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It's Friday. We made it. February 7th, right now on CNN This Morning. We encourage federal workers in this city to accept the very generous offer. Buyout roadblock. A judge gives federal workers more time to decide if they want to take President Trump's deal. And this. We're working on a one-bill strategy. Will it be one big, beautiful bill? Republicans in the House and Senate at odds over the best way to get President Trump's agenda through Congress. And this. We will defend the proud tradition of female athletes.

Full Court Press, the NCAA taking a cue from the president banning transgender athletes from women's sports. And later. You are the greatest friend Israel has ever had in the White House. An unusual gift. Why Israel's prime minister gave President Trump a gold-plated pager. All right, 6:00 a.m. here on the East Coast. This is a live look at the Superdome in New Orleans. Let's be real, this is all anyone is really focused on this weekend. Kansas City Chiefs, gonna take on my birds.

I'm not nervous or anything, I swear. Anyway, good morning everyone, I'm Casey Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us. Two men, President Trump and Elon Musk, moving incredibly fast and breaking things across the US government as the third branch of said government is lumbering into action and quite frankly struggling to keep up. The judicial system, federal judges across the country halting some pieces of the Trump-Musk agenda for now.

Following a ruling by a federal judge in Boston, the government's roughly 2 million civilian employees will now have until at least Monday to weigh that so-called buyout offer. And the dismantling of USAID, now facing a federal lawsuit on behalf of some of the agency's employees. The president has claimed the foreign aid agency is corrupt and run by the, quote, radical left. The head of Doge, Elon, calling it, quote, evil. We're catching them left and right. We're catching them.

We're catching them to a point where they don't know what the heck is going on. They can't believe they're getting caught. And I have great respect for the people that are doing it. Elon Musk is helping us on it. And he's pretty good. He's pretty good. Today, the Trump administration expected to drastically reduce the workforce at USAID. Multiple sources telling CNN that the agency, which employs around 10,000 workers around the world, will be reduced to fewer than 300 employees.

President Trump's effort to end birthright citizenship has also been halted by federal judges, one of whom said the president was treating the rule of law as, quote, something to navigate around or simply ignore, whether that be for political or personal gain. Some, if not all of these cases, beginning a lengthy journey, what's likely to be a lengthy journey, to the Supreme Court. That possibility encouraging to some Democrats? Here was Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey.

The courts, if they interpret the Constitution correctly, are going to stop Musk, are going to stop Trump. I mean, Article 1 is the Congress, Article 2 is the President, Article 3 is the judiciary. There's not an Article 3.5 where Elon Musk gets to do whatever he wants to do.

So just how will the conservative majority Supreme Court, three members of course appointed by Trump himself in his previous term, rule on challenges to the president's attempts to redefine presidential power? Here's what CNN's Stephen Collinson writes this morning, quote, "The growing storm of lawsuits means some of this young administration's most extraordinary applications of unilateral presidential power could be reined in, but the litigation also conjures a scenario that no one wants to think about.

what would happen if the administration refused to recognize court rulings even one handed down by the supreme court all right joining us this morning annie linsky she's white house reporter for the wall street journal elliott williams cnn legal analyst former federal prosecutor kate beddingfield cnn political commentator former communications director in the biden white house and brad todd cnn political commentator also a republican strategist

Welcome to all of you. I feel like, Elliot, this one's for you this morning. Because, look, I mean, let's take USAID as an example. And I understand we can have a political conversation about foreign aid and where American voters are on that. But if you think about literally what is happening and how our system is supposed to work, they came in, they want to break USAID. We've heard what they think about it. They want to take it from 10,000 to 300 employees.

there are gonna be lawsuits, we don't know if it's legal, but they're about to start getting 10,000 people approximately on planes, pulling them out of countries around the world. That's not something that like a court can't put that back in the bottle, right? Like the system can't really keep up with what's going on here.

The court can't put it back in the bottle. A court can stop it from happening prior to it's happening, assuming that it's unlawful. But there's the bigger question, and you touched right on it, Casey, which is that what we're talking about here is separation of powers.

can the president unilaterally decide how to direct spending in the federal government? Congress dictates which agencies exist, how much they're funded for, how that money is spent, and over what period of time that money ought to be allocated for. Now, if we want to start shrinking the sizes of agencies and reducing the size of government, fine, have at it. Work it out with Congress. There's been, frankly, centuries of precedent in the United States.

of doing that, but we are stepping up to serious questions of pushing the bounds of presidential power that I do think the courts are probably going to step in at some point. - So let's touch on kind of the politics piece of this because as much as the legality is in question, Democrats are apoplectic about this, there is kind of a broader sense in the country that

Doesn't oppose shrinking government right that thinks that it's gone too far here was Joe Rogan talking about What the the president and Elon Musk have been doing over the last couple of weeks watch what's fascinating right now is we're getting a chance to see what happens when you take a business approach to the government in the White House you're seeing a politician a president who's coming in who can't get reelected so he's just going ham and

And he's just cleaning out everything and people are freaking out. The same people that say we need radical change. We need radical change. We've got corruption. We need radical change. Okay, well, here's your radical change. We don't need this. But you do. The government does. They need oversight. And they haven't had that. Brad Todd? You know, in October, I was working on a Senate race in Pennsylvania and I got to see a lot of research, focus groups and polling.

We try to decide at the end what should we talk about. Should we talk about immigration? Should we talk about the economy? No. The voters said talk about change. They wanted serious change. Period. Stop. Full story. They were skeptical that they would get it, by the way. They didn't know if it was possible. I think a lot of American voters have begun to think Washington is this thing that never can be reshaped. They're going to give Donald Trump a pretty wide latitude to make a few mistakes in how he reshapes it and how he pulls it back.

But here's the thing, okay, 80%, a little more than 80% of jobs in the federal government are not in Washington, DC. I mean, this is not, it is very easy for Joe Rogan to sit on a podcast and say people want to slash and burn the US government.

That sounds appealing. I don't disagree. There was obviously a mandate for change. People are hungry for a sense that Washington function differently, broadly speaking, than it does right now. Don't disagree with that at all. I do think there will be real, tangible political consequences as this starts to impact people's lives. I also think the other thing people said they wanted was lower costs. They wanted prices to come down. Prices are not coming down for

any number of reasons we could talk about. - And that's part of change, right? - Absolutely. And Trump, and there's the perception that Trump is not at all focused on that. So that, you know, to me, that is a place, first of all, that Democrats, a message Democrats should coalesce behind. He's not doing the thing he said he was gonna do.

But I do think that there will be some real meaningful political blowback here because this impacts people's lives in a way that I think it doesn't necessarily come through when you're kind of like gunslinging on a podcast about it. - Yeah, and more to the point,

It's almost not worth it to get into the debate over affecting people's lives because I think people don't have their heads around what USAID does other than the fact that they don't like it, right? It's just something that doesn't stick well with people. Lost in this whole debate is the fact that foreign aid directly ties into America's strategic national security and foreign policy interests. Oh, no question. Oh, yeah.

Liz Cheney was out reminding us of that. She said, hey, Elon, you might have forgotten you weren't a U.S. citizen in the Cold War, so you might have missed it. But even more to the point, that cobalt in your Tesla battery came from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, probably. And odds are, if the United States isn't providing foreign aid there, China is. That is not good for the United States. Marco Rubio said that we're going to continue the programs that advance our foreign policy, though. That's the...

- Not at one employee per mission in the field around the world. Marco Rubio also said in 2017,

Foreign aid is not is not charity humanitarian aid is not charity and that's in that is it is it's not it is leverage around the world against our adversaries It's helping prevent diseases from coming to our shores to these people have to be the ones doing it people who are not aligned with foreign policy I think the answer to that question is no they don't have to you've got a 25 year olds who work for Elon Musk get to determine what is is and is not yes, so I do want to talk about those people for a second

because this is, of course, the other question. And I'm interested to see how Elon is going to continue to be perceived. But like Kara Swisher was on our air talking about what this actually is. And she says that the way that Elon is going about this, Annie, is a feature, not a bug. Let's watch.

You know, there's an expression in technology that's not, it's a feature, not a bug. This is what they do. They are careless. I don't believe any bit of them when they say they've edited these people. And they just, they're people that will listen to whatever Elon says and do whatever he wants and thinks it's a ball to do this and very funny. And so they're willing to do things, say adults wouldn't be willing to do or cross lines that they would

He wants these malevolent young men in particular in order to do this. And they think it's fun. And it probably is for them, you know, being able to hang out with Elon Musk and, you know, take down government agencies for them. And the arrogance is massive and the ignorance is even bigger.

Yeah, I mean, I'm glad you played that from Kara. I think right now in Washington, D.C., if you want to understand Elon Musk, the Bible that people are reading is Walter Isaacson's book about Elon. It's 600 pages, so it's a long, long slog to get through, but it's well-written, and it's

What he's doing is sort of almost exactly what he did at Twitter. And the chapters about Twitter apply directly to his approach to USAID, which is to go in and fire an enormous amount of people. It remains to be seen, of course, whether those firings will hold up, hold up to legal scrutiny. But this is what he's done in other places, and he's been pretty successful doing it. I mean, there was a mandate for change and to shake things up. And even if...

Even if down the road judges decide that this is not something you can do, I think almost every person in America will have learned that Donald Trump came to town, there's a new sheriff in town, and things are going to be much different. And that is the future. That's what he's trying to get across, and he's been successful at it. My question is, do we want

Do we want this applied to, you know, a mistake and a social media company? The stakes are a lot lower than when you're working with the social security number and bank account numbers of every American that files taxes. I find it interesting, though, that some new people are now worried about unelected bureaucrats having too much power. As conservatives, we've been worried about that for a long time. So I welcome everybody else to the party. I don't know that these guys constitute bureaucrats. I mean, I'm

He's a temporary employee. He's a federal government employee. Okay, coming up here on CNN this morning, President Trump wants transgender athletes out of women's sports. What that might mean for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. Plus, passengers evacuated after a train burst into flames. That's one of the five things you have to see this morning. And one bill, two bill, red bill, blue bill, the GOP still disagreeing about how to get their agenda passed.

I think there's a lot of talk about two and there's a lot of talk about one, but it doesn't matter.

I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta, host of the Chasing Life podcast. Now, I want to tell you right off the bat, this is not just for people with ADHD. These are often really great strategies for everybody. We're going to help you create your own dopamine you today, and we're going to break down how it works, why it matters, and how very simple shifts can boost your motivation and also bring more joy to your day. Listen to Chasing Life, streaming now, wherever you get your podcasts.

I like one big beautiful bill, and I always have, I always will, but if two is more certain, it does go a little bit quicker. Whether it's one bill or two bills, it's going to get done one way or the other. I think there's a lot of talk about two, and there's a lot of talk about one, but it doesn't matter.

One bill, two bills, doesn't matter to President Trump. And I mean, let's be honest, he's probably channeling his voters and the American people who also don't care. But he is trying to get Republican majorities in the House and Senate on the same page because he does care about passing his legislative agenda.

We should note, though, the details are incredibly important on the Hill. House Speaker Mike Johnson wants to do one bill where he puts everything together because he has got to get the slimmest of slim majorities to take one really difficult vote. The calculus is different in the Senate. Speaker Johnson and other House leaders met at the White House for more than four hours on Thursday to try to map out this path forward.

Our message to our friends and colleagues in the Senate is allow the House to do its work. We are moving this as quickly and as expeditiously as possible. Very positive developments today. We're really grateful to the President for leaning in.

Speaker Johnson says that they hope to start what's called marking up a budget bill, writing it, editing it next week. Republican senators want two bills and they're getting impatient. They want to move soon. Majority leader John Thune told reporters this, quote, we just need somebody to move. And we've been trying to get the house, give the house the space to do that. Hopefully they can come up with some agreement today that would enable that to happen.

Complicating efforts in the House is that three-seat majority for Republicans. And look, the infighting already starting to spill out into the open as some feel that the process is leaving them in the dark.

What is your level of frustration for not being a part of this meeting at the White House today? I'm incredibly frustrated. Am I frustrated? Yes. Am I surprised? Heck no. Are you as a result, it could cost your vote? Absolutely. I mean, not not for ego, just because they're not telling me what's in the dadgum bill. I'd kind of like to know about it if I'm if we're we have a three person majority and, you know, we have a bad case of flu run through the Capitol and we're out of the majority and legal. I mean, literally, that's that's that's how close it is.

Brad Todd, getting dead gummit in the banner is a little bit tricky. It's my native tongue. Look, Speaker Johnson probably has the hardest job in Washington right now trying to get this together. But, you know, I think big picture, the fact that they can't even get the same page on how to do this really illustrates just how hard this is going to be.

- Well, senators love to deliberate and House members love to obfuscate. And that's what we're dealing with right now. And if you're Mike Johnson, is it easier to make one half court shot in basketball or two? Obviously it's easier to make one. And that's what passing a bill through a three seat majority is like.

I suspect the senators will get this out of their system. They'll pass something that'll prod the House to move forward. We'll end up with probably one bill in the end. Counterpoint. We all know, everybody here having worked in and around Congress at some point, that the bigger something is, the harder it gets to pass. Every single member of Congress starts getting their own interest in it. And I asked a Republican source about this. I said, hey, you know,

"How are you guys going to get-" - Look at you being a reporter now. - Look at that, right? - I'm so proud of you. - Baby's first sourcing, right? No, and, "How are you guys going to figure out a way to get to 218?" And he said, "Well, do you want to be the one to sink Donald Trump's agenda?"

And it's like now you're relying on vibes and good feelings to sort of get this massive bill passed. That's incredibly hard. Also, enter the Senate parliamentarian who will have a say because it's a reconciliation bill on what can and cannot be included. So the idea that they're going to be able to include as a veteran of this process in 2021 when we were trying to do Build Back Better.

the Senate parliamentarian is gonna say, no, you can't do this via a budget reconciliation bill and strip things that people want that are gonna help get to that final 218 out. So they don't even have full control here over what one big beautiful bill looks like. - Reconciliation for everybody at home

basically, you can get around the Senate filibuster by using something that's based on tax laws. So the parliamentarian will look at it and say, this is a policy thing. You cannot simply decide you are going to build a tower here because that doesn't have anything to do with taxes. But if it does have something to do with taxes, then you only need 51 votes in the Senate.

50 votes, I guess, in this case. I would not underestimate the power of vibes right now. I mean, right now, Donald Trump's political capital is as high as it's ever going to be. I mean, every day that passes, things will happen. You even saw this with Gaza, where his support began to break apart a little bit. There was some opposition to him. Republicans were like, I'm sorry, you're going to put U.S. troops on the ground in Gaza, what? So,

- I mean, this is, you know, he has momentum now. People are afraid to stand up to him now. This is where you want to push fast because he's got the support of his caucus. - And if the national debate is over the Senate parliamentarian, Donald Trump wins that. - I'm gonna say something about vibes. The vibes that are gonna happen is Tim Burch's cell phone vibrating in his pocket. It's gonna be Donald Trump calling him and saying, "You gotta go back in there and vote for that bill." That's the vibe that's gonna happen. Donald Trump's gonna wrangle the last four or five votes

Just wait. Personally. He'll do it personally. Personally. But when you've got guys who are conservative on the economy, hawks on foreign policy,

pick your issue and you can only lose one of them out of 218 or two. It's going to be a soap opera, but Donald Trump will get the last two votes in. Soap opera, that's what it is. We played a bite earlier where I think it was actually Burchett who said, like, hey, like, we got a bout of the flu going on here. Like, we're out of the majority. Not wrong. All right, still ahead here on CNN this morning, President Trump now downplaying the idea that U.S. troops would be involved in his plans for Gaza. But details on turning Gaza into the Riviera of the Middle East...

Remain elusive. We're going to talk to Michael Smirconish because, of course, it's Friday. Plus, forget car chases. How about a horse chase? One of five things you have to see this morning. All right, 27 minutes past the hour. Five things you have to see this morning. A commuter train near Philadelphia bursting into flames Thursday night. There were 350 people on board. Everyone evacuated. No word on the cause.

Thousands of people fleeing the Greek island of Santorini. Intense earthquakes over the past week have forced officials to declare a state of emergency. Millions of tourists visit Santorini every year, but today it is almost empty. A New Jersey officer rescued an 11-year-old from an icy pond. The boy had plunged through the ice. The officer said he didn't even notice the cold because he was so focused on reaching the boy. Also this.

Get it, Nash. Get that Batman. Get that Batman, Nash. Get it. Get him now. Hey, you! It's a scene out of an old Western. A police officer on a horse named Nash chasing down a suspect in Florida. They caught the guy. Safe to say, Nash earned his paycheck or, you know, maybe his favorite snack, maybe? Who knows?

All right, a winter breeze bringing freezing rain and snow from Chicago to New England. This video from Massachusetts showing the dangerous driving conditions with the roads covered in snow. Yikes, they actually do know how to drive in snow up there, so it shows you just how bad it is. And as the Northeast recovers from that winter storm, the country bracing for more bad weather. Here's a live look at LAX in LA getting some much needed rain this morning. Let's get straight to our meteorologist, our weatherman, Derek Van Dam. Derek, good morning.

Good morning, Casey. Beneficial rain for Los Angeles, but not too much to cause some serious issues, so that's good news. The ice that you showed the snow and rain on the East Coast. That's number one of a five winter blitz stretch. There's five consecutive storms that were counting over the next two weeks and I'll show you which

in just one moment. So that was number one. This is number two, bringing the rainfall to Southern California as we speak, and that storm is quickly going to move from the West Coast to the East Coast, followed by the jet stream that will separate the cold air to the north and the warmer or milder air to the south. So we're going to focus our snow potential across the northern tier of our country. In fact, you can see how it picks up moisture, produces snowfall over the western U. S. Great news for the ski resorts.

but once it finally reaches the east coast by late saturday into early sunday morning, look what happens and it blows up into a disruptive winter storm for some of the major east coast cities new york to boston. We have a good potential of accumulating could reach over a half a foot in some locations, especially in the Hudson Valley, boston new york. That's still a question mark, but definitely an impactful storm headed for the weekend and then ice to the south of that. This is just the blitz of winter storms we have ahead of us

Number three, number four, and then number five. Can I take a point of personal privilege? Are my kids going to have snow days in Washington next week? Because I don't really think I can handle that. Are you prepared? You've got to get those babysitters ahead of time. You can hear it from me. And do I need one next week for the storm in D.C.? I think Monday morning is a real possibility. Thank you for the heads up. We appreciate it. And then Tuesday, and then Friday. Oh, cool. Okay.

Sweet. All the parents at this table are looking at that and dreading their lives. Okay, coming up next week on CNN This Morning, the new NCAA policy on transgender athletes, right in line with President Trump's order to ban those athletes from women's sports. Plus, building diplomacy one gift at a time.

This week on The Assignment with me, Adi Cornish. Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency, otherwise known as DOGE, have rattled the federal civil service to its core. So now that the richest man in the world has been put in charge of remaking the U.S. government, the questions are, how is he doing it? Who's helping him to do it? And what does it mean for the government services you might just be taking for granted?

Listen to The Assignment with me, Audie Cornish, streaming now on your favorite podcast app. All right, the NCAA changing its participation policy for transgender athletes just one day after President Trump signed an executive order intended to ban transgender athletes from women's sports.

With this executive order, the war on women's sports is over. We're putting every school receiving taxpayer dollars on notice that if you let men take over women's sports teams or invade your locker rooms, you will be investigated for violations of Title IX and risk your federal funding. There will be no federal funding. Thank you.

The NCAA saying in a statement that, quote, President Trump's order provides a clear national standard. Under its revised rules, only athletes assigned female at birth will be able to compete at the collegiate level. And with the NCAA now in compliance with his order, President Trump has his next target, the Olympics.

Marco is going to make clear to the International Olympic Committee's there and he's gonna make it as clear as anybody can make it that America categorically rejects transgender lunacy. We want them to change everything having to do with the Olympics and having to do with this absolutely ridiculous subject.

Joining us now, CNN Sports Analyst Christine Brennan with more on this. Christine, good morning. It's always wonderful to see you. Can you help us understand what it was before, how it's changed, and how many people this actually impacts?

Yes, Casey, good morning. You know, it's Charlie Baker is the president of the NCAA. And he was before a congressional committee about six weeks ago and was asked that exact question about how many athletes are involved. And there are over a half million NCAA athletes, Baker said, and then asked about how many transgender athletes there are in the NCAA. He said less than 10.

So that's the number we're talking about, less than 10 out of more than half a million. But as you know, this has become an issue that is political, that is fought with emotions and has become a part of our culture and was a part, of course, of the presidential election. And I said against that backdrop, this is this conversation. So the reality is now the president has said, if you've gone through male puberty, you cannot compete in women's sports.

And you had mentioned the Olympics, and it's very interesting, of course. It's fitting because the next Summer Olympic Games are in Los Angeles in the summer of 2028. And this is a question and obviously an issue that will come up. But the International Olympic Committee doesn't actually make those decisions. It's the international federations for every sport.

And the president will like what he's seeing, because over the last couple of years, both the Federation for Swimming, called World Aquatics, and the Federation Governing Track and Field, called World Athletics, both have implemented the same exact policy that President Trump has now put into effect with his executive order. So already two of the biggest Olympic sports are doing exactly what Trump wants them to do, and they did it a couple of years ago.

Really interesting. Christine, can I ask you about this lawsuit that was filed by some swimmers, three women swimmers at the University of Pennsylvania because there was a transgender swimmer on their team, Leah Thomas. What does the lawsuit say and what's the probability of its, what does success look like for them? What are we going to see next in that?

As everyone remembers, I think, the Leah Thomas story and your heart goes out to her as she was transitioning. But then, of course, she was swimming and it became a huge issue, especially those videos, right, of seeing her so far ahead of the other swimmers in Ivy League meets and in the NCAA. She won an NCAA title.

And this really brought it to a head back then in 2022. So now, no surprise that now we would see lawsuits based on what President Trump has done. I would wonder about going backwards and being able to look at something was the policy of the Ivy League and the NCAA at the time. They were following their rules, but now those rules have changed.

And because this is such an emotional issue, it's a political issue, clearly we could see a scenario where it goes to a judge or where they move forward with it. And there is certainly sentiment to have those kind of issues out there now and being discussed. I wouldn't be surprised, Casey, if this is just the beginning of some of these lawsuits.

But again, we're talking about so few athletes, even though they got the headlines, right? Leah Thomas was in the headlines. So it became bigger when you hear less than 10 athletes. Well, Leah Thomas was one of those a few years ago. And so that's why this issue is so confounding to so many. Obviously, the hate and the fear is something we hate to see. We'd rather see the science.

and the conversation be rational on all sides. And I have a feeling that this is something we will be discussing not just for years, but for decades. All right, Christine Brennan for us this morning. Always grateful to have you on the show. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you, Casey. All right, coming up next here on CNN This Morning, the big winner just announced in the quarterback battle for the NFL's most valuable player, plus international shockwaves over President Trump's Gaza plan. Michael Smirconish joins us next to discuss.

President Trump claimed that Palestinians would be "thrilled" to have an option to move out of Gaza and said, "The Gaza thing never worked out." Never worked out? Trump talks about Gaza like it's Ben Affleck and J-Lo. You know, it never worked out, but there's other territories in the sea.

This is pretty typical unorthodox Trump policy being thrown out there. I'm trying to keep track of the White House statements just like you are. And from what I understand, they've walked that back pretty significantly. There's not going to be anybody forced to leave. There's not going to be any U.S. troops on the ground.

Very relatable, Dan Crenshaw. Donald Trump's congressional allies still seeking clarity on the proposal that Donald Trump has made to take over the Gaza Strip. The abrupt announcement on Tuesday of the plan to temporarily take over and redevelop the territory prompted confusion and condemnation among global leaders who are still readjusting to Donald Trump's return to the world stage. Them and all of us. Tuesday's events also conjuring memories of what it all looked like last time around.

I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today. Well, he's two-faced. Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself. As far as wiretapping, I guess, by, you know, this past administration, at least we have something in common, perhaps. We do have a very special

Oh, the shove. It's Friday. It means Michael Smirconish is here to discuss. He's CNN political commentator and, of course, the host of CNN Smirconish. Michael, good morning. Good morning.

So that was a little walk down memory lane of what Donald Trump was like on the world stage last time around. This time, of course, it's honestly torqued. It's a more aggressive version even of that based on that head spinning press conference that we saw around Gaza. It seems like pretty quickly they've had to walk back, though, specifically the idea that U.S. troops are

Might be involved which Trump refused to rule out during that press conference despite having run during the campaign as someone who was going to get American troops out of the Middle East. What's your take on all of it?

I'm so glad that they walked it back. I heard a lot of conversation this week about the human rights issues of the Palestinians and the displacement of the Palestinians. Valid concerns. I, however, look at this from a national security perspective of the United States. And I want to remind everybody we were sold a bill of goods post-September 11. We were told they hate us for our jeans. They hate us for our lattes. They hate us for our lap dances.

None of that ended up being true. They hate us for their perception of our interventionalist foreign policy. And that was a lesson that candidate Donald Trump seemed to grasp and campaigning on keeping us out of forever wars made sense to me as a result. But even raising the prospect that we will play some direct role in Gaza sounds reminiscent of Iraq and Afghanistan and all the mistakes of the last decade.

20 years. So I thought it was just a terrible error in judgment. I don't know where it came from. I'm glad that he's walking it back.

Michael, let's talk about some of the other things that we have seen unfolding rapid fire across the government. Today, for example, we're reporting that the Trump administration is going to fire basically 10,000 people from USAID and tell them that they need to come home from the stations where they are across the world, leaving about 300 people left at the agency. That's just one example of...

Of many. And of course, Democrats are trying to figure out how do we push back against things that we are opposed to in this way when it is all happening so fast? What do you think the opposition party should be focusing on right now if they want to be successful?

I think USAID is a losing issue for Democrats. I get the argument for the exertion of soft power internationally. I think it makes sense for the United States, for all the reasons I was just referring to relative to Gaza, to make friends but not do so with boots on the ground.

But there's always going to be an instance, an example where someone can point to an expenditure and to the American people, it's going to be like, my God, why are we spending, you know, fill in the blank? And I won't even use condoms. I'll say 20 million on Sesame Street in Iraq. And Casey.

A little bit before your time and a wee bit before my time, but William Proxmire. William Proxmire was the senator from Wisconsin. I think he was the longest serving senator from Wisconsin. His career was largely predicated on the announcement of the Golden Fleece Award, which was always some ridiculous expenditure of federal funds that would be head scratching. And people would say, well, thank goodness Senator Proxmire is out there exposing all of this nonsense.

waste, fraud and abuse. It's a winning issue for Republicans, I say.

Michael, what do you make of the argument? And this is this is something, you know, I actually focused on a lot as I was in school during the Iraq war. That was kind of unfolding as, you know, my political consciousness was being formed. The idea that the way that we communicate with people overseas, America's image abroad, it's kind of it.

the idea, being able to try to talk to people about the idea of America being something to aspire to and that being an important piece of, I mean, the USAID is a piece of Cold War infrastructure. It's not necessarily, it is not neutral in terms of our national security. And you have the Chinese focused on this Belt and Road Initiative where they are spending millions putting all these countries across the world in their debt and being a partner to them across the world. Do you think

that there's a national security argument that Democrats who are defending USAID could make or not? I think that there is. I think that we've been our own worst enemies. I'm going to sound like like Ron Paul now, but our response so often has been that wherever there's a hot spot, you know, we open a base. I remember that I was a guest of the Pentagon in the Rumsfeld era to travel to the Middle East, 15000 miles in in the span of less than 10 days,

And one of the stops on the road was Djibouti in the Horn of Africa. And I'm like, well, why are you taking me to Djibouti? Why do we have a base in Djibouti? And the answer was, well, because Al-Qaeda is now in Djibouti. Everywhere we thought they were, we would go. We didn't make friends in that process. And by the way, Casey, I had skin in this game. I was one of those behind a microphone like this.

parroting the line. We need to fight them over there. I think it was Zell Miller. We need to fight them over there or we'll be fighting them here. No, every time we went over there, we raised the odds that they were going to hate us more. That was the lesson I took away. Maybe I'm mistaken, but I've been reflecting on the last 30 years and that's what I think. Yeah, fascinating. All right, Michael Smirconish, always enjoy having your perspective on the show, sir. Thank you so much for being here. See you next week. Thank you. Do tune in to Smirconish. It's tomorrow morning, 9 a.m. Eastern, right here on CNN.

All right, it's 52 minutes past the hour. Here is your morning roundup. A Bering Air flight with 10 people on board is now missing in western Alaska. The plane was last seen on the radar flying over the Norton Sound on Thursday evening. The Coast Guard and the Air Force now assisting in the search. The flight was heading to Nome, Alaska. Here are pictures of the conditions at the airport as the plane went missing. Alaska Senator Dan Sullivan put out a statement that says, quote, our thoughts and prayers are with the passengers, their families, and the rescue crew.

President Trump has now removed Federal Election Commission Chair Ellen Weintraub from her position. Weintraub writing a statement on X that says this in part, quote, there's a legal way to replace FEC commissioners. This isn't it. End quote. Weintraub was first appointed to serve on the commission by President George W. Bush in 2002. And this. I know this is an individual award and it says most valuable player on it.

but I think it's derived from team success and I love my team. We've got such a great locker room in Buffalo and it takes everybody. Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen, with all the class, winning NFL's MVP award last night, was a major upset over Lamar Jackson of the Baltimore Ravens. Allen was just one win shy of bringing his team to the Super Bowl this year, but of course they fell to the Chiefs in the AFC Championship game. And this.

Rapper Kendrick Lamar is set to perform this Sunday at the Super Bowl halftime show. Damn, that is gonna be Drake's worst Sunday since, well, I guess last Sunday, so yeah.

Kendrick Lamar gearing up for the biggest performance of his career this coming Sunday. The Grammy award-winning rapper telling fans to anticipate storytelling during his halftime show. Kendrick Lamar won two Grammys for his hit song "Not Like Us" that of course definitely poured some fuel on that fire for his viral feud with Drake. Alright, let's turn out of this story. It is not unusual for foreign leaders to exchange gifts when they meet each other.

But the gift given to President Trump by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week. Well, let's just let's just show it to you. It's a golden pager. It is inscribed with the words press with both hands.

Now, this is a reference to Israel's deadly Pager bombings that targeted Hezbollah last year. You may remember that members of the terror group reportedly had to press two buttons to simultaneously receive coded messages. Now, when they did that, you saw this happen across the country.

This golden gift that Netanyahu gave to Trump, it's just the latest token exchanged between world leaders. Take a little walk down memory lane. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gifted a reset button to the Russian foreign minister back in 2009. We want to reset our relationship.

Let's do it together. So we will do it together. We worked hard to get the right Russian word. Do you think we got it? You got it wrong. I got it wrong. Then there was the time that Secretary of State John Kerry handed, gave the Russians a couple of spuds.

And who can forget Russian President Vladimir Putin giving President Trump a soccer ball in Helsinki. The soccer ball might have had a transmitter chip in it.

All right, our panel is back. Brad Todd, there's a lot of symbolism in this pager gift. I find it slightly head-scratching. I wouldn't press both buttons if Bibi gave me a pager that said that. I don't think so. But I think Donald Trump will appreciate it. Kate? I mean...

These moments are usually intended to just convey a message. This obviously sends a very strong one, I guess. I guess Netanyahu's trying to underscore strength and thinks Trump will respond to that kind of strength. Is the implication not that it's going to blow up, though? That's what I don't understand. The pagers killed people and he just gave one to Trump. Yeah.

I don't know, man. I don't know. You know, so now that is officially the property of the United States, right? And there's a fun fact. Presidents can't typically keep gifts they get from foreign leaders. They become property of the National Archives. And you know, every now and again, presidents receive gifts of animals from foreign leaders. The president of Indonesia, this is a fun story. President of Indonesia, Sukarto, gave George H.W. Bush a pet Komodo dragon.

And they're running around, I swear to God, and they're running around the White House, and they didn't know what to do with it. Because, like, I mean, it's a venomous animal. Like, you can, like, eat it, keep it as a pet. I don't know. So they gave it to the Cincinnati Zoo, and it just lived its life for decades representing the government of Indonesia. Isn't America an amazing place? To your point, there is...

There is a museum of diplomatic history in Washington, D.C., so that pager presumably is going to end up in that museum. I've never been to this museum. Yes, sadly it's closed until 2026. It's doing some rehab right now. That's a ping pong table that was given to Obama, by the way, seen here.

- That pager is gonna be on display, I believe. And so everybody will get to see it. - 1400 pound block of cheese given to Thomas Jefferson. - Cherry blossoms here in Washington along the tidal basin were a gift from the Japanese government. So that's one that's lasted. - Pair of rollerblades given to George W. Bush. They literally, I think the president of Holland

I know a lot about the National Archives, I'm sorry. - I love it. - They gave him a set of rolls. Like why? - There's a bonsai tree that survived Hiroshima that was given to the president of the United States. And it's at the Botanical Garden right now. - Remarkable. - It's amazing. This thing survived a nuclear bomb. - That's insane, I had no idea. Kate, what was the most interesting gift that President Biden ever got when you were working for him? - Ooh, good question.

I'm trying to remember. I mean, it's very, there's a lot of like, like a fancy, very fancy watch, a very like, you know, he would often get, and he may know better than me, he would often get liquor, which he doesn't drink. So that's, you know, he was constantly being given nice alcohol that he doesn't drink. He gave great gifts. So wait, if you can't accept gifts and somebody gives you a bottle of whiskey, can you drink it? No. It has to go to the gift office. There's a whole process. So does anybody drink it ever?

It just sits in the bottle forever. Wait till Doge gets a hold of that. You can purchase it. No, you can purchase it. So you have to purchase it for market value, but it has to go through the gift office first and through a whole process. It has to be logged at the State Department. The difference between foreign leaders and American citizens giving gifts, there's a totally different process for one or the other. Yeah, and this is why we have you.

All right, I do want to leave you with this. Very, very important. It's honestly the front page headline for us here at CNN this morning today. The best kind of news. Our family has grown by one. Our beloved producer Liz Brown Kaiser gave birth to her first child yesterday morning. A healthy 7-pound, 10-ounce bundle of joy. William Leo Kenworthy. We're told that baby Will has his dad's eyes. That's Cameron. And that he's talkative like his mom. We can confirm that.

at least that Liz is talkative. We're all extraordinarily excited to meet baby Will and Liz. We are sending you, all three of you, all of our love. I know you guys are going to be amazing parents and welcome, Will. The world's a crazy place. We'll try to take care of it for you in the meantime. Thanks to our panel for being here. Happy Friday. Have a great weekend. You at home, please have a great weekend as well. I'm Casey Hunt. Don't go anywhere. CNN News Central starts right now.