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Coalition Sues Over Trump Administration Crackdown On Sanctuary Cities; French President Macron: Ready To Go Toe-To-Toe With Trump's Tariffs; Some Head Start Programs Shut Down Amid Funding Confusion. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired February 10, 2025 - 07:30   ET

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

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[07:32:35]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: This morning a coalition of cities led by San Franciso is fighting against President Trump's crackdown on sanctuary cities. It comes as sources familiar with discussions tell CNN that senior officials in the White House are putting increased pressure on ICE to pick up the pace of migrant arrests.

Let's get right to CNN's Gloria Pazmino for the latest on this. Good morning.

GLORIA PAZMINO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John.

Well, as you said, this significant legal action being led by cities on the West Coast but also New Haven, Connecticut. You see the cities there that are joining this lawsuit, which they are describing as much needed preemptive action. They are saying that the Trump administration is targeting sanctuary city jurisdictions because of their status as sanctuary cities.

We've seen the administration increase its immigration crackdown not just here in New York City but also in Chicago, in Los Angeles. There is some action that is expected this month. And so they are taking preemptive action, saying that they are being targeted because of this status. Specifically, they cite the 10th Amendment -- the separation between state and the federal government, and they say that they are being illegally targeted.

The chief attorney for the lawsuit -- the San Franciso city attorney said that "This is the federal government illegally asserting a right it does not have, telling cities how to use their resources, and commandeering local law enforcement. This is the federal government coercing local officials to bend to their will or face defunding or prosecution. That is illegal and authoritarian."

Now we know that Trump signed an executive order when he took office directing the federal government to cut off federal funding grants to cities that do not comply or cooperate with this immigration enforcement. Places like New York, and Los Angeles, and Chicago where local law enforcement are typically not in the business of helping federal law enforcement enforce immigration law, which is a civil matter. So they are taking this action.

We've been here before, John. We saw similar lawsuits in 2017 during the last Trump administration. They blocked the order from taking effect and they say that things are a bit different now. They're threatening prosecution and investigation at the federal levels, and this is their way of responding before that happens.

BERMAN: And we'll see what happens in the course.

Gloria Pazmino, nice to see you. Thank you very much -- Kate -- Sara.

[07:35:00]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: All right. With President Trump set to impose new tariffs on steel and aluminum coming into the U.S., other countries like France are watching closely to see just how far Trump's tit-for-tat will go. Last month, Trump threated to levy tariffs against the European Union.

CNN Business editor-at-large Richard Quest is joining me now.

You sat down. You had an exclusive chat with the French president. Trump has hinted that Europe could be next on is tariff list. What's Macron saying about this?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN ANCHOR AND BUSINESS EDITOR-AT-LARGE (via Webex by Cisco): Oh, I think you're being diplomatic, Sara. He's done more than hint. He's basically said that Europe's tariffs are coming their way. And whilst maybe steel and aluminum are not the number one, certainly Europe is bracing itself for a raft of tariffs in one description or another.

And when I met President Macron at the Elyse Palace late last week, I asked him OK, so President Trump imposes new tariffs, but will Europe retaliate?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EMMANUEL MACRON, FRENCH PRESIDENT: I already did so, and I will did it again. And I think we should get ready to obviously be in the room and react. But I think more than that, the European Union has to be ready to deliver what we want and what we need for ourselves.

QUEST: Can I suggest to you that the European Union is not fit for purpose when it comes to dealing with something like President Trump who is threatening tariffs and basically saying my way or the highway?

MACRON: I think it could be the opposite when you have direct contacts and you are clear. I think the European Union should not be the one to wait for the initiative of the authors and just react. What we have to do is to act for ourselves and to tell our people this is our project. This is what we want.

This is why for me it is a top priority of Europe -- its competitiveness agenda. Its defense and security agenda. It is our ambition and let's go fast for ourselves. If in the meanwhile we have a tariff issue, we will discuss them and we will fix it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

QUEST: There are two big issues here. The first is retaliation in a sense. You do this, we'll do that. But in Europe it's a wake-up call because they're terrified that Europe will no longer be seen as the crucial partner of the United States.

SIDNER: Let me just quickly ask you, Richard. You know, when you see all this and you're talking to Macron and there's all this talk of tariffs, he said something that was quite interesting there where he said we're going to start doing what we need to do to protect ourselves.

Does that mean that other countries will start looking to places like, for example, China who has a huge population to try and start making deals elsewhere, potentially with enemies of the United States?

QUEST: The reality is exactly that. Everybody is going to be looking at other trading partners. Where can they do a deal that is different? So you're going to have south-south trade. You're going to have north- south trade. You're going to have east-west.

Essentially, if the U.S. continues this way then, yes, there will be many countries that will be forced into the arms of other trading partners that might not be their first preference. But when push comes to shove you do the deal, as the president would say, that needs to be done.

SIDNER: Richard Quest, it's always a pleasure. Thank you so much for joining us. Appreciate you -- Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Joining us right now to talk much more about this is Marc Short. Marc served as White House legislative affairs director during the first Trump administration and has held, well, a million different jobs in and around Washington and the White House. Also, the chairman of the board for Advancing American Freedom conservative advocacy group. It's good to see you again, Marc. Thanks for coming in.

I saw --

MARC SHORT, FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF TO VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE, BOARD CHAIRMAN, ADVANCING AMERICAN FREEDOM: Thank you for having me.

BOLDUAN: When it comes to tariffs, I saw these -- you wrote you think the Trump approach to tariffs this time is the biggest difference that you see from the last Trump administration to this one. Explain.

SHORT: Well Kate, let's start by acknowledging that tariffs are a tax on American consumers. The American importer pays that fee to Customs and Border Patrol as the -- as the product comes into our country.

And so I think that in the first administration there was a lot of guidance to the president that said look, if we're trying to isolate China tariffs can be an effective tool in doing that, but it also could drive our allies in other nations to actually trade more with China if we end up assessing tariffs on them.

This administration, the president has a set of advisers who just are far more committed to the economic theory that tariffs work -- not just a national security theory but also the economic theory that believe that this will generate revenue. Again, it's important to remember it's the American importer that pays that fee and so it's actually a tax on Americans and it raises consumer prices.

[07:40:00]

When targeted, as it was toward China in the first administration, it can be an effective tool to get them to the negotiating table, but this administration believes that they want to impose tariffs pretty much globally.

And so I think that markets assume that a lot of this is bluster and that -- and that actually Trump will recede from that, but I don't think so. I think he's pretty committed to moving forward with tariffs beyond China pretty much globally.

BOLDUAN: Well, and he's seeming to announce -- you know, starting to announce that if they charge us, we charge them is the statement from yesterday.

But the point you're making is what I've heard from almost every industry who is going to need to deal with importing anything. The one person I'm not hearing this from is the administration. I've had Trump's top trade and economic adviser on in the past week, both of them trying to argue that the American people are not going to pay the price for these tariffs. Trying to argue that prices are not going to go up despite what conventional wisdom is when it comes to broad stroke tariffs.

How does -- what is the Trump team going to do, and how are they going to be able to explain that if when prices do go up given the polling that Americans don't think that they're doing enough to bring down prices?

SHORT: Well, I mean, Kate, if we -- if we strike a big enough global trade war you actually could be recessionary, which I think is perhaps even a worse-case scenario for the economy.

I do think, again, that the team that he has assembled -- Peter Navarro and others in that team -- have always argued -- I mean, keep in mind Peter came up as a labor union Democrat. Peter believes that you should have tariffs because it protects American workers from foreign competition.

But the necessary -- as you evolve that policy further it's going to raise prices on American consumers and it's going to force our trading partners to look elsewhere, which I think has national security implications. But I think it also could generate I think significant rattling to the stock market that is so far, I think been very excited about Trump's presidency because of the deregulatory and tax perspectives.

BOLDUAN: Yeah. I mean, so far, the polling has been positive in his favor.

SHORT: Yes.

BOLDUAN: But let me fold two more things that I want your perspective on. Last week it was USAID getting shut down effectively. This week they're talking about the consumer watchdog CFPB being shut down.

What -- this whole effort to shrink the size of the federal government -- to kind of take over the role of what traditionally is Congress' job appropriating and saying where money should go and to whom, creating agencies, dismantling agencies.

Is it your sense that the White House just doesn't care even if they're being challenged in court, and what's Congress to do about it?

SHORT: Well Kate, I actually think that for a lot of Americans they elected Donald Trump to secure the border and to take on the bloated federal bureaucracies. I think a lot of Americans are actually excited about this fight.

And I think that the Executive Branch does have the ability to stop many of these absurd grants and it forces Democrats in a position of actually trying to defend grants for LGBT theater in Guatemala or grants to tourism in Lebanon, which I think is a good political position. But ultimately, the Executive Branch has the ability to stop those grants.

They can't really shut down the departments. That has to legislated. And so it would actually be a good initiative for the administration to partner with Congress to say we actually want to shut down these various departments we think have gone rogue. But ultimately, their ability is to stop the grants. They would need legislation to actually cut down the programs.

But I think where this is leading, Kate, is March 14 the government reaches another impasse on government funding. And I think Democrats will probably step in and say if you want our support in passing a government funding bill, they're going to want to legislate the continued support for these programs.

And that's going to be a big problem for both sides because Republicans will not have the votes to carry government funding on their own. They're going to need Democrat votes. So that's the showdown that's coming probably about a month from now.

BOLDUAN: That's a very interesting thing that we'll have to continue to follow. The unintended kind of fallout and consequences and implications of these DOGE efforts on what is Donald Trump's big push, which is to get his agenda all the way through with Congress. It could be getting right in the way of it.

It's good to see you, Marc. Thanks so much for coming in.

SHORT: Yeah. Thanks a lot, Kate.

BOLDUAN: Sara. SIDNER: All right. This morning we're learning that bird flu is mutating in a way that makes it easier to spread to mammals, including humans. Dozens of live poultry markets in New York are shut down this morning after inspectors found seven cases in poultry over the past week. They have to be disinfected. And 15 birds at New York City zoos died after potential contact with the virus.

CNN health reporter Jacqueline Howard is following the developments.

And the scientists are worried about this newer strain of the virus that has been found in cattle, particularly in Nevada. Why is it so concerning that cattle now are showing up with this disease or this virus?

[07:45:00]

JACQUELINE HOWARD, CNN HEALTH REPORTER: What's concerning about this, Sara, this newer variant that we're talking about here is called D1.1. And what researchers have found is that this variant shows signs of an adaptation that could help it to copy itself more easily in the cells of mammals, including humans.

The reason why this is concerning is because if we see this virus copy itself more and more there is the risk that it could mutate in a way to become more contagious and possibly to spread from human to human. So far in this outbreak we've only seen transmission from animals to humans. We have not seen evidence of human-to-human spread quite yet. But that's why researchers are watching this closely -- watching to see how this virus behaves and how it may evolve.

And the D1.1 variant itself has previously been associated with severe infections in human cases, including one death. So that's why scientists are watching this and are concerned.

But Sara, I will say for the general public out there we should not panic. We should not be overly worried about this because the CDC says the risk to the general public still remains low. Again, we have not seen evidence yet of human-to-human spread.

The people who are at risk are those who do come in close contact with potentially infected animals. So, farm workers, people who work closely with wild birds, poultry, or dairy cattle. Those are the people considered to be at an increased risk at this time, Sara.

SIDNER: All right, Jacqueline Howard. Thank you so much. Appreciate it -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: New this morning, Ukraine's President Zelenskyy ready to talk with Russia, but what he's requesting from the United States before that can happen.

And Starbucks offering up a treat to its members today. What free coffee has to do with the company's push to get back to its original coffeehouse roots.

(COMMERCIAL) [07:51:25]

SIDNER: This morning some recipients of the federal funds Trump tried to freeze still have not received their money, even though a court has blocked Trump's attempt to stop the funding.

Some of the Head Start programs, which provide early childhood education to low-income children, still cannot access all of the money. Head Start helps students with more than just education. It helps with food, clothes, and housing.

Joining me now is Tommy Sheridan. He is the deputy director of the National Head Start Association. Thank you so much for being here.

Why do you think that some of the Head Start programs cannot access the money the federal government normally gives them?

TOMMY SHERIDAN, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, NATIONAL HEAD START ASSOCIATION: Yeah. Well, thank you for having me, Sara.

And it's complicated is the short answer. I mean, when we really look into it, we have not been hearing directly from the administration on this, but we have heard from Capitol Hill who has been in touch with the administration.

They're saying that these issues actually stem from about two weeks ago when that OMB (Office of Management and Budget) memo came out that did have -- that talked about the funding freeze. Shortly afterwards there was another memo that came out that did describe Head Start among the programs that were not to be impacted.

The challenge though is much more bureaucratic. It has to do with the system called the Payment Management Services -- the PMS. And that system apparently -- basically there was -- there was almost a run on it. There was too many programs. And this is all of HHS, not just within Head Start.

SIDNER: Yeah.

SHERIDAN: But that there are so many programs reaching out trying to pull down funds and it crashed the whole system.

However, here we are almost two weeks later and several of these programs -- as you noted earlier, about 29 grant recipients in 16 states, plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, are still struggling to access critical funds.

SIDNER: Can I ask you what this is doing to the families, the children who are in Head Start because they do receive things like food to help them learn, as well as education, and sometimes you help with housing? What are they experiencing because of this?

SHERIDAN: Well, luckily, it hasn't been -- it hasn't meant that we've had to shut down programs too much. There has been a little bit of that, and that is something that we are really working with the administration and with Congress to try to curtail. Head Start, since its inception and really back in the 1960s -- it's our 60th anniversary this year. We have -- we have always prioritized those services that you mentioned to children and families. The number one priority has to be making sure that children, especially at this stage in life and especially the families that Head Start services -- that they're really -- that they really are afforded the stability and the care that Head Start provides.

So during all of this challenge most agencies have found ways leveraging community resources, working with local banking partners for no-cost loans, and these types of things, trying to find ways to keep their doors open and doing everything they can before they have to shut down. Unfortunately there have been a couple of programs that have exhausted all of those options and were forced to close down for a matter of days. But the good news is that it does appear as of at least Friday evening and over the weekend we've continued to hear these reports that most programs are open and will continue to be open.

And again, we're hopeful that this bureaucratic challenge can be addressed, and that the administration can get ahead of this. We'll figure out whatever system we have to jump through or whatever thing we have to do. At the end of the day this is about children, and this is about their families, and we need to make sure to protect them against all costs.

SIDNER: When you look at this on the whole -- I mean, if this goes on for much longer, how long can they sustain themselves without federal funding?

[07:55:00]

SHERIDAN: Yeah. It really depends on the agency.

So Head Start is funded a little bit different than a lot of federal programs where it goes from the federal government directly into communities. So some communities have access to other types of resources or some are large grant recipients are large programs, like school districts, city government, county government. Some are single- purpose nonprofits. And I think in a lot of -- a lot of communities, especially in really rural communities and those -- where they have the much smaller programs, that's where we're really concerned about.

Again, we're hopeful and it does appear as if the administration is working through this backlog. And we're very hopeful that this will get addressed today, tomorrow, and we don't have to have these types of conversations any further.

At the end of the day, again, this is -- Head Start provides such critical services to so many children and families across this country and it's something that Democrats and Republicans have long supported. And we're looking forward to making sure that we can get back to that type of stability that we need so we can provide that type of stability to children and families.

SIDNER: Yeah. That OMB memo sending everything into a tizzy. We will see what happens over time and check back with you to see if those funds have come in.

Thank you, Tommy Sheridan. I really appreciate your time this morning -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: One of the headlines we're tracking this morning, the bodies of all 10 people who were killed in a plane crash in western Alaska have now been recovered and identified -- the pilot and nine passengers there on board that small Cessna plane that went missing when it disappeared from radar as it was flying to Nome, Alaska on Thursday. The wreckage was found a day later. The investigation into what caused the crash is now underway.

One of the last surviving Tuskegee airmen has died at the age of 100. Retired Lt. Col. Harry Stewart Jr. served on a legendary -- with the legendary 332nd fighter group -- the all-Black unit of the Air Force served in World War II. The group was made up of the nation's first Black military pilots.

Stewart flew dozens of missions and earned the distinguished Flying Cross for downing three German aircraft during combat in 1945. And he was also -- he also was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 2007.

And a free cup to start your day. A free cup of Joe, friends. Starbucks is offering and promoting free coffee for everyone today, or at least everyone on their loyalty program. You will find the coupon in your app, and with it you get a free tall hot or iced coffee, though none of the fancy extras are included in that.

This is part of the larger push by Starbucks to get back to its coffeehouse vibes. The promotion is tied to other -- a series of sweeping changes, including cutting back the Starbucks menu by 30 percent -- John.

BERMAN: Free stuff tastes better.

All right. This morning Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he is ready to negotiate with the Russian leader Vladimir Putin, but only if the U.S. and Europe provide security guarantees for Ukraine. President Trump told reporters he has spoken with Putin about trying to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine.

Let's get right to senior international correspondent Fred Pleitgen who is in Moscow. So what's the latest on this kind of dancing around the idea of talks?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, dancing around the idea of whether or not or what sort of phone calls may have happened between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Russians, John, really being quite coy about all of this. First of all, the Kremlin told CNN that they cannot confirm or deny whether or not any direct phone conversations between President Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin had actually taken place.

And it was quite interesting because I actually just got out of a press conference with the deputy foreign minister of Russia Sergei Ryabkov, and he was saying that he cannot confirm that there's anything in the works right now for a top-level meeting between Russia and the United States -- meaning obviously, a meeting between -- a meeting between President Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

So whether or not these phone calls actually took place, very difficult to ascertain. But the Russians are not saying that they did not take place.

At the same time, of course, the Russians do acknowledge that there is a push going on for possible talks in the future. And I was asking the Russians what their red lines would be in all of this, and they kept saying look, you have to acknowledge the realities on the battlefield. That the Russians have taken a considerable amount of territory from the Ukrainians. They're also sort of casting a shadow over whether or not they actually want to negotiate with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, although the Russians do say that they are willing to speak with the Ukrainians.

So it seems as though all sides agree that talks need to be -- need to take place. It's unclear, however, in which format they could take place and in which timeframe they could take place as well. The Russians, certainly at this point in time, saying look, they are the ones who are making gains on the battlefield and therefore for them, they believe it's the U.S. and the Ukrainians who need to come to them with proposals.

At the same time, you do feel here in Moscow, John, that the Russians also themselves believe that it is time for talks and possibly for this war to come to the -- an end in the not so distance future, John.

BERMAN: A critical time to be sure.

Frederik Pleitgen, it is great to have you in Moscow for this. Thank you very much.

A lot of news. A brand new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts now.