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Protesters Tased at Town Hall; Rep. Greg Murphy (R-NC) is Interviewed about Protests at Town Halls; Bondi Calls Supreme Court Ruling a Win; Judge Orders DOJ Details on Deported Man. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired April 16, 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]

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Trump administration.

Liven.

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SEAN DUFFY, TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY: I was living in New Jersey. And I can tell you, the public was deeply worried about the lack of clear information. Communities, kids, families, seeing drones flying over their homes, very concerned. This administration is taking a completely different approach, radical transparency.

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MUNTEAN: These drone detection tests are taking place now for the next ten days. The goal is to detect small drones that you can buy off the shelf. The FAA is trying about 100 different types of those. But also some larger drones that can weigh up to 1,300 pounds. John, we're talking the weight of a grand piano.

Just the start of these tests, though, and the FAA says more of these tests will take place in other states throughout the year.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Looking forward to hearing the results of these tests.

Pete Muntean for us. Thank you very much.

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

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Tempers flare and anger boils over at town halls across America. Lawmakers face another round of frustrated voters and protesters back home, leading to arrests and stun guns at one Republican lawmaker's town hall.

The chief justice, John Roberts, may have been outmatched by President Trump in the fight over the wrongful deportation of a Maryland man to El Salvador. New reporting coming in from the high court.

And new body camera footage from inside the home of legendary actor Gene Hackman. The new details about the final days of Hackman and his wife.

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

BERMAN: All right, overnight, town halls gone wild, complete with scrums and stun guns. A pretty chaotic scene of the town hall for Marjorie Taylor Greene in Georgia. Protesters interrupted her several times. Police arrested three people. And they did use stun guns on two of them. Now, Greene did not take face to face questions. Instead, questions had to be submitted in writing, which she would read and then mock if they were critical.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): DOGE gutting our government with a chainsaw approach and the utter destruction and ignoring of our Constitution and rule of law. He is not well, physically or mentally.

Poor Christina (ph). Poor, poor Christina. Well, I'm sure, Christina, you think that you're pretty smart. But the reality is, you are being completely brainwashed by whatever source of news you listen to.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: All right, CNN's Ryan Young was there in the room. He's here now to talk about it.

So, Ryan, what happened there?

RYAN YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What a night. A lot of night full of energy in the room. Marjorie Taylor Greene stood there for most of the night. And no matter what happened, she didn't move from that spot. She continued her energy.

One thing that she pointed out to all of us, though, in terms of the - reading the questions. She said that's something that she's always done. She actually blamed the media, saying that sometimes we cover these things every now and then. We don't understand how she runs her town halls.

But, of course, everyone's talking about the back and forth between the protesters and the police officers. That crowd was energized for her to be there. Those protesters also wanted their voices heard.

But I want you to watch what happened about five minutes in, when these men started to stand up to protest. Then things took a turn before the tasing.

Watch now, John.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stop! Sir.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you really doing this?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, man. Really?

REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (EXPLETIVE DELETED).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hands up!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hands behind your back.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don't move. Stop.

GREENE: This - this is a - this is a peaceful town hall.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

YOUNG: John, our cameras were right there. We were right on top of this when it happened. One of the first things that we noticed when we walked into this room is all the officers that were there. Also to talk about the location. Acworth, about 30 miles away from Atlanta. That location had to almost be held secret for quite some time because they were worried about security concerns. There were so many people who wanted to protest. They were across the street. At times while she was speaking, you could hear the protesters out there.

There were officers that we didn't see. We know that more than 50 were there from three different agencies. Marjorie Taylor Greene also talked to the media. She took every single question afterwards.

Listen to her talk about the threats - increased threats to her and just how she's dealing with this all as she tries to pass some of the bills she thinks that Donald Trump wants passed.

Take a listen.

[09:05:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): I have the most death threats in Congress. And at times I have more death threats than even Speaker Johnson. And it shouldn't be that way.

Americans overwhelmingly voted in November for President Trump, Republican control of the House and the Senate, and how people should handle their businesses in the voting booth. There's no reason for screaming, yelling, ridiculous, outrageous protesting. That disrupts the entire event for every single person that is there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

YOUNG: John and Kate, something I do want to make clear, there was a moment, a softer moment within this town hall, when she was talking about the death of a child. Someone was talking about losing a loved one to drug use. And she really talked about wanting to stop the flow of drugs across the border. That was one of the softer moments there. But something that stood out to all of us was just the amount of

energy that was in the room for and against her. Even at the end, as people were walking out, they were screaming profanities at her as they were walking out the door. But she stood strong there and started talking to us. Even while that was going on, she said she wouldn't be deterred. And, obviously, that energy in the room did not stop because even afterwards the protesters were across the street protesting, trying to have their voices heard.

Kate.

BERMAN: I'll take it, Ryan. Great to have you there and great to have you here telling us about it.

YOUNG: Wild night.

BERMAN: Thanks so much, Ryan Young.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: All right. Joining us now to talk much more about this is Republican Congressman Greg Murphy of North Carolina.

Congressman, thank you for coming in. What's your reaction to what they were just talking about, the anger and frustration some of your colleagues are facing at town halls in their districts?

REP. GREG MURPHY (R-NC): Yes, I think it's a symptom really of the division in our country, and frankly, and I don't mean to hurt anybody's feelings there, but I think the media is the primary cause of this because of how it stokes emotions.

Look, you know, I think there are paid protesters. There are people who are professional protesters. Look, I try to have decent, respectful discussions. If we disagree, we disagree. But the yelling, the profanities, the death threats really are uncalled for. And, you know, that's not the way I run things. Everybody runs things a little bit differently. I prefer to have a much more smaller, respectful discussions. We do a lot of telephone town halls.

I think this is a sad, emblematic state of our country right now being so divided. But this is emblematic of what we're facing.

BOLDUAN: Yes. I don't have any information about protesters being paid. Anything beyond that, I will just, I will just say that. I know that we've heard people talk about that and make that accusation before.

You have faced criticism and even protest I've seen for not hosting in-person town halls in your district. Are you planning to hold any during this break?

MURPHY: Yes. Well, if you see what just happened. I mean, they're just not fruitful. They're not something that I think there is respectful debate. I have office, there have been a lot of protesters that want to meet with me in my office. And absolutely, I'm doing that all the time now, but I'm not going to sit and let things degrade into where it's not really fruitful. It's not anything that is productive.

And so at this point in time, I'm happy to meet with people if they call and want to have a civil discussion. But as far as just raucous screaming and yelling, I'm not interested in that because I don't think that is fruitful for anybody.

BOLDUAN: And what do you say just the counter of that to those constituents who would see that, who I've heard say, see that as you dodging tough questions by not holding something in person for them to be able to approach and kind of that more open, publicly accessible format?

MURPHY: As I said, if people call and want to meet with me, I'm happy to do that. And, you know, when we have our telephone town hall, I think the last one, probably 80 percent of the questions were Democrats. There's nothing I'm dodging, I don't dodge, I don't have to dodge anything because I fully can defend what I believe and what I believe the direction of this country is, and what people want in this country. So I'm not dodging anything. I'm literally just trying to avoid chaos.

BOLDUAN: Let's talk about some of the issues, the big pressing issues that are facing us right now, which including tariffs and the trade war that is, that continues to unfold. You have been supportive, I've been looking at your statements, and supportive of the president's trade moves and the tariffs. Leveling the playing field is something that I have heard you say.

Republican senator from your state, Thom Tillis of North Carolina.

MURPHY: Yes.

BOLDUAN: He is skeptical. He seems more skeptical about what these tariffs mean, especially for North Carolina farmers. Let me play you this, Congressman.

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SEN. THOM TILLIS (R-NC): Anyone who says there may be a little bit of pain before we get things right need to talk to my farmers who are one crop away from bankruptcy.

I'm assuming this all got gamed out because it's a novel approach, it needed to be thought out. Whose throat do I get to choke if this proves to be wrong?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: That's part of the line of questioning that he had for the U.S. Trade rep. How much pain do you think North Carolina farmers can take before they break?

[09:10:08]

MURPHY: Yes. You know, I think our farmers before the tariff issue was coming about, we had to, you know, we had to supply them with $10 billion. They really needed much more during the last session because farming has been so difficult. They've been hit by high fuel prices, high fertilizer prices, and so many other things.

Yes, this is a difficult time, and the president has committed to helping them, just like he did during the first administration.

But, Kate, if you look back and you see literally what the slides are about, what's going on with the American trade issue, the Biden administration did absolutely nothing in four years. You know, Kamala talked about root causes, but she never went and tried to develop any type of manufacturing, anything near shore in Central America that we would be benefiting from now.

But sadly, you know, one thing we did learn during the pandemic is that we are so reliant on foreign adversaries for basic items, critical minerals, our pharmaceuticals. We need to get those back. And if you look at where the structure of the American economy is now, we don't have a manufacturing economy. We have a service economy, and we have a government employee economy.

Yes, we manufacture some things, but by and large, if, God forbid, you know, we were forced to have to deal with ourselves and have to deal with our own manufacturing, we couldn't do it. Look at the boat building industry. I believe in the last four years, the Navy says they've built six boats and they've decommissioned 15, and that the boat building capacity of China is estimated to be over 230 percent, with the American manufacturing economy can do.

So, yes, these are drastic measures. They're 50, they're 75 years in the making, and we need to right the ship. You know, Senator Tillis and I agree on most things. Maybe we don't agree on some things. I know our farmers are hurting, and I know the president has committed to helping them in this very difficult time.

BOLDUAN: On that, I'm curious, do you, will you support giving more subsidies, government subsidies and aid to farmers if that would also mean it eats into the revenue that these -- the tariff revenue would bring in?

MURPHY: Well, if this is -- we're trying to play the long game here, Kate. It's not just a short game here. You know, China works in 25 and 100-year increments. We want to open up markets to our farmers. You know, like Australia, some of the other countries that don't allow -- I have a lot of hog production in Eastern North Carolina. They won't allow any of our goods to come into there.

We literally just want fair trade. And if we have to help our farmers in the meanwhile, during this difficult period, I'm all for it. We need to be able to produce our own food, and if in the short term they need to be supplemented and help with that, I have no issue with that.

BOLDUAN: Congressman Greg Murphy, thank you for coming in.

MURPHY: Thank you.

BOLDUAN: Thank you so much. Coming up for us - coming up for us, a federal judge scolding the

Trump administration and demanding more detail about what is being done, maybe not done, to bring back the man mistakenly deported to El Salvador from El Salvador.

And a major blow to trans rights activists in the U.K. The highest court there now saying that trans women are not legally women. They are - the highest court offering up a unanimous decision on what the legal definition of woman is.

And a CNN exclusive, George Clooney speaking out about his op-ed that created a lot of waves, calling for President Biden to drop out of the 2024 race.

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GEORGE CLOONEY, ACTOR: When I saw people on my side of the street not telling the truth, I through that was time to -

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Are people still mad at you for that?

CLOONEY: Some people. Sure. That's OK.

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[09:18:17]

BOLDUAN: The judge overseeing the case of a man the United States - the U.S. government mistakenly deported to El Salvador, that judge is losing patience. The judge now ordering a very fast two-week discovery window to learn what steps the Justice Department has or has not taken to bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to the U.S., because, as was stated in a hearing yesterday, quote, "to date what the record shows is nothing has been done." The Supreme Court has backed her up in the - in her order that the U.S. government needs to facilitate Abrego Garcia's return.

And here is what his attorney told me last night.

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RINA GANDHI, KILMAR ABREGO GARCIA'S ATTORNEY: The Supreme Court was clear, they must facilitate his release, not just his return physically into the United States, but his release. So, what have they done to do that? I hope that's what we'll find through discovery.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Joining me right now for more on this is CNN's chief supreme court analyst, Joan Biskupic.

And, Joan, you have new reporting just out about kind of the view from the Supreme Court, from the chief justice, about what we - what has played out with the Justice Department and Donald Trump's moves here. JOAN BISKUPIC, CNN CHIEF SUPREME COURT ANALYST: You know, his lawyer

just said that the ruling was clear, but actually the ruling was vaguely worded enough that its given this administration license to not do much at all toward freeing this man who is in this notoriously brutal prison.

Let's hear how Attorney General Pam Bondi parsed the difference between the word "facilitate" and "effectuate." Jargony words, but words that are going to make a difference on whether he's released.

Let's listen to the attorney general here.

[09:20:00]

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PAM BONDI, ATTORNEY GENERAL: It was a win. What the court also said was that these district judges do not have the right to interfere with the executive branch's ability to conduct foreign affairs. What they also said is just facilitate, meaning, if he wanted a plane flight, we could give him a plane flight, but we cannot effectuate it, meaning making it happen.

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BISKUPIC: Kate, this very stingy reading of what the Supreme Court ruled last Thursday. But as I said, it was a fairly opaque decision, at least by the conservative majority. Three of the liberal justices broke off and had harsher words for what had been going on in this case.

But I should stress that in this situation, in part I think the reason the administration is steamrolled through some loopholes here is because the conservative majority at the Supreme Court expressed absolutely no outrage about this situation, as lower court judges had done. And just contrast its, as I say, kind of jargony order that it issued last week to what one also conservative jurist from a U.S. appellate court had said when he handled this case. J. Harvie Wilkinson, from the Appellate Court that's based in Richmond, and has been handling this as an intermediate court, said outright, the government screwed up here. And he said, you know, that something should be done, even though he also, like the justices, said, there should be some deference to the administration for dealing in foreign affairs, but it still must do something.

And what we've seen now before the U.S. district court, Paula Xinis, is that the administration has been stonewalling and actually doing nothing. There's got to be more to happen here. This case might return to the Supreme Court. And if it returns to the Supreme Court, I would think that the justices would want to offer more clarity and more forcefulness for what has happened to this man, who has been in this prison for now about 32 days. And we have two more weeks of findings, fact findings in the lower courts. So, who knows what will happen to him and how long he will be there.

Kate. BOLDUAN: It's great to see you, Joan. Thank you so much for your

reporting.

John.

BERMAN: All right, with us now, Jeremy Saland, a former Manhattan prosecutor.

That kind of sort of sets the scene for where we are today. That's been the discussion over the last few days, how the administration responded to the Supreme Court saying they had to facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia.

Now, this district judge has said, you know what, show us your work. Show us your work here. Come back to us with proof. What kind of proof now is the administration required to show over the next few days?

JEREMY SALAND, FORMER MANHATTAN PROSECUTOR: Well, the judge is allowing the plaintiff, meaning Garcia's attorneys, to say, you have to sit certain officials for depositions. I can get it from you personally. You can be subpoenaed too to get back that information. Where is he being held? Where is he going? What steps have you previously taken, if any, to bring him back to the United States? And what specifically will you be doing going forward?

And the court went even a step further and sort of said all hand - in fact said all hands on deck and said, I will hold my court open for you basically 24/7 to get that answer. You have two weeks to do it. This is not a joke. And we're going to move forward.

BERMAN: OK. And if they don't?

SALAND: So, theoretically, you could find someone being held in contempt. But no matter what's going to happen here, I would imagine that if it doesn't go the way of the Department of Justice, there's going to be an appeal. It's going to go back up that - that proverbial food chain, potentially to the Supreme Court. That's what's going to happen.

BERMAN: Will the Supreme Court be forced to define what it means by facilitate?

SALAND: You shouldn't have to. And the court was pretty good about that. The court said, it's a common term in how it's used and cited it. And - but -

BERMAN: And the district court did.

SALAND: The district court, correct. I apologize. Yes.

BERMAN: Because the Supreme Court was completely vague.

SALAND: Right. But you shouldn't have to really debate the issue of what facilitate means. It's fairly obvious. You know, Pam Bondi is doing her job serving the president's interest of the United States, whether we agree justice is her job or the president's rule of law is her job. But nonetheless, if that facilitate can't be defined, and the court's not satisfied, or the plaintiff's not satisfied, or really not the court, or the defense, it goes up to the Supreme Court.

BERMAN: Can the Supreme Court wiggle out of it again somehow if it gets back to them?

SALAND: Can they? They theoretically could. But I would like to believe, and I think we should believe, they're going to have to have something more definitive if necessary because you need direction. They are correct, the judiciary can't preclude or preclude or stop the executive branch from doing anything. There is rules of law they have to follow. But there needs to have some clarity on how you go about doing that, ensuring checks and balances.

BERMAN: So one thing the president keeps on talking about, but from a legal perspective is likely just words said out loud, noise, meant to distract, is floating the idea of sending American criminals, U.S. citizens, what he calls homegrown criminals overseas, to prisons overseas or in other countries, like the one in El Salvador.

SALAND: The El Salvadoran president said it was preposterous for him to bring back Garcia because it would be akin to bringing a terrorist over the border.

[09:25:07]

What's even more preposterous, I would say, is that type of statement. You have this Eighth Amendment right, you know, against cruel and unusual punishments. You have due process. There is a decision, Valentine versus the United States, that dealt with the 1930s, American citizens going back to France for extradition to face criminal charges. That's hogwash. It's garbage. It's bogus. It would never happen. That is not the rule of law. And it's even disgusting to insinuate it and arguably terrible just to be silent on it. It shouldn't happen. That you're looking into this rule of law and whether or not you can do it, it's really ridiculous and frightening. But it would never go that far.

BERMAN: It may not take long to look into, in other words.

SALAND: It should not.

BERMAN: Jeremy Seland, thank you so much for all of this.

Just minutes away now from the opening bell on Wall Street. Let's take a look at stock futures right now. Down just a touch. This comes after some good retail sales figures. Strong retail sales figures. And the president's claim that he may be involved with negotiations, trade negotiations, with Japan. Still, though, markets a little blue.

The Justice Department suing the state of Maine for refusing to comply with a ban on transgender athletes in high school sports.

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