four different european leaders to kind of bring them up to speed with where ukraine is, with ukraine's readiness to work with the united states, readiness has talked about to sign this minerals deal. but what he is most keen to look for, of course, is how europe can fill the security gaps that are emerging because the united states is withdrawing itself from the fulsome support that it has given ukraine previously witnessed. just yesterday. the intelligence support, intelligence support that alerts ukrainians to the potential of attack on front lines, on cities, all of that, and we've heard today reports that president macron of france is is offering some intelligence that can help zelenskyy. so again, you know, he's been in the building now ten minutes. he was expected to walk directly up to the cameras.

thursday, march 6th. >> here's what's happening right now on cnn this morning. >> it's just political theater until it becomes a law. >> concerned republicans deliver a message to elon musk. go easy with that chainsaw and send those cuts to congress. plus, this., we'll be making major changes. >> so get used to it. >> doj's next target is veterans affairs. tens of thousands of jobs on the chopping block. what it will mean for veterans and their families. plus this. >> we might not see it. maybe right away, but it's going to hurt down the line. >> if you're looking for a new car, you might want to buy now. president trump is pressing pause on auto tariffs, but not for long. and later.

>> i'm stepping aside as your governor. i announced my candidacy today for mayor of new york city. >> from disgraced governor to candidate for mayor in the post-metoo era. are new yorkers ready to forgive andrew cuomo? it is 6 a.m. here on the east coast. this is a live look at sunrise. new york city. good morning, new york. good morning everyone. i'm audie cornish. i want to thank you for waking up with me. we're going to turn to our first story. elon musk taking his doge team and their plans directly to republicans on capitol hill. so as some gop members are pushing for a seat at the table in determining what gets cut next in his meeting behind closed doors with house and senate republicans, musk gave them all his personal cell phone number. the idea is to more closely coordinate what's happening inside his team as it

rapidly moves through the government. >> a lot of. room, a lot of opportunity to improve expenditures in the government, and we're making good progress in that regard. >> uyghurs have a vote on this. should congress have a vote on this? >> well, they do have a vote on it. >> house speaker mike johnson tells reporters he's now in almost daily communication with musk about the efforts to cut government spending, but rank and file members left in the dark until now, and they want more clarity into how the cuts are being carried out. >> the tone in the house was probably a lot different than the tone in the senate. most of the house members there were saying, yeah, we like what you're doing. keep it up. just keep us in the loop. make sure that you don't step on any, any, any landmines. >> i'm not upset about. disruption itself. broken systems need disruption, but we need to make sure we get it right. >> if he just takes a half step back, we'll. we'll do something that i think can be compassionate and at the same

time, something that's impactful when it comes to saving americans money. >> but others in the house republican ranks want musk to keep his foot on the gas pedal. >> you hear some republicans say he's going too fast. slow down. what do you say to them? >> i have not had any republican tell me that personally. >> so told us that. >> well, you know, what i have to say to them is they need to grow a backbone. we're $36 trillion in debt. and this is how you save the country. >> joining me now to talk about all this, stephen collinson, cnn politics senior reporter. nia-malika henderson, cnn senior political analyst and political and policy columnist at bloomberg. and margaret talev, senior contributor at axios. okay. to the group chat. i don't i don't know if you've ever had to call it, but that's not a phone number that necessarily yields a solution. stephen, talk to me about the fact that these lawmakers are back fresh off their town halls, and now they've got questions right.

>> and they're hearing a lot of concern about various cuts from their constituents. this constitutionally is the way it should have happened all along. and we've seen the first signs that the supreme court is not that keen on the idea of presidents just refusing to spend money that's already been appropriated by congress. and why they're doing this is because if you use this process called rescission, which is to claw back money that's already been appropriated, that gets past the senate filibuster. the problem here, though, is once you start introducing individual lawmakers to this process, every lawmaker has got one program. they don't want to get cut. yeah, but that's the point that slows. >> down, right? like, one of the things i've wondered is did they give away their power? are they giving away their power? >> i mean, they already have. i mean, if you think about it, tens of thousands of these employees have already been let go. there is no undoing that at this point. >> they have. they've been. >> called back. that's right. when they when they let go of the folks, you know, in charge

of sort of the nuclear football in charge of which. >> i'm pro that. >> i am pro, that's good. that's good. >> mistakenly working around nuclear. >> mistakes were made. and so yeah, they're obviously hearing from these constituents. maybe they'll they'll try to slow this process down. but already so many people have been let go. and it sounds like if you're elon musk, he wants to have control over this. he sent that email about, you know, he said it was a proof of life. it really was. tell me what you did last week. >> will you make of him walking the halls, giving out his number, trying to make nice. >> because there's a problem. yeah, but i think, like president. >> marjorie taylor greene says she hasn't heard anything. >> well, don't forget, there's this push to make. take those trump tax cuts and make them permanent. if you're going to talk about what drives deficits and debt over the long term, it is the imbalance with money coming in and money that needs to go out. and so some of this isn't like government spending. it is government revenue coming in. it's all part of the same

conversation. there's just a couple like numbers or trends. i keep your our eyes on the ball on. and one of them are elon musk's favorability ratings. because when you look in the polling voters, he is less popular. even among kara. >> swisher said that he's been a heat shield for president trump, basically taking in. >> it's absolutely true. it's sort of plausible deniability. if it gets really bad, the president can just say, well, you know, that's elon musk. but so far he stood by him. but if that's who you're sending out there and and these lawmakers, they're between a bit of a rock and a hard place in the gop caucus. because if they don't do what president trump wants, they face problems in the primaries. but if they don't stop job cuts and economic problems down the chain in their districts, they could still be held accountable by voters. >> yeah. and it's not clear that donald trump necessarily cares about that, right? you know, if he goes two years and runs roughshod over congress, you know, when he gave his address to congress, he

basically said, i'm here. i'm doing what i want to do. i don't necessarily. >> steven, can you jump in on that? because usually you go to that address and make a bunch of requests, please do this. please do that. he's doing so much on his own. there weren't that many requests. >> and normally you see a president get on air force one and spend three days flying around the country promoting the policies he laid out in his address. he didn't really lay out any policies. his policy is wielding vast presidential power. and he's not, to your point, very interested in congress getting in the way of that. >> okay, group chat, stick around. we've got a lot more to talk about in terms of these cuts. but coming up on cnn this morning, the u.s. generally does not negotiate with terrorist organizations. so why is the u.s. breaking that long standing tradition? plus, a new critical fire threat. where's the biggest danger today? and defiant mayors face a grilling on capitol hill over sanctuary cities. we'll talk to a congressman who was in the room when this went down. >> when illegal alien rapes a woman. do you believe you're on the right side of history? yes or no?

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into your xfinity voice remote. of your day. start your risk free trial today at stamps.com. >> get ready for the most elaborate prank on tv. what the. where everyone is in on it. here we go. except for him. the joe schmo show all new tuesdays at nine on tbs. set your dvr now. >> it's 12 minutes past the hour. want to give you your morning roundup? some of the stories you need to get your day going. the u.s. and hamas are holding direct talks about the release of hostages and extending the ceasefire with israel. this actually upends a really long standing tradition in which the u.s. government generally does not negotiate with terrorist organizations. last night, president trump issued an ultimatum, writing, quote to the people of gaza, a beautiful future awaits, but not if you hold hostages. if you do, you are dead. l.a. county is

suing the utility company southern california edison over that eaton fire, which killed 17 people. that was one of the major fires that scorched the l.a. area back in january. the county blames the utility equipment for starting the flames, but the company says there's no evidence of that. and as taylor swift says, calm is going to track you down step by step from town to town. and that is what has happened to two people accused of hacking into stubhub to steal 900 taylor swift tickets for her eras tour. prosecutors say the suspect sold those tickets and made. i can't believe i'm saying this $635,000. the two were arrested on charges of grand larceny and computer tampering. and we want you to see this. a police officer rescuing an unconscious man from a burning vehicle. this happened in bridgewater, new jersey, after the car collided with a diesel tanker truck. now, both vehicles caught on fire.

the driver of the car was taken to the hospital. his injuries are not life threatening. and still coming up this morning, former new york governor andrew cuomo looking to make a political comeback. why? it looks like new yorkers might be ready to give him a second chance. plus, after announcing sweeping tariffs on canada and mexico, the trump administration is giving one industry a short reprieve. and good morning, norfolk, virginia. it's expected to be in the 50s all day. >> cnn news central today at 7:00 eastern. >> buh bye. >> cough or chest congestion? hello? 12 hours of relief. >> 12 hours. not coughing. hashtag still not coughing. >> mucinex dm gives you 12 hours of relief from chest congestion in any type of cough, day or night. mucinex dm its comeback season. >> when our numbers guy frank goes on vacation. the deals on

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medications uniquely designed to suit your needs. we got you connect with the provider at prokopec. >> i'm dr. sanjay gupta in atlanta, and this is cnn. >> closed captioning brought to you by book.com. >> if you or a loved one have mesothelioma, we'll send you a free book to answer questions you may have. call now and we'll come to you. >> 808 two one 4000. >> so our assignment this morning, former new york governor andrew cuomo, officially pitching his political comeback to new yorkers. and he's betting they're ready to forgive and

forget. cuomo announced he's running for mayor of new york city. he resigned in 2021 after he was accused of sexual misconduct. but we're in the post metoo era now. so for this week's episode of my podcast, he assignment the assignment. i spoke to the woman who started the metoo movement, tarana burke, and asked her about cuomo's potential return to office. what that says about not just democrats, but society at large. >> i was literally about to go live, and i never do that on instagram the other night. i was like, this is the and i hope this stays in because i need to say this. we will never be able to move forward. and when i say move forward, i mean collectively towards liberation. this is not about women or men or even sexual violence, but the kind of world that so many of us say that we want to live in. we will not get there when we when we keep making these same kinds of mistakes, when we discount violence against women as a

serious enough offense. right? that that it always gets dismissed. so what happens is somebody like andrew cuomo decides he's going to run for mayor, and people are like, oh yeah, he's great. he knows how to govern. he can beat such and such and blah, blah, blah. and then somebody will say, but wait a minute, what about? and i'm like, ah, well, yeah, that was terrible. or maybe that happened, but and that but is what's going to kill us. that but is what sets us back right there. you can't tell me that there are not other qualified people who don't have a history of abuse, of power. >> we're back with my group chat. nia-malika henderson, margaret talev, and also we're joined by hannah rosen, senior editor at the atlantic. she's also the host of the radio atlantic podcast and co-host of the we live here now podcast. you guys just heard what tarana said. i'm going to start with you. why not look for leaders without the baggage? is it that it's no longer considered

baggage? >> listen, new yorkers will have a choice, right? it's not going to be just cuomo who is running in this primary, but he is certainly going to be the most dominant force. if you look at polls, he's leading in the polls. there is a. post die era. there is a post woke culture era. there is a post metoo era culture that you see happening, and we see this historically, right. there is social progress and then there is backlash. and often the backlash is much more impactful and bigger than whatever social progress. >> you. and you've also written in the past about men and our culture. i mean, we could say that fairly was the title of that book, hanna rosin. >> it was called the end of men. okay. and i feel like we make that up. we are at the end of the end of men. yes we are. so say more. >> because i do feel like that's the kind of thing that is part of this backlash. >> yeah. i mean, the economic statistics have stayed the same.

men are still behind in college, and all the things that were true are still true. when i wrote that book, however, the cultural feeling has completely shifted and they've somehow managed to turn powerlessness into extreme power. and i don't really know how that magic trick happened. maybe it's backlash. maybe it's a final push. i mean, it's so strong now. you had a white house official who was praising andrew tate, who's been accused of rape, in two countries. that's right. unusual. and as a victim of the. >> and self-described misogynist, we should mention as well, margaret, one of the things i'm curious about is is it know are litmus tests over. one of the things we heard in the aftermath of the of the kamala harris loss was like these progressives, they ask for too many things, and they made things a rule, and they shouldn't have done it. like the metoo thing was one of them. defund police might have been the other. can you put this in context for us. >> in the democratic party? i don't think litmus tests are over. and in fact, i think what the litmus test should be, it

seems to still be being litigated inside the democratic caucus or the democratic party as they kind of search for their next leaders and how they want to position themselves. but i think there there is obviously a change. and i think if you're andrew cuomo, he's not running for mayor of new york to end the metoo movement. he is running for mayor of new york to exercise a political comeback. and he is whatever you may think about him, for better or for worse, clearly has political skills. he's reading the room or the country, as it were, and thinking, let me come. well, i'm. >> glad you said this, because i want to play a clip of him actually, in his 17 minute online announcement that he made where he he kind of referred to this. >> did i always do everything right in my years of government service? of course not. would i do some things differently knowing what i know now? certainly. did i make mistakes? some painfully? definitely. and i believe i learned from them,

and that i am a better person for it. and i hope to show you that every day. >> okay, margaret, i want you to finish your thought. i didn't mean to interrupt. i felt like we needed the context. >> were the mics hot when we were all laughing as that was running? for me? because that's like an snl skit that is going to be made in the next show. um, so i think those are the things that you have to say if you mount a political comeback. >> unless you're donald trump. >> but go ahead. yes. okay, but fair. but but i also think there are tactical things about this race that need to be considered. and one is that if it was andrew cuomo against one very strong alternative candidate, um, it would be a different landscape. >> but he sees an opening because he's not canceled, which is what we were told during the metoo movement was happening. men were being hounded out of the public space, never to return. that's not turned out to be the case. >> i mean, a few men went to prison, a tiny handful of men

went to prison. some did kind of disappear and and many came back even when they had, you know, 20 charges of sexual harassment against them. i'm thinking of the cleveland browns quarterback, for example. so. so it had varied effects. but i think reading the room is exactly what's happening now. it's just not a disqualifier, which is a very, very different moment than we were in in 2017. >> listen, i think these politicians look at donald trump, right? coming back from obviously accusations and all sorts of infractions. >> which in a way kind of kicked it all off because we're talking 2016, 2017 as the reporting of harvey weinstein came out. >> and if you were to the movement. >> if you look at andrew cuomo, you talk about his ambition. this is a stepping stone to something much bigger, right? he sees himself not just as the mayor, not just as a former governor, but as president. and if you think about the conversations that are going on in the democratic party, they see white men as the path forward and possibly. >> moderate white men, moderate white law and. >> order, kind of manly white men as well. and i think if you

look at andrew cuomo, that is the part that he's playing. >> okay. manly men. >> manly men. i was just going to say, i feel like you're going to have thoughts. i want you guys to respond to this. so, so, so somebody sort of right wing radio commentator who was very popular said to me, the problem with democrats is they don't have any manly enough candidates that their democrats are not manly enough. and that's why they can't win elections. what do you guys think about that? >> well, listen, i mean, i think that's partly what andrew cuomo was doing. if you think about what was going on with biden, some of that, he was old, he was weak. he wasn't manly enough. he wasn't he didn't project strength in the way that donald trump was able to. same age. >> but different in our minds now. those things are equal. exactly right. that's the only way. >> there is a there is a comeback movement for masculinity. the question is, can you be masculine and embrace your masculinity and also be a decent person at the same time? and what are the boundaries for that? and how how you know and is masculinity or femininity

going to be the guiding issue for voters at the polls at a time when they're concerned about all these other things? like a lot, a lot of women voters who want if they're going to vote for a man, they want a man who will take care of women and represent women well as well as represent men well, but they also care about. >> or maybe they're. >> tradwives, i mean, well, but at least that was the messaging out of this election. there was so much conversation about the gender divide in voting. i'm sure we're going to keep talking about this. thank you guys for a spirited chat. you can hear more of the conversation actually, if you want to know more from metoo founder tarana burke, my podcast, the assignment, comes out every thursday. you can listen wherever you get your podcasts, and i also want you to check out hannah rosen's podcast. it's called we live here now. you can find that on apple, spotify, everywhere. hannah rosen's, of course, senior editor at the atlantic. thank you for joining us this morning. thank you. and straight ahead on cnn this morning, the doge chainsaw targeting the va. how will veterans services be impacted as the administration

plans to cut tens of thousands of employees? plus fire and ice, millions face blizzard conditions this week, but others face the threat of fire today. >> bye bye. >> cough or chest congestion? hello? 12 hours of relief. >> 12 hours not coughing. hashtag still not coughing. >> mucinex dm gives you 12 hours of relief from chest congestion in any type of cough, day or night. mucinex dm its comeback season. >> more than 72 million americans rely on medicaid for health care. nearly half of all children and millions of seniors, veterans, disabled americans, your neighbors and friends. but now some politicians are calling for devastating cuts to medicaid cuts that would threaten access to care. we need medicaid for a healthy america. tell congress to protect medicaid and ensure

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week you stay with us that's ukraine's president zelenskyy just moments ago thanking europe amid a very public spat with president trump. >> good morning everyone. i'm audie cornish. i want to thank you for joining me here on cnn this morning. here's what's happening right now. so as we mentioned, european leaders and ukraine's president. they're actually at a gathering at this hour in brussels for a special summit about russia's war on ukraine. and it comes as they face a new reality, trump administration that seems to have shifted the tone toward moscow as soon as today, president trump could issue an executive order to close the department of education that, according to the wall street journal on monday, education secretary linda mcmahon vowed to eliminate what she called bureaucratic bloat, describing it as the department's quote, final mission. and republicans in congress say they want elon musk to keep them in the loop when it comes to cutting jobs and spending in the federal government. lawmakers say he

tried to distance himself from the mass firings when they met on capitol hill, instead blaming department heads for the choices. deep cuts are coming to the department of veterans affairs. in that effort. the trump administration is set to let go. about 15% of the workforce, or more than 70,000 jobs, 70 to the va. that's according to an internal memo president trump's allies insisting veterans will not suffer. >> every time i go back to my district, veterans are coming and talking to me about all the problems they have with the va. so with or without those employees, they're not they're not making a difference for veterans. i think they can do better. >> so we want to put this in context for you. is the va actually on the path to privatization? stephen collinson and nia-malika henderson are back. we're also joined by naveed shah, an iraq war veteran and political director of the veterans group common defense. so, naveed, i want to start with

you because it was a bit of a plot twist, i think, for the administration to learn 30% of the workforce, of the federal workforce they were cutting were veterans. but as you see this moving towards the va itself, do you see it as part of the privatization movement? >> absolutely. it definitely seems like what the they intend to do is cut the va bit by bit. and this has been an ongoing problem with different pieces of legislation that the republicans have passed, like the mission act and the community cares act. they've been sniping at the va and cutting it bit by bit, and now it seems like they're taking trying to take a big chunk out of it. >> but they don't call it sniping. right. they're saying make it more efficient or i think pete hegseth said something like, let the dollars follow the veterans. they take the money and go where they need to go. what's wrong with that? >> the number one thing is that every veteran that we've talked to, every one of common defense members, says the quality of care that they receive at the va, they rank it in the 90th percentile. it's the best care that they receive in the entire country. >> it's getting the care. that's the problem because we hear those complaints as well. >> there's been challenges at the va has faced with wait times and staffing shortages, but

those issues will not be addressed by cutting 83,000 jobs. those issues will be addressed by hiring the right workers for the right jobs to make sure, for example, for every five nurses that the va loses, that's another operating room that closes. >> you know, there is something orwellian about the folks who are cutting these workers, them saying this will make it more efficient. right? going in it isn't efficient in terms of some of the wait times. and there have been obviously scandals involving involving the va as well over the last year. so cutting just seems like a bad idea. and we'll see. marjorie taylor greene says she's already getting complaints from veterans. i can't imagine that those will stop with these cuts. >> yeah, and you hear a lot of these glib comments about how the va can be more efficient. you hear that from all sorts of politicians. and it's not just this administration. we've heard it from previous ones, but there's two things here. first of all, there are hundreds of thousands of young veterans like yourself who took part over 15

years in wars abroad. the country obviously owes them a great debt. when you start working with the va and cutting programs, you're also taking on a real big political risk. and to your point, we've seen when people learn that a lot of the federal workers who are being laid off are veterans who make up a great percentage of the federal workforce, that becomes a real political problem for the administration. some of the problems now are piling up regarding. >> this. doge, i want to play for you guys some actual veterans affairs workers who were speaking out. >> it's going to cause a lot of delays. and now, especially now with the cuts that have been made, you know, we're going to see more delays on the phones, emails, processing of claims. >> i hope that we all, each and every one of us, including our leadership, would be a little more careful about the departments that they cut from and the positions that they're cutting in the support, especially in regards to the veterans. >> in a way, steven's talking

about you, right. like and i think of that, too, as the republican party being particularly pain sensitive to veterans concerns. however, there's also a huge number of veteran support for trump himself. so is that causing divisions within the community? the way we saw it say, with unions. >> you know, it's it's actually causing this situation right now is bringing veterans together because even vets who voted for trump are saying, this is not what i voted for. and i'll give you a personal example. my boss, jose vasquez, the executive director of common defense just a couple of weeks ago, went into the va in new york because he had a stomach ache. they were able to quickly get him into a scan, quickly get him to a biopsy. he had surgery yesterday to remove a mass on his pancreas, and they were able to detect that, get him quickly through the medical process. and because the va in new york is luckily well staffed and well equipped, he was able to get that, you know, checked out before it became a problem. but every story. >> like that, there's another story where someone's going to come out and say, i waited for months. i couldn't get, you

know, support for x and y. and i'm just wondering sort of how you think this plays out with the public. have they finally found a federal agency that the public actually sympathizes with? >> it could be. i mean, republicans have been expert at sort of painting all federal workers as sort of lazy, nameless, faceless, a drag on the economy. and the federal government. but it could be that if you have these stories of our best and our brightest being delayed care, denied care because of these cuts, it could turn things around in terms of these cuts. and they want to reinstate. steven. >> i want to ask you one question very quickly. i think there are some on the right who have said we're not privatizing the va. stop talking about this. this is a boogeyman. but tell me what you're seeing from the administration or past comments from people who are in the administration now. is this part of a long running movement? >> i think there's certainly evidence to the fact that there are people in the administration that want to move down this path. it would have to get past

the president. and he's, i think, somewhat sensitive to political pressures. there are not many occasions in the first term and so far in this term, where the president has taken a step that goes against his own political interests. now, he doesn't have to run for reelection. the equation might be slightly different here, but what we're seeing, i think, with this whole doge situation, is government isn't just washington. it has a place in everybody's lives, and people are starting to realize that. >> okay, thank you so much for joining us for this conversation. group chat. stay with me. because still ahead on cnn this morning, mayors from some of the country's biggest cities, they're taking heat on capitol hill. we're joined by congressman suhas subramanyam. and we'll also have this take on how the contentious hearing unfolded. oh, and why broadway's biggest

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>> closed captioning brought to you by aarp. join and get instant access to member benefits. >> join aarp for $15 for one year with automatic renewal, and get instant access to member benefits and social programs. join and get a free gift, plus aarp, the magazine i will enter into the record. >> this is my rights. thank you. >> no, no. >> just a small glimpse of what happened in a heated hearing about so-called sanctuary cities before the house oversight committee, there were the mayors of new york, chicago, boston and denver. they faced a barrage of questions from republican lawmakers, accusing them of harboring undocumented migrants. >> mayors wu, johnson, johnson and adams will be publicly accountable for their failure to follow the law and protect the american people. >> mayor wu, yes or no? >> no. rape is obviously horrible. >> why are you letting rapists back out on the streets of boston? >> that is not true. that is not what's happening in boston.

>> based on your responses, i'm all going to be criminally referring you to the department of justice for investigation. >> the roles were reversed for one mayor, new york's eric adams, facing tough questions from democrats over the federal charges that the trump administration is now looking to dismiss. >> i'm going to ask you one more time. have you ever talked about this case with anyone in the trump administration? >> this case in front of judge hall and at a deference to judge ho, judge ho is going to decide the outcome of this case. >> i think mayor adams is not answering the question because he probably has. >> joining me now to talk about this, the congressman that you just saw there, sue subramanyam, democrat from virginia. congressman, thank you for being here. thank you. we can get to eric adams in a moment. but i saw a sort of divide there. democrats saying, you're going into schools. you're going to be taking kids out of the classrooms, republicans saying you've let gang members hang out in your jails for a hot minute without cooperating with

ice. it's like painting two very different visions. what can democrats do for their vision? i think to maybe resonate more. >> well, i thought, you know, the mayors did great. i mean, they talked about how crime has actually gone down, even with an influx of undocumented immigrants. how many of the immigrants coming into their communities actually commit crime at a much lower rate than the average american? and just generally, they talked about what they're doing to try to handle the influx of immigrants. i thought they did great, honestly. >> but does that worry you? i mean, when i think about the biden administration, harris administration, this was often a talking point with democrats. things are not as bad as you're saying. that did not resonate with voters. >> yeah, well, all they had was facts, right? and the facts spoke for themselves. they talked about how they were able to get folks housing. they were able to get folks jobs, and they were able to run through, you know, what was going on and do a good job of it. and so, you know, we had facts as well. you know, we we talked about how the bill that they're trying to put forward, basically defunding any city from any federal funding,

if they welcome immigrants. you know, that's really bad for a lot of these cities. public safety. they're actually going to make crime worse, not better, by doing that. >> i want to ask you one more thing. mayor johnson was asked about cooperating with ice after the hearing last night on cnn. here's what he had to say. >> we do follow federal law. we right now are cooperating on the detention and pursuit of violent criminals all the time. i think what we're not doing is we're not going to do i.c.e .'s job for them. we're not going to use our denver police officers to chase down grandmothers out of church pews that have been in the city for 20 years. >> um, it's interesting hearing this rhetoric in the years since the democratic party had people talking about abolishing ice. do you think there there is some rhetoric, there was some conversation in the past that is coming home to roost now. >> well, he was just again, this is all about public safety for these cities and these mayors. they're talking about how they do work with ice when there's a

violent criminal who is undocumented. you know, ice picks them up at the prison, right? they do handle these situations. they handle them quite well, actually. and with public safety in mind, this is more than just talking points to us. we actually care about public safety. republicans are all talk. we're actually walking the walk and doing the work. >> you know, all of these conversations kind of keep coming back to the same thing. what are democrats doing? i watched a clip of a town hall for you where you were saying to voters, look, come to town halls, have the conversation. at the same time, in the moments where democrats try and step up, people are saying it's wanting. here's senator fetterman from pennsylvania, kind of criticizing democratic protests. oh, let's see. hold on one second, because this is actually a very good quote, a sad cavalcade of cell phones and unhinged petulance. it only makes trump look more presidential and restrained. >> you know, not all democrats have the same view, right? you

know what al green might think is different from what fetterman might think, right? everyone's handling it the way that they can. what's best for their district, what's. >> best for everyone, need to handle it collectively, together, in one direction. i mean, is that the struggle here? >> well, we do have one voice. so, you know, talk about all the things that this administration is doing to raise costs, because pretty much everything they've done has actually raised costs when they just ran a campaign talking about lowering costs all last year. and that's just one example. i mean, eric adams, for instance, coming to our committee and not answering my questions. i mean, they're tacitly not tacitly endorsing corruption, right? he pardoned blagojevich as well. if you're a corrupt politician, if you're a dictator, this administration is embracing you and pardoning you right now. so we have a pretty easy and pretty i mean, the talking points right themselves, right? we haven't even talked about medicaid yet. there's so much that the republicans are doing that are going to hurt american people. and so on that front, you know, all democrats are actually pretty in line with pushing back on that. how do they push back? you know, is

different from community to community. but, you know, i like town halls. i think that's the best place to push back. telling the stories of people. and i think, you know, others might have a different way of doing it. >> yeah. congressman, thank you so much for taking the time to come in and talk to us here on cnn this morning. appreciate you. it's now 51 minutes past the hour. want to give you your morning roundup, some of the stories you need to know to get your day going. there's dry air, gusty winds causing fire threats from western texas to southern colorado. it's happening this morning. the worst is expected across western texas to central and eastern new mexico, where there's a critical fire weather alert. the winds were so strong, the u.s. customs and border protection surveillance blimp became untethered and was found nearly 600 miles away, popped. >> this planet. i've never seen any kind of balloon that big. >> the balloon was huge. like huge mangas. >> meanwhile, parts of the midwest are digging out after

being hit with blizzard like conditions. police arrested at least nine people during a pro-palestinian demonstration at new york's barnard college. this happened after a bomb threat. so officers ordered everyone to evacuate. later, they determined that the threat was a hoax. the protesters had been staging a sit in when this occurred, and the nova-c lunar lander is expected to touch down on the moon's south pole in just over five hours. it's part of nasa's plan to establish a long term presence there. included in this mission a cellular network to help future astronauts communicate and a drone that can hop across the moon's surface. and the kennedy center is throwing away its shot to host a broadway hit. >> he knows nothing of loyalty. smells like new money, dresses like fake royalty. >> waiting. i'm passionately smashing.

>> the musical. hamilton was set to run at the dc venue, but the show's producer is teaching them how to say goodbye. canceling the shows in protest of president trump's firing, members of the center's board and naming himself chairman. i feel like this was a saturday night live skit. actually, the hamilton no. okay, i'm the only one on hamilton watch. also, president trump tapping the brakes on auto tariffs for 30 days. in a speech before congress this week, the president insisted u.s. automakers were excited about his 25% tariffs on mexico and canada. the thing is, panicked might be more accurate. and despite a couple of stock market plunges, the administration remains all in on tariffs. >> there's going to be a short period of time where there will be some higher prices on certain products. it's not inflation. that's nonsense. >> higher prices, but it's not inflation. many auto industry workers we spoke to in michigan are not buying that spin from

the commerce secretary. >> i think the tariffs will hurt. >> do you think they're going. >> to hurt? yeah i do. i personally do. um because if it's too high then we're not they're not going to want to deal with us. right. >> we might not see it. maybe right away, but it's going to hurt down the line okay. >> so that's the word from workers union leaders. well, they seem to be on a different page. in a statement, united auto workers praised president trump's tariffs, saying they are, quote, a powerful tool in the toolbox for undoing the injustice of anti-worker trade deals. end quote. stephen nia-malika. margaret. you're back. can i just touch on that quote for a second? because i feel like it was just a few months ago that the uaw was not into trump policies. am i misreading it? >> no, i don't think so. i think there is some division there. the question here, though, is between short term and long term. the point of the tariffs, if there is one in the

administration, is to bring manufacturing back to the united states instead of building cars half in mexico, half in canada. et cetera. et cetera. the problem is that is a long term project. there's going to be a lot of short term pain. and when you hear the commerce secretary, for example, talk about prices and inflation, it does remind me a little bit of the early years of the biden administration, when they were telling everybody that inflation was transitory, even when everyone was feeling. yeah, right. and everyone was feeling the prices going up. >> yeah. >> and when a government tells people something that they're seeing with their own eyes is not happening, that's a problem. >> yeah. >> yeah. i mean, they're actually telling people just to accept the pain. right. that there's going to be some disruption. there's going to be some pain. and it's not. >> probably the number one talking point i hear. >> yeah. and it's about fentanyl. i mean, there are all sorts of excuses and contexts they're giving for this. but in the meantime you're going to be paying possibly higher prices for cars and guacamole and all sorts, not just. >> line workers and union leaders. it is the automakers

themselves telling the president himself, hey, this is a really big problem. and explaining a little bit about the way the process works, which is that north american production is different than importing automobiles from europe or, you know, from japan. and that, remember, this isn't donald trump's first rodeo. this is president trump's second term. in the first term, they came up with pacts and agreements on which these automakers based all of their plans. and remember the auto industry. >> like they got bailouts under obama, right? when the when the market crashed and they were a powerful constituency in and of themselves. >> and they're a driver of employment in key swing states, there are political ramifications for this. there are economic ramifications for this. and it is it's not as simple as saying not enough of this car was made in america. when american automakers have, with the government of many administrations, support and policies created systems where

components are made in north america for american made cars that american made workers. there are a ton of questions here. what's going to happen to bmw workers in south carolina? what's going to happen to american red. >> cross, to right to work states and things like that? you know, don't look at my 401 k because it's like not impressive. so this is going to be a question about markets, stephen, because you actually were writing about this. markets don't like uncertainty right. what does that mean. >> your word you used there was planning. and it's very important not just for big car firms but for small businesses. they have certainty of costs going forward. when that doesn't happen, the market senses that there's uncertainty. markets hate uncertainty. so that's what we're seeing. and this the problem here is there are early signs in the economy of softening. consumers are already spending less. there's less consumer confidence. >> consumer confidence index. >> is down. so you had one of the earlier segments. you were saying if you want to buy a car you should buy it now or.

>> later or now. yeah. >> this is the problem. because the consumer doesn't know. right. and then the natural reaction is to stop spending money. and that fuels a cycle that can be threatening to an economy that's always already looking a little vulnerable. >> okay. >> and voters thought that donald trump was going to fix this, right. that was day one. it was going to be fixed egg prices. you're going to be able to get a dozen for $2 or whatever. and none of that has happened. and you see some of the polling reflecting that americans think he's not spending enough time with the economy in dealing with that. even in his speech, he barely talked about the economy. it was mostly about culture wars. so there is going to be a price to pay for this president going forward with all of this uncertainty and prices still remaining fairly high in the grocery stores. >> yeah. margaret, i want to give the last word to you. what should we be paying attention to going forward in this conversation about tariffs? >> mexico's next move is going to be really important. they made a number of steps and concessions that the.

>> president, who has to show she is up to the task. >> presidents in other countries and prime ministers also have their own domestic politics to deal with. mexico's next steps could be tremendously important here. because here's the other thing. if you crush economies in in mexico in particular, you could get more pressure for more immigration to your border, which is exactly what you're trying to prevent. all of the stuff is intertwined. the president and his team know that, but they're going to have to deal with the ramifications of it and the strategic moves, how one of their policies impacts another policy in real time. >> margaret talev, nia-malika henderson, stephen collinson, who i love to read online, columnist at cnn. i want to thank you guys for being here, having a group chat with me. i also want to thank you for waking up with us. i'm audie cornish and cnn news central begins right now.