Hurricane Helene and the fires in California.
But you need to let the local officials make the decisions on how that is deployed, so it can be deployed much quicker, and we don't need this bureaucracy that's picking and choosing winners.
BASH: You mentioned Congress. USAID is an example, and there are others that I mentioned, that -- the Consumer Protection Bureau, that are also deemed by statute to be the law. They were put in place and kept in place by Congress.
NOEM: And off-mission, unbelievable what USAID...
(CROSSTALK)
BASH: But you're saying right here that Elon Musk and you are not just going to go in and say, we're getting rid of FEMA? You're going to do it with Congress?
NOEM: Well, the president has been clear too that he wants to still help people.
But what we're -- what happened, by targeting individuals, helping some people and not others -- listen, the president just in the last five days has closed 80 percent of the open cases in North Carolina. It's amazing when you have somebody who cares how much quick -- how quickly the response can be.
And that wasn't the way that it was under the previous administration. There's people from -- that had wildfires seven, eight years ago in the Western United States still haven't received their FEMA payments. How are people supposed to pick up their...
BASH: I took a trip with the FEMA director.
NOEM: Oh, you did?
BASH: And she -- yes. And she cared.
NOEM: Well, what I appreciated about her, when we -- because when North Carolina got hit, South Dakota did as well. She did come. And I think showing up is a big portion that needs to have happened.
BASH: I do want to ask a couple of quick questions.
"The Washington Post" is reporting that Musk and his DOGE team have access to FEMA's sensitive disaster data, which includes personal information about tens of thousands of disaster victims. Have you authorized Elon Musk and his team to have access to Americans' personal data that is housed inside DHS?
NOEM: We're working with them at the president's direction to find what we can do to make our department much more efficient.
BASH: So, yes, they have access?
NOEM: I think it's important. This is essentially an audit of the federal government, which is very powerful and needs to have happened.
That agency -- and one of the things I have been very clear to the appropriators in the Senate and the House is, please give me the authority to reprogram funds. There's funds that are going...
BASH: Right, but that's different from him having access to personal data that is housed inside DHS.
NOEM: The president has authorized him to have access to that.
BASH: And you feel comfortable with that?
NOEM: Absolutely.
BASH: I remember a time when Republicans were very careful about and worried about the government, particularly unelected people, having access to personal data.
NOEM: Well, we can't trust our government anymore. That's our -- yes, oh, absolutely.
BASH: But you are the government now.
NOEM: Yes, that's what I'm saying, is that the American people now are saying that we have had our personal information shared and out there in the public.
[09:15:00]
BASH: But now Elon Musk has access to it. You just said he does.
NOEM: Yes, but Elon Musk is part of the administration that is helping us identify where we can find savings and what we can do.
And he has gone through the processes to make sure that he has the authority that the president has granted him.
BASH: But you're totally comfortable with it?
NOEM: I am today by the work that he's doing by identifying waste, fraud, and abuse.
And his information that he has is looking at programs, not focusing on personal data and information.
BASH: Not focusing on it, but he has access to it.
NOEM: We will be continuing to talk to him about what all he has access to.
But this audit needs to happen to make sure that we are going through a process that adds integrity back into these programs. And people's personal information has been out there in these case works that have been closed for a long time that people are getting responses now that they haven't had before.
BASH: Last question.
DHS is the third largest Cabinet department. How much do you want to shrink your work force?
NOEM: Well, we are going to go through that process. I think it needs to be shrunk and get these agencies back on mission. The bureaucracy is large. It's over 260,000 employees.
And, before, many of them weren't even showing up to work. Many of even the FEMA folks had the option if they wanted to show up for a disaster or not. That's not going to be the way it is anymore. So we're going to have them show up to work. We're going to start going through who is fulfilling their mission and who isn't, and be removing those that aren't committed to keeping America safe.
The mission of DHS is to secure the American homeland. That's virtually every person who comes into this country and leaves this country, every product that comes into this country or leaves through our ports or other mechanisms, and also cybersecurity, so anything that happens on the Internet and goes into the country or out of the country.
So the jurisdiction of DHS is large, but I don't think that the number of people determines our success. It's how much they're committed to doing their job and doing it with excellence.
BASH: Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, thank you for being here.
NOEM: Thank you.Absolutely.
BASH: We appreciate it.
And up next: Overwhelmed and flailing? That's how Democrats are being described right now. How should they be taking on Trump and the problems inside their own party? Senator Cory Booker is next.
And researchers say it is a -- quote -- "disastrously bad idea." We will get into the newest Trump cutbacks coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:21:40]
BASH: Welcome back to STATE OF THE UNION.
With the organized and strategic chaos coming from the new Trump administration, what are the Democrats who are in the minority to do?
Here with me now is Democratic Senator Cory Booker of the great state of New Jersey. He is the chair of the Senate Democrats' Strategic Communications Committee.
Thank you so much for being here, sir.
I want to start with what the Trump administration really acknowledges, that this is their strategy, flood the zone, do as much at once as they can to overwhelm the system and Democrats like you.
A lot of what they're doing, though, was laid out in Project 2025, which you and other Democrats repeatedly warned voters about. So why didn't you have a better plan?
BOOKER: Well, again, I think the plan right now is working in four parts.
One is a legal strategy to stop him from violating the separation of powers, from violating our civil service laws, civil rights laws, and we're winning. We have seen 41 cases being taken. Ten of them last week -- 12 of them -- excuse me -- were successful in stopping some of his illegal actions.
The next is a legislative and oversight effort to really try to expose it, not to treat this as Democrat versus Republican, right or left, but really right or wrong, and continue to try to use our positions procedurally, as well as legislatively, to stop what he's doing. And then, finally, perhaps most importantly, because all of us have to
have a role, from the media to everyday citizens, which is shining a light on the dark corners of what they're doing and how it is actually endangering Americans' lives, is threatening to raise the cost of people's everyday goods and inflation and more.
We have been successful in the past from turning up the heat on him, to stopping him from tearing away health care in his first administration, to even when he did one of those awful illegal acts of trying to stop government funding of our first responders, our veterans, our meal programs.
The outrage of Americans actually stopped them from what they were doing, and then our legal strategy further put a bar on their ability to stop sourcing and funding vital resources for communities.
BASH: "The New York Times" reported that, when pushed by fellow Democrats to do more to stop Trump, the Democratic Senate leader, Chuck Schumer, pointed in part to your leadership, what you're doing on social media and the messaging there.
David Corn, who is a prominent journalist on the left, described your strategy as bringing a teaspoon to a gunfight. And he added: "This is not how a party battling for its survival and the survival of the nation's behave."
What do you say to that?
BOOKER: Again, I have been blown away by what I'm seeing by everyday citizens joining together and beginning to shine a much better light on what's happening.
Take USAID and the efforts last week to show that what the Trump administration has done is make Americans less safe from diseases like Ebola or treatment-resistant tuberculosis, taking away scientists on the front line of fighting these infectious diseases, because we know infectious diseases anywhere are a threat to human safety everywhere.
And so a lot of the things that Trump is doing, that some of the biggest officials in our state, like, remember Secretary Mattis, his defense secretary, saying very bluntly, if you cut these kind of programs in the State Department, buy me more bullets, because it's going to mean that we're going to use military more.
[09:25:06]
By shining a light on these things, by elevating, as we have seen online this past week, literally hundreds of millions of shares and likes exposing what's going on, this is giving us more strength and actually stopping him from doing what he's doing.
BASH: Republicans will almost certainly need Democrats to help keep the government open past March 14.
Are you willing to use the prospect of a government shutdown or even a default on the nation's debt as leverage to force some Trump concessions?
BOOKER: Look, the Republican Party has shown year after year that they're the party of shutdowns, they're the party of government chaos, they're the party that can't even within their own ranks pass these funding bills.
And that's why, as you said, they're going to need us. What we are the party of is a party of protecting residents, protecting veterans, protecting first responders, protecting American safety from his illegal actions like shutting down FEMA.
I mean, just think about that for a second or shutting down something like NOAA in a time of outrageous weather patterns that are causing flooding and more hurricanes. They are dismantling the protections of Americans' safety.
So we're not looking to shut down the government. We're looking actually to protect people. And we're going to stand up against the kind of things that Donald Trump is doing that are hurting Americans, making us less safe and raising costs.
BASH: Senator, tactically, though -- I know you're trying to shine a light on it. You're here doing this interview. You're working it online.
But when it comes to the tools in your toolbox, there aren't a lot of them. One of them is to try to stop the government funding, to try to do -- maybe even default on the debt as I said, or at least force that, if the Republicans don't change course. Is that the strategy?
BOOKER: Let me just put it pointedly.
The strategy is to do whatever we can to stop Donald Trump from hurting Americans, from making us less safe, less secure, and from raising our costs. We will look at every single tool in our toolbox, as we have done this last week, to make sure that we stop him from hurting people.
At the end of the day, Donald Trump has promised America, I will bring down your costs and I will make you safer. He clearly is doing the opposite.
In addition to that, he's opening the floodgates for corruption in our system, from getting rid of inspector generals who have a track record under Democrat and Republican presidents of saving Americans billions of dollars from waste fraud and abuse, to letting Elon Musk, one of our biggest government contractors, one of our biggest military contractors, have access to America's most personal information, from your grandparents' medical information, all the way down to people's Social Security information and other things.
This is an astonishing allowance of corruption and abuse and violations of people's privacy and other most sacrosanct values. We are in a crisis right now. And Democrats will use every tool possible to protect Americans, to drive down costs, to make us safer.
These are the very opposite that Donald Trump is doing to Americans right now.
BASH: President Trump and Elon Musk are, as you know, taking sweeping steps to reverse DEI initiatives across the United States.
The president says he's actually protecting civil rights and making society -- quote -- "colorblind and merit-based." Your response?
BOOKER: This is stunning to me, especially because they're really charging this word DEI as if it's something that undermines the ability for the government to hire the best people.
It's actually the opposite of that. When we're trying to hire the best of the best, having a more inclusive search, to go to HBCUs or Hispanic-serving institutions, to find as big of an applicant pool as possible, to me, these are the kind of things that help us to hire the best of the best.
What Donald Trump is doing is successively lying to people under the guise of some noble ideal. But I remind people, as he talks about being a great government cutter, the last time the American budget was balanced, the last time we eliminated a deficit and began to reduce our debt was under Bill Clinton, who brought a plan to Congress and worked in partnership to lower costs.
The person who is the biggest waste, fraud and abuser -- we know this objectively. The person who created the biggest profligate spending and hole in our budget was Donald Trump in his first term, who raised our deficit more than any modern president.
BASH: I want to -- Senator...
BOOKER: And so we have to understand what's happening here.
OK, go ahead. Go ahead.
BASH: Senator, I'm sorry, I just want to turn back to this issue because -- of DEI, because you just described, from the -- your perspective and a lot of people's perspectives in a nonpartisan way, some of the good things that DEI programs do.
[09:30:05]
But you know because you are in charge of Senate Democrats' messaging, that that's not the perception of a lot of Americans, thanks in part to social media and the way that it's been perceived, and also perhaps the way Democrats have messaged up until now.
Elaine Kamarck, who is a long time Democratic strategist, she co- authored a report on what went wrong, where your party should go from here. She told me this week that Democrats are tone-deaf on cultural issues. Is that a problem that you agree with and should it be changed?
BOOKER: Again, these sweeping conclusions about every person who claims to be a Democrat in America is, to me, absurd. The reality is, I work in a caucus of 47 people who have been standing
up and fighting for the Americans in their state as best as they can. When they stand up and say hiring processes should be inclusive of women and minorities, who often don't get an opportunity to apply for the jobs because the search parameters are so narrow and so small, that we should look at ways of searching our college campuses for better talent, making sure that we have diverse teams, why?
Because everybody from the Harvard Business school to some of our biggest consultants have shown that diverse teams are more successful at delivering missions. Private sector institutions understand this.
So, again, I know this is a time of labeling with a broad brush Democrats are this, Republicans are that. This is the kind of thinking I think that's hurting our country. We need to be talking about, how do we best achieve our goal with actually the most diverse nation on the planet Earth that we have been successful as a country, whether it's going to the moon or beating the Nazis, have been done with everybody in our country getting on the field and participating in the best way possible.
Donald Trump wants to try to demonize ideas of inclusion, of equity, of fairness. And that is unfortunate and frustrating, and he's using that as a way of ripping out entire aspects of our government that are vital.
To tear down USAID under the guise of DEI has allowed our frontier scientists who were in places like Tanzania fighting Ebola -- we no longer have the best scientists in the world from the United States of America fighting Ebola, fighting tuberculosis, fighting against bird flu. That has all been ripped away by Donald Trump, using terms like DEI as a justification for making us less safe.
We should be outraged that organizations and agencies created by Congress in a bipartisan way have now been torn down by a president who has no authority or does not have the legal justification for doing that.
And so I understand that they want to distract you over here by talking about trans people. They want to talk about DEI. They want to talk about all these things as a distraction to the truth of what they're doing, which is making us less safe...
BASH: Right.
BOOKER: ... making government more corrupt, making -- violating people's privacy.
And, ultimately, how's that lower costs working for Americans from eggs to housing? Are we seeing any change in the cost of living for Americans? What executive order can you point to that has made things more affordable for Americans? Absolutely zero or none.
But what has happened is, a person like Elon Musk has had unfettered access to your data, to your private -- most private information to use for God knows what for -- as a government contractor, as a government military contractor.
BASH: Yes. Well, we're...
BOOKER: What he can do with it is stunning.
BASH: Well, you -- as you heard at the top of the show, we're going to continue to ask those questions.
Thank you so much, Senator. Appreciate you being here.
BOOKER: Thank you.
BASH: And every time President Trump turned around this week, he was asked again and again about Elon Musk.
How's that going over? My panel will join me next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:38:22]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
QUESTION: Do you have a reaction to the new "TIME" magazine cover that has Elon Musk sitting behind your Resolute Desk?
TRUMP: No.
QUESTION: Have you directed Elon Musk to review Pentagon spending?
TRUMP: I have instructed him to go check out Education, to check out the Pentagon.
QUESTION: Is there anything you have told Elon Musk he cannot touch?
TRUMP: Well, we haven't discussed that much.
I will pick out a target, and I say, go in.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: Welcome back to STATE OF THE UNION.
President Trump is facing increasing questions, as you just heard there, about Elon Musk's role in his government, what he is doing.
My terrific panel is here now.
Shermichael, I will start with you. I just want to go back to the sort of line of questioning with Kristi Noem that I had about -- square the circle on Republican credo here for me, because I understand that it's, on the one hand, Washington bureau, deep state, whatever it is that you call it, but, on the other hand, the notion of him really accessing personal data, a lot of information, and doing we don't know what with it, that doesn't give you a concern?
SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: No, it doesn't, because he's not going to do anything nefarious with this information.
It's almost as if you're doing an accounting, a forensic accounting of a company. You need to have access of everything in order to say we should make cuts here or this is ineffective or inefficient. He's doing what the president has mandated for him to do, in part what the American people expected Donald Trump to do.
And it pertains to Democrats, Democrats have had every opportunity to come to the table to offer a solution to cutting government spending. Once upon a time, they actually believed in that. Instead, all I have heard is whining, complaining about what Trump is doing, what Elon Musk is doing.
The American people every single month, Dana, have to balance their budgets. They have to see how much money they can afford to pay for certain things and how much they have to cut back.
[09:40:09]
Why shouldn't the federal government do the same? You would think that my Democratic friends would agree with that. And I have seen the exact opposite.
(CROSSTALK)
BASH: Could I -- go ahead.
KATE BEDINGFIELD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Quickly, by saying he's not going to do anything nefarious with it, you're putting a lot of faith in somebody whose stated aim is to move fast and break things.
And when you move fast and break things in government, it has -- can have a real impact on people's lives. So I think just asking the American people to trust that Elon Musk isn't going to do anything they wouldn't be comfortable with, with their personal data is a tough -- that's a tough sell for the American people.
(CROSSTALK)
SINGLETON: But the Democrats have four years under the Biden/Harris administration to bring up all of these things they're now complaining about, cost of living, housing, et cetera?
They said absolutely nothing.
BEDINGFIELD: That's not true, and you know it. Come on.
SINGLETON: When eggs, gas, et cetera would go up 20 to 50 percent, Kate, they said nothing to the Biden administration.
(CROSSTALK)
BASH: I just want to say, first of all, welcome to the CNN family, Xochitl.
XOCHITL HINOJOSA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Thank you. (CROSSTALK)
BASH: I also want to tell people who might not know that you just came from within the...
HINOJOSA: Yes.
BASH: You worked in the Department of Justice for several years. So you are coming with fresh information about being inside one of these agencies that is very much on the chopping block.
HINOJOSA: Yes, absolutely.
And, look, I have to agree that, OK, fine, you want to make cuts? Make cuts. There is -- there are significant conflicts of interest when it comes to Elon Musk. And that is the problem.
He owns several businesses where personal data and personal information could benefit his financial interests. And the sources that I have been talking to within the FBI are actually terrified that he is trying to put people within the FBI in order to advance his financial interests.
One example of that is, he wants the FBI to start using Starlink. So how frightening is that, the fact that he is putting people with...
(CROSSTALK)
BASH: Starlink is his own Internet company.
HINOJOSA: Which is his own Internet company. He wants to start -- he wants FBI to start using Starlink to start tracking people.
Now, that is terrifying to me that he is -- he's not acting, as Scott likes to say, on behalf of the president. He is acting on behalf of himself. And I think people should be very scared about that.
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: You're terrified that the FBI might have the Internet? I mean, I don't understand.
(CROSSTALK)
HINOJOSA: No, I'm terrified that Elon Musk is putting people in federal agencies to figure out business opportunities for him.
JENNINGS: I think this is overblown.
HINOJOSA: And you know that's true, Scott.
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: He's the richest man in the world, this man.
HINOJOSA: That's concerning.
JENNINGS: And he's, like, sleeping on a whatever on the floor of a government office building seven days a week.
BASH: But that's M.O. That's what he does when he breaks...
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: ... in order to help this government.
The spending is interesting. We're not going to balance the budget based on these spending cuts, although some of this stuff is patently, objectively ridiculous. And when I see Democrats rushing out to defend some of the things that he's cutting, I mean, it makes the Democratic Party sink to very low levels.
But what I see him actually doing, and the most important thing he's doing, is enforcing the doctrine of common sense. This was the doctrine that Trump laid out in his inaugural address. What is the ideology of the Republican Party right now? It is best described as enforcement of common sense.
We have uncommon nonsense on the left, and we have common sense. And when you look at what the government is doing, agency after agency, in spending some of our money, we're not going to balance it on a $79,000 grant here or there. But we are going to restore common sense, and that's the point.
BEDINGFIELD: Well, if Republicans were serious about balancing the budget, then they should put forward a tax package that doesn't explode the deficit.
So if we want to have that conversation, we can have it.
SINGLETON: But why didn't the Democrats didn't balance the budget after four years?
(CROSSTALK)
BEDINGFIELD: Because that's just not where the Republicans are.
JENNINGS: You're for higher taxes, then? You want to continue...
(CROSSTALK)
BEDINGFIELD: I'm for a tax code that doesn't explode the deficit and actually benefits working people and business, and not just the richest people, like, by the way, Elon Musk.
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: You want to let the Trump tax cuts expire?
(CROSSTALK)
SINGLETON: Were working people benefiting after four years of Biden and Harris? Absolutely not, Kate.
BEDINGFIELD: I also think, if I may, please, friends, I also think that this Elon Musk tirade through the government. While I understand the appeal of saying we're doing things differently, we're making cuts, people want to see smaller government, I certainly -- I understand the messaging imperative behind that, of course.
I do think it is ultimately going to blow back. I think you cannot send somebody who, for all of his private sector brilliance, knows nothing about how government works, and to take a machete to programs that protect people, that provide SNAP benefits, that protect them from overreach by credit card companies in the CFPB...
(CROSSTALK)
BASH: I will just say one -- go ahead.
BEDINGFIELD: No, I -- just quickly. I do think Democrats have to be very careful not to fall into a message that sounds like they are just knee-jerk defending institutions, because I do think that that's not going to be a winning argument.
But I think that the impact on consumers here is going to be real.
JENNINGS: This is the issue, though. Democrats do need everything Trump -- Trump is like the 80/20 president. He gets on the right side of all these 80/20 issues.
Democrats knee-jerk and take the 20. And then what happens? Today, CBS News poll this morning, Donald Trump sitting at a 53 percent approval rating, the highest he's ever recorded in that survey. Why? Because Democrats are taking the wrong side of all of these obvious issues, number one.
[09:45:02]
And, number two, they're giving him an enormous amount of latitude to move fast and break things, which I heard used in a pejorative fashion, but when you're talking about the government, that's what people want Trump to do.
(CROSSTALK)
SINGLETON: Democrats continue to say we have all these amazing, brilliant people in government that's going to make everything run effectively and efficiently.
But for the average person, they're saying, well, hell, we have been looking at these same people running this stuff for years and years and everything fails. Everything is in disarray. So disrupt it, shake things up, let's see if we can have some reform.
BASH: OK, everybody, stand by. We're going to have to sneak in a quick break.
Up next, what everybody at this table, these fine people, are looking out for this week.
Stay with us. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BASH: Welcome back to STATE OF THE UNION.
And let's look at what we're looking at this week. And, of course, by this week, I mean it's going to feel like another month.
HINOJOSA: A few things.
Kash Patel should be getting a vote out of committee. We will see how Democrats react and some Republicans. There have been crazy attempted cuts at the FBI, including those who worked on the January 6 case. He claims that he knew nothing about them. He claims that he would not fire people based on retribution.
But that seems like that's what's happening. So will Republicans stand up to that? I don't think that they will.
The other thing is, Todd Blanche's hearing is coming up. As you remember, he is Trump's personal defense attorney, going to be the number two at the Department of Justice. It'll be interesting to see whether he claims that he will remain independent after being Donald Trump, his personal defense attorney.
[09:50:05]
I think that he will toe the line a little bit, but I think that's what I'm looking out for this week.
JENNINGS: I'm just looking for the continued march toward reconciliation.
The House Republicans and the Senate Republicans have to keep making progress towards getting one big, beautiful bill, because that's the Trump agenda. The executive orders are great. What's happening with DOGE is great. The confirmations are great.
But where the rubber is really going to hit the road is whether the Trump agenda can pass.
BASH: Republicans aren't agreed on that.
JENNINGS: Well, they're working on it right now. This is the great challenge for Thune and Johnson to get these conferences together.
And my suspicion is, politically, no one Republican is going to be the one that sinks the Trump agenda. So, hopefully, they end up hammering this out over time and getting the president what he campaigned on and what the American people asked for.
BEDINGFIELD: I was going to say, Senate marking up their budget resolution this week. How do they pay for it? What does that look like? How does it inform the reconciliation process going forward?
Also, the Super Bowl tonight. Donald Trump is doing a sit-down interview with FOX News. I'm interested to see what comes out of that. Does that wind up driving the week? Does the White House try to use that to set the tone for the week? Or is it a grab bag of Donald Trump? Let's see what happens.
SINGLETON: Look, you talked to Kristi Noem about illegal migrants being housed at Guantanamo Bay. I'm curious to see if Democrats make a stronger effort this week to attack the administration.
They didn't really say a lot when Bill Clinton housed 45,000 there a couple decades ago. They didn't say a whole lot when President Clinton -- or President Biden, rather, allocated a couple millions to private prison firms, also housed illegals at Guantanamo Bay.
So I'm curious to see how they walk this fine line of the American people clearly want a lot of these people out of the country, while also saying that they're pro-migrants.
BASH: OK, everybody, thank you so much.
We will be right back. Don't go anywhere.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:56:27]
BASH: I would be remiss, as the co-anchor of this show, if I did not recognize a truly important day in Jake Tapper's life, Taylor Swift at the Super Bowl. I'm just kidding.
Jake's Eagles, of course, at the Super Bowl. So I will shake that off and I will channel Jake here. Go, birds.
Thank you for spending your Sunday morning with us.
Fareed Zakaria picks it up next.
