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White House Defies Judge's Order; Trump Claims Pardons Issued by Biden are Void; 39 Confirmed Dead after Storms Across South. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired March 17, 2025 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: And into a backyard pool. This happened on Long Island here in New York. You can see it happen right there. It was all captured on video. Police say the driver did go back for his coat and phone and then just walked away.

Starbucks has been ordered to pay $50 million in damages for a hot drink that burned a delivery driver. The lawsuit alleges the lid was not secure on the cup. Starbucks says it plans to appeal the jury's decision.

A brand new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

All right, breaking overnight, the White House pushing the law and the Constitution. Did they defy a direct order from a judge on deportations?

Dozens killed. At least 80 tornadoes reported. A trail of devastation through a huge part of the United States.

And what is the one thing you need to know before filling out your bracket? It is time. March Madness is here whether you are ready or not.

Kate is out today. I'm John Berman, with Sara Sidner. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

All right, this morning, the Trump White House versus the courts, very deliberately, and pushing them close to or beyond the brink. Again, seemingly, deliberately. The administration deported hundreds of suspected Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador. And they did it despite a judge's order telling them to halt the flights.

Now, President Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 for these deportations. The last time the president used this act was World War II.

Our senior legal analyst, Elie Honig, says all of these actions, they get very close to the line, whether or not the exact time of the order was.

Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: If they were on the ground in the United States, then, yes, there was a defiance of the order. If they had already landed in El Salvador, then, no, there was no defiance of the order. It was already too late. If they were mid- flight, then we get into questions of, where were they? Were they over American territory or international waters? And that's some gray area.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Gray area that the White House absolutely seemed to lean into.

Let's get right to CNN's Alayna Treene at the White House.

The timeline here matters to an extent, Alayna, but it is clear this was a White House effort to push - to push the judiciary.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: That's right. There's no question, John, that the White House knew that this was going to face severe legal challenges. Even last week, when my colleagues and I reported that this was coming, several legal experts said this is going to face a massive uphill battle, perhaps one of the biggest uphill battles in court that the Trump administration has seen thus far. And it's something I discussed with White House officials. And they acknowledge, this is a fight that they want to have, particularly because, remember, this is something the president vowed to do repeatedly on the campaign trail, but it's also something he personally wants his - his voters and his fiercest supporters to see that he's doing. So, the more that this is being talked about and some of the controversy around it is, in some ways, a win in their book.

But just to get into this, look, this is an 18th century law, as you noted, that is meant to be invoked when the U.S. is at war with another country. Now, the United States is not at war with Venezuela, but it's something that the president actually argued yesterday is worse than war. It's also, as you mentioned, I mean, this is a very controversial law. If you look back to the last time it was used, it was used by the former president, FDR, during World War II to - for the internment of Japanese Americans. Something that was very controversial, of course, at the time. So, there's a lot of questions over this.

But I think the thing that's complicating this, of course, right now is that timeline and questions over whether the Trump administration intentionally and deliberately tried to defy a judge's order. Now, the White House is being very clear that they did not do this. I want to read for you just some of what White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said over the weekend. She said, quote, "the administration did not refuse to comply with a court order. The order, which had no lawful basis, was issued after terrorist aliens" - she was referring to the migrants associated with the Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua - "had already been removed from U.S. territory." She went on to argue that, "a single city cannot direct the movements of an aircraft carrier full of foreign alien terrorists who were physically expelled from U.S. soil." Now, to be clear, and just to break this down a little bit, this

statement was clearly very carefully worded. It talks about a written statement versus a verbal one. We know there's questions over whether or not the judge had verbally said, turn that plane around. And then they were waiting on the written one. All to say, a lot of questions over this.

This is not the end of this fight. It could potentially reach even the highest court in the United States. But a battle, again, that I believe the White House very much thinks is worthy.

John.

BERMAN: Yes, it's a fight that they want to have, I think, is the important thing here.

[09:05:02]

Alayna Treene at the White House this morning. Thank you very much.

Sara.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: All right, this morning, President Trump is claiming that the sweeping pardons President Biden issued before leaving office are, quote, "hereby declared void." Here's what the president posted this morning. "The pardons that," as he put it, "sleepy Joe Biden gave to the unselect committee of political thugs and many others are hereby declared void, vacant, and of no further force or effect. They are subject to investigation at the highest level."

CNN's Katelyn Polantz with me now.

The focus of - on the use of the autopen, does that have anything to do with the validity of these pardons?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Sara, presidents use autopen. That's the first thing. But, in this situation, I want to make sure that we're aware, there is a formal document of these preemptive pardons that Joe Biden granted to members of Congress who served on the House select committee investigating January 6th. They were also granted to staff members on that committee, as well as police officers from the Metropolitan Police Department in D.C., the Capitol Police, who testified on January 6th. And this is a document that I was able to pull from the pardon attorneys' website on the Department of Justice. And it's affixed with the seal of the Department of Justice. It is formally signed by the president, formally the president, Joe Biden. That is the document of the executive grant of clemency. The Constitution gives the president broad powers to do something like this.

Donald Trump appears to be fixated on the autopen situation. I - I did some rough legal research this morning out there because there's not a huge amount of law around this limiting the president's pardon power. It does have quite an extensive power there. But there is a law professor at the University of Syracuse's law school who has looked into this way back in 2012 and was saying, presidents do use the autopen quite a lot. They can use an autopen to sign. There can be documents that are stamped with the president's signature. He doesn't have to physically sign a document for it to be legal, but he does have to be in the room. And when you look at that document about the January 6th committee pardons, it was signed on January 19th. So, the day before Biden was busy with the inauguration of Donald Trump, the handover of the presidency.

But, Sara, this is just a reminder of the situation heading into this presidency of Donald Trump. His ire for the people who served on that select committee, the fear that Biden had as president and the idea that presidents want to push the use of this pardon power. Biden testing the limits of it with a preemptive pardon. And now Donald Trump saying that he hereby declares it invalid.

Of course, Sara, that's a social media post.

SIDNER: Right.

POLANTZ: It's not tested in court. And then even on top of that, when you're talking about members of Congress and testimony on the House floor, there's its own set of constitutional protections around that.

Back to you.

SIDNER: Yes. And as Elie Honig put it today, there is no legal basis to what he is talking about on social media. We will see where this goes.

Katelyn Polantz, thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

John.

BERMAN: All right, with us now, Democratic strategist and executive vice president, co-founder of Third Way, Matt Bennett. Also with us this morning, strategic communications expert and former Republican strategist and pollster, Lee Carter.

Matt, let me just start with you quickly on this notion of un- pardoning. What do you think President Trump is up to here?

MATT BENNETT, EXECUTIVE VP OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS AND CO-FOUNDER, THIRD WAY: Well, I think it's both comical and chilling. It's comical because it's ridiculous to say that you can un-pardon someone, or that the autopen had anything to do with anything. And this is classic Trump. He distracts when he wants the public to look away. Look away from the economy tanking because of his insane tariffs. Wall Street way down, peoples 401(k)s getting hit. People's safety and security being put at risk. So, this is a huge distraction on the one hand.

On the other hand, it's him pushing legal limits the way they did, as you just reported, around the migrant deportations. And that's chilling because it sounds a lot like a dictator when you say, you know, I am voiding the acts of my predecessor.

BERMAN: Lee, on that point that Matt was just making on the deportations, whether it was a direct defiance of the judge's order or whether it was intentionally pushing the boundaries thereof. It is a fight this administration seems to want to have with the courts.

LEE CARTER, STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS EXPERT: There's no doubt about it. I mean this is something that president has promised. It's one of the things that won him the election. He said he was going to deport. He said he was going to get rid of the criminals. He said he was going to do all of these things. And he pushes boundaries. And he also is a big fan of big, symbolic gestures that get a lot of attention. And this is exactly what that did.

[09:10:02]

And in many ways, his supporters are going to look at this and say, it's a fight worth having. And it's absurd that we would want these people to come back, that we would turn this plane around. And so, I think this is one of those moments where Donald Trump is doing this with a theater of it on purpose to get the attention because one of the areas that he's winning on the most in polling is immigration. His approval numbers on immigration are so high across the board that he knows this is an issue that wins for him. And I think in many ways he's trying to compensate for some of the other areas where he's not doing quite as well.

BERMAN: And, Matt, just one last point on this. This is on immigration, but he's pushing the courts on the job cuts. He's pushing the courts everywhere he can. He seems to want to have one ultimate showdown at the Supreme Court, if it gets that far, over who has the ultimate authority over many, many things, the president or the courts.

BENNETT: It seems that way. And, you know, of course, the vice president said a couple of months ago that he kind of quoted the apocryphal quote from Andrew Jackson, if the chief justice has made his ruling, now let's see him enforce it. That is really scary. I mean we operate by the rule of law here. And if it appears that the president is just ignoring the courts in some way, especially if he ignores the Supreme Court, and that is still a live possibility, the rule of law will be in extreme jeopardy. And that puts every single American at risk. That's not just the thing before the court, that is everybody. That is our entire economy. That is the basis for our entire social contract. And it is enormously dangerous for any president to be testing that limit.

BERMAN: Lee, you mentioned something interesting. You said that he'd rather be talking about some things rather than others. Those other things were the economy. Were some of the economic numbers and figures and also opinions of his handling of the economy. We just got new retail sales figures. I haven't had a chance to dig deep, but they were way lower than expectations. They rose in February just 0.2 percent. The expectation was an increase of 0.7 percent. And January's figures were an actual decline.

Consumers are not spending the way that economists were hoping. How much of a political problem is that, Lee? CARTER: I think it's a signal that there's a big problem coming. I

think there's no doubt about it. You look at spending, you look at consumer confidence, you look at Donald Trump's polling numbers on the economy and it's not a good - it's not a good picture. Americans are very concerned about the economy. Donald Trump has done a lot in his first 70 days or whatever we're in right now on other issues. People don't feel like he's done a lot on the economy.

But I think it's important to remember a couple things. Number one, Donald Trump's approval on - on the economy is upside down, but it is nowhere near as low as it was when Joe Biden was in office. He's got more than a ten-point advantage over Joe Biden on where he was and a much bigger advantage over where people think the Democrats would be on handling the economy. So, he's got some runway.

And when you look at the polling that he has on tariffs, many people are opposed to the way he's dealing with tariffs, but about 40 percent of Americans are still saying, I don't know what's going to happen, and so they're willing to give him the benefit of the doubt at this moment.

The question is for how long.

BERMAN: Right.

CARTER: And the big difference I see between Donald Trump and the - and the administration prior is that Donald Trump is willing to talk about the economy. When he did his - you know, when he had his address to Congress he said, I know the economy is hurting people. He talked about it. And I think it's important that that message gets out there. But it's going to be a real weak point for him. If he doesn't do some things to turn it around, I'm not sure how long the American people are going to give him the benefit of the doubt.

BERMAN: Matt, quickly, one quick last word on the economy, and whether maybe Chuck Schumer's strategy of just getting out of the way, not being the story, or choice, although blew up in his face, may be giving, you know, Donald Trump the runway to do or not do things on the economy that are unpopular.

BENNETT: Yes, you know, he's still in the part of his presidency where he's supposed to be in the honeymoon phase and his numbers overall are pretty low for a president - for a new president. Remember, voter anger with new presidents usually starts to boil around August. And August is when people are going to start to feel the effects of these tariffs and the other incredibly stupid things he's doing about - to the economy just on purpose. The average price of an American car is going to go up by $12,000 because of these tariffs, and that's not hit yet, but it's going to hit soon.

BERMAN: Matt Bennett, Lee Carter, thanks to both of you. Appreciate it.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, ahead, the deadly storm system that ripped across the United States is finally moving out, but the weather and the danger that has been created in parts of the country, not over yet. What we can expect, that is coming up next.

Plus, Johns Hopkins is slashing thousands of jobs after losing hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding. How this will impact global health programs and could hit more universities. They could face more cuts.

[09:15:05]

And the Kentucky bourbon industry is on the rocks, feeling the heat of new tariffs. How they are impacting American distillers. And could your favorite bottle get much more expensive? Those stories ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh my God.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're in a tornado.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are in a tornado.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: That is terrifying.

This morning, communities across the Midwest and deep south cleaning up after devastating storms ripped across ten states. Thirty-nine people are confirmed dead. At least 80 tornadoes were reported leaving destruction from Oklahoma to Georgia. Iin Alabama, at least three people died, including an elderly man in a mobile home park.

[09:20:03]

A tornado tossed a school bus onto the roof of a high school in Talladega County.

Meteorologist Derek Van Dam is standing by for us.

But first, let's go to CNN's Rafael Romo, who is in Talladega County to get a sense of the destruction there.

What are you seeing, Rafael?

RAFAEL ROMO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good morning, John.

And we're right across the street from the high school where that bus you were mentioning ended up on top of the roof. And this neighborhood, John, here in Alpine, Alabama, is still strewn with debris. You can see twisted metal, splintered wood and pieces of insulation everywhere. And this is after dozens of volunteers showed up yesterday to clean up as much as they could.

Now, this is only one of many communities deeply impacted by a series of storms that unleashed a deadly wave of tornadoes across the central and southern U.S. since Friday. There have been around 80 tornado reports, with dozens confirmed. There were also over 710 windstorm reports filed across the central and eastern U.S. The National Weather Service said two F-4 tornadoes tore through Arkansas, the first time in over 25 years that the state sees multiple F-4 tornadoes in a single day.

We've been talking to people here, volunteers, who not only came here to help, but also witnessed a lot of what happened over the weekend. This is what a couple - this is how a couple of them described it.

Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES STEWART, REVIVE CHURCH TALLADEGA: Disaster. Disaster. I've seen nothing like this since I was a kid.

I've seen a few tornadoes in my lifetime and a couple of hurricanes. But other than that, this - this - this is pretty bad.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMO: And we're back live here in Alabama, where authorities have confirmed three deaths, including an 83 year old man who lived in a mobile home in the community of Winterboro (ph) here in Talladega County, Alabama. Governor Kay Ivey said earlier in a statement that damage has been reported in 52 of the state's 67 counties.

John.

BERMAN: So much damage. Rafael, thank you so much for - for giving us those stories.

Let's get right to Derek Van Dam of the Weather Center to get a sense of what happened and if there's anything coming next.

Derek.

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, John, the good news is the severe weather threat has quickly come to an end this morning. But you've seen what happened in Alabama. Now, let me show you what took place in Missouri. This is coming out of Wayne County. We'll take you to the skies here. And you can see, very consistent with a powerful tornado upending these trees, but upending the people's lives that have been impacted by this. Look at the home in the background here. There is no more roof on half of this house. Just basically cutting it in half and strewing the items within the home across the yard in front of it. Just an absolutely devastating weekend for so many communities across the deep south.

But that storm system is gone and we'll say goodbye and good riddance because it was a significant storm at the peak. But when we're talking about how many storm reports we had to contend with, it kept the meteorologists and the National Weather Service extremely busy, as well as here in the CNN Extreme Weather Center. Over 1,000 reports of severe weather, many of which caused damage. And, in fact, on Saturday alone, there were more tornado warnings issued than a - in any single day then all the way back towards last April. So, that's really saying something about how busy, how active it was.

And it wasn't just tornadoes that caused the damage. It was straight line winds. Powerful winds. Some of which were associated with thunderstorms. Some of which were not. There are reports of near 90 mile per hour wind gusts in parts of Pennsylvania. So, that was yesterday. Not only did it cut a path into the deep south, but it impacted the northeast as well.

So, here's the remnants of the system. Just rain at this stage. It is quickly coming to an end. I think we'll have a wet Saint Patrick's Day Parade here in Boston. But then the system quickly clears out and we'll start to see perhaps some sunshine peak into the equation later this evening.

Now, we're really going to quiet things down with the exception of a high fire risk that we're monitoring here across the state of Texas and into western Oklahoma. That is for today. And we'll keep a close eye on that.

But in terms of severe weather, we'll have a little bit of a downtime before it picks up by the end of the weekend.

John.

BERMAN: All right, Derek Van Dam, a lot going on. Appreciate your help with this. Thank you.

All right, quote, there is definitely going to be a lot of lives lost. That is the message from one health official after a top scientific research center announced cuts to more than 2,000 workers after losing federal funding.

And we are just minutes away from the opening bell on Wall Street. We are standing by to see how the markets react to the much weaker than expected retail sales report that just came out this morning.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:29:08]

SIDNER: This morning, a leading scientific research center is grappling with the fallout from President Trump's effort to slash the federal government. Johns Hopkins University announced last week that it was cutting more than 2,000 workers after it lost $800 million in funding from USAID. The university says it gets roughly half of its funding from the work it does on behalf of the federal government.

Joining us now is Doctor Judd Walson. He's chair of the Department of International Health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Thank you for taking the time this morning. Let me ask you about the impact of about 2,000 workers at Johns

Hopkins being let go due to these USAID cuts. What - what will that impact?

DR. JUDD WALSON, CHAIRMAN, INTERNATIONAL HEALTH DEPARTMENT, JOHNS HOPKINS SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: Well, I think the most important thing to be aware of, Sara, is the impact not only to our community in Baltimore, our community at Johns Hopkins.

[09:30:01]

But maybe most importantly, to the many communities and many, many individuals around the world who've now lost access to health care or having trouble accessing