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Judge Denies Dem Efforts to Block DOGE Data Access; Job Cuts at the Defense Department; Trump and Musk Praising Each Other; New Reporting on WH on Feud with Associated Press; KFC Moves Headquarters Out of Kentucky. Aired 10:30-11a ET
Aired February 19, 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]
PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: And it's this executive order that President Trump signed to claim presidential power over independent government agencies, notably agencies that were created by Congress to not come under a president's control. This is certain to face legal challenges, if not already. What do you think? Is this legal?
ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Oh, absolutely certain to face legal challenges. And it's important for certainly for viewers to understand when we speak about independent agencies, we are speaking about ones that were created by Congress to exist outside largely of the executive branch.
So, an independent agency, the Securities and Exchange Commission is an independent agency, the Federal Communications Commission, Federal Trade Commission, Congress set them up to sort of be outside the reach of the White House, outside of the day-to-day management of the president and his cabinet and so on. This executive order seeks to exert more presidential control over those agencies.
You can bet that today or tomorrow or if not right now somebody is filing a lawsuit challenging this as a violation of the separation of powers, that the president is stepping into what Congress has asked for. Congress passed these laws creating these agencies and the White House has sort of gummed that up a little bit. So, yes, there will absolutely be suits over this one and who knows how they're going to come out.
BROWN: Elliot Williams, who knows? That's the phrase, right? I mean, we're all on that point. Who knows? We'll see. Thank you so much.
Coming up, more federal job cuts on the horizon, this time at the Department of Defense. Who could be affected? Up next?
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[10:35:00]
BROWN: Another government agency could soon be cutting a significant part of its workforce. Officials tell CNN the Defense Department is revealing lists of civilian probationary employees for possible termination. Those firings are set to come as early as this week. Joining us now is CNN national security correspondent, if I could just talk, Natasha Bertrand. Natasha, where are the cuts expected to happen?
NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: All across the Pentagon, that is the general sentiment right now. DOGE is now inside the Pentagon working with senior officials to try to get lists, essentially, of all probationary employees across the entire Defense Department, those employees who have been on the job for about a year or less and therefore have less protections than other employees who have been there longer, for possible termination. And that could happen as soon as the end of this week.
We could see large swaths of these pro probationary employees, civilian employees we should note, be fired across the Pentagon. We were told that these lists of these probationary employees were actually due to DOGE and to the Office of Personnel Management last night. And so, they are being reviewed right now.
And we should note that, you know, the Pentagon has over 950,000 civilian employees. Of course, not all of them are probationary. But still, this is expected to potentially impact tens of thousands of these civilian employees across the Pentagon. Military -- active-duty military personnel are currently exempt from that.
But still, civilian employees, they do serve very critical national security roles in many instances, and therefore, we're told that senior defense officials are trying to go through these lists and determine who should be exempt from these terminations because they perform critical functions, things like cybersecurity, intelligence, military operations, foreign military sales, all of these roles that these employees serve critical national security functions in.
And we've already seen, of course, that the federal government has had to rescind the terminations of many national security critical employees across the administration because they have done away with them in a way that could jeopardize U.S. national security, Pam.
BROWN: All right. Natasha Bertrand, thank you so much for bringing us the latest there. And coming up, we have some new reporting on the White House feud with the Associated Press, why the gulf between them is growing bigger, as the news outlet is still barred from the Oval Office and Air Force One. That's next.
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[10:40:00]
BROWN: President Trump and Elon Musk sharing a look into the relationship in a new joint interview with Fox News. The president and his billionaire adviser praised each other as they sat side by side.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: You write a beautiful executive and you sign it and you assume it's going to be done, but it's not. What he does is he takes it and with his hundred geniuses, he's got some very brilliant young people working for him that dress much worse than him actually.
ELON MUSK, SPECIAL U.S. GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEE: Yes, they do.
TRUMP: They dress in just t-shirts. You wouldn't know they have 180.
SEAN HANNITY, HOST, FOX NEWS: Wait a minute. So, he's your tech support?
TRUMP: No, no. He is. He is.
MUSK: I actually am tech support.
TRUMP: But he's much more than that. Yes.
MUSK: I literally am tech support though. But that's --
TRUMP: But he gets it done. He's a leader.
MUSK: Yes.
TRUMP: He really is. He gets it done.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: The joint interview comes amid a legal battle to state Democrats and a win for Musk and DOGE. A federal judge rejected a request from multiple blue states to temporarily cut off DOGE's access to federal data as Musk and his team fire thousands of employees.
Brian Stelter joins us now. Brian, what stood out to you from the Trump-Musk interview? I mean, looking at it, you'd think, hey, they're good buds.
BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA ANALYST: What a performance. Yes. Right, what a show for the cameras. That's exactly what it was. There have been people looking for months for signs of friction between these two men. And this performance was intended to show there's no friction at all. They complete each other's sentences for goodness' sake. And Trump has Musk doing exactly what Trump wants him to do.
Remember, when Musk was initially appointed to co-chair DOGE back in November, when he was brought on board for the Department of Government Efficiency, we all wondered what that job was going to be. It's now becoming more clear. It's not just about government efficiency, Musk is the enforcer. That is how he portrays himself. He says one of the biggest functions of the DOGE team is to, quote, "make sure that the presidential executive orders are actually carried out."
So, Musk is going agency by agency, yes, looking for cuts. But also, just enforcing what Trump has already said he's going to do. It's a really interesting dynamic.
[10:45:00]
BROWN: Especially as the White House says that Elon Musk is not the administrator of DOGE. Still a mystery about who is.
STELTER: Right, right.
BROWN: So, I want to turn now to the standoff between the White House and the Associated Press. Trump has barred the AP from presidential events now for its refusal to use the Gulf of America instead of the Gulf of Mexico. Here's what Trump said about this yesterday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: The Associated Press just refuses to go with what the law is and what is taking place. It's called the Gulf of America now. It's not called the Gulf of Mexico any longer.
But I just say that we're going to keep them out until such time as they agree that it's the Gulf of America. They're doing us no favors, and I guess I'm not doing them any favors. That's the way life works.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: In a statement, an AP spokesperson says, quote, "This is about the government telling the public and press that what words to use and retaliating if they do not follow government orders."
So, you have some new reporting, Brian, on how this is resonating.
STELTER: Yes, Trump is embracing the role of word police. You know, he is trying to enforce the idea that the Gulf of America is the only acceptable name. The AP views it differently. The AP has clients and customers around the world, many of whom recognize it as the Gulf of Mexico. So, the AP is not going to back down here. And as a result, this is a stalemate that's now going into a second week.
The AP, I'm told by editors and others, is kind of frustrating, feeling kind of alone on this matter because the Trump administration has targeted the AP and not other news outlets. But there is a behind the scenes effort to try to get the AP off the band list and back into the Oval Office, back into Air Force One, for example. The White House Correspondents Association has been working behind the scenes, galvanizing support from dozens of other news outlets basically to express a solidarity with the AP, and it's all happening in secret, behind the scenes. There's been no public display of that kind of solidarity.
So, basically the AP is trying to get the Trump White House to come to the table, have some sort of conversation, try to get back, things back to normal. But let's be clear, right, the Trump White House wants this fight. Trump wants this. You could hear it in his voice yesterday. He is embracing this battle. And it's not just going to end with what the name of the Gulf of Mexico is, it's not going to end at the Gulf. This is a broader battle by Trump to define the terms of the relationship with the press. And I suspect, Pamela, we're going to be talking about this for some time to come because it's not going to end with the Gulf of Mexico.
BROWN: No. Well, and his base loves it, right? Brian Stelter, thank you. Coming up, it's the K in KFC, but the colonel's chicken is moving its headquarters out of my home State of Kentucky. What's behind this move? We're going to talk about it up next.
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[10:50:00]
BROWN: Say it ain't so. KFC is leaving Kentucky. Parent company Yum! Brands says that they are moving their corporate headquarters to Texas. CNN's Vanessa Yurkevich joins us now. Vanessa, Texas fried chicken just doesn't sound as good.
VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: I know. I just want to say I'm so sorry for your loss, Pam, but this is not personal.
BROWN: It is a loss.
YURKEVICH: This is not personal. Of course, Yum! Brands saying that they're doing this for consolidation purposes. Yum! Brands, which owns KFC, as you mentioned, is moving the headquarters to Texas. to be with its sister company Pizza Hut. So, they're going to have two headquarters now. They're going to have their Texas headquarters, and then they're going to have a headquarters in California, which houses Taco Bell and Habit Burger.
But as you mentioned, the company is so synonymous with Kentucky. It was founded there. It's been around for a hundred years, nearly a hundred years, I don't want to get ahead of myself. But the governor of Kentucky, Andy Beshear, he's not happy either. This is what he's said about the move. He said, quote, "I am disappointed by this decision and believe the company's founder would be, too. The company's name starts with Kentucky and it has marketed our state's heritage and culture in the sale of its product."
Now, the company says this is going to affect about 190 employees, 100 of which will presumably be moving to Texas if they want to keep their positions, and 90 who are remote. The company says that they are going to open a flagship restaurant in Kentucky.
But this is not the first major corporation to make a move like this to Texas. Just look at some of the others that have also moved their headquarters to Texas in recent years. You have Chevron, Tesla, SpaceX, Hewlett-Packard. And we know that KFC has reported recently that in-store sales are down about 5 percent as they've been competing with other brands like Popeyes. So, some of those companies that I just mentioned, they say that they've moved to Texas for better tax breaks and more business-friendly regulations.
While KFC, Pam, has not said that's the reason for the move, it certainly is financial incentive to move to Texas. But I know Kentuckians like yourself are simply not pleased with this decision.
BROWN: I have to agree with Governor Beshear that the founder would be very disappointed in this move. But, hey, that's business, right?
YURKEVICH: That's business.
BROWN: Like you said, it's not personal. Vanessa Yurkevich, thank you so much. And we're going to have more news after a short break. But first, the latest Chasing Life with Dr. Sanjay Gupta.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, there. I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta, host of CNN's Chasing Life podcast.
You've probably heard that dark chocolate is full of antioxidants. That's good. But now, a recent study says it might also contain something else, which are heavy metals, specifically, moderate to high levels of cadmium and lead. As you might know, these are toxins that are linked to cancer, certain chronic diseases, reproductive issues.
Now, it doesn't mean you have to completely avoid it, but there are some sensible guidelines. A one-ounce portion, three to four days a week for adults. Risks could be higher for children, as well as for pregnant and medically compromised people, such as people with kidney disease, for example.
[10:55:00]
So, to lower your exposure, consumer reports suggest that alternating darkened milk chocolate could work, trying chocolate with lower cacao percentages, and most importantly, just being mindful of your total chocolate consumption. Pay attention to that, for the metals and also the calories.
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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