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Pres. Trump Preparing To Order Closure Of Department Of Education; U.S. Economy Added 151,000 Jobs In February; RFK Jr. Endorses Unconventional Measles Treatment; White House Hosts First- Ever Crypto Summit. Aired 8:30-9 am ET

Aired March 07, 2025 - 08:30   ET

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

LISA QUANDT, SPECIAL EDUCATION TEACHER, BELLEVILLE TOWNSHIP HIGH SCHOOL: This funding is how we work. I mean, just Title I programs in Illinois, there's 17,000 jobs for teachers in Illinois with funding over $800 million.

[08:30:10]

So if you get rid of that funding, I mean, these things, same thing with IDEA programs. There's an estimated 14,000 jobs for teachers in Illinois with an estimated funding of $650 million.

This is our things like occupational therapy, speech and language, mental health support. There's no way without and breaking it down and dismantling it that we're going to be able to do our job the way we need to do it. Our parents and our families rely on this.

It makes me so sad. I can think of so many families and people that adopt kids that have special needs. Let's be honest, we all learn differently and to take away from these kids and these families. It's the same thing as if you privatize something. A lot of those private schools do not have to take kids with special needs, nor are they qualified to teach them and give them what they need.

This is detrimental to our profession and to our kids doing what they can do. We've seen kids do great things. You cannot base everything on this testing. That's absolutely ludicrous.

So I mean, it really is an attack on our kids, not -- not even just the teachers, just mainly our kids and our families. And that breaks my heart.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: The point that I've heard the Secretary make again today, and we heard this from the President himself and I've heard it from others, is that the reality is, is that President Trump promised to make this move and has been doing that for a long time. He won the election and talking and campaigning about shutting down the department as part of his winning message. From your perspective, Lisa, how do you square that and so many voters seeming to be OK with it and voting for it with what you're experiencing?

QUANDT: They don't understand. I get maybe a lack of education on this subject, but the problem here is you have to educate yourself and you can't listen to just one side. And ultimately, it's about what's doing best for kids of all modality.

Like you have to speak to that. And I don't think just because you're not living it, doesn't mean that it's not going to affect you because I got news for you, it is. So you could be in that person's shoes. And this is about inclusion and what you're doing is you're taking away from that. And that's not right. We're going back so many steps.

I mean, IDEA, this is their 50th Anniversary and they have given us so much funding and so many things that we need. I just don't think unless you're in those shoes, you need to kind of step out and look what's going on here because you are affecting kids. These are for tomorrow.

BOLDUAN: Do you -- if this moves forward and you have worked in education for three decades, you're a special education teacher, what are you going to -- what are you going to tell the families of the students that you're working with?

QUANDT: I can't even think about it. It's tough. I'm not sure. We'll all try to make it work for them, but we don't have -- we won't have the people. We won't have the services, whether it is occupational, whether it is mental health, whether it is speech and language, we won't have these people.

In our district, we just got a reading specialist and she's doing amazing things. We won't have her and she's even only part time. So how do your kids get ahead? You're not going to be able to do that. You're not going to have the people to get it done. And these families rely on that.

BOLDUAN: And the question then becomes even more uncertain, because what do the states then fund if the money is going straight to the states? And then it's their job to make those priorities and push that out.

Lisa, thank you very much. I really appreciate your time and your perspective in this.

Sara?

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: That was a real heartfelt conversation. Thank you, Kate.

Breaking news this morning, the first full jobs report of President Trump's second term released just moments ago. What it is signaling about the state of the U.S. economy. And a dramatic rescue. A police officer saves a young boy who was on the brink of drowning. We've got to see this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:39:45]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

SIDNER: This just in, the United States economy added 151,000 jobs in the month of February, which was lower than expected. This was first full jobs report of President Trump's second term. This was also a revision in January's job numbers as well.

[08:40:01]

CNN's Matt Egan is here to break down the report, bad or --

MATT EGAN, CNN BUSINESS REPORTER: You know, I would say, mixed.

SIDNER: Mixed, OK.

EGAN: This is the first report card on the Trump economy of his second term, and I think we've got some mixed numbers here. So the big number 151,000 jobs were added in February. Now, this is actually a modest improvement from January, which was revised lower to 125,000. So this is a slight acceleration.

I think the bad news, though, is the unemployment rate still historically low, but it did edge a little bit higher from 4% to 4.1%. Now, when we're digging into some of the different industries and sectors here, a couple things I would just call out one of them is leisure and hospitality, showing a negative number, losing 16,000 jobs. That's something we should keep an eye on because we know that consumer spending consumer confidence has taken a bit of a hit recently.

Also, another thing we need to keep an eye on is government. Government jobs, government hiring did slow down significantly in February, and we know the Trump administration is trying to cut costs, that Elon Musk is slashing federal workers. That's not something that we really expect to be a big factor in today's report, but going forward that could be a big driver of the economy. This is looking at job growth by month.

You can see, again, a slight acceleration, a slight rebound in February, but again, obviously the economy is adding fewer jobs than it had been in 2023 and in parts of 2024 as well. This is a historic milestone, though. We're talking about now 50 consecutive months of uninterrupted job growth. That is the second longest period of employment expansion on record, second only to that recovery after the Great Recession.

One more thing I want to call out here, because when we think about the economy, obviously it's all about the cost of living right now. I think there's some good news here. We saw another month of solid wage gain, so paychecks increased by 4% year over year. That's good because it shows solid demand for workers. It's also good because that is well ahead of the most recent inflation rate, which did edge higher, but it was at 3%, so paychecks are growing faster than prices are, and that's something we want to see continue to happen.

I mean, you can see it in this chart, right? For the longest time in 2021 and 2022, the opposite was happening, right?

SIDNER: Right. EGAN: That's why everyone was so upset, because prices were going up and wages could barely keep up. Now we've seen a reversal where paychecks are beating prices.

So look, markets kind of reacting, I would say kind of mixed to this report, right? Markets were kind of flat beforehand, kind of trying to figure out where to go after this. I think that there's a lot of confusion about the economy right now. We were hoping for some clarity. Not really sure we got a lot of clarity right now from this report.

SIDNER: All right. A mixed report, and you know, it's uncertainty that usually makes the markets do crazy things. The tariffs probably affecting the markets a lot more than this report right now.

EGAN: Yeah, absolutely.

SIDNER: All right. Thank you, Matt.

EGAN: Thank you, Sara.

SIDNER: Appreciate it.

John?

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, I want to bring in CNN Global Economic Analyst and Global Business Columnist Associated with the Financial Times, Rana Foroohar.

Rana, a little bit less, a little bit lower than expectations on jobs creation and the unemployment rate ticked up. Again, a little bit off expectations, but more or less in line. And if we can take a look at stock, futures right now, the market's basically reacting. They're flat. They're flat. It's notable they're flat because it's been a really bad week. You know, this could have been an opportunity to boost gains there.

What is it that investors are looking at with the report today? What were they hoping for?

RANA FOROOHAR, CNN GLOBAL ECONOMIC ANALYST: You know, I think if we'd have seen numbers that were significantly worse than this, you might have seen more of a market reaction. It's just another beat in a very uncertain period. I mean, you and I have spoken about this in the last few days. Markets have been up and down because Trump has been back and forth on tariffs.

I think investors are just trying to figure out what the heck's going on, what the White House plan is? You know, that's the thing. If the White House had been communicating a clear economic strategy and even a coherent tariff strategy, I think that, you know, there'd be more of a sense of certainty. You know, you might even see slight pickup because the fundamentals of a lot of stocks right now are good. I mean, you know, the truth is that the American market, despite what's going on, is still kind of the prettiest house on the ugly block. But at the same time, every time there's a negative beat, you see, say, European stocks gaining over American ones, even though European fundamentals aren't as good. This is all about investors just trying to get their sea legs in the Trump administration.

BERMAN: And again, there are stock futures right there ticking up a little bit flat, more or less flat. The good news, obviously, is 50 straight months of growth, job growth, which is -- which is a wonderful thing. The flip side of that is this week, which the uncertainty levels, the concerns, I think, are high just talking to people and listening to people, listening to investors, listening to regular people out there. They're higher than they've been in ages.

[08:45:09]

FOROOHAR: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And listen, no matter who was in the White House right now, no matter what was going on, I would have expected something of a slowdown. You know, it's important to remember that economic cycles are just that they're cycles. The economy goes up and down. We are honestly about six years overdue for recession. If you discount that quick COVID blip a while back. And so it's not unexpected that people are going to be, you know, tightening up their wallets a little bit, thinking about the future. Certainly a lot of companies I talk to are just, you know, if not buttoning up and pulling back a bit, they're not expanding. They're not looking to do anything radical right now, very much in a wait and see mode.

BERMAN: The big concern, and you've started to see the word floated over the last few weeks in the Wall Street Journal, among other places in the journal has been tough, very tough on President Trump and his trade policy. They wrote a whole article about the possibility of stagflation, people talking about stagflation. Again, whenever that happens, you know there are economic concerns.

Just a quote from that article, "President Trump's decision to dramatically raise tariffs on imports threatens the U.S. with an uncomfortable combination of weaker or even stagnant growth and higher prices, sometimes called stagnation."

The idea being inflation is not going to go down and unemployment's going to go up and, you know, basically everything's going wrong at the same time. How concerned, Rana, do you think people should be that this could become a reality?

FOROOHAR: I think it's a big concern. I mean, right now I'm more concerned about just straight up recession. I don't feel that we have super strong signals yet because we don't know what's going to happen with tariffs.

If I felt certain that Donald Trump was going to go full on, 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico, Europe, China, the whole bit, then I would say, yeah, stagflation is coming. But because we don't know, I'm more concerned about a slowdown.

Now, it is possible, given all that's happening in the world, even if you didn't see tariffs, even if you didn't see a trade war, I mean, you know, you've still got conflict around the world, you've got China in a debt crisis, you've got Europe really with not great economic fundamentals.

So, you know, anything is possible. But I would want to see a few more months of higher inflation before I say stagflation.

BERMAN: All right, well, everyone watching very, very closely. And the decisions here matter. Rana Foroohar, great to see you. Thank you very much.

Kate?

BOLDUAN: Coming up, officials are investigating another suspected measles death, this time in New Mexico. We'll bring the update to you.

And train travel came to a screeching halt between London and France as officials race to secure what they have described as a, quote unquote, "really huge," unexploded World War II bomb found along the tracks.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:51:41]

SIDNER: Health officials in New Mexico are investigating the cause of a death of an unvaccinated person who tested positive for measles. Right now, though, it's unclear if the virus is to blame for that death.

Meanwhile, RFK Jr. is using his authority as Health Secretary to endorse some unconventional treatments for measles. He also praised two West Texas doctors who were using these unconventional methods. One of those doctors has faced disciplinary action for his treatments in the past.

CNN's Meg Tirrell is joining us now with the very latest. What exactly is RFK Jr. suggesting doctors use to treat measles, which we should note they wouldn't have to do if people got the vaccination?

MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Sara, he talked about this in an interview with Fox News earlier this week, saying that he had talked to doctors treating folks on the front lines in Texas. Take a listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES: Richard Bartlett is an emergency room physician from Midland and Amarillo, and they have treated most of the patients, actually, of over 108 patients in the last 48 hours, and they're getting very, very good results. They report from budesonide, which is a steroid. It's a 30-year-old steroid, and clarithromycin, and also cod liver oil, which has high concentrations of vitamin A and vitamin D, and they're seeing what they describe as almost miraculous and instantaneous recovery from that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TIRRELL: Now, Kennedy himself notes that these are untested treatments, but that doctor he mentioned, Dr. Richard Bartlett, our team found that he had faced disciplinary action from the Texas Medical Board in 2003 for, quote, "unusual use of risk-filled medications," including prescribing antibiotics and steroids in five patients, including two children.

Now, this wasn't for measles. It was for other things, but the board found that Bartlett had misdiagnosed their symptoms and mismanaged their care.

Now, CNN reached out to Dr. Bartlett. We didn't hear back, but they did note that in this document back in 2003 that he maintained that he treated the patients appropriately with no adverse outcomes.

Now, guys, he also had touted a silver bullet, what he called a regimen of similar things, the steroid, an antibiotic, and something else during COVID.

Now, even folks who have worked in the Trump administration in the past in health roles are urging folks really (technical difficulty) Dr. Brett Giroir, who served in a health capacity in the first Trump administration, tweeted earlier, thanking the secretary for emphasizing the critical importance of measles vaccination, but also saying, please do not rely on vitamin A to save your child in the United States. He says it helps in Africa where there's a deficiency, not here.

Sara?

SIDNER: Those are some pretty strong words just to level the playing field here about getting the vaccination.

All right. Tell me what is going on in New Mexico where you have this death, but the person did test positive for measles, but they haven't necessarily linked his death to measles. What's happening there?

[08:55:03]

TIRRELL: Yeah, this is a bit of a confusing situation. So this is a county, Lee County, which is just over the border from those West Texas counties where the outbreak really is centered. And they have had nine cases already of measles.

Now we learned last night that a resident had died and subsequently tested positive for measles. We know that they were unvaccinated, and they hadn't sought medical care. So they are still investigating the cause of the death here, not yet calling it a measles death.

But Sara, this would be very alarming to see two deaths from measles at this point in the outbreak where we expect there are probably a lot more cases than have been picked up. And we do expect an update from Texas today on their cases.

SIDNER: Yeah, because it was basically eradicated, but now to hear that there's a possibility of a second death, the first being a child in West Texas is really upsetting.

Meg Tirrell, thank you for all your reporting on this. It's so important to us and to the people who are watching this show. Appreciate it.

Kate?

BOLDUAN: So today the White House is planning to host a first of its kind crypto summit. CEOs, investors, bold name members of kind of the cryptocurrency industry will all be there. And it also was just yesterday that President Trump signed an executive order to create a strategic Bitcoin reserve.

Now, the White House Czar for AI and crypto wrote on X that the government currently has about 200,000 Bitcoin, calling any Bitcoin deposited into the reserve a digital Fort Knox.

Joining me right now is crypto reporter for Axios, Brady Dale. Brady, I need your help on a lot of this. For the uninitiated, what --

BRADY DALE, CRYPTO REPORTER, AXIOS: Sure.

BOLDUAN: -- first and foremost on the summit, what are you expecting to happen at this summit? I mean, what are you hearing about this?

DALE: I think it's going to be kind of a cheerleading moment. You know, it's the first time that the White House has been enthusiastic about this nascent and somewhat controversial industry. So I think there'll be a lot of that. I mean, it's the Trump administration. So I expect some kind of big reveal today. You know, they always like to have TV.

The digital asset announcement, that was yesterday's news, it's old news. So I'm betting there will be something in some other corner of policy that'll happen today at the summit, but who knows what, I don't know what.

BOLDUAN: Who knows what, I don't know what seems to be ruling the day when it comes to what changes come next. But you said that the reserve news is old news. I need help, I need to understand this. So he signs this executive order Thursday, establishing a strategic Bitcoin reserve and a separate stockpile of other cryptocurrencies. I hear that, I think of the strategic petroleum reserve. What exactly is this?

DALE: Well, so that's the big question, right? Like if it's a strategic reserve, that implies it's a reserve for something. And we don't know what that something is, you know?

(CROSSTALK)

BOLDUAN: Right, I mean, so the strategic petroleum reserve is an emergency stockpile of crude oil that is dipped into, you know, the definition of emergency is kind of up to the president. Yeah, exactly, like up to the president or in time of natural disaster or whatever. Help me with this, when does it become a crypto emergency? DALE: I don't know, I mean, that's the thing, there's no answer. I mean, I think probably what the administration will say is this is a way of bolstering an industry that's become very strong in the United States. And you know, that's a decent argument.

We've also heard other politicians argue that by holding onto Bitcoin, we could, it'll go way up in value and we could sell it later and pay off a lot of debt. Also a fine argument, but like we've got a giant pile of goals that we're not doing anything with and that we don't actually need. And we haven't done that either.

So yeah, that's the big question for me is if there's -- if this is strategic, what is the strategy? What's the point? We still -- we still don't know that.

BOLDUAN: Help us, definition of terms is kind of where we stand on that one. But also just to note, we all do remember or should recall that Donald Trump has a financial stake in a crypto business. He has been very, and people within the crypto industry played a pretty prominent role in helping to fund his campaign and his inaugural fund. What is it with Donald Trump and crypto? And do you see a conflict of interest here?

DALE: Well, I think there's definitely real dangers of conflict of interest. I mean, especially he has this meme coin that people can buy at any time and do it in ways that make it hard to trace. So that is a concern and will continue to be a concern.

The story, I mean, what I do believe the core story for the Trump administration is, however, is that they see that the cryptocurrency industry is one in which people are making a lot of money. There's things getting built,, you know, like Bitcoin mines, there's jobs getting created. I think they just like that and they want to move that forward.

And then it also happens that they've got this big new bunch of political allies, which also helps. But I do think at the end of the day, it is just like Trump likes bringing jobs to America and sees this as a fresh new opportunity to do that.

[09:00:04]

BOLDUAN: All right. Standby to stand by. It's good to see you, Brady. Thanks for the help.

A new hour of CNN News Central starts now.