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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
Trump Marks First 100 Days At Michigan Rally; Interview With Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT); Treasury Secretary: "Over Time, We Will See That Chinese Tariffs Are Unsustainable For China;" DOJ's Civil Rights Division Facing Mass Exodus; Rally In Michigan: Trump Commemorates First 100 Days Of His Second Administration; Heart Disease Linked To Widely Used Chemicals In Plastics. Aired 8-9p ET
Aired April 29, 2025 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I don't have a hundred percent confidence in anything. Okay, anything. Do I have 100 percent? It's a stupid question. Look --
TERRY MORAN, ABC NEWS SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's a pretty important position.
TRUMP: No, no, no, you don't have a hundred percent. Only a liar would say I have a hundred percent confidence. I don't have a hundred percent confidence that we're going to finish this interview.
MORAN: We will.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: And, they did and that is that, an odd term. And, thanks so much for joining us. We appreciate it, see you here tomorrow, Anderson starts now.
[20:00:33]
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Tonight on 360, the President take the victory lap in his first hundred days, as the consequences of those hundred days adds up.
Also tonight, a storied and deeply significant ally of the Civil Rights movement is gutted as the Justice Department lawyers who led that fight depart enmasse.
And later, new research linking deadly heart disease to a specific chemical, perhaps found in nearly anything around your home and kitchen. Dr. Sanjay Gupta on how to protect your family.
Good evening, thanks for joining us. The President celebrated his 100th day in office with a victory rally tonight in Warren, Michigan. Michigan is one of the swing states that went his way in November, and he brought a gift tonight, on tariffs. We'll have more on that in a moment.
But first, quickly the President taking that victory lap.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We're here tonight in the heartland of our nation to celebrate the most successful first hundred days of any administration in the history of our country. And that's according to many, many people. This is the best, they say hundred days start of any President in history and everyone is saying it. We've just gotten started. You haven't even seen anything yet.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Well, before you even left the White House, the compliments were already rolling in from his supporters.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEAN DUFFY, U.S. TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY: I still pinch myself that I got to call the President, and he'll pick up my call or call me back. It's really remarkable. And he's just -- I saw him yesterday. He doesn't stop like he's late for a meeting and he's talking to people and he's talking about policy and he's signing executive orders. And he has so much energy and he's so joyful.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: That is Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and other Cabinet secretaries also weighed in today, some making videos which the President posted on his social network throughout the day. Quite a few Republican lawmakers were also quick to offer praise.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LARRY KUDLOW, FOX BUSINESS NETWORK HOST, "KUDLOW": How do you rank his first hundred days, Senator Tuberville? Nice, easy question, hundred days, what do you think?
SEN. TOMMY TUBERVILLE (R-AL): A-plus, what else can he do, Larry?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: What else can he do? That was Alabama Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville on Fox Business last night. Here's House Speaker Johnson today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): He is the most consequential American leader of the 21st Century, and that's an understatement.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Well, understatement or not, this President and this presidency has certainly been consequential in many significant ways and some of those consequences might be why neither every Republican lawmaker nor certainly most Americans are quite so upbeat today. In new CNN polling, a combined 57 percent said they were either pessimistic or afraid about the rest of the President's second term.
Today, the Conference Board released its Consumer Confidence Index for April. It's down for the fifth straight month and now stands at its lowest point in 13 years. Significantly, according to the Conference Board, the drop was broad based, spanning all income groups and political affiliations.
Now, one reason people have seen their 401(k)s lose value as markets slide in their worst hundred day performance since the early 1970s, or they've had to pay higher prices on imported goods as tariffs start to bite, which may be why the Republican Senate Majority Leader today was counseling patience.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOHN THUNE (R-SD): When you're going through all this, you got to take the long view. And I think his policy decisions are the right ones, and I think over time that will bear fruit.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Senator Thune added that the administration will be judged by the results on trade deals, none of which has yet been announced. However, before he left for Michigan, the President had this to say about trade and tariffs.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I think we'll have a deal with India, the Prime Minister, as you know, was here three weeks ago and they want to make a deal.
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COOPER: Well, Treasury Secretary Bessent says the U.S. is, "very close on India," but again, no agreements have been announced with it or any country yet.
As for China, which the administration and President have been repeatedly claiming is talking in Beijing, denies Secretary Bessent signaled a change today by no longer saying -- no longer making that claim or saying anything about it, simply dodging the question.
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WEIJIA JIANG, CBS NEWS: Sir, can you clarify, is the administration talking to Beijing specifically about tariffs or not?
SCOTT BESSENT, U.S. TREASURY SECRETARY: Well, we're not going to talk about who's talking to whom, but I think that over time we will see that the Chinese tariffs are unsustainable for China.
JIANG: And they are saying, you guys are not talking about it. So, is that true? BESSENT: Look, they have a different form of government. They're playing to a different audience. So, I'm not going to get into the nitty-gritty again of who's talking to whom.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Well, whoever is talking or not, tariffs on Chinese goods are now at 145 percent, which American importers pay not China.
Tonight in Michigan, the President said he was going to make a deal with Beijing.
[20:05:14]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: China has taken more jobs from us than any country has ever taken from another country. And that doesn't mean we're not going to get along. We get along with China. I mean, their tariff now is at a 145 percent. So, essentially that's a big difference between that and zero.
But I think it's going to work out. They want to make a deal and we're going to make a deal. But it's going to be a fair deal. It's not going to be a deal that we lose a trillion dollars a year like they did with Biden. That guy was so bad.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Again, though, no deal yet with China or India or any country. Earlier today, the President did sign two executive orders easing some of the impact of his tariffs on the auto industry, something of a reversal given that just two days ago he was selling tariffs, as he often does, as something of a panacea, quoting him now, "When tariffs cut in, many people's income taxes will be substantially reduced, maybe even completely eliminated."
If that were to happen, it would certainly make him the most consequential president since Woodrow Wilson, who instituted the first income tax in 1913 and returning to the hundred-day theme, Speaker Johnson was, in fact, right. He has already become a consequential President in many respects.
From the number of executive orders he signed upwards of 138, according to the federal register, to the number of court challenges he now faces 222, according to just security.org, which is tracking them to his challenges to the NATO alliance, claims on Greenland in the Panama Canal, to the effect he seems to have had on who leads Canada, which he wants to make the 51st state, he says. Voters there, driven by that claim, a terrorist most notably chose Mark Carney over the candidate backed by the President.
Today, Prime Minister Carney underscored how consequential Donald Trump has been by stating the consequences he has caused.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MARK CARNEY, CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER: Our old relationship with the United States, a relationship based on steadily increasing integration is over. The system of open global trade, anchored by the United States, a system that Canada has relied on since the Second World War, a system that, while not perfect, has helped deliver prosperity for our country for decades, is over.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Well, for more on all this, we're joined by Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut.
Senator, thanks for being with us. You warned on the Senate floor today that, in your view, American democracy itself is at stake. True or not, wasn't that the losing argument in the last election?
SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT): Well, I mean, we really don't have the ability to think about the electoral consequences of what's happening to the country right now. The fact of the matter is, Donald Trump is trying to destroy our democracy so that he can turn the entire government over to his billionaire friends.
He's trying to create a kind of kleptocratic oligarchy where he and his Mar-a-Lago buddies steal from the rest of us. We have to tell that story.
I mean, I understand that it's kind of a popular theme that Kamala Harris shouldn't have run on protecting democracy. But, you know, if you run on telling the American public that this guy, Donald Trump, is going to destroy the rule of law if he wins, and then you don't act like it, you don't tell the truth when he actually tries to convert American democracy to American autocracy, then you lose all of your credibility.
So, I don't sit here every day thinking about the political or electoral ramifications of telling the truth. We should just tell the truth, and the truth is, the President is trying to destroy our country. The most massive transfer of wealth from the middle class to the rich in the history of the country and the destruction of the rule of law. That's why his approval ratings are plummeting by the day, right now.
COOPER: If the President wants to continue to gut Cabinet Departments, deport people without due process, I mean, you know, what can Democrats really do other than hope his actions get blocked in courts? Because, I mean, that seems obviously the most likely scenario in some of these things. Without majorities in Congress, your options are very limited now.
MURPHY: Yes, when the President violates the law, there is not a natural remedy for Congress. Congress could pass a law saying the same thing. But this President has made it clear he doesn't give a damn about what the constitution says or what the law says.
In that case, there's really two primary remedies. One is through the court system, and obviously you're seeing the President every single day have his illegal actions reversed by the courts. But the second is mobilization. It is the American public rising up as it is all over the country in protest.
You know, once a Presidents approval ratings get down to where they are today, high 30s, mid 30s, 40 percent, well, then his enablers, the people around him who, you know, make his agenda work, they start to get second thoughts because they realize that tying themselves to Donald Trump is a prescription for them to lose their elections in the next midterm.
So, if the President's approval ratings stay where they are or get lower because of mass public mobilization, he'll have a hard time finding the support he needs to continue to enact this agenda.
[20:10:11]
COOPER: Why do you think Democrats are not doing better in that same kind of polling, a new CNN poll showed the approval rating for Democratic leaders in Congress at 27 percent. How do you, I mean, do you think that perception will just change? How does it change?
MURPHY: Yes, listen, I think that, you know, people have been shocked at how quickly Donald Trump has laid an assault on the Constitution and the rule of law. And I think a lot of people are taking out their anxiety and their anger at Donald Trump on the Democratic Party. Some of that is legitimate. I mean, I would say there have been moments where we have not stepped up and fought as hard as we should. I don't think this is politics as normal.
So, I think Democrats should be willing to take day to day risks. And you started to see that from Cory Booker, from my colleague Chris Van Hollen. That's the kind of leadership people are looking for and I think as Democrats start to step up to this moment to be more risk tolerant in the tactics they take, I think you'll see the American public start to lighten a little bit in their opinion of Democrats.
Right now, I think that they're deeply worried about the direction of the country, and they're taking out some of that frustration, sometimes with merit on the opposition party.
COOPER: Senator Chris Murphy, I appreciate your time. Thank you.
MURPHY: Yes.
COOPER: Joining me now is "New York Times" White House correspondent, CNN political analyst Maggie Haberman. Hundred days, we see how the President is selling it. What are his advisers saying? Or what are you hearing from people around him?
MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: There are a number of things that Trump has done that his advisers feel incredibly good about. And when you talk to them in private conversations, the main thing that they all point to is the near-total sealing of the southern border and that is that is not a small thing.
It is something that he has been talking about for many years. It is something he finally did. It happened to some extent during COVID. It is it is now, basically closed and that was a promise during the campaign. There are crackdowns on diversity initiatives across the government. He has taken on colleges and universities that have been Republican targets for several years now over anti-Israel protests.
And so, on those metrics, they feel very good. But what he is doing on trade is clearly not going very well. No one can, on the same day, articulate what exactly the goal of this trade policy is, what they are looking for. You have the President saying that he has spoken to President Xi Jinping, which seems to be a call that nobody else can attest to.
They keep promising deals, you won't have actual deals. You will have frameworks for deals, and you are seeing consumer confidence dropping and confidence in the U.S. brand dropping. And so sure, Trump has been -- there's no question he has been massively impactful. But whether that is good or bad depends on where you start--
COOPER: Great, I mean, everybody is saying, look, there's no deals. To get an actual trade deal. I mean, it takes months and months and months and months.
HABERMAN: In some cases years.
COOPER: Intricate negotiations.
HABERMAN: Yes, there will be frameworks for deals at some point. They are very clearly looking for off-ramps for a lot of these negotiations with various countries, particularly with China. I mean, with China, I think this is just Trump has overestimated the leverage that he had in a couple of places, but especially with China. And this is not going well for the U.S. side right now.
COOPER: The President says he doesn't care about the poll showing his approval rating underwater. He dismisses them as not credible. The stock market, though, is something he's often pointed to and that's certainly, you know, worse first hundred-days of any presidential term on pace for that.
HABERMAN: Yes, although he has been less reactive to the stock market than he certainly was in his first term. And we saw that over and over and over again. His first term he did do tariffs, but they were much more targeted and they took place over time and they were more surgically implemented. He was reactive to the bond markets seeming like they were going to melt down. Bonds are something he understands pretty well because he was a borrower for a long time as a real estate developer.
I think that we will see where this goes over the next couple of weeks. But yes, he is -- I know he says he doesn't care about the polls. He does care about the polls. They do take comfort in the fact that they continue to maintain that public polling by media outlets and by universities and so forth, over sample Democrats. You heard him say that, that is something his advisers say, too. But it's clearly the trajectory is not good right now. COOPER: Well, what do you think -- I mean, the biggest difference between this hundred days and his first administration hundred days? Obviously, I mean, the speed of which and the executive orders, you know, it's a big difference?
HABERMAN: There's a couple of things that are different. One is certainly the number of executive orders signed. They had a plan coming in for certain things. I would clearly trade has not been some well thought out plan, but on immigration it absolutely was. And a number of the executive orders he's taken, and executive actions he's done, it absolutely was.
He also -- and they've done very little through Congress. He did much more through Congress in the first term. He's not under investigation right now. That is the main difference. He came into office knowing that there was this investigation related to Russia and his campaign, and he had been briefed about that by the FBI director and others about this dossier that was going around. And that was a cloud over so much of what he did in the first few months and impacted his thinking for the first several months. That is the main difference.
[20:15:22]
COOPER: Do you think the pace will continue?
HABERMAN: I don't think -- the pace isn't the same this week as it was last week or a few weeks beforehand. I think it will ramp up again. I do think you will see a number of additional executive actions. I certainly think you're going to see him go after additional targets for retribution, and we have seen him do that from the Oval Office, in a way, we really just have not seen any President do.
But I think the pace they had for the first certainly 80 days was not sustainable.
COOPER: Yes, Maggie Haberman, thanks so much appreciate it.
Coming up next, a former White House chief of staff weighs in on these first hundred days. Rahm Emanuel joins us for that.
Also, the gutting of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, the immediate impact and the enormous role that division has played over the years.
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[20:20:26]
COOPER: We are talking tonight about the President's first hundred days, a big part of which has been his revival of tariffs as a way of financing the government as a tool of foreign policy and critics say an agent of economic and diplomatic destruction. Here's what the President said about them to ABC's Terry Moran.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MORAN: We still have 145 percent tariffs on China. Your Treasury Secretary said we basically have an embargo on China.
TRUMP: Look, you're trying to say something's going to happen.
MORAN: No, no. Okay, well --
TRUMP: Nothing's going to happen. I do know business --
MORAN: So, 145 percent tariffs on China and that is basically --
TRUMP: That's good, that's good, they deserve it.
MORAN: -- an embargo, it will raise prices on everything from electronics, to clothing, to building houses.
TRUMP: You don't know that. You don't know whether or not China is going to eat it.
MORAN: That's mathematics.
TRUMP: China probably will eat those tariffs. But at 145 percent, they basically can't do much business with the United States. And they were making from us a trillion dollars a year. They were ripping us off like nobody's ever ripped us off.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Our next guest, CNN senior political and global affairs commentator, Rahm Emanuel. He served as White House chief-of-staff during the Obama administration. He was President Biden's Ambassador to Japan. Do you think the President is right about China here?
RAHM EMANUEL, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL AND GLOBAL AFFAIRS COMMENTATOR: No, actually, if you look at it, this actually was basically a get out of jail card for Xi. He was back on his heels economically, at home, domestically. He was isolated in the region. He's cut off from the European market.
And now, he looks like the nice guy and we've actually done end goal for the United States. And I think if you look at all the reporting out of China, its showing pretty clear that the country is rallying around Xi in defense of the country. It's not, well, it's not a democracy, very similar way you see happening in Canada if the polling is right, very similar in Australia, actually, there's a negative reaction around the globe to Trump, and it helps people in their own domestic politics.
COOPER: It is kind of amazing that the President of the United States has unified many countries around the world against us and not unified this country.
EMANUEL: No, I mean, that is a good point. Every other country, whether it was an autocracy or democracy, being against Trump gets you an extra seven points. You saw that in Canada. You're probably going to see it on May 3rd in Australia. And you see now Xi actually had problems. You can see the reporting, in China, people were tired of what was
going on economically, tired of the political oppression, not that there was -- government was going to collapse, but he was on his back heels and in the region through Japan or Korea, India, Australia, the Philippines, New Zealand, he was isolated.
He now looks like the savior, we got him an out of jail card and we're the problem, when they were the problem. Because they were exporting. One last thing, I apologize. They were exporting their domestic economic problem and dumping steel and dumping everything at depressed prices in other countries. They were the problem. We'd now become the problem.
COOPER: You see the President in Michigan tonight walking back some of the auto tariffs that he himself implemented and attempting to spin it as a success. Do you think people will buy that -- will believe it?
EMANUEL: No, I'm actually, I say this I've been pleasantly surprised how quickly the American people identify the tariff as a tax. This is a Trump tariff tax. They see it that way. They've reacted that way. And nothing of this kind of auto here, this giveaway that -- on that product, on the electronics out of China, they have reacted. What you have now just step back is the consumers are in their own way stressed.
The economy is stumbling. Our allies and alliances are shattered and our strategic posture is being second guessed around the world. That's just in the hundred days and the irony here, the hundred-day mark is a byproduct of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's hundred days in 1932. The North Star for Roosevelt was, we have nothing to fear but fear itself.
Here, we have everything to fear, including fear itself. It's flipped it on its head. And I think the American people understand that this is directly tied to Trump, which is why he reacted to the Amazon thing this morning, because he understood that you can't airbrush it out of history.
People have already reacted. The public is quite clear and you can see it in his numbers, their sense of the economy, consumer confidence is down again, a fifth month in a row today. They understand this and you can try to hide the ball, but it's not going to work.
COOPER: Did the Democrats risk getting overexcited about the President's low approval ratings. I mean, Democratic leaders in Congress have only a 27 percent approval rating.
EMANUEL: Yes, but remember, Anderson, midterms are referendums on the party in power, on one end of Pennsylvania Avenue they own the microphone, on the other one, they own the gavel. And in this case, I would just say this is a referendum on them. And the way I would approach it strategically in my old days, this is a Republican rubberstamp Congress.
[20:25:18]
If we had Congress doing its job, you'd have no tariffs. If you had a not a Republican rubberstamp Congress, you would not actually have an economy that's reinvesting and all these people cut and all this unemployment happening and these type of activities that are actually the American people are recoiling.
Remember, you have an energized Democratic base, 29 percent job approval among Independents for Republicans, that means two-thirds are against them. That is a making for a wave election, and the public has made a judgment in these hundred days. They have to reverse this in six or seven months, or the sediment starts to set in.
COOPER: How much do Democrats focus on the economy compared to immigration, or gutting Cabinet Departments, or the rule of law?
EMANUEL: Well, I think, I would I would be very laser like focused on the economy and very laser like focused on Donald Trump and the Republicans handmaidens in this effort. They are a rubber stamp Republican Congress, and if they were doing their job, and you could see in the polling, people want a checkmate not only to the policies but to the chaos, and they are not doing their job, and therefore they're going to bear the burden, just like in 2018 and just like in 2006 and 2008.
And I think the Democrats want to keep the focus not on us, on them, because they are in power and it will be a referendum and not to be shaken on that.
Now, I do think after 2026, to get the keys to the car, you've got to show that you're going to fight for the American people, not just fight against Donald Trump. But those are two separate elections with two separate kind of narratives around them.
COOPER: Rahm Emanuel, thanks very much. Appreciate it.
EMANUEL: Thank you.
COOPER: Next, the official who's changing the historic mission of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division and the mass exodus those changes seem to have triggered.
And later, to Rahm Emanuel's point about Franklin Roosevelt perspective on these first hundred days with biographer of FDR and his first hundred days, Doris Kearns Goodwin joins us ahead.
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[20:30:00]
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COOPER: Today, the Justice Department's story of Civil Rights Division is facing an exodus of up to 70 percent of its staff as the Trump administration has moved to redefine what it's going to focus on to make it more in line with President Trump's agenda.
The Trump administration wants to use it to target DEI initiatives, reverse policies on transgender rights, go after Ivy League schools, handling of alleged antisemitism on campus and combat what they say is anti-Christian bias within the federal government.
Now, the newly sworn in head of the department, a conservative attorney named Harmeet Dhillon, was asked about the change in the department's mission and the mass resignations over the weekend.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HARMEET DHILLON, ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL, DOJ'S CIVIL RIGHTS DIVISION: Over a hundred attorneys decided that they'd rather not do what their job requires them to do. And I think that's fine because we don't want people in the federal government who feel like it's their pet project to go persecute, you know, police departments based on statistical evidence. The job here is to enforce the federal civil rights laws, not woke ideology.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Talking to Glenn Beck. Now, you might be wondering what is she referring to when she says, persecute police departments based on statistical evidence. The Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice has a long track record of investigating police departments that are alleged to have issues with discriminatory behavior. And they do this looking at specific actions by officers or leaders and at the number of -- and at the overall number of violations in any police department as a whole.
The traditional scope of the division is to protect the civil rights of minority and marginalized people and communities. And the Department of Justice has, in many instances, stepped in by court order called consent decrees to oversee police departments which have a proven record of civil rights violations.
Over the years, dozens of police departments and jail systems have had consent decrees. Here are some examples in their disturbing some of the video is as well. In 1991, the video captured the brutal beating of Rodney King by officers from the LAPD, the Los Angeles Police Department. Eventually four of those officers put on trial. All of them were acquitted in court. That led to riots in Los Angeles.
The Department of Justice Civil Rights Division then prosecuted the officers federally for civil rights violations which resulted in two convictions. They also investigated the LAPD as a whole for widespread allegations of excessive force. Under a consent decree, the Department of Justice was allowed to oversee the LAPD for five years.
In 2014, a black teenager named Michael Brown, you may remember, was shot and killed by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. The officer said the shooting was in self-defense. One witness claimed that Michael Brown had his hands up. Protests erupted for weeks and continued months later after the officer was acquitted.
The Department of Justice Civil Rights Division investigated the entire Ferguson Police Department and found that quote, "Ferguson police officers routinely violate the Fourth Amendment in stopping people without reasonable suspicion, arresting them without probable cause, and using unreasonable force against them." That investigation led to a consent decree which then led to major reforms in that department.
Now another example is 2020, George Floyd. Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin knelt on the neck of Mr. Floyd for more than nine minutes while arresting him for allegedly using a counterfeit $20 bill. Mr. Floyd repeatedly said, I can't breathe.
[20:35:00]
As you know, there were widespread protests. The Civil Rights Division brought charges against Chauvin and three other officers, and in trial, all four were convicted of civil rights violations. Chauvin was also found guilty of murder in a Minnesota state court.
The City of Minneapolis and his police department entered into a consent decree in January of this year just before the Trump administration took over. But now the new head of the Civil Rights Division says, they were persecuting police department. Veterans of the Justice Department are sounding the alarm, Justice Connection, which is a network of Department of Justice alumni released a statement that read in part, the American people start seeing devastating instances of discriminatory and unconstitutional conduct go unchecked.
Vanita Gupta who ran the division during the Obama administration said, the division has been turned on its head and is now being used as a weapon against the very community -- communities it was established to protect.
For more perspective, Former Federal Prosecutor Jeffrey Toobin and CNN Chief of Legal Affairs correspondent Paula Reid. How significant is this, Jeff?
JEFFREY TOOBIN, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR AND AUTHOR, "THE PARDON": Well, you know, the Civil Rights Division gives you almost a perfect window into each administration's priorities. Like, because they -- all they're supposed to do is investigate civil rights. But what is civil rights? There are very different definitions of it especially now.
Historically, this department has been devoted to protecting the rights of people of color, especially when it comes to voting rights. I mean, that's been a big priority in the Civil Rights division. That's completely gone. And what's going to happen now is that this is going to be a vehicle to attack the president's enemies, especially at colleges and universities that use some sort of DEI, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Whether in course selection, in picking faculty, and it's going to be a big ugly fight, but it's going to reflect what the Trump administration wants to do.
COOPER: Paula, what more have you learned about what the DOJ is actually planning for the Civil Rights Division?
PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Look, Anderson, I was pretty shocked back shortly after Trump was reelected when sources were telling me that this division would be the priority for the administration at the Justice Department because they believed it could really help them push some of the key policies.
And what we've seen is exactly what we reported a few months ago, which is they have used it to try to reverse DEI policies. We should expect more lawsuits pushing back on transgender athletes in girls' sports, and also more efforts to fight what they describe as anti- Christian bias and of course antisemitism.
Now, when it comes to why people are leaving, it's not necessarily just about ideology. I'm told that a lot of the folks who stayed, they are looking at what happened for this first buyout that was offered and people who didn't accept it where the government made good on threats of mass layoffs.
So, I'm told a lot of these people, they're not so much looking at the work that the division is doing. Most of the people who are worried about ideology, they left weeks, even months ago. But these folks were looking at what this could mean for their salary and their benefits, and that's what's driving a lot of this exodus, I'm told.
COOPER: Can the Justice Department, Jeff, now just then choose to ignore -- I mean, if there's allegations of abuse in a police force or widespread allegations of abuse in a police force, can they just choose to ignore it now?
TOOBIN: Absolutely. In fact, they have already started dropping cases that had been brought by the Biden administration in the civil rights context and in other areas. They don't have to bring any cases at all. I mean, this is a part of the Justice Department that deals almost entirely in affirmative litigation in bringing cases. And so, they're not defending the government usually.
So, the -- it gives enormous discretion to the leadership to decide what kind of cases to bring. You know, cases about, you know, enforcement of what's left of the Voting Rights Act. There's not a lot left because of what the Supreme Court has done, but that is something that the Justice Department just doesn't have to bring, and that means these cases probably just will not exist.
COOPER: And, Paula, how does this version of the Civil Rights Division compare to the same division during the first Trump term?
REID: Well, what was so interesting about the first Trump term is, of course, Jeff Sessions was the first Attorney General, and you couldn't draw a sharper contrast to the Obama Justice Department that was led, of course, for a time by Eric Holder. Vanita Gupta, who you quoted earlier, she was leading that division with a real emphasis on a police reform and voting rights and sessions was really focused on just reversing those policies.
But he didn't use the division to pursue a lot of new initiatives. That's why it's so notable that they have found a way in their minds to squeeze value out of this division.
COOPER: It is remarkable, Jeff, I mean, all these changes of the DOJ, not that the Civil Rights Division, the Criminal Division, the National Security Division, you know, the public statements of the -- you know, Pam Bondi, the Attorney General, sound like a -- I mean, the pro-Trump supporter that she is, it's kind of unheard of. What is it -- do we even know what this is going to look like two years from now?
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TOOBIN: Well, I think, I -- you know, I think -- you know, people who were paying attention during the campaign are -- you know, this is not a surprise. I mean, for example, something --
COOPER: This is what they said they were going to do.
TOOBIN: They said they were going to do, but like a whole category of white-collar crime during the first Trump term, they cut way back on white-collar crime enforcement. Now, they're eliminating entire divisions of investigation of white-collar crime. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, you know, paying bribes to foreign comp -- you know, to get business abroad, that's illegal under American law.
Basically, the Trump administration has said, we're just not going to prosecute that anymore. That's -- that used to be a big part of what the Justice Department does. All this, sort of, white-collar crime is just not going to be prosecuted. And that's something that states really just don't have the resources to do. So, it's going to be open season.
COOPER: Jeff Toobin, appreciate it. Paul Reid, and thank you.
Come up next, how do President Trump's first a hundred days compared to other presidents? We'll talk with presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin.
Also tonight, some real concerns about many of the plastics that we use every day. They may have a chemical in them linked to heart disease. We'll have details in that from Dr. Sanjay Gupta.
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ANNOUNCER: This is CNN, the world's news network.
COOPER: We began the night showing you the president marking a hundred days in office with a lengthy speech in Michigan tonight. He went into it with a 41 percent job approval in the CNN polling, which is lower than it was with a hundred-day mark in his first term, and the lowest for any president in 70 years.
Joining me for some historic perspective, Presidential Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, author of many bestsellers, including "Leadership in Turbulent Times." Doris, welcome. So, for all the talk of President Trump's low approval rating after his first a hundred days, a record previously held by himself. He has -- you know, he's surmounted more political hurdles than most presidents. How do you see the hundred days?
DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN AND AUTHOR, "LEADERSHIP IN TURBULENT TIMES": You know, I think it's so interesting what you just said, Anderson. I mean, when you listen to him at the rally or you listen to the cabinet members coming around him, he'll say, this is the most successful a hundred days. People are talking about it as the best a hundred days.
In fact, he's even been likening himself recently to FDR, you know, saying that FDR created this political coalition that lasted for decades and now he has a new political coalition from this huge race that he was able to win that will now last for decades.
Somehow, I think what you are suggesting is right. He's been through so much before and that first term, having to live with the prosecutions and the potentiality of jail and the second -- well, these last years, that I think he really can believe that with conviction that he's doing great.
And that's the source of some of his energy and vitality. It's a source of maybe why the MAGA base stays with him, why some of the cabinet people do, because he believes it so strongly. He makes them believe it, but at a certain point, reality is coming up against whatever he believes in himself. And I think that's what we're seeing right now in these polls.
COOPER: A lot of presidents have not liked to be compared to the hundred days of FDR because that was a lot of monumental changes. And moving quickly to try to kind of change the perspective, the perception of government from the previous administration during the depression, but Trump seems to embrace that comparison. How do they compare?
GOODWIN: Yes, it's really on. I mean, JFK really didn't want to be compared to it. He said it's just not fair. Look at the majorities that FDR had, three to one in the House, you know, 59 senators, a huge crisis to deal with, and a feeling that there was a hunger for leadership. So, one of his inaugural drafts said that all that he would accomplish, he hoped might not be done in the first a hundred days and he slashed it out and he made it a thousand days. And thereby, sadly, ironically, that was the number of days that he would live.
But he's an interesting case because he had a really tough a hundred days after a good beginning with the inauguration and a feeling of excitement about things like the Peace Corps, the -- obviously the Bay of Pigs happened a disaster, which led to his really losing faith for a while in himself. Then he went before the press. He took total responsibility for it, and as a result, his polls went up to 83 percent. It's incredible, right?
But I mean, what had happened was I think people understand that if you make a mistake and you learn from it, you're going to grow, and grow he did. I mean, he changed the nature of his decision-making structure. So that by the time the Cuban Missile Crisis came, he wasn't leading in on experts anymore.
He brought more people into the place, and that's what can happen. That's the interesting thing is one way you could deal with these low numbers now for President Trump is to say, well, something went wrong. How can I change it? How can I grow? But that doesn't seem to be the path that he's taking at the moment.
COOPER: Comparing him to FDR, I mean, both were moved very quickly. I mean, you -- it's undeniable this president has moved extraordinarily quickly with all these executive orders and a whole bunch of things that they had been planning. FDR though was working with Congress and really explained things to the American people.
GOODWIN: I think that's the big difference, and I think you're right, it's undeniable that we feel like this is the most consequential since FDR, meaning significant, meaning an enormous array of things happening in all sorts of places in the country, not just government and dismantling government where FDR was trying to strengthen government to deal with the crisis, but also law offices, universities, cultural.
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He's made a whole series of moves in a lot of areas, so it feels like a lot is happening. But a huge difference is that FDR understood that he needed Congress if these laws were going to last. And he made sure that he had an emergency session, he kept Congress in those a hundred days, and that's where it all came from.
But he took time to have fireside chats to explain to people each law of what he was doing. So, he explained what was happening in the banking crisis in really simple language so people felt they understood it. He explained why he was creating government jobs to help them during this period of time. He explained why the stock market needed regulation and that's why they were able to trust him at the end.
That's the most important thing at the end of the hundred days. Do you trust that the leader is taking you in the right direction? There were headlines saying we have a government. The government lives. You know, we have a leader at last. And I think the problem for President Trump is it's been so chaotic, so much is happening at once that I'm not sure that anything's gotten through to people about why are we doing these tariffs? Why have we used that kind of doge in order to get the federal government reduced in such a seemingly cruel and chaotic way?
And then you lose trust in him. And I think that's one of the most important parts of the polls is, is he coming out of these hundred days with momentum? Whereas FDR was coming out with momentum that let him go even further toward the midterms and then a landslide election in 1936. And that's what you hope, you have a beginning, but I'm not sure that's happening right now.
COOPER: Yes, Doris Kearns Goodwin, it's always great to have you. Thank you so much.
GOODWIN: Thank you.
COOPER: It's great to see you. Coming up next, how chemicals found in millions of household items, including some food containers and children's toys could be linked to heart disease. We'll tell you some details and why it might not be as bad as we think based on the headline. We'll have more of that with Sanjay ahead.
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COOPER: A new study found that synthetic chemicals found in some plastic food storage containers, shampoos, and cosmetics might be more of a health risk than previously thought that concerning chemicals are called phthalates. Now, researchers at NYU Langone Health say one specific type could be linked to hundreds of thousands of deaths worldwide from heart disease.
Our Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta, joins me now with more. I got to say, I freaked out a little bit this morning when I saw this about food containers and refrigerators. What are phthalates? How common are they? And like, should people not have plastic containers in their refrigerators?
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I would have the same reaction as you, Anderson. I mean, this is a pretty significant study and I think -- first of all, phthalates are a thing that are added to chemicals or added to plastics, rather, to make them more durable, make them more flexible. So, it's something that you're adding. It itself is a colorless, odorless liquid that does not evaporate. OK. So, just imagine that, that's what phthalates are. That's why they're called the forever chemicals.
But they're added to things like plastic. They're also -- if your shampoo has a fragrance in it, the reason the fragrance lasts is because of phthalates. So, things like that. So, it's in all these different products. I mean, think about that. I mean, plumbing pipes, garden hoses, children's toys, shampoos, detergent. This is part of the reason that it's so hard to get rid of. They last forever. And as things stand now, they're in everything, these phthalates.
COOPER: And what are some potential health impacts?
DR. GUPTA: Well, this is the kind of extraordinary thing. What they tried to do was they looked at impact on cardiac mortality. So, heart disease deaths around the world, and trying to figure out how much do these phthalates contribute to that. You know, we're used to thinking about things like cholesterol and high blood pressure and obesity, and how much you exercise, put phthalates on the list.
Because what they found, you can see on the screen there, greater than 10 percent of cardiac mortality around the world linked to phthalates, 350,000 deaths linked to this chemical, which I just find extraordinary because again, we spend our whole lives eating right, exercising, doing all these things. These chemicals, for a lot of people, they just have tremendous exposure to them. COOPER: And I had read that this may be mostly in South Asia, but now, I mean, is that the case or are these -- is this everywhere and how do we avoid this? I mean, how do you -- what do you do about this?
DR. GUPTA: Well, the -- yes, I mean, the chemicals are everywhere, but I think what you're -- the point you're accurately making is that about 75 percent of this increased cardiac mortality was not in the United States. It was mostly in Asia, few countries in Africa as well. Huge exposures to these chemicals all over the world, but higher in some other places around the world as well.
Very hard to, sort of, you know, reduce this as a -- at a societal level. I mean, again, these are these forever chemicals and they're in everything. But as far as individuals go, I mean, I think there are things you can do to limit your exposure. You know, when you think about plastics, I mean simply eating out of plastics, microwaving plastics, warming plastics, that's a bad idea. That's going to release more of these phthalates. So, don't put any plastic containers in the microwave or dishwasher.
By the way, what you're seeing on the screen there, there's different types of plastics -- sorry, I'm jumping around here. But there's different types of plastics you want to avoid, three, six, and seven, specifically, those are the plastics that have the most phthalates in them. So, a lot of times on plastics, you have a container, and I'll tell you the type of plastic, pay attention to that three, six, and seven are the ones that are going to have the most phthalates.
But again, don't eat out of microwave containers. Try to use unscented shampoos because again fragrance lasts in these shampoos and perfumes because of phthalates.
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