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DOGE Deadline for Fed Agencies to Submit Plans for Mass Layoffs; CNN Poll Shows Growing Concerns About Economy Since Trump Returned to White House; How Notorious Contractor Regained His Standing in Trump Admin. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired March 13, 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]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Reduction in force. That is what the Trump administration is calling it. The large scale layoffs to come are being set in motion today, the final day for agencies to submit their plans of who stays and who goes.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking overnight, a new CNN poll shows more Americans think Trump's policies have made the economy worse. This is two big names in the financial world sound the alarm on the U.S. economy.

And a snowboarder risking it all to outrun an avalanche on Mount Washington. The stunning escape, all of it caught on camera.

I'm Sara Sidner with Kate Bolduan. John Berman is enjoying his life. This is CNN News Central.

BOLDUAN: It is deadline day in Washington right now. President Trump ordering agencies across the federal government to submit plans to Elon Musk and his DOGE team for a new round of mass layoffs and do so no later than today. Already we have seen more than 100,000 workers fired or laid off from federal agencies. Most recently, as we reported, it was the Department of Education announcing it's cutting about half of its workforce this week alone.

Today kicks this presidential priority into a whole new gear, I guess you could say, just as Donald Trump has also done with his ongoing trade war that started with, really, Canada and Mexico and has now gone global, causing chaos in the markets and sparking fears of a recession.

Today, what would typically be a non-headline grabbing get-together between two allies is now a high stakes face-to-face. Donald Trump's commerce secretary set to meet with the premier of Ontario and the Canadian finance minister as the countries continue to spar over the President's tariffs.

CNN's Alayna Treene starts us off this morning at the White House. Alayna, let's first start with these layoffs and the deadline today. What is going to happen? ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Well, as you mentioned, Kate, this is the deadline day for federal agencies across the government to submit what they're calling reorganization plans, essentially plans laying out how they're going to massively reduce the size of their agencies, reduce their agencies' headcount. And this is all part of really what we've seen so far from the Trump administration, but specifically from the Department of Government Efficiency really moving in unprecedented ways to radically reshape the size of the federal government.

Now, agencies heads were told last month, really ordered last month to provide these plans by today's deadline. It's still unclear exactly when we should expect many of these layoffs to happen. But, of course, they come after -- we've seen already very sizable cuts across the federal government. You mentioned already a more than 100,000 federal workers have either been laid off. We also know many of them have accepted DOGE's fork in the road initiative, also referred as though deferred resignation program, and other probationary employees have been laid off as well. So, this is kind of just the next turn of the wheel in those efforts.

When I talked to Trump administration officials about it, they essentially said that those efforts that they put in place so far to try and reduce the size of the federal government didn't work as well as they thought. They have not eliminated enough positions and jobs. And this is why you're seeing kind of this next move to move forward with these mass layoffs, essentially.

Now, I just want to give you a little sense of where we've seen so far the majority of cuts and other layoffs to be. We know at the top of the list is the housing of -- excuse the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Next is the Education Department, which we just saw them move to cut around 50 percent of staff this week, the USAID, Veterans Affairs Department and social Security.

So, stay tuned for more on this, but also just keep in mind as well that when we talk to federal employees, a lot of them are kind of blind to some of the cuts that are coming, a lot of them fearful of really what to expect. But today we should see more details of what those plans look like.

BOLDUAN: All right, we shall see. Alayna Treene, great to see you, thank you so much? Sara?

SIDNER: All right. Breaking overnight, brand new CNN poll showing Americans have grown increasingly worried about the economy since President Trump returned to the White House in January, and optimism about what's ahead is dropping.

CNN's Matt Egan joins us now. Matt, a lot of voters chose to vote for Donald Trump because of the economy.

[07:05:01]

It was the number one issue. They expected things to get better, not to get worse. How are people feeling right now about what's happening in the economy?

MATT EGAN, CNN REPORTER: Well, Sara, they're feeling increasingly concerned about where this economy is going. There is basically a dead heat, an even split here about how people think economic conditions will be a year from now. Only 49 percent think that conditions will be good, 51 percent poor.

What's most interesting, though, is the change here since this question was last asked in January, just before President Trump took office, you can see that there's been a decline of seven points between who thinks that the economy will be better a year from now and then a seven-point increase for poor. So, those are not -- that's not the trend you want to see, right if you're in the White House, or frankly, for many people on Wall Street.

We look at the political party breakdown, you can see Republicans, 88 percent, right? I mean, they're actually more confident than they were back in January that conditions will be good a year from now. But the big decline here, independents, a 13-point decline, and Democrats, also another decline there as well. And, look, at some point how people feel can actually have an impact on the economy itself.

What we're seeing is we've asked as a result of recent economic conditions, have you bought fewer or different groceries? 71 percent say they have. That is no change at all from two and a half years ago back when inflation, of course, was much higher.

SIDNER: Which is really high.

EGAN: Right. Also, two in three Americans say that they have cut back on non essential spending. That also is very little change from again when inflation was much higher two and a half years ago. So, you put all this together and it does suggest that some of that economic optimism is fading and that people are still feeling a lot of pressure from prices.

SIDNER: Yes. I mean, this is what fuels the American economy. It's how people also feel about what it is they can afford so that can have a detrimental effect over time.

Talk to me about DOGE cuts and what that is doing when the public looks at what's happening there, happy or frustrated?

EGAN: Yes. There's a lot of skepticism among the public about these federal spending cuts. There are only this 55 percent that say the federal spending cuts will hurt the U. S economy. Only 34 percent say help. 52 percent say it's going to hurt the area that they live. 51 percent say it's going to hurt their family. So, again, a lot of skepticism about these federal cuts.

I also think it's worth looking at how people feel about really the issue that may have gotten the president elected, inflation, right? He promised to fix it on day one. These numbers show that there's a lot of concern here. Only 44 percent say that they approve of how the president is handling inflation. 56 percent disapprove. And, really, the president is underwater on all of these key economic issues. Only 44 percent approve of the economy, 44 percent, inflation, helping the middle class, 43 percent, and lastly, 39 percent on tariffs. Out of all 11 topics, policies that were asked about, this is the one that the president polls for the lowest on. And it's also arguably the one that he's been the most aggressive one.

SIDNER: He's dug in on tariffs, and he has been promising once he was in office, a little pain and disruption. The question is, how long will Americans accept that? And so far, they don't like it.

EGAN: That's right.

SIDNER: Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Coming up for us, the return of Erik Prince, how a notorious military contractor made his way back inside Trump's orbit. This is new CNN reporting we're going to be bringing to you.

And departure delayed again. Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, their extended stay in space, could be looking at another extension after NASA had to scrub the launch of their ride home.

And here's a quote for you, I caught a baby wombat. An American social media influencer facing real backlash after posting about capturing a wild baby wombat in Australia, and now she may be in trouble with the Australian government.

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BOLDUAN: New CNN reporting today, a notorious military contractor making moves to get back inside President Trump's orbit. We're talking about Erik Prince. He gained international attention, you'll remember, during the Iraq war. Contractors working for his private security firm, Blackwater, killed 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad in 2007 during the war.

Prince eventually became an ally of President Trump but then turned into a pariah in Washington by the end of Trump's first term. Well now, he's back.

CNN's Zachary Cohen has this new report and he's joining us now. Zach, tell us what you're learning.

ZACHARY COHEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yes, Kate. Erik Prince has long seen himself as someone who can help Donald Trump carry out some of his more ambitious and controversial policy ideas, including on the national security front. He's positioned himself as somebody who has foreign contacts and national security contacts here in the United States that can really do things that U.S. government maybe can't do. And that really that focus has been on helping Trump overhaul the U.S. immigration system. That's what his latest area of focus has been. And our sources tell us that this really does help him -- is highlighted by a meeting that happened in January, where Prince and several other executives of private security firms got together to try to figure out ways that they could help Trump deport millions of migrants from the United States.

[07:15:10]

And one idea in particular that was mentioned during this meeting really appealed to Erik Prince, and that was essentially using other countries as a staging area, as a place to take on these migrants while they waited to be sent back to their country of origin. What people in the meeting didn't know is that Erik Prince had quietly established a direct relationship with the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele.

Now, Bukele is an interesting figure. He's somebody who spoke at CPAC this year, and that's really where the working relationship between him and Erik Prince really started. And Prince called Bukele, pitched this idea of housing deported migrants from the U.S. in El Salvador. Just a month later, we saw Bukele standing next to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, announcing that his country was not only willing to do that, but also take on deported Americans should the Trump administration decide they wanted El Salvador to be part of that plan. So, it speaks to the influence, both the global and domestic influence that Eric Prince has sort of reestablished here in the second Trump term.

And I want to take a listen to what Eric Prince said after that announcement from Bukele in February. He was reacting to Marco Rubio and Bukele's comments that day. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ERIK PRINCE, FORMER CEO, BLACKWATER: The idea that they could expand it to take on some of the worst of Americans or other criminal illegal aliens that, that their original country of origin won't take back as a placeholder, as a temporary holding area made a lot of sense.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COHEN: So, Prince clearly trying to reestablish himself as sort of a shadow advisor to Donald Trump. It remains to be seen how much influence he actually will have in the second Trump term, but by all accounts, it looks like Erik Prince is at least back to a certain degree.

BOLDUAN: Very interesting. Great reporting, Zach. Thank you so much for bringing it to us this morning.

Coming up still for us, two players ejected after a fight erupts on the court at the Houston Rockets and Phoenix Suns game. We have that for you. Oopsies.

And a wild race to safety caught on video, a snowboarder out running an avalanche. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:20:00]

SIDNER: Two of the best in basketball going head to head last night, the best team in the west, Oklahoma City Thunder, took down the defending NBA champions, Boston Celtics, in what many, including John Berman, think could be a preview of this year's NBA Finals.

CNN's Andy Scholes is with us now. Are these two going to end up matching up again in June? Is that what we're expecting? John says that the Celtics are going to win because that's what he wants to believe.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Yes, he always does, right? Well, Sara, you know, it seems like the Cavs and Nuggets certainly are going to have something to say about that. But, I mean, Thunders and the Celtics, they are the favorites to go to the finals right now and tough to bet against OKC with the way they are playing. And after last night, they've now swept the season series with the Celtics.

But Boston, they were just raining threes early in this game. They became the first team this season to make nine threes before making a two point field goal. The Celtics took an NBA record 36 threes in the first half. They finished with a franchise record 63 three-point attempts in the game. The problem is they only made 31 percent of them.

In the fourth quarter, Shai Gilegous-Alexander just taking over the MVP frontrunner finishing with 34 points. Thunder would win 118-112, become first team in the west to clinch a playoff spot this season.

The Knicks, meanwhile, they were down two in overtime to the Blazers with three seconds left. They hand down the ball to Mikhal Bridges and he's going to make the three at the buzzer to win it for New York. His teammates all go to mob him. Bridges at a game high 33 as the Knicks won that 114-113 over the Blazers.

Meanwhile, in Houston, well, Steven Adams, he just wanted a big old hug from the sons Mason Plumlee, but, he was having none of it. This turned out to be a minor kerfuffle, both big men going to the ground before they were eventually separated. Both were ejected from the game. Rockets would go on to beat the Suns 111-104. It's their 41st win of the season, matching last season's win total. Still got 16 games left to go.

Finally, Players Championship set to tee off this morning from TPC Sawgrass in Florida, already got an awesome moment during yesterday's practice round in the iconic 17th hole, Island Green. Alejandro Tosti, his first ever hole-in-one. Look how excited he was. The 28-year-old so excited, he went for a swim there, Sara. You know, pretty cool to have your first ever hole-in-one in your career on that one and celebrated getting a little wet there.

He also joke he was hoping that he would do that on Thursday. It was actually counted for the tournament, not Wednesday, but I'm sure he'll take it either way.

SIDNER: I was wondering if you, oh, there goes his caddy or whoever was playing beside him. That was really fun. Thank you for showing us that. That was great. I appreciate it, Andy Scholes.

All right, ahead, the economy is weakening as we speak. A warning from the CEO of the world's largest asset managers about how President Trump's policies are paralyzing Americans and businesses.

Astronaut Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore still in space this morning. It's after last night's rocket launch was scrubbed. What is next in the effort to bring them home after many, many months?

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SIDNER: New for you this morning, the head of the world's largest asset manager says the barrage of actions taken by the Trump administration in the first few months are paralyzing Americans and businesses, and that is already hurting the economy.

CNN's Kayla Tausche spoke exclusively to BlackRock CEO Larry Fink and joins me now. Give us some sense of what he's saying, I mean, making big headlines here, talking about the confusion and the problems with not just businesses, but Americans as a whole.

KAYLA TAUSCHE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Sara, Larry Fink says that the next three to six months in the American economy are going to be extremely bumpy.

[07:30:03]

He predicts that inflation will rise as the Trump administration moves to deport many.