Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Trump Takes Questions; Interview With Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL); Earthquake Hits Southeast Asia; J.D. Vance Receives Icy Reception in Greenland. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired March 28, 2025 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:01:07]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Greenland's icy reception. Vice President J.D. Vance and the second lady arrive on the island that President Trump wants to annex. But lawmakers there are banding together to resist Trump's push.

Plus: panic in the streets after a devastating earthquake hits Southeast Asia. Look at this, multiple buildings collapsing in Myanmar, also in Thailand. Rescue crews racing to save people trapped beneath the rubble. We will take you their lives.

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN HOST: And a historic ban. Utah becomes the first state to ban the addition of fluoride to public drinking water. Will other states soon follow? We will talk about it.

We're following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

KEILAR: We're watching a highly contentious trip this hour. Vice President J.D. Vance and his wife, Usha, are in Greenland, as tensions are flaring over President Trump's persistent push to gain control of the Danish territory.

The Vances arrived a short time ago. They stopped at a U.S. Space Force base before they leave later tonight. It's a whirlwind trip the vice president decided to take part in at the last minute after growing outrage across the island over what the White House described as a cultural trip by Mrs. Vance, who planned to attend a famous dogsled race.

JIMENEZ: Now, Greenland's prime minister previously slammed the visit as highly aggressive. The White House later scrapped those plans and scaled back the Vances' itinerary significantly.

CNN's Rene Marsh is here with us to talk about it.

Rene, OK, can you tell us about this trip? How do we end up with this version of the trip here?

RENE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right. So it's certainly scaled back. And it's not just Vance. It's a whole delegation here. We know that Chris Wright, energy secretary, will be there as well as national security survivor -- National Security Adviser Mike Waltz.

But speaking about this dramatic scale-back of this trip, I mean, originally this was going to be something where second lady Usha Vance was going to be taking in the cultural sights, and that's not happening anymore. They're going to be basically sequestered to this U.S. military base there in Greenland.

I have actually visited that base in 2022 and it is quite isolated. I mean, the nearest town, you can't even get there by road. And so this itinerary certainly ensures that they will not have any close contact with either the people of Greenland or even these government leaders, who, by the way, have been very public about their lack of enthusiasm for this visit.

In fact, the government of Greenland putting on a social media post just this week saying -- quote -- that this visit, "No invitations were extended for any visits, neither private or official."

But it's not just the government of Greenland that is not welcoming here. These are people here in Greenland as well. We know that there were planned protests and we're also starting to get some sound from individuals on the ground there. So take a listen to just this one Greenland resident on his view on this visit.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAJ SANDGREN, RESIDENT OF GREENLAND: Somehow, we want to govern our country by ourselves without interfering from Denmark or USA. So I would like to say to Trump, don't even think about repeating it. Don't even think about repeat it that you want Greenland. We don't want you here.

Just a clear message. We don't want you here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARSH: So, as we said at the top, we know that they have now landed. They're going to be getting a briefing. They're going to be meeting with U.S. service members there on the base.

[13:05:05]

Again, this base is militarily strategically just important because of its positioning. It has the radars that are set up, which we saw firsthand, to essentially give early warnings if there is ever a ballistic missile that is launched towards the United States.

And that is why it's so critical. But they will only be on the ground there for about 5.5 hours before they're headed back. The other part of this, not just the national security component, but we have also heard the president talk a lot about the rare minerals. We saw there firsthand how climate change is really melting a lot of the ice there, making a lot more land available for exploration.

So they also see the opportunity there when it comes to these rare minerals. JIMENEZ: Rene Marsh, really appreciate the reporting.

I should note as well, we do expect to hear from the vice president this hour. We will bring you those comments and that video live when we get it.

Now, CNN has also learned that two specific texts in that Signal group chat between top national security officials discussing attack plans in Yemen are fueling worries inside the intelligence community.

KEILAR: Current and former U.S. officials have told us at CNN that they believe messages sent my National Security Adviser Michael Waltz and CIA Director John Ratcliffe may have done some long-term damage to the U.S.' ability to gather intel on Houthi targets going forward.

CNN's Katie Bo Lillis is joining us now with her brand-new reporting on this.

OK, what are the specific messages that they're pointing to here?

KATIE BO LILLIS, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Brianna, so there's two messages at issue here that my colleagues Zach Cohen and I have sort of heard about from both current and former U.S. officials who have now had a chance to kind of review this full stream.

One of them from CIA Director John Ratcliffe takes place in the part of the conversation where the officials are kind of debating whether or not they should hit the brakes on this attack in Yemen, whether there should be a pause. And Ratcliffe jumps into the conversation to say, look, if there is a pause, the CIA will have an opportunity to -- quote -- "identify better starting points for coverage on Houthi leadership."

What we heard from our sources is that this would very clearly Signal to Houthi militants that the United States is doing technical surveillance on them. They're doing overhead surveillance on them. That enables the Houthis to think about, OK, well, how can we avoid that in the future, potentially making it a lot harder for the U.S. to use that same surveillance asset on these same targets going forward.

The second text message from National Security Adviser Michael Waltz happens at the very end of the conversation. After the strikes are already done, Waltz gives the team kind of a brief battle damage assessment of what's happened on the ground. And he offers some real specifics here. He tells them that the U.S. has positive I.D. of a particular senior Houthi leader walking into his girlfriend's building.

And, again, this really kind of leaves this trail of bread crumbs for Houthis to be able to say, OK, here's how they were tracking our leadership. They were watching the girlfriend. Somehow, they were able to track her. Are they then able to essentially recreate some of the very sensitive sources and methods by which the intelligence community was collecting on them? And, of course, the sources and methods for the intelligence community

are really the crown jewels. And so this is why these officials who spoke to us say those two texts really a lot more sensitive than they appeared on first blush. Even if they didn't include specific technical details of the sources and methods that were contained in them, they offered enough clues that the Houthis could potentially piece some of that together.

Now, we should say Director Ratcliffe, as well as the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, and a number of other senior intelligence officials or national security officials saying no classified information in these texts, no sources and methods. Our sources have contradicted that assessment.

JIMENEZ: A lot of layers that have come out of just this chat on a number of different fronts. National security, of course, intelligence gathering as well go hand in hand.

Katie Bo Lillis, really appreciate the reporting.

LILLIS: Thank you.

JIMENEZ: I want to keep this conversation going now with Democratic Congressman Mike Quigley of Illinois. He sits on the House Intelligence Committee.

So, I just want to pick up there, Congressman, where we just left off. What do you make of CNN's new reporting that current and former U.S. officials are worried about future intel gathering on the Houthis following these Signal texts by the national security adviser and CIA director? Do you share those concerns?

REP. MIKE QUIGLEY (D-IL): Well, absolutely.

I'm on my ninth year on this committee. We have grave concerns for our national security. We're kept safe because we share intelligence and we secure intelligence. This strikes -- this incident strikes a blow against both efforts.

I mean, first of all, our general philosophy of being isolationist, antagonist with our allies -- we're tariffing them. We're telling NATO that they're on their own. We're cutting soft power.

[13:10:05]

There's the old tenant in foreign policy, if you want to have a friend, you need to be one. So, if we are a friend, we're a bad one. But we're also one that is currently viewed as incompetent or reckless with critical intel.

So why would they share intel that keeps us safe if it exposes their sources and methods? So it's not just this incident, which is bad enough and directly related to collecting on the Houthis. It's part of a larger picture that concerns me and obviously others that we have really hurt our national security. JIMENEZ: And you questioned Director of National Intelligence Tulsi

Gabbard this week at a House intelligence hearing on worldwide threats assessment. It included CIA Director John Ratcliffe as well.

Were you satisfied with their answers? Are you satisfied with where this issue was left in regards to those high-level security officials?

QUIGLEY: No, I think, no matter what the answers were, what really concerned me is the fact that no one takes responsibility, right?

This is a serious breach. This is a critical error. I would respect them a lot more and I'd feel a lot better going forward if someone acknowledged that, if someone was held accountable and they recognized that this can't happen again, there have to be significant changes.

But it goes against the current here. I mean, the fact is the president has appointed people with either no security experience in these veins or very little. And the concerns with Ms. Gabbard's appointment in the first place were her cozy relationships with at least two dictators and the fact that that would probably scare off a lot of our allies as well wondering, can they trust her with this information?

Will she share it with people who we are antagonistic against? Part of a larger picture again.

JIMENEZ: And, obviously, a separate concern with the information shared over Signal is whether adversaries potentially have access to that information.

And while the app is encrypted, a device's integrity is something else. And towards the end of last year, U.S. officials were trying to deal with what was described as the worst telecom hack in our nation's history over a long-running Chinese cyber espionage campaign which in some cases did target U.S. political figures, the senior ones.

What is the current state of telecoms security? And do you currently have concerns on that wider front, outside of, of course, this particular Signal chat?

QUIGLEY: Look, we have great concerns right now of the attacks that are taking place, the hacks that are taking place every single day against all of us.

I don't think any of us should have an expectation of privacy, that these communications will -- would not be hacked by someone who's, again, antagonistic to us, which just reinforces the fact that the kind of people who are on this chat, as significant as they are, with the extraordinary information that they were sharing, that they would think a commercial app like this would be safe, I'm worried about secured apps.

I'm worried about all of the information that we share being kept private. It's hard enough doing all the best practices. It's much worse when you're this reckless using something where a commercially available tool could help someone hack and get this information. JIMENEZ: And, Congressman, I want to shift topics a little bit here, because obviously we're expecting to see -- we have seen the vice president, J.D. Vance, in Greenland today. We're expecting to hear from him a little bit later this hour, where we do expect him to criticize the Danish government, though we will see what he actually says.

I wonder what you make of the visit and U.S. posturing toward Greenland and Denmark.

QUIGLEY: I think it reflects the president's general philosophy That anything you do has to be an antagonistic process, that, if you want anything, you come after them, instead of moving forward together and having a legitimate conversation.

There's absolutely nothing that we need from Greenland that we can't get through diplomacy. The Danish government has said as much. The people of Greenland have said as much. We have a long history of security relationships with Greenland, with the Danish government.

Instead of building upon that in a constructive manner, which I feel very assured would have kept us and provided greater safety to our country, we're working again in the opposite direction. We are less safe overall in an antagonistic posture with our allies, right? Again, if you want to have a friend you need to be one.

FDR's last inaugural said it best. We have learned that our safety and well-being is dependent on the safety and well-being of countries far away. We're doing nothing but cutting ourselves off. Again, I'm not sure we have any friends to work with, and I'm sure even our friends have very big concerns about whether they can trust us.

[13:15:17]

JIMENEZ: Well, Congressman, on that front, we will bring you back next week when these tariffs go into effect.

Thanks for being here. Really appreciate it.

All right, we're continuing to follow breaking news out of Southeast Asia. A massive search-and-rescue operation is under way in Myanmar after a 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck the central part of the country earlier today, causing major tremors and destruction in nearby Thailand and China as well.

So far, at least 144 people have been killed and more than 700 others injured.

KEILAR: The powerful quake caused this. It's a high-rise that collapsed there in Bangkok, which sent panicked residents into the streets. Dozens are now trapped in the rubble. You saw the scene afterwards just moments ago.

This is the worst earthquake to hit Myanmar in nearly 80 years.

CNN's Mike Valerio is with us now. Mike, give us the latest.

MIKE VALERIO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Oh, Brianna and Omar, I mean, when you look at that video, it is heart-stopping.

And there are three new bullet points about this collapse of that 30- story skyscraper in Bangkok we want to get to. The first one, according to Thailand's deputy prime minister, there are upwards of all kinds...

KEILAR: Mike, I'm so sorry to interrupt you. We have to head to the White House right now. President Trump has started speaking.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: ... April 2, because -- and I'm not referring to Canada, but many countries have taken advantage of us, the likes of which nobody even thought was possible for many, many decades, for decades. And that has to stop.

We're going to end up with a very good relationship with Canada and a lot of the other countries. Some, we probably won't. It won't be so pleasant. But with -- I think most countries will -- are agreeing with me. They actually -- many of them have actually apologized. They said, look, we have taken advantage.

And I don't blame them as much as I blame the people that stood -- in this case, I can say the men, because so far they have been all men, haven't they? But the men that sat right there and behind the Resolute Desk, mostly the Resolute Desk. I don't know if you know, you have a choice of seven desks. The Resolute is the one I like, but some chose other ones.

But they sat right behind a desk right in this location and they let our country be hurt very badly. But I didn't do that. So -- but we had a very good talk, the prime minister and myself. And I think things are going to work out very well between Canada and the United States.

Yes, please go ahead.

QUESTION: Mr. President, how are the talks with India on tariffs going on? And what is the expectations from India? How much do you want?

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Well, as you know, Prime Minister Modi was here just recently and we have always been very good friends. India is one of the highest-tariffing nations in the world. You know that. I know. Thank you for shaking your head, but it's brutal. It's brutal.

They're very smart. And he's a very smart man and a great friend of mine, actually. We had very good talks. I think it's going to work out very well between India and our country, very, very well. And I want to say you have a great prime minister.

QUESTION: Mr. President, there's been a very serious earthquake in Burma, Myanmar, today, up to several hundred killed.

TRUMP: Yes.

QUESTION: They -- the military regime there has asked for help from anybody.

TRUMP: Yes, we're going to be helping. We have already alerted the people.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Yes, it's terrible what's happened. It's (AUDIO GAP) helping. We have already spoken with the country, OK? Please.

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: Mr. President, Mr. President, yesterday you asked Representative Stefanik to stay in her seat. Can you explain your reason for that? And did it have anything to do with the tight polling in the Florida district that former Representative Waltz held?

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Well, I think we're doing. Yes, I think we had -- as you know, we have a few elections going on. And she is phenomenal, number one. She's a friend of mine and she was going to go to the United Nations.

And I said, look, there's a lot of room for doing that or something else. But she's very popular in her district. And I didn't want to take a chance. I don't even know who else is running. I assume somebody else would have been running. But if she runs, she can't be -- you never want to say can't be beaten, but I think can't be beaten.

She's very, very well liked and very smart. And I said, Elise, would you do me a favor? We can -- we cannot take a chance. We have a slim margin. We don't want to take any chances. We don't want to experiment. And she polls like I do. I won her district, as you know, by a lot of points. And she also does very well there.

When it comes to Florida, you have two races and they seem to be good. It's a Trump plus-32 area. The one thing is, they're spending like $12 million, and our candidate doesn't have that kind of money, spending much less than that, like maybe 1/12th, about a million dollars, a little bit more than a million dollars.

[13:20:11]

So the airwaves are blanketed. And you never know what happens in a case like that. I won it by 32 points, and it's very, very strong. It used to be Democrat, but when I came along, they liked me for whatever reason. You will have to explain that, but they liked me, and we're way up.

But you don't know what happen (AUDIO GAP). Second District, who seems to be in pretty good shape, but, likewise, he's being outspent about five to one. So we don't want to take any chances. So I went to Elise, and I said, Elise, do you mind? A very highly rated person. She was a real leader, and she will be again. I spoke with Mike Johnson.

They're going to put her in a high leadership position. But will you mind staying in Congress? Because we don't want to take any chances. And it's as simple as that. It's basic politics. It's politics 101. She's very popular. She's going to win. And somebody else will probably win too, because we did very well there.

I did very well there, but the word probably is no good. So I really appreciate her doing it. She's doing me a big favor when she does it, because she was all set to go to the United Nations, and she would have dealt with Putin and Zelenskyy and everybody else, and she would have been very effective.

But we really want to don't -- we don't want to take any chances because it is tight.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Go ahead, please.

QUESTION: Thank you, sir. You and your team apprehended a top three leader in the violent gang MS-13 yesterday just 30 minutes outside of Washington, D.C.

What has made you and your team so effective in finding, locating, apprehending, and deporting these violent illegal migrants?

TRUMP: I love this guy.

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: I wish more people would ask questions like that. Thank you. That's very nice. I appreciate it. And they have been. All you're doing is being fair with -- when you ask a question in that way.

Pam Bondi and Kash Patel and all of the rest of law enforcement, I think we have to include ICE and Border Patrol, all of Border Patrol, the whole group from Border Patrol. They're so incredible and it's dangerous stuff, hard stuff. And it's really an unforced error because these people were allowed into this country.

They shouldn't have been in this country. They would have never been in this country. We're getting rid of some of the worst criminals in the world. They came out of jails and mental institutions from all over the world. But Pam and the whole group, and Kash, who's here, and it's so good to have him. He's -- I see him all over. He's working 24 hours a day.

But the job they have done is incredible. And they caught one of the worst criminals in the world, I guess, in terms of evilness. You don't get any worse than the MS-13 guys. And the Tren de Aragua guys, it's -- you could flip a coin. It's a rough group.

And the big thing is, they have to be able to do their job. We -- I know I saw -- I was watching on television like you, and I saw the home that he lived in, in a good area, but, boy, they had a lot of weaponry in there, right, highly sophisticated, really brutal stuff.

So I appreciate the question, and I just want to thank Kash and Pam and the whole group, are doing a fantastic -- and the local law enforcement, who's been so terrific (AUDIO GAP) even first responders. So I want to thank everybody, and thank you very much.

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: Mr. President, happy -- I wanted to say, first of all, happy Women's Month.

TRUMP: Thank you.

QUESTION: You do so much for women by...

TRUMP: Yes.

QUESTION: ... first of all, keeping men out of women's sports, and you platform so many...

TRUMP: That was an easy one. That was crazy.

(LAUGHTER)

QUESTION: You platform so many great women, like your chief of staff, Susie Wiles. You also have Karoline Leavitt doing a great job as press secretary. Now Alina will be joining as well.

Since Democrats seem to struggle answering this question, I wanted to ask you, what is a woman and why is it important that we understand the difference between men and women?

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: Well, it's sort of easy to answer for me, because a woman is somebody that can have a baby under certain circumstances. She can -- she has a quality -- a woman is a person who's much smarter than a man, I have always found.

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: A woman is a person that doesn't give a man even a chance of success, and a woman's a person that, in many cases, has been treated very badly, because I think that what happens with this crazy, this crazy issue of men being able to play in women's sports is just ridiculous and very unfair to women and very demeaning to women.

And that's got to be about a 94 percent -- I read today it was a 94 percent issue, and I watched -- the other day, I watched a congressman (AUDIO GAP) Democrat congressman fighting for the fact that men should be allowed to compete, essentially, in women's sports.

And I say I hope they keep that going, because they will never win another election. That's a big deal. But women are basically incredible people, do so much for our country, and we love we love our women, and we're going to take care of our women. [13:25:05]

Yes.

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: Mr. President, what was your reason for pardoning Trevor Milton?

TRUMP: Highly recommended by many people that was taken advantage of. He did a business deal, like in Utah, as I have it. And I think he was exonerated, and then they brought him into New York.

We had a rough, rough road and road. I mean, he was exonerated. It was a big celebration. Again, I don't know him, but I was -- they say it was very unfair. And they say the thing that he did wrong was he was one of the first people that supported a gentleman named Donald Trump for president. He supported Trump. He liked Trump.

I didn't know him, but he liked him. It was in Utah. And they went after him. They went after his family. They went after his businesses. And he was, I believe, exonerated. And then they went after him again, and they brought him this time into Manhattan. And he had nothing to do with Manhattan. And they got him.

And I said, that's unfair. There are many people like that. They support Trump, and they went after them. You don't realize, this is a vicious group of people that were in this office before us. This is a vicious group. They're violent. What they were doing to people, and you could go story after story, hundreds and even thousands of stories.

And they went after this man. And when I heard about it, I said, nope, not going to happen. They persecuted -- they destroyed five years of his life. He went -- fought it for five years of his life. And he did nothing wrong. And he's a good person.

And, basically, I had these fantastic recommendations about him from people that you know very well, all top-of-the-line people. They thought it was a horrible thing. There were -- there are many such cases, by the way, many such cases.

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President. Have you spoken with Vladimir Putin about buying weapons from Iran and from North Korea?

TRUMP: Not about specifically that, no, I haven't.

QUESTION: Well, that seems to be an issue that you want to make important, is...

TRUMP: Well, I'm making all issues important. You have got a lot of important issues. You also have the children issue that's important. A lot of children are living in Russia right now. That's a horrible situation that would have never taken place if (AUDIO GAP) and the country is being decimated.

But they're losing 2,500 people, on average, young men, mostly men, almost in all cases men, actually, but young men every single week, 2,500, and they're not from our country. They're from Ukraine and they're from Russia. But it's human lives. And if we can get it stopped, and I think we're making progress, but there's a lot of ill will between the parties.

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: Should Americans buy cars now if they want to avoid higher prices? And then just a follow-up.

TRUMP: No, I don't think so. I think you're going to have a country that's going to boom. I just spoke to Tim Cook of Apple. He's investing $500 billion in the United States, which he would have never -- he told me, I would never have done it if you lost the election and I would have never done it if there wasn't a tariff system that is an incentive for people to come.

And, remember, there are no tariffs. All you have to do is do your work right here. If you have your company here, if you build your product, make your product, make your car or whatever it is you're making, no tariffs. And we're going to have -- I think, Scott, I would say we're close to $4 trillion, even going close to $5 trillion.

Now, we haven't had that for years. If you add up years, they haven't invested like that. And here we are in two months we think we're up to close to $5 trillion of investment. They're going to build car plants. They're already building some. Many of them have already started. And if you build a car in the United States -- and one thing that we just -- I just spoke with John Thune about, I just spoke to Mike Johnson about, speaker.

We're going to do something that has never been done in this country before. I'm very proud to say it was my idea. And so sometimes a simple idea, they say, how'd you think of that one? It's so simple. It was never done. If you buy a car in the United States that's made in the United States, if it's manufactured here, when you borrow money, if you borrow money, you have interest payments, we're going to let you deduct the interest payment for income tax reasons.

And I think that's going to more than pay for itself. I think people are going to be -- they have never had a deduction. Deductions are supposed to be for, like, rich people. And it's unfair to have that. But rich people are -- I think I know more about deductions than any human being on Earth.

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: But the truth is that people that are middle-income people that buy a car and actually have to borrow money, they're going to now get an interest deduction on their car if it's made in the United States. If it's made someplace else, that won't take place.

But car companies, as you know, are already expanding and building new plants.