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>> shock and awe. a whirlwind. a fire hose. pick your metaphor. just a month in donald trump reshaping the presidency and the nation. plus. >> it takes a little bit of time to build it back up. >> what happened to on day one? the vp says it will take time to get inflation under control. new poll numbers say many voters are not interested in waiting. and this. >> this is the chainsaw for bureaucracy. >> living for the meme. elon musk touts big cuts to jobs and budgets. but is doge really saving billions? cnn digs into the receipts. and later. >> i will not seek this honor. an eighth time. >> the end of an era. senator mitch mcconnell announcing he will not run for reelection, but not before dealing with some

unfinished business. >> all right. it is just after. >> 6 a.m. here on the east coast. a live look at capitol hill on this friday morning. we made it to friday. good morning everyone. i'm kasie hunt. it's wonderful to have you with us. so how much can you change in just one month? it turns out the answer is pretty much everything. >> the golden age of america begins right now. from this day forward, our country will flourish and be respected again all over the world. we will be the envy of every nation. >> just four weeks into his second term, president trump has instituted radical change in nearly every sector of the federal government, and he's doing it with so much speed and so little transparency that it's really hard to convey just how much has been happening.

>> this is january 6th, and these are the hostages. approximately 1500 for a pardon? yes. full pardon? i signed an order creating the department of government efficiency and put a man named elon musk in charge. when you look at usaid. that's a that's a fraud. the whole thing is a fraud. >> since inauguration day, trump has issued over 100 executive actions, many of them making good on campaign promises, resulting in hundreds of january 6th rioters walking free and thousands of federal workers wondering whether they still have a job. at the same time, trump has redefined america's relationship with its allies, and he's looking to redraw the map. >> the u.s. will take over the gaza strip. we're flying over a thing called the gulf of america. so i think canada is going to be a very serious

contender to be our 51st state. greenland is a wonderful place. we need it for international security. china is operating the panama canal, and we didn't give it to china. we gave it to panama, and we're taking it back. >> can you assure the world that as you try to get control of these areas, you are not going to use military or economic coercion? >> no. >> america's adversary is now celebrating as president trump questions the u.s. relationship with europe and repeats russian talking points. >> i think it's true in europe, it's losing. they're losing their wonderful right of freedom of speech. i believe he wants peace. i believe that president putin, when i spoke to him yesterday, i mean, i know him very well. yeah. i think he wants peace. a dictator without elections. zelenskyy better move fast or he's not going to have a country left.

>> and then, of course, there's been president trump's flirtation with defying court orders as federal judges halt some of his agenda. trump even going so far as to quote napoleon, implying that as president, he can't break the law. and to call himself the king, leading the white house to share an image of the president wearing a golden crown, smiling widely. all of that. just a fraction, honestly, of everything that has been done by the president and this administration so far. there is one month down. there are 47 to go. unless, of course, donald trump actually follows through on an idea that he has floated lately. >> and they tell me i'm not allowed to run. i'm not sure. is that true? i'm not sure. should i run again? you tell me. this. there's your controversy right there. there's your. >> controversy. >> okay. my panel is here. alex

thompson, cnn political analyst and political reporter for axios. elliot williams, cnn legal analyst, former federal prosecutor megan hayes, democratic strategist, former director of message planning at the biden white house brad todd, republican strategist, cnn political analyst. welcome to all of you. on this friday, when you really try to sit down and think about everything that has happened over the course of the last month, i feel like i was actually a little surprised to learn that it had only been one month since president trump had been inaugurated. but brad, let me let me kind of start with you because, you know, i think really what has been on the table, especially in the last couple of days, um, that is the biggest of the big picture things is america's place in the world. as you know, we always call the president the leader of the free world. right. and this morning, um, you know, the new york post has this picture saying, president trump, this is a dictator. putin is a dictator. there's this news out of the g7 that the u.s. is

trying to remove the phrase russian aggression from something marking the third anniversary of the war. i mean, on the day that mitch mcconnell announces he's leaving the senate, i mean, this used to be the party of, you know, ronald reagan like mr. gorbachev, tear down this wall. uh, it really does feel like we are living through something momentous. is it, uh, is it good for for us? for the world? >> no. i mean, vladimir putin is a thug. he's a murderer. he is the menace to the world. he's the enemy of the united states. i think most republicans are very wary of vladimir putin. and i think the long term strategy is to make sure that his oil and gas doesn't get him anywhere right now. john mccain used to say he was a gas station with nukes, and that's all it was. russian oil is currently selling for about $68 a barrel. it needs to sell at about 50 to put putin out of business. american wells can make profit about 45. and so i think the policy of the trump administration that is to

contain putin is to make america the energy capital of the world. i think some of what you're seeing on the diplomacy front, maybe isn't it doesn't sit well with a lot of republicans. but i think the long term play here is to put putin out of the gas business and out of the oil business and put american oil in its place. and that's how you break him. >> how do you how do you explain it? i'm curious to hear your thoughts on this. how do you explain thom tillis? um, senator from north carolina really going all in unequivocally on the sort of dictator and thug point that you were making before, kind of putting him at odds with the president. now he's up for reelection this year. what does he gain from that? because i don't think i've seen any republican be that. >> we're trying to rally it, to play it, with the exception. >> that tucker carlson, i don't know anyone who claims to be on the right side. who's who's a fan of vladimir putin. >> except the president. >> no, he's he's he's clearly talked about how vladimir putin is a problem for the united states. he signed every sanctions bill against putin. he certainly believes this war in ukraine needs to come to an end. and he's no fan of volodymyr zelenskyy as well. but i think

donald trump is going to contain vladimir putin through by shutting him down on the gas business. >> let's let's watch thom tillis on the floor from last night because elliott's right. i mean, you can see the emotion. watch. >> whoever believes that there is any space for vladimir putin in the future of a stable globe. better go to ukraine. they better go to europe. they better invest the time to understand that this man is a cancer and the greatest threat to democracy in my lifetime. >> i, i have a hard time seeing that, not as a shot across the bow of the white house. like explicitly. >> of vladimir putin. i mean, listen, we've had four presidents and presidencies now bedeviled by this in george bush. he let vladimir putin move in on the state of georgia. you see, joe biden struggled and wouldn't give zelinski the weapons he needed when he could actually win the war. barack obama laughed it off and let him go into crimea. and now donald trump. vladimir putin has played a pretty good long game against a lot of american presidents. the answer, in the end, is to

take away his ability to stay in power inside russia. that's the answer. >> none of those presidents, though, tried to remove the phrase russian aggression from a g7 communique. >> and add them back and make it the g8 again. i mean, there is a lot of things that donald trump is doing that is sending a different message to the world and to the united states. so it's getting people like tom tillis to say those things. i don't think if your argument was what the president actually believed, people on the senate floor would be doing, that. >> every republican would vote for the sanctions bill on russia. i think we need to keep sanctions on russia. i mean, that's i think that we will soon revert back to some sort of a cold war mentality with russia once the ukrainian war is over. i mean. >> it has been fascinating that basically over the last 12 years, both parties have basically reversed their positions and their attitude toward russia. you remember that 2012 debate with mitt romney and barack obama and mitt romney said that putin was the greatest adversary, and barack obama was like, that's a cold war mentality. right. and now you basically have the opposite being where trump is like, actually, we could do a reset.

you know, with putin, we can get along. >> that's a hillary clinton phrase. >> yeah. it was it was during the obama administration. obama and and and it's just been fascinating to see how much the parties have changed over just. >> to come back to the big topic behind all this, i feel like, uh, whether we as a country embrace dye as the official policy of posters on the wall at the department of education, or how many employees ought to be at whatever agency the political fights to be had internally in the united states. fundamentally, there are questions about america's role in the global stage that have been upended in the last 30 days. whether we care to admit. >> that before. >> that, you cannot credibly say that both the rhetoric and actions taken by the president since he took office with respect to when our canada, of all places, which is, i think, the largest trading partner of the united states, if not one of them, we're up ending a post

world war ii order. >> and yet, no, i may argue the post-world war two order upending happened before that. we're now entering a phase where most of the united states agreements are going to be bilateral. they're not going to be multilateral. there's a belief by donald trump and by a lot of republicans and a lot of conservatives, a lot of former democrats, that when you have a multilateral agreement, the united states has to compromise a lot of times. and if we have a bilateral agreement, we'll get the better end of the deal. >> but voters voted. i mean, listen, the trump view is trump. the voters voted for change, and they're going to get it. and and to your point, maybe the world had changed, but the policy had not changed. you are seeing the most significant change of the relationship of the u.s. and europe in a generation. >> i was just going to say, what's wrong with a multilateral agreement when we had over 50 allies against russia and backing ukraine? what is wrong with that multilateral agreement? i just don't understand how we are now. the country that wants to side with putin and just for the rest of. >> the world. >> with putin. >> but that is the message that everyone is taking. that's the message that europe is taking. that is the message that ukraine

is taking. i mean, he literally called zelenskyy a dictator. >> that was a mistake. he's not a dictator. he should hold elections, but he's not a dictator. >> that correct. but. respectfully, you're not the president. the president went out there and said, pretty. >> good one. oh, i would be a better world for all of us. >> but the president of united states called him a dictator and is not backing down from that. neither is his staff and his team. >> i just think when when the when the prime minister of the uk has to jump in and clarify what the west's role and relationship is with ukraine, we've done something wrong as the united states with respect to our role in the global stage. we just have, you know, we ought not be. we did start. >> in georgia or did it start in crimea or is it starting now? i think this is a much longer we've we've given vladimir putin too much leash for too long over too many administrations. >> i just i keep thinking back to i have a lot of my my grandfather was wounded in world war two, and i have a lot of his old memorabilia. and i just i've been thinking about it a lot in the past couple of weeks, because it really does feel like we are undergoing some sort of

major shift, uh, that, you know, was started with those heroic americans. it really feels, um, you know, it's it's it's it's difficult, i guess, is what i would say. all right. coming up next here on cnn this morning, lowering inflation on day one, a key trump campaign promise. why the administration now asking for more time to bring prices down. plus, in the name of cutting out government waste, even more americans out of a job this morning. and president trump and elon musk have some questions about one of america's strategic reserves. >> this is my big the gold depository at fort knox. gentlemen, in its vaults are $15 billion. the entire gold supply of the united states. >> choice privileges makes it easy to earn points and maximize any vacation you can earn reward nights fast and redeem it over

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>> unrivaled every friday, saturday and monday. presented by samsung galaxy on tnt, drew tv and stream on max. >> so when i win, i will immediately bring prices down starting on day one. starting on day one, we will end inflation and make america affordable again. prices will come down and come down dramatically and come down fast. >> so do you think america is affordable? again? the promise from donald trump made time and time again on the campaign trail, of course, put him back in the white house. he claims he is making good on those promises while speaking to republican governors just last night. >> and everything is coming down. you know, the the eggs are coming down and the bacon is coming down. everything is coming down. and that's the biggest thing. the energy. >> so everything is not coming down. according to numbers released just last week by the bureau of labor statistics, grocery prices jumped by half a percent from december. that is the largest month to month jump

in two years. a lot of that is driven by the cost of eggs, which leapt by 19% in a single month. it spurred, of course, by that deadly bird flu outbreak. but bacon prices are also up 2%. flour steak saw similar increases, but after campaigning on immediately lowering inflation, vice president j.d. vance now saying the administration needs a little more time. >> it's going to take some time to fix what joe biden broke over four years. and and we know it is it is easy, unfortunately, to burn the house down. it takes a little bit of time to build it back up. we're going to make it affordable to live in this country again. that's our mandate. that's our goal. and you're right, there's a lot more that we can do. but i think we've got a pretty good start after 30 days. >> new polling from cnn shows voters may be looking for the administration to step on it a little bit. when asked about trump's efforts to reduce the prices of everyday goods, 62%

say the president has simply not gone far enough yet. alex. it does. it does seem like they've been doing a lot. clearly, there's a lot of bandwidth to do a lot of things. uh, but honestly, the stuff that they have done has probably done more to raise prices than lower them at this point. >> i mean, trump is failing at the standard that he set, which was day one. now, i think any economist would tell you that bringing down inflation in 30 days is not realistic. but he was the one that promised that. and american voters, you know, they're they're pretty demanding. >> i mean, brad, like, do you think he should be focusing more on this than he is? i mean. >> i mean, he's focusing on a lot of things, and he's delivering the kind of speed and pace of change that i think the people who voted for him wanted. and i think most of his voters are pretty enthusiastic about what's happening. the key to bringing down prices is to bring down the cost of energy and make energy a lot more abundant and a lot more affordable, and to increase the horizon so that more investors get into the energy sector. that's not

something that happens immediately. and he did say he's going to start bringing down prices on the first day. he didn't say immediately, i'm going to take my hand off the bible, and the price of eggs is going to drop in half. let's be clear about it. and i do think this has a comprehensive energy. i mean, the biden administration deliberately pushed up energy prices. it was part of the playbook. it's going to take a while to bring them down. but once we do that other other. >> conversation you and i have had separately, and i and i was confounded by i, how long can they keep blaming joe biden? >> i know as long. >> as it's. >> his fault. no, no, it's your question. >> no. because, you know, last week biden inflation up was the social media jd vance now. and the question is is it a month. is it six months a year? at a certain point, the trump administration owns the economy. and i'm just wondering how long it is that they have to keep making. >> a unique political situation where joe biden was elected as a reaction to donald trump and donald trump was reelected as a reaction to joe biden. and so i don't know that you can take

these two men without putting the other one in the frame. >> i also just don't understand how things like tariffs are going to bring prices down. i think that and cutting all these jobs are really impacting a lot of these communities. in places, 95% of the government workforce is out of out of dc. so i'm just curious how these two things are squaring. and i understand the energy cost coming down. but tariffs are going to drive prices right back up. >> all right. coming up next here on cnn this morning mass layoffs hit the irs in the heart of tax season. michael smerconish here to talk about president trump's first month in office. the massive cuts he's already made to the federal government, plus the country shivering through an arctic blast. when are we going to warm up? derek van dam will be here. >> i'm hanako montgomery in tokyo and this is cnn. >> can a mortgage move you forward? absolutely. sophie has helped over 130,000 people take

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of you that it has been an unusually cold winter across the country this year. we have all felt it. it's been punctuated this week by widespread snowfall, some of it pretty intense, reaching as far south as mississippi. let's get to our meteorologist, our weatherman, derek van dam. derek. good morning. >> good morning. casey. and you think that this weatherman would listen to his own weather forecast? uh, it's story time, casey. i woke up this morning to frozen pipes. so at 4 a.m., here is this meteorologist taking a blow dryer and warm towel around his outdoor faucets to prevent them from bursting. that was. that was you didn't turn them off on the inside, derek. i did, i know better, but i got the little drip going now, so we got it all sorted. my wife can thank me later. but look at the temperatures here. i mean, it's eight degrees where i'm located and i'm not the only one who is in this deep arctic plunge. it's bitterly cold. 70 million americans under this extreme cold alert for much of the southeast are the areas that don't typically get this type of weather. so we're near record breaking cold for many

locations, some areas dropping below their record temperature for the morning, including springfield, missouri. we'll continue with these record breaking low temperatures through the course of the next couple of hours, but there is some light at the end of the tunnel i love to look at, um, you know, this life as a glass half full versus glass half empty. so we get rid of the cold, we say hello to the warmth. mild weather returns. look at the temperatures rebounding by the first parts of next week, we'll reach the 70 here in atlanta where i'm located. and for casey, i think we'll reach the 60s by next week as well. and speaking of casey, i got to show this beautiful one of my favorite photos of you and i together. this is some of the most special moments i've spent with you on the desk in d.c. i love getting breakfast with you and just sharing the morning with you and talking to you every single day. the mornings are going to miss that smile and we wish you all the best in your new time slot. i know you're not leaving the network, but wow, what a

pleasure it's been to work with you. casey. >> yeah thank you derek. we're going to wrap up the show. i'm going to be moving to 4 p.m., but i have to tell you, i've really enjoyed having you as big part of our version of cnn this morning, and i will very much miss seeing you every day. thank you for everything. i really appreciate it. >> same to you, casey. all right. >> all the best. have a great weekend. >> i'll talk to you on tv. >> thank you. we'll see you soon. all right. coming up next here on cnn this morning, billions, trillions of dollars saved. that's what the white house claims they have found with their doge cuts. cnn's taking a deeper look. where are the receipts? plus, french president emmanuel macron heading to washington. his message for president trump. >> what i am going to do is i'm going to tell him, basically, you cannot be weak in the face of president putin. >> sounds like you need to vaporize that cold. >> nyquil vapor. >> cool. it's nyquil vapors. >> nyquil vapocool, the

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competency based master's at university of phoenix. >> cnn news central next. >> are. >> this is the chainsaw for bureaucracy. chainsaw. >> yep. really happened. the department of government efficiency slashing its way through the federal workforce. the trump administration and elon musk. they insist that they're only firing low performing employees serving in non-critical roles, or recent hires who have probationary status. just this week, those firings reached the irs, the national parks, nasa and the department of defense. however, interviews with more than a dozen recently laid off federal workers, plus documents obtained by cnn, paints a much different picture. still, that hasn't stopped elon musk from touting doj's apparent successes in slashing government expenditures. >> people ask me, what's the

most surprising thing that you've encountered when you go to dc? you know, when you're in dc. and i said, well, the most surprising thing is the scale of the expenditures. and actually how easy it is to just just when you add caring and competence where it was absent before, you can actually save billions of dollars, sometimes in an hour, like it's it's wild. >> so cnn's tom foreman dug into exactly what doge has cut. >> and also, could you mention some of. >> the white house is rolling out its wall of receipts on the doge website, claiming an estimated 55 billion taxpayer dollars rescued through fraud detection, workforce reductions, regulatory savings and more. >> not like a little bit. billions. tens of billions of dollars. it could be close to $1 trillion that we're going to find. >> but hold on. a closer look

shows big problems. for example, doge claimed axing a single immigration and customs contract saved $8 billion. turns out that contract was worth a maximum of $8 million. and that was just a theoretical ceiling for the deal. less than half that amount was actually slated to be spent. doge corrected that error. but a cnn review of the more than 1100 contracts listed on the doge site found about two thirds made similar inflated claims. and while this alleged outrage dug up by doge grabbed headlines. >> there was. >> about to be 50 million taxpayer dollars that went out the door to fund condoms in gaza. that is a preposterous waste of taxpayer money. >> that proved to be dead wrong, as doge boss elon musk admitted. >> some of the things that i say will be incorrect and should be corrected. >> still, even with the receipts not all adding up. doge keeps filing reports of alleged

widespread waste in aid to foreign countries. deals tied to diversity programs, and millions of dead people collecting social security. >> and we've got people in there that are 150 years old. >> analysts say that most likely reflects doj's misunderstanding of social security data, and a former federal official calls the notion laughably false. he has no idea what he's talking. about there. there is not like a zombie apocalypse of people, you know, cadavers running around with social security checks coming out of their pockets. >> all right. our thanks to tom foreman for that report. our panel is back. so these cuts have been pretty indiscriminate in many ways, to the point they've had to kind of put people back. brad. including, um, like the people that work on our protecting our nuclear weapons and other things. i think one thing that people have failed to grasp is or talk about is the humanity of the situation. and certainly elon

musk, the way he talks about it doesn't necessarily account for the fact that all these people that he's talking about, these these job cuts are actual people. i want to play, um, two things, actually. jesse watters, the fox news host, um, how he has been talking about the people who have been impacted by this. and then we'll watch something else. he apparently had a little bit of an epiphany. let's first play how he has been talking about people impacted by doge. >> thousands of bureaucrats woke up today to a big you're fired! doge is dishing out spankings like daddy daycare. it's like going to your grandparents house, throwing out their vcr and their stacks of tapes, just downloading netflix for them. here, grandpa, you just hit this button here and press select. even the holiday weekend couldn't slow doge down. there was a huge exodus over at the national archives. persnickety librarians were getting doge silly. the dewey decimal system is next. doge is a blessing from the heavens above.

>> the librarians got doge. here's what happened when mr. watters learned that somebody that is close to him was affected. >> he just found out he's probably going to get laid off. it's going to get doge. and he texted me and he suggested, you know, this isn't good. i'm upset. this is really sad. and this guy is not a dei consultant. this guy is not a climate consultant. you know, this guy is a veteran. we just need to be a little bit less callous with the way we talk about dodging people. >> an interesting lesson that he learned. alex thompson, this is this is just the thing i keep coming back to. and they're not just people here in washington, d.c. they are people across the country. >> well, and elon musk made it very clear in the clip you showed earlier that he is bringing a chainsaw, not a scalpel, to this. they are not doing considerate ways of firing. i mean, i've talked to many, you know, people that work in the federal government over

the last two weeks that basically talk about people in tears constantly and people basically feeling that years of work they're doing is being just thrown out the door. or, and people just also live in apprehension that they're not going to have a job, or they're going to get a late night email saying like your services are no longer needed. so certainly you can. i think there is the political effect. we don't know. but you can definitely see that the way they've gone about this has caused a lot of frustration. >> um, brad, uh, again, i don't think i certainly think the american public is willing to say we want our government to be efficient. we want it to be more efficient. we understand that there are things that should be cut. um, but again, these are human beings, and these cuts are not just here in the dmv. i mean, they are across the country. i talked to one woman whose daughter works for a small and nonprofit in kansas city, missouri, working on homelessness. they don't think they're going to get the grants. they're probably going to have to fire everyone. there

was that park ranger in iowa who, you know, we all saw on social media who basically i mean, this is not this is not just here, it is across the country. and these are, again, real people. >> government policy has cost people their jobs for a long time. i'm from a place in east tennessee that was a hosiery mill town, and nafta, a government policy, put basically everybody who worked at those mills out of business. uh, the government itself is the only industry, perhaps, that has not been affected by downsizing, layoffs, efficiency cuts over the last 20 years. this is just the world catching up with government. and certainly there are human stories there. but it's also revealing the fact that some of the things we do in government don't make a lot of sense. and maybe we've been doing too much of some things. maybe we've used too many people to do certain functions. and i think by and large, the taxpayers who are also affected by this, they see the waste that's happened. i think most people, as taxpayers, are glad to see some efficiency. >> so so two things. when we cut taxes at a federal level for some of these programs like homelessness, that just translates to the state level

and their state taxes are going to go up. and also the political aspect of this, those calls that jesse watters is getting, members of congress are going to start getting those, and that's going to impact them for the midterms. and for 28, donald trump might not have to pay the repercussions, but i really do think congress is going to pay the repercussions because their constituents are not going to be happy about a lot of these cuts and a lot of these job losses. >> we'll see. all right. straight ahead here on cnn this morning in just one month, president trump has dramatically shifted how the u.s. approaches foreign policy. michael smerconish joins us next to discuss that and more. plus, the end of an era after four decades in the senate, mitch mcconnell announcing he will not seek reelection. >> so lest any of our colleagues still doubt my intentions for the remainder of my term, i have some unfinished business to attend to. >> can a mortgage move you forward? absolutely. sophie has helped over 130,000 people take the leap toward homeownership.

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>> it's an interesting question. i think they have to make peace. they've been saying that for a long time. that ukraine cannot go into nato. and and i'm. and i'm okay with that. >> do you trust president? >> i believe that, uh, yeah, i believe that he would like to see something happen. i trust him on this subject. oh, well, we weren't invited. well, you've been there for three years. you should have ended it three years. you should have never started it. you could have made a deal. a dictator without elections. zelenskyy, better move fast or he's not going to have a country left. >> donald trump's verbal attacks on ukraine's leadership now setting the stage for a rapid reversal of u.s. policy toward that country as it tries to defend itself against the russian invasion. it was just a little over two years ago that ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy was invited by then speaker of the house nancy pelosi, to address a joint session of congress just days before christmas. he brought a ukrainian flag that had been signed by soldiers on the front lines with this message to u.s. lawmakers.

>> it gives. >> me good reason. >> to share with you our first, first joint victory. we defeated russia in the battle for minds of the world. >> now, of course, zelenskyy finds himself at odds with president trump and leaders in a republican controlled washington. as president trump demands rights to ukraine's natural resources. his allies are throwing cold water on the idea of any future aid to ukraine. >> do you. >> see another funding bill for the war in ukraine? >> look, there's no appetite for that. what do you think? no. yeah. >> we got our answer there. >> all right. joining us now is friday to discuss cnn political commentator michael smerconish, the host of smerconish. michael, always wonderful to have you on the program. thank you so much for being here. >> thank you. >> casey, great to see you again. >> so let's talk a little bit about this. what's going on here with, you know, we've been holding up the cover of today's new york post, which we know

trump reads. uh, we think probably every day. he certainly looks at it. it says this is a dictator. president trump with a picture of putin. um, the axios this morning is reporting that zelenskyy has handled the public back and forth with president trump, has made trump so angry that he's thought about pulling all aid, all military aid to ukraine. what are the realities here, in your view? how significant is this as a shift in, you know, america's situation as what we have always called we always called the president, the leader of the free world. >> you know, i. >> too, thought that this repudiation by the new york post was so significant that it wawa. this morning i bought my own copy because i wanted to see exactly what kind of a spanking the post was going write was going to give trump. um, here's something else that occurs to me. one of the changes in trump 2.0 is that populist andrew jackson. his portrait has been

removed or replaced or swapped out in the oval office for ronald reagan, which is interesting to me because i cut my teeth as a reagan republican in the 1980s. i still revere ronald reagan. you don't hear ronald reagan's name invoked in this incarnation of the gop, the way that you had in the recent past. so i like that. that's a good thing. ronald reagan is rolling over in his grave at what donald trump is doing vis a vis putin, how far we have come from mr. gorbachev. tear down that wall. i remember the soviet invasion of afghanistan in 1979. i remember the support that reagan gave the so-called freedom fighters in afghanistan in the 80s. this is so far removed from that. i don't understand it. it's a policy of appeasement. and to put it in lay terms, we have thrown this administration, has thrown zelenskyy under the bus. i don't know that ukraine would still be standing. but for

vladimir zelenskyy. >> i remember the early days of the war and the sort of assumption that he was going to simply be rolled by the russians in the beginning there. and the way that he sort of stepped up as a leader was really remarkable. i mean, michael, how do you explain the way that president trump is approaching this? is it just admiration for the level of control that putin is able to exert over his society? is it just admiration for that? i mean, what is it? >> it's hard not to look at the dynamics and say that that putin is what trump aspires to be in terms of the strongman image. look, if in the end it had to be, if in the end it had to be that that russia is going to maintain some of the spoils of war, i can get it. but what i don't get is the spanking that zelenskyy is getting the the degrading way in which he's being referred to as a dictator

by president trump or blamed blamed for they never should have started it. you just played the clip again. i don't know, i'm flabbergasted. i just i just don't understand. it's as if there's an effort to humiliate him and it's just unnecessary. >> yeah. uh, briefly, michael, i also want to get your take on, uh, let's just take a brief look at what elon musk did yesterday at cpac. >> this is the chainsaw for bureaucracy. chainsaw. >> he said he was living the meme. obviously, there's some support from americans for, you know, adding efficiencies to government. do you think the chainsaw is the wrong instrument to be going after the federal government with., you know, i have the same comment and reaction that i do relative to russia and ukraine, which is, okay, maybe this is where it needs to end, but the process, i mean, is the process really

necessary? >> i don't think we've taken a serious look at the size of our debt since simpson-bowles in the obama years. i like the idea that there is, you know, this type of a review taking place, but the methodology that they're using, i question in the same way that i question the methodology that they're using to get to the end of the road with ukraine and russia. >> all right. michael smerconish, it has been such a treat to have you every friday here on ktmb. this is actually going to be my last broadcast here. i'm really excited. i think you're going to be on hopefully, the very first show that we're going to have at 4 p.m. so i'm really excited to see you there. >> i wish you all good things. you deserve it. thank you. >> thank you. i'll see you soon. and of course, don't forget. tune in to smerconish. it's tomorrow morning, 9 a.m. eastern, right here on cnn. all right. let's turn now to this story. a major announcement from former senate majority leader mitch mcconnell. >> diddy huddleston, thank you very much. come on. we can't

find d. maybe we ought to let him make speeches and switch to mitch for senator. >> that's a throwback. he's been in office for four decades. the 83 year old kentucky republican now announcing he will not run for reelection next year. in 2020, mcconnell won his seventh consecutive term. but during his tenure, he clashed at times with president trump in recent times. that's an understatement. in recent weeks, mcconnell voted against more of trump's nominees than any other republican. >> i'm a survivor of childhood polio from before vaccines, before vaccines eradicated that disease here in our country and around the world now. so i've been a lifelong champion of vaccinations. >> he's not voting against bobby. he's voting against me. but that's all right. he votes against almost everything. now he's a, you know, very bitter guy i don't know anything about. he had polio. he had polio? yeah. >> are you doubting that he had polio? >> i have no idea. if he had

polio. >> uh, the man had polio. mcconnell's retirement will also mean an open senate seat in 2026. brad todd, you're very close to many senate republicans. mitch mcconnell came to washington the year that i was born. uh, full disclosure, uh, and his stepping down, you know, there have been a series of things that have happened during the trump time here in washington that have felt like, you know, end points or, taken together, the end of one version of the republican party and the beginning of another one. i mean, john mccain's funeral was perhaps the most noteworthy of these for me, but mcconnell's retirement is another one. but what does it mean about where the republican party came from and where it's going? >> well, first off, i think republicans owe mcconnell a great debt of gratitude for what he did on the judiciary. conservatives, we care a lot about the supreme court, and we care a lot about the lower courts. nobody has put that care into action more than mitch mcconnell. we have three supreme court justices appointed by donald trump, thanks to mitch

mcconnell, in large part on campaign finance and free speech. mcconnell has been a total champion, and we owe him a debt of gratitude on that. however, his cooperation with chuck schumer over the years eventually what he saw as a way to preserve the institution of the senate eroded some of the trust he had among conservatives. and so it's i think that you will probably see a lot less cheering on his departure than you might otherwise have because of the accomplishments he had on the judiciary. he deserves some cheering as he goes out the door. but the changes in the republican party a lot are because of confrontation. he's an old school of compromise and conciliation and not of confrontation. and we now have a party. that confrontation is number one on the agenda. >> alex, how do you govern if all you do is oppose each other? right? i mean, like, that's like our system is quite literally built to work when, you know, i mean, republicans have needed government or democrats to keep the government open and running all the way along here. >> well, mcconnell's view has long been that the government will only basically you have that's why he's always protect

the filibuster. even when donald trump wanted him not to, is because he only believes that you should only be able to move forward when there is at least a fragile consensus between two parties. >> fair enough. all right. i am going to leave you with this one last time. today is my last day here on cnn. this morning. i am going to move to the afternoon. i'm going to be hosting my new show, the arena. it's going to be on at 4 p.m. eastern. but before we leave, i do want to take a moment to look back at some of the memorable moments that we've had over the past year here on this show. we. are after that reaction from a democratic source, after watching president biden's performance in last night's cnn debate, it sounds like you're actually open to the idea that it might be the right decision for him to step aside. >> i think what i'm. >> stressing is. >> that has to be his decision. uh, but we have to be honest with ourselves that it wasn't just a horrible night. >> so much of, you know, the clips we were watching at the

top of the segment are driven by the fact that this is this is an attractive. >> we got to drop the banner to show why. and welcome to all of you. so grateful to have you here. are you okay? >> yeah. >> caffeine caffeine caffeine. >> i don't i don't know. >> where. i am or. >> what i'm doing. >> but i'm apparently here. >> just a little concerned. >> you're wrong and you're wrong. >> everybody's screwing this up. >> this morning. shirt button. >> first of. >> all. >> i am making a statement. >> hang on, hang on. let me just let me get my bakari. >> all right, here we go. >> bakari. >> oh my god. oh, god. no, no, no. >> thank god, you can barely see that on. >> camera. >> wow. wow. >> here he was in brazil earlier this week. the first sitting president to visit the amazon, seeming to. wander into the jungle. >> and those beautiful arms came and they hugged it like you would hug your little beautiful baby. >> okay.

>> joining us now to discuss is astrophysicist neil degrasse tyson. he is the author. >> if i could track santa. >> down. >> to the. >> city. >> how can they not find these drones? >> and. we've had a lot of really wonderful times here on the show, and hopefully he will button his shirt if he comes on at 4 p.m. bakari, looking at you, i do want to take a second though. there are so many people. my favorite thing about television is that it is a team sport you cannot do it with. there are literally dozens of people who work on this dc, atlanta, new york across the country. i want to take a moment to thank all of them. our tech crews, our booking folks, the makeup artists that help everybody look their best every day. it really does take so much, and i'm so grateful. they, of course, are going to be continuing to work on what you will see here with my colleague audie cornish, who will be here at 6 a.m. doing cnn this morning. and i do really hope that you will join me at 4 p.m. eastern time every day for the