Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Trump To Sign New Executive Order Targeting Sanctuary Cities; White House Touts Immigration Efforts On Eve Of Trump's 100th Day; Lawyers & Advocacy Group: 3 Children, Who Are U.S. Citizens, Deported With Mothers To Honduras; Trump Claims Tariffs Will Lead To Federal Income Tax Cuts; Milwaukee Announces Action Plan After Lead Found In Some Schools; Milwaukee Schools Respond to Lead Crisis As CDC Faces Deep Cuts. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired April 28, 2025 - 15:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:01:01]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Ninety-nine days in office, 140,000 deportations. These are numbers that for the White House add up to success. But Americans may not be quite as sold on the second Trump administration. Some new poll numbers show a serious problem for President Trump.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: And how does no more income tax sound? Well, the President says it's possible with tariffs, but economists say that's a pipe dream. And they're warning that Americans could soon feel the real-world impact of a trade war.

SANCHEZ: And a lead crisis endangering students in public schools. Milwaukee now grappling with that threat and how to respond. The city asked the CDC for help, but was denied.

We're following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

Thank you so much for sharing part of your afternoon with us. I'm Boris Sanchez alongside Brianna Keilar here in the nation's capital.

And today, President Trump is gearing up to mark a hundred days in office by highlighting his administration's immigration crackdown. The White House says the President will soon be signing new executive orders to, quote, pursue criminals. At least one order, we're told, will target sanctuary cities.

KEILAR: Earlier, the President's boarders are told reporters 139,000 undocumented immigrants have been deported since the President's second term began. In just the last few days, ICE officials say at least 800 immigrants were arrested during raids in Florida. And in Colorado, federal officials say more than 100 migrants were detained during a raid at a club. CNN's Alayna Treene is at the White House for us.

So, Alayna, we're seeing this immigration victory lap play out as the White House is also confronting some new scrutiny.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: That's exactly right. Look, I think there's a reason, of course, that the White House chose to make this the kickoff for this big week where they're really trying to lean into the messaging around the President's first 100 days in office. Immigration is an issue. By far, when I talk behind closed doors with some of Donald Trump's top White House and other senior administration officials, that they believe they are largely winning on, that they are delivering on something that he said he would do.

And that's not necessarily the case when you look across the board at other issues like the economy, for example. But this is an issue where they really do believe that they are delivering on what President Donald Trump should do. However, I will say, of course, we have seen this also be, immigration, one of the biggest issues where they've really tested the President's executive authority.

We've now seen a string of court battles really trying to push back on some of what this administration is doing. For example, with the 18th Century Alien Enemies Act that the President had implemented to kind of help him with this sweeping mass deportations of undocumented migrants.

But the big question that we're confronting today, of course, is what we've learned over the weekend about three migrant - or excuse me, three children who are U.S. citizens, but their mothers are not. They were deported along with their mothers over the weekend to Honduras. One of these children was actually a four-year-old who was receiving treatment for metastatic cancer.

Lawyers representing some of these children have argued that the due process rights here were eroded. Our colleague Priscilla Alvarez asked Tom Homan, the White House's boarder czar, about this at a press briefing this morning. Listen to how he responded.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOM HOMAN, WHITE HOUSE BORDER CZAR: What we did is remove children with their mothers who requested the children depart with them. This was a parental decision, parenting 101. The mothers made that choice.

When a parent says, I want that - I want my two-year-old baby to go with me, we made that happen. They weren't deported, we don't deport U.S. citizens. The parents made that decision, not the United States government.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TREENE: So, as you could hear there, Tom Homan was arguing that this was a decision made by the parents.

[15:05:01]

However, a judge - a Trump-appointed judge, I should say, on Friday, argued that they don't actually know if this was a decision that the parents had made. So again, this is another example of this being, you know, as immigration policies, the Trump administration's immigration policies really facing some serious legal scrutiny and also this idea of American citizens getting caught up in the crosshairs of what they're trying to do.

SANCHEZ: To that point about legal fights, Alayna, Homan also addressed the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case. He objected to the phrase error. The administrative error that the administration acknowledges that it made by deporting him, right?

TREENE: That's exactly right. I mean, we've now heard repeatedly from top White House officials, administration officials, that they do not believe that Abrego Garcia or this Maryland man who they accuse of being a member of MS-13 and therefore a terrorist organization, which the President has determined is a foreign terrorist organization, they argue that it wasn't actually an error. And they are really tripling down on this idea of wanting to fight the courts here.

Homan was asked this directly as well today. Listen to his response.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HOMAN: I don't accept the term error in Abrego Garcia. There is an oversight. There was - there is a withholding order, but things have changed. The facts around the withholding order has changed, he's now a terrorist. We're using the withholding order side to side.

And the gain you was fearing from being removed out of South Florida no longer exists. So the facts around that case are totally different. I'll let the lawyers litigate that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TREENE: So he said he'll let the lawyers litigate that. Of course, Boris and Brianna, we know that is exactly what has been happening. But that case has really been one that has really captured the attention of the nation. Because again, if there was some sort of error, I mean, people are concerned that perhaps people are being deported out of the United States accidentally.

It's something the President actually addressed during a interview over the weekend or that was published over the weekend, where he said essentially that if the administration actually gets the wrong person, nothing would ever be perfect in the world was his response to that. That if someone's accidentally deported, you know, we can't always do everything right.

And so, again, something that's really been a key concern for a lot of Americans who have been following that case. Boris, Brianna?

SANCHEZ: Alayna Treene for us at the White House. Thank you so much.

So, as you just heard there from Alayna, one of the cases involving these U.S. children who are now in Honduras involves the mother of a 2-year-old and an 11-year-old. According to a court petition, the kids were taken into ICE custody with their mother last Tuesday while she was attending a routine immigration check-in.

With us now is Gracie Willis. She is an attorney with the National Immigration Project. She represents the 2-year-old child in this case through a family friend who is acting as a petitioner.

Thank you so much for being with us, Gracie.

You heard there, Tom Homan essentially saying that the parents put these kids in this position. He's making this a decision that the parents have made. What's your reaction?

GRACIE WILLIS, ATTORNEY, NATIONAL IMMIGRATION PROJECT: Yes, thank you for having me. Tom Homan's statements are incredibly misleading and inaccurate. Both of the mothers - there's two families involved here. One, the U.S. citizen child that we're representing, and another where there's two U.S. citizen children who are deported.

And in neither of these cases were the parents - either parent - the mother or fathers, any other caregivers, presented with any decision or choice to make. These mothers were told, your U.S. citizen children will be deported with you. They were not offered any alternatives.

And so when we hear these statements about the importance of parents being able to make these decisions, that's not something that was offered to these parents. They were instructed and not given any alternative.

SANCHEZ: What about this handwritten note that the government claims your client's mother made out requesting to take her child with her? You're saying that that is not legally valid, that that was not her intent?

WILLIS: What we're saying is that the note doesn't represent a request. The note says, I will bring my child with me. It doesn't say I want to, I have decided to. It says a fact, a statement that she was told by ICE, you will be bringing your child with you, your child will be deported with you and she was instructed to write that on a piece of paper.

She was also in isolation at the time with nobody able to tell her what her options were, including lawyers and loved ones.

SANCHEZ: I also want to get your thoughts on Homan's description of the legal status of these women and in particular, his argument that they had orders from a judge that they disobeyed. I believe that your client's mother had missed a court date. Is that accurate?

WILLIS: That's correct. There was nothing disobeyed here. For both of these mothers, they had orders of deportation that were issued in their absence because of circumstances completely outside of their control.

[15:10:01]

Both mothers were in situations where they were not able to get to court. One because she was facing danger and had been kidnapped in Mexico in a way that prevented her from attending her second court hearing, and the other because she was a minor child who never received a time and date of her hearing.

In both situations, there's an opportunity, there's a legal pathway to get back into court, to file things with the immigration court, and essentially start over and say there were exceptional circumstances here, so let's get back into court and go ahead and make some of these decisions about what the legal options would be. But because both moms were held incommunicado in isolation without any opportunity to speak with a lawyer, those filings weren't able to be completed before the plane took off on Friday.

I was just speaking to a Republican congresswoman from New York, Nicole Malliotakis, and she said that one of the first things that she would want to know in a case like this is whether either of these mothers had any kind of criminal record, if they had any kind of background run-ins with the law. Can you give us some perspective on that?

WILLIS: I can say that in this situation with these mothers, it's not relevant to this situation. Neither of these mothers did, and at the same time, that's not what the immigration court is supposed to be deciding. The immigration court is supposed to be deciding their immigration options, and if there were any issues that precluded them from immigration relief, that would come up in their proceedings.

SANCHEZ: And lastly, what are their options now? I mean, how do you move forward after the children have been deported?

WILLIS: Absolutely. At this moment, the families are really processing and collecting themselves. Front and center in their minds are the health and safety of the families. There's safety issues for some members of the family. There's health issues for others. The four- year-old is in treatment for cancer and needs urgently to ensure access to medications that he was taking regularly.

One of the mothers was in an early stage of pregnancy and is - has been through untold trauma and is currently ensuring that she and her unborn child are as safe as possible and as healthy as possible. And once those sort of immediate needs are taken care of, the families can start to think about what is in the best interest of those children now that this awful thing has been done to them. We're also looking forward and thinking about the impact on the whole family, the impact on the due process that was afforded to these women who should have had the opportunity to make these filings in immigration court, and hoping that we are able to get that harm remedied for the entire family.

SANCHEZ: Gracie Willis, we appreciate you giving us an update. Thanks so much for joining us. And please keep us updated on what's next.

WILLIS: Will do. Thank you so much.

SANCHEZ: Brianna?

KEILAR: Today, the White House is stressing there is, quote, "no hold up" despite President Trump not signing a single trade deal since the - since he put that 90 day pause on his so-called reciprocal tariffs earlier this month. In the meantime, the President is reiterating his goal of using tariff revenue to dramatically overhaul U.S. tax policy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're going to cut taxes for the people of this country. It'll take a little while before we do that, but we're going to be cutting taxes and as possible, we'll do a complete tax cut, because I think the tariffs will be enough to cut all of the income tax.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: We have business journalist Roben Farzad with us now. He's also the host of public radio's Full Disclosure.

Okay, Roben, full, just complete income tax cut. No problem, right?

ROBEN FARZAD, BUSINESS JOURNALIST & HOST, "FULL DISCLOSURE": Reminds me of the band Stone Temple Pilots, and they say, one time a thing occurred to me, what's real and what's for sale? I know you're young. This was a big grunge song 30 years ago.

KEILAR: Oh, no, as (INAUDIBLE) ...

FARZAD: Yes.

KEILAR: ... all right. I just look young. Thanks, Roben.

FARZAD: Take the compliment. It's a Monday.

This is for sale. You know, we are taking so many different streams of information from this gigantic fire hydrant of a White House right now. El Salvador, the courts, the Fed, Iran, Israel, Gaza, Ukraine, the Vatican. This is just another one on Monday morning. I think he senses that his economic poll numbers are weak and this is when you want to throw out something that's widely popular in his party, tax cuts. I mean, that's red meat. And he still has a 90 percent approval rating among Republicans.

KEILAR: Okay, so let's do some more music here. He's got ninety-nine problems and you were going through some of them. But a trade deal is not one, right? He hasn't brokered one. And I mean, we know how long they take. So, it's not like we expect that he's going to have it all. It's all finished, right? It's all baked.

But even the sort of outline of one, he doesn't even have that at this point in time, although you have the Treasury secretary predicting a deal with India could be one of the first ones. What could that look like? How soon could that come, do you think?

FARZAD: It's not about splitting those hairs necessarily, because fine, when India is done, how do you handle China? How do you handle the U.K.? How do you handle the eurozone or South America, Colombia? Everybody is waiting with bated breath. [15:15:00]

I think this speaks to how the markets are hemming him in. I mean, you talk about separation of church and state and the various legs of government. There's almost another rail of checks in the markets. When the stock market, the economic data, consumer sentiment, the fact that he can't get any satisfaction out of jawboning Jerome Powell at the Federal Reserve. So now he says, I realize I have a majority, however slim it is in Congress, so I'm going to push the tax cut, the aggressive tax cut agenda.

Mind you, I don't think the CBO has scrutinized the possibility of not taxing people under $200,000 or like what he said when you were covering the campaign trail in Nevada, we won't tax tips. I mean, you could say these things and they'll have rhetorical flourish that day and the news cycle will switch to something else the following day. I think what's consistent is the market believes him less and less and less.

KEILAR: But also if you say, you know, oh, great, my, my tips aren't taxed, but you just hit me with this other thing because of the tariffs, right? We're seeing in the numbers, people went to the ballot box and they wanted relief. And that's not what they're getting. And the statistics are showing that's not what they're getting.

I guess the question then is, even if he's able, is he softening on tariffs a little bit here, if he's able to dial this down and find an off ramp here, how much damage is already done?

FARZAD: Well, the damage you could say that was Biden's fault into his first 90 days now, increasingly, as we head into the middle of the year. It's his economy. He owns it. He owns eggs. He definitely owns tariffs. He definitely owns when you go to a car dealership and find that something that might have cost you $40,000 six months ago cost $55,000 and is not available. So yes, there is this desire for him to say, oh, that's going to be offset by this massive tax cut extension that I'm going to give you. It remains to be seen if people buy that.

KEILAR: Okay, so as we're looking towards day 100 tomorrow, are there bright spots that you're seeing, any bright spots in the economy?

FARZAD: You know, consumer sentiment is weakening, but there's still FOMO buying. Call me crazy. There's people out there still wanting to spend on hospitality, on restaurants. We see that jobs are still overwhelmingly available in the hospitality center - sector, especially with the chilling effect on, I hate to say it, people of color showing up for these jobs. They're more scared now.

I'm hearing anecdotally from restaurant owners, from hotels, and it's just making that experience more difficult to provision to people, so it's sad. That's inflationary on balance. And I think his moves are going to be inflationary on balance and inflation is a very hard thing to snuff out.

KEILAR: Yes. There are people afraid to show up for jobs. It's cutting across sectors, right? As you said, hospitality. We see that in agriculture as well.

Roben, thank you so much.

FARZAD: Thank you, Brianna.

KEILAR: It's always great to have you.

FARZAD: Likewise.

KEILAR: And still to come, Milwaukee authorities announcing a new plan to address the lead crisis in the city's public schools as more schools are set to close. The school district superintendent and city's health commissioner will join us live.

Plus, Vladimir Putin announcing a unilateral three-day ceasefire in the war in Ukraine starting next week. But he wants a longer truce proposed by the U.S. The White House says Trump is increasingly frustrated with both leaders. Stay with CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:22:14]

KEILAR: It's a public health crisis in Milwaukee. Today, the city announcing it is closing two more schools as it responds to lead exposure in its school district. That's going to make a total of nine schools shutting down to address this problem of flaking and deteriorating lead paint in aging buildings. Ultimately, officials plan to inspect and fix more than 100 buildings that were all built before 1978 when it was still legal to use lead in paint.

SANCHEZ: Now, in January, the first of four students showed an elevated level of lead in their blood. And then as the city and the school district tried to figure out where the lead was coming from, they found the CDC could no longer be of service. The Health and Human Services Department had eliminated the environmental health lead program as part of the Trump administration's mass firings.

Let's discuss with the superintendent of Milwaukee Public Schools, Brenda Cassellius. Also joining us, Milwaukee's Commissioner of Health, Mike Totoraitis. Thank you both for being with us.

First, Brenda, talk to us about the decision to temporarily close each of these nine schools.

BRENDA CASSELLIUS, SUPERINTENDENT, MILWAUKEE PUBLIC SCHOOLS: Well, we have relocated those schools, so they haven't closed. And so the decision came because the health department came to us and said that there was a significant issue in our schools. We have about 54 of our schools that were built before 1950 and another 52 that were built from 1950 to 1978. And as you know, that's when lead paint was no longer allowed.

And so with this 106 schools, we need to make sure that we're in there examining them, looking at them and making sure that our schools are safe. And so with the partnership of the mayor and also Dr. Totoraitis, who's on this call, we made the decision that we would have to relocate those schools and begin our cleanup.

KEILAR: Dr. Totoraitis, talk to us about the Milwaukee Health Department plan out today to tackle this issue.

MIKE TOTORAITIS, COMMISSIONER OF HEALTH, CITY OF MILWAUKEE: Well, really, it's a plan that we supported the district with compiling. It's a really good move forward for this chapter for our city. And I'm confident that it will allow the district to return to compliance with the lead regulations that we have here in our state and in Milwaukee.

SANCHEZ: And, Doctor, I understand you had been working closely with CDC officials up until, you know, this adjustment from the Trump administration. What has been the impact and has HHS since been responsive with resources?

TOTORAITIS: Well, the last communication that I received from our colleagues at the CDC was the denial of our formal request for additional support.

[15:25:01]

It was quite a shock for us here in Milwaukee, and I think it reverberated through our national partners in public health. This is really unprecedented where a local health jurisdiction isn't able to rely on our experts in our country at the CDC for support.

KEILAR: Brenda, what is the effect of finding out you're essentially on your own there in your community dealing with this?

CASSELLIUS: Well, fortunately, we have Dr. Totoraitis, and the mayor and our governor's support as well. We're just continuing to do all that we can to reach any and all folks who can help us with this situation right in front of us.

SANCHEZ: And, Brenda, I wonder how families are responding, what you're hearing from parents, whether students' education has been interrupted or impacted by having to shuttle around this way.

CASSELLIUS: Well, understandably, families are scared. You know, you don't often have a lot of information about lead. I'm a mother myself, and I don't recall getting a lot of information around this other than in their yearly screening. And, you know, you expect that when you send your kids to school that it is going to be a safe environment for them.

So, understandably, they're concerned. And we're continuing to communicate with them. We held town hall. We took their questions. We have a FAQ up on our website. And we really have been encouraging them to go and have their children screened. The city has been wonderful in offering screenings. We have another one coming May 7th for our families. And we've been able to partner with Children's Hospital and other partners within the community to ensure that we get those resources out to our families.

KEILAR: Dr. Totoraitis, how much of the school community has been screened? Like, can you give us some context as to whether we should expect this number to rise? And do you have a sense of how the lead went from the paint? I mean, are we talking inhalation? Is there a very specific way in which this got ingested?

TOTORAITIS: Yes, so when this initial investigation uncovered the deteriorated lead paint in the schools, we saw an uptick in parents bringing their children to providers to get screening. So across the city, there's been several hundreds, if not thousands of families that have had their child screened. The two primary routes that we're concerned about are ingestion of paint chips and inhalation or ingestion of lead dust.

No levels of dust or of lead are safe. And through that surveillance and the screening that we're coordinating here in our city, we continue to watch for additional cases. And we have three cases that we're actively investigating right now and trying to discern whether that child's been potentially exposed at their home or at the school or in both cases. So those investigations are ongoing. So we're - we stand ready to continue to support families as they try to interpret results if they do get a lead level. And then obviously continuing to offer opportunities for families to get their children screened.

SANCHEZ: Yes, this is such a frustrating situation, you have to imagine, for folks in Milwaukee. Please keep us updated with what comes next. Brenda Cassellius, Dr. Mike Totoraitis, thank you both.

TOTORAITIS: Thank you.

CASSELLIUS: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Coming up new this hour, the Navy says it lost a $60 million jet when it fell off an aircraft carrier and plunged into the sea. Find out how it happened after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)