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Newsom Holds Bipartisan Capitol Hill Meetings on Disaster Aid; Musk Request Access to Treasury's Payment System. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired February 06, 2025 - 10:30   ET

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

[10:30:00]

GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM (D-CA): And so, we're trying to do everything we can to distill a sense of wellbeing and it's critical that the relationship between the president of the United States and the State of California remain strong and firm in our resolve to fix this.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: And we will continue to cover the wildfires and the aftermath and everything on this show. I can assure you of that.

You have also been on the Hill meeting with lawmakers. President Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson suggested that conditions should be attached to any wildfire aid for California with Johnson claiming state and local leaders were derelict in their duties. Was that discussed during your meetings? And where does that stand, if so, with getting aid in exchange for conditions being met?

NEWSOM: It wasn't discussed, and I hope we can move beyond that. Look, I understand the foundational conditions. I think that exists with most things that Congress does in the relationship between states. The states relationships with cities, there's conditions attached. But some of the conditions that were being bandied about just seemed to be, for me, a little bit of noise, a little bit political.

At the end of the day, we're all in this together. The president was at a prayer breakfast this morning. And I remember Father Cauz (ph) telling me we're many parts but one body. When one part suffers, we all suffer. This notion that we're all in this together. We're in there to take care of the folks in Louisiana, in the speaker's district. We're here for the folks in North Carolina, Californians that is. Georgia, people have been impacted by disasters and emergencies. And the American spirit is to lend a hand and provide that support. And I expect that will happen for California.

BROWN: As you know that President Trump has pressed for California requiring voter I.D. and changing to the water system. Did that come up with your meeting with him?

NEWSOM: We talked about both. Yes.

BROWN: You talked about both. And did you say he would --

NEWSOM: We've been in an ongoing conversation for over -- I mean, I feel like I told the president when he's in the tarmac last week in Los Angeles, I said, we're picking up on the last conversation we had around water four and a half years prior.

So, I will say this, he's very focused on that issue. He certainly targeted some of that in terms of some of the actions he took by executive order.

BROWN: Two billion gallons of water.

NEWSOM: And so, we had a one -- and that's why it was an extended conversation. I didn't even know people knew how long the conversation was, but it was -- yes, it was an extended conversation. And so, it was spirited. And look, and it's exactly --

BROWN: Spirited, how so? Bring us into that.

NEWSOM: Because we're just -- it was an engaging conversation. You know what it was? A two-way conversation. And that's what it should be. I mean, just different points of view, expressing a different understanding of the nuances on the ground. But an appreciation to get something done.

BROWN: Did you tell them that the 2 billion gallons of water didn't help with the wildfire?

NEWSOM: I think it's been well covered.

BROWN: OK.

NEWSOM: Understood. But it -- you know, look, I kept going back. It wasn't about focusing on the disagreements. It was about focusing on what we have in common. And what we have in common is a desire to support the people of L.A. And also, recognize that in 2028 we've got the Olympics coming to Southern California. We have an opportunity of a lifetime in the next three years to do something extraordinary.

And I will say this, this is true and it's factual, and you got to call balls and strikes. Lee Zeldin is doing an amazing job. He's on the ground today in Los Angeles. They are moving the first phase of the debris removal at record pace. And I think it's that mindset that we brought to the meeting, and the mindset that came out of that meeting. The president wants to do something that's never been done, and that is address this crisis with a degree of sophistication and focus to get the job done and get people's lives back.

BROWN: Your relationship with Trump certainly has been interesting over the years. It seems to have taken a more positive turn lately. I mean, he recently called you New-scum.

NEWSOM: And not just recently, he's been doing that for years. Yes.

BROWN: Did he say it in the Oval Office yesterday?

NEWSOM: Yes. We had some fun with that. Look.

BROWN: OK. OK. So, tell us about this, how much of your positive turn -- I have to ask this because this is what people are wondering, it has to do with the fact, you need aid for your state.

NEWSOM: Yes, but it's not even that, we had this relationship. It's -- I will say is one of the more -- I'll lead it to more objective minds, it was one of the more interesting relationships in politics because we had this relationship going back during COVID. I mean, we were involved in a hundred lawsuits going back and forth. I mean, you could look at the tweets back then. And calling me a clown, you know, I mean, the worst the governor. And yet, we were still working together. And all that was a little bit of noise.

So, it just feels so familiar. And in that respect, I want to continue to respect the office of the presidency, to respect his authority and to also engage in a constructive dialogue when it comes to issues of emergencies. But again, we had that foundation of a relationship for years during the COVID crisis, and it was a great partnership then, interestingly.

BROWN: So, it sounds like publicly you guys kind of trade barbs and then, privately you can joke about it, is what it sounds like?

NEWSOM: Well, yes. And it's -- you know, and it's a joke and it's not, it's frustrating for people. We're sort of chasing headlines. We're tracing tweets. But at the end of the day, what matters to me is what matters. You know, control what you can control and focus on people and results and getting things done. And that, I think, was demonstrably the case yesterday in the meeting.

BROWN: You previously mentioned the timeline for a rebuilding would be six to nine months. Is that going to happen? And should people rebuild in some parts of California, given how high the fire risk is?

NEWSOM: You can't rebuild the same. So, we have to rebuild with science. We have to build with climate reality in mind. We have to look at infrastructure, redundancy systems, ingress, egress as it relates to emergency management and planning materials, all of that is being reviewed and reconsidered and with the latest iterations in terms of understanding and technology.

[10:35:00]

And I say technology in the context of how, again, we build the infrastructure to keep it safe, to address undergrounding of lines, how we address the larger issues of redundancy in terms of systems, but more important than anything else is the need to get the debris removed. 30 days to do the hazardous waste. We want to get six to nine months the rest of the debris done.

Concurrently, people are getting permits. So, this is all happening, rolling together. And we want to see construction very shortly. And in the next few years, we want to see hundreds, thousands of homes rebuilt.

BROWN: But I think there's a big question about how do some Californians do that, right? You have State Farm announcing that it has an average 22 percent interim break hike for homeowners. The fair insurance plan for the state is just bogged down right now. Your data, I believe, is on that plan, if I recall.

NEWSOM: Yes.

BROWN: People -- Californians were saying they're not getting the help they need from Fair. It's really confusing.

NEWSOM: Well, Fair is not a state plan. It's not a taxpayer funded plan. It's a syndicate pool run by the insurance market itself. And it's the insurer of last resort and it's existed back to Ronald Reagan in 1968. As it relates to that plan and their exposure, they have reinsurance, significant amount of reinsurance. We feel strongly at this moment -- and again, this is -- these changes in real-time that the plan will be able to absorb the losses, ultimately.

Now, as it relates to the larger issue of the insurance market, not unique to California, but any stretch of the imagination, what's happening with insurance, and this is the reality, the new reality of extremes, extreme heat, extreme drought. You have droughts and rain bombs. You have flooding at the same time you're dealing with droughts, all happening concurrently. There's a new reality, the world we're living in. And if you're not believing science, you have to believe your own eyes, your own lived experience.

And the reality is the insurance market understands it better than anyone else, that market and mother natures are going to have to change the way we live and do business in the context of how we plan, how we do land use, zoning into the future, along the lines of your question, we have to wake up to this reality. We cannot be in denial about what's going on with mother nature. Again, around the globe, not just in the State of California.

BROWN: So, what -- just to sort of pin you down, what does that mean for the rebuilding and some of these high-risk areas?

NEWSOM: Just more sophisticated design and planning. Remember, Altadena, those -- many of those homes were done in the '20s and '30s and '40s for a world that no longer exists from a climate perspective. And so, the ability to absorb a deeper understanding as you rebuild it presents itself a new in a profound and we hope impactful way.

So, I'm concerned about it, but I'm not concerned about our resourcefulness to address it with the most modern standards anywhere in the world. By the way, California leads the nation already in building zoning standards. Our ability now to take it to the next level, to be a model for the rest of the country presents itself.

BROWN: All right. I know we have to let you go. I just want to quickly end. You mentioned the tarmac meeting with President Trump. You said it was a continuation of a conversation you had with him. He came there to California to tour the wildfire damage. Bring us into that. I know a lot of us were wondering what was happening in that moment.

NEWSOM: Just, again, back to open hand, not a close fist, walking him back to the State of California. And, you know, I don't want -- you know, people start re-lipping -- re-lips here. BROWN: Yes. That's why I want to go straight to the source.

NEWSOM: We started talking about water. I mean, we were in, you know, middle -- again, a middle of a conversation that we ended at the end of his turn --

BROWN: So, you went right into water in that conversation?

NEWSOM: It was -- he's very focused on water. And I appreciate that. I'm focused on water. It's one of the most -- I mean, I'm in California, you know. And so, this is a top issue for us. And we also extended yesterday different discussions about other areas we can agree that he could move the needle in California water policy. So, that's a little bit of preview. We hope some good things come from that.

BROWN: All right. Governor Gavin Newsom. Thank you so much for your time. We appreciate it.

NEWSOM: Thank you.

BROWN: CNN exclusive reporting on Elon Musk's efforts to gain access to a key Treasury payment system coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:40:00]

BROWN: Breaking news, another CNN exclusive, new e-mail exchange -- exchanges we should say, reviewed by CNN show Elon Musk's requested expansive access to the critical treasury payment system.

CNN's Kaitlan Polanski and Phil Mattingly join me now with this exclusive reporting. This is really important because the administration has been saying that the access was just supposed to be for read only, right? What have you learned?

KAITLAN POLANSKI, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. So, right after Donald Trump comes into office, he shuts down the USAID payments that are outgoing. And the way to do that is through the agency itself. But there is this system at the Treasury Department that distributes, essentially, all the checks that go out for the federal government, $5 trillion a year.

And what we learned through our understanding of these e-mails that were being exchanged from Trump people coming in interested in advancing his politics, and then they're speaking to the career longtime civil servants at Treasury, they're saying, shut off USAID payments here in this department as almost a backstop to making sure the State Department could then have time to look at the individual payments and turn them off on their end.

The tension here is that's just not how it works. The Treasury doesn't make these sorts of choices. And this is the first known indication that we have that the Department of Government Efficiency, people working with Elon Musk the chief of staff for the incoming cabinet secretary for the Treasury Department, that they were all interested in using the resources at Treasury to carry out Donald Trump's political agenda and turn off those payments. These payments that specifically, we're talking about in this case, were supposed to go to the health systems' strengthening service at USAID.

[10:45:00]

Basically, what builds hospitals in developing countries, sends money to strengthen healthcare and make sure there isn't the spread of infectious disease, things like that. That's what they wanted to control at the Treasury Department, not just at USAID.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: I think what was so striking as we reviewed this, we knew things going into this particular line of reporting, which was, last week, a career civil servant of more than 35 years, the most senior career official at the Treasury Department, and the acting secretary, as they waited for Scott Bessent to be confirmed, resigned. We knew that something had happened that forced him to resign. We knew it involved the payment systems. We didn't know specifically what it was.

We don't know much of anything about what the DOGE team and their operations and their associates are doing across all these government agencies right now. The opacity is kind of the point I think on some level.

What we found in these e-mails is very specific requests. Eight requested bullet points related to these payment systems. What the response was from the career official was, one, I don't think that's legal. And two, it's not what we do go back to state.

Then, the DOGE official that is at the Treasury Department, Tom Krause, who's kind of running point over there, responded very sharply to the career official saying, I would propose to you that perhaps you have legal liability here, like you might have some exposure legally, the individual, if you do not do what we're saying to do.

Now, what we don't know is what happened between that moment and the resignation. Scott Bessent coming in, approving access to these payment systems on the read only basis, as you noted.

BROWN: That's what they say.

MATTINGLY: There's a gap there.

BROWN: How do we verify that?

MATTINGLY: So, that's what we're -- in talking to sources that were briefed on this, their concern is the jump from, we want all of this access, we want explicit action, we want a number of different things, eight different bullet points, to we will accept read only when their guy is in place seems unlikely, is kind of how people were framing it to us.

Now, we don't know that it did or didn't happen. What we know is that the Treasury Department has said read only in a letter to lawmakers. Scott Bessent has said read only in a television interview. Treasury officials associated with Scott Bessent have said read only. Lawyers yesterday in court said read only. So --

BROWN: But I just want to emphasize this, because wasn't the initial explanation from the administration that they wanted access just for read only, right? That the initial reason for their access, they just want to look at it, review it, read. But that's undercut, right, by these e-mails that they didn't just want to read.

POLANSKI: I mean, there seems to be a very clear revelation here that there was an interest to use the Treasury Department's systems in place as a way to turn off payments to fall in line with the White House. That it on itself is just not what we have been hearing.

And the reason that, you know, Democratic senators on Capitol Hill have been asking so many questions, it's not just about whether the White House or the Treasury Department can turn off payments to USAID or whichever part, it's also the fact that there is a massive amount of protected and private information in this payment system, and it's a system within the Treasury Department that is very closely held. Very few people work on it. It really hadn't been paid attention to by people in political spheres for a long time.

And one thing, Pam, that we were also told by a source here in reporting this out is that Bessent, the secretary, didn't give limitations initially when he brought the DOGE people in to do this, even after these e-mails when he came in to play.

BROWN: That's important context. All right. Phil, Kaitlan, excellent reporting. Thank you. We'll be right back.

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[10:50:00]

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: I'm Andy Scholes, live in New Orleans from Radio Row, as we continue to get ready for Super Bowl LIX. And Kendrick Lamar, in just a few moments, is going to give his Super Bowl halftime press conference, always one of the fun events during Super Bowl week. Will he give us any clues about his performance? Will he say anything about Taylor Swift possibly joining him? We will wait and see.

But as for the actual game on the field, the Chiefs, of course, going for that record third Super Bowl in a row. And it's just so hard to bet against Patrick Mahomes at this point. And a number of reasons why you shouldn't for this game, he's 15 and 0 playing indoors. The game, of course, at the Superdome here in New Orleans. He's eight and 0 against Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio. He's also seven and 0 in the playoffs when the spread is less than three points. So, right now, the Chiefs are favored by one and a half. So, if it's a close game, Mahomes has proven time and time again he will find a way to win it. And he spoke earlier this week about just always being able to play his best in the biggest moments.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) PATRICK MAHOMES, KANSAS CITY CHIEFS QUARTERBACK: I'm so focused on just the process of making the best play possible for the team and you don't worry about the moment or where you're at, the environment or anything like that, you just go out there and just go about your process step by step through your checklist and then make the play happen.

And so, none of the football field, I think makes me -- it makes you insecure. I probably couldn't think of anything in real-life. I feel like I'm pretty confident in who I am and I know there's a couple of things here and there that people might make fun of, but I'm confident in myself.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[10:55:00]

SCHOLES: And tonight, here in New Orleans, it will be the NFL honors award show. We will finally have the end of the debate of who is this year's MVP. Will it be Josh Allen or Lamar Jackson?

I'm Andy Scholes in New Orleans news back after a quick break.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta, host of CNN's Chasing Life podcast. Do you always wash your fruits and vegetables before you eat them? Truth is that unwashed vegetables and fruits can be contaminated, not just with dirt, but also bacteria and fungi and viruses or pesticides. You know, we're hearing a lot about this lately and for good reason. Nearly half of foodborne illnesses come from eating produce.

So, for starters, the simplest and safest way to wash your produce is using cold running water. Start with clean hands, surfaces, and utensils. Discard any damaged leaves. Rinse or rub until the surface of your produce no longer looks dirty. You should also dry anything you're not going to immediately eat before putting it away. So, blot it with a dry paper towel, for example, or run it through a salad spinner.

Now, there are exceptions. Berries, cherries, grapes, for example, to help them last longer, store them unwashed in the refrigerator and wash only when you're ready to eat.

And you can hear more about how to optimize your health and chase life wherever you get your podcasts.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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