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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Sources: Witkoff Under Consideration To Replace Waltz; Waltz Out As National Security Adviser, Tapped For UN AMB; Trump: Rubio To Temporarily Serve As National Security Adviser; Trump Econ Adviser Says He Expects News On A Trade Deal Today; U.S. Supreme Court Weighs Trump's Transgender Ban; How The Trump Admin's Health Policies Impact Children. Aired 5-6a ET

Aired May 01, 2025 - 17:00   ET

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

[17:00:00]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So these are all cases where there have been big differences.

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: Well, of course, we will see as this process continues to play out. You never know the next truth social from the president may have someone entirely different in line for this job. One never knows.

Thank you all for being with us today. And Jake Tapper is standing by for the lead. Hi, Jake.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Hey, Kasie. Good to see you. We'll see you back in the arena tomorrow.

HUNT: Sounds great. Have a great show.

TAPPER: Mike Waltz is out as Trump's national security adviser. That is just half the story. The Lead starts right now.

Apparently, that Signal Gate group chat controversy did not get Mike Waltz completely canceled. Coming up, his new gig at the UN as the president ushers in his interim national security adviser. Also, his current Secretary of State, Marco Rubio. Plus, the financial report from McDonald's that might make you feel sick. An earnings call revealing how much trouble the U.S. Economy might be in.

Are we headed for a recession? And are the billionaires running this administration possibly out of touch with how Americans live. And the transformation happening in Rome ahead of the super-secret conclave process at the Sistine Chapel.

Welcome to the Lead. I'm Jake Tapper. And at any moment, President Trump is expected to leave the White House where reporters are waiting to ask him about today's major staff shakeup. Sources telling CNN this morning the national Security adviser, Mike Waltz would be leaving the administration. Then, hours later, Trump added a new twist, announcing, quote, "I will be nominating Mike Waltz to be the next United States Ambassador to the United Nations."

In the interim, Secretary of State Marco Rubio will serve as National Security advisor while continuing his strong leadership at the State Department. So, this does appear to be something of a soft landing for Waltz, who just over one month ago somehow added a journalist to a signal chat where top Trump officials were discussing military attack plans. President Trump at the time defended Waltz publicly, saying this.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONALD TRUMP, USA PRESIDENT: I don't think he should apologize. I think he's doing his best. It's equipment and technology that's not perfect, and probably he won't be using it again.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: Well, there does appear to be a question of how well Waltz took that message. Reuters photos captured Waltz using Signal on his phone just yesterday during Trump's Cabinet meeting. You can see the names of Vice President Vance and Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, on that Signal chat.

At the beginning of the Signal group chat scandal, Waltz himself went through a slate of shaky sus defenses. The first one was this.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAEL WALTZ, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: There's a lot of journalists in this city who have made big names for themselves making up lies about this president. This one in particular, I've never met, don't know, never communicated with. And we are looking into him, reviewing how the heck he got into this room.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: Yes, it's such a mystery. Waltz claimed, not particularly believably. If you take a look at this 2021 photograph posted by a French philosopher, you can see Waltz and Hegseth standing there they are cheek-to-cheek, almost. Waltz insisted he didn't know Goldberg. There they are standing right next to each other. Waltz was never able to explain publicly just exactly how this journalist's number slipped and fell into his phone or was sucked into it. He eventually kind of took some responsibility, sort of.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WALTZ: It's embarrassing. Yes. We're going to get to the bottom of it. We've, have. I just talked to Elon on the way here. We've got the best technical minds looking at how this happened. I take responsibility. I built the group.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: Yes, you don't really need the best technical minds to look into it. I think we all know what happened. One source telling CNN today that President Trump lost confidence in Mike Waltz a while ago. Let's bring in CNN's Jeff Zeleny.

Jeff, what led to Waltz getting pushed out of his current role, but not out of the Trump administration entirely? I mean, the UN Ambassador is still a very prestigious gig.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Jake, it is prestigious. There's no doubt about it. And yes, it is a soft landing. However, it is to a role that is nowhere near the White House, also nowhere near the President's really a center of interest. He's long railed against the United Nations. It's an outpost, there's no doubt about it. But the President clearly wanted to avoid really the staff shakeup sort of narrative that really set into his first administration and really started a cascading series of effects.

So that's why he did both of these announcements at the same time. But over the last several weeks, we are told that Mike Waltz's influence had been waning in the West Wing. There is no question about it. And Jake, there was a really interesting moment as the President flew to Michigan earlier this week on Air Force One. Now, Mike Waltz was walking out on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews, and he did not get on the plane. But on the plane was Pete Hegseth, the Defense Secretary.

[17:05:08]

So, at the end of the day, I was told by people familiar with this situation in the West Wing that the President sided with Hegseth because he did not create the group chat. And Hegseth is supported by the MAGA world, if you will. And Mike Waltz never was because of his foreign policy views. But it was clear even before this announcement today in the Rose Garden, the President had his eye on Marco Rubio.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TRUMP: Marco Rubio. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Marco. When I have a problem, I call up Marco. He gets this solved.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZELENY: When I have a problem, I call up Marco and get this solved. Just a couple hours later, the President made this announcement on June Social.

But Jake, it is clear that this has really added one more thing to what the Secretary of State is doing. Look at this list of things that are on Secretary Rubio's assignment list. Also, in addition to Secretary of State, the acting National Security adviser, a very big job, the acting USAID Director, and the acting Archivist of the United States. So clearly, Marco Rubio now is ascending, and Waltz is taking his lead.

TAPPER: Yes, that's quite a resume, especially considering it's all happening at the same exact time. Let's bring in CNN's Kylie Atwood at the State Department, one of Secretary Rubio's current four jobs.

Kylie, news of the shakeup and the evolving role of Secretary Rubio seem to catch officials where you are at the State Department off guard, you say?

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: That's right. During the State Department briefing, this was a remarkable moment where spokesperson Tammy was speaking to us. Tammy Bruce, and I revealed to her that this news had come. It was something that she clearly didn't expect. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The leadership with --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The President has just written on Truth Social that Mike Waltz is going to become the new U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.

TAMMY BRUCE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE'S SPOKESPERSON: Well, there you go. Fabulous.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And in addition to that, he says that in the interim, Secretary of State Marco Rubio will serve as National Security Adviser while continuing his strong leadership at the State Department. Do you know how long he's going to be serving in both roles?

BRUCE: It is clear that I just heard this from you. I had -- this is the magic --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No heads up that this.

BRUCE: Well, I have some insights as to the potential of certain things that might happen. But when the president. And this, of course, is all presidential decisions. Right. So, I'm with the State Department. It is as I think would be clear to all of you, you don't want to get ahead of your Skis in drawing conclusions.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ATWOOD: Now, obviously, what this moment reveals, Jake, is just how decisions are made in the Trump White House. President Trump made the decision on his own. It clearly wasn't widely coordinated beforehand, even with the department that it was going to be directly impacting. But Tammy went on to say that the secretary of state has developed an incredibly close relationship with President Trump. He is over at the White House multiple times a week.

We know through our reporting that he has developed a close relationship with many officials at the White House. This is a clear elevation for him. And we should note that Tammy also spoke to him taking on the role as the acting administrator of U.S. Aid earlier this year, before that was largely shuttered and obviously moved here to the State Department. But this is an even grander elevation for Rubio.

TAPPER: All right, Kylie Atwood at the State Department, Jeff Zeleni at the White House, thanks to both you.

Let's bring in Barak Ravid. He is the global affairs correspondent for Axios and CNN political and global affairs analyst.

Barak, you reported for Axios that Waltz has been, quote, "a dead man walking," in the White House for the past month. Why was that? Is it just because of Signal Gate? And are you surprised that he's been giving a different role instead of just fired completely?

BARAK RAVID, CNN POLITICAL AND GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, Jake, I think it was enough to watch the last cabinet meeting with Mike Waltz sitting there and looking very weak and diminished. And when he spoke, it was clear that this is not the same person, the same national security advisor from before the Signal Gate affair. But as you said, it's not only that. It's a lot of policy issues that I think that Waltz found himself again and again in the minority. The Iran issue, I think maybe is the most prominent one, especially that now there are negotiations over this issue. But I think other issues like Russia, Ukraine and others.

And I think to Mike Waltz's, I think luck, maybe he wasn't fired like Trump fired other people. We remember how he fired Rex Tillerson in the previous term, just tweeted that he's fired. Here, I think Waltz got a much more graceful exit from this job, and to another job. Pretty nice job over there in New York.

[17:10:15]

TAPPER: Today, you're citing other factors that likely led to him, Waltz getting pushed out of his current role. What are they?

RAVID: For example, I think he had a pretty uneasy relationship with several people in the White House who are very senior. One of them, Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, another one, White House envoy Steve Witkoff. I think that had some influence on him exiting from this job. I think, at least what I heard from some people in the White House is that Chief of Staff Susie Wiles felt that Waltz was not treating her with respect. I think that's one of it.

I think Witkoff, for example, felt that sometimes Waltz was going around him on certain issues. And I think all those things created tensions that together with the signal issue, together with policy differences, led to the result that we saw today.

TAPPER: All right, Barak Ravid, thank you so much for your insights.

How is this shakeup sitting with some of Trump's biggest supporters? Well, a key Republican senator patiently standing by will join me next. Plus, issue number one, are there more trouble signs for the U.S. Economy? The headlines today getting attention. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:15:30]

TAPPER: And we're back with our politics lead in that major shakeup at the White House today. President Trump says he is nominating his current national security adviser, Michael Waltz, to be the next U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, adding a new title to the portfolio of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who now becomes the interim national security adviser. Here now to react is Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, who serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Senator, thanks so much for being here. What is your reaction to Mike Waltz? I mean, oh, he's getting a good job at the UN, and that's nice, but it is not as close to the center of gravity in the president as national security advisor.

SEN. MARKWAYNE MULLIN, (R) OKLAHOMA: Well, Mike's a great friend of mine, not just a colleague, but a friend, someone that I talk to on a regular basis. Mike has a young family, and he has a actually a new family, if you want to think about it in terms of most members of Congress.

It's tough. You know, I talk to him sometimes. He said he hadn't seen his kids in six days. It's a high pace. President Trump has a remarkable energy level, and he drives hard and everybody around him has to keep pace. He likes Mike. President Trump, I know, really likes Mike. And for the fact that he's going from an appointed position to a cabinet position will tell you how much he wanted to keep Mike around.

But there's a family balance that a young, that, you know, a father of young kids has to have. You want to be there to raise your kids. And so, I don't see it as a shakeup at all. I see it as a transition to still keep Mike in an advisory position to the president.

TAPPER: I'm sure that there will be quality of life improvement. But that's not why this is happening. This is happening because the president doesn't want him to be national security advisor.

MULLIN: Well, you're making that assumption. You're making that assumption. That isn't what's been said.

TAPPER: It's reporting from people Inside the White House, I mean.

MULLIN: Well, yes, but people leak like a sieve. And people had their own assumptions inside the White House, too. I know that Mike was really missing his kids. I know the President really trusts Mike. I know the President is still putting him in a nominated position, in a cabinet position to be, you know, to be over the UN for the United States and be advising directly to the President.

So, when you really start thinking about the position that the President's done, you could make the assumption too, if we're making assumptions here, that Mike was wanting to have a little bit more family, work life balance. And the position with the UN is exactly what he could do or how he could make that work.

TAPPER: Well, you're a good friend, but let me ask you, because it is a NSA is not confirmed by the Senate.

MULLIN: No, it's appointed by President.

TAPPER: Right. And the U.S. Ambassador of the UN is. Which means that soon to be Ambassador Waltz, while you have no doubt will be confirmed.

MULLIN: You're right. You're absolutely correct about that.

TAPPER: Will testify and there will be questions about Signal Gate, which will bring a little heat on him, but maybe even more heat on your other friend, Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense.

MULLIN: Well, one thing this cabinet is used to is heat. The Media reports what 100 percent of the news on Pete Hegseth is negative. 97 percent on the president is negative. I think 89 percent negative news on Bobby Kennedy. And I would say that would probably run parallel with Mike Waltz, too.

So the negative press that the media and the biased media is going to give them, it doesn't work -- it doesn't affect their job. You see what they're doing? They're doing a great job. The President is doing exactly what he said. He made promises in the campaign. He's kept his promises. He's putting America back on track where they need to go. And this cabinet is the one that's helping to deliver those promises for the people.

TAPPER: Your former colleague in the House, former Air Force General, Congressman Don Bacon from Nebraska, has said that if he were president, he would have fired Pete Hegseth because of the signal gate, the two instances, and also Hegseth not just assuming responsibility and saying, I shouldn't have done that. Let's move on.

MULLIN: Well, I consider Congressman Bacon a friend, but he's not president. The President of United States won the presidency. So, everybody's open to their opinion. I personally think Pete Hegseth is doing an excellent job. I also consider Pete a very close friend of mine.

He's doing exactly what he said he was going to do. He's going to get the DoD focused back on lethality and a war fighter, and that you see the changes he's making. You know, people around him may not like the changes, but he's willing to shake things up. That takes a lot of backbone, that takes confidence, and that takes assurity that you're working side by side with the Commander in Chief doing exactly what he was asked to do. The President and Secretary Hegseth, they work every day together and they are making a difference.

[17:20:04]

You see that in retention. You see that in recruiting numbers inside the DoD. We're hitting retention numbers that we haven't seen in years. And we're seeing recruiting numbers pass anything that ever came in through the Biden administration.

TAPPER: I have no doubt of that. And you just changed the percentage of the negative news against Hegseth and Waltz on President Trump (inaudible).

MULLIN: I did. I dropped down to 99 percent.

TAPPER: You just brought it up a little bit. Good for you there. Senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma. Safe travels back to Oklahoma. We appreciate your time today.

The last cargo ships to leave China and escape Trump's tariffs are now here in the United States. How quickly could that mean higher prices and shortages at a store near you? If that's what it means, that's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:25:02]

TAPPER: In our money lane, if you were scrolling through the headlines today, you might be feeling a little nervous about your wallet and your savings. In case you missed any of it, allow me to be a human dooms growing for you.

McDonald's reporting its worst quarter sales since the COVID pandemic and a pullback in sales from low income and middle-income customers. General Motors expecting Trump's tariffs will end up costing the company up to $5 billion as the company slashes their projected profit guidance for the year.

The last ships carrying non-tariff goods from China are starting to arrive here in the United States, meaning that very soon economists project consumers could start to feel price hikes or notice empty shelves.

On top of all this, tomorrow we're going to get the April jobs report which will give us a clear look at how the economy is coping with Trump's tariff launch and DOGE cuts simultaneously. We can hope for good news there. I suppose those are just some pieces of the economic puzzle that we're trying to make sense of.

Joining us now to discuss, Oren Cass. He's the chief economist at American Compass. And Oren, to those of us who are not economists, things seem a little grim right now. Can you give us your gut check on what all of this might mean for the American consumer?

OREN CASS, CHIEF ECONOMIST, AMERICAN COMPASS: Sure. Thanks for having me, Jake. I thought that was a little bit of a bizarre lead-in for the day that brought the stock market back up to positive territory for the last month.

TAPPER: Well, there you are, there you so much appreciate it.

CASS: And that's the end of the segment. Look, I don't think the stock market is the right measure necessarily of the health of the economy. And among other things, I think there could be very good economic policies that do lead to drops in the stock market. But I think if you're asking what do people make of the last month, all things in what you're seeing is certainly there was a lot of volatility and disruption initially, but things have really calmed down since then. And I think as you said, we are about to see the effect of the China tariffs hit fully, and we should expect some disruption there. We obviously became totally dependent in some cases on Chinese production for some things, and that's not a good thing. And reversing that is going to have costs. But I think it's very encouraging to see us moving in a direction

where we make some trade-offs and we say, look, we dug ourselves a hole and we're finally starting to climb back out of it.

TAPPER: Here's what the Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent highlighted in yesterday's Cabinet meeting. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SCOTT BESSENT, TREASURY SECRETARY: All right, energy costs have plummeted. Mortgage rates are down. Food costs are moving lower, and American families are finding their financial footing again.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: Do you, do you agree with his characterization? Do you think American families feel that they're regaining their footing?

CASS: Well, I think the statistics he cited were correct in terms of how American families are feeling. I think we're going to have to see what the results are as this plays out.

On one hand, a lot of the data looks pretty good. On the other hand, I think we've seen hits to business confidence and consumer confidence. That's not a good thing in itself, and certainly it can then drive costs and a slower economy. I think the important thing is to not sort of wildly overreact in any particular direction and instead to look at what's happening and also to continue pushing for good policy.

I think the China tariffs are a perfect example where right now we probably are pushing the pedal down harder than we need to. I think the goal has to be to stop relying on China over time. And in a sense, what matters the most is what will the tariff be three years from now, so that investors start reacting accordingly.

I think if we can get people focused on that, get people accepting things are going to change, and thinking about how to do that transition well, in the long run, we'll be very glad we did this.

TAPPER: Yes, we've been talking to small business owners from coast to coast, trying to do one every day if we can. And some are supportive, some are worried. The ones who feel the most heard and the most supportive are people like the shrimper that we spoke with yesterday in South Carolina who, you know, is just fed up with the unfairness of his industry because of the unhealthy shrimp that gets dumped from India, et cetera, into the United States. But a lot of people, even Trump supporters, are just worried because of the uncertainty, because of the unpredictability. What do you say to them?

CASS: Well, what I would say is that we made a decision about 25 years ago when we embraced China and said we want to have free trade with China, we want them to be in the World Trade Organization. That, of course, unleashed enormous amount of uncertainty and huge costs. We saw offshoring of entire industries.

[17:30:00] We did get a lot of cheap stuff, but -- but we've paid a really major price for it. And the question now is, are we happy with that decision, or -- or would we rather make a different trade-off? And so, if -- if you're happy with how things have gone, if you think the cheap stuff from China is great, if you don't care whether we make things in America, then -- then you might be disappointed by -- by changing that. But if -- if you regret that decision, if -- if you wish we'd made a different one, if you want to see us make a different one now, then I think it's -- it's entirely fair to be concerned about the costs that we're going to face in the short run, but -- but we have to think of those as an investment.

And -- and if we want to make a different choice and -- and be on stronger footing for our economy for the long run, then it's an investment worth making, and -- and we have to have that longer-term view of -- of where we can get to.

TAPPER: Aside from -- from China, the White House is arguing that the trade deals with other countries are coming. Take a listen to the director of the White House National Economic Council, Kevin Hassett, on "CNBC" this Morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEVIN HASSETT, DIRECTOR, WHITE HOUSE NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL: Secretary Lutnick and Jamieson Greer are making progress with numerous countries. I think it's more than 20 now, where we actually have hard offers on the table. I'm sure there'll be news by the end of the day.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So you don't know if it's -- who's first, if it's India or South Korea, or what's going on with Japan. Can you tease us? Can you give us anything? Can you dangle?

HASSETT: I think I know, but I can't tease.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: No tease, no dangle. But -- but do you believe that some of these deals are actually going to happen soon, and they're going to be able to provide some economic relief?

CASS: I certainly expect to see some deals happen. You know, in a sense, the best precedent for this is what Ronald Reagan did with Japan, I guess almost -- almost two generations ago now, where -- where we had in Japan a trading partner that was pursuing a strategy that just was not good for the United States. In -- in something like cars, we were seeing all of these low-cost imports come in, and we negotiated.

Under the threat of tariffs, we made a deal. They decided to limit their exports to the United States, and they told Honda and Toyota, go set up shop in America instead. And that's where we got the tens of billions of dollars of investment, the hundreds of thousands of jobs in the American South, and -- and now an entire auto industry there.

So much that the Toyota Camry has more American-made content in it than almost any -- any American car. And so -- so I think those are the kinds of deals we should be looking for, and -- and they -- they absolutely are plausible. They've happened before.

I do want to get your reaction to what President Trump said yesterday when asked about the state of the economy. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls, you know, and maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally.

They have ships that are loaded up with stuff, much of which, not all of it, but much of which we don't need.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: I don't know about you, Oren. I'm a connoisseur of "New York Post" covers. This is -- this is one in reaction to the two dolls instead of 30 dolls. It's a skimp on the Barbie. Pretty clever.

But I think one of the questions I have for you is, what about -- what President Trump said? I mean, he -- you acknowledged disruption. He's acknowledged disruption. There -- but there is real pain and fear in it. Is it really just two dolls instead of 30 dolls, or are the -- the changes you're talking about, aren't they -- aren't they bigger than that?

CASS: Well, in -- in a sense, they're a lot less big than that. I mean, two dolls instead of 30 would, you know, you're talking about what, I guess, a doll costing 15 times as much. I -- I don't think that's the sort of effect that you're going to see.

I think what you're going to see is that there will be certain areas where -- where we are extraordinarily dependent on China, and we don't have good substitutes. And so in the short run, you'll -- you'll either see prices on some of those things go up significantly. May -- maybe a doll is one of them.

But for the most part, what you're going to see is, first of all, businesses finding other ways to solve their problems, finding other sources of supply, and also taking more seriously the -- the option of U.S. sources of supply. And you're going to see consumers choosing among the options available to them, those options that aren't dependent on China.

So if -- if one kind of doll only comes from China, and -- and there's a different doll or a stuffed animal that -- that also comes from another country, you're -- you're not going to go from 30 dolls to two dolls. You're going to go from just buying dolls to -- to maybe buying more of something else.

And so I -- I don't want to minimize. I -- I think, as I've said, there's certainly disruption here. There's certainly cost. But I think we have to do a better job of -- of asking, you know, which of these costs are. Are there really any potentially catastrophic ones? And -- and let's figure out how to anticipate and avoid those.

But let's also accept that -- that some shift in the kinds of things we buy is -- is, in fact, a good thing if what we're talking about is being less reliant on China and -- and hopefully also making more things in America.

TAPPER: All right, Oren Cass, thanks so much. Appreciate your time today, sir.

[17:35:01]

Coming up here from two plaintiffs taking Trump to court over his consequential ban on transgender people serving in the U.S. military. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: In our Law and Justice Lead, any day now we could hear whether the U.S. Supreme Court is going to take up a very consequential case from President Trump. President Trump wants the justices to keep his ban on transgender people serving in the U.S. military, at least while the issue works its way through lower courts.

Trump implemented the ban in 2017, as you might recall, through a series of tweets that blindsided top military brass. At the time, President Trump wrote in part, quote, our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming and that victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail. Three years later, in his first week in office, President Biden lifted that ban.

Just days after Trump returned to the White House, he put his ban right back in place. The back and forth has left some battle-ready service members on the sidelines. And CNN senior national enterprise correspondent MJ Lee spoke with two plaintiffs taking Trump to court.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[17:40:13]

MJ LEE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Do you remember the first time you put this on?

LT. NIC TALBOTT, TRANSGENDER U.S. ARMY RESERVIST: Yes, I do. This -- this particular one was at basic training. I was starting to think I was never going to get to wear this. And here I am. And especially now, you know, getting to -- to be a lieutenant and getting to wear my rank. I worked really hard for this.

LEE (voice-over): Lieutenant Nic Talbott waited almost nine years to enlist in the U.S. military. Now he's the face of Talbott versus Trump, a lawsuit that could determine whether transgender individuals can be banned from serving in the military.

MAJ. ERICA VANDAL, TRANSGENDER U.S. ARMY OFFICER: I deployed before my transition, during my transition, and after my transition. My ability to meet the standards, to maintain my readiness and my deployability has never changed throughout this time period.

LEE (voice-over): For Army Major Erica Vandal, her 14 years as an active duty soldier now hang in the balance, as she prepares for her next deployment to Iraq and Syria. Talbott and Vandal are among a group of transgender soldiers suing the Trump administration.

They could get an answer as soon as Friday on whether the Supreme Court will allow President Trump's ban to go into effect while the cases make their way through the lower courts.

TALBOTT: I used to be Nicole Catherine.

LEE (voice-over): Talbott began his transition from female to male as a teenager.

TALBOTT: This is from my mom's wedding. This is like probably like just shy of a year on hormones at that point.

LEE (voice-over): In 2017, the first Trump administration's ban on transgender service members upended Talbott's plans to enlist.

TALBOTT: My phone just starts buzzing like crazy, and I'm not sure what's going on. And I remember my best friend Jesse being on his phone and him saying, you know, hey Nic, I think we should probably pull over at this rest stop up here and maybe take a lunch break. You don't want to be driving when you hear this. I just kind of remember in that moment going, oh my gosh, what am I going to do now?

LEE (voice-over): At the time, Talbott had no choice but to put on hold his pursuit of enlisting. When the Biden administration lifted Trump's first ban, he started trying again. Talbott enlisted a year ago.

LEE: And how did that feel?

TALBOTT: Obviously, I still get emotional talking about it. It was like the most incredible feeling ever. At that point, I'd been working for this for right around nine years.

LEE (voice-over): He's now a lieutenant in the Army Reserve, but doesn't know for how much longer because of Trump's ban.

TRUMP: To ensure that we have the most lethal fighting force in the world, we will get transgender ideology the hell out of our military. It's going to be gone.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get rid of all the DEI, all of the not transgender nonsense, all of the quotas. Make this, if you want to have different standards, fine, but have different standards for different jobs.

LEE (voice-over): The Pentagon also said in a memo that the department only recognizes two sexes, male and female. An individual's sex is immutable, unchanging during a person's life.

LEE: The executive order says, quote, adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual's sex conflicts with a soldier's commitment to an honorable, truthful and disciplined lifestyle, even in one's personal life.

TALBOTT: Statements like that couldn't be farther from the truth. You know, I look in the mirror every day now and I go, yes, this is like, this is the most Nic Talbott version we've ever had of Nic Talbott. It's just absolutely ridiculous to insinuate that trans folks and trans service members are, you know, going home and trying to pretend to be something that we're not.

LEE (voice-over): Major Vandal's career is also in limbo.

LEE: If tomorrow you got the news that you could no longer be in the military, what would that do to you?

VANDAL: It -- it would be devastating.

LEE (voice-over): Born into a military family, Vandal commissioned in 2011 as a lieutenant after graduating from West Point. She began her transition from male to female in 2021.

LEE: Was there anything you found physically more challenging after the transition?

VANDAL: Oh, sure. I think hormones can change a lot. I think there was definitely a reduction in muscle mass and everything associated with that. So you do have to work harder in that regard.

LEE (voice-over): After she transitioned, Vandal says her military duties and responsibilities remain the same, but she found herself pushing harder.

VANDAL: You kind of feel that need to prove that you do truly belong. So maybe you work that a little bit extra, work that a little bit harder just to -- just to prove you're still capable of meeting all the same expectations.

LEE: You mean as a woman, you feel like you have to prove yourself more?

VANDAL: Yes. And again, there's never been anything explicit associated with that. Maybe it's just my own self-expectations.

LEE: So the DOJ is arguing without the Supreme Court taking action, the military will be forced to maintain a policy that it has determined in its professional judgment to be contrary to the military readiness and the nation's interests. What do you think about that?

[17:45:13]

VANDAL: If anything, I think removing proven soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, proven leaders with very specific skill sets would be what's detrimental to the readiness of the military. They would be removing decades and decades of -- of training that's gone into these people, millions of dollars invested in these individuals, and they'd be removing it for no reason associated with their ability to do their job or meet their standards.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEE: And Jake, Talbott and Vandal each separately told me that they're hoping for the best, but also preparing for the worst case scenario that they won't be able to serve anymore. And for somebody like Major Vandal, you know, the emotions aside, there are huge practical implications.

She's the sole breadwinner of her family. She and her wife and her two children live on base. Their health care comes from her army job, obviously. And in terms of just what she would do next, she says it's going to take a lot of soul searching because she has never contemplated doing anything professionally other than being in the military.

TAPPER: MJ Lee, thanks so much. Appreciate it.

Coming up, questions you viewers are asking about new Trump administration policies and the impact on the health care of children. We're paging Dr. Gupta next.

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[17:51:25]

TAPPER: And we're back with the health lead and paging Dr. Sanjay Gupta to help answer questions that parents are asking about new Trump administration policies reshaping children's health care in America.

Sanjay, let's start with Reagan from Bentonville, who asks about vaccine safety. He asks if there are any studies that look at the total load of all recommended childhood vaccines.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so the short answer is yes. There have been a lot of studies. I think what Reagan's probably really getting at is this thing that I hear often, that my kid's getting a lot of vaccines. Is it too many vaccines? Might it overwhelm their immune system? And I think it's a very fair question.

I think it's led to some people either skipping vaccines or delaying them and spreading them out. Bad idea. Let -- let me give you some context here. When we think about vaccines, you're essentially presenting the body an antigen with the hopes that the body will make antibodies to fight off diseases in the future. Vaccines are essentially antigens. So I think what Reagan is asking is how much antigen is there in these vaccines? And is it too much?

Take a look at this, Jake. I think you'll find this interesting. You go back to the 1980s, 1990s. The antigen load from the vaccines at that point for eight diseases was about 3,000. If you look at the antigen load now, despite the fact that many more diseases are vaccinated against, it's closer to 180. So just a little over 5 percent of what the antigen load used to be. In fact, smallpox alone, a vaccine that we used to give up until the early 1980s, that had an antigen load of 200 by itself.

So smallpox as a vaccine had a larger antigen load than all the vaccines combined today, Jake.

TAPPER: Jordan from New Jersey says she has a three-month-old baby, their first. Is it safe for them to travel nationally with regards to the measles, which is obviously spreading right now? Why can't we vaccinate earlier?

GUPTA: Well, congratulations on your first baby. Exciting times. Two points, I think, about this. First of all, when it comes to someone who is three months old, if you were to give a vaccine, this measles vaccine, their immune system is not yet developed to generate those antibodies that we were just talking about.

So it's not that it's a problem. It's just that it wouldn't be very effective to give a vaccine that early. That's -- that's the big concern. The -- the second thing, though, I will tell you is that for babies that are that young, oftentimes they still have antibodies that actually came from the mom during birth. So mom has actually transmitted antibodies. If the mom has immunity to measles, some of that protection may have gone to baby as well. So hopefully that provides some protection for the little one.

TAPPER: And yesterday, Sanjay, we talked about chronic conditions among children. Keith in Hibbing, Minnesota, wants to know if it's possible to reverse a child's type 2 diabetes or if it's a lifelong management issue.

GUPTA: Yes, no, it is possible to reverse. I mean, that -- that's -- that's -- it's good news as far as these things go. Type 1 diabetes used to be considered juvenile onset diabetes.

Type 2 diabetes was considered adult onset because kids didn't really get type 2 diabetes. But now, as we've seen more obesity, more other chronic diseases, as we're talking about, we're seeing type 2 diabetes in younger and younger people. That's the bad news.

The good news is with lifestyle changes that cause these problems in the first place, if you reverse some of those, you could potentially reverse the disease as well. So, you know, type 2 is something that can absolutely be addressed.

TAPPER: All right. Good stuff. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thanks so much. Appreciate it.

[17:54:59]

Next, we're going behind the scenes of President Trump's shakeup today, why Trump is switching titles for Mike Waltz and expanding the portfolio of already quite busy Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

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TAPPER: Welcome to The Lead. I'm Jake Tapper. This hour, a shake up at the White House. President Trump ousts his national security advisor after not one but two different Signal scandals. But is everyone else who was involved in Signal gate now safe or could more be on their way out the door? Plus, one of President Trump's top -- top economic advisors said there would be news about a trade deal by the end of the day. Will it really be announced within the next six hours? Which country is it with? How might this apparent deal impact the prices you pay?

[18:00:05]

Also, the first of its kind ruling handed down by a judge today when it comes to the U.S. deporting --