Trump's Newsy First Cabinet Meeting, Afghanistan Withdrawal Accountability: AM Update for 2/27

Good morning, everyone. I'm Megyn Kelly.
It's Thursday, February 27th, 2025, and this is your AM update. Those million people that haven't responded, though, Elon, they are on the bubble.
President Trump warning federal employees he's serious about identifying fraud and abuse as his administration issues a directive to all agency heads, prepare plans for a massive reduction in workforce. We're doing a complete review of every single aspect of what happened.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth promises accountability at last for the botched Afghanistan withdrawal that resulted in 13 dead service members. 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 just a moment on your AM Update.
As President Trump begins his new administration, one of the top Democrats in Congress aiming to undermine the Trump agenda is Senator Dick Durbin. And according to our sponsor, the Electronic Payments Coalition, Senator Durbin has a new scheme, a government takeover of your credit card.
Today, Americans have thousands of choices in credit cards, but they say Senator Durbin's plan will result in less competition and less security. And that means more risk to your credit and your identity.
Learn more at guardyourcard.org and consider telling your senators to stop Dick Durbin's government takeover of your credit card before it's too late. President Trump opening up his first cabinet meeting to the press yesterday morning.
Plenty of issues covered from foreign to domestic. Elon Musk, not in the

cabinet, was in attendance. President Trump handing him the floor early on to take questions on Doge.

Mr. Musk was asked if there was a timeline in place for next steps on the what did you do last

week email. I think that email perhaps was best interpreted as a performance review, but actually

it was a pulse check review. Do you have a pulse and two neurons? So if you have a pulse and two neurons you can reply to an email.
This is, you know, I think not a high bond. But what we are trying to get to the bottom of is we think there are a number of people on the down on payroll who are dead, which why they can't respond.
And some people who are not real people have been literally fictional individuals that are collecting paychecks. Well, somebody's collecting paychecks on a fictional individual.
So we're literally trying to figure out, are these people real? Are they alive? And can they write emails? Which I think is a reasonable expectation. Department heads are ultimately responsible for how their employees are to respond, though Mr.
Trump issuing a warning that some kind of pulse check must be done. I'd like to add that those million people that haven't responded, though, Elon, they are on the bubble.
Maybe they're going to be gone. Maybe they're not around.
Maybe they have other jobs. Maybe they moved and they're not where they're supposed to be.
A lot of things could have happened. Yesterday morning, the Office of Personnel Management, which oversees government employees, sent a letter to all agency heads ordering them to, quote, undertake preparations to initiate large-scale reductions in force, end quote.
The plans are due no later than March 13th. President Trump eyeing a new tariff target, the European Union, saying the details will be released at a later date, but his administration is looking at 25 percent.
Let's be honest. The European Union was formed in order to screw the United States.
That's the purpose of it. And they've done a good job of it, but now I'm president.
What will happen in these countries where the EU retaliates? They can't. I mean, they can try, but they can't.
Mr. Trump citing a $300 billion trade deficit, the EU trade commissioner responding quickly that they're ready to do a deal, potentially reducing their 10% tariff on American cars.
Politico reporting, quote, The EU is prepared to consider a much bigger deal with Trump that could potentially include tech regulatory issues and certain non-trade concerns, such as EU member states increasing their spending on defense, end quote. From the EU over to North America, President Trump addressing the Tuesday deadline to implement 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico over fentanyl trafficking.
They've been good, but that's also due to us, mostly due to us. I mean, it's very hard.
It's right now very hard to come through the border. But the damage has been done.
We've lost millions of people due to fentanyl. It comes

mostly from China, but it comes through Mexico and it comes through Canada.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick later clarifying if Mexico and Canada can prove

they've done an excellent job cutting down on fentanyl trafficking,

then Mr. Trump may extend the pause on tariffs.

President Trump also announcing the latest development on the Ukrainian deal, including a visitor to the White House tomorrow. We're going to solve a lot of problems.
We're doing very well with Russia, Ukraine. President Zelensky is going to be coming on Friday.
It's now confirmed. And we're going to be signing an agreement, which will be a very big agreement.
The previous administration put us in a very bad position, but we've been able to make a deal where we're going to get our money back and we're going to get a lot of money in the future. And I think that's appropriate because we have taxpayers that shouldn't be footing the bill.
Fox News reporting prior to the cabinet meeting, Mr. Zelensky, vowed to resolve the issue around NATO, saying he is looking to either join the alliance or something similar.
But NATO entry is fully off the table, according to President Trump. Mr.
Trump affirming the Russians' claims that repeated talks of Ukrainian entry into NATO provoked the invasion to begin with. Vice President J.D.
Vance chiming in to chide the media for criticizing the negotiations. Every single time the president engages in diplomacy, you guys preemptively accuse him of conceding to Russia.
He hasn't conceded anything to anyone. He's doing the job of a diplomat, and he is, of course, the diplomat in chief as the president of the United States.
Mr. Trump saying sanctions on Russia would not be lifted during the negotiation and pushing back on claims that allowing the Russians to keep any Ukrainian territory sets a dangerous precedent with China.
Oh, OK, you try and take it away, right? We're going to do the best we can. We're going to do the best we can to make the best deal we can for both sides, but for Ukraine.
We're going to try very hard to make a good deal so that they can get as much back as possible. The president declined to share any specific concessions he would like to see from Russia.
The Afghanistan withdrawal getting a lot of airtime in the cabinet meeting from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who was seated just to the left of the president. We're doing a complete review of every single aspect of what happened with the botched withdrawal of Afghanistan and plan to have full accountability.
It's one of the first things we announced at the Defense Department for that reason, sir. We're taking a very different view, obviously, than the previous administration, and there will be full accountability.
The chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan resulted in 13 service members killed and 40 more gravely wounded in a suicide attack on Abbey Gate. Thousands of Afghani citizens who helped U.S.
forces were abandoned, billions of dollars worth of military equipment left behind, and Bagram Air Force Base left vacant. Under the Biden administration, the only official who faced any accountability for the disastrous withdrawal was Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Scheller, who went viral in a video criticizing the administration for the chaos.
President Trump telling reporters he will not direct Secretary Hegseth on what to do, but he says if it were him making the decision, he would fire every general involved. The military equipment left behind a persistent point of controversy for the president.
Afghanistan is one of the biggest sellers of military equipment in the world. You know why? They're selling the equipment that we left.
We're first. They were second or third.
Can you believe it? They're selling 777,000 rifles, 70,000 armor-plated. Many of them were armor-plated trucks and vehicles.
70,000. If you think of a used car lot, the biggest one in the country, I would say, J.D., if somebody had 500 cars, that would be a lot.
This is 70,000 vehicles we had there, and we left it for them. I think we should get it back.
Mr. Trump has instructed Secretary Hegseth to study the issue.
Coming up, House and Senate Republicans trying to work out a budget that cuts taxes, lowers spending, and doesn't touch Medicaid. And a major vibe shift at The Washington Post, rocking corporate media.
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Success starts with FYSI. A tough budgeting process underway on Capitol Hill.
On Tuesday, the House voting by a very slim margin, 217 to 215, to pass a budget plan that is now being weighed by the Senate. The House plan is a framework laying out priorities, but not setting binding budget terms.
Not yet. It's an outline beginning the incredibly tedious process of designing and negotiating a budget.
This one calls for up to $2 trillion in spending cuts over a decade and up to $4.5 trillion in tax cuts. The Senate side already taking issue with the blueprint, allowing only $4.5 trillion of cuts in taxes is too low a ceiling to make the 2017 Trump tax cuts permanent.
Negotiations further strained by promises from President Trump that Medicaid, the federal health insurance program for low-income Americans, will not be cut. However, House Republicans are calling for $880 billion in cuts to come from the Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees Medicaid.
The New York Times reports even if that committee cut everything that's not health care down to zero, it would still mean more than $600 billion would need to be cut from Medicaid. President Trump commenting on concerns about cutting Medicaid.
And I have said it so many times, you shouldn't be asking me that question. Okay, this will not be read my lips.
It won't be read my lips anymore. We're not going to touch it.
Now, we are going to look for fraud. I'm sure you're okay

with that, like people that shouldn't be on, people that are illegal aliens and others, criminals in many cases. Eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse is a top priority of the Trump administration.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services estimates in fiscal year 2024, Medicaid completed $31 billion, billion with a B, in improper payments. Beyond these sticking points, there are still hundreds of details to be worked out, including President Trump's desire to end taxes on tips, on overtime, and on Social Security benefits.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries indicating on Tuesday that the budget will not have any Democrat support.

We will push back against the Republican budget tomorrow. We will push back against the reckless Republican budget until it's buried deep in the ground, never to rise again.
Never to rise again. If House and Senate GOP members are able to come to an agreement on a

final bill, which is not yet certain, it will be passed through a fast-track process that avoids the Senate filibuster, meaning it will only require a simple majority to pass. There is much more back and forth to come.
The deadline to pass a new budget is March 14th. That's just two weeks and one day away.
Later today, Senate Majority Leader John Thune will bring the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act to the floor. The news broke on the Megyn Kelly show yesterday.
Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville introduced this bill multiple times before under President Biden and now President Trump. The bill will enshrine President Trump's executive orders protecting female sports into law.
The bill defines sex as based on biological sex at birth, not one's feelings about one's so-called gender. It requires federally funded schools to prohibit males from competing in girls' sports.
Every GOP senator is expected to vote yes. The first step, though,

is a cloture vote, a vote on whether they should have a vote at all on the actual bill. That requires 60 votes to pass, meaning seven Democrats will have to join with the Republicans.
This is where many bills die, and why it is hard to pass legislation in the Senate without 60 seats, as opposed to 51. 79% of Americans support a measure to prevent biological males from competing in girls' and women's sports.
President Trump is prepared to sign this bill should it pass into law. Jeff Bezos, owner of The Washington Post, announcing significant changes to the opinion page.
Mr. Bezos penning a letter to the Post staff yesterday morning that reads, quote, we are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars, personal liberties and free markets.
We will cover other topics too, of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others. Mr.
Bezos justifying the change, saying though it was once the job of a newspaper to deliver varying viewpoints, now the internet does that. He also believes viewpoints embracing free markets and personal liberties are underserved in the current market.
The former editor of the opinion page, David Shipley, was offered the option to stay on. Mr.
Bezos says Shipley declined. Chief economics reporter Jeff Stein calls the move a massive encroachment by Jeff Bezos, saying, quote, I still have not felt encroachment on my journalism on the news side of coverage, but if Bezos tries interfering with the news side, I will be quitting immediately and letting you know.
Tech reporter and all-around troll Kara Swisher posting to Blue Sky, quote, I told you all Jeff Bezos was feral. He's now killed the First Amendment and basic humanity in a vomitous spew of nonsense.
Philip Bump, columnist at the Post, writing on Blue Sky, what the actual F. Former executive editor of the Post, Marty Baron, telling the Daily Beast he's sad and disgusted by the move, quote, there is no doubt in my mind that he is doing this out of fear of the consequences for his other business interests.

End quote. Those other interests include his ownership of Amazon, Whole Foods, and aerospace company Blue Origin.

The Post reportedly lost more than 500,000 subscribers since 2021, down from 3 million.

That'll do it for your AM update. I'm Megan Kelly.
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