Trump's Newsy First Cabinet Meeting, Afghanistan Withdrawal Accountability: AM Update for 2⧸27
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Summary
As President Trump begins his new administration, one of the top Democrats in Congress aiming to undermine the Trump agenda is Senator Dick Durbin. Meanwhile, House and Senate Republicans fight it out on the Hill to work out a budget that cuts taxes, lowers spending, and doesn t touch Medicaid. But can they actually pull that off? With the deadline to a shutdown looming, the showdown is just getting started. All that and more coming up in a moment on Your AM Update with Meghan Kelly ( )!
Transcript
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Good morning, everyone. I'm Megyn Kelly. It's Thursday, February 27th, 2025. And this is
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your AM update. Those million people that haven't responded though, Elon, they are on the bubble.
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President Trump warning federal employees he's serious about identifying fraud and abuse as
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his administration issues a directive to all agency heads, prepare plans for a massive reduction
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in workforce. We're doing a complete review of every single aspect of what happened.
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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth promises accountability at last for the botched
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Afghanistan withdrawal that resulted in 13 dead service members. House and Senate Republicans
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fight it out on the Hill to work out a budget that cuts taxes, lowers spending, and doesn't
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touch Medicaid. But can they actually pull that off? With the deadline to a shutdown looming,
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the showdown is just getting started. All that and more coming up in just a moment on your AM update.
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As President Trump begins his new administration, one of the top Democrats in Congress aiming to
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undermine the Trump agenda is Senator Dick Durbin. And according to our sponsor, the Electronic Payments
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Coalition, Senator Durbin has a new scheme, a government takeover of your credit card. Today,
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Americans have thousands of choices in credit cards, but they say Senator Durbin's plan will result in
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less competition and less security. And that means more risk to your credit and your identity. Learn
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more at guardyourcard.org and consider telling your senators to stop Dick Durbin's government takeover
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President Trump opening up his first cabinet meeting to the press yesterday morning.
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Plenty of issues covered from foreign to domestic. Elon Musk, not in the cabinet,
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was in attendance. President Trump handing him the floor early on to take questions on
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Doge. Mr. Musk was asked if there was a timeline in place for next steps on the
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I think that email perhaps was misinterpreted as a performance review,
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Do you have a pulse? Do you have a pulse and two neurons?
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If you have a pulse and two neurons, you can reply to an email.
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I think not a high block. But what we are trying to get to the bottom of
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is we think there are a number of people on the downpair roll
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that are collecting paychecks. Well, somebody's collecting paychecks
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on a fictional individual. So we're literally trying to figure out
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Department heads are ultimately responsible for how their employees
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Yesterday morning, the Office of Personnel Management,
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saying the details will be released at a later date,
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The European Union was formed in order to screw the United States.
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What will happen in these countries where the EU retaliate?
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potentially reducing their 10% tariff on American cars.
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the EU is prepared to consider a much bigger deal with Trump
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that could potentially include tech regulatory issues
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such as EU member states increasing their spending
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President Trump addressing the Tuesday deadline
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It's right now very hard to come through the border,
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but the damage, look, the damage has been done.
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but it comes through Mexico and it comes through Canada.
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Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick later clarifying
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if Mexico and Canada can prove they've done an excellent job
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then Mr. Trump may extend the pause on tariffs.
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President Trump also announcing the latest development on the Ukrainian deal,
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including a visitor to the White House tomorrow.
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President Zelenskyy is going to be coming on Friday.
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The previous administration put us in a very bad position,
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and we're going to get a lot of money in the future.
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because we have taxpayers that shouldn't be footing the bill.
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Fox News reporting prior to the cabinet meeting,
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saying he is looking to either join the alliance or something similar.
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that repeated talks of Ukrainian entry into NATO
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Vice President J.D. Vance chiming in to chide the media
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Every single time the president engages in diplomacy,
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you guys preemptively accuse him of conceding to Russia.
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and pushing back on claims that allowing the Russians
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we're going to try very hard to make a good deal
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The president declined to share any specific concessions
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The Afghanistan withdrawal getting a lot of airtime
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in the cabinet meeting from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth,
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who was seated just to the left of the president.
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We're doing a complete review of every single aspect
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of what happened with the botched withdrawal of Afghanistan
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at the Defense Department for that reason, sir.
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billions of dollars worth of military equipment left behind,
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he will not direct Secretary Hegseth on what to do,
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but he says if it were him making the decision,
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a persistent point of controversy for the president.
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many of them were armor-plated trucks and vehicles,