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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees

Stocks Sink As White House Doubles Down On Massive China Tariffs; Interview With Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA); Hours Away: Trump's 104 Percent Tariff Hits Defiant China; CNN Goes Inside Notorious Salvadoran Prison After U.S. Deportations; Supreme Court Pauses Deadline To Return Man Mistakenly Deported To El Salvador; Blood Biomarkers Help To Diagnose & Monitor Early Alzheimer's. Aired 8-9p ET

Aired April 08, 2025 - 20:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

MIKE VALERIO, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: How much farther can its tariff come down? Can it's tariff come down at all? That is the question that Han Duck-soo is facing.

And Erin, for what it's worth, he has served as ambassador to the United States before the Trump years and also before the Trump years. He was instrumental in getting the free trade agreement with the U.S. and South Korea over the finish line. So, we will be watching from here in Seoul.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: Yes, and such an important interview. Mike, thank you very much from Seoul.

And thanks so much to all of you. "AC360" starts now.

[20:00:35]

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Tonight on 360, investors brace for impact again with huge in tariff just hours away and higher prices soon to follow.

Also tonight, where this all leads and money jobs and America's role in the world: John Bolton, Professor Scott Galloway and Senator Elizabeth Warren join us.

Plus some potentially good news on Alzheimer's. A startling new study shows a possible path to preventing cognitive decline. Things you can do starting tonight. Dr. Sanjay Gupta has the latest.

Good evening. Thanks for joining us.

And starting at midnight, get ready for the price of things you buy to go up even more. In some cases, prices may nearly double. Just four hours from now, the tariff on goods imported from China, which Americans not Chinese pay, will rise another 50 percent to a staggering 104 percent. The President, as you know, said this would happen if Beijing did not roll back its own retaliatory rate increases for the 34 percent bump Trump imposed on Chinese imports last week.

And today, when it became clear that China would not blink, the markets started down.

The selling began just moments after the White House announced the deadline had passed. The Dow lost a bit less than one percent, the NASDAQ more than two percent, the S&P 500 down a percent and-a-half.

Now, investors are dealing with the China news and the start, also at midnight tonight, of Canada's 25 percent tariff on American made cars, which itself is retaliation for the President's corresponding 25 percent levy on Canada imposed last week.

Those tariffs have already led to the shutdown of assembly lines on both sides of the border, and the idling of hundreds of jobs. The administration, though, is pressing ahead, especially on China.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The President was asked and answered this yesterday. He said he's not considering an extension or a delay. I spoke to him before this briefing. That was not his mindset. He expects that these tariffs are going to go into effect.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Well, a bit later today without offering any specifics, the President said that the tariffs were bringing other countries to the negotiating table while also painting them as big moneymakers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We've had talks with many, many countries, over 70. They all want to come in. Our problem is, I can't see that many that fast. But we don't have to because as you know, the tariffs are on and the money is pouring in at a level that we've never seen before, and it's going to be great for us. It's going to be great for other countries.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Well, given that trillions of dollars have already evaporated from people's investment and retirement accounts over the last six days, and markets have plunged globally as prices rise and recession worries grow, it's hard to see how this is great or even good for anyone, but that is how he is framing it.

Some leading Republicans, though, while not openly opposing him on this, do seem to be a little less than all in. Listen to Senate Majority Leader John Thune when asked whether Americans would accept higher prices due to the tariffs.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN THUNE (R-SD): Yes, there are all kinds of implications. These are -- there are a lot of very intricate trading relationships that exist today across the world. And, you know, ultimately, we don't know what the economic impacts are going to be.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Well, we don't know, he says, which says a lot. So does what North Carolina's Thom Tillis asked Jamieson Greer the administration's trade representative.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. THOM TILLIS (R-NC): So my first question to you in this scenario, because it's a novel approach, it needed to be thought out. Whose throat do I get to choke if this proves to be wrong?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Well, no one was choked out today, but we'll see where that goes. There was a sideshow as well, involving trade adviser Peter Navarro, Elon Musk and Tesla vehicles.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETER NAVARRO, SENIOR COUNSEL FOR TRADE AND MANUFACTURING: We all understand in the White House and the American people understand that Elon's a car manufacturer, but he's not a car manufacturer. He's a car assembler. In many cases, if you go to his Texas plant, a good part of the engines that that he gets, which in the E.V. case is the batteries come from Japan and come from China, the electronics come from Taiwan. That doesn't work for America. It's bad for our economics. It's bad for our National Security. We want them to come here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Well, in fact, Tesla's have a higher American content than most other cars assembled here, prompting Musk to tweet, "Navarro is truly a moron. What he says here is demonstrably false." And then, "Navarro is dumber than a sack of bricks."

Now, again, a sideshow with the main event Americans watching their savings for retirement plunge if they're lucky enough to even have savings and about to see prices rise.

Joining us -- starting off tonight, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, who sits on the Finance Committee and as the Ranking Member on the Banking Committee. So with these tariffs about to go into effect in China overnight, around midnight, how much more economic pain are we all facing?

[20:05:16]

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA): Well, we're facing a lot of pain and understand we look at the Dow Jones and the S&P because those are easy numbers to track. But the reality is this is already being felt by families, partly because prices are going up.

We already see the soft data showing us that there are a lot of companies out there saying, you know what -- we can tell what's coming, we're just going to raise our prices now and then if we need to raise them more later, we will do that. The head of the Fed said on Friday that this kind of across the board tariffs means prices will go up for families. We'll see more inflation. But he also pointed out unemployment is likely to go up as well. So, there are going to be people who'll lose their jobs. We talk about this recession. Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan.

COOPER: Do you think it's likely --

WARREN: Oh, I think that that all of the signs, the economic signs are flashing red. And remember we lost 700,000 jobs a month in the last recession. Recessions are not just things that happen on Wall Street. They are things that happen family by family, by family and there are people who never recover from that.

COOPER: Do you also see long-term damage done to just the credibility, the confidence, the stability of the United States?

WARREN: Boy, you have put your finger on it. Yes, Donald Trump is demonstrating that so long as he is President, the United States is not a reliable trading partner, but also not a reliable ally. And domestically, think about what it means with these tariffs that are changing by the day. People are saying they're on, they're off, they're on, they're off, they're off, they're on, right?

Who makes investments here? Who wants to say, I'm going to build a factory that will take me 20 years to recover my costs without having some general sense of what it's going to be like and the ability to sell your goods overseas --

COOPER: What's the plan, at least for a business --

WARREN: You cannot plan, you cannot plan. And in fact, what often happens is people start laying off, hoarding their cash under these circumstances. That is the reason that it is now time for Congress to act.

We have the power in the Senate and the House to roll back the authority that Donald Trump is using. It's a simple resolution. It will go to the floor. Senator Ron Wyden and I have introduced it or will be introducing it in the next day in the Senate.

COOPER: You need how many Republicans?

WARREN: Well, we only need a simple majority to get it passed. We may need more than that if the President ultimately vetoes it. But, you know, this is the moment for Republicans. This is the place where its right in front of them. Either they can continue to bend a knee to Donald Trump, or they can stand up for the people back home who are getting hurt by Donald Trump.

COOPER: You've said in the past that you're not always against tariffs. In what situation would you approve the use of tariffs or what do you -- what's wrong about these tariffs?

WARREN: Okay, so, I actually have been a big supporter of tariffs for a long time. They are an important tool in the economic toolbox. But they got to be used like any tool. You got to use it in the right way and you've got to use it carefully.

Let me give you an example. Right now, if you go have a prescription filled, you've got a nine out of ten chance that that prescription was actually manufactured overseas, most likely Asia. The ingredients most likely came from China.

You know, that's a pretty risky place for us to be. We get into a back and forth, and all of a sudden we don't have any antibiotics. Are you kidding me?

There is a place where you could say, all right, to pharmaceutical companies, we're going to give you some protective tariffs so that you can move the production online. And then were going to do other things to help support that production and get it going. Here's the irony, though. That is a place that might make some sense. That is an exception that Donald Trump has carved out in his tariff plans and said, go ahead and leave that production overseas. No sense at all.

COOPER: You're also focusing on Social Security, what's going on there? I mean, they've like turned down the phone lines and now saying people should go online and those websites are crashing.

WARREN: You know what really gets me about this? Social Security is not charity. It's not something we give away out of the goodness of our hearts. It's something people earned. They got out there and worked every single day and every paycheck that they got had a piece taken out to put into Social Security so that when the time came that they needed to draw in Social Security, that was an ironclad contract that they would have.

Now, if Donald Trump and Elon Musk want to cut Social Security, they've got to come to Congress and they're going to lose. So what are they doing? They're backdooring the cuts. How do you backdoor the cuts? We don't give you a way to be able to fix the problem. We turn off your benefits and then there's no one you can reach on the phone. There's no one you can reach on the computer.

You've got to go stand in a four hour line at a Social Security office. Oh, sorry, they closed the Social Security office. We really need to push back against that.

[20:10:33]

COOPER: Sen. Elizabeth Warren, thank you so much.

WARREN: You bet.

COOPER: Appreciate it. Just before air-time, China's embassy in Washington released a statement. It urges the White House to, "Immediately correct its wrongdoings," warning that China's response if American tariffs stay in place, will, "continue to the end."

Perspective now from former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, who served as National Security adviser in the first Trump administration, and Richard Quest, CNN Business editor-at-large and anchor of "Quest Means Business." So, Ambassador Bolton, I know you're not an economist, but just from a strategic perspective, do you think China is going to blink and try to cut a deal with the White House?

JOHN BOLTON, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS: It certainly doesn't look like it, but what Trump is doing is a huge opportunity for China worldwide. These tariffs are a form of economic illiteracy. Trump has no idea really what he's talking about. He doesn't understand how tariffs works. He has said as recently as a few days ago, he views trade surpluses and deficits as like a profit and loss statement, which they certainly are not.

So, what he's doing has put us in a very vulnerable position and probably in the worst position possible to go after the real country problem in the international trading system, which is China. Instead of taking on the country that's stolen our intellectual property for decades, among other things, by gathering our allies together, all of whom also suffer from China's intellectual property theft and engaging in concerted action, we are at war with our largest trading partners while we are about to go to war with China as well.

It simply makes no sense, and it's just sad and depressing that more Republicans haven't stood up and said that this is illiteracy.

COOPER: Richard, what does it look like for Americans if the price of everything imported from China effectively doubles overnight, how much of that gets passed on to consumers?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN BUSINESS EDITOR-AT-LARGE AND HOST OF "QUEST MEANS BUSINESS": Well, the Ambassador calls it economic illiteracy. I've called it economic vandalism because if you have 104 percent tariffs, the effect of things going to happen is two things. Number one, things simply won't be imported. It's too expensive. It's become unprofitable, uneconomic. Things simply will not be imported. Think about Christmas toys that just won't arrive.

But there are many things now that, as the Chinese have reminded the United States in a commentary the couple of days ago, there are many things that the U.S. only gets from China. Certain electronics, certain parts of manufacture. They can only now be received from China and the U.S. is going to find that they're going to be left without. They're going to be trying to source it elsewhere.

And one point to remember, Anderson, tonight, oh yes, you've got the 104 percent against China, but you've got the 24 percent against Japan, and of course there's the 25 percent autos. You've got the 15 percent against South Korea, and you've got the 20 percent against the European Union. So, wherever you look at midnight tonight, the global trading network is about to come under the most ferocious strain that it's seen, certainly since the Second World War.

COOPER: Ambassador Bolton, I mean, the first Trump administration, you know, some talked about a so-called madman theory that when it comes to National Security, the idea that adversaries wont challenge the president if they think he's unpredictable. Does that make any sense to you to apply that same philosophy to allied trading partnerships? BOLTON: No, look, the madman theory has a rationale behind it. When Richard Nixon recommended it to Henry Kissinger, dealing with China because Richard Nixon was well known as an anti-communist, he had made his political reputation on that. So when he told Kissinger to basically say Nixon might use nuclear weapons in the particular context they were talking about, use them against China, it made sense because Nixon believed he was a hardline anti-communist.

Trump doesn't believe in anything. He's simply transactional, anecdotal, episodic. And that's what these tariff policies have looked like in their rollout.

COOPER: Richard, "The New York Times" described the market decline as on par with the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Does that signal an investors view this policy decision by the President as equally volatile as a deadly new disease, with no known treatment or cure sweeping across the globe?

QUEST: I think there's a similarity because in both cases, we didn't know how it was going to turn out. The only difference being that in one particular case in COVID, there was this massive effort towards sorting it out, and we had a vision of where we wanted to go, and everybody seemed to be moving in the same direction.

In this particular case, because we don't know what the end game looks like, we don't know. You see, even if, just for arguments sake, let's say the tariffs all come down to zero. Just humor me. They all come down to zero. You've now got -- you've still got the non-tariff barriers which would prevent the U.S. from getting into new export markets and you've got the offensive behavior that the U.S. has put on its allies.

[20:15:38]

You know, Elizabeth Warren was talking about it a second ago, and the ambassador knows, you can't just have a trade policy in isolation, not when you've told Canada you regard them as the 51st state and you've offended the E.U., talking about Denmark and Greenland. Eventually, all these strands come together so that you don't have allies.

You have people wanting to do a deal that's pure, unadulterated self- interest. But what you don't have is the commonality of view and value that will get you over the line.

COOPER: Ambassador, I mean, long term, is it breaking of, you know, relationships that have taken decades to form internationally? Is there -- I mean, is there a long term cost on this, whatever the short term impact is?

BOLTON: I think we've incurred a lot of the cost already, not just because of Trump's tariff policy, but what he's done on Ukraine, what he's done to NATO, what he threatens to do to NATO.

I can see all over the world, from Europe to the Far East, the decades of effort by many, many Americans in government, out of government to build up relationships of trust, of good faith, of reliance, of dependability that the United States deserves to be the leader of the world, to protect its own interests, not because of economic relations, but because people trust us.

They don't trust us anymore. And it's going to be very hard to rebuild. This is the -- this is the wide open gap that we have left for the Chinese to drive through and I think, I think they're moving along. Trump simply doesn't grasp any of that. He doesn't understand alliances as long term propositions. He just sees them as one transaction after the other. And that's not the way they work.

COOPER: Ambassador Bolton, I appreciate your time. Richard Quest as well. Thank you.

Coming up next, Professor Scott Galloway's take on all this, including his advice about what you should and should not do right now about your own savings. And later, CNN's David Culver, his exclusive reporting tonight from inside the notorious El Salvador prison and the conditions there for deportees from this country.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:22:08]

COOPER: We're now just a little more than three-and-a-half hours away from a big escalation in what has developed into a trade war between the world's two largest economies. An extra 50 percent tariff on Chinese imports, on top of the 34 percent extra imposed last week. In addition to the 20 percent originally -- 104 percent in all.

Perspective now from Scott Galloway, NYU professor. Host of the "Prof G" podcast and co-host with Kara Swisher of the "Pivot" podcast.

So, Scott to the President's tariffs make any sense to you or any more sense to you now than they did before? I mean, and what is the end game here? Do you see this as a route to some negotiation, country by country?

SCOTT GALLOWAY, PROFESSOR OF MARKETING, NYU STERN SCHOOL OF BUSINESS: It would be difficult to think of a more elegant way to reduce prosperity globally than these levels of tariffs. These are more than 10X the levels of tariffs in the first administration on a gross level, they're actually greater than the than the tariffs levied in Smoot-Hawley that led us into a depression where we lost a third of our GDP and unemployment was at 25 percent.

If we're looking to alienate the largest trading partners in the world and shove them into the hands or the arms of China, Japan, South Korea and China are having talks for the first time in a while. If we're looking to reduce our purchasing power, our prosperity, take our markets down. This is literally the most elegant way I could think of doing this.

I used to, Anderson, in graduate school. I was a graduate student instructor in macro microeconomics, and we used to talk about tariffs the way I imagine they talk about leeches in medical school saying, can you believe they ever did this? So, I don't know what the endgame is here other than somebody who believes he's a great dealmaker and can go country by country and figure out a better deal, but we've lost so much credibility that I think the structural long-term damage here is really significant.

COOPER: Beyond tariffs, the structural long-term damage to America's reputation, to faith in our economic system.

GALLOWAY: The reputation of America means risk, innovation, I.P., great universities. It also means consistency and rule of law. And in the last, literally, the last 10 weeks, rule of law has been thrown out the window. Whether it's defying court orders or having essentially a used car sale on the White House lawn, it appears were no longer engaging or holding up rule of law. And we seem totally inconsistent. The tariffs are on, they're off, they're on, they're off.

Global trade has been this enormous unlock for the U.S. economy and our prosperity. And anytime we take it down we get especially hurt.

The definition of stupid is doing something that hurts yourself while hurting others. This could not be more stupid.

COOPER: And so, to the argument that the administration makes, which is this is to bring American manufacturing back, to have iPhones manufactured here in this country, to have great jobs for, for people here.

[20:25:07]

GALLOWAY: The notion that somehow we're just dying for more. First off, were the second largest manufacturer in the world behind China. We have a lot of manufacturing already. The Cato Institute did a survey about manufacturing. Well, 80 percent of Americans think we should have more manufacturing. About one in four or one in five have any interest in going to work in manufacturing. There isn't a line of people looking to get to go work at a plant in Lansing, Michigan.

Dave Chappelle summarized it perfectly. We want to wear Nikes, not make them. We have outsourced the most underpaid jobs. Now, some people we've left behind. But this notion Secretary Lutnick said that there are millions of people looking to drill in these screws in iPhones.

If these tariffs go through, your iPhone is about to go from $1,300.00 to $2,100.00. To produce it in the U.S. would cost $3,500.00.

So we are not going to bring back iPhone manufacturing. These companies produce products on average 50 to 80 percent less expensively than we do, and we reinvest that prosperity in higher value add products.

We import energy from Canada, we refine it, we add value to it, and we sell it at three times the price. So the notion that all these great jobs are going to come flowing back to the U.S. is nonsense. America doesn't want these low paying manufacturing jobs. The basis of trade is that you do a great job of producing something for a lot less money than we do. We do another great job of producing things at a lower cost than you can. It tends to be our products are high value add, very high margin. NVIDIA chips have 50 to 60 points of profit margin. Mercedes operates at eight percent profit margin.

So, for every dollar we make, we effectively get a maximum exponential shampoo effect or echo effect of much greater value. Global trade has been the unbelievable unlock for global prosperity and massive prosperity in the United States.

COOPER: What do you make of Elon Musk's criticism of the administration, in particular, some of the folks around the President, Peter Navarro in particular, I called him a sack of -- oh, dumber than a sack of bricks and a moron.

GALLOWAY: You know, look, it makes for good theater. I think Elon Musk is going to fade to black. I predicted three weeks ago that within 30 days he would be out of government and DOGE, because the bottom line is, he could not have anticipated this type of blowback. And I think what really sent chills down the spine was when the province of Alberta and Poland, the Nation of Poland, said that they were reconsidering their Starlink contracts.

His brand has been so damaged by this -- sales plummeting in Europe, and Starlink, which is his growth vehicle and now constitutes more of his wealth than Tesla. He's going to leave the administration because this has not gone well for him.

He is seen as someone who is not empathetic, someone who has usurped constitutional power illegally, and it is really damaging his brand. So, you know, the fight between him and Peter Navarro, that's good theater. He's going to be gone. He's out.

COOPER: You've been very transparent on your podcast about the millions of dollars you've lost in the market in a 48-hour period last week. Obviously, you know, you're able to take a hit, luckily, there's a lot of people who are depending on their retirement savings to make ends meet right now, thinking about retiring, who are now thinking, well, I can't retire. What are they supposed to do right now?

GALLOWAY: Oh, yes, look, I want to be clear. This really hurts people, what I -- in terms of financial advice and I've got a lot of e-mails saying, what should I do? My advice for anybody right now is to do the following. Nothing, you don't make decisions when you lose someone you love. When you have a financial catastrophe or something really bad happens to you. I don't think you make decisions in the moment because you're not thinking straight.

And also, this guy is so unpredictable. He could announce tomorrow that the tariffs are off and stocks could go up. The Dow could go up 2,000 points tomorrow. And then you really hate yourself. What I would consider doing is the following, Anderson. And that is if you think you're just diversified because you're in an S&P index fund, you're not. You need to be geographically diversified. And that is, that rerating

we're talking about, where the U.S. may not be able to outrun the multiple contraction in stocks in my opinion, are due for five years of decline in the U.S. You may want to think about taking some tax losses and then diversifying into other geographies -- Asian, Latin American and European stocks.

But you never want to act out of emotion because usually the same emotion you're feeling is what other people are feeling. And if you had followed advice, some advice from famous CNBC people in 2008 and said, if you can't stand the volatility, get out. And then the markets rip back and recovered all of their losses within 14 months, think about the hit to your mental health.

So, what do you do right now? You do nothing in the short run. You do not have emotional panic selling. You talk to people and maybe think about diversifying across geographies, not just across the S&P.

COOPER: Scott Galloway, thanks so much, Scott.

GALLOWAY: Thank you, Anderson.

Much more ahead tonight, including an exclusive look at conditions inside that draconian prison in El Salvador, which is now at the center of a court battle and bitter debate over deporting people in this country there.

Later, Dr. Sanjay Gupta with new insight into what you can do starting tonight, even to reduce your chances of developing cognitive decline.

[20:30:40]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:35:22]

COOPER: More breaking news right now in the middle of tax season. CNN has learned that acting Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Melanie Krause is leaving the agency. That's according to senior IRS officials, two current IRS employees and one former employee.

Her departure comes just a day after the IRS and Department of Homeland Security finalized an agreement to provide sensitive taxpayer data to federal immigration authorities to help locate and deport undocumented immigrants, which is a change of policy.

Now to a CNN exclusive, it's been more than three weeks since the Trump administration deported 238 Venezuelan nationals from the U.S. to that draconian prison in El Salvador. One of them is this man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, father of three, who the Trump administration admits was mistakenly sent there because of a, quote, administrative error.

They're also saying they can't get him out because he's now in El Salvadorian custody. Custody, by the way, the U.S. is paying for. Given their cozy relationship with the authoritarian leader of El Salvador seems hard to believe they couldn't get him released and sent back. A federal judge was certainly unconvinced by the administration's claim.

The judge gave them a deadline at midnight last night to return him to the U.S., which was then temporarily paused by the Supreme Court. It's just one of many court cases the Trump administration is now embroiled in over these deportations.

CNN's David Culver was given exclusive access to the CECOT prison in the first American network reporter inside since the latest round of deportees from the U.S. arrived.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

DAVID CULVER, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: When we first walked in to these halls, CECOT was a powerful symbol across Latin America. But now, since folks in the U.S. are far more familiar with what's happening here because it has a direct connection.

Last time we were here, there were about 80 or so people per cell. I'm looking right now and it's already 70 who have come out and they've probably got another 30 plus. You're talking more than 100 people in some of these cells now.

And the director has told me they've increased the prison population because more arrests have taken place within this country.

CULVER (voice-over): Built to isolate El Salvador's most dangerous criminals, the center for Terrorism Confinement, or CECOT, opened in early 2023 as the centerpiece of President Nayib Bukele's anti-gang crackdown.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking in Foreign Language)

CULVER: Why are there more people here?

BELARMINO GARCIA, DIRECTOR, CECOT PRISON: (Speaking in Foreign Language).

CULVER: He says the state of exception, essentially the state of emergency that's been declared under President Bukele going back 2022, will not end until the last gang member has been taken from the communities and brought here to CECOT.

This is a court hearing that's playing out right now. This is a preliminary hearing that's playing out.

There's one in there. And this one hasn't yet started.

Anderson Cooper last night was asking me, is everyone in CECOT convicted?

GARCIA: No, not all. CULVER (voice-over): Garcia says many here have been convicted but others are still going through the judicial process. And when we ask, he does allow us to sit in on what appears to be court hearings underway.

CULVER: I hear you when you say that there are people who have done horrible things, but is it possible that there are people who are innocent as well in here?

GARCIA: (Speaking in Foreign Language)

CULVER (voice-over): Garcia claims every person in CECOT is an active member of a terrorist organization.

CULVER: And you're confident that that's the case?

GARCIA: Correct.

CULVER (voice-over): Critics have said there's a lack of due process, so it's impossible to say for sure.

CULVER: Questions have been raised about that severity of treatment, and it is seen certainly as harsh. But when you talk to Salvadorans, they say, yes, perhaps harsh, but totally necessary to have eradicated the gangs and to keep them out.

The question is, is that same level of treatment necessary when it comes to the deportees that are coming here from, say, the U.S.?

But if you look just straight down there at the very end, that's Sector 8. That's where the deportees, including those from Tren de Aragua, are being held. We cannot go into that sector. When I ask why, he says it's not part of this approved tour.

GARCIA: (Speaking in Foreign Language)

CULVER: He said everybody's got the same conditions. It doesn't matter where you are, including Sector 8.

There are four zones, and in each zone, you have two modules, the sectors that have also within them the cells, and they can have up to 5,000 prisoners within each module.

[20:40:11]

CULVER (voice-over): That's a maximum capacity of 40,000, which Garcia says they're getting closer to, but he adds they still have sufficient space. He won't give the exact prison population for security reasons, he says.

CULVER: The CECOT isn't just a prison. It's a message from this government to the gangs and really to the rest of the world. For critics, this is a place where rights vanish, but for supporters, of which there are many, including the leaders here and many of the people who live in this country, this place is a symbol of freedom, newfound freedom, as they see it. For them to see this exist in the way it does, while some may perceive it as harsh, they see it as the only reason they're able to walk freely outside these gates and not live in fear for most of their lives.

Gracias.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

COOPER: David, what can you tell us about the deported Maryland father who's also believed to be in the prison?

CULVER (on-camera): Well, they wouldn't even confirm Abrego Garcia was inside that facility, Anderson. I tried with the prison director trying to get some more information, and he finally told me, you're not going into Sector 8, and I don't have any information on those individual deportee cases.

They really wanted to push back on that quite strongly. What really stood out, though, was the change in population that we noticed from when we were there just six months ago. And there's two things to that that obviously were addressed by the prison director.

On one point, that they've arrested more people, including here in El Salvador, that have been linked to gangs, and so they were able to bring them in. But the other aspect is they're trying to make room in some of these other modules, these large sectors so as -- to potentially bring in more deportees.

And so they've had to then bring and combine people into some of those cells and make more space. So I think that was interesting in that they're reaching, as he said, getting closer to capacity, which is a significant jump.

When we were here six months ago, it was 15,000 to 20,000. Now they're saying they're closer to 40,000 inside that facility, Anderson.

COOPER: David Culver, it's incredible to see. Thank you.

Joining us now is former federal prosecutor and best-selling author Jeff Toobin. Jeff, when we last spoke, or since we last spoke, the Supreme Court has given the Trump administration some breathing room, at least temporarily, on the deportations.

The rulings have been on technicalities. Where do you think the court's ultimately going to land on the merits on the use of this Alien Enemies Act in general and in bringing Mr. Garcia back to the U.S.?

JEFFREY TOOBIN, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Well, I think those are two somewhat separate questions, but I think the Trump administration in this Supreme Court is likely to win. I mean, this Supreme Court, led by John Roberts, who was a strong believer in executive power, that they give a great deal of deference, especially when something involves foreign countries. And, you know, the one thing that Garcia won today, and I think is actually important in the Supreme Court's ruling, is that true, he did win the -- the court moved the case to Texas, but the court also said that you can't be deported in this country without any due process at all.

So the court in Texas is going to consider the issue of due process. But then we turn to the issue of even if the court's ruling Mr. Garcia's favor, whether the El Salvador government will turn over Mr. Garcia, you know, back to the United States, and will the Trump administration make any effort to force the government to do that.

COOPER: I mean, do you have any doubt that the Trump administration wanted this guy back, that they could get him back?

TOOBIN: It certainly seems that way. I mean, this is a very friendly relationship between this particular El Salvador government and this particular Republican administration. You know, Secretary Noem was there in that very prison recently, walking around talking about, you know, how good the relationship was.

I think it is very likely that the Trump administration could get Mr. Garcia back if they wanted. But first of all, Garcia has to win in court, which is by no means certain. And there has to be some effort made to get him back if he wins.

COOPER: There was also some discussion, the President was asked about this and -- about -- he mentioned the idea of Americans being sent down there, people who had committed crimes in the United States being sent to that prison. He said he doesn't know about the legalities of that. What are the legalities of that?

TOOBIN: You know, there are laws about how we treat prisoners in this country and the number of prisons they can be sent to.

[20:45:01]

There are different levels of security, and they're all designated by the Bureau of Prisons, and it's a very complicated formula and a bureaucracy. The bureaucracy does not include prisons in El Salvador. I don't see any way a court in an American court would allow anyone to be sentenced to an El Salvador prison.

I think that's just off the table. But that also underlines how weird and unfair it is that poor Mr. Garcia is being sent somewhere without any process at all, and the government admits that he's not a gang member. I mean, it is the stuff of nightmares.

COOPER: Yes. Jeff Toobin, I appreciate you being with us. Thank you.

Coming up next, Dr. Sanjay Gupta sharing the findings of a new study in Alzheimer's that he's a part of. The results are startling and good news. We'll be right back with that.

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[20:50:36]

COOPER: Some exciting news on Alzheimer's research. Researchers have found a way to use simple blood tests to not only determine someone's risk for Alzheimer's, but also measure biomarkers that can help them prevent the disease or at least perhaps prevent its onset.

Joining me with more CNN's Chief Medical Correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, who's one of the participants in this unique study. There's very little good news about Alzheimer's. This sounds like good news. Talk about what's so significant about these results.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean, look, for a decade and a half, there was no good news at all. Then over the last few years, now a couple, three years, there's been increasing good news. I think the big thing about this is that diagnosing Alzheimer's, diagnosing dementia, you couldn't even do that until someone had an autopsy, which was very grim.

Then they found that you could use certain biomarkers to basically determine whether or not you had a significant amount of plaque in your brain. We've known that for a while.

What this study has shown is you can now follow those biomarker levels and figure out if the lifestyle interventions that you're making, hopefully things to improve your brain, are actually making a difference. They're actually decreasing the amount of proteins, these plaques in your brain.

So, you know, we used to be able to diagnose it this way, but being able to follow it along this way, it's more like a cholesterol test.

COOPER: What does the blood test measure?

GUPTA: So there's two major proteins. There's lots of biomarkers, but two major proteins, amyloid and tau. And we've known that for some time, but to actually be able to measure those as a biomarker through a simple blood test is something that's relatively new.

COOPER: As opposed to having to get like a CAT scan or a spinal tap?

GUPTA: Spinal tap or an MRI or a PET scan or something like that. So, these are really good. There's one that's called P-tau217. You don't need to remember the name, but it's highly correlated with getting a PET scan or even doing a spinal tap and measuring that in the spinal.

COOPER: And in this study, which is by this guy Richard Isaacson, who's a neurologist, works out of Florida, they're actually looking at like 125 biomarkers.

GUPTA: Yes, they're looking at all sorts of different biomarkers because they think that this can get highly personalized. Again, we've been treating this in a very sort of either you have it or you don't sort of way. Now we know you can follow the biomarkers and now we know there's certain biomarkers that may be higher in you versus me and being able to follow those. So, I went through a lot of the cognitive testing that's part of this, which I got to say is pretty intense. I mean, how many words can you name starting with the letter G in the next 60 seconds, you know?

COOPER: I don't even want to.

GUPTA: Right, stuff like that. Or how many animals?

COOPER: Right.

GUPTA: The more complicated the animal, the better. My point is that the cognitive testing is quite good. I went through the study. I implemented some of the lifestyle changes.

COOPER: So Richard Isaacson and his team look at your biomarkers and then decide, OK, well, this medication would be good for you. This lifestyle change would be good for you. What were some of the lifestyle changes?

GUPTA: It was all lifestyle changes for me. There was no new medications that were recommended. There were a couple of supplements for vitamin B, for example, but a couple of interesting ones. So, first of all, glucose monitor.

So, I wore a glucose monitor for a while. We know that metabolic problems like insulin resistance are heavily associated with decreases in memory later on in life. Glucose monitor.

COOPER: They also had you wear a rucksack for exercise?

GUPTA: Rucksack. So when I walk now, I wear a weighted vest, a rucksack, 30 pounds.

COOPER: Why that?

GUPTA: Yes, I asked the same question. You have three things in the body besides blood, right? You have fat, you have muscle, you have bone. We know that fat is associated with some of these problems. That's what the glucose monitor helps reduce.

Improving your bone density, improving your muscle mass, lean muscle mass is highly correlated with decreasing your likelihood of Alzheimer's.

COOPER: Barefoot walking.

GUPTA: Barefoot walking. We're using toe spacers. The nerves in your feet, when they go to your spinal cord are some of the longest nerves in the body. If you're wearing shoes all the time, you're really not activating those nerves very much. Simply walking around barefoot activates those nerves, which then sends signals to the brain.

COOPER: This blood test is still pretty specialized, not available widely. How soon do you think it will be?

GUPTA: You know, Richard will say, you know, most doctors probably start doing it within the next year or so, but where he's really headed, Dr. Isaacson, is doing finger prick testing at home, putting the blood on cards, sending those cards in, and being able to track the biomarkers. So it's not just once every several years. You could do it once every six months or so.

COOPER: All right. Well, more to come.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thanks so much. Appreciate it.

GUPTA: Got it.

COOPER: Up next, a return of the dire wolf. Scientists say they've genetically engineered the rebirth of this prehistoric predator. If you've watched "Game of Thrones", this is pretty exciting. That's coming up.

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[20:59:46]

COOPER: This next sound hasn't been heard on earth in more than 12,000 years.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

(Wolf's sound)

(END VIDEOCLIP)

COOPER: Those are dire wolf puppies created by combining the DNA from a 13,000-year-old tooth and a 72,000-year-old skull, and then using technology to alter the genes of a gray wolf. Colossal Biosciences is calling them the, quote, "world's first successfully de-extincted animal".

The three wolves are named Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi, the latter a reference to the HBO series "Game of Thrones". Technically, they're hybrids.

But a quick programming note with President Trump's tariffs and new policies reshaping the country, Democrats searching for a path forward. Independent Senator Bernie Sanders joins me for town hall tomorrow night, 9:00 p.m. Eastern, right here on CNN.

That's it for me. The news continues. "The Source" starts now. See you tomorrow.