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Gene Sperling is Interviewed about Trump's First 100 Days; Mixed Open for Wall Street; Sirine Shebaya is Interviewed about Deportations; Trump Administration's Impact on Health. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired April 29, 2025 - 09:30   ET

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

[09:30:00]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Karoline Leavitt said she just heard that and spoke with the president right beforehand.

What do you think both of the move by Amazon and the reaction from the White House?

GENE SPERLING, FORMER SENIOR ADVISER TO PRESIDENT BIDEN: SPERLING: Well, listen, we're at a different phase, and the White House knows we're at a different phase of this really self-created crisis. And it is a self-created crisis in our economy right now. I mean you have not had a careful, thoughtful, strategic, economic nationalism. You've had something more like economic masochism. You've now seen what was going to be a beautiful, soft landing, steady growth. Literally every forecaster, everything points to steady growth, lower inflation, the Federal Reserve being able to cut rates, feeling comfortable. And not based on war or financial crisis or pandemic, just on policy, you've seen, as John was just saying, this incredible loss of confidence that has hit at both the boardrooms and on Main Street with consumer confidence now hasn't been lower - wasn't lower after 9/11 or the financial crisis or even the pandemic.

So, we've now seen this coming. We heard Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JP Morgan, said a - say a mild recession is now maybe the best you can hope for. But there still had been not yet getting to that phase where people were feeling it. And I think we're - it's not just Amazon, it's when Costco and Walmart and them started to tell the president, this is getting real. We're in a new phase. There will be shortages. There will be empty shelves. And there will be higher prices. And it's not - it's not just about a big company like Amazon, it's about all the people who sell, all the people in small business.

So, they can be mad at Amazon, but basically they're not denying that the prices are going up for consumers because of their tariffs. They're just upset that somebody is kind of adding a little sticker about it. Believe me, if you're in the Joe Biden administration, you get it, American consumers know about prices. They're unhappy when they're high. And they're going to be very unhappy. And for them to get upset at Amazon for putting a little sticker or anybody else really hides the point that prices are going up, as John King just said, and people are going to know it. I heard one place talk about Temu saying that a bathing suit for little kids will go from $16 to $40. People are going to notice that.

BOLDUAN: Well, let me ask you about - let me ask you about China, Gene, because also we heard - he was asked - Bessent was asked once again if Trump had talked to Xi Jinping. And the way Bessent answered it is that he has a lot of jobs, one - and running the White House switchboard is not one of them.

I heard - he's - he's avoided answering the question many times. And maybe - maybe an answer you would have given me when you were in the administration when you didn't want to answer my question. But would you - would the Treasury secretary know if the President had engaged in a phone call with the leader of China on the number one issue facing the administration at this time?

SPERLING: Well, kind of - it's asked and answered with your question. Of course. When you're dealing with China on a major trade issue, that - and an issue here that is now threatening to actually turn a solid recovery into a recession, it would be your number one issue. It would be the single number one issue for - you would strategize before every call. You would have meetings. You would have a debrief. This would be your number one thing.

So, we know when he says that, that he's embarrassed. It's difficult because you have - you also have a president who takes a lot of pride in kind of his macho strength being the art of the deal. And now he's kind of, you know, now instead of us watching him take on China in an effective way, which a lot of us would like and a lot of us would like to see more manufacturing here.

But to see him put us in a situation where he's alienating us from the allies that we would want to get together with to gang up and have greater leverage on China when he see - when we see what he's done to Canada and Europe and other potential allies and then his potential weakness with China, where he even comes out unilaterally and says, I'm willing to back off and lower tariffs if we talk. And they're like, you've insulted us, we don't need to do this. Nobody, Democrat, Republican, wants to see the president of the United States in such a weak position. But here we are. And it's not a good place for any of us to be.

BOLDUAN: Gene Sperling. Thanks for jumping on, Gene. I really appreciate it.

Before we go, let's take a quick look at - there you go, as we go to break, this is - markets have open while Gene Sperling and I were talking.

[09:35:04]

Mixed open right now. Let's see what happens today.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, the markets opened just a few minutes ago. You can see basically prices relatively flat right now after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent briefed from the White House.

Matt Egan is here to talk about this.

All right, Matt, what are you seeing?

MATT EGAN, CNN REPORTER: Well, John, it's a relatively quiet 100th day after really months of extreme turbulence in financial markets. And I would argue, a surprisingly weak first 100 days, when you consider how excited Wall Street was about Trump 2.0.

I mean you and I were on set talking after the election when we saw the market go straight up.

[09:40:01]

And I think in hindsight, investors were underestimating all of the chaos and, of course, all of the tariffs.

Look at this. So, since the president took office, the S&P 500 is down 8 percent. That is a big loss. This is investors giving the Trump agenda two thumbs down. And when you look back at how this stacks up in recent history, we saw an 8 percent move also for - under Biden. But that was 8 percent up similarly under Obama. Both of his terms. Again, through 100 days, the market was up around 7 or 8 percent. The only one that really compares is George W. Bush, when the market was down significantly in 2001. Of course, that was during the bursting of the dot com bubble. So big, big losses there.

When you really zoom out, you have to go back a half century for any comparison. This is the worst start or on track, depending upon how things close today, on track to be the worst start since 1974 under Ford after Nixon had resigned, during the great stagflation.

One other stat to leave you with. This is how much the market has lost since Trump took office. $4 trillion. And this was actually much bigger number until markets started to rebound a little bit as the president walked back some of his tariffs.

BERMAN: Yes. That "t" stands for trillion.

Let's look at Amazon if we can very quickly.

EGAN: Sure.

BERMAN: If we can put that up so people can see it. Because, again, Punchbowl was reporting that Amazon is going to start listing the costs of tariffs right next to each of their products. The White House sort of went ballistic about this, calling it a hostile and political act. Amazon's stock now down nearly, well, 1.5 percent.

EGAN: Yes, never a great sign when the White House is attacking you. So, investors are selling a bit on Amazon. But to your point, earlier this hour, the fact that the White House came out with such an aggressive attack on Amazon here does sort of reveal some of the concerns inside the White House about whether or not consumer prices are going to go up because of tariffs, and if companies are going to flatly blame tariffs for those price increases.

BERMAN: If you're afraid of transparency, one has to ask why.

EGAN: That's a great point.

BERMAN: Matt Egan, great to see you. Thank you very much.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: All right, from changing policies around food dyes, to cutting federal health workers and scaling back on NIH grant money, a look at the Trump administration's sweeping impact on the nation's health policy as he marks his 100 days back in office.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:46:53]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: White House border czar Tom Homan defended the Trump administration's move to deport three U.S. citizen children with their mothers last week. Homan doubled down saying it was the parents' decision to leave the country with their children. But the lawyers representing the mother say his version of events is just plain wrong.

Joining me now is the executive director of the National Immigration Project, Sirine Shebaya.

Thank you so much for being here.

So, what is accurate here? Did the moms want to take the children with them, or is the border czar uninformed at best or lying at worst?

SIRINE SHEBAYA, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL IMMIGRATION PROJECT: Thank you, Sara. Thank you for having me.

Unfortunately, what the border czar is representing is simply not how things went in that situation. The moms did not have any opportunity to make choices about what was going to happen to their children. They were essentially picked up after what should have been a routine check-in where they were showing up with their kids and they were going to leave and the kids were going to go to school, all that good stuff. And instead, they ended up in this nightmare situation where they were detained, they were held incommunicado, they were not allowed to speak in any meaningful way to attorneys or their family members, and there was not a moment of decision making that they were able to have. They were simply informed that their children were going to go with them. The mom, who has a four-year-old who is undergoing cancer treatment, in fact objected to the children going with her and was not allowed to speak to an attorney. Neither mom had any kind of consent in that situation. It was completely sort of a black behind the curtains secret situation where they were being held, not allowed to speak to anyone and not allowed to make any kind of informed choice about their own options or about their kids' options.

SIDNER: So, what happens now? I mean could ostensibly the children be sent back without their mothers to the family members that are waiting to - to have them, take them?

SHEBAYA: I think right now what's happening is what should have happened before they even left the United States, which is that the families are talking to each other to figure out what the best way is to get these kids, you know, into a good situation. I think that it's just been a very, very difficult process for everybody involved. And one thing that we, I think, should kind of highlight about this story, too, is that the moms also had legal options available to them that they could have pursued if they had been given time to do that rather than being whisked away.

And I also think that it's a very complicated situation of having kids who now need to be brought back from Honduras and - and - and all of the trauma that they've been through over the past little bit.

But we have an open court case on behalf of the two-year-old U.S. citizen child that we're going to be continuing to pursue. And, generally speaking, I think everybody is exploring all of the available options to make sure that the best thing happens for this family and for the three U.S. citizen kids who were whisked away without any kind of parental choice.

SIDNER: All right, Sirine Shebaya, thank you so much for giving us that new information this morning about the - what's happening, particularly with these children who were U.S. citizens who were deported.

[09:50:08]

Appreciate your time.

John.

BERMAN: All right, the 100-day checkup on your health. What is the situation for you and your family 100 days into the Trump administration?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:55:50]

BOLDUAN: In the first 100 days, the area that has seen some of the biggest impacts and changes is the country's public health agency and under the direction of Trump's HHS secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., children's health is seeing a massive overhaul. To take a deeper dive now into all that has changed in this first 100 days, CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta is here.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

BOLDUAN: It's good to see you, Sanjay.

One focus of the president in this area is - he said is fighting chronic illness in - in kids.

GUPTA: Right. BOLDUAN: How big of an issue is this, and what is the plan?

GUPTA: Yes, I mean, it's a big issue, first of all, if you look at the United States, especially when you compare the United States to other countries. If you look just at how many different children have at least one chronic health condition. And if you add in two or more health conditions, you realize that close to, you know, half the country, half of our country's children have some sort of chronic disease, which is kind of remarkable. Only about 50 to 60 percent are totally healthy from 0 to 17. Take a look at the numbers there. It's - that's concerning. And keep in mind, when you look at that, $4 trillion a year roughly are spent on health in the United States overall. And we still have a lot of chronic disease.

Now, in terms of the plans to do something about it, there has been a lot that's been discussed regarding the food supply, which is - which is probably driving a lot of those chronic health conditions. But a lot of the attention we're hearing so far are on things like autism, for example, where despite, you know, 30 years of studying this, the administration now says within the next few months, by September, they're going to figure out what is actually driving autism.

A lot of scientists, who've been working on this again for decades, skeptical that you can actually find an answer like that. We know that autism has genetic components. We know that there are changes in children's brains even in utero, and that there's probably some sort of environmental toxin. But we also know, there's been a lot of studies on vaccines and autism, and there does not appear to be any connection there whatsoever. But that's where a lot of the attention has been.

BOLDUAN: Yes.

GUPTA: Also a lot of attention on fluoride, potentially reducing or if not eliminating fluoridated water in many places around the country. And then last week, as you know, Kate, we talked about these petroleum dyes, for example, and the plan to phase those out. So that's where the attention has been. But, you know, again, 40 percent of the country has some sort of underlying chronic disease.

BOLDUAN: Yes. And you mentioned vaccines. RFK Jr. has a long and scary history, frankly, with his view on childhood vaccines. Since taking over the agency, what really is the administration's approach to this, and how much has it changed?

GUPTA: Yes, look, this is confusing and concerning, to be honest. I mean, on one hand, you had Secretary Kennedy talk about the fact that no one will get their vaccines taken away. He even talked about the need for vaccines, like a measles vaccine, during this outbreak in west Texas.

But at the same time, take a look at the screen. The FDA vaccine safety head resigned over lack of transparency issues he says. Independent vaccine advisers who come in to advise on things like the flu vaccine, they're no longer invited to those meetings. So, I don't know - we don't know what that entirely means for the flu vaccine for next year, for example.

And, you know, Kate, at the same time that they talk about wanting to do all these things overall with regard to children's health, many grants, including vaccine related grants, have just been canceled. So, there aren't even people who are working in some of these departments to accomplish some of the goals that the administration says that they want to accomplish.

BOLDUAN: And when you're looking at those goals, Sanjay, there was talk about creating a new health organization by the administration.

GUPTA: Yes.

BOLDUAN: I think the way, when they announced it, they said to get rid of the alphabet soup. But what's really known about it?

GUPTA: Well, we know its - there's a lot of cuts involved with it. They've cut - they cut 10,000 workers immediately, then 10,000 more workers. They want to save close to $2 billion a year, they say, and consolidate. It's all going to come under the moniker of aha they say, the administration for a healthy America. That's what they say this new administration is going to be called.

[09:59:59]

They are losing a lot of people. They are losing a lot of funding. It may be hard to maintain these audacious goals, Kate.

BOLDUAN: Yes, for sure. It's great to see you, Sanjay. Thank you so much.

GUPTA: You got it.

BOLDUAN: And