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Consumer Sentiment Hits Lowest Level Since November 2022; Democratic Leaders Try To Move Forward After GOP Spending Bill Backlash; U.S. Believes Russia, China Testing New Military Capabilities In Space; Houthi Rebels Launch Missiles, Drones At USS Harry Truman In Red Sea; Trump Says He will Speak With Putin Tomorrow About Ukraine; Vatican Releases First Photo of Pope Francis Since Hospitalization. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired March 17, 2025 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:30:01]

SCOTT BESSENT, TREASURY SECRETARY: We wouldn't have had the problems in '08. So I'm not worried about the markets. Over the long term, if we put good tax policy in place, deregulation and energy security, the markets will do great.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: CNN's Matt Egan is joining us now. He's not worried.

But clearly, a lot of other people are.

MATT EGAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, absolutely, Sara.

Look, I mean, market corrections, they do happen every so often. But what's notable about this one is the cause, right? It wasn't set off by a war or a bank failure. It's really largely been caused by chaos and confusion out of Washington, right, mostly over the trade war. The trade war hasn't just confused foreign leaders. It's confused investors. And they don't like that.

Look at this. This is economic policy uncertainty in the United States. And this chart shows that economic policy uncertainty is higher than at any point since COVID.

Keep in mind that was a health crisis, a once in a century health crisis. And the higher that uncertainty has gone, the lower the market has gone, right? That makes sense. Investors -- they are selling first. They're asking questions later.

This market selloff has erased more than $5 trillion in value off the S&P 500 in less than a month. This is kind of a deer in headlights moment for investors, for CEOs, for small business owners. Everyone wants to know how high are tariffs going to go, how long are they going to stay in place on what items, on what countries, and what is the retaliation look like? And honestly, we just don't know the answer to any of those questions.

And when you have something like that, everyone just kind of sits on their hands, right? And so, that's why you see pressure on the market. And that's also why we've seen pressure on the economy as well. The main event this week, the Federal Reserve is meeting -- two day meeting starting tomorrow.

I don't really think we're going to get much certainty out of the Fed either, because they don't know what's going to happen with this trade war, so they don't know where their interest rates are going to go higher or lower.

SIDNER: And they'll watch that and then make the determination. But this is going to take a bit.

How are consumers feeling about all this? Because were seeing what investors are doing.

EGAN: Yeah. Well, we keep getting signs that consumer confidence is crumbling. There was a report out on Friday on consumer sentiment. The chief economist over at Apollo says there's been just this alarming deterioration in sentiment. It's been across incomes.

There's been this recession level worry about job loss, a record share of consumers say that business conditions are worsening, income expectations are dropping. One of the only things that's going up right now are inflation fears. And this is the concern that we've really heard from investors and economists across the spectrum.

I spoke to Stephen Moore. He's a pro-Trump economist, and on Friday he told me, I'm really concerned about consumer confidence. That's a bad sign. It means people are going to stop spending.

Now, we have seen in the past that sometimes people say they hate the economy, but they keep shopping anyway. We're going to get a better sense on how reality matches up with some of these surveys next hour, because there's new numbers on retail sales expected to show that retail sales rebounded a bit last month. We'll see if it's enough to reassure investors.

SIDNER: They are the most important part of our GDP.

EGAN: Absolutely.

They make the world go round here in America.

All right. Thank you so much for that update. Appreciate it.

John?

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Developing this morning, "Punchbowl News" reporting that the two highest ranking Democrats in the country, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, met in Brooklyn yesterday. This after extreme tension bordering on rage among House Democrats that Leader Schumer allowed a Republican funding bill to pass, avoiding a shutdown. Leader Jeffries had even refused to answer whether he had confidence in Schumer's leadership.

With us now is Congressman Gregory Meeks, a Democrat from New York. This happened in your back door right next to your neighborhood, in a manner of speaking.

What message do you hope that Leader Jeffries delivered to Senator Schumer?

REP. GREGORY MEEKS (D-NY): Let me just say this. We still are on the same team. I believe Leader Jeffries and the House Democrats voted the right way. I think overwhelmingly, Democrats felt that way. But we've got to keep our eye on the prize, because the person that is causing all of this is Donald J. Trump. And this is a long run. You don't win a fight in the first round.

We're in a fight and we are winning in the courts. It's a different strategy when you're in the minority as opposed to being in the majority. And so, therefore there's a different strategy, and the strategy.

We are winning in the courts because when we come out with all of the votes -- look, all of the House Democrats showed up. We had one member who just had a baby, and she came to the floor. Another one that was on with an I.V. came to the floor to vote.

So Democrats are focused on this fight to win in the long run. And how do we win in the long run? When you're in the minority? People say we don't have a plan. We do have a plan.

We win the fight, number one, by going to the courts.

[07:35:03]

When you don't have the votes, you've got to go to the courts to make sure that we're maintaining our Constitution. When you're in the majority, you have a different fight because this is the same guy when he was the president before, we were in the majority. So when he tries to do his illegal acts, same things that he's doing now, we were able to impeach him twice, holding him accountable. We were able to come up with a January 6th Committee, hold him accountable. We were able to make sure we passed bills to help the American people.

Now we can see that he's not delivering. Donald Trump is not delivering. And so therefore, this fight, as it continues and moves on, we will win in the court and we will win with the American public.

BERMAN: Understood your point that you're trying to say you're on the same team. That said, clearly House Democrats and Congressman Jeffries were very upset with Senator Schumer.

So my question again, what message do you want to see? What message do you have for Senator Schumer?

MEEKS: Well, the message should be -- I mean, if you want to talk about a message, the message is that what we did in the House, needed to be -- have a dialogue and conversation. The senator -- I disagree with his ultimate vote. I wish he had had a discussion earlier so that at least the general public, they would see us moving together.

They see something that looked like they were tearing ourselves apart. But internally, we will continue to have these conversations together because we realize that its only going to be with the unity that we win in the courts, and we win in 2006, 2026.

BERMAN: Do you still have confidence in Senator Schumer's leadership?

MEEKS: Yeah, I do. I think that --

BERMAN: Do you think that there should be a challenge to him in 20 -- he's not up until 2028. Do you think there should be a challenge to his Senate seat?

MEEKS: No, there should be a challenge to Donald Trump and a challenge to the Republicans that are hiding behind Donald Trump and allowing him to be the king that he wants to be. That's where the problem is.

It's not with Chuck Schumer. It's not with Hakeem Jeffries. The problem is some of my Republican colleagues who should be standing for the country first, decided to just let Donald Trump move like he's a king.

BERMAN: You are the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. I do want to ask you about the negotiations that are taking place and will take place between the United States and Russia over Ukraine.

President Trump says he's going to speak with Vladimir Putin tomorrow on Air Force One overnight. He said, quote, I think we'll be talking about land. It's a lot of land. It's a lot different than it was before the war, as you know. What do you think he means we'll be talking about land? Whose land?

MEEKS: Look, it seems to me that what Donald Trump is trying to do is to force Ukraine to surrender. Not peace. Not, you know, negotiate anything. He wants Ukraine to basically surrender, give up everything and give -- give Putin, Vladimir Putin, anything and everything that he wants, which will change. I mean, it's just the most amazing thing to me that you have a president of the United States who's treating an ally and our allies as if they are our adversaries and our adversaries, as if they are our allies.

I mean, there's no pressure that Donald Trump is putting on Vladimir Putin. He's not asking them to give up anything. Everything is on the Ukrainian side. So it's just amazing how, again, some of my Republican colleagues are not standing up. I had people working, walking arm in arm with me when we went to Ukraine, and we stood up with Vladimir Putin -- against Vladimir -- against Vladimir Putin.

We stood up with Zelenskyy. And I don't know where their voices went. We can't even do hearings on the House Foreign Affairs Committee in regards to what's taking place now. It's silent.

So something has gone awry. And I think that the American people see it when clearly what I think you see happening here, Donald Trump wants to be Vladimir Putin.

BERMAN: Changing subjects. One more question of parochial interest. Who's your pick for the NCAA tournament?

MEEKS: There's no question who's going to win. St. John's, the -- St. John's, the best defense in the country, baby. We will be able to shut anybody down. You know, when you get into the tournament. Defense is what counts.

And that defense, any of -- you can shut down the offensive guy and that takes them all off their game. And St. John's is going to win. Lou Carnesecca is looking down, baby.

BERMAN: Sorry you do not feel passionate about this.

Congressman Gregory Meeks, thank you for your time this morning.

Sara?

SIDNER: I have never booed anyone from Congress in person, but boo, boo, boo, boo to that.

All right. The military space race is heating up. U.S. defense officials say Russia and China are aggressively moving to weaponize outer space. Those officials saying the nations are constantly testing their military abilities above Earth.

CNN's Zach Cohen is joining us now from Washington, D.C., with some good reporting on this.

[07:40:01]

What are you hearing from officials about this new race in space?

ZACHARY COHEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yes, Sarah, U.S. officials say both Russia and China believe space is going to play an important part in any future military conflict. And they're developing new systems and testing these new capabilities with an eye towards surpassing or challenging the U.S., which currently has an advantage both technologically and strategically in outer space.

But look, U.S. officials are pointing to recent tests, a series of recent tests by both Russia and China that do show that they are actively practicing ways that they could disable or target U.S. space assets. Just earlier this month, defense official told me that Russia was testing ways to disable a U.S. satellite maneuvers that clearly show they're working on their offensive capabilities. And China has also been very active over the last year, demonstrating similar and even carrying out similar training exercises to disable -- potentially disable U.S. satellites.

So this is a big concern for U.S. defense officials and U.S. space force, which Donald Trump himself established during his first term. But those officials at space force now saying more needs to be done to make sure the U.S. is ready if and when a future conflict happens. SIDNER: It is a real potential threat. How did the new capabilities

that they're seeing with Russia and China, for example, compare to what we've seen in the past?

COHEN: Yeah. The message -- the message to me was the U.S. can't just play defense anymore. That really is what these maneuvers in space are showing to U.S. space force officials. And look, Russia's goal, according to one defense official, is still to put a nuclear weapon in outer space. That's something that first came to light just last year when Russia was testing and trying to put together the technology to put a nuclear weapon in space. That remains something they're trying to do.

And China, similarly, is making rapid advancements in their space technology. And that really is the primary concern for U.S. space force officials who see China as their primary competitor when it comes to outer space.

SIDNER: All right. Zach Cohen, thank you so much. Great reporting this morning.

Power plants, land and dividing up certain assets, quote/unquote. President Trump says it is all on the table when he talks to Russian Leader Vladimir Putin tomorrow about the war in Ukraine.

And 95 days stranded at sea. A fisherman survives. What he says kept him alive.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: All right. This morning, Houthi rebels in Yemen claim to have launched 18 missiles and drones at the aircraft carrier USS Truman in the Red Sea. This is in response to the strikes ordered by President Trump over the weekend.

Let's get right to CNN's Salma Abdelaziz for the latest. What are you hearing, Salma?

SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So here's what you really need to know about this. For President Donald Trump, this is about securing a major shipping lane in the Red Sea since 2023. The Houthi

rebels, which control the north part of Yemen and are, of course, backed by Iran have attacked more than 100 ships using drones, missiles, smaller ships.

That's why Secretary of State Marco Rubio describes them as pirates. But for the part of the Houthi rebels, they see their attacks as retaliation for Israel's war in Gaza. I want you to hear the response from the U.S. national security advisor, Mike Waltz, to that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE WALTZ, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR: All options are always on the table with the president, but Iran needs to hear him loud and clear. It is completely unacceptable, and it will be stopped. The level of support that they've been providing the Houthis. President Trump is coming in with overwhelming force. We will take -- we will hold not only the Houthis accountable, but we're going to hold Iran, their backers, accountable as well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ABDELAZIZ: So President Donald Trump has been said to be reviewing attacks against the Houthis for weeks now, but it required having that intelligence backing to launch those strikes that we saw over the weekend. But this is only the beginning. This is signaling a major operation that could last weeks, if not longer. And we already have seen retaliation to that from the Houthis, who claim they attacked a U.S. aircraft carrier, the USS Abraham, in the Red Sea, with 18 missiles and drones.

There doesn't seem to be any damage or injuries at this time, but it illustrates that, of course, their capabilities remain intact, something that President Donald Trump has vowed to destroy their military capabilities -- their capabilities to attack in the Red Sea. He has promised overwhelming lethal force to achieve that objective.

BERMAN: It certainly bears watching.

Salma Abdelaziz, thank you so much for your reporting on this -- Sara.

SIDNER: All right. New this morning, the Kremlin confirming that President Vladimir Putin will speak with President Trump tomorrow. Here's what Trump said overnight as he pushes for an end to Russia's war in Ukraine.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'll be speaking to President Putin on Tuesday and a lot of -- a lot of work has been done over the weekend. We want to see if we can bring that war to an end. Maybe we can, maybe we can't. But I think we have a very good chance. And I think we have a lot of it already discussed very much by both sides.

[07:50:04]

REPORTER: You'll ask --

TRUMP: Ukraine and Russia.

REPORTER: You'll ask --

TRUMP: We're already talking about that dividing up certain assets.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: Joining us now is someone who has spent a lot of time in Ukraine, Michael Bociurkiw. He's a former spokesman for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. And he wrote a "New York Times" op-ed last week on what Zelenskyy does next.

You heard Donald Trump say that negotiations have already begun. And they discussed, and I'm quoting here, dividing up certain assets.

What do you -- what does that mean to you when you hear that term dividing up certain assets?

MICHAEL BOCIURKIW, SENIOR FELLOW, ATLANTIC COUNCIL: Yeah. Good to be with you, Sara. Well, I can tell you that that went over like a lead balloon this morning in Ukraine. I was checking the headlines and people were going. What was just that?

Because these assets that have been, by the way, more enumerated and detailed by Steve Witkoff, the Middle East envoy includes the Russian occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the biggest in Europe. It includes ports. It includes what they call the Black Sea agreement.

This, as far as we all know, was never on the table before, especially the -- the nuclear power plant, which has become a very big source of alarm for U.N. authorities who have been monitoring it, you know? And then in the meantime, the Russians, as you know, have slow walked under Mr. Putin, the proposed 30-day ceasefire agreement. The onus, as I wrote in that op-ed, thank you for mentioning the onus is on them to accept or reject it. And depending on their reply, we will find out who is the real barrier to peace in this.

But just quickly, it's -- you wake up every morning and you shake your head because it seems the U.S. is providing so many concessions to Russia, including striking off VOA and Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, a whole bunch of other things without much from them in return.

SIDNER: You talked about this is going over like a lead balloon. Donald Trump had said initially that he could end the war in a day. He has now done an interview saying that he was sort of being sarcastic, even though he said it over and over and over again.

How long do you think that these negotiations will go on, knowing that Russia has already, you know, broken some of the promises that it made long ago in Ukraine, has no trust in what Russia is saying. So how does this go forward and how does Donald Trump push it forward?

BOCIURKIW: Yeah, well, clearly it isn't going Ukraine's way. And Mr. Zelenskyy has said as much over the weekend that Russia is trying to manipulate the process standard, you know, playbook of Russia to -- to spread things out as long as possible.

Mr. Putin, as well as most autocrats, don't like to be rushed or pushed into a deal. But this is very, very bad for Ukraine. Because, you know, I mostly based there and every day you see these little cracks appearing in the economy or in people's lives, how long can they hold on? And of course, in the meantime, Russia is continuing with its daily bombardment by drones and missiles over Ukrainian cities. And that to a lot of us, and for sure to Ukrainians, don't appear like the actions of a party interested in peace.

SIDNER: How do you think this call is going to go between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin ultimately? BOCIURKIW: Well, you know, one thing is becoming clear now. Mr. Trump

admires Mr. Putin. I don't think there's any flaw to his subservience to him. Again, I think all of the concessions are going Russia's way and very, very little in return.

I mean, to think that the United States is, according to "The New York Times" reporting, just withdrawn from a multinational group to investigate the invasion of Ukraine. And that includes Mr. Putin. They've just defunded a Yale University lab that investigates the kidnapping by Russia of Ukrainian children.

So I think it will be probably a call that Mr. Putin will be very happy with but it's hard to believe that the United States is giving so much. And if I could add quickly to your previous report on the Houthi rebels, the other gift this weekend from the United States, and this is according to the State Department, is the State Department tipped off Russia that the strikes are going to happen on the Houthi rebels? Russia provides targeting information to these thugs to strike ships in the Black Sea. So -- sorry, in the Red Sea.

So this is just an unbelievable time and very difficult to predict what will happen with such an unpredictable president who again, seems to admire Mr. Putin very, very much.

SIDNER: Michael, I'm curious how you see Europe stepping in if this all kind of crumbles, if these negotiations crumble and the United States did what it did before, which is taking things away from Ukraine, taking support away, taking intelligence away, taking satellite availability away from Ukraine.

[07:55:11]

What do you see happening ultimately, will the E.U. step in and can they step in, in place of the United States?

BOCIURKIW: Well, let me make that part clear. In capital letters, words are not enough. It's actions that count. Now we all know that the coalition of the willing, so-called coalition of the willing, including my home country, Canada, has neglected military spending. So they are in no position whatsoever right now to replace what the U.S. may back away from.

However -- big however, is, there are things they can do immediately, and I referred earlier to the defunding of Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty. This was a bulwark against, you know, Russian disinformation and disinformation from many other autocrats. The Europeans could very, very quickly go in and at least support Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty.

These are the guys who keep the autocrats honest, including in Ukraine. They've done incredible reporting during the war to point out corruption and things like that. The other thing, of course, is things like intelligence. And then that 35 billion in frozen -- sorry, frozen Russian assets, they could move to give that to Ukraine, which has a big budget deficit. SIDNER: All right. I know that you are heavily invested in this. Has

spent a lot of time working and being concerned about what you are seeing. And we do appreciate you taking the time.

Michael Bociurkiw, really appreciate your time this morning and giving us some insight into how you think things are going to go when it comes to trying to end this war. Appreciate you.

BOCIURKIW: Thank you.

SIDNER: John?

SIDNER: All right. This morning the first photo released of Pope Francis since he was admitted to the hospital more than a month ago. The Vatican released it, and it shows the 88-year-old praying at a chapel inside the hospital where he has been battling pneumonia. You can see it right there.

CNN's Ben Wedeman is live in Rome outside the Gemelli Hospital with the latest.

What are you hearing this morning, Ben?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we actually haven't heard anything for the last few days. The Vatican has stopped giving out sort of the morning report, a one liner on how he slept. So we're not expecting any sort of medical update until tomorrow evening, Rome time.

But we saw this photograph. The first photograph of the pope made public in 31 days, 31 days since he was admitted to Gemelli Hospital here in Rome. He's now suffering, of course, from double pneumonia.

What we have heard is that he is stabilizing. That we've heard -- gotten reports from Vatican sources of daily slight improvement in his situation, which they now call stable.

Now, this photograph that the Vatican put out, what's interesting is that you do not see the nasal cannula that the pope has been using to receive supplemental oxygen during the day. You don't see his face. So we don't really have a great idea of his condition, at least visually.

But we do see in that photograph, which is from taken from his right hand side with a profile. We see his right hand, and it does appear to be swollen. So clearly he's not out of the woods yet. And John, at this point, we have no idea when, after 32 days, Pope Francis will be able to leave Gemelli Hospital and return to his suite in the Casa Santa Marta in the Vatican City -- John.

BERMAN: Yeah. Clear questions about the future. Ben Wedeman for us in Rome, thank you so much for your reporting on this.

Sara?

SIDNER: All right. Thank you, John. This morning, an investigation is underway into a nightclub fire that

killed 59 people and injured more than 150. It broke out early Sunday morning in North Macedonia. Officials believe sparks from pyrotechnics likely started that fire. There were 500 people inside when it started. Many were crushed in the rush to escape. Authorities have arrested about 20 people, including members of the band that was performing.

Sorry, girls. For the second time in six years, Forever 21, filed for bankruptcy. The famous teen clothing brand is blaming it on the fierce competition from fast fashion retailers like Chinese e-commerce giant Shein and Temu. According to Forever 21, its stores and websites will remain open as it implements a wind down strategy. It plans to launch liquidation sales. There's a little bit of good news in everything at stores, and plans to seek a buyer for some of its assets.

All right. It's an annual tradition that seems to never get old. Take a look at the Chicago River. This is John's favorite thing. Once again dyed green for Saint Patrick's Day.

For more than 60 years, people have turned out to see the color change. And for those of you wondering, the dye is nontoxic and it keeps its green color for several days. And then just fades away.