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Top Trump Officials Meet With Russians In Saudi Arabia; Department Of Education Letter Threatens Federal Funding; At Least 9 Dead As Storms Slam Kentucky, Georgia, Tennessee And Virginia; Experts Worry Russian Aggression Could Go Beyond Ukraine; Measles Outbreak In West Texas Doubles To 48 Cases; Trump Disputes Rift With Elon Musk; New Mini-Tournament Format For All-Star Game. Aired 6-7p ET

Aired February 16, 2025 - 18:00   ET

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

[18:00:21]

PAULA REID, CNN ANCHOR: You are in the CNN NEWSROOM. Jessica Dean has the day off. I'm Paula Reid in Washington.

New tonight, President Trump says he's pushing forward with talks on ending Russia's war in Ukraine, even as questions remain as to whether Ukraine will have a seat at the table. Trump telling reporters Ukraine's president will be in, quote, "involved" in the talks with the U.S. and Russia. It's unclear, though, what that means.

And this comes after a Ukrainian official tells CNN his country was, quote, "not informed" about negotiations set to take place in the coming days between the U.S. and Russia in Saudi Arabia.

CNN's senior White House producer, Betsy Klein, is covering the president tonight in West Palm Beach.

Betsy, what more can you tell us?

BETSY KLEIN, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE PRODUCER: Well, Paula, we know that senior Trump administration officials are set to travel in hours from now to Saudi Arabia for these key talks with Russian senior officials. That includes National Security adviser Mike Waltz, as well as special envoy for the Middle East Steve Witkoff.

And according to Witkoff, they are traveling tonight and that meeting we are learning moments ago is going to be taking place on Tuesday. They are going to be meeting with this high level team assembled by the Kremlin. That includes political, economic and intelligence officials.

Now, senior Trump officials, including those who are involved in these talks, have really been calling this, describing it as an initial first step following that key talk between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin aimed at assessing whether Putin himself is serious about ending his war in Ukraine, which is, of course, on the cusp of its third anniversary. But here is how Trump is characterizing this moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're moving along. We're trying to get a peace with Russia, Ukraine, and we're working very hard on it. It's a war that should have never started.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Do you expect Zelenskyy to be involved in these conversations? What will his role be?

TRUMP: Yes, I do. I do. He will be involved. Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KLEIN: Now Secretary Rubio said that if these talks proceed as planned in the positive direction, that all of this could move very quickly. The Ukrainians could get involved. And he also suggested that the Europeans could get involved. President Trump, for his part, also told reporters again if things move in the right way, he could be meeting with President Putin very soon.

We are also learning, Paula, that Saudi Arabia is expected to play a key mediating role in these Tuesday talks.

REID: Betsy, we're also learning about this U.S. Department of Education letter. It actually threatens federal funding to schools if they consider race in their decisions. Can you explain what exactly this means?

KLEIN: Yes, that's exactly right. I mean, another effort by the Trump administration to undermine diversity, equity and inclusion programs within the federal government, something that was a key campaign promise for President Trump. But the Department of Education in this letter sent a dear colleague letter threatening federal funding for any academic institution that considers race in most aspects of student life.

I want to read to you from Craig Trainor, the acting assistant secretary for civil rights for the Education Department. He wrote, quote, "Federal law thus prohibits covered entities from using race in decisions pertaining to admissions, hiring, promotion, compensation, financial aid, scholarships, prizes, administrative support, discipline, housing, graduation ceremonies, and all other aspects of student, academic, and campus life."

Now, this is almost certain to draw legal challenges, Paula. To classes, to scholarships, things like student organizations. Something we're going to be watching quite closely in the coming days.

REID: Betsy Klein, thank you.

And let's bring in our political panel now, Republican strategist Katie Frost and CNN political commentator and Democratic strategist Maria Cardona.

Maria, let's start with you. This new reporting about this letter from the Department of Education threatening federal funding to schools that consider race. I mean, this seems like an example of the Trump administration's effort to tamp down so-called DEI initiatives. What is your reaction?

MARIA CARDONA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think it's completely ridiculous, and it's going to hurt a lot of vulnerable communities, a lot of vulnerable students. It is not going to stand up in court. We just heard in the report that it is already going to have a lot of lawsuits slapped onto it as it should.

[18:05:04]

And just on its face, it makes absolutely no sense, Paula. So what does this mean? Are they going to take away funding from historically black colleges? Are they going to take away funding from Hispanic serving institutions? Are they going to take away funding from public schools that have a Latino student union? Are they going to take away funding from schools that have an LGBTQ club?

I mean, it just is absolutely makes no sense. And to me, it indicates just the fanatical obsession that this administration has in terms of going against DEI. And to me, what it betrays is an absolute ignorance of how exactly to go about doing what they say they want to do in terms of going after waste, fraud and abuse. This is not the way to do it.

And I think what you're going to find is that they're going to be caught up in courts the way they have been already, and they're going to be slapped down because this is not in accordance with any law and is certainly not in accordance with any American value.

REID: Katie, what is your response to this letter?

KATIE FROST, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Well, you know, I will agree with Maria on something. I do believe that there is -- this is ridiculous. But what I think is ridiculous is not this letter. I think what's ridiculous is how our schools are failing. And this has been the focus we have seen in so many districts over the last few years. I think it's ridiculous that we're having conversations about DEI when in 2017, only 43 percent of children were shown to be able to read at a fourth grade level.

When we have over half the children in our country are not proficient in math and in literacy at their grade level, that is a serious problem. We need to be focusing on that. And if these other programs and priorities are getting in the way, we need to be making sure we're educating children. That's what parents are sending their children to school for. They want to make sure that they can read, that they can write, and they can go on to have a successful career.

But we're not setting our children up for success when they can't master the basics because they're too busy getting lectures on all these social justice issues. It's very confusing. We can leave that to the parents, and we can allow the schools to actually educate children. That's what they need to be focused on.

REID: Katie, I'm sure you've seen by now the president posted the following on social media. He said, quote, "He who saves his country violates no law." Do Republicans like yourself have any concerns about this?

FROST: Yes. A lot of the things people say if the house is on fire and are you violating the law to trespass to go in and try and help someone out? So I mean, that's the basic premise. I understand what he's saying. I believe our country is in serious trouble. President Trump has done an excellent job these first few weeks. He is doing all of the things he campaigned on. For the first time in over 20 years, more Americans think our country is on the right track than on the wrong track.

For the first time in 20 years, because a majority of the American people think our government is irrevocably broken, and they want someone to go in and fundamentally change it. And that's what President Trump was elected to do.

REID: Maria, Trump's former vice president, Mike Pence, tweeted out a 2010 article that he'd written actually on the Constitution. He tweeted this out just a few hours after Trump's post. One part of the article read, quote, "A president who slights the Constitution is like a rider who hates his horse. He will be thrown and the nation along with him."

Seems like Pence maybe taking a shot at his old boss there. What do you think?

CARDONA: Yes, I think he absolutely is. And he's absolutely right. And look, what Trump tweeted should absolutely be of concern to every American who respects the Constitution, who respects the rule of law, who respects and wants our democracy to continue to be strong because what Trump is actually trying to indicate and communicating is that he doesn't think that any law or any court or any judge can have power over what he does and what he says.

And that's just absolutely not true. It's a fundamental misunderstanding, and ignorance, frankly, of how the three branches of government work. The judicial branch actually does have power over the administrative branch, the executive branch, and how they administrate and what they do as they should. And that's why you're seeing all of these lawsuits.

But I think the more -- the thing that is more of concern, Paula, is that, again, it underscores a president who is obsessed with absolute executive power and is going to do everything that he can to demonstrate that. And we've heard a lot of constitutional lawyers and legal experts saying that we could be on the cusp of a constitutional problem here, of a constitutional crisis.

Now, Katie is right. People did vote for this. But I will also say that what they also voted for is for a president to take care of bringing down the cost of groceries, gas and rent. And that is exactly the opposite of what Trump is doing.

[18:10:02]

And you're seeing it also in the polls. The latest CBS poll is saying that 70 percent of Americans don't think that Trump is doing enough on the economy, and the economy was the number one issue at the polls in November. And everything that Trump is doing is actually going to hurt the economies of mostly rural red states, where there's a lot of Trump supporters who are getting hit in their pocketbooks because he is slashing grants, he is slashing money, he is slashing programs.

He is taking away a lot of the things that will actually help these vulnerable communities and these vulnerable families make ends meet. He is going to really pay a political price for that, and Democrats are going to make sure that happens.

REID: Well, Katie, for all the mixed messages out of the White House about the power of the courts, Trump is now asking the Supreme Court to weigh in and let him fire the head of a watchdog agency. Most legal experts think this challenge is premature, but eventually they're going to have to answer some questions about the extent of executive power.

What do you make of this legal fight and the ones that lie ahead?

FROST: Well, you know, just because a lawsuit has been filed doesn't mean the person filing it is in the right. We know that. Just because something is being challenged in court doesn't mean it won't stand up. But I will go back just for one moment to some of what Maria was saying earlier. I do love that if we had this conversation before the election and I was pointing out how President Biden had been in power for four years and the economy was suffering, we would have heard countless things from our friends across the aisle in the Democratic Party about how the president doesn't really control the economy.

The president can't single handedly change the price of groceries. But President Trump has been in office for less than a month, and now he single handedly is the reason your eggs cost the amount that they do. It is not anything to do with the previous administration. Doesn't have anything to do with bird flu. So I appreciate Maria acknowledging that the president actually does have something to do with the economy, and she apparently thinks Trump could fix it in one month.

But it's going back to the issue of the judicial challenges. It's going to happen. We know this is going to happen. And you know what? I think it's just going to be an interesting thing to see. The presidency has changed in many ways. President Biden changed a lot of what we believed the executive could do. He changed a lot of our norms. So we're going to see how the norms are respected and viewed under a Trump presidency.

REID: What norms specifically did --

CARDONA: Paula, Paula --

REID: Maria, hold on. What norms specifically, when you're referring to President Biden? What are you referring to?

FROST: The biggest thing that stands out to me is this concept of preemptive pardons for his family members. When he snuck that in on Inauguration Day, that was a complete slap in the face. If he -- and then when he told everyone he was not going to pardon his son, we heard him tell David Muir that. Karine Jean-Pierre stood at the podium in the White House press briefing room and said he would not be pardoning Hunter Biden. And then he did that.

He lied to the American people, and he issued this blanket pardon, the get-out-of-jail-free card to all of his family members and to people that he thinks are going to be potentially be in trouble. That is something we've never seen before, and some people have even questioned, would they hold up?

REID: Katie is completely right. He did say he was not going to pardon his son. Didn't even commute the sentence. He did pardon him. He did do those preemptive pardons, which surprised a lot of legal scholars.

Maria, I'll let you have the last word really quickly.

CARDONA: Yes. Just two very quick things. The first one on the economy.

Katie, it was Trump that said that he would bring down the price of eggs, this literally came out of his mouth, on day one. So don't judge anyone else on what Trump said except for what Trump said. And he's not doing that. And everything else that he's doing is going to cause the cost not just of eggs, but of everything else to go up.

In terms of the pardons and Joe Biden, Joe Biden never disrespected the courts, never ignored the courts, never said the courts have no jurisdiction over what he is doing. He did try to go around and do something different than what the court said that he couldn't do, especially on student loans. But we don't see Trump or Musk or anyone else in the administration today saying that they respect the courts and that they will do whatever the courts say.

And so that is going to be a big indication of what's coming up in the next couple of weeks.

REID: Maria, he did take shots at the special counsel and the cases against his son, one of which was a plea deal, the other which was a conviction by a jury of his peers.

All right. Katie and Maria, thank you both for joining us.

CARDONA: Thanks, Paula.

FROST: Thanks, Paula.

REID: And new developments this evening after a deadly storm battered large parts of the eastern U.S. At least nine people have been killed, with that number expected to rise. Kentucky bore the brunt of the storm with at least eight deaths in the state. Emergency crews are continuing to search flooded areas tonight.

And this new video from Fredericksburg, Indiana, shows homes nearly submerged due to major flooding there.

CNN's Danny Freeman joins us from Salem, Virginia, in the western part of the state. Danny, it's pretty dark. I can no longer see the water behind you, but

what's going on there on the ground?

DANNY FREEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, you can trust me that the Roanoke River here right beside me in Salem, Virginia, is still rushing very intensely. It's still high, and it's still flooded in this area. But I want to show you just a little bit of the progress that's been made.

[18:15:02]

If you can see here, we have here on this tree right here and the branches, some of the areas where the debris would have caught, that's pretty high. That's just about waist level for me. And you can see in this area the debris on the ground, just the remnants of what the flooding in this part of the commonwealth looked like.

But as you noted, not only in Kentucky but in other parts of here in Virginia, the flooding was very intense. We got word from Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin just a little while ago that he has submitted a request for an expedited major disaster declaration. And it's for a couple of different reasons. One, because he said at the peak of the flooding here in Virginia, there were over 200,000 customers who did not have power.

There were 150 swift water rescues just today, on this Sunday, and then there was also two communities in the western part of the commonwealth, a little bit west of where we are, that saw truly catastrophic and historic flooding. And the governor of Virginia really emphasized that part of the state here that was impacted so much, a lot of them are still recovering from the after effects of Hurricane Helene as well. So that's kind of the situation here on the ground in Virginia.

You mentioned Kentucky as well. Eight people at this point confirmed dead by the Governor Andy Beshear. Everyone, though, still emphasizing it's cold. The waters are still high in some areas, so do not go out in some of these impacted spots if you don't have to -- Paula.

REID: All right, Danny. Thank you.

And still ahead, three years into Russia's war in Ukraine, what's the long game for Russia? We'll talk about what the war's end could bring, not only for Ukraine, but for the whole of Europe and the world.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:21:23]

REID: We are nearing the third anniversary of Russia's full blown invasion of Ukraine. And as the U.S. prepares to begin negotiations with Russia to end the war, the United Nations describes the conflict in Ukraine as, quote, "a bleak human rights situation" with nearly six million people living under Russian occupation. But experts worry the threat of Russian aggression could go far beyond

Ukraine's borders. This week, the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center released a new documentary on that very issue. Here's a quick look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As war continues to rage in nearby Ukraine, destabilizing the entire region.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because we could be next.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We could be next.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All of us are thinking that what happens next? Can we be the next target?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

REID: Joining me now is one of the producers of that documentary, Kevin Tibbles. He's an Emmy Award winning, former correspondent for NBC News.

Thank you for joining us. Before we get to the documentary, I want to get your take on the latest developments in Europe with top Trump officials sent to meet with Russian officials in Saudi Arabia. What do you expect to play out here?

Kevin TIBBLES, FORMER NBC NETWORK NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Well, thank you very much for having me, Paula. I mean the first thing I think we need to discuss is what is exactly going to be on the table in Saudi Arabia and whether or not all of the players, at least the players who believe that they should be in the game, are going to be there. And that is Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the people of Ukraine.

The people who live in the region, and that includes the Baltic States, Finland, Sweden, all of Russia's neighbors, are now starting to be a little bit concerned as to the direction that these talks, these peace talks or whatever you want to describe them as are going to be going in because up until this point they have thought that they would be at the table.

Now we are starting to understand or starting to hear that perhaps just the United States and the Russians are going to be there, which would be seen as a bit of a betrayal by the people of Ukraine, by Ukraine's neighbors, by Russia's neighbors, and by Europe as a whole.

REID: Now, I want to talk about the documentary. That clip that we just showed, it had several European officials saying we could be next. That's a chilling statement. So what stood out to you when you were talking to those officials? What was the overall atmosphere when you were there?

TIBBLES: Well, in the time that we spent in that region of the world, we are -- we're speaking with military and governmental officials within Sweden and Finland. Of course, Sweden being the latest member of Europe to join NATO. Finland being the second latest member to join NATO. Both of them had been neutral, nonaligned countries up until the invasion of Ukraine by Vladimir Putin and Russia.

They saw and we're concerned enough to turn their sort of -- the way they looked at the world. They turned it around and asked and became members of NATO after Turkey allowed them to come in late. But the bottom line here is that we were also spending a lot of time in Estonia. Now, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, the three Baltic countries, are an interesting sort of specimen to look at because they were conquered during the Second World War by the Soviets.

[18:25:00]

A vast amount of the population was either murdered or deported, sent to labor camps in Siberia to labor for the Soviets. And they only regained their freedom after the fall of the Iron Curtain. So these countries are extremely concerned. They, too, are all members of NATO. And under NATO, under NATO, you know, in Section Five of NATO, they -- it is stipulated that if one member of NATO is attacked, all other members of NATO will come to their defense.

But from what we've been hearing politically in the last few weeks is that one country in particular, the United States, one country in particular, the United States, is starting to make noises about whether or not they're going to sort of stand up with their European neighbors with NATO. And that is of tremendous concern with the people who live over there.

REID: Certainly. Now, one of the interesting issues you explore in the film is that the underwater cables were damaged while you were filming on a Swedish ship. Can you explain what happened here and how it impacted your filming process?

TIBBLES: Well, it is all being described as hybrid warfare, which really is nothing new because sabotage has existed since the beginning of time. But what is happening is that it has become very sophisticated. We in the United States, in North America, are very, very familiar with cyberattacks, sometimes even targeting, you know, public works departments, water works, these sorts of things.

Well, in Europe it is a daily occurrence. And with Russia's neighbors, it is a 24-hour a day occurrence. Speaking with airport officials, for example, in Estonia, where their signals are being jammed all the time, making it difficult for planes to land at the airport. Obviously, these are safety, safety concerns. There are also more rudimentary situations taking place where cars are being sort of vandalized and attacked. Buildings are being attacked.

And it all seems to be set towards these (INAUDIBLE) public's confidence. That's what's happening with these ships that are crossing the Baltic Sea, dragging their anchors, cutting cables. We even saw the issue of gas pipelines being affected going to Germany. These things are happening when these ships cross over and all of a sudden finally, after it's happened numerous times as societies become destabilized, the authorities are now finally starting to step in and starting to board some of these ships.

And what they're finding out is that these ships are partially involved with the Russian shadow fleet, which has been illegally transporting oil all over the place while the sanctions were going on, going under the table, sometime (INAUDIBLE) Chinese, sometimes, as it was accused in the documentary we did for the Atlantic Council, the Chinese ship had a Russian crew. Sometimes they say these ships have a sophisticated spy gear on them.

So there is all sorts of destabilization going on at the various borders, for example, with Finland. Finland cut off the borders with Russia because Russia was taking migrants and pushing them across the border into Finland and Estonia, trying to overwhelm the immigration system and trying to sort of once again destabilize the societies.

That is what all of Europe is concerned about. And that is why they're going to be looking at these meetings in Saudi Arabia and why, frankly, they're looking to the United States. If I may add, the foreign minister of Finland or of Estonia said to us that, you know, this is Donald Trump's Churchill moment. It's up to him to stop this aggression and perhaps stop another war in Europe, which, of course, we have seen two world wars that came out of Europe. Nobody wants to see another one. They are looking to Donald Trump to show some leadership.

REID: Well, Kevin Tibbles, thank you so much for your time.

And still ahead, the ongoing measles outbreak in the west Texas doubling in size and getting worse. We'll have more on the spread and why it's happening.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:34:06]

REID: A health crisis is spreading in west Texas, where officials are struggling to contain a measles outbreak. Cases have doubled to 48 in the last week. The majority of those cases involve children 5 to 17 years old. The state's health department says all the cases are among people who are either unvaccinated or whose vaccination status is unknown. Texas health officials expect more cases to come.

CNN's Julia Vargas Jones joins us now.

Julia, what more do you know about this outbreak?

JULIA VARGAS JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Paula, we know that this is centered around Gaines County in west Texas, but has now spread to neighboring counties as well. Wayne, Terry and Yoakum Counties.

The vaccination rates in this region are lower than the recommended threshold, which is worrying officials, but they are putting measures into place to help curb this. They're extending hours and vaccination clinics are now open seven days a week.

[18:35:02] And this week, at least 80 people, new people were vaccinated with that MMR, the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine. The difficulty here is that for those children, for the children of population, 1 in 5 kindergartners in Gaines County does not have that MMR vaccine. That is about 18 percent exemption rate. That is the highest rate in the state of Texas, according to the Texas Department of Health.

And they're worried that these measures might not be enough to curb the spread of the virus. Again, measles is a very contagious illness. It spreads through coughing and sneezing. It can cause fever, rashes, in severe cases it can lead to blindness, pneumonia, swelling of the brain as well. It can be deadly. And deaths mostly occur in that unvaccinated population, Paula, especially in children under 5 years old.

Another concern, this virus now is spreading into New Mexico, just across the border in Lea County, now also a state of emergency declared by authorities there after a third case. Three cases total were diagnosed this week, including one unvaccinated teenager in that county.

Now measles cases already in six different states this year alone and authorities nationwide, Paula, are asking parents to make sure that their kids are vaccinated, check their vaccination cards, and ensure that they have both doses so they're properly protected and they can curb the spread of this virus.

REID: Julia Vargas Jones, thank you.

And still ahead, is Elon Musk's role in the Trump administration causing rifts? That's next, live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:41:30]

REID: As President Trump and his billionaire special government employee Elon Musk plow forward with plans to gut the federal government, Trump is now responding to critics who say it's Musk who's actually in control. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Actually Elon called me. He said, you know, they're trying to drive us apart. I said, absolutely. You know, they said, we have breaking news. Donald Trump has ceded control of the presidency to Elon Musk. President Musk will be attending a cabinet meeting tonight at 8:00. And I say it's just so obvious. They're so bad at it. I used to think they were good at it. They're actually bad at it because if they were good at it, I'd never be president.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

REID: Joining us now is Victoria Elliott, power and platforms reporter for Wired, who covers Elon Musk extensively. Victoria, you have been doing incredible reporting on this really

extraordinary power that Musk has been given. No private citizen before him has had this kind of power. After watching that interview clip, do you see maybe a rift brewing between the president and Musk?

VICTORIA ELLIOTT, POWER AND PLATFORMS REPORTER, WIRED: You know, I think that's always really hard to tell. I will say that the week before last, our freelancer for Wired, Jake Lahut, reported that a lot of people in the president's inner circle were starting to feel uncomfortable with the level of power that Musk and DOGE had within the administration and the way that they were sort of very clearly seemed to be acting quite independently.

But, you know, that hasn't necessarily come out in the president's one on one interactions with Musk. You know, whenever he's asked about it, he sort of said Musk wouldn't be doing this if he didn't have my blessing, if he didn't have my permission. Though, you know, at the time, I think this was maybe a week or so ago, he said he hadn't met the people who were part of DOGE necessarily. You know, he has said you would know if it didn't have my approval.

Now, how much he's actually keyed in to what DOGE is doing, how much, you know, Musk is sharing with him, or DOGE is sharing with him and his staff consistently, we don't know.

REID: This week, of course, we saw that unprecedented press conference inside the Oval Office. Musk spoke extensively to reporters. Do you think that Trump is going to have him do more of that, to sort of answer some of these controversies about DOGE?

ELLIOTT: I mean, I think obviously having the two of them appear as a united front of like really sort of allows Trump and Musk to sort of say, like, this has presidential backing. Trump is in the loop. Trump knows what's going on here. And like the reality is, I think, you know, what DOGE is doing is somewhat more technical than maybe what other people in the administration would know about.

And so in terms of the kinds of systems they're accessing, the data that they have access to, what they're doing with that, that might actually be something that Musk is more situated to answer. Whether or not we're actually going to get any transparency on that still remains unclear. DOGE has been really, really opaque, both with the public and with federal workers themselves.

REID: Yes, Musk had a mixed week in court. One judge, though, did rule his government efficiency team can keep access to records at agencies like the Labor Department. But then another judge ruled that they could not, for now, have access to documents at the Treasury Department. But you have new reporting about that DOGE access inside Treasury. What are you learning?

[18:45:06]

ELLIOTT: Well, so I think what's particularly interesting at Treasury right now is, you know, we know that there was controversy over the access of Marco Elez, one of the young engineers, who was -- appeared to have read and write access to the Treasury code, and particularly on its payment systems. And that is incredibly concerning because not only does that, you know, account for trillions and trillions of dollars that get paid out every year. It's also, you know, again, even if there was no malintent happening going into some of this code, which is, you know, constructed really carefully by people who are experts and messing around with it could have tons and tons of unintended consequences.

But then also the fact that earlier this week, the Bureau of Fiscal Services received an announcement that Tom Krause, who is, you know, sort of the DOGE appointee for Treasury, will be taking on some of the -- taking on the duties of the assistant fiscal secretary, you know, that's concerning because he appears to be maintaining his job as CEO of a cloud software company.

And so I think this raises a lot of questions more broadly about, you know, the conflict of interest that many of these people that are part of DOGE are likely to have, you know, especially if they're coming in as special government employees, they're not going to be permanent government employees, and their long term plans are probably more aligned with the private sector. And there needs to be a lot of questions about the kind of data about their competitors, about markets that they're going to be able to have access to, that no one else will have.

REID: Victoria Elliott, thank you for your dogged reporting.

We'll have more news ahead. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:51:34]

REID: Happening tonight in San Francisco, the NBA All-Star Game. Fans will get a little something new this year. For the first time ever the All-Star Game is going to be a mini tournament. The four teams participating will compete for a prize pool of $1.8 million.

Andy Scholes joins us now live.

Looks like you made it down to the court. Tell us what's the latest there?

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Yes. Yes, Paula. The excitement is building here for this year's All-Star Game. We got Anthony Edwards, Damian Lillard. They're out there warming up on the court. And the whole new format for this year's game. Instead of the traditional East versus West, it's going to be a mini-tournament two semifinals and a finals. All the All-Stars they were drafted on to three different teams by Shaq, Kenny and Charles. And they're going to compete against the winner from Friday's rising stars game.

And there's going to be no clock. They're going to be playing to a target score of 40. So you get a game winner in every single one of these games, which should be a lot of fun. Now the Cavs' Darius Garland, he's making his second all-star appearance. And the Cavs the only team with three all stars in this game. And I caught up with Darius a little earlier and asked him if he's excited about this year's first ever All-Star tournament.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DARIUS GARLAND, NBA ALL-STAR: I hope so. I know the rising stars are coming in, trying to go with the OGs and trying to get a win off them. But the OG team have a lot of talent. So I don't know if they going to let the young bucks come in and get a win, but yes, the tournament style is pretty cool. I like it, it's giving a chance for, like I said, the rising stars to be part of All-Star weekend and hopefully bring some excitement for sure.

SCHOLES: Now you and Evan are on Kenny's team and you're playing Donovan, who's on Chuck's team. Any friendly wagers? Are you guys going to go at each other?

GARLAND: Oh, we definitely go at each other for a little bit. But no friendly wagers or anything like that. Can't really talk about that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: Yes, it should be lots of fun. So Kenny's team is playing Chuck's team to start, and then Shaq's OGs taking on the winner from that rising stars game. Kicks off at 8:00 p.m. Eastern. And this is going to be the last All-Star weekend on TNT, so it should be lots of fun to watch.

Now, there was already tons of excitement right here on this court last night for All-Star Saturday. The basket right behind me is where Mac McClung just defied gravity. Jumping over a car for his very first dunk. McClung was just incredible. The entire performance. He got a perfect score of 50 in every single one of his dunks, and he nailed it the first time he tried it on every single one.

I caught up with Mac after he won back to back to back dunk contests. The first player to ever do it, and I asked him, how does it feel to hear that he's the first player to ever accomplish that feat.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAC MCCLUNG, GUARD, OSCEOLA MAGIC: I feel like an impostor, man. I don't know, just blessed. I mean, like I was saying, this doesn't happen without all the help of my friends. People who let me use their cars to try to jump over them, man. Like, I just had a lot of help from Chuck and everybody. Like, it genuinely doesn't happen without standing on a lot of people's shoulders. And I'm -- this is such an honor for me.

SCHOLES: Are you now the greatest dunker of all time?

MCCLUNG: That's not for me to say at all. I'm just happy to be here, man. And however this story goes, I don't know. It's mine, and I'll embrace it.

SCHOLES: All right, you got my vote. MCCLUNG: I appreciate you, man.

SCHOLES: Congrats. Congrats.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: It certainly was an epic performance from Mac McClung last night here on this court.

[18:55:03]

Paula, let's just hope we get some more excitement here for the first ever All-Star mini tournament. It's going to tip off in just over an hour.

REID: There appears to be no shortage of excitement there in San Francisco. We'll check back in with you later. Thank you, Andy Scholes.

And "HAVE I GOT NEWS FOR YOU" is back for a second season. Comic trio Roy Wood, Jr., Amber Ruffin and Michael Ian Black are back with a humorous take on the week's biggest news. You can stream it now on CNN Max.

More news ahead. We'll be right back.

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