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Asian Markets Plunge as Trade War Fears Take Hold; White House Sends Mixed Messages on Possible Tariff Talks; Second Unvaccinated Child Dies of Measles in Texas Outbreak; CIA Reviewing It's Authorities to Use Lethal Force Against Drug Cartels; Rain Subsiding Today Across Central U.S., But Rivers Still Rising. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired April 07, 2025 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:30:00]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Triggered by China's forceful response to those unexpectedly high tariffs. CNN's Marc Stewart has the very latest from Beijing for us this morning. We are looking at these numbers, Marc, and the Hang Seng, look at this, down 13 percent, not points, percent. That is upsetting to a lot of folks. What can you tell us?

MARC STEWART, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Sara, if we think of numbers telling a narrative, what we are seeing is anxiety, uncertainty, apprehension about the future. It's being reflected in Wall Street, Main Street, and in global markets.

You mentioned the Hang Seng down by 13 percent. We also saw very big losses here on the stock indexes here in mainland China. South Korea and Japan, which are major centers of commerce, manufacturing, think about the auto industry, big brands like Honda, Toyota, Hyundai, they are also down.

Just to give you some context, normally in Asia, if we see declines of about one to two percent, that would be newsworthy. It would be noteworthy. And the losses that we are seeing now are much more than that, much greater than that.

And then there is the China question. It was late Friday here in Beijing that China announced retaliatory tariffs, very steep tariffs. And there is this big question, what will happen next? So far, Beijing is not giving much detail or thought about what it's doing for the future, at least publicly.

In fact, it was just about four hours ago that the government, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, had a press briefing here in Beijing. Let's listen to what a spokesperson had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LIN JIAN, SPOKESPERSON, CHINESE MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS (through translator): We have emphasized multiple times that pressure and threats are not the correct way to deal with China. China will firmly safeguard its legitimate rights and interests.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEWART: China has been preparing for Trump 2.0 with a number of new economic relations with countries not only here in Asia, but around the world. It was expecting this, Sara, and now it has a playbook that it seems to be following.

SIDNER: Well, this number is upsetting. We will be watching them. I know you will be watching them throughout the rest of the week just to see where we end up.

Marc Stewart, thank you so much. Live there from Beijing for us -- Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: And joining us right now to talk much more about what the world is now facing, this new reality, is CNN senior political analyst Mark Preston and Margaret Talev, senior contributor to Axios. So, guys, I mean, this morning, it's the real fallout and the ripple effects that keep on rippling from the markets. And then there's all -- and then there's the political impact of it, which is a real big question, Mark, right now.

Markets and then this, I don't know if this is an inkling of what is to come in terms of political impact, Mark, but you now have Wall Street titans weighing in like billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman. He supported Donald Trump in the election, and he's now somewhat leading the way of Wall Street's pushback on these tariffs.

He put out lengthy social media posts, in part saying, this is not what we voted for and we are headed for a self-induced economic nuclear winter and we should start hunkering down now.

Do you think, if nothing else, that changes minds at the White House?

MARK PRESTON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, it's interesting that he is relaying his concerns via X, right, you know, as opposed to picking up the telephone -- and maybe he did -- and called President Trump. But the reality is, is that this is how people are communicating with him. This is how they get Donald Trump to move a certain way.

Ackman is now up again, putting out more messages. Last night, he criticized Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, saying that Lutnick's firm benefited financially off of the economy imploding. This morning, he's now taking that back and said, listen, I'm just really frustrated about what's happening. We've made such great economic gains. But as you talk about apprehension and frustration and, you know, us looking at our 401ks, the likes of Bill Ackman are looking at their portfolio collapse.

BOLDUAN: Margaret, one of the things I'm noticing the trend now is a couple of the ways that President Trump is talking about it, right?

On Saturday, he put out a Truth Social post saying, hang tough, it won't be easy, but the end result will be historic.

On the plane back on Air Force One last night, he'd said, sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something with the administration, of course, continuing to, you know, send mixed signals on what exactly that means.

What do you think of that message from the President of the United States?

MARGARET TALEV, SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR, AXIOS: You know, Kate, it's interesting. My colleagues, Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen wrote this morning, and I actually use the right framing for it, that usually you think of President Trump as trying to make a deal. And in this case, he's trying to make a point.

[07:35:00]

So he's trying a series of different messaging that suggests that he intends to dig in, and that he's just trying to figure out what's the best way to do it. Can he play golf and show everyone if he is not worried they shouldn't be either?

Is he telling everybody, this is going to hurt for a while, but it's going to get better? Is he going to use a medicine analogy, which is interesting for a person who says everybody should have the right to decide whether or not they want to take the medicine.

So I think he's trying a lot of different messaging here, but it's because of the pushback that he's getting not just from the markets, but as you mentioned from Wall Street, we saw this morning Jamie Dimon, the CEO for JP Morgan, warning in his letter to shareholders that he believes these tariffs are going to significantly slow the U.S. economy, which already is facing pressure and it could drive inflation.

You've got AEI, the conservative think tank, over the weekend putting out -- you remember that formula that the White House released to explain the rationale for the tariffs -- putting out a statement saying that actually the formula is wrong, that they used the wrong variable for import prices, and that it will create something like a four to one ratio and how bad will fill the tariffs.

So if the president truly intends to dig in, he is going to need a series of different messaging tasks to see what can assuage different parts of the U.S. Some will be regular Americans who have very little extra money to cushion the blow of this, and some of this will be multimillionaires and billionaires who just don't like it.

BOLDUAN: Yes, and so then Mark, the question, one of the things, a factoid that Matt Egan actually told us this morning, which is something that Trump pre-being committed to tariffs in this way would care a lot about, which is that this is the worst start to any presidential term since the S&P 500 launched in the 1950s. And then it's what is Congress's role here?

Here's how Punchbowl put it this morning.

Senate and House Republicans are beginning to panic, although A, we don't think that Congress will pass a bill to take tariff power away from the president, and B, it's an open question as to whether the Hill can have any influence at all with the president on trade policy.

That's an -- it's an interesting moment for Senate and House Republicans. I mean, in Congress in general, which typically has the power, has tariff authority. What do you see happening on the Hill?

PRESTON: Well, this is when, this is the problem about giving too much power to the executive, right? Because the legislative, the Republicans are in control of the House, they're in control of the Senate, but they've ceded all authority to President Trump so far in just about everything. So when you -- when they feel like they have to step up, it only makes it more difficult for them to do so.

However, if we are to believe the likes of Howard Lutnick and Peter Navarro yesterday on the show saying that basically these tariffs are here for, you know, a pretty long time and, you know, it's not going to be changed overnight. That means that you're going to see members of Congress going home every weekend now, into the summer, and they're going to have to listen to their constituents. And that's when all of this blows up for Donald Trump.

And it doesn't just affect his, his ability to get, you know, anything through regarding the tariffs. It could affect his ability on getting anything through at that point, because then these members of Congress, these Republicans who are in some very difficult races, you know, it's every man for himself, every woman for herself. So they're going to have to do what they have to do to make sure that they get reelected. And that may not be supporting Donald Trump.

BOLDUAN: Yes, I mean, you can put money on the fact that it's going to hurt those members of Congress first before, obviously it would hurt Donald Trump if you carry on the tradition of what we've seen, which is, you know, Teflon Trump for so many years, that's going to be quite a dynamic.

Guys, it's great to see you. Margaret, thanks for jumping on. Mark, thank you. Guys, I really appreciate it -- Sara.

SIDNER: All right, this morning, tragic news out of Texas, where a second child has died of measles that was once eradicated in this country. Officials say the school-aged child was not vaccinated and had no underlying health problems.

The ongoing measles outbreak spans Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and now went to Kansas. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. visited Texas over the weekend to attend the child's funeral, posting on X -- and I'm quoting here -- the most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine. That is a change in tone from Kennedy, who has been slow to acknowledge or actually not acknowledge the effectiveness of the vaccine.

CNN medical correspondent Meg Tirrell is joining us now. Two children are dead. We used to not have this in this country. It was eradicated.

[07:40:00]

It is a horrible thing to sit here and understand the ramifications of not being vaccinated. And now, finally, the HHS secretary has said it out loud, something that he has debated and actually said he didn't think were effective. He's really changed his tune. What happened here?

MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Sara, so this outbreak is growing very fast. And while Secretary Kennedy did post on X that endorsement of the efficacy of the MMR vaccine, I think a lot of people would like to see a more wholehearted endorsement of both its safety and its efficacy, and for that message to be loud and clear, top of every messaging from the government. And that is not happening.

Really, right after he put out that, several hours later, he put out another post on X where he applauded local doctors who were administering unapproved treatments for measles. So there's still a lot of concern about what's going on here. You can see now the distribution of cases across the United States.

This Texas outbreak has grown now to about 481 cases, 56 hospitalizations, and these two deaths of school-aged children. This most recent death was in a child who was unvaccinated and had no reported underlying conditions. The cause of death was measles pulmonary failure, and we know that measles can cause pneumonia in some children. So this is absolutely tragic.

And when you look at the vaccination status of most of the cases there in Texas, 98 percent of the people who got measles were either unvaccinated or had unknown vaccine status. And that's the concern, Sara.

As we see so many cases of measles, we also know that measles vaccination rates have been falling around the country. So there are a lot of pockets where this could really ignite. And that's what people are really worried about.

President Trump was asked about this outbreak and this second death yesterday. Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, I think they're doing reports on it. It's so far a fairly small number of people relative to what we're talking about. It's something that people have known about for many, many years.

I mean, measles has been -- you know, this is not something new. And we'll see what happens. But certainly, if something -- if it, you know, progresses, we'll have to take action very strongly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TIRRELL: So, Sara, I think the question a lot of people have is, what does he mean by if it progresses? Because we eliminated measles in the year 2000, as you noted. We are now in this huge outbreak that is showing no signs of slowing.

What's it going to take to step up the response here? Back to you. SIDNER: Yes, it is heartbreaking that two children are dead that don't -- shouldn't be if they had only been given the vaccine. Meg Tirrell, thank you so much. Really appreciate it -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Also new this morning, CNN has learned the CIA is reviewing its authority to use lethal force against Mexican drug cartels and beyond. It's part of the Trump administration's effort to crack down on cartels, which the administration has called a top priority.

Let's bring in CNN's Katie Bo Lillis. She has new reporting on this for us. Katie Bo, what are you learning?

KATIE BO LILLIS, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: So, Kate, what we have learned is that the CIA is conducting a legal review of its authorities to conduct lethal action against cartel actors in -- overseas, in Mexico and elsewhere. Now, this does not mean that the White House has made the decision to take this step, but it does signal how seriously the Trump administration is considering this possibility. And the CIA wants to understand kind of the left and right of what is both legal under the law of armed conflict and what the potential blowback and repercussions of this sort of different suite of options at its disposal might be.

So this could include anything from providing targeting intelligence to partner nations like Mexico to conduct their own lethal strikes to taking direct action itself inside Mexico or elsewhere. Remember, the CIA is already flying surveillance drones in Mexican airspace that are capable of being armed.

The other thing that this review really underscores, Kate, is how aware U.S. officials are of the potential for blowback on the United States and on the CIA specifically if there is -- if something that goes wrong in any of these operations. So in particular, officials are worried about the possibility for collateral damage, people who might accidentally be killed that are not cartel targets as a result of any direct or indirect agency action. Kate, that's something that U.S. officials are looking at particularly closely as a part of this review.

BOLDUAN: Understandably so. Katie Bo Lillis, it was great reporting. Katie Bo, thank you so much -- Sara,

SIDNER: All right. We are seeing some devastating flooding in this country. Heavy rains, though, are starting to ease up across the central U.S., but the danger is not over. Rivers are still rising as storm-battered communities brace for even more flooding. Since last week, a line of unrelenting storms and tornadoes have killed at least 19 people in seven different states.

CNN's Ryan Young is in Moscow, Tennessee, which is about an hour outside of Memphis. You've been in these floods. You have experienced the power of these floods. What are you seeing now?

[07:45:00]

RYAN YOUNG, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Sara, it's quite tragic, especially in some of these communities that are really dealing with all this water that they never expected before. But where we're standing right now, there was a tremendous loss of life. In fact, right here behind me, this is where a family was just ripped apart.

Two people died in this storm when a tornado ripped through here, might even been an EF3 -- father and daughter died. And as we talk about the flooding in other places, as we show you some of this video, there are neighborhoods that have never dealt with this kind of flooding in quite some time.

So even we were trapped in Arkansas at some point, as the water just really took out a lot of the roads and made communication very difficult. At this point in Kentucky as well, they're dealing with that massive amount of water that you sort of have to wait for it to recede before you can go about your business. Talking to truckers in the area as well, they have not been able to deliver loads or get through these areas because highways have been shut down as well.

These folks have been dealing with tremendous amounts of rain for the last 10 days, and they are worried about more rain coming. And even today, Sara, if it's not even worse, it's the fact that the temperature has started to drop. So you have people who have holes in their roof from tornadoes.

You have people who are trying to dry out who've lost everything from flooding. And then you add on the fact the temperature drop, it's just one punch after another.

SIDNER: Yes, it is really devastating. You've been doing excellent reporting over these last, what, eight or nine days as this storm just keeps pounding the central U.S. Thank you so much to you and your team. I'm glad you're safe this morning -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Coming up for us, the Los Angeles Dodgers headed to the White House to celebrate their 2024 World Series win. There's reaction from players who previously said that they would not attend.

Also, a chance at millions will be costing you some more. Lottery officials have more than doubled the price of a mega millions ticket. Your chances do not increase though.

[07:50:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SIDNER: Right now, a live look at U.S. stock futures, and it ain't pretty. They are tumbling in wake of President Trump's global trade war. Spending the weekend golfing, though, he isn't acting as if there's anything really wrong.

Overnight, some Asian and European stocks nosedived. Hong Kong's main exchange, the Hang Seng, dropped 13 percent. Taiwan's exchange saw its biggest one-day drop on record, a grim forecast for what Americans might see when that bell rings on Wall Street. Joining me now is CNN political and national security analyst David Sanger. He is also White House and national security correspondent for The New York Times.

First to you, when you look at what is happening in the markets, and then you see the president's response, which has not been one of concern that we are seeing publicly, what does that tell the rest of the world about what the president is about to do?

DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, Sara, a few things that I think jumped out at us over the weekend. First, the president seems, or at least sounds, committed to sticking with this course, which is somewhat unusual for him because he's never been really an ideological kind of leader. He's been a make-me-a-deal kind of leader.

But this is his moment to go work through a course that he has been prescribing since the late 1980s. And he finally feels as if he's got the freedom to do it. And so he spent the weekend pretty much ignoring the global wreckage that it has caused, sort of shrugging it off.

And I think you saw that from the golf games to the comments on Air Force One. I think the second thing we've learned from this is his own aides seem enormously nervous about the path that they have chosen here. Their statements on Sunday shows about the reasons for this have been contradictory.

We can't figure out whether these tariffs are there to be permanent and therefore a way to raise revenue for the United States so that there's a smaller income tax or people pay less in income tax. Foreign nations, in the president's view, pay more. We don't know whether these are there to be dealt away with so that he can get into negotiations with each of countries involved.

It looks like this was done with great haste.

SIDNER: You have one of his billionaire backers saying, stop it. This is just a self-inflicted wound. But it is confusing what is coming out of the White House from advisors.

You've got White House economic advisor Kevin Hassett saying that more than 50 countries have reached out to negotiate. But then you have other advisors saying we're not negotiating. So how are we supposed to read -- how is the public supposed to read what is happening here as they watch their 401ks plummet?

SANGER: Well, there are two big issues here. One is there isn't consistency. And that is because they did not do a good job of communicating where they were headed.

Imagine a world in which the president had called each of these international leaders and said, here's what I'm going to do in a month. You can avoid it with a negotiation that has this kind of deadline. It may or may not have worked, but it would not have taken the world by surprise. The Chinese leadership has made it clear they had very little communication. And obviously, they're the world's second largest economy. But the same thing for our friends. There are big tariffs on Japan and South Korea.

[07:55:00]

I think the second part of this is he didn't do a good job communicating it to Americans. His message has been, you know, you have to go through some pain while you're taking the bitter medicine. The problem here is it's not clear this is the right medicine.

In fact, the last time this medicine was used, it killed the economy. And that was, of course, back in the 1930s.

SIDNER: Yes, and there are a lot of Americans who felt like their economies were sick. But economists looking at the broader economy said the economy wasn't sick. It was actually doing quite well when Donald Trump got into office. We will see -- go ahead.

SANGER: I was just about to say, yes, he went into this with the strongest economy in the world. And I'm not sure we're going to come out of that looking that way.

SIDNER: David Sanger, it is always a pleasure. Thank you so much for your expertise on this -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Other headlines we're watching at this hour. Today, the L.A. Dodgers are headed to the White House. The team is going to meet with the president to celebrate their 2024 World Series win. Some players on the team, including manager Dave Roberts, had previously said that they are going to reject an invitation from the president if invited. But that stance seems to have changed as they now call the opportunity a, quote, great honor.

And an incredible rescue happened in Michigan. Thermal camera footage -- that's what you're looking at right here. It shows the moment when a police helicopter there found and rescued a toddler that had gone missing. The two-year-old disappeared on Saturday only in a diaper. And after about an hour, the helicopter unit spotted the toddler, conscious and alert, but curled up, as you can see, in the ditch near the interstate -- sweet baby. The child was taken to the hospital. No injuries are reported, very thankfully.

And a mega makeover for the Mega Millions lottery. The cost of a ticket will now be more than double what it was. It will now cost you $5 compared to $2 -- $5 compared with $2 previously. Mega Millions says this will result in larger starting jackpots and faster growing prizes.

I mean, they already grew so fast. Anyway, it expects the average jackpot to be more than $800 million -- Sara.

SIDNER: All right, the Trump administration faces a midnight deadline to bring back a Maryland resident from a notorious prison in El Salvador. The Justice Department is fighting a court order to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia, even though it has admitted his deportation was a mistake.

The Salvadorian husband and father of a young child was detained by immigration authorities and deported last night.

CNN's Priscilla Alvarez is joining us now. Priscilla, the government's argument is that he's now in El Salvador's custody and they can't bring him back. Why?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That is an argument that they have maintained over the course of this case, saying that they have no control over him because he is in Salvadorian in custody. It's true for him as well as the other migrants that they sent to this notorious prison last month.

But a federal judge disagrees. She says that it is because, quote, their lack of desire. The key point in this case that is unique is that not only did they deport someone, they deported someone to El Salvador when an immigration judge in 2019 said that couldn't be the case. While he was removable from the United States, he just couldn't be sent to that country for fear of persecution.

And that is exactly what happened here. And it is an error that the administration has conceded to. Another part of this is that there is very little evidence in this case.

The federal judge asking for this repeatedly during the hearing on Friday and going on to reaffirm the fact that there was little evidence in additional writings this weekend.

She said this, quote, That silence is telling that in regards to the lack of evidence. As defendants acknowledged, they had no legal authority to arrest him, no justification to detain them and no grounds to send him to El Salvador, let alone deliver him into one of the most dangerous prisons in the Western Hemisphere.

So she gave the government until 11:59 p.m. today to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Now, this is still sitting before an appeals court. The federal government had asked that the appeals court rule by 5 p.m. yesterday. That deadline has come and gone. That doesn't mean that they cannot weigh in on this case. But as things are this morning, the government is in a position where they would have to return him by the end of the day.

We'll be monitoring this closely, but certainly a case that his family is desperate to get additional answers to.

SIDNER: Yes, I guess the big question is, couldn't they just ask El Salvador, who they asked to take in these these prisoners, to return him? It'll be interesting to see how this all plays out. But the meantime, the family is devastated by all this, as is he in that prison who the judge said should be brought back.

Priscilla Alvarez, I know you'll be watching this case and many more. Thank you so much for your great reporting on this. A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

BOLDUAN: Here we go.

[08:00:00]