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tv   Anderson Cooper 360  CNN  February 6, 2025 1:00am-2:00am PST

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right now. >> we're not talking about sending troops in gaza. we're talking about saying that. >> all options. >> are always on the table. what is the plan? it's quite vague. is that aid? is that troops? >> i mean. >> it's a big. issue. >> i mean. >> it would surprise. >> us all. >> i'll say that. >> so. i think i don't know. >> one gop lawmaker with a very clear opinion on the matter, rand paul, who posted this, quote, the pursuit of peace should be that of the israelis and the palestinians. i thought we voted for america first. we have no business contemplating yet another occupation to doom our treasure and spill our soldier's blood. it will be interesting later today when trump and israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu visit capitol hill. and thank you for watching newsnight. cnn's coverage continues next tonight on 360, the president's takeover plan
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for gaza, his administration's claim today that he didn't really mean what he said about the central point of it on camera last night, in great detail, in some cases more than once. >> we're keeping them honest. also tonight, the administration's effort to trigger mass resignations at the cia. why it's happening and what it could mean to the country's premier intelligence organization. also tonight, my conversation with bill gates about the gutting of the u.s. agency for international development and the harm that could come from it in human health and american influence around the world. good evening. thanks for joining us. we begin tonight, not for the first time and likely not for the last time, with a lot, not for the first time, because anyone around for the first trump administration recognizes that creating news by the truckload has always been part of the game plan. >> all we have to do is flood the zone every day. we hit them with three things. they'll bite on one, and we'll get all of our stuff done. bang bang bang. >> bang bang bang. steve bannon, 2019 classic. six years later, that tactic flooding the zone is
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in full swing again in just the last two weeks and three days, the new trump administration has already granted clemency to each and every january 6th convict and defendant, and launched a purge of the fbi and the justice department. it has all but eliminated the world's leading global aid agency and frozen spending, or tried to on thousands of federal programs, including vital scientific and medical research. the world's richest man with the president say so. and the help of a half dozen or so unelected computer wizards. one one reportedly just 19 years old, has gained access to the treasury's formerly nonpartisan office for paying out trillions of dollars a year, including medicare and social security. the president has threatened our two closest trading partners with the kind of tariffs traditionally reserved for adversaries or enemies, and is offered incentives to quit. to every single person at noaa, the hurricane forecasting people whose map you'll remember, the president reportedly altered with a sharpie during his first term. >> we got lucky in florida. very, very lucky indeed. we had actually our original chart was that it was going to be hit
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hitting florida directly. maybe i could just see that, kevin. it was going to be hitting directly, and that would have affected a lot of other states. but that was the original chart. >> the head of noaa at the time was found to have violated the agency's code of ethics in connection with what became known as sharpiegate. yesterday, the president nominated him once again to lead noaa or whatever remains of it. just today, we learned that the cia is offering so-called buyouts to its entire workforce. there's some question of whether everyone would be allowed to take them, but everyone got the offer. separately, the new york times is reporting that the cia sent the white house an unclassified email listing of all employees hired over the last two years. the list gives first names in the first initial of the last names, according to the times report, and includes what the times says is a large crop of young analysts and operatives hired to focus on china, whose identities are usually closely guarded because chinese hackers are constantly trying to identify them. now, any or all
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of those stories could be the lead of any given day. we'll certainly spend more time talking about some of them tonight, but i want to focus for a moment on another item in that flood of news, not just because it's a big part of it, but also because of how well it fits. another familiar pattern making a comeback. now, for the first time in the trump administration. >> the u.s. will take over the gaza strip and we will do a job with it, too. we'll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site. i do see a long term ownership position, and i see it bringing great stability to that part of the middle east and maybe the entire middle east. >> the u.s. will take over the gaza strip. why would they want to return? he also said he also talked about sending in u.s. troops if necessary, to place, displacing the nearly 2 million people who still live there, forcing them to go to jordan or egypt and rebuilding the gaza strip as, quote, an
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international unbelievable place. and also, he termed it the riviera of the middle east. now, it may be a fever dream, but he actually did say it. it did not go over so well, certainly with palestinians or jordan or egypt or saudi arabia. anyone who knows much about history or the region for that matter. this is not the first time that president trump has been opining about beachfront property in surprising places. he you may remember he used to extoll the virtues of north korea's potential as well. but in relation to his new plan for gaza, in a pattern eerily similar to the first administration, people around the president spent today trying to say he did not actually say what he said, or if he did, his words did not mean what those words actually mean. those same people said what he said was brilliant, by the way, of course, one of those kind of four dimensional chess moves. here's his press secretary today. >> let me just take a step back here, because this is an out of the box idea. that's who president trump is. that does not mean boots on the ground in
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gaza. it does not mean american taxpayers will be funding this effort. it means donald trump, who is the best dealmaker on the planet, is going to strike a deal with our partners in the region. >> now, keeping them honest. the president gave no indication this was some sort of opening offer. as for boots on the ground, if only someone had asked him about that. and it turns out they did. and here's his actual answer. >> as far as gaza is concerned, we'll do what is necessary. if it's necessary, we'll do that. we're going to take over that piece and we're going to develop it, create thousands and thousands of jobs, and it will be something that the entire middle east can be very proud of. >> so no, he wasn't ruling out standing u.s. troops who would then be involved in fighting the war, that israel just stopped fighting. and not only does that mean a war, it also costs money. unless he's pretending he can somehow just get all the land and develop it and have what he called a long term ownership position and our u.s. taxpayers funding that. is that a private trump organization development? will there be a new trump
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university there? did the president simply not mean a word of what he said? his secretary of state seems to think he didn't mean it when he said on three separate occasions yesterday that the people in gaza would have to find homes elsewhere. >> so what? he's very generally, very generously has offered is the ability of the united states to go in and help with debris removal, help with munitions removal, help with reconstruction, the rebuilding of homes and businesses and things of this nature so that then people can move back in. >> that's what he said. according to the new secretary of state, marco rubio. here's what he actually said at some length and in great detail. when cnn's kaitlan collins asked him who would live in this rebuilt gaza. >> i envision a world, people living there, the world's people. i think you'll make that into an international. unbelievable place. i think the potential in the gaza strip is unbelievable, and i think the entire world, representatives from all over the world will be
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there and they'll and they'll live there. palestinians also palestinians will live there. many people will live there. but they've tried the other and they've tried it for decades and decades and decades. it's not going to work. it didn't work. it will never work. >> in the meantime. >> becky anderson but more importantly than that is the people that have been absolutely destroyed that live there now can live in peace in a much better situation because they're living in hell, and those people will now be able to live in peace. we'll make sure that it's done world class. it will be wonderful for the people, palestinians, palestinians, mostly we're talking about. and i have a feeling that despite them saying no, i have a feeling that the king in jordan and that the general president, but that the general in egypt will open their hearts and will give us the kind of land that we need to get this done. >> so it doesn't sound like what secretary of state rubio
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says, the president said. but if you're looking for more clarity, here's what the president said just a couple of hours earlier in the day. >> i don't think people should be going back to gaza. i think that gaza has been very unlucky for them. they've lived like hell. they lived like you're living in hell. and it could be jordan and it could be egypt, it could be other countries, and you could build four or 5 or 6 areas. it doesn't have to be one area, but you take certain areas and you build really good quality housing, like a beautiful town, like someplace where they can live and not die. >> netanyahu just sitting there. uh, there it is. i don't think people should be going back to gaza. that's what the president of the united states plainly said about nearly 2 million people, and what the people around him now say. he did not say new zone, fresh flood, same playbook. in a moment, i'll talk to senator bernie sanders. he joins us. but first, cnn's kaitlan collins. so, kaitlan, do white house officials think they can spin their way out of this because the president did say
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what he said. i mean, we heard it. >> for trump. it has always been his statements that are the ones that matter. anderson, we have seen this pattern before. when trump was in office the first time, when he was on the campaign trail. and obviously, you're seeing it happen today where aides do try to walk back or clarify or soften the comments that he made. and certainly an explosive one last night where he came out and he was essentially suggesting that they would be permanently displaced from gaza, that they would not return there. he was said in part to me when i asked him who he envisioned living there after it was rebuilt, which he and his aides are predicting would take 10 to 15 years, he answered to me, the world's people. and he mentioned that palestinians could be part of that. but he made clear he didn't see it as their homeland essentially anymore. and that's really you know, i've covered trump for a long time, and i've seen this happen before, where aides do try to walk back some of his comments. and that's why i sought to clarify exactly what he meant. anderson. and it wasn't a one off. he was reading from prepared remarks when he came out there and
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initially said he believed the u.s. should occupy gaza, should take ownership of it. and as he framed it last night, he said it should be a long term ownership. that's why those comments were so striking inside the room, because he wasn't simply framing it as a temporary relocation. as we saw the white house press secretary do today. and so really, i mean, there's obviously been a massive amount of fallout from these comments today. it started hours after he made them last night when it was about 4 a.m. in saudi arabia, and we saw the foreign ministry there responding, saying that there must be a permanent palestinian state for them to move forward with what trump and netanyahu both are seeking, which is a formal normalization deal between israel and saudi arabia. and so i don't think it's surprising to see that today. but i will say trump's middle east envoy, steve witkoff, who was the one who personally went to gaza and saw this devastation up close and reported back on it to trump and is part of what has shaped his view on all of this, went up to capitol hill today, to the senate republican lunch, and we are told he was basically peppered with questions from
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these senators, especially about the president declining to rule out using military force. today, the white house said repeatedly he did not commit to using it. certainly he didn't. but he also didn't rule it out, which was the real headline last night, because hamas is still in gaza. and so that raises the question if the u.s. is going to take over gaza, how are they going to do so without using military force? and that's not really an answer that has been laid out for us yet. >> yeah, caitlin. appreciate it. thank you. we'll see you at the top of the hour for the source. caitlin guests is going to be the governor of westmore of maryland, a state that's home to nearly 6% of the federal workforce. our guest now is vermont senator senator bernie sanders, who had this to say about the state of affairs on the senate floor. >> in my view, the trump administration is moving this country very aggressively into an oligarchic form of society where extraordinary power rests in the hands of a small number of unelected multi-billionaires.
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the trump administration is moving this country very aggressively into an authoritarian society where the rule of law and our constitution are being ignored and undermined in order to give more power to the white house and the billionaires who now control our government. the trump administration is moving this country very rapidly toward a. kleptocracy where the function of government is not to serve the needs of ordinary people, but to enrich those who are in power. >> senator sanders joins us now. you talk about an oligarchy running the white house. you have billionaires now currying favor with the new administration, donating to the presidential library, the inauguration, making deals with family members of the trump family. how far are we from a
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kleptocracy? >> well, let's start with oligarchy. and i think we are there. you know, when you see three of the richest people in this country, the three richest standing behind the president when he gets inaugurated, when you see elon musk, who contributed over $200 million to 70 to get trump elected, and then becomes in many ways the most important appointee of the trump administration. and when you see, since trump's inauguration. elon musk becoming $150 billion richer in two and a half weeks, $150 billion richer. you tell me whether or not we are living in an oligarchy. and i think the function of government under trump, under elon musk, will not be to serve ordinary people, but to make the
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very richest people in this country even richer. >> there are probably some people watching who think and think, oh, elon musk, smart guy. he's got these 1920 something year old tech wizards going into government and looking for waste and abuse. and what's wrong with that? what is wrong with what is going on? >> nothing wrong with looking for waste and the kinds of bureaucracy that exists. i think we can do a whole lot to get rid of the waste and fraud, the excessive bureaucracy that exists in government, especially, by the way, in the defense department. what is wrong right now is one simple reality. what musk is doing is illegal and unconstitutional. you cannot go into an agency like usaid and essentially fire everybody and get rid of that
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agency. you cannot do. that's not that's an agency that was created by congress. they want to get rid of usaid. fine. come to the congress, make your case. you can't do it unilaterally. you cannot withhold u.s. funds that were appropriated for medicaid for community health centers, for head start. you cannot put a freeze on that. that money was appropriated by the congress. and as i hope, every fourth grader in america knows, congress holds the purse strings. and what i also worry about is not just the movement toward oligarchy, but this growing trend toward authoritarianism. i hope the american people are seeing clearly that we had the january 6th rioters, the people who were trying to, in a sense, overthrow an election, undermine democracy, contributed to the injuring of 170. capitol hill police officers. they are
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pardoned. and then the fbi, fbi agents who worked hard to make the case, doing what they are told they are now being investigated. what is the future of the fbi? is the criteria to be an fbi agent in the future, one who swears allegiance to donald trump, or one to uphold the constitution and the rule of law. and i'll tell you something else in terms of authoritarianism, anderson, and this is something that you and other people in the media should pay attention to. abc paid a fine to the trump, to donald trump, presumably for, you know, saying something that he didn't like. meta, owned by zuckerberg, paid a $25 million fine to trump right now, paramount, that owns cbs, is contemplating reaching a settlement with trump. he has sued the des moines register.
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the fcc is now investigating pbs and npr. that is a movement toward authoritarianism. when you go after and intimidate an independent media. so you add it all together. we're moving to an oligarchic oligarchy. we're moving toward authoritarianism. and in terms of kleptocracy, well, what can i say? before he just before he got inaugurated, trump and his wife issued coins. they made billions of dollars. anybody can give to the president, in a sense, by buying those coins. so the american people have got to stand up and fight back, or else we're going to be in real trouble. >> we had a historian, doris kearns goodwin, on last week who talked about andrew jackson corrupting essentially government employees, giving out favors to people who curried favor with him. he gave them civil service jobs, and it took generations in america to to correct that. and it took teddy roosevelt being the civil
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service commissioner for six years to really root that out and get a civil service that served the american people and not whoever was in power. the damage being done, potentially. people think, oh, well, you know, maybe it's just going to be four years. the damage can be done. it can be for generations. >> right? right. i mean, it goes without saying that i think the overwhelming majority of americans want a strong, efficient, independent civil service. we can make improvements. i am not here to tell you that we don't have a bureaucracy, that we don't have waste. we do. we got to work on that. but you don't get rid of thousands and thousands of dedicated public servants and replace them with people who are simply loyal to donald trump. that's not the way democracy is supposed to work. >> just let me just quickly ask you on gaza, when you heard the president of united states talking about turning the gaza
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strip, i mean, getting 2 million palestinians out. i mean, is anybody who has read history or the region or been watching for the last year, does this. did did you think this was a joke at first? i mean, can you is this. >> look, look, you one could say that, anderson. on the other hand, given the suffering that the palestinian people have gone through under netanyahu's brutal war, which has killed some at least 45,000 injured, over 100,000, mostly women and children, the idea that the president of the united states is going to say to these people, oh, by the way, you're going to have to leave the place where you live, because we are going to build something equivalent to the french riviera. >> well, also, the thugs of hamas are still there. i mean, it's not as if they have gone. >> to say, but even. that's right. so, you know, and as you just discussed a moment ago, how
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do you do that? are american troops involved? how much money is being spent? but the idea telling two, 2.2 million people who live in an area, you're gone. we're going to build a french riviera here. so my billionaire friends can enjoy the beautiful view. it is, to say the least, preposterous. it ain't going to happen. >> senator bernie sanders, i appreciate your time. thank you. thank you. coming up, the president's justice department escalating its war against those who investigated him. as senator sanders was talking about. plus, my conversation with bill gates about elon musk and the fight over usaid. just ahead. >> gold bond believes touch says everything it says. i see you, i feel you, and i know you. gold bond get in touch with irresistibly touchable skin. >> it's mesmerizing cleaning that. >> greasy mess with don platinum. >> and not even scrubbing. >> well, fluff my feathers. it
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employees connected to the january 6th investigations. today's news comes a day after the cia became the first national security agency agency to offer so-called buyouts, part of a much larger effort to dramatically downsize the government. late today, we learned that about 40,000 people have taken advantage of the offer so far, government wide, or about 2% of the federal workforce, joined by former fbi deputy director andrew mccabe and john miller, a former fbi assistant director of public affairs. um, i want to get to the possible cut to the cia in a moment, but talk about the tensions between the fbi and the doj right now. >> so the fbi has. >> an acting director. >> and an. >> acting deputy director, both friends who were picked by kash patel as someone he'd worked with in the field in the united states and out of the country. so there should be a level of trust there. but the break is coming between the acting director and the attorney general, because he's demanding the names of the agents who worked on the mar-a-lago case, the thousands of agents who worked on the january 6th cases and others. and what they did is
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they supplied what everybody did in those cases, but only the employee numbers. and the break is they want the names, and those names are supposed to go to this working group, and then to stephen miller at the white house. and that's according to this executive order. >> so what's the idea of just supplying the the numbers? >> so the idea is once you send over 5000 names of fbi employees, does that end up on the internet? do they end up seeing, you know, vandalism at their homes, being doxxed, and, you know. >> is elon musk tweeting about them? >> exactly. the other thing is what happens with those names when you give up those names, are they going to run these people for what is their political affiliation? what do they say on their social media. >> so that he has numbers and if it goes to those numbers can be followed through by appropriate authorities? >> exactly. if you give their unique employee number in a proper investigation of alleged misconduct, which they haven't alleged, they want to go look for it in this weaponization
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thing is, is that the inspector general at doj could take those numbers and then go through their investigative activity, but they just want the names and they want them sent to doj and the white house. >> andrew, what do you make of this gantlet of sorts being thrown by emil bove? and how do you expect the administration to determine whether anyone the fbi acted with corrupt or partisan intent, which. yeah. >> you know, this is just emil bove trying to turn the fbi into the bad guys. like he looks terrible as a result of that email that he sent out last friday to banning these names, an email that i should remind everyone was the subject line of the email was termination. so for him to try to send this message out today, pretending that that was not his intent and that only those people who were seen to have like, intentionally weaponized the authority of the fbi against the president are going to be sought after. it's absolutely, patently ridiculous. i should also say that his comment in the in the message today that, you know, rank and file members of the fbi won't be won't be punished or subjected
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to termination unless they believe that they've engaged in some partisan activity and intentionally weaponized the fbi. the idea that there is some massive group of fbi agents out there in the field who are deeply partisan, left leaning, anti-republican people who intentionally ignored the directives of doj and went after january 6th, rioters unlawfully is absurd. that is a fantasy. >> and john, very quickly, when fbi director chris wray left on 60 minutes, he left a very stark warning about the threat level and the threats that are out there. is this a good time to be offering buyouts to cia employees? >> christopher wray said in his entire law enforcement career, he had never seen the lights blinking red. to use his term in the threat stream, which tacks back to your other subject, which is, is this really the time with that complex threat stream across all threats to be offering buyouts at the cia, which you're at risk of being taken up on by the most experienced and talented people.
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>> john miller. thank you, andrew mccabe as well. up next, my conversation with bill gates about elon musk's attempt to end the u.s. agency responsible for billions in foreign aid. >> you ever worry that you're drinking too much? take back control with or health or health provides access to medication proven to help. a daily pill to drink less or to quit drinking altogether. text tv 1 to 710 710 to learn more. >> you know what i love about quick hit slots? it's the mobile slots game that gives you those authentic vegas thrills. quick hit slots has all the games you know and love, and best of all, the jackpot. download quick hit slots for free and get a 6 million coin bonus. make every day a winning day. >> did you. >> know 80%. >> of. >> women are struggling. >> with hair damage? >> just like i was? >> pantene miracle rescue deep conditioner with. melting pro-v. >> pearls. >> locks and moisture to repair six months of damage for resilient, healthy looking hair. if you know you know it's pantene.
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you by invent. help! call one ( 800) 710-0020. >> do you have an invention idea but don't know what to do next? call inventhelp today. they can help you get started with your idea. >> call now( 800) 710-0020. >> we wanted to get a different perspective on the fight over the u.s. agency for international development, or u.s. aid, a program that dispenses billions in foreign aid. on monday, elon musk said president trump agreed with him that it needed to be shut down. earlier, i spoke with bill gates, the microsoft founder who's gates foundation is one of the largest charitable organizations in the world. we discussed elon musk and the funding fight. the interview is part of a book tour he's doing for memoir of his early years, source code my beginnings. well, let's start with you, elon musk. he's called usaid a criminal organization. he called it evil. he talked about it's a radical left political psyop. what to you, what is the importance of usaid and the u.s. giving aid to people in need around the world?
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>> well. >> usaid. >> plays a. >> super important. >> role in. >> dispensing our. >> aid budget. >> which is. >> less than. >> 1% of the government budget. >> usually it's. >> pretty obscure. so maybe this. >> is a chance. >> to talk about, okay. >> some of that work we'd like to change, but overall it's work that saves millions of lives and, you know, helps strengthen relationships for the united states. >> if it's just moved into the state department, does that matter? >> no. the exact organization, uh, can change. it was kept separate. so the idea of helping the poorest, you'd have, you know, a real, uh, priority for that in mind. and i'm not, you know, against some degree of tuning, but, you know, having all those people, uh, not come in to work and characterizing the whole thing in a negative way. i'm a little disappointed in that.
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>> let me ask you about pepfar as well, because this is a program which george w. bush started. it has saved more than 20 million people's lives around the world since then. is it are you are you is it done now? i mean, is it is it paused? >> what is it? was there were 48 hours where drug disbursement was shut down, and then that was reversed. and now the challenge is that the employees who manage that work, uh, aren't being let into the office. and, uh, you know, so we're a bit up in the air. when i saw president trump just after christmas, these hiv programs and the value they bring and the fact that i also support these programs, so, you know, spend a lot of time to make sure that money is very well spent. that was a strong message, uh, that i gave him. and i, you know, i'm hopeful that he'll see both the moral and strategic value to keep this
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strong. >> do you think there's a strategic value to it as well? >> absolutely. if you go around africa and you ask, you know, who really helped them out, who helped them deal with the hiv crisis, uh, and has maintained that commitment, um, they're they're uniquely thankful to the united states. >> if pepfar stopped, what would happen? >> uh, you'd have, uh, up to 10 million deaths if it was stopped abruptly. you know, i thought the argument would be about could we cut it by 10% over the next several years? and, um, look, there's a lot of demands on the budget. >> you were. >> in another interview recently. i think you characterized some of the stuff elon musk has been saying about the right wing government in germany as insane. >> just the idea of him supporting particular, you know, very right wing parties. i'm surprised by that. uh, you know,
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i'm very careful to say elon's super smart. his private sector work, uh, is. fantastic. um, i'm surprised the number of things he, uh, states opinions on. uh, i've always had friends around me who make sure i don't spout off on too many things all at the same time. >> do you think his role in this government makes sense? >> the basic idea that we should review almost every department, and that if you were really smart about using technology or updating the goals, you could save 10% here, 10% there, which adds up to a lot. uh, i don't think that's that's a mistake. but, you know, going in very quickly and saying that all these people run a criminal organization that's not quite as subtle as you'd hope to see. >> the tech community has often
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talked about, you know, disruption about, you know, moving fast, breaking things. do you think that works in the federal government? >> well, we count on the federal government for the safety net, and it you know, we're not we're not supposed to have agencies go bankrupt. and the private sector, it's great that companies disappear and other companies take their place. but when you're counting on a department to, say, enforce safety rules, um, you know, to review drug safety, things like that, you can't be as take as many risks as you do in the private sector. >> what should somebody in high school now be studying or thinking about in terms of the future? >> well, in my day, it was easy to envy the kids who were naturally sociable and, you know, great football players or, uh, those things, uh, and, you know, people even say the
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revenge of the nerds that, you know, those of us with down in the computer room, we sort of. >> have you watched that movie? >> well, yeah, absolutely. uh, and. >> were you a consultant on that movie? >> just by my life, that's all. uh, so it's nice now that you can see different learning styles or approaches can be rewarded if you're, you know, able to discipline yourself and, you know, focus on the right things, uh, it can become a superpower. >> my conversation with bill gates. his new book is the source code. ahead, how people in one of the country's largest arab-american communities are reacting to the president's plan for gaza and later, the president's crackdown on migrants, and why even those here lawfully are feeling the impact. >> good morning with. >> dulcolax. >> good, good. good morning. yeah try dulcolax. >> chewy. >> fruit bites for fast and gentle constipation relief in as little as 30 minutes, making
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said last night about taking over gaza and remaking it as a riviera of the middle east. his words, regardless of what the people around him say, he said. he said it all on camera. and millions of people saw it, including arab americans, many of whom voted for him. more from cnn's jason carroll now in dearborn, michigan. >> days before the last. >> presidential election. donald trump was the invited guest at the great commoner restaurant in dearborn, michigan. albert abbas says he extended that invitation, a decision he is now reflecting on. given all that has happened in the last 24 hours. >> many in the community are at a loss for words. last night was a very rough night for most of us. >> abbas is. >> arab american and one of a number of democrats who voted for trump. abbas says he hoped trump would do more than president joe biden did to help palestinians suffering in gaza. >> the u.s. will take over the gaza strip. >> but after trump. >> said palestinians should leave gaza so it can be
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redeveloped, abbas says not only does he feel betrayed, he's hearing from a number of people angered over his past support of trump. >> people were really, really frustrated and i don't think there's anyone to blame. at the end of the day. um, as arab americans or muslims, we really didn't have much of a choice. >> dearborn. >> a detroit suburb, is home to the largest arab american population in the united states, a community which helped trump carry the critical swing state. he won 42% of the vote in dearborn versus vice president harris, with 36%, and jill stein with 18, in 2020. biden handily carried the city with 69%. fe voted for trump in 2024. out of frustration over the previous administration's support of israel, now she is troubled by the president's proposal to move palestinians out of gaza. >> i mean, it's.
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>> very concerning, and. it's infuriating. >> personal feelings. you're infuriated, but standing by your decision for now to have voted for trump. >> correct. >> and what would move that needle for you to say? you know what? i made a mistake. >> palestine is the red. >> line for this community. >> nimer says she suspects trump is bluffing and is using his proposal as some sort of negotiating tactic. that's the same sentiment shared by omar first. >> this is clearly not going to happen, right? >> and real estate broker ali al farajallah. >> a lot of. >> people are calling me and texting me saying, hey, you know how how did your vote work out? you know, how is that third party vote? >> both were. >> so-called protest voters. neither supported trump or harris. are there any sort of second thoughts now about having supported a third party candidate? >> absolutely not. and i'll still do it again and again and again. >> i didn't vote for trump, so a protest vote, i don't know. i would say it was. >> a targeted.
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>> vote of conscience. >> to say. >> that the children of gaza have to mean something. their death has to mean something. >> and while arab americans here were divided in the past, going forward, one point is uniting them. opposition to trump's proposal to move palestinians out of gaza. >> the community will be unified. i will tell you this. the palestinian people would rather die and live in a demolition site than to be ethnically cleansed and being, uh, sent out of gaza to egypt or jordan. >> so again, anderson, after spending some time here in the arab-american community, you really get a sense that they feel like they've been let down by both republicans and democrats. certainly, there's a great deal of frustration after hearing what trump is proposing, but there's also a feeling that had harris been elected, had it been a harris administration,
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the feeling here is that palestinians would still be suffering. >> anderson. >> carol, thanks very much. and dearborn with me. now put some numbers to the story. cnn senior data reporter harry enten, generally speaking, has there been much appetite in the u.s. for to get involved in rebuilding gaza? no. no, there has not been. look, we have no new polling since last night, right? polling works fast. it doesn't work that fast. but in the polling that we had prior, that was taken towards the middle end of last year, what we saw was the overwhelming majority of americans oppose the idea that the united states should take a lead role in reconstructing gaza. you can see it right there. 57% opposed, just 37% support. and what i should note is the support was lowest among trump's own base of republicans. so the idea that this is going to sell among the american people at large or the republican base, simply put, he definitely wasn't looking at the polls before he went out there and made a. statement that was heard around the world because of how crazy it sounded to most people. how did palestinians view president trump during his first administration? yeah. so, like, you know, we talk about
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americans, right? but at the end of the day, the gaza strip is filled with palestinians, right? so the question is, how do palestinians feel about donald trump during his first term? and the bottom line is they absolutely disapproved of his leadership. i mean, you rarely see numbers like this. look at this. 78% during his first term, disapproved of his leadership, just 10% approved of it. and i even drilled down a little bit more because, you know, i love going into those cross tabs. and what i found was approval or at least disapproval among gazans was even higher than disapproval among gazans was even higher than it was among palestinians overall. so, simply put, this would not be a popular plan, either in america or in the palestinian territories. all right. harry enten, thanks very much. coming up next, how the president's crackdown on unlawful migrants is impacting those here lawfully on a florida farm not far from mar-a-lago. >> a sleep number smart bed is perfect for couples. the climate 360 smart bed is the only bed that cools and warms on each side, and all our smart beds adjust the firmness for each of
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the way i approach work post fatherhood, has really trying to understand the generation that we're building devices for. here in the comcast family, we're building an integrated in-home wifi solution for millions of families like my own. in the average household, there are dozens of connected devices. connectivity is a big part of my boys' lives. it brings people together in meaningful ways. >> please just leave me. >> alone. >> cnn this morning. >> with kasie hunt. next. >> across the country today, demonstrators took to the
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streets, part of a movement billed as a as 50 protests in 50 cities in one day. among their grievances, the president's crackdown on illegal immigration. on that last note, tonight, we have a new report showing how that can impact legal migrants with visas who keep america's farms running. cnn's david culver reports. >> reporter. >> calling out to us from the. >> back of the bus, juan. >> manuel cisneros. >> shows us what he. describes as his american. >> dream come true. >> musica de aqui esta aqui, estoy aqui en este pais. i said, do you always carry that document with you? and he goes, yeah, because if anything happens, he can pull it out and say, i'm here legally in this country. everyone on this bus can say the same. they're farmworkers here on h-2a visas, which allow foreign workers to fill temporary or seasonal agricultural jobs. they come here for about eight months. all the folks on this bus are on their lunch break. are from mexico. he says they're able to work the field. and as he sees it, it's a good solution to be
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able to make money and yet at the same time, be here legally. but with that visa comes grueling work. >> nobody local wants. >> to work in agriculture. >> harvesting crops. nobody. >> these are. hard working, able bodied men. and that's what they're doing. they're doing manual labor. >> and they're doing it in a place that might surprise you. >> that's east. yeah. >> if i go far enough, i'll hit mar-a-lago. >> yeah. >> you will. >> you need only travel about 40 miles from here as roth farms sits just on the western edge of palm beach county, florida. it certainly doesn't feel like the beaches of palm beach. >> but it has the. >> weather. >> which can be brutally hot and humid for those working these fields. yet, despite his need for a reliable and cost efficient workforce, roth says he supports president trump's stance on immigration. is he going to get more difficult to get workers? do you think, under president trump and the crackdown on immigration? >> no. >> i think it actually.
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>> will get easier. >> we just. >> want. people to be vetted, and. >> we want. >> good workers. >> that are come out, come out here. >> so the h-2a visa program may seem like a perfect solution to keep predominantly migrant workers employed on farms like this one here in florida. but critics point out that it doesn't cover every person or every situation. say, for example, those migrants who are fleeing violent and dangerous situations and don't have a home to go back to once the season's over, or those who simply want to live and work with their families year round in the u.s., then you've got small farmers who say that the program is just way too costly and way too complicated. for now, though, rough seas h-2a visas as the best way to keep u.s. farms running, he hires a third party company to handle the logistics. they recruit the workers from abroad and then place them at several different farms, including roth's. >> you hire. >> them in mexico and you transport them over here. you pay all the transportation. >> costs. >> i pay all the transportation
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costs. we put them up in housing, we pay all the housing costs. the only thing we're allowed to. >> charge them for. >> is the cost of the food. when we feed them. >> so what. >> is it like for these workers? so here it is, about 5:00 in the evening. and these workers have just finished their shift at roth farms. they're arriving back at their housing complex. juan manuel and the others invite us to meet them after their work day is over. como estas? yeah. what do you do this time of the day? yeah. when you get here from work. >> de la tarde llegamos a comer. >> dinner is at six. we can go with him. he's inviting us up. muchas gracias. aqui. no. they've been working ten hours today. they work six, sometimes seven days a week. they have just a few things that they need. a few changes of clothes, some snacks and not much privacy. juan manuel shows us his setup now. de la familia he
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says what he makes is about $16 an hour. so here what you make in an hour, as he puts it, is an entire day's work in mexico. this is his third year on the visa work program. he said the money that he makes here, he's able to support his family in mexico as well, and help his mom and dad and brother and sister. para poder sobrevivir. and he said, that's what you need to do to survive. you can see all the workers now are gathering from all the different buildings, most of them all work at different sites, but they come together to eat and then sleep, and then they will be back at it on the fields in about ten, 11 hours from now. >> david, the farmers you talked to, do they believe that president trump would support expanding this program, especially given his belief that foreign workers are taking american jobs they seem to think that the president has no choice here. >> and what is interesting,
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anderson, is that many of them are supporters of president trump. i mean, you heard mr. roth there, and they're also supporters of his take on immigration, his crackdown that we are seeing going forward with these deportations. but as these deportations move forward, they also warn that this is an urgent moment to move forward. and. >> it looks like we lost david culver's fee. david culver reporting. >> we have to continue. >> david, we have you back for about 30 more seconds. sorry. >> yeah. you got me now? yep. no worries out here in palm beach county. i mean, there are aspects of this county that obviously are quite rural, but no, the farmers that we spoke with as they support president trump, they also believe that he has to move forward with this. anderson. they say, really, you look at the food supply in this country and it is reliant on these workers. the visa program, though, has its limitations. they say under the department of labor, it is just really cumbersome, really complicated. and they say it's got to be made cheaper, particularly when you think about those smaller farmers.