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Trump Lashes Out at Powell: "Termination Cannot Come Fast Enough"; Proposed HHS Cuts Would Slash 40% of CDC, NIH Budgets; DOJ Appeals After Judge Threatens Contempt Charges Over Deportations. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired April 17, 2025 - 08:00   ET

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

JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: The point where you're before a judge and the judge is evaluating what's happening. But at the end of the day, again, it is about the evidence.

[08:00:08]

Now, the public attention, right? Remember, the new DA takes the position that this was a publicity stunt by his really predecessor because they were just getting clobbered in the election and needed to bring something up. As a result of that, the new DA says, listen, I'm not really giving any credence to this. They even tried to skip or otherwise void the whole resentencing, saying, judge, we want to withdraw the petition. The judge saying no, because they said they have not, right? The DA saying the brother's taken responsibility. It's predicated on a bed of lies.

And by the way, the heinous nature of this act shouldn't even get us here. However, the family, interestingly enough, is on opposite sides of the DA. That's unusual, John, because in most cases, the victims are squarely with the DA and the DA evaluates what families has to say. Not it's not guided by them, but certainly it gives very supportive and otherwise informing the DA's decision about the position they should take here. The family says release and the DA says I'm not.

And so it's interesting how public perception is playing into this. I think ultimately there are many believe that they paid their penance, that resentencing is appropriate, that otherwise based upon what they claim the brothers were enduring at the time, the sexual abuse, if it's true, could have affected and motivated the activities in terms of the killing itself. And many believe that it is time. Let's see what the judge believes, because that's going to be the critical fact.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Complicated day. All right, Joey Jackson, thanks so much for being with us. A new hour of CNN News Central starts right now.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Billions of dollars in health funding on the chopping block. The massive cuts to programs like Head Start, disease research, and more at CDC and NIH. What the internal document now shows is coming to America's public health. And President Trump going after the Federal Reserve chairman. Trump now says he wants Powell fired just after a stark warning from Powell of the impact of the president's tariffs will have on the economy. So what's a Fed Chairman to do now?

And is the Trump administration about to be held in contempt? Why a federal judge sees probable cause to do just that over deportation flights and how the Justice Department is hitting back.

Sara Sidner is out today. I am Kate Bolduan with John Berman. This is CNN News Central.

BERMAN: All right, we do have breaking news this morning. I got to say it's breaking news that made the market sit up straight. President Trump just a short time ago declared on social media that the termination of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, quote, "cannot come fast enough."

So these are the strongest words the president has said out loud or written out loud, floated the idea of dismissing the Fed Chair, a move that's legally questionable. Not clear he could fire him if he wanted to.

The timing also crucial. It comes just after Powell very publicly warned that the Fed would be in a tough spot as the president's tariffs raise prices and weaken the economy. He says prices likely will go up. It will likely slow down economic growth and consumers do bear the costs of these tariffs.

Let's get right to CNN's Alayna Treene at the White House for this much more public front and assault on Jerome Powell. Alayna?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: That's right. This is really, I think, you know, a breaking point of their relationship or really hitting a fever pitch, I should say, with what the president is saying this morning, to read a little bit of what he wrote. He wrote, quote, "Jerome Powell of the Fed, who is always too late and wrong," he said in all caps. Yesterday issued a report which was another and typical complete mess. He went on to say that Powell's termination could not come fast enough.

Now, as you mentioned, John, this comes just a day after Jerome Powell spoke in Chicago yesterday and gave his starkest warning yet of the potential economic fallout of President Donald Trump's tariff policies. He said essentially that he believed tariffs would create a, quote, "challenging scenario for the central bank" and really putting some of their two main goals, which is, of course, having stable inflation and also a healthy labor market at odds.

Now, just to give you a step back and give you a little more insight into the relationship between the president and Jerome Powell, it's one that has always been tense and fraught going back years now. And the president has repeatedly and not just in this term, but also in his first term urged the Fed to cut rates. But we're seeing that even more so now, of course, because of the economic concerns regarding some of the president's trade policies and tariff policies. Now, one thing that is clear is that the Fed is supposed to operate

independently of politics, something Powell reiterated yesterday. But we also know that the president has tried to issue an executive order to take more control over the central bank.

[08:05:07]

And there's also concerns that perhaps the president could move to try and oust Jerome Powell before his term is up in May of 2026. All to say we are seeing this fight really play out more publicly. I would anticipate this isn't the end of what we'll be hearing from the president regarding how Powell is running the Fed.

BERMAN: Yeah, it does not seem the president liked what Jerome Powell had to say yesterday. Other big news out of the administration this morning, this this memo, which outlines cuts, huge potential cuts at the Department of Health and Human Services. What's going on here, Alayna?

TREENE: That's right. This is according to an internal document that CNN was able to review. Essentially, the Trump administration is formulating cuts to about a third of the Health and Human Services Department and really their overall budget.

Now, this is something that is their proposed budget, the president's proposed budget that he would be sending to Congress to evaluate. But I want to walk through with you just some of the cuts that are proposed in this. One is slashing funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institute of Health. Under this proposal, the CDC, which, of course, was most recently crucial in fighting the coronavirus pandemic, they would see its budget reduced by more than 40% under this proposal.

It would also eliminate CDC's Global Health Center and programs focused on chronic disease prevention, HIV and AIDS prevention, for example. It would reduce the number of the NIH research programs from 27 to 28, eliminate the number of rural health care programs, including grants and residency programs for rural hospitals and state offices.

And it would also eliminate funding for the Head Start program. That was a program initially proposed under Lyndon B. Johnson during the, quote, unquote, "war on poverty" that offers child care and preschool education to lower income families.

Now, to be clear, this document, which was dated April 10th, is something that could still be revised. And also to be clear, Congress is the one that controls this funding. The president and the administration, they can make a recommendation to Congress, but they don't actually get to decide this.

But this could ultimately prove as a big blueprint for Republicans. And of course, as we've seen them in the last couple of months under this administration, they are eager to please President Trump. So something definitely to keep an eye on. BERMAN: Yeah, there may be a different relationship between the White House budget and what Congress ultimately passes than there ever has been before. That's a great point. Alayna Treene, thanks so much for your reporting.

Kate?

BOLDUAN: Joining us right now for some more perspective on this is the former Secretary of Health and Human Services under President Obama, Kathleen Sebelius.

Secretary, thanks for coming in. I have a couple similar yet distinct questions on this. If you're back in the position of running HHS and I said to you, Secretary, you should cut a third of your budget when you're running HHS, what would you say to me, your gut reaction?

KATHLEEN SEBELIUS, FORMER HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY: My gut reaction, Kate, is that that would be a real disaster for the American public. HHS basically sends money to states and tribes and local communities to run a whole variety of health programs. So this is not money spent in inside the D.C. beltway. It is money that keeps Americans healthy. And I thought that was the goal of this administration.

BOLDUAN: So that's the secretary you should. And what if I said, Secretary, you must cut a third of your budget as you're running HHS. Where do you begin?

SEBELIUS: Well, I think it -- every secretary spends time trying to make the agency more efficient, trying to, you know, drive the programs as quickly as possible that meet the top priorities. I don't know how you cut a third of the budget and 25% of the workforce without really calamitous results. And that's what this administration is proposing to do.

And frankly, Kate, I don't know why. I think the question of why needs to be at the top are the programs not working for people, mental health programs, our kids not being well-educated in Head Start, our parents not involved. Do you not want any restaurant inspections anymore? Because, you know, Americans can just roll the dice when they go out to dinner and hope that the kitchen is actually clean and safe.

So some of these eliminate. Do we not want research to go on in colleges all over this country that keep Americans healthier, that bring breakthrough medicines to market? Those are the kind of cuts that are being proposed.

CDC is the backbone of public health. Slashing that budget by 40% will decimate health care in every community in America. So I don't know why this is happening and I don't know the end goal.

[08:10:00]

BOLDUAN: So there's that aspect of it. And then there's also what's happening already within the agency. There's an example I want to ask you about, because a key NIH official has just resigned. He's a top researcher on food policy, Dr. Kevin Hall. He says in his resignation that his work was being censored. And this is work of the one you think the new HHS secretary would be excited about. He was conducting some of the world's only controlled trials on ultra-processed food, something RFK is very interested in.

But when Hall's study did not show, basically the worst of the worst, did not show that the brain was lighting up in response to sugar like it does to addictive drugs, he says HHS stepped in, saying this, "HHS denied an interview request from The New York Times and contacted the reporter directly to downplay our study results because our data might be viewed as failing to support preconceived HHS narratives about ultra-processed food addiction. My written responses to the reporter's questions were edited and submitted without my approval."

If that's the case, that means what to you when it comes to trusting RFK Jr.'s version of this agency?

SEBELIUS: Well, unfortunately, Kate, I think we've already seen undermining of scientific evidence by the first Trump administration, a determined effort to counter scientific facts with narrative that really didn't make sense, according to scientists, really didn't provide cures. I think now we have a secretary who not only is a vaccine skeptic, and we see that in his public comments on measles and outbreaks, he's congratulating doctors for curing measles when scientists will tell you very clearly there is no cure for measles.

But, you know, to doctor and alter scientific facts, to withhold information from people that don't comply with the facts as you want them to make up a narrative and then really tamp down any evidence to the contrary, that narrative is really dangerous. It gives Americans false choices. You don't get reliable information. People who are, you know, trying to feed their kids in a healthy fashion, trying to make good decisions, are now left wondering whether or not the information they're getting makes any sense at all, whether they're getting nutrition facts.

So I think it's a very dangerous path for a new secretary to start down, interfering with scientific evidence, trying to censor material, whether it's about medicines or foods or research at large. That's a very dangerous precedent to set.

BOLDUAN: Yeah, the management of such a massive agency is something that I know I've leaned on you several times now to get that perspective, because it's the management and how they are restructuring the agency that is a huge part about this discussion and the overhaul that's occurring. Secretary Sebelius, thank you for coming in.

John?

BERMAN: All right. Probable cause that the Trump administration is in contempt. How will the White House try to prove they were not deceiving a federal judge? Bigger question, will they even try?

And we are -- and it was, seconds away from disaster. Two officers jumped out of the way just in time as a car slammed into their vehicle. Yeesh.

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[08:17:53]

BERMAN: This morning, the Trump administration facing accountability. The Justice Department overnight appealed after a federal judge threatened to hold the administration in criminal contempt for defying his orders over deportation flights to El Salvador. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg wrote, quote, "The government's actions on that day demonstrate a willful disregard for its order, sufficient for the court to conclude that probable cause exists to find the government in criminal contempt."

Let's get right to CNN's Katelyn Polantz in Washington for really the significance of this and what happens now.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, the Trump administration, the Justice Department officials, even those lawyers practicing in court before Judge Boasberg, they are formally on the path now towards a possible criminal contempt conviction by this court. Don't take it lightly, this is the first time that we have seen a judge make a finding such as this with Jeb Boasberg now saying in his 46-page opinion yesterday that he thinks that the administration was deliberately, even gleefully at times, disobeying court orders. You just can't do that.

And so Judge Boasberg is now writing the court does not reach such conclusions lightly or hastily. Indeed, it has given defendants ample opportunity to rectify or explain their actions. None of their responses has been satisfactory about why they didn't turn planes around carrying migrants to an El Salvadoran prison in mid-March when he said to turn the planes around. And they did not.

So now, John, they will be looking at -- the judge will be looking at whether they will be formally held in contempt and convicted, punished for this disobedience in court. What does that mean? More proceedings. So the next steps here is Judge Boasberg is going to look for sworn statements from administration officials who were privy to those decisions about the migrant planes on March 15th going El Salvador.

There then could be live witness testimony in his courtroom. And then if he finds that beyond a reasonable doubt or that he wants to continue to look, if there is beyond a reasonable doubt, contempt here and that there should be a punishment of lawyers or other administration officials, he could make a referral to prosecute this to the Justice Department. That's very likely to go nowhere because that would be referring to the Trump administration itself to prosecute their own officials, their own lawyers.

[08:20:20]

And so the other option for him is appointing a special prosecutor, a place where legally we just really have never been in, especially with administration lawyers in the past.

John?

BERMAN: Yeah, that really would be a little bit of a legal twilight zone, but maybe headed on that path. Katelyn Polantz in Washington. Thank you so much.

All right. What's happening now, peace talks over Ukraine underway between top Trump administration officials and key European allies. We've got new details, some new reporting on the conversations, and a Democratic senator denied a meeting with the man mistakenly deported to El Salvador. Why another Democratic lawmaker says their party should probably focus on something else.

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[08:25:18]

BOLDUAN: Breaking news this morning. President Trump lashing out at Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, declaring on social media just this morning that Powell's termination cannot come fast enough. Clearly, the president has now heard Powell's sharp warning of the negative impacts that Trump's trade war is going to have on the U.S. economy.

Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEROME POWELL, FEDERAL RESERVE CHAIR: The level of tariff increases announced so far is significantly larger than anticipated and the same is likely to be true of the economic effects, which will include higher inflation and slower growth. Tariffs are highly likely to generate at least a temporary rise in inflation. Inflationary effects could also be more persistent.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: So now what? Joining us right now is Art Hogan, Chief Market Strategist for B. Riley Financial.

Thanks for coming in. I mean, cannot come fast enough, Powell's termination. He wants him fired. I mean, just hearing that, what would be the impact on the economy, Art, if the president somehow removed Jerome Powell?

ART HOGAN, CHIEF MARKET STRATEGIST, B. RILEY FINANCIAL: OK, you know, first of all, he can't. Jerome Powell's going to be there for the rest of his term and that ends in '26. I think the problem is you've got a president that's comparing the monetary policy in the United States to the monetary policy in ECB when we're in two distinctly different places.

So there had been some hope at the beginning of this new administration that he would lay off the Federal Reserve, but it doesn't seem like that's the game plan right now. And he's shifting gears back into using his favorite form of communication and talking about why it isn't like it, just where they are. BOLDUAN: That's exactly right. And on that point, someone was just kind of pointing out an aspect of the social media post this morning is that, as you said, Trump wants America's central bank to cut rates like the European Central Bank. But the reason behind the move from the ECB is they're trying to offset and lessen the blow from the chaos created from Trump's trade war. I mean, is this public outburst from the president likely to change how the Fed is approaching this?

HOGAN: No, absolutely not. I think Chair Powell and most of the Fed speakers we've heard from are looking at both their mandates. And clearly one of their mandates, which is stable prices, is going to be adversely affected, if not just temporarily, by higher prices.

That's dependent on how many of these tariffs actually go through and what gets negotiated away. The other side of that is clearly higher prices are going to slow down economic growth. So they're in a conundrum right now with higher prices and slowing economic growth, and there really isn't an appropriate monetary policy tool for that. And that's why they're going to wait at least until June to make a decision on interest rates, which is the appropriate thing to do.

BOLDUAN: That's why Powell said something to the effect of, there's no experience, there's no recent experience to base this one off of, what we're looking at in terms of especially the scope and the scale of the tariffs, if when they set in.

So back to Powell's warning. Do -- what do you think, for the layman, what do you think the real message is that he is sending to the White House with this?

HOGAN: I think the message clearly is that if in fact all of the tariffs as announced on April 2nd with the reciprocal pieces in there don't get negotiated away, we're going to be in a period that's very difficult to adjust to, which means we're going to have higher prices probably for a longer period of time and we'll definitely have slowing economic growth. And again, there's actually no way to fight that battle. You have, as he said, tension between the two mandates. So the Fed is going to be really handicapped in that place.

Now, the consensus would be that with trade negotiations going on in real time, some of that damage will likely dissipate. We saw that back in 2018. We cut a deal with Canada and Mexico. We may start cutting some bilateral deals and hearing about that, but in the here and now, without that information, it's very difficult for the Fed to do anything.

BOLDUAN: One thing to watch again today is what happens with Nvidia. I mean, the Trump administration's decision to effectively block the AI chipmaker from doing business with China, I mean, it led to a mess yesterday. I mean, Nvidia said it's going to take a $5.5 billion hit because of the move. The stock dropped nearly 7%. How bad is this? How much worse could this get? And why does it matter in terms of the potential whenever it starts finally, trade negotiation between Trump and China?

HOGAN: Well, obviously, it's -- you know, it could be used as a bargaining chip with China, but we're in an artificial intelligence arms war with China. We clearly want to win that. So the administration is trying to protect some of our most valuable assets, and those would be the chips that produce the GPUs you need to get to artificial intelligence. And the H20, unfortunately, the one they designed specifically for China with the specs that the United States government approved.

[08:30:00]