Draft Episode for Mar 10, 2025
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It is Monday, March 10th. Welcome back from the weekend. Here's what's happening right now on CNN This Morning. My government will keep our tariffs on until the Americans show us respect. Canada's just-chosen successor to Justin Trudeau is already standing up to President Trump. Can he stop the trade war? Plus this. Things were popping. Part of the plane was falling.

A plane plunges into a parking lot in another fiery crash are recent cuts to the FAA making it riskier to fly. Then this: We'll see if we can get something done. Like to get something done. The U.S. and Ukraine gear up for talks to end Russia's war. What it will take to repair this between Washington and Kyiv. And later, the federal agency using polygraphs on its employees. What are the lie detector tests looking for?

6 a.m. here on the East Coast. Here's a live look at the Capitol where lawmakers will be coming this week to talk about a potential government shutdown. Good morning, everybody. I'm Adi Cornish. I want to thank you for waking up with me.

Coming in hot, Canada's incoming Prime Minister vows to fight back against President Trump's threats of a trade war. On Sunday, Canada's Liberal Party elected Mark Carney to take over as party leader from Justin Trudeau. Now, Carney will eventually succeed Trudeau as Prime Minister.

Carney is actually the former top banker for both the UK and Canada. He says he's going to keep Trudeau's retaliatory tariffs on US products until "the Americans show us some respect." We didn't ask for this fight. The Canadians are always ready when someone else drops the gloves. So the Americans, they should make no mistake in trade as in hockey, Canada will win.

While Canada's eventual new prime minister is vowing to win a trade war with the U.S., Trump administration officials argue that the tariffs are actually fighting a drug war. They say fentanyl is the reason for the tariffs.

We launched a drug war, not a trade war, and it was part of a negotiation to get Canada and Mexico to stop shipping fentanyl across our borders. If fentanyl ends, I think these will come off. But if fentanyl does not end or he's uncertain about it, they will stay this way until he is comfortable. You're saying this really is about fentanyl? It really is about fentanyl. It really is.

It's worth noting that in the last fiscal year, U.S. border authorities have taken a total of 43 pounds of fentanyl at the Canadian border. That's less than 1% of all fentanyl seized at U.S. borders. Joining me now to talk about all this, Alex Thompson, CNN political analyst and national political reporter at Axios. Ashley Allison, CNN political commentator and former director of the Biden-Harris campaign. And Doug High, Republican strategist. Thank you all. Welcome to the group chat.

I'm going to start with Alex. I love the weekends because when you come in, you hear everybody's talking points from Sunday, one after another. What does it mean that they're moving this conversation in this direction? Well, some of this is about legal justification for it because... Ooh, say that again. Legal justification? Yes, because in order to...

for Trump to have the power to unilaterally do these sort of wide tariffs. You have to have sort of a national security or a security rationale for it. That is why they keep talking. I mean, I think they do have a real policy agenda here, but some of it also is the legal justification. Okay, Doug, what I'm hearing is this is not cosmetic. I'm coming to you first. Ashley, I'm not forgetting you, but I'm coming to you first because obviously your experience at the RNC, you're a guy who knows about message and how to talk about something publicly. So when you see...

flooding the zone with drug war not trade war what do you hear it tells you there's been pushback and they're trying to find new ways to talk about it and to alex's point it's legal it's also political that's why we saw the three cabinet members all saying the exact not sort of things the exact same words we're going to hear fentanyl more and more regardless of what those numbers are clearly fentanyl is coming in in massive numbers from the mexican border i just crossed

the border, did the land crossing over the summer. And you can see just when you're just 10 feet over on the Mexico side or 100 yards on the Mexico side, you can see these kinds of products being sold. That's just not true in Canada. But the political argument is going to remain because they have to make the political argument

to make a legal argument. - And to be clear, there are fentanyl labs in Canada. That is not, we're not saying they don't exist. We're saying we're not talking about the organized industry that you might see coming out of Mexico. Ashley, I remember the Biden-Harris folks during the term really struggling to talk about the border in a way that connected with people saying we're doing something. So how are you thinking about this now? You know what I mean? What is the, not counter, but what is the argument that could be taken advantage of in this moment?

Well, I think if you consider the Canadian border and the Mexican border, those are, I just feel like two different stories to be told. The reason why Republicans right now are using fentanyl as a distraction almost to what is happening with the tariffs on is because you seem insensitive if you say fentanyl is not an issue when we know that people die.

from drug overdoses in this country. So we're smart enough as Americans to bifurcate the issue of tariffs and the need to have policies in place and protect people from overdosing from fentanyl. So I would encourage the Democrats not to take the bait here. - Okay. - And counter and be compassionate to folks

who are experiencing drug crises in their communities while also saying we want eggs to be cheaper. Okay, so we are not just nerds into tariffs. I mean, we are, but we're not just nerds into tariffs. I want to play for you something that the president said over the weekend about whether or not the U.S. should expect a recession. But are you expecting a recession this year?

I hate to predict things like that. There is a period of transition because what we're doing is very big. We're bringing wealth back to America. That's a big thing. And there are always periods of... it takes a little time. It takes a little time. But I think it should be great for us. Jump ball on great for us or a period of transition? Which phrase strikes your fancy?

Well, this was a case in which the talking points were not all in unison because you had Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Meet the Press predicting there would not be a recession. And so they were not... Like, categorically, it'll be tape played back to you later if it turns out the other way. Yeah, but they've all sort of said that they expect the tariffs to be disruptive.

But this is also what they ran on. And they believe that, you know, given the last 30 years of what they call like sort of the hollowing out of the industrial base, that this is about trying to get back to that or address that. I think they ran on tariffs, but I don't think they ran on a bit of a disturbance. I think that, you know, and so I know they didn't because if they would have, people would have.

- And so when people like myself and other folks were saying, watch out cats, like, you know, this might not land the way you expect it to land. We were told that we didn't know anything about economic policy. - Yeah, but now I wanted to say watch out cats right below your name. I love that. The group chat is just getting started. You guys, thanks so much. Please stick around. We're gonna talk more coming up on CNN this morning. Congress gets ready for a big fight

Just to pass the budget, Democratic Congresswoman Hillary Shultz joins me to discuss. And wind-driven fires spread in New York. What will people there face today? And as the U.S. grapples with another plane crash, are government buyouts and staffing shortages creating dangerous gaps in air safety? The fact that we have a plane crash where everybody survives and nobody on the ground is hurt is a wonderful thing.

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It's 12 minutes past the hour and here's your morning roundup. Some of the stories you need to get your day going. Winds are easing. Firefighters are now getting control of four wind driven brush fires on New York's Long Island. It took 600 firefighters more than 80 departments to get the upper hand. Winds were nearly calm overnight. They're expected to pick up slightly today but will remain light this week.

And TikTok's deadline quickly approaching just one month away. And President Trump says his administration is talking with some buyers about a potential deal. There could be. We're dealing with four different groups and a lot of people want it and it's up to me. So there could be. A new law required TikTok's China-based owners to sell the app or it could be banned in the U.S. President Trump actually delayed that ban until April 5th.

And a quarterback who didn't even make it to the Super Bowl now has a record-setting contract extension. Josh Allen, the NFL's MVP, reportedly agreed to a deal with the Buffalo Bills worth $330 million. I can't even say that. That's with $250 million guaranteed. That is the largest guaranteed money given to an NFL player ever. And...

You gotta see this. People braving insane winds on New Hampshire's highest point. The winds topped 138 miles per hour at the Mount Washington Observatory. These people, they're basically up there just taking wind readings, but they had to crawl so they wouldn't get knocked over.

Still coming up on CNN This Morning, the FAA has its hands full investigating a number of recent aviation incidents. We'll look at how cuts to the agency could be affecting its workforce. Plus, Congress gets ready for battle. Can they avoid a government shutdown this week? And good morning in the Big Easy in New Orleans. It's currently in the mid-50s.

News of another plane crash this weekend, this time in Pennsylvania. Five people went to the hospital after a small plane crashed into the parking lot of a retirement community. The FAA is investigating as it has a number of aviation incidents in recent weeks. Well, that has nothing to do with the department. That was a small plane.

And that would have happened whether you had a big department or a small department, as you understand. It's just they have space like this. You know, they have times when things happen a little bit more often than normal, and then it goes back and you go many years without having a problem.

Despite those claims, our next guest says President Trump and Elon Musk are actually making matters worse, especially after that deadly midair collision over the Potomac that killed 67 people in January. Isaac Stanley Becker of The Atlantic writes, Trump deepened the FAA's problems by blaming the disaster on diversity programs, a pronouncement that baffled many in the agency's workforce. At least one senior executive decided to quit in disgust.

Meanwhile, the New York Times reports that last week, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy actually confronted Elon Musk. Here they write, quote, "Mr. Duffy said the young staff of Mr. Musk's team was trying to lay off air traffic controllers. What am I supposed to do, Mr. Duffy said? I have multiple plane crashes to deal with now and your people want me to fire air traffic controllers," end quote.

Isaac Stanley Becker joins me now, of course from the Atlantic. I want to talk about your report because first of all you were able to suss out who's being let go or who's just walked out under the Doge cuts. That's right. There are two primary ways that reductions are happening. One is through the offer of early retirement. The other is through the dismissal of probationary employees. And I was able to get my hands on some internal FAA data that shows the degree of interest in that offer of early retirement. More than 1,300 employees responded to that email.

And among those walking out the door include aviation safety technicians, assistants, 125 engineers, 51 ITs. - Which are aeronautical engineers, right? These are the folks that after an incident, they're the ones who start remapping and trying to figure out what happened. - That's even a whole separate category. - Yeah. - Aeronautical information specialists, these are people who

After a weather disaster or an incident, they update the charts and the maps that aviators and air traffic controllers rely on to make sure that people moving planes through the air can do that safely. Now, to be clear, we're talking about staffing because there is some concern that when it came to that accident over the Potomac, it may have been contributed to by understaffing in the control tower. What did you learn about that?

So there was an internal FAA safety report that found that staffing at the air traffic control tower was not normal at the time of that crash. And that's one of the reasons why when there was initial interest in the buyout program among air traffic controllers, that set off such alarms inside the agency. And you saw them move then to exempt those categories of workers from that offer of early retirement. That happened in about a week.

Now, according to what my sources are telling me is that despite that exemption, there are many critical safety roles that are still being sacrificed and safety roles that really provide the backup for the air traffic controllers when they're doing that critical frontline work. - Okay, state of play. Critical shortages, people walking at the door. In the meantime, there's a long running issue, I've covered this for a long time, of antiquated systems.

at the FAA, right? Literally, like the computers, the communications system. I think they still use walkie talkies. Like it is very old. And the person who is cutting the department and who has contracts with the department says, I've got a solution. Elon Musk wants to use his internet satellite network Starlink. Sean Duffy, transportation secretary, had this to say about that.

It's part of a solution. There's some terminals like up in Alaska where it's hard to access fiber wires. It's mountainous. There's some facilities that Starlink can be helpful. But again, we want to make sure we have fiber connected systems in place. And so they can play some part of it, but not all of it.

Americans want to make sure they have the best air traffic control system in the world. We're not there right now, but we can get there if we have the help from the private sector and the Congress gives us the money.

It's one thing to reach to the private sector. It's another thing to have someone who's directly involved in all this process. Tell me, what are the issues here with Elon Musk having his company replace systems? Well, you make such an important point about the aging infrastructure at the agency, and this has been recognized. In 2023, the agency awarded Verizon a $2.4 billion contract to upgrade the communications network.

Elon Musk's team through Doge from his private company SpaceX come in last month and they say this is a problem. Agency officials say we already know this is a problem, we're working on it. But what they want to do is to deploy a solution that relies heavily on Starlink, which is the satellite internet infrastructure that's a subsidiary of SpaceX to deploy these terminals

across the country and there are concerns about this. Yeah, which even Ukraine has used, darling, to some difficulty. It's become somewhat ubiquitous, not just within the country but globally, but the concerns involve not just the potential conflicts of interest in terms of this being a regulated entity before the agency, now standing to profit from its use, but also some cybersecurity concerns that this has not gone through the type of vetting

and threat prevention protocols and review that other types of government contractors have. So let me translate. Anyone could start working there and basically you are now in the U.S. transportation grid, right? Should Starlink become sort of a central part of it? Well, that's the concern of some of the experts I spoke to in terms of, and including experts who are well-placed to make these sort of assessments because they were part of an internal classified

FAA security review last year. So they know from where they speak and they're concerned about the potential for less rigorous processes and less rigorous review. - Isaac Stanley Becker, this is great reporting. Thank you for your time. - Thank you. - Straight ahead on CNN this morning, Secretary of State Marco Rubio traveling to Saudi Arabia right now to kickstart talks with Ukraine. Plus why new Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is making some of her employees take polygraph tests.

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This week on The Assignment with me, Adi Cornish.

The so-called canceled men from Hollywood, media and politics have been welcomed back to the public sphere. And the believe all women approach is no more. Today, I'm talking with two women who have an answer. Former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson and the mother of Me Too, Tarana Burke. We will not get there when we keep making these same kinds of mistakes. Listen to The Assignment with me, Audie Cornish, streaming now on your favorite podcast app.

The Americans want our resources, our water, our land, our country. Think about it. If they succeeded, they would destroy our way of life. Canada's next leader not backing down. Good morning, everyone. I'm Audie Cornish. Thank you for joining me here on CNN This Morning. Here's what's happening right now.

The incoming Canadian leader wasting no time taking on President Trump, Mark Carney, vowing to win the trade war with the U.S. Carney is expected to be sworn in as Prime Minister this week.

And also new tariffs from China on farm products coming from the U.S. this morning. They're now in effect. That includes 15% on chicken, wheat, corn, cotton, and 10% on produce, pork, beef, and other dairy products. This is in response to President Trump raising tariffs on Chinese products.

And Congress returns to Capitol Hill today as House Speaker Mike Johnson looks to avoid a government shutdown. He unveiled a plan that would fund the government through the end of September. But Democrats aren't all on board with that.

Congressional Republicans may be on a collision course with their own constituents as Republicans look to offset potential tax cuts in the federal budget because the likely target could be Medicaid. But Republicans, including President Trump, maintain that they won't cut those programs. You can take today's spending for Medicare, today's spending for Social Security, get rid of fraud, waste and abuse.

and then look at the other programs, and you can balance the budget without cutting any benefits, which you shouldn't, of Medicare or Social Security. This is all doable.

We've been looking at the math here at CNN and our senior political analyst Ron Brownstein has been doing the math as well. You note that dozens of House Republicans represent districts where the share of residents receiving health coverage through Medicaid is greater than the average district nationwide. I want you to talk to me about this calculation. What do you see as being the difficulty?

Yeah, good morning. Well, you know, I covered the 95-96 budget battle between the Republican Congress and Bill Clinton, and then again in 2017 when Republicans tried to repeal the ACA, the Affordable Care Act. And each time, Audie, they didn't really have a lot of hesitation about going after Medicaid because they viewed it primarily as a proletariat.

program for the urban poor. But two things have changed to fundamentally alter that equation. First, the expansion of Medicaid under the ACA in 2012 have brought in millions of working poor adults. And at the same time, over these past 25, 30 years, Republicans in the House have grown to dominate those kind of working poor lower education districts

predominantly white on the edges of metro areas. And as a result, as you know, we are now in a circumstance where dozens of House Republicans represent districts where more people rely on Medicaid than the average district nationwide. And I think even more importantly, many more Republicans than Democrats. I mean, this is the most important, uh, uh,

know information we unearthed in our and our research at cnn.com if you look at the health dashboard that is put together by the nyu school of medicine the barbara wood johnson foundation as we did many more republicans than democrats now represent districts with high incidence of all sorts of serious health problems diabetes obesity high blood pressure blood cancer deaths um breast cancer deaths excuse me um heart heart problems and what that means is that those are the places

that are the most vulnerable if healthcare is revoked. And so there really is no way, looking at these numbers, for Republicans to make major cuts in Medicaid without targeting a lot of their own constituents and voters. You've said that this is a difficulty for Republicans. What do you think that Democrats should be doing? When you were talking about covering '95 and '96, how do you think about their potential strategy?

Well, I actually think this is the cornerstone of their of their strategy for 2025. If you talk to Democrats, you know, they they recognize they are in a hole. I mean, the image of the party is probably in a weaker position than at any point since I think the 1980s, the Reagan and George H.W. Bush election.

era. But if you ask Democrats how they think they are going to come back, you know, there is a debate about, you know, within the party, do you fight on every front or do you focus on the economic issues? And I think most Democrats believe their best chance of kind of getting a second look from the public in 2025 is this debate over the budget. You know, this is the first time since that 1995-96 budget when Republicans are explicitly putting two things together in the same budget plans, tax

cuts that are aimed primarily at the rich and cuts in program and health care programs, particularly Medicaid, that benefit the middle and working class. I mean, if you look at their tax cuts since then, they've been sugar only. They've kept the spinach far away from it. But here, Democrats, I think, feel they can make the explicit linkage because the budget will make the explicit linkage to the argument that Republicans will be cutting Medicaid and

to fund tax cuts for the wealthy and i think if you ask them as i said how they think they're going to come back they're probably putting more chips on that on that number than anything else

That's CNN senior political analyst Ron Brownstein. Right now we want to move on to a little international news because the Secretary of State Marco Rubio is actually heading to Saudi Arabia. That's where he's going to meet with his Ukrainian counterpoints to talk about ending Russia's war on Ukraine. Now, according to Reuters, the U.S. will try to determine whether Ukraine is willing to make material concessions to Russia to make that happen.

It was just more than a week ago that Ukraine's president left the White House after this spat with President Trump. You're not winning this. Things coming up, as you know, in Saudi Arabia. That's going to include Russia. It'll be Ukraine. We'll see if we can get something done. I'd like to get something done. A lot of people died this week, as you know, in Ukraine. Not only Ukrainians, but Russians. So I think everybody wants to see it get done. We're going to make a lot of progress, I believe, this week.

Ukraine says Russian missiles killed more than two dozen people since Saturday. I want to bring back the chat to talk about this a little because our own Nick Payton Walsh writes in CNN analysis that Trump keeps insisting that Zelensky commits to peace. Do we know what Trump considers peace?

We don't. And neither do the Ukrainians and neither do the Russians. And it's causing a lot of confusion and also a lot of concern in Europe, which, you know, those countries are going to be the most affected by the outcome of this deal.

I heard you nodding. Does that feel like a question to you too? I mean, I know what Russia wants. They want to demilitarize Ukraine. They want no NATO and no one in NATO. They want to expand their sphere of influence. And Ukraine wants to survive as an independent, sovereign state. And in the meantime, I think a lot of Americans are starting to shift their sympathies. Doug, I see you.

Yeah, I've been telling folks for two years now, watch House Republicans on Ukraine, because we were seeing a shift two years ago. That shift has now completely happened. But essentially, with everything that's happening in Ukraine, Ukraine is a staging ground for Eastern Europe. The past three summers, I've spoken at the Polish Economic Forum. You get out of a plane in Poland, people recognize that you're American, they will come to you immediately and tell you how important Ukraine is to them because of what their very recent history is. Ukraine is...

critically important. But this is Poland. This is Moldova. This is Estonia. So many countries are looking at Ukraine and asking very real questions about America right now. You are not going to believe I'm saying this. I'm glad you brought up Poland because of the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk,

had this amazing quote in Politico. I actually really have said this to multiple people. But he says, it's striking, but it's true. Right now, 500 million Europeans are begging 300 million Americans for protection from 140 million Russians who have been underprivileged

unable to overcome 50 million Ukrainians for three years. It sounds like maybe there should be an advantage there, but somehow there is not. How did Democrats talk about this without falling into the Russia, Russia, Russia trap?

Well, a couple of things. One, I think that most Americans are on the majority of Americans don't want a blank check to continue to go to Ukraine. They want some accountability. But I actually think it's interesting having Rubio there now. One of the reasons why he I think he got ninety nine votes in his confirmation hearing wasn't just because he was a former senator. It was because of some of his former positions on Ukraine, on China and and

and the opposition he had to Russia, which is a little counter to how people are experiencing Donald Trump. So when we saw the spat, as you called it, in the Oval Office-- A lot of names to call it. Yeah. A lot of-- a squabble, perhaps? Yeah.

A lot of people were saying, take this from in front of the cameras and go behind closed doors and have some diplomacy and negotiate this out. And it'll be interesting to see how Rubio's posture, if he takes that very aggressive stance that J.D. Vance did, or if he will actually fall into his more traditional diplomatic way of trying to actually resolve and bring peace to the region. And keep an eye on Vance because...

You know, when he was in the Senate... Did you mean to say Vance or Rubio? You know, Vance. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because when he was... Which sort of sums up all the questions around diplomacy right now. Are we looking at J.D. Vance or Marco Rubio? Well, you should look at both because when they were in the Senate, they were on different sides of this issue. Vance was the only Republican senator that not only was, you know, pushing to maybe restrict aid, he wanted to cut off all aid.

He was the only Republican senator that did that. So he's consistent on this. Yes. It has been a long time brewing. But in the meantime, Marco Rubio obviously spoke out about communist regimes, giving his background about Cuba. So you're right. It'll be interesting to watch. I want you guys to stay with me. We have a little bit more to talk about. Still ahead on CNN this morning, a government shutdown potentially looming by the end of this week. Democratic Congresswoman Hillary Shultz is here in the studio to talk about what might happen next on The Hill.

Plus, the world's richest man getting the SNL treatment again this weekend. We're going to have more with the group chat after this. All right, we're actually just days away from a potential government shutdown. Republicans in Congress say they have a plan to prevent that from happening. House Speaker Mike Johnson is putting together what's called a continuing resolution, which would basically just keep the government open through September. The vote is expected Tuesday, and House Democrats, well, they're actually planning to oppose the plan.

Could happen. I mean, the Democrats want that. They want to destroy the country. So I can't tell you, but it could happen. It shouldn't have happened, and it probably won't. I think the CR is going to get passed. As Democratic lawmakers face a shutdown, they're also facing angry voters who say that they actually need to be doing more to stand up to the majority party.

I don't think waiting for 2026 and persuading people and small steps is the way to go. I think we need to do something stronger. I think we need more Al Greens. I need for you to represent how angry we are and our concerns.

Joining me now to talk about all this, Congresswoman Hillary Skuldson of Michigan. Congresswoman, thank you so much for being here. I want to tackle just what we heard from a constituent because I think it gets at an overall divide. You have Democrats in, for some Democrats in Washington, like Senator Fetterman saying this is chaos, I'll never vote for chaos, to burn the village down in order to save it.

He said that's one of our core responsibilities is to keep the government running. And then you have a constituent that says, get up and fight. - Yeah. It is chaos, but it's chaos of Republicans' creation. I think it's so important for the American people to understand and realize we did not have to be here. These funding deadlines have been set for years. We know they're coming. - But there have been so many past government shutdown fights. What lessons have Democrats learned from that?

I mean, we are planning to oppose this CR. The American people want us to fight, and they're going to see us fight. We are using the tools of democracy to defend our democracy. We just need three courageous patriotic Republicans to join us and prevent this disastrous continuing resolution. Because, I mean, Adi, if you have seen what is in this thing, it is so harmful to the American people, cutting Medicaid,

cutting Medicare, threatening Social Security, cutting veterans' benefits, while handing out tax breaks to their billionaire buddies. And Elon Musk is getting brand new contracts every week.

This is not the budget that the American people want. So we'll be opposing it. Let me follow up on that point around Elon Musk. You had Michigan Senator Alyssa Slotkin also talking about concerns about voting to keep the government open while Elon Musk's dose continues to run through the federal government. Here's what she had to say.

The president has been deciding how to spend the money any way he wants, even when we have a budget that both Democrats and Republicans voted on. That's a constitutional issue, right? Everyone knows Congress has the power of the purse. So I just until I see some assurances that whatever we pass next week is going to ensure that the money is spent the way Congress intends. I'm going to I'm going to withhold my vote until I see that.

Is there something else that you, for you, would, you know, have you withhold your vote, other than the fact that you guys are all voting together against it? Well, I mean, and we don't necessarily always all vote together. You know, I am certainly a member who comes from a swing district. I'm the first Democrat in a century to hold this seat. I've voted against my party plenty of times. So how does that complicate things for you? I mean, you must be hearing from constituents who say, look, a hit dog on a holler. That's what I've heard a million times, that, like, the bureaucracy is suffering because it's finally...

getting attacked by for the better right well and and that's not what this is about I've been clear since day one that we need a dramatic change to the way that we fund this government and we need the type of audit that is happening right now but Elon Musk can't unilaterally make the spending decisions it has to come through Congress why because that's where the American people get a say you know Elon Musk is operating doge in

the shadows. We don't know what he's doing. That's why I introduced my CLEAR Act to make sure that DOGE is subject to the same oversight and transparency requirements as other agencies. - So this goes beyond his website with his quote unquote wall of receipts. You're looking for more. - Absolutely. - Do you have the power to given that he's in the executive?

Doe should be subject to the Freedom of Information Act just like any other agency. So journalists and the American people can see what he's up to. What's he doing with this taxpayer data that he has? Are there actually all these billions of dollars in fraud that they're claiming? The only publicly available ledger that they have put out there is full of errors and miscalculations, and they're using that as the basis to take away people's Social Security. We're not going to stand for it.

Any Republican co-sponsors for that? We're still waiting. Still working. It's on the table. Okay, great. Congresswoman Skuldin. Democrat for Michigan, thank you so much for being with us.

It's now 50 minutes past the hour. I want to give you your morning roundup, some of the stories you need to get your day going. Today, the alleged ISIS member accused in the bombing at Kabul's airport in 2021 will be in federal court in Virginia. Prosecutors alleged he scoped out the location for the bombing at the airport's Abbey Gate. That's where 13 Americans were killed.

Police in the Dominican Republic searching for a missing college student from the University of Pittsburgh. Authorities interviewed a man believed to have been with the 20-year-old right before she disappeared. She was last seen on surveillance camera with several people entering the beach at a hotel. And King Charles with a message for the Commonwealth for Commonwealth Day today come together with the Beatles, a famous British group, was left off

his Apple playlist. You may have heard of the Beatles. They're not on the list. It's officially released today, DeMar Commonwealth Day. One song he features, Diana Ross' "Upside Down." ♪ Boy you turn me ♪ - Diana Ross. When I was much younger, it was impossible not to get up and dance when it was played. And I wonder if I can still just manage it. - He also allegedly listens to Kylie Minogue, Michael Bublé's "Haven't Met You Yet," and Bob Marley's "Could You Be Loved?"

And for the second time in two weeks, Mike Myers returns to Saturday Night Live to poke fun at Elon Musk. But for this sketch, Myers called on an old character to mock the world's richest man. But was taking this job a bad idea? A lot of people seem to really hate me. My Tesla stock is crashing and my personal net worth just dropped by $100 billion.

We knew it would happen. Myers dusting off his old Dr. Evil character from the Austin Powers movies. Musk has previously scoffed at the SNL impression, posting that, quote, humor fails when it lies. Myers being back. Anyone into this?

No? No comment. I thought it was... No comment! It was B minus. B minus. Rob, this is a rough crowd. Okay, I want to have one more serious story for you. The Department of Homeland Security trying to identify employees who might be leaking information, and they're trying to use lie detectors to do it.

And you're going to continue these polygraphing of employees? Absolutely. The authorities that I have under the Department of Homeland Security are broad and extensive, and I plan to use every single one of them to make sure that we're following the law, that we are following the procedures in place to keep people safe, and that we're making sure we're following through on what President Trump has promised, that he's going to make America safe again.

Okay, I wanted to ask you guys about this because the Department of Homeland Security is like a major employer, right, when it comes to federal workers. And this is part of how they will be spending their time. Is this a good use of time? This is to see if people are loyal to Donald Trump or not. But leaking is a problem, right? If everyone's busy, like, squealing, then it's a distraction. I'm in favor of leaking. Oh, right. I just want to make it clear.

Lie detector tests aren't even really admissible in the court of law as like determinative factors of people telling the truth and so yet this is again how we're gonna do it. This is all about a fear tactic for people who are not falling in line to Donald Trump to scare folks. It's not about leaks.

It's not about Trump. It would be interesting to see if it actually expands beyond DHS. Because to your point, this is a broader strategy about trying to, I guess, in their minds, tame the federal bureaucracy and make it basically much more politicized, much more in service of Donald Trump. Yeah. It's easy to see this expand to the Small Business Administration, the FCC, and so forth. But as a former leak hunter, good luck with that.

- Okay, leak hunters say more. What's involved, how complicated is it? - Well, it's complicated because you have so many people who could be leaking any detail. When I was at the RNC, we had a consistent leak on a thing that we did not find out who leaked it until after the chairman had left when all the cell phones were turned in and somebody found a voicemail. It took me 12 years to serve that revenge, but I found that out out of pure luck. And I will say it was fantastic to serve that cold dish of revenge.

okay i also want to mention this one other reference of leakers uh... former defense secretary mark esper he was saying the president was the biggest leaker of all it turned colleague against colleague department against the department and was generally bad for the administration and the country out so that's just in your pro league is this from the decision does feel different though from the first one even his relationships with the press so

Does Esper's comment still kind of apply here? - I mean, Trump still is probably the biggest leaker of perhaps this White House. I remember talking to a Trump administration official and when someone like Maggie Haberman would call, they were like, "It's possible he told, "like it's possible that he's the background source." That being said,

And I think the reason why this is a less leaky White House is because everyone is on the same page this time. You had such factionalism in that first White House because not everyone was on the same page. You had sort of like the old Republican Party grafted onto the Steve Bannon-esque wing. George Costanza said it's not a lie if you believe it. Is it a leak if the president does it? That's a totally different way of doing things as opposed to a deputy assistant secretary or something like that.

As someone who doesn't leak in his family. I was about to say, the Obama folks were known for not leaking all that much. I mean, we were eternally loyal to the president. I think you should keep...

strategy potentially not it's not for the press to have until it's ready to roll out I think that reason why people are leaking in the Trump administration is because he wanted to undermine our Constitution a lot of those things are are are actually pro-democracy things that folks are saying whoa wait a minute he wants us in the National Guard out on Black Lives Matter Plaza or whoa this is gonna happen and he is gonna try and overturn the 14th amendment the leaks in the Trump admin and compared to other

presidential administrations, I just think. Yeah, though we should say that I think, to your point, the conformity factor here is pretty profound this time around. It's a very different energy. Which is why they're saying lie detectors, because if you don't conform, you gotta go. Yeah, well, I want to ask you guys about what you're looking ahead to this week on the show we try and

keep an eye out and give people a sense of what's coming up. Doug, I want to start with you. Anything that you think we should be watching? Well, yeah, we just saw yesterday in the New York Times a story that Tara Palmieri, who was a reporter at Puck and Politico, ABC before that, is going out on her own and completely going all in on YouTube. That's

That she's making that decision, I think, tells us a lot about how the media is changing. If she's successful, I think she's going to tell us exactly how the media has changed. I'm going to translate this for my mom. So this person is like a very well-known reporter on the political beat. So for them to say, I don't need legacy media or even new legacy media is remarkable. Absolutely.

Okay, Ashley Allison, what do you keep an eye on? Okay, the love is, what is this smile I see? Go on. This was not on my bingo card to be in my Twitter feed this past weekend. The Love is Mine finale came out. Netflix reality show. Yes, if you don't know it, you get engaged, sight unseen after dating in these pods, and then you date for three weeks or so out in the real world, and then you decide if you're going to get married.

A couple, the last show was based in Minneapolis. This is a spoiler alert, but it's been out for a couple days, so too bad. The last couple didn't, one of the couples didn't get married because they were not politically aligned. - Yes, more than one couple talked about political issues, keeping them apart. - And the right is losing their mind that this girl

had the audacity to have agency and say no. Well, that's one interpretation, yes. But some people are worried about partisanship getting in the way of love. Thank you for the shout out. If a woman can get engaged without seeing me, I think this may be my path forward. Keep in the bar low. Keep in the bar low, Takaia. I want to give you the last word. Mine's not nearly as fun. I'm watching how Democrats respond to these tariffs. Over the weekend, you saw UAW President Sean Fain actually go out in favor of at least direct

Yes, big shift. Yeah, you're also seeing a few Rust Belt Democrats do that, whereas a lot of the Democrat Party is reflexively against it. I'm just sort of curious how they react now that they're really going to affect on the China tariffs. Yeah, and I'm still keeping an eye on Canada. I have never seen so many maple leaves ever. I promise this color is tomato, not Canadian red. I just happened to wear it this morning. I want to thank you guys for entering the group chat, hanging out with me. Love is blind reference, extra coffee for you in the green room.

And I want to thank you all for waking up with us. I'm Adi Cornish. CNN News Central is going to start right now.