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David Chiu is Interviewed about a Lawsuit against Trump; Brandt Goldstein is Interviewed about a Constitutional Crisis; Millions Brace for Another Storm. Aired 9:30-10a ET
Aired February 12, 2025 - 09:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[09:33:54]
KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: This morning there's new reporting two senior ICE officials were reassigned this week as the White House continues to put pressure on the agency to ramp up arrests of undocumented immigrants. That's according to two people - two sources familiar with the move. President Trump's border czar, Tom Homan, also says he is not happy with the pace of the immigration crackdown so far. Listen to this.
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TOM HOMAN, TRUMP ADMINISTRATION "BORDER CZAR": I'm not satisfied. There's more criminal aliens that need to be arrested. Hundreds of thousands. Sanctuary cities are putting roadblocks up. We got leaks. So, we need to increase the arrests of illegal aliens, especially those with criminal convictions. So, we're going to continue. So, three times higher is good. I'm - the numbers are good. For me, not good enough. We got to get more.
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BOLDUAN: Now, a coalition of cities, led by San Francisco, is suing the Trump administration, saying they are being unlawfully targeted as sanctuary cities.
Joining us right now is David Chiu, city attorney of San Francisco, who is helping to lead this lawsuit.
Thank you so much for coming in.
Tom Homan also said that sanctuary cities are going to see more agents and arrests in their communities.
[09:35:00]
What's your response to that?
DAVID CHIU, SAN FRANCISCO CITY ATTORNEY: Well, unfortunately, this is not a surprise. Since his first term, Donald Trump has tried different ways to coerce cities to do the federal government's job in carrying out federal immigration enforcement. My city, and others, we had to sue when Trump tried to withhold federal funding from sanctuary cities, like ours, and we won. Federal district courts, appellate courts ruled in our favor, found conditions that the administration was placing on us unconstitutional, found that our local sanctuary policies complied with the law.
And unfortunately, since Inauguration Day, they've just doubled-down, as you've just heard. They're trying to commandeer our local law enforcement as ICE agents. They're threatening to investigate and prosecute public officials and go after sanctuary cities and states. This isn't an idle threat. Last week they went after with a lawsuit Chicago and its law officials making their prosecutions a reality.
BOLDUAN: And so you're, as I mentioned, you're leading this effort with several other cities and suing this Trump administration. What - what specifically - is there something specific that's triggering the lawsuit now? Is it the threat of enforcement coming in? Have you already seen special targeting of your jurisdiction?
CHIU: Its certainly the threat. Last Wednesday Trump's new attorney general sent out a memo with very explicit descriptions of what they're going to do with sanctuary jurisdictions. Last Thursday they sued Chicago. And what we are trying to do is ensure that our sanctuary policies are actually about protecting public safety by building trust.
BOLDUAN: The Trump administration will say that you are getting in the way of the federal government's ability to do its job. How do you respond?
CHIU: So, let me just take a moment and explain what sanctuary policies are about. When communities trust law enforcement, victims and witnesses of crime come forward, arrests are made, criminals are taken off the streets. When the opposite happens, trust is eroded. People are fearful to report. We are all less safe. And this is why hundreds of cities and many states across our country have adopted sanctuary policies. This is why hundreds of police chiefs, law enforcement officials - I can say as a former criminal prosecutor, why we support this. Studies have consistently shown that immigrants commit less crimes, that sanctuary jurisdictions have seen no increase or lower crime rates.
Now, unfortunately, the Trump administration has spread lies about the suggestion that our cities are harboring criminals. That is false. The federal government knows the inmates. Every inmate in our jails. We send them fingerprints. If they have legal reason to arrest, they can simply send a criminal warrant or a court order.
But the purpose of our laws is not to interfere with lawful federal immigration enforcement. But immigration enforcement is the responsibility of the federal government, not state or local governments. We need to prioritize scarce law enforcement resources at the local level to actually fight crimes. That's what sanctuary policies are about.
BOLDUAN: David Chiu, thank you so much for coming in. I really appreciate your time. Let's see where this lawsuit goes.
Sara.
SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: All right, breaking news, we're looking at the markets just opening, and the Dow not looking so great, down more than 400 points. That is very much because of what we just saw when it comes to the first inflation report of 2025. Not looking good. Rising to 3 percent for the first time since June. That story is coming up, as well as many others, ahead.
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[09:43:08]
SIDNER: A federal judge ruled this week that the Trump administration defied a court order to unfreeze billions of dollars in federal grants authorized by Congress. One of the many lawsuits pending against what DOGE is doing and how it's doing what it's doing. Some lawyers and legal scholars are warning that the rule of law is in jeopardy.
Here now is Brandt Goldstein, professor at New York Law School, and the author of "Storming The Court."
All right, so, I guess there's so many questions here, but what are the consequences if the Trump administration ignores court orders?
BRANDT GOLDSTEIN, LAW PROFESSOR, NEW YORK LAW SCHOOL: Well, it's great to be with you, Sara.
Under the Constitution, it's the courts, not the president and his officials, who say what the law is, what it requires. And this is further spelled out in Marbury versus Madison, the principle of separation of powers.
And the point is that, when a court says, this is the law, then all of us, including the executive branch, are bound by it. But how is it enforced?
If a federal court orders a private citizen or a company or a state entity to do something, and they fail to do it, a contempt order is issued.
SIDNER: Right.
GOLDSTEIN: In extreme cases, federal marshals, people with guns, will come out. They will show up to enforce the order. If the judge authorizes it, they can even put people in prison. In really dramatic instances, for example, in the 1950s in Arkansas, federal troops were sent in to enforce court orders.
SIDNER: Right.
GOLDSTEIN: But if it's the president, the problem is, the federal marshals are part of the Department of Justice. They answer to Pam Bondi. And federal troops and the National Guard, if federalized, answer to the president, the commander in chief. So, the executive branch, amazingly enough, is ultimately in charge of enforcing court orders. And it's everybody's favorite founder, Alexander Hamilton, who wrote about this in Federalist Number 78.
SIDNER: Yes.
[09:45:01]
GOLDSTEIN: If Pam Bondi won't order the marshals to enforce the order, then the judge is nothing but a person in a robe with a book and a gavel.
The bottom line is this, a court can't make the president, or lower executive officials, suffer any real consequences if they disobey an order. What we have to do is trust that they will comply. And for the vast majority of our history, they have done so.
SIDNER: But there are exceptions, including Andrew Jackson, who, the president, by the way, as you know, praises. He defied the Supreme Court. What was the result? What happened then?
GOLDSTEIN: Well, it's very rare that this happens. But, yes, and historians usually mention two episodes from the 1800s. In 1832, President Andrew Jackson refused to enforce a Supreme Court order in Worcester versus Georgia, a case about the sovereignty of the Cherokee Nation. And this is when he famously supposedly said, "the chief justice has made his decision, now let him enforce it." Most historians agree he never actually said that. But he did ignore the order.
The other case dates back to the Civil War. Chief Justice Roger Taney ruled that President Lincoln had violated the Constitution by suspending the writ of habeas corpus. The right to challenge your detention. But that was during wartime. And Congress later authorized what he was doing. And it was all 160 years ago.
SIDNER: Right. So, this is - this is new in modern history.
I guess the biggest question that's left on the table is, are we already in a constitutional crisis?
GOLDSTEIN: Those two words, right, constitutional crisis.
SIDNER: Yes.
GOLDSTEIN: Lawyers tend to be very cautious with their words. And they talk about the possibility of a crisis. But maybe - maybe we already are in one. If the executive can ignore a court order with no real fallout, and this happens repeatedly, we're faced with a prospect of a very different system of government than the one we have, one in which the president is nearly a monarch.
Here's the truth. The rule of law does not magically spring from the Constitution. It's a social consensus, and a very delicate one. It's an unwritten agreement among everyone in this country, generation after generation, that we, and our government officials, are all bound by what the courts say. Even President Nixon understood this when he obeyed a Supreme Court
decision and turned over the tapes in that case 40, 50 years ago.
Now, President Trump, I will say, in his comments yesterday, did seem to walk back the idea of not complying with a court order. He said, I always abide by the courts. But I will add to that, he didn't call out Vice President Vance or Speaker Johnson for saying that it was within the executive's purview not to comply with a court order.
SIDNER: Look, thank you for - for sort of walking us through that, Brandt, because there are so many questions that a lot of us have about how this is going to work. And you say this is a social construct, a social contract, really, between the courts and the country. The difference is, the president has a lot more power than the average person, who would get arrested if they decided to defy a criminal court, for example.
So, we will see what happens going forward and we'll check in with you.
Really appreciate your time this morning.
GOLDSTEIN: My pleasure.
SIDNER: All right, Kate.
BOLDUAN: Still ahead for us, the second winter storm of the week already racing across the country. Where the snow could be piling up next. We've got the forecast for you.
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[09:53:11]
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: So, this morning, brace yourself for a new round of snow. A whole new storm after one already dumped a foot of snow in parts of Virginia. Students at Virginia Tech used the opportunity to study hard. Glad that tuition is going to something so valuable.
Let's get right to CNN's Derek Van Dam for the latest on what we're going to see now.
Derek.
DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: I tried to pull a fast one on my wife the other day with my latest snowboard trip, called it powder research, just like those Virginia Tech students. It didn't work out too well.
Look, I'm glad they got to enjoy the snow while it lasted. D.C., you got a fresh coating of snow on the National Mall.
In fact, you have had, with this latest half a foot of snow that fell from the sky, the most snow that you've experienced in any winter season to date over the past five years at least. In fact, you combined the past two seasons to date and we've seen more snow just this year. So, that's saying something.
It's all being driven by this series of storms. We'll call it a parade of storms moving from the West Coast to the East Coast, driven by the jet stream. So, this storm that's moving through across the Plains and the Midwest, as well as the Great Lakes, this will bring a significant amount of snow to places like Chicago. It is your time because you've had more snow in New Orleans than you have in the windy city. So, that's saying something.
And guess what? On the south side of this, John, we've got severe weather that we're also tracking too. So, we have to keep that in mind across parts of Alabama and Mississippi.
John.
BERMAN: All right, Derek Van Dam, you're going to be busy. Thank you, sir.
Kate.
BOLDUAN: Canned tuna sold by major U.S. grocers is being recalled due to a concern over botulism. Certain canned tuna sold at Costco, Kroger, Trader Joes, Walmart, other stores as well, being pulled over this risk. It involves products sold in dozens of states. Tri-Union Seafoods describes the recall issued this way, the easy open pull tab on the lid encountered a manufacturing defect that may compromise the integrity of the seal or cause it to leak, or worse, be contaminated with botulism bacteria, a potentially fatal form of food poisoning.
[09:55:12]
Yikes. The products are sold under the Genova, Van Camp's H-E-B, and Trader Joe's brand names. No illnesses, thankfully, have so far been reported.
NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams could be coming home sooner than expected. I mean asterisks on that, sooner than expected. NASA says it's able to adjust their schedule because they're switching space capsules. Their March return could now be moved up a couple of weeks. Wilmore and Williams have been at the International Space Station since June after issues plagued their first leg of their trip on the - on Boeing's Starliner spacecraft. Remember, they were only supposed to be up there for eight days. So, this is an early return, but not really, and also long overdue.
One more. Let's go.
If you were watching the Westminster Dog Show -
BERMAN: Never.
SIDNER: Awe.
BOLDUAN: You saw history happen.
SIDNER: Hey, there's a puppy. BOLDUAN: For the first time a giant schnauzer took home the best in show award. The dogs name, Monty. The winner of the working group category the past three years at Westminster, though that group has not secured the overall win since 2004.
I also did read that Monty entered the competition as the top ranked dog in the country based on points amassed in previous shows, and was the odds on favorite to win.
SIDNER: If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. Monty is cute.
BOLDUAN: Apparently John hates dogs.
SIDNER: Not true.
BERMAN: I love dogs. Real dogs. I don't like dog shows.
BOLDUAN: Show - shows -
SIDNER: He's just mad.
BOLDUAN: Shows and joy (ph). I don't know.
BERMAN: Get me a mutt. A real dog. Not one of those.
SIDNER: Golden Retrievers should win. I agree with John.
Thank you guys so much for joining us. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL. Ruff.
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