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IMF Warns U.S. & Global Economies to Slow Sharply Due to Tariffs; Hegseth Under Scrutiny After Second Signal Group Chat Revealed; Pope Francis' Funeral to be Held Saturday in St. Peter's Square. Aired 9-9:30 am ET

Aired April 22, 2025 - 09:00   ET

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

CLARE DUFFY, CNN BUSINESS WRITER: -- our society seems to be the main cause of depression among those in my age group. People seem to let themselves be affected by the opinions of people they don't know, and it wreaks havoc upon people's state of mind.

[09:00:11]

Now, the survey also showed that teen girls are slightly more likely than teen boys to say that social media impacts things like their confidence and their sleep, and it's not all bad. Some teens also said that social media gave them an outlet for creativity and to connect with their friends. But you have to imagine that all of this is going to sort of add fuel to the fire to the regulatory efforts to really rein in teens. Social media use the amount of time that they're spending there.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Yeah, but hearing the acknowledgement that they themselves agree that it's a problem they think it's impacting them, I think is a really important part of this conversation.

DUFFY: And that they're cutting back --

BOLDUAN: Yeah.

DUFFY: -- even as regulators sort of dropped the ball in terms of passing rules around this, something we're very thankful you continue to cover. Thank you so much, Clare. Really appreciate it.

A new hour of CNN NEW CENTRAL starts right now.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: So 80% of the cardinals who will choose the next pope were appointed by Pope Francis. What does that tell us about where the church is headed? Moments ago, new comments from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth after he shared sensitive military plans on his personal phone with his wife and brother how he defends this group chat.

And breaking news, a brand-new warning about the President's tariff policy and its impact on the global economy. Sara is out today. I'm John Berman with Kate Bolduan, and this is CNN NEW CENTRAL.

All right, breaking just moments ago, we got a new warning from the International Monetary Fund that President Trump's tariffs and countermeasures by U.S. trading partners could deal a major blow to economic growth worldwide.

Let's get right to CNN's Zain Asher, who is with us. Let's talk. Well, right now you have stock futures behind me right now.

ZAIN ASHER, CNN ANCHOR AND BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yeah.

BERMAN: That's not the IMF report.

ASHER: Yes.

BERMAN: Not even close.

ASHER: Something you're thinking, not even close.

BERMAN: The IMF is like in a different place right now.

ASHER: So essentially what the IMF is saying that these tariffs initiated by the U.S. And the countermeasures initiated by other countries are going to be affected by this tariff because obviously every country has to protect their own interest is going to unleash a whole world off economic headwinds.

I'm going to read to you some of what the IMF said. It said, "We expect the sharp increase on April 2nd in both tariffs and uncertainty will lead to a significant slowdown in global growth. There we have it in the near term.

So let me just break down the numbers for you, because I think that's key. They're saying that global growth will actually go from 3.3% in terms of their prediction to about 2.8%. And the U.S. is going to be hit particularly hard. This is the U.S. numbers here. They're going to be particularly hit hard. 2.7% was the prediction in January. They've had to revise that down now to 1.8%.

And it's really, John, the sheer size of these terrorists. We're talking about a size and scale of tariffs that haven't been seen in over a century. And when you think about the global economy right now, it is just so much more integrated and so much more intertwined than it was back then.

They're essentially saying that, look, there are no winners here. Everybody is going to lose. They're not necessarily predicting a global recession per se, but they are saying that look, productivity is going to stagnate.

They're also saying that there's going to be higher production costs. They're also saying that it's going to be higher prices. And by the way, even the sort of domestic manufacturers that are supposed to be shielded from this, they're worried that they're not going to have the same incentives to innovate. That's going to be part of the issue as well.

BERMAN: If we go back to that last, I mean, these are the stock futures that we keep on showing here. We'll get to in a second here. But it's important to note that the growth forecast you knocked a point off because of the policy decisions. ASHER: Yes, yes.

BERMAN: Basically, the administration made, and that's significant in a very short period of time.

ASHER: That is significant, especially when you think about the fact that this economy, the global economy has already been through the ringer, especially when it comes to the pandemic, right? The economy across the world. Global economies really took a heavy hit because of the pandemic.

So to put it through the ring again and for no sort of, you know, justifiable reason is really a tough pill to swallow. There are a lot of economies that are very export dependent, particularly, for example, South Korea mentioning South Korea is because they're going to be in Washington this week meeting with the president's team on potential trade deals.

And so when you think about their economy being hit hard by this, when you think about the E.U., the U.S. is the E.U.'s largest trading partner. The ECB just cut interest rates in order to protect Europe from the effects of a slowdown with this trade war. So the entire world, nobody's going to be shielded from.

BERMAN: All right, now -- now let's talk about futures, which have been fighting their way onto our broadcast over the last several minutes. They're up. I can tell people since this is so. Yeah, they're up.

ASHER: There you go.

BERMAN: What's good? Yesterday, the market's a beating.

[09:05:00]

ASHER: Right. And so stock futures are up. Let's look at the Dow futures there. They're up about 300 points or so. When you think about it, it's not necessary -- I don't know if we should read too much into these numbers because it's not necessarily that on common, John, after a massive sell off to see people use as a buying opportunity.

What I think is important to note is that the markets are really nervous right now. Just overall, the idea that the Fed could possibly lose its independence. I mean, the idea that it is even being discussed, right? It is even being entertained by Hassett and by Trump. The possibility of trying. I mean, legality aside, the possibility even trying to fire Jerome Powell. I mean, that is -- that is a massive problem.

And so I think it's important to note that when it comes to the markets, the Fed can never be seen as a tool that serves political interests. It is a tool that serves the interests of the American people. And that is that.

In terms of what we're watching today, I think it's going to be more of the same. I mean, any sort of comment by Hassett by Trump markets are very sensitive to that right now. That is what's going to be moving the market.

BERMAN: We will watch it carefully. Zain Asher. Great to see you.

ASHER: Of course.

BERMAN: Thank you very much.

Kate?

BOLDUAN: Just in this morning, a new pushback coming from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. In summary, he is digging in. He is not denying that he shared plans, military plans on a Signal chat with his wife and brother about an operation to strike Houthis in Yemen. But he is denying that he shared any classified information and saying that no one is texting war plans. He is also slamming the three top Pentagon advisors who were just fired amid a leak investigation.

Advisors who raised concerns about the department under excess leadership. The Defense Secretary in a new interview just this morning appears to be directly accusing them of leaking the information and calling them, quote, "disgruntled former employees, something one of those now former aides denies."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Did you leak classified information against the wishes of your superiors to media outlets?

DAN CALDWELL, FORMER TOP ADVISER TO DEFENSE SECRETARY PETE HEGSETH: Absolutely not.

CARLSON: Did you photograph classified material and then text pictures of that material to an "NBC News" reporter?

CALDWELL: Absolutely not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: And now we are here today, CNN's Natasha Bertrand has the very latest. And Hegseth is now speaking out and probably like the -- I would say the fullest comments yet regarding this second Signal scandal. Tell us more of what he's saying?

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Kate, he remains extremely defiant and he is doubling down on the idea that these three officials, two of whom have been his longtime advisors and friends were actually leakers and that in the process of an investigation that has been carried out over the last several weeks inside the Pentagon, it was determined that these individuals were leaking classified or sensitive information.

Now, Dan Caldwell, who you just saw in that clip in the broader interview, he said that none of them had even been polygraphed and that until the very last day, just hours before they were actually escorted out of the building, they had access still to very sensitive classified information, which raises questions about the kind of probe that was being conducted across the department. Why would these individuals, if they were suspected of leaking classified information and then escorted out of the building, still be able to access that very classified information until just moments before they were ousted?

Now, here's a little bit of what Hegseth told Fox, explaining his -- his feeling that these actors are essentially trying to undermine him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETE HEGSETH, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: What was shared over Signal then and now, however you characterize it, was informal, unclassified coordinations. In this point, those folks who were leaking, who have been pushed out of the building, are now attempting to leak and sabotage the president's agenda and what we're doing. And that's unfortunate. It's not what I do. It's not how we operate. And so you've got another allegation being pushed again, not based on how we're operating around here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERTRAND: Now, again, this interview was a bit all over the place. On the one hand, he said that the investigation had led to these individuals being escorted out of the building. On the other hand, he said that the investigation could ultimately exonerate them.

But one thing is clear. He is using them as a scapegoat for the larger story that has come out over the last day or so about how he did use a second Signal chat to communicate with his wife, his brother and his lawyer about sensitive military operations, something that we saw him do as well last month in another Signal group chat. And that is now under investigation by the DOD inspector general.

So he remains defiant. President Trump for now saying that he stands behind him. But Secretary Hegseth clearly trying to throw these former aides very much under the bus as he seeks to kind of explain away why he was on this Signal chat with this information being shared about, very sensitive military operations.

Kate?

BOLDUAN: Natasha Bertrand. Thank you, Natasha.

John?

BERMAN: All right with us now, Sabrina Singh, former Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary and CNN Military Analyst and retired Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton.

[09:10:06]

And friends, I know this is confusing, but for the purposes of this discussion, we're going to put the aides who have been, you know, pushed out of the Pentagon aside because it wasn't their Signal group chat on the personal phone that included Pete Hegseth's wife and brother. It was Pete Hegseth's personal phone and Pete Hegseth's wife and brother on this personal group chat.

So I want to talk about that, Cedric, to you, using a personal phone to share the type of information that we saw, it was part of that Atlantic article times that bombs were going to fall, which planes were used. What would happen to anyone else if they shared stuff like that on a personal device?

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (Ret.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: John, they'd be fired pure and simple. They'd be gone within basically two seconds of that being discovered. So, you know, it's one of those areas where you have to say the bosses need to do what they tell their subordinates to do and they need to draw the same consequences. So, yeah, you'd be out of there very, very quickly.

BERMAN: And Sabrina, just as a communications expert, which you are among other things, having worked in the Pentagon also, Pete Hegseth, again, the stories come out of a Signal group chat with his wife and brother and what he's talking about is aides who were pushed out. His handpicked people, by the way, and he's accusing them of leaking. What is that, misdirection?

SABRINA SINGH, FORMER PENTAGON DEPUTY PRESS SECRETARY: Yeah, I think what Natasha said earlier is that, you know, he's clearly trying to place the blame on these former disgruntled aides. But I think the reality is, is that these former disgruntled aides didn't type the tick talk of an operation and put it into not one but two separate signal threads. It's not the media that typed up these messages on operational details and put it into these signal threads.

So, you know, you're seeing Pete Hegseth continue to blame and point fingers. And also what's, you know, deeply troubling is earlier in that Fox interview that he gave this morning, he talked about how he looks at operational and war plans all the time.

Well, you can't have, you know, selective memory, memory loss here. You literally took what you're seeing every single day and bragging about on Fox and saying that you see these plans every single day. And you type that information, that very classified information and put it into an unclassified text thread. And ultimately, there's been no accountability for him at all.

BERMAN: It's a really you weren't in the Pentagon that long ago. I want to read you a comment. Two nights ago, John Ullyot, who was a Communications Advisor to Pete Hegseth, from even before he was at the Pentagon, then went with him to the Pentagon and has since departed, wrote in "Politico," quote, "It's been a month of total chaos at the Pentagon from leaks of sensitive operational plans to mass firings. The dysfunction is now a major distraction for the president -- who deserves better from his senior leadership."

You know, as someone who was just there, how does this type of criticism from someone on the inside strike you?

SINGH: Yeah, our military is best because there's order and there is structure. And when you dismantle, you know, the senior operators and leadership around the secretary that injects unnecessary chaos into the system. So, you know what you're seeing here, this purging of leadership. We've never seen something like that in less than 100 days. And that, of course doesn't sit well with our military operators that, you know, are going out on life-saving missions all around the world every single day.

BERMAN: Senator Colonel, can you talk to us about the entrenched bureaucracy? And I'm not using that word pejoratively, but there are people who work inside the Pentagon who work there through administrations from one administration to the next, no matter who the president is, how -- what pressures they can put on some of the more political appointees that come and go with different presidents. What kind of tension exists there?

LEIGHTON: Well, there's always some tension, and it really depends on how the political appointees manage that tension. They have to expect when they walk into a situation where they're basically the new people on the block, they come in and they really have to assess exactly what's going on.

So when you look at things like the fire of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General CQ Brown, that becomes a very critical element that percolate down into the workforce, not just in the Pentagon, but throughout the Department of Defense.

And that really has a very adverse effect on morale when it comes to the people that are there, the civilian employees as well as the military. They want to do the right job for the country, and they see a lot of these political machinations as being a hindrance to their ability to carry out the job, to carry out the mission that they're being not only charged with, but paid to do. And that is something that I think has a very negative effect on their ability to do their jobs and their ability to protect the United States.

BERMAN: If the Pentagon, if the press -- sorry, excuse me, Sabrina here, if the Defense Secretary has a group of people that he or she likes, his people as he comes in, could they be pushed out by the bureaucracy if he wanted them to stick around?

[09:15:08]

SINGH: When political appointees come in, usually they're -- you know, there and appointed by the Secretary of Defense. I think people can be pushed out, of course, if there are unauthorized disclosures, they put a mission at risk, they do something that jeopardizes, you know, something in the department.

So, of course, that's, you know, the bureaucracy and, you know, you could have an inspector general that looks into certain individuals. Of course that can happen. But to see a purge like this of the most senior members of the secretary's inner circle, I mean, up to his own chief of staff being moved into a new position, the press secretary being moved out of the department, that's just something that we don't usually see.

And, you know, again, we're less than 100 days into this administration. There are things happening all around the world that need and deserve the secretary's utmost attention and the senior staff's attention. And when you don't have that, that does inject a chaos into the system that is not needed.

BERMAN: All right, Sabrina Singh, Colonel Cedric Leighton, great to see both of you. Thank you very much.

This morning, Cardinal from around the world gathering in Rome to honor Pope Francis and ultimately to pick his successor.

Moments from now, opening statements begin in the new murder trial of Karen Read, the woman accused of killing her police officer boyfriend.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:20:33]

BOLDUAN: Tomorrow, Catholic Cardinals will be meeting in Rome to begin the process of picking the next pope. We have also learned new details about the funeral plans. The Vatican announcing this morning it will be held Saturday morning outside in St. Peter's Square. Right now, the pontiff's body is lying in state in the Chapel of the Papal Residence.

Let's go there. Let's go to CNN's Anderson Cooper in Rome with much more on all of this. And let's talk about the plans ahead in a second, but just what is it like to be there right now? How does it feel?

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANDERSON COOPER 360 HOST: Yeah, you know, I was here in 2005 for the death of Pope John Paul. It has that -- that same feeling. It is still a very early days. You know, this was unexpected, obviously, not a complete surprise, obviously, given the Pope's health issues, but -- so a lot of the people who are here are tourists who either are residents of the area or come around from surrounding cities or were here as tourists on vacation.

When this occurred, I think in the next couple days we're going to be seeing a lot more people of the faithful coming from all around to be here in order to be able to actually pay their respects to Pope Francis. And as you know, in this papal interregnum, which is the term used to describe the period between the death of a pope and the election of a new pope with the conclave of cardinals, there is a lot going on.

Pope Francis, you said, is lying in state right now in his residence, Santa Marta, which is about a 10-minute walk or so off in that direction. Now, tomorrow morning, 9 a.m. local time, 3 a.m. East Coast time in the U. S. there's going to be a procession where he is brought to St. Peter's Basilica. There's going to be a short, not a complete mass, but a short part of the mass, important part of the mass said, and then it will be open for people to come.

I remember being here in 2005. There were long, long lines of people waiting. We anticipate to see that as well. It's very emotional here. There's a lot of people who they just want to come and be here. And -- and there's milling around, standing around, taking pictures, talking with other people. It's a -- it's a really -- it's a special atmosphere. It's kind of an extraordinary thing to be here. BOLDUAN: Yeah. And for sure, it's just only going to build. I mean, we had just a father was on just earlier, and he was saying that he is jumping on a flight to Rome this afternoon just to be there to pay respects. So it's all going to continue to build up and up to Saturday, of course, and remind everyone and talk us through what we've now learned about the funeral plans.

COOPER: Yeah. Yeah, the funeral is actually going to take place here in St. Peter Square, which has been done before, but obviously it allows for a lot more people to witness it, to be here for it. So that's going to be something obviously where we know President Trump is going to be coming.

Other world leaders, President of Ukraine, President Zelenskyy and his wife are also said -- said to be coming. It's -- it's obviously a huge logistical operation with all those world leaders coming. But that's something that the law enforcement is used to here in in Vatican City. That certainly is going to be the focus over the next couple days. The preparations for that event as the pope is -- is -- is being viewed over the next several days.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely. It's great that you're there, Anderson. Thanks so much for jumping on for a moment with us.

Much more of Anderson's coverage, of course, throughout the day right there in St. Peter Square.

Still ahead for us this hour, the woman accused of murdering her boyfriend, a police officer, is back in court today. Opening statements are set to begin in what is now the retrial of Karen Read. We have much more on that.

And we're also minutes away from the opening bell on Wall Street. And as you look at futures pointing out, the IMF just issued a new warning about the impact of Trump's trade war on the global outlook.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:29:03]

BERMAN: All right. Opening statements set to begin in the murder retrial of Karen Read. Read arrived at the courthouse outside Boston just a short time ago. She is accused of hitting her police officer boyfriend with her car in January of 2022 and then leaving him to die. Her first trial ended in a hung jury last summer. She is once again pleading not guilty.

You know, I spent a lot of time in Massachusetts and I just can't tell you how much publicity this trial is getting. People lining bridges with signs, you know, every morning and every night at rush hour. What do we expect we see?

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: All dressed in pink.

BERMAN: Yeah. CASAREZ: Right? Family units. I mean, there is such massive support

for her. However, there is another camp. Also, they dress in blue and they say that she is guilty of at least some of these crimes. It's second-degree murder, manslaughter involving alcohol and leaving the scene of an accident-causing death.

But it is so starkly divided. By the way, court has begun. All right, they're not into opening statements yet, but they're looking at some preliminary pretrial motions, last minute decisions on those things.

But this case has such divergent facts --