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Trump Threatens to Withhold Aid from Jordan, Egypt If They Don't Take in Palestinians; Judges Repeatedly Block Trump's Plans to Upend Government; DOJ Tells Prosecutors to Drop Case Against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired February 11, 2025 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: So, a crucial moment in the president's plan to own Gaza, a meeting at the White House with the leader of the country that the president wants to force to accept Palestinians, even as he now says Palestinians will not be allowed to return home.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: And the stage is set for a constitutional crisis, judge after judge blocking the president's moves, and he's now going after them.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: And another deadly plane crash. This time, though, on the ground. A small private jet registered to the front man of Motley Crue crashed upon arrival at Scottsdale Airport in Arizona, killing one person and injuring several others.

I'm Sara Sidner with Kate Bolduan and John Berman. This is CNN News Central.

BERMAN: Happening now, we are standing by for President Trump to host the king of Jordan. This is their first meeting since the president said he wanted to convince, maybe even force, Egypt and Jordan to accept millions of Palestinians from Gaza.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: Would you withhold aid to these countries if they don't agree to take in the Palestinians?

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: Yes, maybe. Sure. Why not? You mean if they don't agree? If they don't agree, I would conceivably withhold aid, yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So, the president has said he wants the U.S. to own Gaza after the removal of Palestinians from their homes. Egypt and Jordan have rejected this, a position that could grow even more rigid after the president now says that the Palestinians would not have the right to return home.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: Beautiful piece of land.

BRET BAIER, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Would the Palestinians have the right to return?

TRUMP: No big money spent. No, they wouldn't.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: No, they wouldn't.

Let's get right to CNN's Alayna Treene at the White House this morning. This is a big meeting for King Abdullah of Jordan.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Oh, absolutely. And, first of all, of course, this is the first Arab leader that President Donald Trump is hosting since being sworn into office last month. But, of course, this discussion over his, as in President Donald Trump's plans for Gaza, this idea of taking ownership over it, and then essentially saying that he wants to try force countries, like Jordan and Egypt to house these displaced Gazans, is going to be at the forefront of the conversation.

It's also, of course, a proposal. We heard the president first circulate last week when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was at the White House. But it's one that he's also doubled and tripled down on. You mentioned that President Trump said that he would not essentially give Gazans the options to return to the Gaza Strip if he were to actually have the United States go and try to take it over, as the president has said.

We saw the White House, essentially, and early on, tried to walk that back, saying he meant temporarily. But then we heard the president in this interview with Bret Baier and Fox News say that no, he means permanently.

So, again, this is going to be definitely at the forefront of that conversation. We know King Abdullah of Jordan is coming at 11:30. He is bringing his son, the crown prince. We're going to have those talks. One key thing though, is that it will not be open press. We are not going to see this joint kind of press conference that we saw him do with Netanyahu last week. So, it may be difficult for reporters like us to ask questions, but definitely this is going to be the main topic of conversation between these two today.

BERMAN: That might come as a relief to the king that there will not be the freewheeling setting that happened last week, given what occurred when that took place.

This happens as the peace deal in Gaza, the ceasefire deal, I should say, seems to be unraveling, Alayna.

TREENE: That's right. The deal of the ceasefire and hostage deal with Hamas is very fraught. We know that yesterday Hamas said that they may not release the hostages as part of that plan that they were initially planning to release on Saturday. The president was asked about this yesterday and said all hell would break loose if they do not move forward with that. Take a listen to how he put it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Well, I would say this, and I'm going to let that because that's Israel's decision, but as far as I'm concerned, if all of the hostages aren't returned by Saturday at 12:00, I think it's an appropriate time, I would say cancel it and all bets are off and let hell break out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[07:05:00]

TREENE: Now, John, this is, of course, what the first major setback for this very delicately crafted deal, one that he had actually had his Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, carefully negotiate in addition to people in the Biden administration. So, stay tuned for that. Another big, of course, question today as the king of Jordan comes to the White House. John?

BERMAN: Alayna Treene, great to have you there. Thank you very much. Kate?

BOLDUAN: This morning, President Trump is going after federal judges. Why? Well, they're telling him no, at least temporarily. His extraordinary number of executive actions and orders have generated an extraordinary number of legal challenges and judges are stepping in from his move to try and end birthright citizenship, to the Elon Musk led efforts to freeze federal funding, forcibly shrink the size of the federal workforce.

The question now becomes, what will the president do about it? Will he simply defy judges' orders? That is more of an open question than ever this morning after new interviews he's giving yesterday.

CNN's Katelyn Polantz has much more on all of this. And a lot has happened on this front just this week already. And a reminder to everyone, it's only Tuesday.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: It's only Tuesday, Kate. There is so much emergency court action already in week four of the Trump administration. Every single day, there are new lawsuits that are popping up, many, many. And judges are moving very fast to address the complaints that different people, entities, and others are having against the Trump administration and their policies.

So, what the judges are doing is largely they're saying, temporarily, let's keep the status quo or, hey, don't do that. If you want to do something really extreme, we're going to have more court proceedings later.

A lot of things are getting paused. Just yesterday, Kate, there were five different instances where federal judges stopped the implementation of Trump policies. That graphic was just up showing seven different things that have happened in the past couple of days. But the five that happened yesterday, let's walk through them, the federal -- there is a federal force whistleblower chief who was removed from office. He was reinstated temporarily. His name's Hampton Dellinger. The birthright citizenship executive order, a judge said, yes, we're going to also block that. It's been blocked by other courts, but a third judge piped up.

There were cuts to public health research funding that the NIH was planning to do. A judge overnight said, nationally, that's not going to happen. The NIH and the Department of Health and Human Services is not going to curtail the research dollars for medical systems and academia across the country.

There also was an exit plan for federal workers that they were supposed to take by a deadline last Thursday. That deadline keeps getting extended by the courts. And then, finally, there are -- there's money, Kate, that is being frozen in different ways by the federal government, and judges keep stepping in and saying you can't do that.

And so all of this is happening on a daily basis. We expect much more court activity today.

BOLDUAN: And Katelyn will stick by standby and wait for you to bring it to us. Thank you so much. Sara?

SIDNER: All right. Ahead, the New York mayor's dream come true, the Justice Department now telling prosecutors to drop their corruption case against Mayor Eric Adams. Trump calling the charges a distraction, but from what?

Plus, why a plan to ban a cancer-linked chemical from popular hair straightening products is now in limbo.

And North Carolina's Fort Liberty now Fort Bragg again, the legal loophole allowing the Pentagon to restore the name of the country's largest military base that was once named after a Confederate general.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:10:00]

SIDNER: A disgraced Democrat being given a ride on the Trump pardon train. Former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, convicted of multiple corruption crimes, now pardoned by President Trump, who is calling his case a terrible injustice. Blagojevich was convicted of corruption in 2011 involving a scheme to try to sell the Senate seat left empty by Barack Obama when Obama became president.

Trump commuted his 14-year sentence during his first term, Blagojevich, who has become a staunch Trump ally and supported his reelection, said he and the president have gone through similar situations.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FMR. GOV. ROD BLAGOJEVICH (D-IL): It's over. How interesting it is that when someone goes through something like we went through and he's gone through what he's gone through, it creates a certain understanding between people who sort of understand that something isn't right and something is wrong.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: Now, just hours after Blagojevich got his pardon, the Justice Department moving to drop the ongoing federal corruption case against Democrat New York City Mayor Eric Adams.

CNN's Gloria Pazmino is joining us now. Okay, what is next?

GLORIA PAZMINO, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, look, Sara, for several months there have been a lot of speculation that Eric Adams was angling for a pardon or a dismissal of the charges, that he was cozying up to Trump, declining to criticize him, meeting with him in Mar-a-Lago. And now we have this memo from the Department of Justice. And even though it's only two pages, almost every line has some eyebrow-raising information in it, including the fact that the DOJ agreed with Adams that this prosecution was politically driven.

[07:15:09]

That's what the mayor said when he was indicted, that he was being targeted as a result of his criticism of the Biden administration for its handling of the migrant crisis here in New York.

They go on to say that this prosecution simply comes too close to the June primary, which is only a few months away, and that essentially it's been tainted as a result of all the publicity. We have not yet heard directly from the mayor today. He is expected to address New Yorkers during a new address today, but also just sort of surprisingly in this memo, there is an acknowledgement that the DOJ is issuing this order without having reviewed the evidence or the legal theory.

I want to read a key line from the memo. It says, the pending prosecution has unduly restricted Mayor Adams' ability to devote full attention and resources to the illegal immigration and violent crime that escalated under the policies of the prior administration. What are they saying? They're saying that because the mayor is being prosecuted, he's not able to help the Trump immigration crackdown in its agenda, that this is preventing him from doing that job.

Another shocking line of this memo, something that's got Democrats here in New York very concerned that there was some sort of a trade done here. The memo also does include a footnote that says, just to be clear, this is not a quid pro quo. We're not getting any sort of immigration help in exchange for this.

We did hear from the mayor's attorney, Alex Spiro, last night. I should mention Alex Spiro also represents Elon Musk. He said that he had said from the outset the mayor is innocent and he would prevail. Today he has. He also told our Kaitlan Collins last night that he believes the mayor would have been acquitted in 45 minutes. Lastly, how did we get here? The mayor had been accused of receiving travel perks, requesting and receiving illegal donations from foreign nationals and using his influence as mayor to influence city agencies on behalf of those donors.

SIDNER: Trump administration calling it political that he was gone after. It sounds very political what they are doing as well since they haven't reviewed any of the case in its entirely.

Thank you so much. Gloria Pazmino, very interesting details there. All right, over to you, John.

BERMAN: All right. Quote, no, the new and very clear answer from President Trump when asked if he sees Vice President J.D. Vance as his successor.

And thick snow, power outages, and potentially life threatening conditions, three consecutive winter storms take aim this morning.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:20:00]

BERMAN: All right. We are standing by to see Fed Chair Jerome Powell on Capitol Hill testifying before the Senate Finance Committee. This is really his first chance to face lawmakers after the president issued a new round of tariffs.

Let's get to CNN's Matt Egan for the latest on this. And it's really the first time that Jerome Powell will be put in this position where he's got to answer direct questions about the Trump economic agenda.

MATT EGAN, CNN REPORTER: Yes, John, he's got almost an impossible job here, right? He's got to talk about the state of the economy and the risks ahead without getting bogged down in politics. And that's so hard to do because so much about the outlook today is driven by the policies that have been put forth by the White House, right?

Exhibit A, the emerging trade war that President Trump has launched just yesterday, these 25 percent tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports into the U.S. Goldman Sachs is telling clients that these tariffs are going to be largely passed through to U.S. prices.

What does Jerome Powell say about that and the other tariff proposals out there? What does he say about inflation expectations? Because there's new surveys out in recent days that show Americans are bracing for higher and higher prices in part because of the Trump tariffs.

The jobs report, this is his first chance to weigh in on that kind of mixed January jobs report. What does he say about that? And then there's a lot on deregulation, specifically the recent efforts to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Is Powell in favor of these efforts to essentially pull the cop on the street, off the street here when it comes to trying to fight financial crime?

And then I think the elephant in the room, right? It's the fact that two of the most powerful people in the world, Jerome Powell and Donald Trump, at times have not gotten along. You remember, after the Fed kept interest rates steady at the last meeting in January, Trump came out and he essentially attacked Powell and the Fed over inflation. But then he backtracked a little bit and then he actually said that Powell made the right move there. So, we're going to hear Powell try to defend the importance of Fed independence from politicians.

BERMAN: Good luck with that. Look, even a simple question, are tariffs inflationary, which you can bet a senator will ask, we'll put him in a bind.

EGAN: Oh, it will. John, it will. And, look, there's just a 7 percent chance of an interest rate cut the next meeting in March, very low chance of the meeting after that after May. I don't think there's much about today's hearing that's really going to change these numbers.

BERMAN: Matt Egan, great to see you.

EGAN: Thanks, John.

BERMAN: Kate?

BOLDUAN: We have new CNN reporting coming in today, the Department of Homeland Security wants to recruit Treasury employees, including asking the IRS to help them crack down on immigration.

And Donald Trump, he still wants to buy Greenland, and Greenland still says it is not for sale. But what do Greenlanders think of this whole thing? Donie O'Sullivan went to find out.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: So, you would like to be independent of Denmark?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

[07:25:00]

O'SULLIVAN: But that doesn't mean you want to be part of the USA?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, I don't. I don't want to become a part of the USA.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: President Trump, J.D. Vance, Elon Musk are all challenging the power and authority of the federal courts right now. Why? Well, the extraordinary number of executive actions and orders coming by the president have been met with an equal amount of legal challenges. Dozens of lawsuits already they face and several judges now temporarily at least blocking many of Donald Trump's moves, which now has Donald Trump saying this overnight.

[07:30:08]