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Border Czar Tom Homan Speaks From White House; Putin Declares 3-Day Ceasefire, Calls On Ukraine To Do The Same; First Hearing In Harvard's Fight Against Trump Administration. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired April 28, 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]

CARI CHAMPION, CNN SPORTS ANALYST (on-camera): -- handled the teams and how Deion came in and changed the narrative. I, who knows? It's really unfortunate because he's still at the end of the day is a young, young, young man trying to get his start. And I think this, this prank call, prank calls happen all the time.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes.

CHAMPION (on-camera): I think that was just an anomaly, but that just showed the type of attention that was on Shador and why people were so focused on who he was and what he was doing.

But believe me, he's going to take this as motivation and I think he's going to play really well in the league. Well, I mean, time will tell. Time will tell.

BERMAN: Yes. Look, he's got to make the team. He wasn't even the first quarterback. The Browns picked so much to look at as we head into the season.

Cari Champion, great to see you this morning.

A brand new hour of "CNN New Central," starts now.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking this morning, the Kremlin announcing a three-day ceasefire in Ukraine starting next week and calling on Kiev to do the same, though Putin has broken most of his promises in this war. Is this going to be any different?

President Trump weighing in on his second term in a brand new interview with the Atlantic, what he says about Pete Hegseth and mistakes made which involve deporting U.S. children, those details ahead.

As well as civil rights activists says the Smithsonian has returned to him a Bible he carried in protest with Martin Luther King Jr. and loaned to the National Museum of African-American History and Culture. We'll speak to him about why he thinks this is happening and some worry about the impact of a Trump executive order targeting what the President calls improper ideology at the Smithsonian.

I'm Sara Sidner with Kate Bolduan and John Berman. This is "CNN News Central."

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: President Trump speaking out again this morning in a new interview as he approaches the very important 100-day mark in office.

He sat down with the Atlantic, the very same Atlantic whose editor-in- chief was mistakenly added to the administration's signal chat last month. Same Atlantic that Donald Trump tried his level best to disparage and diminish afterwards. In this wide-ranging interview, Donald Trump projects something of an air of invincibility, even as new polling shows his approval rating is plunging, sinking to an historic low.

Also happening right now, President Trump's borders are Tom Homan facing reporters in the White House briefing room and also facing new questions after a weekend of ICE actions, including deporting a mother with young children. The children are U.S. citizens.

Let me play what Tom Holman said just moments ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Karoline, if border crossings are at a record low, why should it still be considered an emergency?

TOM HOMAN, BORDER CZAR: It's because of what has happened in the last administration. We've got to ensure that not one ounce of fentanyl comes across the corridor to kill Americans. The President has declared the cartels Mexican terrorist organization, along with MS-13 TDA they've killed more Americans than every terrorist organization in the world combined.

It's an emergency, so we shut it down. It's an emergency, so the cartels are wiped off the face of this earth. President Trump's committed to saving every life. Now, I just mentioned. Gotaways 38 yesterday, who are the who are the Gotaways? Where do they come from? We had over two million Gotaways under Joe Biden's administration. Why did two million people pay more to get away?

Under the Biden administration, you pay a cartel this amount of money to cross the border. Cartel's job ends at the border to turn yourself in a green uniform, get released in 24 hours, get a free airline ticket to the city of your choice, get a free hotel room, get three meals a day, get free medical care, get work authorization in 90, 120 days, which is the real reason they came here. Why did two million people pay more to gotaway (ph)? Because they didn't want to be vetted, they didn't want to be vetted.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Let's get more now from CNN's Betsy Klein joining us from the White House.

You've been listening in, Betsy, on this briefing as it's been ongoing. Tell us more about what you're hearing and what Tom Homan is saying in this kind of unusually early morning briefing. BETSY KLEIN, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE PRODUCER (on-camera): That's exactly right. I mean, it is the first hundred days this week in the White House. Each day this week is going to highlight a different area of the President working to implement his agenda.

Today's topic is securing the border. So, we are hearing from immigration czar Tom Homan moments ago. It comes as ICE has moved quickly to crack down aggressively on illegal immigration. We saw over the weekend a significant crackdown, 800 arrests in Florida, as well as about 100 arrests in Colorado Springs overnight. And the signing behind -- the sign -- signage behind me really showcases some of these arrests of illegal immigrants. The President and his team, of course, acutely aware of the stagecraft here.

[09:05:08]

It also comes, of course, Kate, as we have learned, about the deportation of three U.S. citizen children whose mothers were illegal immigrants. And Tom Homan was asked about that by our colleague Priscilla Alvarez. He said, if you choose to have a U.S. citizen child knowing you're in this country illegally, you put yourself in that position, you put your family in that position. He said that the mothers requested that their children stay with them. It was a parental decision. It was a decision of the parents, not the U.S. government. Very notable remarks from Homan there moments ago.

Of course, the President was also asked in an interview with The Atlantic that published earlier this morning what would happen as he is aggressively moving to enact this immigration agenda if there were mistakes, if there were U.S. citizens or other legal residents who were mistakenly deported.

The President said, quote, let me tell you that nothing will ever be perfect in this world. He also said he is not involved with some of the individual cases as we are seeing these legal challenges play out in the courts.

But the President is set to celebrate his 100th day in office. We're going to see him in Michigan with a rally tomorrow afternoon, Kate.

BOLDUAN: Looks like they're trying, while they might say 100-day mark is not as important as we all know it is, they are definitely flooding the zone to try to control the narrative this week.

Betsy, thank you very much.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right. We have some breaking news this morning for you. Russian President Vladimir Putin announcing a three-day ceasefire with Ukraine and calling on Kiev to do the same. This comes a week after Putin announced a 30-hour Easter weekend truce, but then that truce shattered when Russia bombed Ukraine.

Over the weekend, President Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the sidelines of Pope Francis' funeral. After that meeting, the President sounded off on Truth Social, posting there was no reason for Putin to be shooting missiles into civilian areas, cities and towns, and questioning if Putin really wanted to stop the war.

CNN's Alex Marquardt is joining us now. We are now hearing from Ukrainian officials after Russia has announced, hey, we're going to do a three-day truce, Kiev should do the same.

What are you learning?

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (on-camera): That's right, Sara. Someone in President Zelenskyy's office, a Ukrainian official, responding with what I would call appropriate skepticism about this offer from the Russian president. This is the quote, that the ceasefire must be unconditional because everything else is just Putin's tactical gains.

Now, this offer of a ceasefire by President Putin does appear to be a response to the growing American pressure and frustration that we've seen growing. Putin here seeming to want to show the Americans that they're playing ball after we saw those increased threats from President Trump over the weekend.

But, Sara, you've been saying it, we have seen this movie before, whether it was the American call for an immediate ceasefire last month or an energy infrastructure ceasefire or a Black Sea ceasefire or the Easter Day ceasefire, all have either been rejected or violated by the Russian side.

So why would anything be different now? Why not offer a ceasefire going into effect immediately today for longer than just three days? So, what the Russians have now offered is the ceasefire from May 8th to May 11th. That timing is significant because on May 9th, they have an annual military parade on Red Square. It's called Victory Day. It's when they celebrate the Soviet victory over the Nazis.

But all of this, of course, coming after President Trump had that remarkable meeting with President Zelenskyy in St. Peter's Basilica. Of course, we don't know exactly what was said between the two men. But shortly following that, in that Truth Social post, President Trump questioning whether President Putin actually wants peace and actually making a not-so-veiled threat, saying that perhaps there should be banking or secondary sanctions put on the Russians.

We also heard from the Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who had previously said that if they did not see progress between the two sides, that they would move on. He said that this is a very critical week. Here's a little bit more of what he said yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARCO RUBIO, SECRETARY OF STATE: I don't think peace deals are built on trust. I think peace deals have to be built on verification, have to be built on facts, have to be built on action, have to be built on realities. So, this is not an issue of, well, of trust. It's an issue of building in these sorts of things, verification, security guarantees, things that have been discussed in the past. All these things are being talked about here. All of these things.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARQUARDT: Sara, he went on to say that we are close, but we're not close enough. We do know that there has been progress at getting these two sides closer to a ceasefire, closer to the guideline, the framework of a potential peace deal, but that significant gaps remain.

Big question for the Trump administration today is whether they do believe that this offer of a Russian ceasefire is being made in good faith.

Sara?

[09:10:08]

SIDNER: Yes. It's also interesting to know what President Trump is saying. I'm starting to wonder if President Putin wants to stop the war. I think it's pretty clear he does not.

Alex Marquardt, thank you so much.

John.

BERMAN: All right, with us now, senior military analyst, former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO and Partner of the Carlyle Group, an international investment firm, Retired Admiral James Stavridis.

Admiral, thanks so much for being with us. Vladimir Putin offering a three-day ceasefire starting May 8th. What do you read into that?

ADM. JAMES STAVRIDIS, CNN SENIOR MILITARY ANALYST (on-camera): It's a lie would be my immediate reaction. And you know, we've been watching this movie now for three years. The line started when Putin and Lavrov and his entire team said, oh, we're not going to invade Ukraine. We're just doing military maneuvers on the border. That was three years ago. The lies about the war crimes in Bucha, the lie after lie after lie.

So when you stack all that up, the only reason Putin would offer this ceasefire, in my view, is A, to placate President Trump, to show a talking point of, yes, we threw out a three day ceasefire. And then B, don't forget the worst thing that could happen for Putin in terms of the global stage would be during the big military parade that Alex just talked about. It's a very big deal in Russia. What if there were a bunch of drone strikes by the Ukrainians right in the middle of that?

So I think Putin is trying to fireproof his parade. I see zero sincerity in it. I think it's unlikely to move the needle.

BERMAN: You know, you mentioned the fact that this is the type of statement Putin's been making for three years or longer, depending on how you analyze it. President Trump put out a post over the weekend where he suggested for the very first time that in these talks with Russia, maybe Putin is, quote, just tapping me along.

What is it, do you think, that made the President realize that now?

STAVRIDIS (on-camera): I think he is watching what has been happening and watching Putin play. He said tapping. I'll say rope-a-dope. Putin is just bouncing off those ropes and then coming back to smack the Ukrainians in the mouth again and again and again.

He's been insincere. He's lying. And I think for Donald Trump, he is not a chump who is going to be taken down by lies from Putin ultimately.

So I think there's, like for all of us, when we have a friend that we would like to work with, then suddenly we realize, not a friend of ours. I think that's what's occurred.

So final thought here, John. It's pretty clear what Putin wants. He wants sanctions relief. He wants to hold on to 20 percent of Ukraine, and he wants no path to NATO for the Ukrainians.

BERMAN: I don't think there's any question about that. Just one last question on that front. So you think this three-day ceasefire is another, you know, throw of the rope in the rope-a-dope, as it were?

STAVRIDIS (on-camera): I do. And I think that Putin, again, is trying to fireproof his big parade. And secondly, he wants to be able to at least say to his friend Donald, oh, I was the one who was willing to give a three-day ceasefire. That's just a talking point. It's not going to move the needle on negotiations.

Final thought, President Trump really needs to put the pressure on Vladimir Putin now, now, now.

BERMAN: It'll be interesting to see if that does happen, if they use this as a chance to lean in a little bit more.

I want to get your comments very quickly on something that President Trump said to The Atlantic in an interview that just published this morning, one of his most expansive comments on Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. He said, quote, I think he's going to get it together. I had a talk with him, a positive talk, but I had a talk with him, he said.

It's just the phrasing there. I think he's going to get it together sort of implies that he doesn't yet have it together or certainly that he hasn't had it together. You, in your old gig, you dealt with a lot of secretaries of defense. Is it the type of job that you want to be learning on the job?

STAVRIDIS (on-camera): No, of course not. And not only did I deal with secretaries of defense working for them, I was actually the senior military assistant, the three-star billet in the secretary of defense's office for Donald Rumsfeld. So I know that office extremely well. I know the pressures of it. Don Rumsfeld went into that job having already been the secretary of defense and had many, many challenges. It is in many ways the hardest job in Washington. And I think it is not a place you want to be kind of learning as you go.

BERMAN: All right. Admiral James Stavridis, thanks so much for being with us this morning. Always great speaking with you.

Kate?

BOLDUAN: Coming up. So for us, it is Election Day, my friends, Election Day in Canada.

[09:15:02]

Voters are headed to the polls in a race that has become largely centered on the trade war that America launched and the ongoing taunts from the American president of making Canada's 51st state.

And tears, text messages and blood tests. It's the latest on the murder retrial of Karen Read.

And America's oldest and wealthiest university facing off with the Trump administration in court today for the first time over pulling billions of dollars in federal funds.

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[09:20:07]

SIDNER: In just over an hour from now, lawyers for Harvard and the White House will faith off in the first hearing on the school's lawsuit against the Trump administration's funding freeze it involves more than $2 billion in federal research money.

The lawsuit itself is now becoming a symbol of a growing resistance of higher education against Trump administration demands.

CNN's Kara Scannell is live outside the courtroom in Boston.

What should we expect from today's hearing? There's a much bigger picture going on here? It's not just about the $2 billion.

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on-camera): Right, Sara. So in about an hour from now, lawyers for both the Trump administration and Harvard will appear in court for the first time since Harvard filed their lawsuit last week, and this is a status conference. Harvard had asked for it, they want the judge to set a schedule to speed this along because they are hoping to unfreeze the more than $2 billion in federal grants that have been frozen.

Harvard filing this lawsuit saying that the freezing of the money was unconstitutional because it violated their First Amendment Right of Academic Freedom. And also saying that it is unlawful because it violated an administrative law that sets a process for if federal funding is to be withdrawn, that needs to be filed. They are saying that Harvard hasn't followed it. And in their lawsuit, Harvard writes, the Administrative Procedures Act requires this court to hold unlawful and set aside any final agency action that is arbitrary, capricious in abusive discretion or otherwise, not in accordance with the law.

They're saying that the freezing of the money is actually in retaliation for Harvard, rejecting the demands from the Trump administration to make changes to it, its missions and hiring practices to end its diversity, equity, and inclusion program and take other steps that Harvard opposes.

Now, the Trump administration says that Harvard, if it wants federal funding just like any other university that they can't violate what the -- what the administration says is civil rights, and that is why this anti-Semitism task force that the federal government has set up. And as you said, this is not just about Harvard, although today's lawsuit is this is about federal funds being frozen at other universities by the Trump administration.

So, today's hearing expected to be relatively brief, a status conference, kind of setting up the rules of the road of how this will move forward in Harvard is seeking a quick process here. They're trying to get these funds unfrozen as soon as they can.

Sara.

SIDNER: Kara Scannell getting us through it all, with the wind attacking you mercilessly. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Joining us right now to talk about this, is CNN legal analyst Jennifer Rodgers.

So, let's talk about the what the university is saying in the lawsuit, what is -- what has been violated, right? They've -- they've said that their First Amendment protections, First Amendment rights are -- being violated, but also this administrative procedures act that's also being (INAUIDBLE).

Talk to us about what that is, why that's important to the argument they're trying to present.

JENNIFER RODGERS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST (on-camera): Well, the Administrative Procedures Act governs how the government can do things like through its federal agency. So if you are going to use the power of the government to do things, in this case to a private university, you have to follow certain steps.

So, all this funding has been given to Harvard. What Harvard is saying is the APA requires that the government go through certain steps if they're going to take that funding back. It requires notice, a hearing, a report, you know, time in there for Harvard to respond. And none of that has been done here.

BOLDUAN: What we have not heard much from the administration in their defense here and like what is actually going, what -- what they're actually going to present. What do you think the best defense is for the administration's action specifically when it comes to Harvard?

RODGERS (on-camera): Well, it's tough because --

BOLDUAN: Right.

RODGERS (on-camera): -- obviously Harvard has a very strong case here. I expect that they're going to try to lean into this DEI being a civil rights violation.

BOLDUAN: Yes.

RODGERS (on-camera): Because they really don't have an excuse for why the concern is allegedly anti-Semitism, Harvard has already been working on yet, and that they're freezing billions of dollars in funds that largely goes to medical --

BOLDUAN: Research. Yes, exactly.

(CROSSTALK)

BOLDUAN: Medical research.

RODGERS (on-camera): There's not much of a match there. So I suspect maybe they'll say, you know, all of this, you know, DEI is violating people's civil rights, and that kind of spans the entire university, not just focused on the protests that happened.

BOLDUAN: Before filing the lawsuit, Harvard hired two attorneys with. Republican connections. You've got Robert Hur and William Burck. Hur, I -- I know people will remember that name. He was special counsel who was brought in to investigate President Biden's handling of classified documents. His report out was something that a lot of people jumped on and his description of President Biden at the time. Burck served as a special counsel to President George W. Bush.

What do you think of these hires? Do they make a difference?

RODGERS (on-camera): Well, I think that they do they have credibility with Republicans and with the administration and they can help in settlement negotiations, because I think the most likely path here is Harvard will get themselves an injunction that will unfreeze the funds and then the parties will negotiate, right?

And hopefully be able to reach some settlement. Maybe you'll end up with a more robust anti-Semitism program or something like that. But lawyers who are friendly to an administration and known by the administration can help in kind of paving that way. Although I will say Bill Burck, I guess, was fired by the Trump organization for whom he was doing some legal work over the weekend. So maybe he's now not so friendly to the Trump administration as he was just a few days ago. We will see.

[09:25:26] BOLDUAN: Oh, how quickly that can change. But he was also with help negotiate with the Paul Weiss kind of negotiation and the targeting of law firms too. Right?

RODGERS (on-camera): He did, but that wasn't really adverse to the administration, right?

BOLDUAN: Right.

RODGERS (on-camera): They sat down in the, you know, Oval Office or --

BOLDUAN: Yes.

RODGERS (on-camera): -- whatever, and hammered something out. So that was still, I guess, friendly enough. But apparently, according to reporting, I saw once he came in for Harvard and they filed a lawsuit, president Trump said he shouldn't work for Trump Org and he got fired --

BOLDUAN: Fired.

RODGERS (on-camera): -- by Eric Trump. So, he's probably not so.

BOLDUAN: Stand by to stand by. Yes. Stand by to stand by. But still, it -- it's always interesting who's brought on and what they're trying to do. It kind of sends signals of what they're trying to look to do.

RODGERS (on-camera): Exactly.

BOLDUAN: Good to see you. Thank you.

RODGERS (on-camera): Thank you.

BOLDUAN: Sara.

SIDNER: All right. Thank you, Kate.

Breaking news, we are learning the entire national electric grid for Spain with cut off this morning, trains coming to a halt, traffic at airports snarled. We have the very latest on what is going on there with the power situation.

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