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Aaron Frey, (D), Maine Attorney General, Discusses DOJ Suing Maine For Ignoring Ban On Trans Athletes In High School Sports; Kennedy Contradicts CDC Autism Study On Why Rates Are Rising; FAA Tests Drone Detection Equipment After 2024 Mystery Sightings; Stocks Slide As Powell Warns Of Tariffs On The Economy. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired April 16, 2025 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:30:00]

AARON FREY, (D), MAINE ATTORNEY GENERAL: -- offer is there have been trans students who have been participating for years in school sports without there being any issue.

There has been this raising of a specter that there may be some safety concern, the specter that there may be some harms.

But -- but the really -- other than pointing to, you know, a student winning over some other student, there hasn't been any sort of evidence to support that the participation of trans girls in girls' sports here in Maine has caused the problems that are being alleged.

But let me also get to something else, right, which is Maine is going to follow the law. We don't get to make the law up. We don't get to decide when we're going to follow the law. Title IX in the Maine Human Rights Act provide what law it is that Maine has to follow.

And we believe that we are following the law by allowing trans girls to participate in sports.

So if parents are concerned about that, if -- if there are parents that think we should discriminate against trans girls, they need to go to Congress. They need to go to the legislature to -- to see about having those laws changed.

Until those laws are, we are confident that Title IX and the Maine Human Rights Act supports what's happening.

And again, it's been that way for years. But now that it's -- it's an issue that the president believes he can win on, distracting from all of the other problems that his administration is creating. That's why I think it's being raised to such the level that it is now.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Maine attorney general, Aaron Frey, thank you so much for being with us.

FREY: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Still ahead, we are tracking markets and stocks are sinking sharply. This as Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell warns of the impact of tariffs on the economy. We're going to discuss with "Shark Tank's" Kevin O'Leary, next on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:36:02]

SANCHEZ: A quick glance now at some of the other headlines we're watching this hour.

Police say an armed 17-year-old snuck into a Dallas high school on Tuesday and, quote, "fired indiscriminately." Five students were hurt, some seriously. The suspect is now being held at a Dallas County jail.

Tuesday's shooting occurred nearly a year after a separate incident at the same high school, when a student got a handgun into the building despite metal detectors and a clear-bag policy.

Also, two servicemembers deployed to the southern border were killed Tuesday in a vehicle accident. A third was injured and is in serious condition.

The military, at this point, is not releasing their names until next of kin is notified. The accident occurred near the border town of Santa Teresa, New Mexico, and is now under investigation.

And in L.A., burglars tunneled through a concrete wall -- you're seeing the hole there -- to gain access to a jewelry store. Security camera footage shows the suspects entering the store from a large hole they drilled from the property next door.

Once they got inside and gained access to the safe, police say the burglars made off with at least $10,000 -- rather, no, $10 million -- big difference -- in watches, pendants, gold chains and other merchandise.

Detectives are now scouring the scene, looking for fingerprints and any DNA evidence they might be able to collect.

Erica?

ERICA HILL, CNN HOST: Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr is contradicting some of the findings in a new autism study from his own department.

It's important to note here the secretary isn't disputing the continuing rise in the U.S. autism rate, which he called shocking.

He does take issue, though, with the why. He says it's time to move away from the, quote, "ideology that the increase is due to better monitoring and screening" as laid out by that CDC analysis.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY: These are kids -- this is a preventable disease. We know it's an environmental exposure. These are kids who, many of them, were fully functional and regressed

because of some environmental exposure into autism when they're two years old.

And these are kids who will never pay taxes, they'll never hold a job, they'll never play baseball, they'll never write a poem, they'll never go out on a date. Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: Joining me now is Dr. Paul Offit. He's the director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

Dr. Offit, good to see you as always.

You just heard some of those comments there from Secretary Kennedy. He's pushing back on the role of increased screening and monitoring for higher rates of autism.

He says this is a, quote, "preventable disease." And as you heard him say there, he says, quote, "We know it's an environmental exposure." Is it that simple?

DR. PAUL OFFIT, DIRECTOR, THE VACCINE EDUCATION CENTER, CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL OF PHILADELPHIA: No. First of all, autism was first mentioned by Leo Kanner in the 1930s. And at that time, it was considered to be extremely rare. As rare as childhood schizophrenic -- schizophrenia.

Since then, I mean, there have been many, many studies looking at the cause or causes of autism. There have been literally billions of dollars spent over the last 15 years to look at the cause or causes of autism.

And now we have the Autism Cares Act, which is going to put another $2 billion over the next five years.

And what have we learned? We've learned that it's -- at least there's a huge genetic component that has to do with genes that are expressed early in pregnancy, have to do with how the one brain cell interacts with another.

We know that there are certainly maternal health issues like diabetes or obesity or psychiatric disorders, and we know that there are infections that can occur in utero, like a cytomegalovirus infection, rubella infection.

What all of those three things have in common is that they will affect you before you're born.

So now he is of the belief that, once you're born, that there are environmental toxins that are somehow affecting that for which he has no evidence. He's just making it up.

[14:39:59]

And I think that when he sort of over dramatizes this, you know, that they'll never pay taxes, that they'll never love again, I mean, I don't know if you ever saw that two-year series "Love on the Spectrum."

That was a reality show. But they can love again, so I'm not sure why he dramatizes it the way he does.

HILL: Well, he also noted that, to your point about -- about the -- the gene component here, he said epidemics -- I'm paraphrasing. But he said epidemics aren't caused by genes.

He has promised that he is going to find the cause by September. So let's just say he has unlimited funds, unlimited resources for this study.

What could he learn in the next six months given, to your point, the billions of dollars in years of research that has led up to this moment.

OFFIT: It's certainly an enormous level of hubris. I mean, it's as if he's going to come in and with money that he now has, he's going to figure out something that no one has figured out in the last 20 years, when there's hundreds and hundreds of studies that have looked at the cause or causes of autism.

So I think one can only conclude that he has in his mind that there is an environmental toxin, or there are environmental toxins, which he is going to prove.

But that's not how scientists work. The way scientists work is they formulate a hypothesis, and then they -- they discover what they find. He already seems to know what he's going to find, which is worrisome.

HILL: It's -- the other part of this that's worrisome, is the massive amount of misinformation, which, across the board. I know I don't have to tell you about that.

But when we think about how we got here and how many years it took and how much reporting it took to remind people of that one study that supposedly claimed that it was related to vaccines, which, of course, was shown not to be true. Multiple studies have shown that there is not a link.

When you're looking at combating the misinformation around autism in a society that is so siloed, is there an effective way to do that at this point?

OFFIT: So the study you mentioned was published in 1998, claiming falsely that the Measles, Mumps, Rubella vaccine caused autism. That's an unanswerable question.

And there have been 24 studies that have been done, 24, that have looked retrospectively to see, are you at increased risk of autism if you got this vaccine or if you didn't? And the answer has consistently been no.

Now, what I would argue is those studies made a difference. Most parents of children with autism no longer think that it was that vaccine. So those studies are valuable. I just wish RFK Jr believed them.

HILL: I also wanted to get your take on this, because when I saw this cross, I have to say, I thought -- I thought of you.

So the WHO announced that it just reached an agreement with all of its member countries to prepare for future pandemics. This stood out to me because President Trump, of course, pulled the U.S. out of the WHO earlier this year.

What does this mean for a future pandemic? And can the U.S. go that alone?

OFFIT: No. You worry, not only WHO, but the Global Alliance for Vaccine Initiative, PEPFAR, USAID. We've sort of distanced ourselves from our global alliances, knowing there will be another pandemic.

There's been three pandemics in the last 20 years. Assume there will be another pandemic. And you want to be able to have a relationship with your -- your neighboring country so that you can figure it out quickly and respond quickly.

You know, there's going to be another pandemic. And I just feel like by distancing ourselves, we're going to lose the kind of cooperation that we need from other countries to be able to identify the source of that pandemic and respond to it quickly.

HILL: Do you see any reversal in the near future?

OFFIT: It's going to take a while to put this all back together again. Right now, it just seems to all be moving in one direction.

You know, I just want to make it clear, I'm fine with REF Jr wanting to do more studies, looking at the cause or causes of autism. But he has to be open minded to the fact that he might find something that he didn't think was true.

Right now, it seems like he already knows what he's going to find, which is never the way to go into a group of scientific studies.

(CROSSTALK)

OFFIT: He said it. He said it's going to be an exposure, to be preventable. And that already tells you he thinks he knows what it is.

HILL: Dr. Paul Offit, always appreciate your expertise and your insight. Thank you.

OFFIT: Thank you.

[14:44:08]

Still ahead here, the FAA testing new technology after a string of unexplained drone sightings, some of them near military bases.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HILL: The FAA is taking on a high-tech challenge, testing out some new technology to detect drones in the skies over New Jersey.

SANCHEZ: Yes, this comes just months after a series of mystery sightings in the Garden State, like the ones you're seeing now.

Remember, officials received reports of hundreds of unexplained drones, caused widespread confusion and concern and endless speculation on the Internet. Officials, though, insist there was never a security threat.

For more insight, let's turn to CNN aviation correspondent, Pete Muntean, who did an investigation of his own into this.

(LAUGHTER)

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: In Seaside Heights, no less.

SANCHEZ: That's right. Talk to us about --

HILL: A lovely spot.

(CROSSTALK)

SANCHEZ: -- the technology that the FAA is deploying.

MUNTEAN: Well, the issue is really that drones are pretty tough to track using normal radar. So the FAA is doing this testing with a different band of radar. It's called X-Band that can actually track smaller things.

They're also using something called an acoustic array, which can actually pick up the sound signature of drones. So they're having to get a little creative here.

These tests are pretty important, though, because they're focused on detecting drones over critical infrastructure. That was a big concern during the drone panic over New Jersey last November and December.

The conspiracy theories really spread like wildfire. And then- President-Elect Trump said the Biden administration knew more than it was leading on.

It turns out, nearly all of those drone sightings could be explained as normal air traffic, airplanes and helicopters, also stars and even planets, which can be quite bright on a clear night.

[14:50:02]

Remember, there are about a million drones registered to fly legally in U.S. airspace. But even still, the FAA sees drones operating illegally near airports all the time.

Now, the FAA wants to expand detection technology to places that are not airports. So this testing is happening now on weekdays near the ferry terminal in Cape May, New Jersey. It's a vital lifeline to the booming summer vacation spot.

And here is what Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says about these tests. And listen to his criticism of how the previous administration handled drone hysteria.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

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.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MUNTEAN: The FAA is testing detection tech on about 100 different types of drones. We're talking the smaller drones that you can buy off the shelf, like the DJI Mavic. The FAA is also trying this on larger drones used by commercial operators.

Then there are the bigger military grade drones. Those can weigh up to about 1,300 pounds. We're talking the weight of a grand piano.

So this is a really wide-ranging series of tests that the FAA is doing right now. And it's happening now over about the next 10 days.

HILL: Grand piano, which is -- which is just wild to sort of picture.

MUNTEAN: I tried to find something sort of relatable.

HILL: Right. Yes. And it works. You know what? It worked for me. I look in the sky, I see a grand piano.

MUNTEAN: Yes.

HILL: You know, some people see a constellation.

What about expanding this testing to other states?

MUNTEAN: They're doing this -- they've done some of this already in Alaska. And they're going to do this in New Mexico and North Dakota and Mississippi.

Again, the big thing here is critical infrastructure. And that was the concern after this. The FAA popped up all of these temporary restricted areas over places like nuclear power plants and parts of the power grid.

So we're really only seeing the start of this. And this is a huge concern. You know, it's not only just infrastructure, it's also big outdoor sporting events, open-air gatherings of people.

It's hard to find and detect these drones. And this is an emerging thing that's happening all the time. HILL: Yes. I mean, listen, I remember when that was playing out to as a New York Tri-State resident. People were freaked out --

(CROSSTALK)

HILL: -- legitimately. I know people who left New Jersey because they were so concerned.

MUNTEAN: Yes.

(LAUGHTER)

#: So, which Boris is now laughing at them for?

SANCHEZ: I just didn't know aliens played the piano.

(LAUGHTER)

SANCHEZ: That's awesome. First from Pete Muntean.

MUNTEAN: I got nothing. I'm sorry. I -- you know, I thought it was legit. Maybe there was a --

(CROSSTALK)

MUNTEAN: -- little bit of crop circles, sort of UFO-like --

(CROSSTALK)

MUNTEAN: -- hysteria happening.

HILL: I think --

(CROSSTALK)

MUNTEAN: And it really sort of ballooned.

HILL: You know, there's a lot of serious stuff happening these days.

SANCHEZ: Yes --

(CROSSTALK)

HILL: I'm not sure if you both have noticed. I think it's nice. We have a little -- a little break --

(CROSSTALK)

HILL: -- a little -- Pete Muntean for the win.

SANCHEZ: He's always cracking me up, making me tear up.

(LAUGHTER)

SANCHEZ: Thank you so much, Pete.

MUNTEAN: Thanks.

HILL: Still to come here, back to the serious stuff. Stocks sliding after the Fed chair issues his starkest warning yet on the impact of President Trump's trade war.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:57:19]

SANCHEZ: Stocks right now are sinking sharply. Investors are reacting to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, who says that the effects of President Trump's tariffs will likely include, among other things, higher inflation, saying that U.S. consumers will pay a large part of that burden.

With us now is chairman of O'Leary Ventures, "Shark Tank" investor, Kevin O'Leary.

Thank you so much for sharing part of your afternoon with us, sir.

I want to get your reaction to what Jerome Powell is saying, that we're going to see higher inflation and slower growth. That sounds like a recipe for stagflation.

KEVIN O'LEARY, CHAIRMAN, O'LEARY VENTURES & "SHARK TANK" INVESTOR: He doesn't know that yet, because like everybody else, he doesn't know how long this tariff, let's call it negotiation, is going to go on for.

He would be right if this lasted years. I doubt it's going to happen that way. Let's be pragmatic. The midterms are less than 18 months away. Trump can't have this on his back at the midterms. He risks losing a majority.

So he's got to resolve this quickly. And that's why they're going at breakneck speed.

No administration has ever tried to negotiate 60-plus countries at once. And that's one basket. The Europeans, the Mexicans, the Canadians, I get it. You know, Taiwan, whatever it is.

But the big deal here is China. That's the behemoth. We're the biggest market. They know it. So much of what's made in China goes to the United States. And so that's really the one to focus on.

I think the rest is a sideshow because it's going to get resolved. Probably equivalent tariffs or no tariffs at all. But the China deal that's a big deal.

SANCHEZ: Trump has told his team that China has to make the first move toward negotiations. Our reporting indicates that the administration told President Xi that he should request a call with Trump.

The phone, as far as we know, has not yet rung as Xi is touting these new deals with trade partners in Southeast Asia. Do you think he's blowing off the president? O'LEARY: No, no. He could combine the entire, you know, market in Southeast Asia. It doesn't come close to what he sells the United States. So that's not going to resolve anything.

This is just posturing. We've got two behemoth leaders that don't want to look like they're weak. I get it. But this is a ticking time bomb. It's got to get resolved. There's no question about it.

But the resolution with China is not just about trade. We now have at the table -- and there's plenty of people talking about this on the Hill. We've got to resolve this I.P.-theft thing. They're just stealing too much I.P.

So much of the industry that's been developed in China is based on the back of American software or American I.P., and this thing has got to get resolved. So it's two -- two discussions going on at once.

[14:59:56]

I think it's going to happen within 10 days. I'm guessing, like everybody else. But I believe that these two will be talking soon. They're going to have to.

SANCHEZ: To -- to your point about I.P. theft, it's been going on for so long that some in American leadership --