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>> 821 4000. >> good morning to you. you are live in the cnn newsroom. i'm pamela brown, and we begin with the chaos and confusion in the federal workforce. after a day of conflicting guidance about elon musk's email ultimatum. cnn has now learned that the office of personnel management sent out new guidance to employees late last night, and it left the door open to possible punishment if they don't reply. and that came just hours after the same office informed agencies that responding to the musk email was voluntary, and that ignoring it would not equate to resignation like he claimed. but the multi-billionaire seems to be doubling down. he posted that workers will get another chance and claimed failure to respond a second time would result in termination. the contradictory statements have left many government workers angry and unsure about whom they should be listening to. cnn's jeff zeleny is at the white house. so, jeff, how is president trump

responding to all of this? >> well, pamela, another day. >> another round of. >> confusion for federal workers. president trump, for his part, is supporting elon musk, even as those questions persist. all over those six words that were. >> sent out. >> to federal workers over the weekend. what did you do last. week that is carrying over into this week? the confusion over just how to respond. there's just been a variety of contradictory information for federal workers who are already obviously under considerable strain as mass layoffs have already occurred. but the president was asked about this. he called what elon musk is doing. genius. >> i thought it. was great because we have people that don't show up to work, and nobody even knows if they work for the government. so by asking the question, tell us what you did this week. what he's doing is saying, are you actually working? and then if you don't answer, like you're sort of semi fired or you're fired because a lot of people are not answering because they don't

even exist. they're trying to find. that's how badly various parts of our government were run by, and especially by this last group. >> of course, there is no evidence that there are vast numbers of federal employees who do not exist, and it is unclear what you are either fired or semi fired actually means. but going forward, employees in a variety of agencies, particularly ones with a national security connections like the fbi, like the department of justice, like the department of homeland security, are being advised to not answer these emails because in part, they do not report to the office of personnel management or to elon musk. so, pamela, there are many questions about this. i expect that this will be one of the key topics of the white house briefing coming up this afternoon. but there is no doubt the president at least, is standing by elon musk, even as some members of his cabinet and others are wondering if they can run their own agencies. pamela. >> yeah, a fascinating dynamic at play right now, as you just

laid out. jeff zeleny. so, i mean, just just help us understand, because there's been so much happening. um, where do things stand right now? will these federal workers have to reply to this email? >> look, that really depends. agency by agency. again, the national security connected agencies like doj and fbi are being told not to respond. others. yesterday, the commerce department responded, interior department employees responded, by and large, but it is transportation as well. but it is sort of a patchwork approach, if you will. but it really is underscoring all the questions here about if this is actually a an appropriate email or if it simply to keep some of the federal workers off balance, if you will. but there's actually the first cabinet meeting tomorrow of this new administration. so it will be interesting also to see if cabinet secretaries raise this with the president. pamela. >> all right. jeff zeleny at the

white house, thanks so much, jeff. well, the lawsuit against doge are piling up, and now a federal judge is demanding answers as she weighs if it's even constitutional. cnn's katelyn polantz is following it all for us. caitlin, what more do we know about these lawsuits and the questions this judge wants answered? well, pamela. there just aren't many answers. >> right now that became clear in a hearing yesterday where for about 30 minutes, judge colleen kollar-kotelly of the federal court in washington just grilled the administration's lawyers, asking anyone in the courtroom, does anyone know what doge is and what elon musk is doing as the person who's holding himself out there as the director of doge? so the judge was asking questions like, where is mr. musk in all of this? things that were happening at the treasury department is what she was asking about. people working with doge within treasury. also asking, is there an administrator of usgs? that's the u.s. digital service now known as doge at the present time. that's important because

the administrator is referred to as the person in charge. in donald trump's executive order establishing doge, also stating very clearly to the justice department what is his. that's musk's position. he's not the administrator. and as i understand it, he's not an employee of usgs, but he seems to be speaking on behalf of usgs. so judge kollar-kotelly nailing the big questions here. but the legal questions are very important. pamela, this isn't just an existential. think question about what is going on with musk. it's a legal question of who is giving these people that are saying they're working with doge authority to do what they're doing, who is giving them direction? and that matters under the law, because those people are supposed to be nominated by the president, confirmed by the senate. all the justice department lawyer was able to say, as far as answers to judge kollar-kotelly yesterday was that elon musk was

an advisor to the white house. that's it. >> that's really telling. and by the way, american people deserve to have these answers, right? they're very simple, basic answers, particularly when you're dealing with this private sensitive data like this. katelyn polantz, thank you so much. and now let's bring in cnn senior legal analyst and former assistant u.s. attorney for the southern district in new york, elie honig. all right, so let's talk about this. i find it fascinating. you know, this judge is asking very basic questions that that you would expect. right. and the doj lawyer, caitlin just said said, look, elon musk is an advisor, not really specifically answering those questions. how do you see this playing out? >> well. >> i. definitely sympathize for that. >> doj lawyer having to go into. court without. >> the answers that he. >> would need to be able to provide to. >> a judge. >> but i think we can look. >> forward to. seeing more of this, because what. >> we've seen so far, pam, has been the preliminary phases. the people who have challenged the actions taken by the trump administration, by. >> musk, by doge, they have all

been in the posture. >> of. >> asking for. >> emergency relief. >> they're asking for injunctions. >> and so. >> we've seen this. >> series of dozens of rulings. >> where judges. >> either are. >> or are not hitting the pause button. >> but now we're starting to proceed to the next. >> phase of litigation. >> in these cases where we're getting into what we call discovery. or where judges say, i need to know some details and some facts. and so i think more and more, we're going to see a judges asking the kind of questions that caitlin just laid out. the judge cutler kelly asked. and b, we're going to start seeing some of these plaintiffs get access to internal documents, get the opportunities to depose certain government officials in order to determine just the basics. who's who here, who is acting under what authority and who is calling the shots. >> and our reporting indicates that opaqueness is basically by design when it comes to doge. but with these judges, can they essentially force the trump administration to reveal what's going on behind the scenes? i know you mentioned discovery. that could be one way to do it right?

>> sure. >> or judges can even just more directly say, i need to know this. i need. >> to have. >> a hearing. i want someone in here to answer questions from me. so, yes, judges do have the authority to compel the executive branch to turn over information, but that in itself will become subject of legal battles because watch for the administration and administrations across party lines. do this to push back, to say that's privilege. perhaps that's subject to executive privilege. or, you know, we believe that that request is overbroad, but we are going to learn more. one of the great benefits of the courts here is they do tend to shine light on internal governmental workings in a way that sometimes congress can't. and sometimes the executive branch itself is not willing to give us. >> right. and of course, reporters like myself are also trying to to have that transparency with our reporting behind the scenes. i want to turn to dc's interim u.s. attorney, ed martin, who, by the way, to remind our viewers, helped organize the stop the steal movement. yesterday, he posted, quote, as president

trump's lawyers, we are proud to fight to protect his leadership as our president, and we are vigilant in standing against entities like the ap that refuse to put america first. the ap is a long running member of the free press in this country. there has been a lot of outcry that he's referring to u.s. prosecutors as trump's lawyers. as a former federal prosecutor yourself, how do you respond to this? >> well, i'm going to ring the alarm bell here about this guy, ed martin, who is currently the acting u.s. attorney for washington, d.c. i'm working on a piece about him right now. i think he's extraordinarily dangerous. he has zero prosecutorial experience, but he also has no clue what he's talking about. take that one posting that you just put, he said, we represent the president. no we don't. i was with doj for years. you didn't go into court and say elie honig representing george w. bush, elie honig representing barack obama. you said representing the united states, the president, in his individual capacity or in

his professional capacity is not your client. your client is the people of the united states. but ed martin so far seems to be viewing this job as just a platform to carry out political agendas and to seek vengeance against disfavored political forces. so i think he is someone who we need to watch very carefully. i think a lot of the things he's said and posted show a fundamental misunderstanding of what the job is. >> i mean, that's a that's a charitable view, a misunderstanding. right. um, because it could be more cynical. we don't know. we do know that he's a big trump supporter again. and i and i emphasize this, he was an organizer of the stop the steal movement. the election was not stolen. and he is in a tremendous position of power. right? i mean, tell us about the position he's in and the amount of power he has now in this role. >> so he is the top federal prosecutor in washington, d.c. and, of course, that's an extraordinarily sensitive district, because a lot of these political disputes will come through there. if we look at some of the other things that ed

martin has done and said one, he has floated the possibility of criminally prosecuting chuck schumer and representative garcia, both for political statements that they made in public. i think, inappropriate, irresponsible political statements. but we're nowhere near criminality. he's essentially trampling on the first amendment to lodge these threats of prosecuting these individuals. ed martin, also, if you look at his twitter feed, his ex feed, it's essentially filled with payoffs to elon musk. he is basically kissing up to elon musk on a daily basis. and oh, it was such an honor to meet with you. and we will hunt down to the ends of the earth. anyone who bothers you, anyone who acts unethically. none of that is the job of a prosecutor. i mean, he's in charge of washington, dc. there is plenty of very serious crime in washington, d.c., and the fact that he seems to want to act as elon musk's personal police force, i think, is very dangerous, and we need to keep a close eye on. >> and we absolutely will. and yeah, the email that he had sent to his work force, um, when over the weekend, when elon musk was asking for the five things they

did, he even in that email, he said, you know, what they're doing here is historic. you know, he really kind of made that clear at the top that he thought it was great, and that's fine. but i think you have to look at the whole body of evidence here. past comments he's made, what he's posting online. um, his role before this, it just as you said, it's something that we should be keeping an eye on. ellie, thank you so much. >> yeah. thanks, ben. >> still ahead this hour after his meeting with president trump, the french president says a peace deal between ukraine and russia could be made in just weeks. a live report from kyiv next. >> cooked books. >> corporate fat. >> cats, swindling. >> socialites. >> doped up. >> cyclists, then? yes. >> more crooked politicians. >> i have a feeling. >> we won't be running out of those. >> anytime soon. >> a new season of united states of scandal with jake tapper. march 9th on cnn. >> before you go to extremes to fix sagging and wrinkles with expensive injections, try. >> this olay. regenerist olay. >> boost skin cell regeneration to firm lift and reshape volume

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powered stain remover and part party animal patrol. bissell a new breed of clean. >> twitter. breaking the bird premieres march 9th on cnn. >> a key. >> u.s. ally is voicing new optimism for a peace deal between russia and ukraine. french president emmanuel macron telling fox news that a truce could be reached in, quote, weeks. that comment, coming after his meeting with president trump monday at the white house. cnn's nick paton walsh joins us from the capital of ukraine. nick, what is the reaction in kyiv to president macron's very optimistic time frame here? >> yeah, i mean, there's no doubt that we've been hearing from ukrainian officials the desire for what they call a just peace, or at least a sustained peace. so there will be optimism that it could be sooner rather than later, owing to the fact that, you know, ukraine is losing slowly on the front lines and losing large numbers of soldiers and civilians because of russian aggression here. but the realism also, i think, will greet some of those comments

too. i think macron was trying to suggest that the accelerated timetable that trump is so keen to see deployed to both his deal with the russians, but also as part of that the ukraine peace deal is something that europe is invested in as well. but there's a huge amount of wariness here about whether russia can be trusted. we did also hear macron speaking about the need for steps that are sort of verified things that they can see the russians do and they can quantify and have as kind of confidence building measures that could potentially enable a peace process to move forward step by step, essentially. and it did sound a lot like macron's conversations with trump. detailed some of the european planning and thinking around exactly what sort of stage by stage process you would need to have. the ukrainians confident that the russians wouldn't simply use a pause in fighting to refit before launching another attack. but we don't know about that in public, and we don't know how that aligns with the separate,

quite fast track being spoken of by trump officials around the separate dealings with russia. so a lot, i think, of optimism here as a result of that macron meeting. he does appear to have frankly turned trump around from being deeply negative towards europe, along with some of his closest officials in the week beforehand, and very negative about ukraine's president volodymyr zelenskyy, about whom he launched a litany of falsehoods, frankly. and now we've flipped suddenly after the macron intervention to a rare earth deal that now appears to be so much closer to being signed than before. it hasn't happened yet. and most importantly, trump saying that zelenskyy would come to washington to sign that deal with him in the oval office this week or next. no date for that yet, but a remarkable transformation in that relationship owing to macron's intervention, given the fact that zelenskyy had said he thought trump was living in a disinformation circle the previous week, and trump responded by calling him a dictator, a falsehood there and suggesting zelenskyy was asleep when the treasury secretary

tried to get this rare earth minerals deal signed also a falsehood. so huge transformation, whether it's sustained, whether it's the same next week. unclear at this point. so much changing so fast. >> so much changing, so fast. and you know, you just saw yesterday at the un, the u.s. joining moscow to vote against a u.n. resolution to condemn russia's war against ukraine. wow. nick paton walsh, thank you so much. still ahead this hour, if you think eggs at the grocery store are expensive, imagine if your livelihood depended on them. i'll talk with the bakery manager who says the 150 eggs he needs every day cost double what they did a year ago. >> it's the news. welcome back. but it's also kind of not the news. >> we don't. >> fact check here. >> we don't care. man. >> why suhl. >> the information on this. >> show so terrible? >> have i got news for you saturday at nine on cnn. >> oh. >> i hate. >> these things. that's one. >> of the great things about consumer cellular. they're 100%

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>> now i feel so much more confident in expressing myself, and that's been a great gift. >> all there is with anderson cooper. >> listen, wherever you get your. >> podcasts. >> well, if. >> you're a fan of the grand slam breakfast, prepare to pay a little bit more because there are reports that some denny's are charging more for eggs due to that nationwide shortage, it's unclear how many of the 1500 locations will add the surcharge or how much it will be. earlier th month, ffle house told its customers they're going to have to pay an extra $0.50 for every egg. while big chains appear to be charging more for eggs. small business owners are facing this terrible choice raise prices and risk losing customers, or risk losing their business altogether as rising costs eat into their bottom line. let's discuss this with scott auslander. he is the general manager of bread first. that's a local bakery in washington, d.c. hi, scott. so tell us how this egg shortage

has affected your business. >> yeah. >> well, you know. >> the egg. >> shortage started. >> um, a little while back, as everybody knows. and we've seen a real doubling of the prices of eggs over the last year. i looked this morning before i came on with you. same week last year. i was paying $3.30 for a dozen eggs, and this morning we paid about $7.50. uh, here at the bakery, we use about 1000 eggs a day. um, and that's going to be a couple of hundred dollars a day, $300 a day, $2,000 a week. that's real money that, um, is going to get passed on to the consumer a little bit. >> that's a. >> lot of eggs. are you having trouble getting the eggs, by the way? because i asked because we were trying to get eggs the other day and there were like none at the grocery store. like, what is going on here? >> just like everybody at home. we have to jockey a little bit. so it used to be we called our broadline supplier. he had eggs. he sent us eggs at a fair price.

the price fluctuated a little bit. nothing huge. but now every day i'm meeting with my pastry staff and we're saying, well, where do we go to get the eggs? who's got a good price? um, in prior years, you. when this would happen, it would go for a short time, couple weeks, um, maybe even a couple of days. and maybe we'd call our local farmer, and the local farmer would have a better price on eggs. um, he'd bring us, you know, ten cases of eggs to get us through a couple days until the prices came back down. but now the local farmers are having the same problem with bird flu. can't get a better price. so we spend a lot of time jockeying. >> that's so fascinating what you have to do behind the scenes to wrangle eggs for your bakery. and you're just talking about having to raise the price. a little bit of a price hike, right, for your customers. how are your customers responding to this? >> you know, i think the nice thing in this particular case is eggs are something. everybody uses, something everybody buys. that's why they're in the back of your grocery store. so people know the eggs price. eggs are

hard to come by. they know eggs are a little bit more expensive. so when you go to your local bakery and the egg sandwich is a dollar or more, you understand, you know, there's a lot of stuff like we're doing here today talking about it, and it's something people are aware of. so we've tried to be really targeted. just raise a few of our prices. i'm here in washington, d.c., where, you know, people are definitely concerned about higher prices right now. i don't have to tell your viewers. so so we've tried to really target any kind of price, price hike in terms of eggs for our customers to the items that use a lot of eggs. >> so i apologize if this is a foolhardy question. i am not a baker. i appreciate baked goods. love them. i don't bake myself. so most baked goods i know, though, require eggs. has your bakery even considered making changes to recipes so you don't have to rely on so many eggs? >> for us, there's really no substitute. you know, we we are

interested in doing quality work and and you can't substitute, you know, fake eggs or powdered eggs on an egg sandwich for breakfast. it's too obvious. um, so in our case, we're just hoping that the prices come down. um, in these kinds of situations, in the past, our vendors have said, hey, it's going to last a month, it's going to last two months. but in this particular case, they're telling us we don't know when the prices are going to come back down. so that's why about a week ago, we we raised prices of something like an egg sandwich or a quiche, um, very modestly to cover the cost, hoping that at some point prices will come down, or at least moderate a little bit. >> you talked about how you really feel from your customers there, um, that they're concerned about prices right now. last hour we learned that consumer confidence plummeted in february. that is the biggest drop in three and a half years. obviously, you're not an economist, but tell us a little bit more about how that sentiment is reflected in your own business and what you're getting from customers.

>> yeah, i mean, i'm not an economist, but i can be your expert here. um. >> so that's excellent. >> thank you. in terms of, uh, my customers, i'm in washington, d.c., so the political landscape really affects my customer base. so, um, you know, whether or not people are losing jobs or people are concerned about their friends and neighbors. um, you know, in my case, it affects how much i can raise prices. how much of that increase in egg costs can i pass along? now, the good thing is, traditionally eggs go up, eggs come down sort of like gasoline. so, um, you know, the hope is that over time in this particular situation, the price of eggs will come down a little bit. i don't know if it will come down all the way to that $3. it was a year ago this time. but even if it moderates a little bit as a young man, i remember working at, a steakhouses during mad cow and we raised prices all the way up and prices did moderate a little

bit after a couple of years, but we didn't go all the way down. >> scott alexander, thank you for being our expert for the day. we appreciate it and best of luck to you and your bakery and all the bakeries that are out there right now. i appreciate restaurants grappling with this. well, turning back to our breaking news, a new report showing consumer confidence has plummeted. bleak news for the white house and for congress, where lawmakers are facing a shutdown deadline and concerns about passing a budget. up next, i'll speak with a republican congressman about everything they're facing right now on capitol hill. you're in the cnn newsroom. >> cooked books. >> corporate fat. >> cats, swindling. >> socialites. >> doped up cyclists. >> and yes. >> more crooked politicians. i have a. >> feeling we won't be running out of. >> those any time soon. >> a new season of united states of scandal with jake tapper, march 9th on cnn. >> i brought in ensure max. >> protein with 30g. >> of protein.

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>> we've been. >> out of. >> a job. >> that's because purple mattresses are made with patented gel flex grid technology. >> do not. >> go to purple.com. >> do not visit a purple. >> store. >> on capitol hill. a critical test for president trump's second term agenda with a razor thin majority. house speaker mike johnson is trying to win over enough republicans to push through a massive package of tax and spending cuts in. just moments ago, he waffled on whether critical of a critical vote on the plan will actually happen today. but he's calling the blueprint, quote, a moral obligation. >> the objective in our commitment has always been deficit neutrality. that's the goal here. if we can reduce the deficit, even better. but here's another thing everybody needs to consider. not only are we working to find savings for the american taxpayer to to find a better, more efficient, more effective use of their dollars, which we are morally obligated to do. we also have a moral obligation to bend the curve on the debt. all of your children, all of our children and grandchildren are going to be

saddled with the debt that we are spending right now. it's $36 trillion federal debt. the deficits have ballooned. we have to change that trajectory. >> so let's discuss with republican congressman nick al-awda al-awda of new york. he sits on the house committee responsible for deciding government funding. congressman, thanks so much for being here. so there are just 17 days left until the government runs out of money. and congress can't seem at this point to come to a consensus on how to do that. how optimistic are you that speaker johnson and republicans will be able to get something done here? >> i am. >> optimistic for the last. >> couple of years, we've ran up against a couple of these deadlines. each time folks got a little anxious. there's a lot of buzz in the press about these deadlines, but each time over the last couple of years under speaker johnson's rule, we've been able to meet those deadlines and keep the government funded. so i remain optimistic about doing just that. >> house majority leader steve scalise said this morning that there will be a vote tonight. now, the speaker says there may not be one. what are you hearing? >> yeah, i'm hearing the vote

on the budget resolution, which should not be confused with budget reconciliation. i'm hearing that the budget resolution vote should be expected this week as early as today. of course, it's an important step to put our nation back on the right track and deliver on a lot of the promises trump and house republicans made during the course of our campaigns. things about reducing inflation, bending the curve of our nation's debt, this budget resolution vote, which will happen either today or later this week, as expected, is an important first step in that process. >> so where are you right now on the budget resolution? >> i'm a yes on budget resolution. on one hand, it's a very important vote to put the train back on the right tracks. but on the other hand, it's just a mere procedural vote to then have an opportunity to have a policy discussion on tax and spending, a very necessary one, one that's necessary because washington, regardless of which party, has controlled whatever chamber or the white house for 25 years, has not balanced federal budget. now we have $36

trillion in debt, a $2 trillion deficit. enough's enough. finally, we got to do something on the budget to put us on a better track. >> so republicans on that note, you know, they want to cut more than $1 trillion in spending. how do you do that without touching entitlement programs like medicaid or social security? >> so, so, so social security and medicare are off the table. medicare with respect? yes. but with respect to medicaid, that is a subject of discussion. and there are three priorities that there is whole consensus in the republican conference about. one, ensuring all the illegals get off of the medicaid rolls. two, to ensure that there are work requirements for able bodied adults. and three, that we take out the waste, fraud and abuse rampant in a lot of state systems like mine in new york. those are the three things around which unite house republicans on medicaid. and there is a lot of discussion about things that go further than that, that there's a lot of opposition. scores of members are opposed to cuts in medicaid

that go beyond that. i was pleased to hear just last week, president trump say he was not in favor of deep medicaid cuts, and there's just not enough votes in the house for that. and i would be totally against deeper medicaid cuts. >> right. and just to note, undocumented immigrants are not are not eligible to enroll in medicaid. but of course, there has been a history of medicaid fraud. i think the question is, even if you root that out, is that going to give you the savings that you need? and you have said that you oppose medicaid cuts to quote citizens in need, you made that clear. um, but but what does that look like in practice? and how do you protect those citizens in need? >> by voting no against a bill in a couple of months. if it does go to cut for citizens in need. today's vote is a mere procedural vote that gets the ball rolling on merely having a discussion of which will be plenty of public hearings and dialog and feedback. talk amongst the press, of course, on social media and everywhere else about what those cuts ought to

look like. but today's vote is a mere procedural vote, just to merely have the opportunity to have that discussion, a discussion that americans deeply want to have. we republicans campaigned upon being more fiscally responsible. this is a 25 year problem in the making. it won't be solved in any one bill or any one year by any one congress. but we have to have the discussion on what is truly affordable in this country. we want to protect social security, medicare. we don't want to take medicaid away from folks in the country who are here legally who truly need it. but we have to have a discussion about other priorities. >> just what you laid out. i'm just curious what you think, though, about why. i think at last count, there were at least three republicans holding out saying they're not for this. if this is just, you know, reflective of republicans priorities and it's just procedural, why do you think that that's the case this early in the game? >> because a lot of people get a lot of attention when they say no to things. it's it's easier. >> doing it for attention. >> it's easier sometimes to say, no, you got a lot more cameras, a lot more retweets on you when you're opposing things, it's harder to do the

business of the country. and republicans by and masks are here to do the business of the country needs about shoring up our finances while protecting at the same time important programs. that is sometimes a tough task to do. it's much easier to say no. on the other side of the aisle, we see a lot of attacks that are mischaracterized about deep cuts that are not on the table whatsoever. those are the easy politics, but the governing republicans who are here, who are going to vote yes on this budget resolution, want to put the nation on a better track, while at the same time protecting these important programs? >> i want to ask you, because i know in talking to folks, there's a lot of focus already on the midterms, right? you're up for reelection in next year's midterms. the economy was the number one issue on voters minds this past november. and our latest cnn poll, 62% of people feel that trump has not gone far enough in trying to reduce the price of everyday goods. now, again, he's only been in office a little over a month, of course, but how long can trump go without bringing prices down before it costs your

party a slim majority in the midterms? >> so the massive government overspending and the $2 trillion deficit that results from it is a very necessary thing to focus on to reduce so that we can, in fact, reduce the inflation. we all know that a lot of the inflation is caused by the massive printing of dollars, the rising debts and deficits. if we want to bring prices down, we need to do a couple of things. one of them is shore up our budget in the ways that we can without affecting these very important programs. but another thing is increase the supply of american energy. and house republicans are very eager to, in the right places, safely and cleanly extract the natural resources that are below many of our feet in different parts of this great country. >> and i want to ask you before you go, you know, as you know, a lot of americans are talking about a lot right now. there's there's washington is a very busy place since donald trump took office. some people love it, some don't love it, some hate it. some of your

constituents, they've been trying to get to you. you and your fellow republicans are getting an earful at town halls about what trump and elon musk are up to. but notably, you haven't held any in-person meetings with, or i should say, town halls, opting instead to hold a virtual one. and last week, hundreds of people protested in front of your new york office, demanding you to host an in-person one. will you do that? meet face to face with your constituents in that forum? >> well, pam, you should get better information because you're totally wrong on that. >> okay, tell me what i'm wrong about. >> we should. we had 20 town halls last congress, 16 in person for tele town hall. we're having our 21st town hall. >> i'm talking. >> about congress. >> i'm not trying to be confrontational. i'm just being honest. i'm talking about this congress. because, as you know, there's a lot happening right now and constituents are wanting to talk. so that's what i'm talking about. not last congress. >> god bless. thanks. thanks for clarifying that. i think it's on next wednesday. we have a tele town hall. we expect 10,000 or more constituents to participate in that. if any of your viewers are in my district, why not in

person? gov we're doing plenty of in-person meetings. in fact, get this pam, i invited the five heads of those organizations who organized those protests against me last week. by the way, they weren't offering any solutions to anything. they were merely trying to cause a stunt. i invited those five to my office to meet with me personally, to have them discuss with me their views on anything abortion, guns, elon musk, donald trump, the things that we may not agree on. i invited them to my office, gave them 24 hours notice, said i had a half hour for them to come chat and guess what not they said three of them said no. two of them ignored me. that tells me that these folks are more interested in causing a scene, rather than trying to find solutions to the things that are challenging everyday americans the high prices, the debts and deficits, our security situation, the immigration situation. these are serious issues upon which we should have a great conversation. but when these folks are just trying to stir the pot. paid protesters two.

>> how do you. know they're. they're paid to to protest. >> these are organized. the highest levels of the democrat party. and, you know, the organizations, pam, probably better than i do. we're organized and that people come to our district offices not looking for solutions. that's the key thing. our democracy is a great one. we're going to disagree. sometimes we should. >> hear you saying is you're not trying to evade meeting face to face with constituents. you will meet face to face with them. >> let's do it. i've invited i've met a number of them. you can check my social media. some folks impromptu walked into my office last week, didn't have an appointment. i sat down with two ladies who disagree with me on much. we found some common ground on two things in particular. one, that the nation does have a border crisis worthy of confrontation, and two, that our nation's debt and deficit situation is also worthy of confronting as well. they don't agree with me on much, but we found a way to agree on that. and i met with a lot of people over time, and i'm looking forward to more. but let's be sincere when we do so, and when these protesters won't agree to meet in person when i've offered them a meeting, that should be reflected on quite heavily as

well. >> well, that's why i wanted you to respond, because it's out there in the news, and i gave you the opportunity to talk about it. congressman, thank you so much. we'll be right back. >> thanks so. >> much. >> for. >> i just. >> took a shower above the clouds. you know why? because this is the emirates, a 380. >> life diabetes. there's no slowing down. each day is a unique blend of people to see

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800) 651-0200. coventry direct redefining insurance. >> i'm pete muntean at reagan national airport. this is cnn. >> well, the vatican says pope francis is improving slightly but is still in critical condition. officials tell us the 88 year old is not bedridden as he battles pneumonia in the

hospital. so to help us understand what this all means, we are paging cnn chief medical correspondent, dr. sanjay gupta. hi, sanjay. so we were talking about this earlier this morning before before my show, and we were talking about how serious this all is, right? the pope was initially hospitalized for bronchitis. he's doing slightly better, but it's still really serious, right? >> yeah. so so the good. >> news. >> first, two things. >> that you just mentioned. one is that he's not on a breathing machine. he's he's getting out of bed. so those are good signs. but pneumonia in someone of his age is always going to be highly concerning for everybody. because things can change quickly. and there's sort of this fluctuating course of recovery, you know, good days and bad days, so to speak. we know if you look at the timeline, we know he was hospitalized on february 14th. but two things to keep in mind. first, he's had a long history of lung problems. he had part of a lung removed back in the late 50s for lung infection. at that point, even before he was hospitalized, pamela, he already

had his aides reading speeches for him. so he knew that he was already having difficulty with some of his breathing. and then it sort of progressed from there. he was diagnosed with bronchitis. that's the deep cough that people get. that really is a sort of inflammation of the airways and the lungs. then he was diagnosed with this polymicrobial infection, meaning many different pathogens, bacteria, viruses, things like that together. and then subsequently a ct scan diagnosing pneumonia. we also know that he had, as you saw at the bottom there, an asthmatic crisis as well. so, you know, he's had many things sort of happening over the last couple of weeks. now, pamela. >> and what more do we know about that asthma attack and how serious that is? >> well, you know, people think of asthma. they think of, you know, exercise induced asthma, cold induced asthma. but you can also have asthmatic sort of episodes or crises because of infection. asthma is essentially inflammation of the airway that causes it to spasm. so the

airway is spasming. it's not it's it's sort of becoming problematic to breathe out as well as breathe in. it can be uncomfortable. and you got to do a couple of things. you got to give medications to control those spasms and also give high flow oxygen, you know, so you're making sure they get enough oxygen. >> yeah. asthma attacks are very scary. i've had several in my my life as a kid. and it's it's very scary and very serious. um, the pope also required a a blood transfusion. why might he have needed that? >> two things. first of all, when you're giving red blood cells, that's what carries oxygen throughout the body. so if you're having difficulty oxygenating because of the pneumonia, because of the asthmatic crisis, making sure you have enough red blood cells to carry oxygen is really important. you don't want that to be too low. there was another thing as well, though. he was also receiving platelets. that's those are clotting factors. um, that's something that can happen as infection starts to spread through the rest of the body. um, no one has

said that he has sepsis, but that is the concern. low platelets can be an early indicator that someone is starting to develop a more body wide infection. so you want to make sure you're replacing those things as needed very regularly. >> yeah. when you're in the hospital that long, that's always a concern. doctor sanjay gupta, thank you. and don't forget to send sanjay your questions about pneumonia by scanning the qr code on your screen. thank you for joining us. i'm pamela brown. don't forget, join wolf blitzer and me in the situation room starting monday, march 3rd. weekday mornings from ten to noon. and in the meantime, you can follow me on instagram, tiktok, and x at pamela brown cnn. love hearing from you. stay with us. inside politics with dana bash starts after a short break. >> paging doctor gupta is brought to you by vegard and vegard. >> if you have generalized myasthenia gravis, picture what

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