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Trump Jump Starts Second Term With Stunning Slew of Executive Orders; Southern States Brace for Another Major Winter Storms; Trump Threatens 25 Percent Tariffs on Mexico and Canada on Feb. 1. Aired 7- 7:30a ET

Aired January 21, 2025 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: This morning, a dizzying array of executive orders and more on the way as newly minted President Donald Trump wakes up to his first full day of his second term. He has already unleashed a stunning series of actions from the Oval Office, from pardoning violence January 6th offenders to sweeping immigration action. What else the president plans to do in his first 100 days?

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: And a major winter blast is hitting the country this morning, bringing with it the first ever blizzard warning for parts of Louisiana and Texas. Flight delays and cancelations are already building up.

And we have a new college football champion. The school that demands, we call it the Ohio State University with a big win last night over Notre Dame.

I'm Kate Bolduan with Sara Sidner. John Berman is out today. This is CNN News Central.

SIDNER: This morning, a new Trump era well underway as the president moves transformed the federal government and the United States' role in global issues. Today on his first full day back in the White House, President Trump is expected to announce even more executive actions. He spent his first few hours in office yesterday signing off on a barrage of executive orders. 78 of them reversed Biden era policies. He also, as he often promised on the campaign trail, pardoned nearly all of the January 6th rioters, including hundreds convicted of violent felonies. He also declared a national emergency at the southern border and kicked off the process to try and end birthright citizenship.

The president also pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Agreement and the World Health Organization, and he delayed enforcement of the TikTok ban for 75 days. And there's more.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The next item here is the withdrawal from the Paris Climate Treaty.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Protecting women from radical gender ideologies.

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: It will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is actually an executive order designating the cartels and other organizations to be foreign terrorist organizations.

TRUMP: That's a big one.

So, this is January 6th. These are the hostages, approximately 1,500 for a pardon, full pardon. We hope they come out tonight, frankly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: That is exactly what happened. The president did get his wish. Overnight, the first two January 6th rioters were released. Two brothers, each sentenced to two and a half years for assaulting police, walked out of a D.C. jail. Many more will follow suit.

CNN's Kevin Liptak is at the White House for us this morning. Kevin, more executive orders on the way, we hear.

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, that's right, Sara. The new Trump presidency now about 19 hours old, President Trump waking up in that building behind me for the first time in four years and already we're getting a good window into what the next four years will look like. President Trump wielding his executive power in unprecedented fashion, really testing the bounds of his presidential powers, ranging from the highly symbolic, like renaming some geographic landmarks, to the highly consequential, like those blanket pardons for rioters on January 6th, the president issuing 1,500 full pardons in his telling, including for 14 far right extremists, full clemency for people who are already convicted. These are individuals accused both of low level crimes, but also those accused of violence on that day.

In all President Trump, revoking 78 Biden era executive orders on issues related to sex and gender, DEI, the president withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord and the World Health Organization, trying to reshape the federal workforce, halting federal regulations and hiring.

[07:05:00]

The president also looking to get rid of adversaries in the federal government, saying in a Truth Social post last night that my presidential personnel office is in the process of identifying and removing over a thousand presidential appointees from the previous administration who are not aligned with our vision to make America great again. The president says you're fired.

So, you're already seeing the president wasting very little time to try and bend the federal government to his will on policy and personnel. In total, the White House says that the president issued 42 executive orders, memoranda or proclamations yesterday, 115 personnel actions in total, more than 200 executive actions.

I do think it's notable what the president didn't accomplish yesterday that he promised to do on day one. He stopped short of issuing new tariffs on Mexico and Canada. He said last night that he planned to put those in place on February 1st.

We're also now a few hours from the president's own self-imposed deadline for ending the conflict in Ukraine. Of course, that conflict grinds on. The president says he wants to speak to President Putin to see if he is willing to reach a deal.

Now, later today, the president will conclude his inaugural rituals with a ceremony at the National Cathedral. He is also expected to invite Republican congressional leaders here to the White House as he sets out to put forth his legislative agenda. There are a number of thorny issues for those leaders to work through, but this is all setting the table for the next four years. Sara?

SIDNER: Kevin Liptak, thank you so much, live there from the White House for us. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Also breaking overnight, ICE raids are coming. That is the message from President Trump as he is moving quickly to bring about his promised immigration crackdown. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: Can we expect ICE raids in major cities?

TRUMP: I don't want to say when, but it's going to happen. It has to happen or we're not going to have a country left.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Out of the gate yesterday, there was major -- there was maybe no bigger focus for President Trump than the southern border, declaring a national emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border, labeling Mexico drug cartels terrorist organizations, moving to end birthright citizenship. The ACLU has already filed a lawsuit against that one.

CNN's Priscilla Alvarez is in Washington tracking all of this for us. I listed out just a few, and there is a lot more here. What are you learning? What's the latest?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: There's a lot more here, Kate, but certainly President Trump's executive actions on immigration were stunning in their scale and scope. But it was actually one move that he didn't talk about over the course of the day that had the widest implications and the fastest implications for those migrants along the U.S. southern border. That was that can't that appointments that were scheduled through a border app known as CBP1.

Well, those were canceled. That was something that the Biden administration had been using to allow migrants seeking asylum to make appointments at a legal point of entry, essentially keeping them from crossing the border illegally while people who were queued up to do exactly that, who had appointments scheduled at least 21 days in advance, well, they don't have appointments anymore. And Homeland Security officials are now telling me that they're concerned that because of that, the crossings along the U.S.-Mexico border may now increase.

But that was just one part of the many moves that were made over the course of the day yesterday. To your point earlier, some of the other actions that were laid out were a national emergency on the U.S. southern border. That means shoring up resources from the Pentagon to place along the U.S. southern border. There was also the ending of birthright citizenship.

Now, he can't do that outright. This is part of a process and it begins by directing agencies not to give certain documents to individuals who may have an undocumented parent. This is all part of a process that officials have been working on for a long time now, the idea being that there will be a legal challenge, as there is, and then, ultimately, the Supreme Court will have to decide on this very issue.

And then, too, there was cartels designating them as foreign terrorist organizations. This is important. This was an idea that has been resurfaced from Trump's first term. Essentially, it could preface the use of military force on Mexican soil. So, we'll have to see how Mexico responds to that. So far, that has been something that experts say could really strain the relationship with the U.S. and Mexico.

But these were three massive moves that still don't even cover the breadth of all of what they did, including, for example, suspending refugee admissions for a period of time. That too is going to have that effect on those looking to come to the United States from abroad.

Now, again, as all of this was being rolled out, what our sources were telling me that there was a quiet purge that was happening at the Justice Department. The Justice Department has an immigration office that oversees the nation's immigration courts. Why are they important? Well, because immigration judges decide who gets to stay in the United States and who is deported.

[07:10:00]

And so four career public servants, I'm told, were fired yesterday by Trump officials. That really stunned some of their colleagues, both current and former. So, it gives us a window into how the Trump administration is already strategizing to install those who they believe are aligned with their agenda as they embark on this immigration crackdown. Kate?

BOLDUAN: And let's see what more there is to come even today. Priscilla, thank you very much.

Ahead for us, President Trump also now setting a date that he will be imposing major tariffs against Canada and Mexico, not day one, but maybe February 1. What that means for the prices that you'll pay.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: Let's put God number one. Let's put religion number two. Love, I don't know. We got to put that number three, I guess, right? And then it's tariff because tariffs are going to make us rich as hell.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Also breaking overnight, three fast-moving fires in San Diego County, California, now, some threatening buildings and structures. We're keeping a close eye on that.

And 18,000 Costco workers are set to go on strike if they cannot reach a deal with the retailer very soon. Details on that, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:15:00]

SIDNER: What you're looking at is a real rarity. On the left side of your screen, I think that is Spring, Texas, and then you're looking at North Houston on the other side of your screen, and, yes, that is snow, not rain.

From right now, 40 million Americans, from Texas to the Carolinas, are waking up to winter weather alerts as they brace for a storm that is expected to bring rare, bone chilling temperatures and potential historic snow again for the south, and you're seeing some of it there. Five southern states have already declared states of emergency. The National Weather Service describes the system as a generational winter storm event. It is urging people in its path to really take this seriously.

CNN's Ed Lavandera is in Houston and Elisa Raffa is tracking the storm for us.

Ed, I'm going to start with you because you're in such a rare situation. The first ever blizzard warning is in effect for South Texas? And I have never seen Houston look like this before.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. It's like the last time was during that winter freeze that we had several years ago here in Texas that shut the whole state down, but it is still nonetheless rare, especially when you're talking about blizzard condition warnings that are going out in some places along the Gulf Coast in a region of the United States that is used to seeing these types of weather event warnings have to do with hurricanes.

This is what the scene looks like in many parts of Houston, this weather system moving from the Southeast Texas area along the U.S. southern coast. A lot of snowfall here expected maybe two to five inches in some places, but it's coming down rather nicely.

And just to give you a sense of just how areas like this are not prepared for this, the state of Texas is having to send snow plows into the area. They're just not routinely here. And the mayor of Houston is urging people throughout today and into tomorrow as well to simply stay off the roads. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR JOHN WHITMIRE, HOUSTON, TEXAS: I ask you to lower your activities. Stay at home. Look at, out for our most vulnerable, our seniors, our pets, our plants. I can't emphasize enough how coming together, having a united community, is going to get us through this Arctic blast.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAVADNERA: Now, Sara, I know that if you live in the north of the United States, you're probably looking at all of this and probably giggling a little bit. But in places like here, where they're just not used to this, you have the mayor of Houston talking about how this is an unprecedented and dangerous and potentially deadly weather event. And that's why they're so concerned for what might happen here in the next day or two.

So, you have schools closed, you have road closures starting to pop up all over the region as well. So, you know, this Southeast Texas area and into the rest of the Gulf Coast are going to be dealing with quite a bit here over the next day or so. Sara?

SIDNER: Ed, trust me, we are not giggling over here in the north, because it is downright cold as H, E, double hockey sticks. Thank you so much for the live look in Houston and unusual and rare event there.

Let's go now to Elisa Raffa, who is in the weather studios for us this morning. Just how bad is this going to get? How cold is it going to get? And what kind of dangers does this really pose? Because this is truly a dangerous storm hitting places that just aren't used to seeing this.

ELISA RAFFA, CNN METEOROLOGIST: And that's the dangerous part, like Ed was saying, they don't have snow plows in south and assault trucks in places like Houston, New Orleans, Jacksonville and Charleston. That's where we have these winter warnings, plus that blizzard warning in effect for Lake Charles, Louisiana, first time ever, just incredible.

You can see the snow pumping from Houston to Baton Rouge and New Orleans, Jackson, Mississippi. That continues as we go through the day today. If New Orleans gets more than three inches of snow, that would be their snowiest day ever. The record set back in 1963, so just incredible. And you can see that path there of snow across the south, wind chills at minus 25 up in Chicago.

[07:20:04]

Sara?

SIDNER: Look, let's take us to another part of the country. You know, California has been dealing with these awful, destructive, deadly fires, and now there's another one burning. Can you give us some sense of what the weather is like? Because I know there were really gusty winds overnight. RAFFA: Yes. Unfortunately, it looks like we'll keep some of these gusty winds this morning as people are waking up in California, and the dry air just continues to hang around.

Here's a look at some new fires that ignited overnight in San Diego County, north of San Diego. So, you can see that there the lilac fire, the Pala fire. These are some of the new ones that ignited overnight. We're still monitoring containment around in Los Angeles. Those fires have been burning over the last couple of weeks.

You can see today we have extreme fire conditions just north of Los Angeles. And then around in that area around San Diego, where we're looking at some of these wind gusts that could be damaging and that very dry air as low as 2 percent in some locations.

So, we'll continue with red flag warnings as we go through the day today, these gusts up to 70 miles per hour. Some of these guys could get close to 100 miles per hour, and, again, that relative humidity very low.

We do have that particularly dangerous situation north of Los Angeles, continuing until about 10:00 this morning on the West Coast. This, again, a very rare warning that's issued for fire weather, and we've seen it several times this month because of just how extreme these conditions are. So, powerful, damaging winds from those Santa Ana winds that we've been tracking over the last couple of weeks. Those Santa Ana winds kind of last through the week here, extremely low humidity as well.

So, we've got the worst of the winds happening this morning. It stays breezy, but the winds do come down a little bit. So, if we can get through this morning with those winds being so powerful and not really spreading some of the fires that are there, then hopefully things should get better. But the problem again is the drought conditions. I mean, last year, we didn't have any because we had such a wet winter. And then today, we have -- this year, rather, we've had really not any rain since the start of the water season. There is a little bit of rain in the forecast, but it's really not enough. Sara?

SIDNER: Yes, it's really disturbing to see that those winds could gust up to 100 miles per hour, because that was the condition when the Palisades fire blew up and caused so much damage, as well as the Eaton fire. Thank you so much, Elisa Raffa, there for us with all of the dangerous weather heading our way.

All right, ahead, we're learning more about President Trump's proposed tariffs on our neighbors, Canada and Mexico and when they could go into effect.

And new information this morning about a border agent who was shot and killed near the Canadian border. Those stories and more, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:25:00] BOLDUAN: So, this morning, no new tariffs as of now on day one from Donald Trump, but the president is vowing they are coming for goods coming from Mexico and Canada starting February 1st. Trump says he will make good on his promised and threatened 25 percent tariff.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We're thinking in terms of 25 percent on Mexico and Canada because they're allowing vast numbers of people. Canada is a very bad abuser, also vast numbers of people to come in and fentanyl to come in.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: CNN's Matt Egan joining us now. We've been talking about the threatened tariffs for a long time, but now he's putting a date on it. What does this mean?

MATT EGAN, CNN REPORTER: Well, Kate, look, Trump 2.0 is starting with shock and awe, right? We got this avalanche of executive action from the president yesterday, and yet for the economy, for markets, perhaps the most consequential headline from yesterday was what we just heard from the president about these threatened February 1st tariffs on Canada and on Mexico. And, look, for consumers, the risk here is, of course, potentially higher prices, which would directly undermine what President Trump is trying to do when it comes to fixing the cost of living.

BOLDUAN: And make no mistake, no matter what Trump says that they'll pay for it. Every big retailer you're going to talk to in the United States says the prices, it's going to be on the consumer.

EGAN: Yes. Listen, that's exactly what has happened in the past, right? These are import taxes. They're paid by U.S. companies when they ship stuff in from overseas and they often pass the cost along to consumers. And, look, Canada, we imported $400 billion of goods from Canada alone last year, everything from wood and cement that goes into building homes to foreign oil, is the biggest source of foreign oil. Analysts have said that this could cause gas prices, especially in the Great Lakes region, to go higher Mexico too, we get cars, car parts, agriculture from Mexico. 90 percent of the imported avocados and tomatoes into the U.S. come from Mexico.

But there's so many questions here, right? When does Trump actually impose these tariffs? Does he really go to 25 percent? Does he start more gradual? And one of the biggest questions is how do other countries respond, right? Canada's already signaled that they're not going to take this laying down. They're going to retaliate against U.S. goods.

So, this is just another one of those major question marks looming over the economy right now. I mean, Trump is not proposing subtle changes here. These are sweeping changes. And the truth is we don't really know how all of this is going to play out. I don't even think he does.

BOLDUAN: Yes. And what the negotiated outcome is to avoid this is also very unclear.

EGAN: Right, if there is one.

BOLDUAN: Exactly right. Also, meme coins, the president and the first lady released a pair of meme coins that is grabbing a lot of attention. What is going on here?

EGAN: Yes, what is going on? Look, this was one of the most stunning headlines from the past few days, the president and the first lady launching their own meme coins. They skyrocketed in value instantly, gathering billions, tens of billions of dollars in value. So, for all of our viewers at home who maybe haven't launched their own meme coins yet, these are cryptocurrencies.

[07:30:01]

They're based their inspired on internet or cultural trends, but there's really no intrinsic value.