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Trump Expected to Sign Order Aimed at Dismantling Education Department; IRS Discussing Turning Over Taxpayer Data to Homeland Security; President Trump with Negative Net Approval. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired March 20, 2025 - 08:00   ET

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

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(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): ... Emily Evans is in the middle of her battle with the VA, haunted she says by promises not honored.

LAH: What would you like to tell the VA?

EMILY EVANS, SURVIVING SPOUSE: I would like to see VA take responsibility for this. I would like to see them step up. My husband did not die in the war, but his mind did, and he deserves better. He deserved better, and he's not the only one.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Our thanks to Kyung Law for that report.

Now, the VA declined CNN's request for an on-camera interview, instead issuing this statement, saying in part, quote: The VA is under new management. We're working across the department to improve survivor programs so beneficiaries can have the most supportive, convenient, and seamless experience possible in their time of grief.

If someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts or mental health matters, call or text the suicide and crisis hotline, lifeline, at 988.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Today, President Trump making a move that could impact millions of public school students, teachers, and parents with a new executive order aimed at dismantling the Department of Education.

And they paid more than $59 billion in federal taxes. But now those payments to the IRS could be used against them, as the agency is now sharing that taxpayer information with Homeland Security on undocumented workers.

And get ready for a good kind of madness. This is what dreams are made of. A come from behind victory. Xavier rallying to beat Texas in a thrilling start to March Madness. Get your brackets ready.

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

BERMAN: We are standing by as with the stroke of the president's pen, the Department of Education could be facing its demise. President Trump is expected to sign an executive order today to begin dismantling the department. This is what he said he would tell Education Secretary Linda McMahon to do.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I told Linda, Linda, I hope you do a great job and put yourself out of a job. I want her to put herself out of a job.

I want the states to run schools, and I want Linda to put herself out of a job.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: And Secretary McMahon has already started. Last week, the Education Department announced it was slashing nearly half its workforce. She called that the first step toward a total shutdown.

The nation's largest teachers union is firing back, warning the move will take a quote, wrecking ball to the futures of 50 million students.

I'm joined now by Jasmine Wright, politics reporter with NOTUS. Jasmine, great to see you, as always.

Look, this is something that President Trump promised he would do during the campaign. Still, it's a big step. How will this unfold?

JASMINE WRIGHT, POLITICS REPORTER, NOTUS: Yes, John, I think what you can expect the president and all of his allies to say today repeatedly is promises made, promises kept. But it is a huge deal that are what Trump is planning to do. Of course, that executive order will be signed today in a really pomp and circumstance event at the White House. Just showing how not just expected this executive order is, but how deeply popular it is with the MAGA base, something that this White House has shown that they want to really cater to and keep happy.

And so this is something that Donald Trump repeatedly said on the campaign trail. Now, what it calls for is taking the steps to dismantle, to the extent legally possible, the Department of Education. And in this fact sheet that I obtained last night, it talked about just how low test scores are and how they believe that this will improve test scores and improve children's outcome by putting this back to the states. It didn't basically it didn't outline how but said that it would.

Now, this is just not the first action, though, that we've seen this White House take on the Education Department. Already, we've seen a major reduction in force, mostly through layoffs at the department.

We've seen them canceling contractors, canceling federal grants. So this is basically the latest, most wholesale action that we're seeing them take. And really, they've been working on this executive order, John, for weeks and weeks and weeks.

BERMAN: It is interesting. You hear always return power back to the states. States have the power. Local governments have the power largely over education and control some 90 percent of the funding. And the polling on this is actually a majority of Americans oppose gutting the Department of Education. But as you said, it's still very popular with the Republican base.

WRIGHT: Yes, it's extremely popular with the Republican base. If you ever attended a Trump rally, he would go on stage and say this and the crowd would really go wild.

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This is something that the MAGA base and some of the far right Republicans have really zeroed in on, because of this idea that there is, you know, DEI promoting or racial inequality promoting within the school system, putting one group of people over another, really trying to target that.

But already, John, I would say that the administration has already moved to change the culture at schools so much. We know just yesterday that they stripped Pennsylvania University $175 million for them continuing to have a transgender swimmer compete at that school.

We know that today Columbia University has to respond to the White House, who has demanded they overall their own culture -- overhaul their own culture or else lose four hundred million dollars in federal spending. And of course, we've seen over the couple of days that they have really been increasing their targeting of pro-Palestinian protesters who are here on student visas.

And so already the culture at these schools, both at higher education and lower education, are continuing to change.

But I think this will be the most wholesale scale that they've done. Of course, it's going to be, you know, susceptible to legal challenges. But I think what we've seen over the last few days with USAID and all these kind of other agencies that the administration has moved to shutter, even if a district judge says, listen, you've got to bring all these people back, it's been shown that it's difficult to crawl these things back and get people back hired when they could be hired in a really unstable environment because you don't know which court is going to say what.

BERMAN: Jasmine Wright, always great to see you. Thank you so much for sharing your reporting on this -- Sara.

SIDNER: All right, thank you, John. Joining us now to talk more about this, Chris Sununu, the former Republican governor of New Hampshire. There he is in person. You dared to come on the set with me.

CHRIS SUNUNU, (R) FROMER NEW HAMPSHIRE GOVERNOR: I love it. I love it. I love visiting New York. I'm not in New York guy. I don't think I could live in this town, but I love visiting. SIDNER: Well, let me tell you, it's a great town. But we're talking about the Department of Education, as you just heard. Why do Republicans support the dismantling of the Department of Education?

SUNUNU: Well, what's the value add? What value add does the federal Department of Education bring when you return power to states? And as a governor, I can tell you that's very important.

And not just -- it's not just the money. It's the control how those dollars are spent. All the red tape that comes with the federal Department of Education when it comes to special ed, school choice, homeschooling, charter schools, whatever it might be. Let states have those options.

Look, I might disagree. I'll use an extreme example. I might disagree with Gavin Newsom in California on a lot of things. But believe me, California knows what their students need a heck of a lot better than a bunch of bureaucrats in Washington. So parents -- and this isn't just a MAGA idea, guys.

This is empowering parents, teachers, that better communication at the local level, driving curriculum at a localized level for the needs of that community. That's it.

SIDNER: So it's so it's good.

SUNUNU: It's a great -- it's a great idea.

SIDNER: But here's here's the pushback that we hear. And here's one of the facts. The Department of Education is prohibited from telling states how to educate children. That is in the law. They are not supposed to be doing that. And they only account for somewhere between 6 to 13 percent of funding.

So they're not even the largest funder. It's state taxes and local taxes. But they do help with things like, you know, school -- free school lunch and those who are really disadvantaged, those who have disabilities. So I don't know --

SUNUNU: And they'll continue. So that those funds that help free reduced lunch, special ed programs, those funds will still be there. And I would argue potentially more funds because they're not being wasted on the bureaucracy.

And, yes, technically, the federal Department of Education says we're not going to tell you how to educate your kids. But here's all the red tape. I'm talking like thousands of pages of legal red tape.

The majority of folks that work at the Department of Education are lawyers that spend that spend -- would talk to me as a governor or talk to my commissioner of education or talk to the commission of education in Mississippi or California. Explain to them why you can't use funds that way. We need more flexibility here. Sorry, can't do that.

When you empower the localities, they just know better. The bureaucracy -- the centralized bureaucracy of Washington does not know what the kids in Minnesota need. They don't. And so they're trying to kind of make everything the same for everybody as opposed to letting states and localities have more say.

SIDNER: Let me let me ask you about one thing that parents that I've spoken to are afraid of. They're afraid a little bit of this voucher idea because private schools, charter schools oftentimes cost way more than the money that they're expecting to get from the tax dollars that now go directly to public schooling. And they're worried that public schools will be decimated.

How do you -- what do you say to that?

SUNUNU: Six states have instituted school choice and they've all been successful. In New Hampshire, for example, we instituted school choice for folks at 300 percent of the federal poverty level and below. So what happened?

Low income families, inner city families, often families of color that were never even asked, what do you want for your kids education? They would come to us and say, no one's ever asked us. They feel empowered.

[08:10:00]

They feel like they have options finally. And it's been a huge success. Other states have gone completely universal with huge success. So the union leadership argument of you're going to decimate public schools. So many examples out there across the country where it has worked very, very successfully.

SIDNER: All right, let me shift to some reporting from The New York Times saying that Elon Musk has made the maximum allowable donation funds to Republican members of Congress who agree with the idea or to support the idea of impeaching federal judges when it comes to their actions against Donald Trump.

How can the Republican Party call itself the party of law and order when literally they're talking about impeaching judges just because Donald Trump does not like the result?

SUNUNU: Yes, look, I'm not a big fan of impeaching judges. The biggest problem with the judge system and Republicans and Democrats equally like have abused it is they judge shop. Right.

We allow a system where if I want to sue on or take an action to court, I can effectively pick which district and which judge based on their politics I want to go to. This could all be fixed tomorrow on both sides if Congress would just pass a law that says we're going to randomly pick your judges. You can't pick the judges that you want based on their politics.

So I agree both. We should be talking impeachment because you disagree with somebody if they really violate, you know, the code of ethics and of what they're doing behind the bench. I don't think that's necessarily the case here, but there is actually a universal way to fix this. None of them have the political courage to do it. SIDNER: None of the Republicans, none of the Democrats are saying have the courage to say we want to do this differently.

SUNUNU: No one in Washington. And they should all be held accountable to it because remember, for example, the issues of abortion. Right. And the Republicans would do the same thing.

They would judge shop in Texas to conservative judges to to fight issues of abortion and access to women's health care and all that. You should be able to do it on either side.

SIDNER: OK, that is a really interesting argument. Thank you for that.

You have said in the past that you think that your party is bigger than Donald Trump.

SUNUNU: Yes.

SIDNER: Do you still believe that?

SUNUNU: Well, look, Donald Trump is the voice of the party. There's no question. And he will be for the next four years. I was trying to think -- I don't know who the voice of the Democrat Party is.

SIDNER: Well, that is one of the big things that people are going to town halls, both coming at Republicans because they don't like DOGE and they don't like some of the things that Donald Trump is doing. But they're also coming for Democrats because they don't have a single --

SUNUNU: No one knows what the Democrats stand for right now. Right. They don't know who the leadership is. They don't know what their priorities are.

There's obviously -- I always say there's a much larger DNA problem within the Democrat Party. I think they have a generational problem as well. They have a working class voter problem. No, no plans to address it.

One thing I tell Republicans is don't take it for granted. The Democrats will eventually get their act together. They'll eventually have leadership, probably as you get closer to the 28 presidential race, probably governors. Right. You'll see Shapiro or Whitmer or Pritzker or Gavin or whatever, you know, step up to run for president.

You see Gavin talking, you know, trying to be more middle of the road and talking to a lot of these conservatives now, which is interesting.

So the leadership will be there. Republicans, if you want to take a political advantage, you better do it now. Right. We have a good spark. We have folks that are that are behind us.

I think what DOGE is doing is pretty darn good. I think their messaging is terrible. They have to match Elon Musk with a better messenger. They haven't been able to do that. So, look, there's massive waste and fraud in government. They're rooting it out for the first time ever. They're going to break up -- they're going to break some things. And you've got to have that push and pull.

SIDNER: They've broken some things to the point where people are showing up at town halls and screaming at their representatives.

SUNUNU: People always show up at town halls. A lot of that is organized.

SIDNER: Scream --

SUNUNU: That is organized labor. Very often, there's folks that -- look when you lose your job because you're a federal employee, of course, you're going to show up at a town hall and complain. But at the end of the day, we have to fix two -- we have a $2 trillion problem. Not a single Democrat has come up with an idea to do it. Not a single person in Congress has.

So what Trump is saying is, all right, you guys had 25 years to get your act together. If you're not going to do it, we'll do it.

SIDNER: But he was the president and didn't do it then, in fact, our GDP did not --

SUNUNU: He leaned on Congress to do it and they wouldn't do it. So that's why in the first month he's saying that first term we tried. I tried to work with you on this. You don't have political courage and will to do it. We're going to go fast and hard and fix this thing before it gets so broken the American experiment fails.

SIDNER: Let me lastly ask you this. Will we be referring to you as Senator Sununu sometime in the future?

SUNUNU: I don't think so. Folks have asked me to run. I'm thinking about it, but --

SIDNER: That's not a no.

SUNUNU: It's not a no. It's not a no. I told some folks that I would, both in New Hampshire and in D.C., I'd take about a month. It's more of a family decision at this point. So it's not about winning and all that. That's the easy part.

SIDNER: It's always about winning, sir.

SUNUNU: No, I can win. Don't worry about that. It's about whether it's right for me for the next six years, and I think other Republicans can do well as well.

SIDNER: All right. Thank you so much, Governor.

SUNUNU: You bet.

SIDNER: We really appreciate it -- John.

BERMAN: All right, frustrated constituents ended a town hall early after confronting a lawmaker and being escorted out by police.

And new this morning, the IRS and the Department of Homeland Security working together to share confidential taxpayer information for hundreds of thousands of undocumented people.

And the clock is ticking. You really just have a few more minutes, probably, to get your March Madness brackets in.

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We have last-minute tips. This is the ultimate news you can use.

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BERMAN: All right, new this morning. Possibly sharing taxpayer information to crack down on undocumented immigrants. The Trump administration confirms the IRS is in ongoing discussions with Homeland Security about turning over highly confidential taxpayer data that could lead to deportations.

Let's get to CNN senior reporter Marshall Cohen for the latest on this. Marshall, what have you learned here?

MARSHALL COHEN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Hey, John, this would be a very big deal if it happens, but we're not there yet.

[08:20:02]

So, there are ongoing discussions between the Department of Homeland Security and the IRS to turn over confidential taxpayer data that could lead to deportations of undocumented immigrants.

Now, remember, John, undocumented immigrants pay taxes to the tune of about 60 billion federal tax, $60 billion in federal tax last year, more in state taxes as well. In exchange for coming forward, registering with the IRS and paying what they owe, the IRS is supposed to keep that information private and confidential, just like they do for all taxpayers like they do for you and me.

But last month, there were news reports that the Trump administration and DHS had requested information from the IRS on 700,000 people that they suspected of being here illegally.

And the immigration authorities wanted information like their home addresses, which obviously could put them at risk for deportations. The IRS said no last month, but we were wondering if those efforts were continuing.

And I was in court yesterday here in D.C. when we got the answer. An attorney from the Justice Department told a judge that there are active and ongoing discussions between DHS and the IRS about information sharing for these deportation efforts. But he pledged that anything that is shared will be done fully in accordance with the law. Not everyone is convinced, John.

Senate Democrats sent a letter to the Treasury secretary raising some concerns, and there is a lawsuit underway to try to stop this from happening -- John.

BERMAN: Marshall Cohen on the scene, as always, witnessing the action firsthand. Great to have you with us this morning, Marshall. Terrific reporting.

So President Trump making history in the polls, maybe matching some history, and some of it not the kind of history he wants to talk about.

And what's happening at the Cheesecake Factory? The major changes you need to know before opening the menu the next time.

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SIDNER: Today officially marks two months in office for President Trump, and new polls are revealing just how voters are feeling about the start of his second term. CNN's chief data analyst, Harry Enten, is here to run the numbers for us.

All right, how is Trump doing compared to where he was just after he was sworn in January? Very different numbers, I'm assuming.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN CHIEF DATA ANALYST: Yes, they're very different. They're very different. I mean, look, here's the bottom line.

Trump's net job approval rating. Look, in January 2025, he was on the positive side of the ledger. He was at plus two -- plus seven points. Look now. He has come back down. He is underwater, right?

He's doing a little bit of the breaststroke, maybe doing a little bit of the butterfly. He's at minus two points. And it's not just in one poll. It's multiple. CNN, Fox, Ipsos, NBC, and Quinnipiac University, Nine, nine, nine, the American folks are saying.

Oy vey, ay caramba.

SIDNER: OK, well, that was a lot of different languages. Thank you, Yiddish and all.

How unusual is it for a president at this point to have a net negative? Let's go back in the annals of history.

ENTEN: I love going to the history books. I did quite well on my SAT II in U.S. history. Presidents with negative net approval ratings at this point, a term since 1937, going back to the second term of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Well, there are two men on the screen, and they're the same two men, and Trump in 2017, and Trump in 2025. He only matches himself. I guess the good news is he's doing a little bit better than he was eight years ago at this point.

But when you're only matching yourself and you're the only dude who's underwater at this point, not particularly good. Every single other president at this point in a term, either first or second, was above water. So Donald Trump likes to make history, but this is the type of history Donald Trump does not like to make.

SIDNER: How is he doing when it comes to the issues? Because that seems to be the big thing for 2025, which is a little different than 2017.

ENTEN: Yes, so look, here are the issues. Sometimes I like lists. You know, I like lists. I like lists for writing out my groceries. Basically, it's a two-line list. It's like cream soda and popcorn.

But on this particular one, Trump's net approval rating on major issues, positive. Immigration, how about negative? The economy, federal budget, foreign policy, health care, tariffs, underwater on all of these issues. And that is what is dragging Donald Trump down.

People came in with good expectations for Trump, better than for the first term. Yes, he's doing slightly better than he was during the first term at this point. But compared to everybody else, he's doing far worse. And the reason he's doing far worse is Donald Trump is not meeting the voters' expectations on the issues that matter to them, especially, of course, there you go.

SIDNER: This is the reason why a lot of people say they voted for him and why he's in office right now. So that's a big deal.

ENTEN: The whole kit and caboodle, and he is firmly in the voters' minds.

SIDNER: And so you don't have to go shopping for cream soda. You are welcome.

BERMAN: Thank you.

SIDNER: Harry Enten, it is always a pleasure. Now go drink your cream soda.

BERMAN: I will.

SIDNER: John.

BERMAN: Wow. I didn't know we were giving gifts out this morning. All right.

SIDNER: Not for you, John, sorry.

BERMAN: With us now is Republican Congressman Pete Sessions from Texas. He is the co-chair of the DOGE caucus and a member of the House Oversight and Financial Services Committee. Congressman, always great to see you.

I've spoken to you before about frustrations that you have maybe with some of the systems that Elon Musk had in place or some of the messaging there. Lisa Murkowski, the senator from Alaska, says that there are a lot of Republicans, well, they think even more frustrations than you have, but they're afraid to speak up. Listen to what she says.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LISA MURKOWSKI (R-AK): It may be that Elon Musk has decided he's going to take the next billion dollars that he makes off of Starlink and put it directly against Lisa Murkowski.

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