Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Source: Social Security Head Resigns Over Musk Team's Access; Head Of Justice Department's Washington, D.C. Criminal Division Quits; Trump, Musk Make Sweeping Cuts To Multiple Federal Agencies; CIA Flying Spy Drones Over Mexico; Vatican: Pope Francis Has Bilateral Pneumonia. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired February 18, 2025 - 13:30   ET

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

COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:32:39]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: There are some fresh new resignations in the nation's capitol as President Trump and his special government employee, Elon Musk, make sweeping cuts to federal agencies.

A source telling CNN the acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration has now stepped down because Musk's DOGE team was trying to get its hands on highly sensitive information.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: CNN's Rene Marsh is here with more on this story.

Rene, what can you tell us about this?

RENE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So this is the acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration, Michelle King. She has been at this

agency for some 30 years, more than 30 years.

And she walked away from all this time of service because she clashed with DOGE and DOJ's request for access to these sensitive systems that house American sensitive information at the Social Security agency. We're talking about financial information, medical information.

There are about 72.5 million Americans who receive Social Security benefits, from retirees to children, as well as disabled people. So we're talking about millions of Americans and their personal information and DOGE's access.

And we understand that was at the core of why she left this agency. But you know, you hear from DOGE, Musk and even the White House. They say that we have to get access to these systems because we have to root out this fraud and waste that is happening from agency to agency.

And actually, the White House spokesperson on this recent resignation saying, "President Trump is committed to appointing the best and most qualified individuals who are dedicated to working on behalf of the American people, not to appease the bureaucracy that has failed them for far too long." So these sort of resignations don't seem to bother them based on -- on

this sort of statement that we're -- that we see here coming from the White House.

But it's not just the Social Security administration. We've talked about DOGE's access at the IRS, at treasury. And of course, this has been, you know, something that we've seen in the courts.

Many unions have brought concerns to the courts, raising questions about whether DOGE has the legal, you know, right to have access to all of this information.

So while all of this is playing out, we are seeing what we're seeing here at this agency where people are saying no, resigning, and Michelle King was one of them.

KEILAR: Yes, we see it time and again.

Rene Marsh, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

[13:35:01]

MARSH: Sure.

KEILAR: In the meantime, there's another major departure, and this one is happening at the Justice Department. The head of the Criminal Division within the D.C. U.S. attorney's office has left her post.

SANCHEZ: CNN's Katelyn Polantz is following this story for us.

Katelyn, do we know why she quit?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We do. We're gaining some insight into that through our sources.

This top prosecutor -- her name is Denise Cheung -- she was running the Criminal Division in the U.S. attorney's office in Washington, D.C. A longtime prosecutor at the Justice Department. Held lots of different roles there over many different administrations.

She resigned. And the reason? A clash with what she was being asked to do by the political appointees of The Trump administration, including those top people at main Justice.

Like the acting deputy attorney general, Emil Bove, and the man that Donald Trump has selected on a permanent basis that he wants to run the U.S. attorney's office, Ed Martin.

What we are learning here, Boris and Brianna, is that this was over an investigation, a grand jury investigation into funding around the Environmental Protection Agency.

Funding that had been appropriated by Congress that had been used to go to nonprofits at the end of the Biden administration, that that was what the department wanted her and prosecutors to look into. And Denise Cheung, she didn't want to do it for ethical reasons.

Whenever we asked the Justice Department about this today, a spokesperson there said that her refusal is not an act of heroism, just a failure to follow chain of command.

On her departure notice to the office, Denise Cheung wrote to U.A. A's there that she believed that they always conducted themselves with utmost integrity.

SANCHEZ: Katelyn Polantz, thank you so much for the update.

So you have these high-level resignations, and then you also have widespread federal layoffs.

Today, we're learning more than 700 workers at the CDC have been fired since Friday, the latest in a string of dismissals targeting agencies ranging from the FAA to the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau.

With us now is Katherine Royce. She was terminated from her role as an honors attorney at the CFPB. She is also dealing with a very personal health battle that could be impacted because of losing her job.

Katherine, thanks so much for sharing part of your afternoon with us.

Just, if you could, to start, walk us through what this process has been like. What did you think when you read that termination letter?

KATHERINE ROYCE, FORMER FEDERAL EMPLOYEE: Thanks for having me, Boris.

So I was in the second round of termination. There were about 100 people fired from my agency on Tuesday. So a week ago. I had actually thrown a get together at my house for the people who had previously been fired on Thursday night last week. So that was when I got the email that I had been fired.

After the initial wave of, you know, shock and grief, I felt anger when I read that memo they sent me. I felt anger personally, because I am struggling with some health issues that I don't know if I'll have the health insurance to cover at the end of the month.

I'm locked out of my health savings account, so I don't know how I will pay those bills.

I'm also angry as a person with a credit card because the CFPB is the only agency that protects consumers through -- regarding all sorts of financial scams.

So if the CFPB can't do its mission without people like me, people who use any kind of financial product in America, whether that's credit cards or mortgages or student and auto loans, are going to suffer.

I was also angry as an American citizen because the procedural protections that are in place for federal employees.

Such as having to fire probationary employees for cause, prohibiting employees from taking part in partisan political activity on the job, they are there to guarantee the independence of the civil service.

There is a procedure that the president could have used if he wanted to downsize our agency, if he wanted to get rid of it. That procedure is to go talk to Congress and make a law.

And the failure to respect that procedure really bodes well -- bodes ill for the American constitutional order.

SANCHEZ: Sure. Katherine, if you don't mind me asking, what health issues are you dealing with? And how has this forced you to adjust? I understand that you've had to reschedule some appointments since you were fired.

ROYCE: Yes. So this is not the news I thought it would be sharing on national news at any point soon, but circumstances have changed.

I was diagnosed with Cushing's Disease almost two years ago. So during the spring of my second year at Harvard Law School. I had neurosurgery that made to take out a brain tumor that stood a 50-50 chance of killing me.

[13:40:12]

My neurosurgeons and endocrinologists told me in no uncertain terms that I required annual MRIs. From that point on out, the rest of my life, to ensure that my brain tumor did not return.

I was scheduled for that check in appointment in April. I had to cancel it because I don't have health insurance at that point. I'm currently in a mad scramble to try to get something in before the end of the month, but I don't know if that's going to work.

So in addition to the uncertainty about my rent, about my friends jobs, about where we're all going to live, if we'll ever see each other after the end of this month.

There's also that extremely personal worry that something might be brewing, and I won't have a chance to catch it.

SANCHEZ: Katherine, I'm so sorry that you are dealing with this.

But I am grateful for you sharing your story and your perspective so folks out there get a better understanding of what federal workers like you are experiencing, folks that have decided to dedicate themselves to serving not just the government, but the American people.

We have to leave the conversation there.

Katherine Royce, thank you so much for joining us.

ROYCE: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Of course.

Still to come, CNN's new reporting about a covert CIA program. Drones being used to spy on drug cartels in Mexico. We have details straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:45:43]

SANCHEZ: A week after we learned U.S. military planes were flying in the skies around Mexico to spy on drug cartels, we're now finding out that the CIA is actually flying drones in Mexican airspace for the same purpose. This is according to current and former officials familiar with the matter.

KEILAR: And it's a sign of President Trump's dramatic reorientation of national security assets to the southern border. These are assets that had been routinely used to spy on suspected terrorists in places like Syria, Iraq or Somalia. They'd also been used in places like the Ukraine war.

We have CNN's Katie Bo Lillis, part of the team that broke this story.

Tell us what you're learning here.

KATIE BO LILLIS, CNN REPORTER: Yes. Brianna, what we're -- what we're learning is that the CIA is now flying MQ-9 Reaper drones in Mexican airspace to spy on drug cartels.

Now, really important to understand that these drones are not armed right now, even though they are capable of being armed.

And the CIA has flown this kind of surveillance flight trying to look for information on cartels in Mexican airspace before in support of the Mexican government.

But in this instance, it noticed the flights that it was doing to Congress using a particular kind of notification that it uses for covert programs that it intends to either conceal or deny, suggesting that this represents a pretty big expansion of what the agency was doing in Mexico prior to this.

Now, a CIA spokesman declined to comment on these flights specifically, but did say that the agency is broadly really turning its focus to the cartel issue in Mexico.

This is all part of this broader effort by the Trump administration to really shift the -- the kind of not just the assets, but sort of he tools and authorities that it uses in the traditional counterterrorism mission and kind of map that onto cartel issues specifically.

SANCHEZ: How is Mexico responding to this news that U.S. drones are flying over their territory?

LILLIS: Yes, it's a good question. They haven't said a lot yet. We -- we do know that the Mexican government, of course, has in the past agreed to flights of this kind.

But against the backdrop of the sort of public musing from the Trump administration about the potential for using military action against Mexican cartels inside the sovereign nation of Mexico and allied country, it's certainly possible that these flights could kind of escalate tensions between the U.S. and the Mexican government.

The -- the complicating factor here is that, even though the cartels and --and terrorist organizations that the U.S. military and intelligence community are sort of used to dealing with, they do share some operational similarities, right?

But it's -- it's not a one-for-one comparison. And, in fact, senior -- sorry, current and former U.S. officials that we spoke to in the course of reporting this story pointed out that, like, look, yes, some operational similarities here.

But cartels not -- are not ideological, right? They don't control territory. They're not trying to -- to govern their commercial organizations. And they are operating in a functioning state right on the U.S. border.

So it's not a slam dunk that the U.S. is going to be able to neatly map these counterterrorism tools and authorities on to the counter cartel mission.

KEILAR: Straight out of a movie. It's so -- it's so interesting.

Katie Bo Lillis --

LILLIS: Clear and present danger.

KEILAR: That's right.

Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

[13:48:57]

Still ahead, we just received an update from the Vatican on the pope's condition. We're going to take you to Rome, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:53:34]

KEILAR: This news just in from the Vatican. Officials say Pope Francis, who has been hospitalized for the last five days with a complex respiratory infection, now has pneumonia.

Let's get more now from Vatican correspondent, Christopher Lamb, who is in Rome.

Christopher, this is getting more serious. What can you tell us?

CHRISTOPHER LAMB, CNN VATICAN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Brianna, this is concerning news for a pope who is 88-years-old and has had five days in the Gemelli Hospital behind me.

The word that the Vatican keeps using about the pope's condition is "complex." The clinical picture, they say, is a complex one. And the treatment to treat this polymicrobial infection that the pope has is also complex.

We have been told that the pope has pneumonia that has required further therapy. We also know that the pope's treatment has been modified on a number of occasions to try and help him battle this infection.

So this news just in from the Vatican. They're also saying that the pope is in good spirits and that he asks for peoples prayers.

Now, we don't know how long the pope is going to be in hospital. It all depends on how he responds to this treatment.

[13:54:56]

We are going to be getting more updates from the Vatican in the coming days. We're expecting to hear from some expert medical people to help us understand more the pope's condition.

What we do know about polymicrobial infection is, is that it is a multi-tiered one. It includes or can include viruses, bacteria, parasites.

The pope's condition or the precise infection the pope has we don't know. The Vatican hasn't said what that is. But we are hoping to find out more details in the coming days.

But clearly, the news that the pope has pneumonia for someone who has suffered from respiratory infections in the past and is vulnerable to them. Of course, as a young man he had a part of his right lung removed -- removed because of a respiratory infection. This news is concerning -- Brianna?

KEILAR: Yes, it certainly is.

Christopher Lamb, thank you so much.

Still ahead, Toronto Airport officials giving an update after terrifying new video shows the moment that a Delta plane crashes on the runway. We're going to break down what we're seeing there, what we're learning from officials, next on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)