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Trump Holds Cabinet Meeting After U.S. GDP Shrinks; FBI Reassigns Agents Photographed Kneeling During Floyd Protest. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired April 30, 2025 - 13:30   ET

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

[13:30:00]

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: A very bad period of time. It's been brutal. But I felt very foolish being a judge. So I said, well, we want something for our efforts beyond what you would think would be acceptable. And we said Rare Earth. They're very good Rare Earth.

As you know, we're looking for Rare Earth all the time. Rare Earth is called Rare for a reason. And they have a lot. And we made a deal where our money is secure, where we can start digging and doing what we have to do. It's also good for them because you'll have an American presence at the site, Chris. And the American presence will, I think, keep a lot of bad actors out of the country or certainly out of the area where we're doing the digging.

So we made a deal. And I assume they're going to honor the deal. I put Scott in charge and Scott said it beautifully, but we haven't really seen the roots of that deal yet.

I suspect we will. I suspect we will.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, you had set a 90-day deadline through an executive order for Secretaries Hegseth and Noem to review whether to recommend to you whether to invoke the Insurrection Act to send troops to the southern border. Is that something you're still considering?

TRUMP: Well, I'm talking to them and it's not hard and fast, but I'm talking to them. And I will tell you that the border is the most secure it's ever been. We have never had anything like it.

And when when you said, Christie, before, it's 99.999. And I guess that means one person maybe or two people. It's actually turned out to be three people came across the border versus hundreds of thousands of people under Biden.

And we're talking about people coming up. People, they have they have souls, they have hearts. Many of them are good. But we have a country that's under siege. We have a country that really is under -- I think it's under attack in many ways worse than under attack because there are no uniforms.

You don't know who the attacker is. So you really don't -- it's not like you're fighting an army. You're fighting people. You don't even know who they are. But 11,888 murderers, many of them murdered, far more than one person are roaming.

Now, some of them have already been caught. A lot of them have already been caught, taken out. But we're being impeded by judges from doing our job.

And hopefully that situation is going to be solved, because I think nobody wants to have murderers and people from jail. And I mean, for serious, serious crime. I remember the Biden people used to say, no, these are aliens that came into our country and they don't commit crime.

I said they don't commit crime. They commit worse crime. They make our criminals -- some of these people that they've allowed in through open border policies. The dumbest thing I've ever seen. You can look at some of these people and you say this is not going to end well. But the people that they've allowed into our country are making our criminals look like the nicest people on Earth.

I will tell you, these are serious criminals. These are violent criminals. These are people that would kill you and wouldn't lose an ounce of sleep. And they wake up the next morning and they don't even remember it. This is a rough, rough, tough group of people. And we've got to get them out of our country.

And the law says, I believe, I hope, and I think Pam will be very successful in proving it. But we've run into I would call them rogue judges. Somebody could criticize me for that. These are rogue judges. These are radical left, generally radical left, horrible judges. And we didn't lose all of these people.

You know, we've lost a lot of people to death and to rape, all sorts of crimes committed by the people that poured into our country. And they came in totally unimpeded. Just come on in.

And you see it every night. You'd see thousands and tens of thousands of people pouring into our country. We have no idea who they are.

And to this day, we're looking for people. We have no idea. We hear that we have terrorists in our country that are so bad they couldn't stay in any other country.

But we're getting them out. And the group between Pete and Kristi and Tom Homan and everybody working together, people that you would least suspect are reporting them getting it. And the public is reporting them.

The public is saying. The public is calling and they're saying, you know, I live in a house and next to me moved in a group of people and they are very violent. And we'd go and would find out and we'd say, yes, you're right. They were really violent. And we have information on most of them.

So I just think it's incredible what's taken place. But we right now have a very, very secure border. Right now, we have the most secure border in the history of our country.

[13:35:00]

So I don't think we have to worry about it.

Your question.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) against not only against the conservatives, but also against you. Well, yesterday, the prime. Yes. And yesterday he spoke about American betrayal. Are you interested in rebuilding relations with Canada? And if so, how?

TRUMP: No, well, I think we're going to have a great relationship. He called me up yesterday. He said, let's make a deal, you know. He was running for office. They were both they both hated Trump. And it was the one that hated Trump. I think the least that won. I actually think the conservative hated me much more than the and the so-called liberal. He's a pretty liberal guy. But no, I spoke to him yesterday. Couldn't have been nicer.

And I congratulated him. You know, it was a very mixed signal because it's almost even, which makes it very complicated for the country. It's a pretty tight race. But he's a very nice gentleman. And we he's going to come to the White House very shortly, within the next week or less.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, when will you speak to President Xi of China?

TRUMP: Look, right now, and I told you before, they're having tremendous difficulty because their factories are not doing business. They made a trillion dollars with Biden, a trillion dollars, even a trillion one with Biden selling us stuff. Much of it we don't need.

You know, somebody said, oh, the shelves are going to be open. Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of thirty dolls, you know. And maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally.

But we're not talking about something that we have to go out of our way. They have ships that are loaded up with stuff, much of which not all of it, but much of which we don't need. And we have to make a fair deal.

We've been ripped off by every country in the world. But China, I would say, is the leading the leading one, the leading candidate for the chief ripper offer. There has never been -- there has never been a country that's been ripped off more than the United States of America under some of the dumbest leadership.

And it usually starts with the president. And you can go back. And I'm not just talking about Biden. That's been the worst. I mean, the trade deficits and everything else. He's been the worst. But but he he had no idea what he was doing. And I think somebody ought to look at the autopen to find out who is really running this country, because it wasn't Biden, because nobody could agree to what he agreed to. He put our country at risk, at tremendous risk and fiscal risk, financial risk.

So I think we have it very much -- I really believe that the next 100 days is going to be even better than this. Look, I read an editorial yesterday from a group that normally wouldn't write a good -- that this is the most consequential presidency in history, in the history of our country.

This is not a particular group that would write that kind of an editorial. But they see what we're doing and what we had to do. And I believe that this group, not just me, this group wasn't here.

I think our country was going to be in -- if it was lucky, just serious trouble. But a lot worse than that. I think our country could have been a total disaster.

Bad things were happening with our country. And we've we've stemmed the tide. We've turned it around. But we're going to really turn it around over the next -- over the next three years, three and a half years, we're going to turn it around. And then hopefully it'll be in such great shape. That's my goal to put it in such great condition that it can't be destroyed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You mentioned this last night in your speech, but we're facing an unprecedented situation where there's a lot of abuses of nationwide injunctions sort of seemingly designed to curtail your power, specifically when it comes to deporting these illegal, violent aliens that came in under the previous administration. Have you spoken to your team about ways to mitigate this and continue to deliver for the American people?

TRUMP: Well, there are ways to mitigate it. And there's some very strong ways is one way that's been used by three very highly respected presidents. But we hope we don't have to go that route.

But there is one way that has been used very successfully by three presidents, all highly respected. And hopefully we don't have to go that way. But there are ways of mitigating that.

I want to thank you all very much. I thought this was an incredible cabinet meeting. I think there's probably has never been a cabinet meeting like this. You've never seen it on tape that I can tell you.

And I want to just congratulate everybody at the table. But we have a lot of work to do. But we're off to a great start. Thank you very much, everybody.

(CROSSTALK)

[13:40:00]

TRUMP: I like I like my life. I'm working hard. But I like it because we're doing a lot of good for a lot of people.

Thank you very much. Thank you, everybody.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: We've been listening to President Donald Trump alongside his cabinet, a cabinet meeting that stretched for roughly two hours or so in which we watch the president really wash his hands of the consequences of some of his policies on immigration and on tariffs as well.

There, the president distancing himself from the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, this Maryland man who the administration acknowledges was deported in error, despite having a withholding order that protected him from going back to El Salvador. He was sent there. The president saying that he's not the one making this decision, even though he acknowledges that he could simply pick up the phone and call the president of El Salvador to figure out a way to get Abrego Garcia back and at least offer him the due process that is common to just about everyone in the United States. That the Constitution affords.

And notably on tariffs there as well. The president saying that he doesn't take credit for the stock market, even though when it's been doing well, we've seen him do just that.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Yes, he definitely looks at it. He -- the stock market, we know that. But as you said, washing his hands of it, he was blaming the Biden administration as we are seeing the GDP shrink for the first time since 2022, blaming him for trade agreements.

But we really do need to note that a key one that President Trump laments that he is saddled with is one that he negotiated himself, the USMCA, which is oftentimes referred to as NAFTA 2.0.

And he was asked again, kind of the question he keeps getting asked, have you spoken to President Xi of China? He dodged on that. He stressed that China is having tremendous difficulty economically. But he said they have ships loaded up with stuff, much of which we don't need. We'll tell that to really anyone, go around your house, see what you have in there. You'll see a lot of things.

Maybe you determine some of it you don't need, but certainly you'll see some of it you definitely do. And that is one of the stresses that is on the president.

We have David Chalian with us. We have Daniel Dale with us as well. David, what did you think there? That was a very long cabinet meeting.

And the president is facing a lot of pressure as he sees some of these poll numbers and some of the effects of his policies.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF: Well, the big question, I think, is how receptive will the American people be to this argument that this is all Joe Biden's fault? Because we're obviously 100 days into Trump's second term. And you note the polling numbers indicate that the American people have big questions about the way in which he's going about enacting policies that they even might favor as a policy. But the way he's doing it are raising questions for the American people.

But he didn't just say it retrospectively about blaming Joe Biden for the last quarter. He said it prospectively. You heard him say, you could say the next quarter is Biden, too. Well, at what point, Mr. President, does the buck stop with you? I mean, in fact, Terry Moran at ABC asked him, does the buck stop here on the Abrego Garcia case?

He said no. And then you heard it again just now. Not only is this Biden's economy that he's trying to argue at this point, even though I think it was 2.4 percent GDP growth in the last quarter of Biden's presidency compared to the negative 0.3 percent contraction in this first quarter of Trump's, but saying the next quarter could be blamed on Biden, too.

He's pleading with more time. He's pleading for the American people to give him more time for things to work that clearly the American people, especially on the economy, don't think are working right now.

SANCHEZ: He says the second hundred days are going to be better than the first when he has the lowest approval rating of any president at this point in his term in like 70 years. Is that right?

CHALIAN: Yes.

SANCHEZ: I wonder what you make of him saying that he doesn't make the decision when it comes to Abrego Garcia, that it's up to -- that he's following Attorney General Pam Bondi, that this is all up to the attorneys.

CHALIAN: Yes, it's all about the lawyers. He's been -- there was a change like a couple of -- maybe a week and a half ago or so where all of a sudden after that Oval Office side-by-side appearance with Bukele, he all of a sudden every time he got asked about this case thereafter, it was up to the lawyers.

Our brand new poll out today, Boris, Brianna, shows the Abrego Garcia case I don't think is cutting with the American public the way that Trump and the administration was hoping that it would.

Fifty-six percent of Americans say in our poll out today that the administration should be working to bring him home. That includes, by the way, 28 percent of Republicans. So there could be widespread -- and there is support for deporting people who are here illegally, who commit violent crimes. I think there's broad support for that.

But this case may not be as clear-cut an example, and the American people don't see it as a clear-cut example. And there's a due process argument that seems to be resonating when a majority of Americans are saying they want to see the administration bring him home.

KEILAR: Daniel Dale, take us through some fact checks on what you heard there in this meeting.

[13:45:00]

DANIEL DALE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Well, he kind of vaguely repeated his frequent claim that the U.S. had a trillion-dollar trade deficit with China under President Biden. It did have a big trade deficit, but he's grossly exaggerating it. It was about $263 billion last year, so he's about quadrupling it. And while he blames Biden for letting it get out of control, that was actually a lower figure than the trade deficit with China in each and every year of Trump's first presidency. So it did not explode under President Biden.

This may be a bit subjective, but I'm a Canadian, so I want to address it. He said in the Canadian election, he said it was the one who hated Trump the least who won.

I don't know how to measure hate, but certainly Liberal Prime Minister Mark Carney was much harsher in his public rhetoric than his main opponent, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre. So I don't know about the one who hated Trump the least won.

And then I thought it was interesting, guys, he did a kind of self- fact check of his own previous rhetoric. He made a comment about imported dolls, and he said, well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30. Maybe those two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more. So that acknowledgment that imported products like dolls might cost a couple of bucks more is sharply at odds with what we heard him say over and over, certainly on the campaign trail, even more recently when he said it's foreign countries who pay those tariffs. Consumers aren't going to pay them at all.

So here, at least briefly, he acknowledged that, yes, stuff might might cost more money here for Americans.

KEILAR: Yep, and that's the truth. So it kind of has a way of getting out there, even if you don't want to admit it.

David, Daniel Dale, thank you so much. David Chalian, thank you to you as well. We will have more after a quick break.

[13:50:00]

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SANCHEZ: Now to a CNN exclusive and a new controversy unfolding inside the FBI. Sources tell CNN that several agents who took a knee during the 2020 George Floyd protests have been reassigned.

KEILAR: Photographs captured agents kneeling during a Black Lives Matter demonstration in Washington, D.C. They were trying to de- escalate tensions after being confronted by a group of protesters while trying to protect federal monuments and buildings.

CNN Senior Justice Correspondent Evan Perez is here with more. What's the FBI saying about why these agents were reassigned?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, they're not saying much. They say that they can't discuss personnel matters but look at that photograph. You know, they say a photograph, you know, it takes a thousand, what is it?

KEILAR: Speaks a thousand words.

PEREZ: Speaks a thousand words. Look at that. I messed that up. Speaks a thousand words. I mean, this is one of those cases where, you know, you could, it all depends on your political -- where you are on the political spectrum, because, you know, certainly people who saw that photograph inside the FBI, some of them were very upset.

They thought it was these agents taking a position, essentially endorsing Black Lives Matter and the protests after the death of George Floyd. Others saw an effort to de-escalate because these agents were surrounded. There were like 800 protesters around them.

And they, it could -- you know, obviously given the tensions in that period, there were violent protests the days before, this could have turned ugly. And so that these agents de-escalated a situation. This was something that was investigated by the internal affairs folks at the FBI, and they decided it didn't violate policy.

But now with the new administration, they've decided otherwise. And so these agents have been reassigned. It looks like a demotion because people have been taken from less -- from more coveted jobs to less coveted positions in general.

And so the question is whether people are getting essentially punished without any of the usual process that people go through inside the FBI.

SANCHEZ: Evan Perez, thank you so much for that reporting.

KEILAR: It's a picture is worth a thousand words. We both got it wrong. So don't feel bad. Don't feel bad.

PEREZ: We'll try it again.

KEILAR: Yes. Next, next hit. There will be one.

SANCHEZ: So right now, time is running out for at least 11 students in upstate New York to surrender to police or face felony kidnapping charges. The boys' lacrosse team at West Hill High School in Syracuse were given that 48 hour ultimatum. Players on that team, after they took part in a disturbing and elaborate initiation ritual, the district attorney calling it hazing on steroids.

KEILAR: CNN's Brynn Gingrass is in New York on this. Brynn, what are the details here?

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I mean, they really make you angry. I got to be honest to Brianna and Boris. The district attorney, they're essentially saying that there are at least 11, not necessarily seniors in high school, but senior members of the lacrosse team. And there are five younger athletes on that team. And they did this act, allegedly hazing on steroids, he called it.

He says that basically these older students had this ruse to these younger kids saying, hey, let's go out to see a lacrosse game. We'll get McDonald's afterwards. And instead, they drove them to a remote area of the county there in upstate New York. And then listen to what he says happened next.

(END VIDEO CLIP) WILLIAM FITZPATRICK, DISTRICT ATTORNEY, ONONDAGA COUNTY, NEW YORK: People came out of the woods, all dressed in black. They were armed with what appeared to be at least one handgun and at least one knife. The individual had a pillowcase placed over his head. He was tied up and placed in the trunk of a car.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GINGRAS: Some real serious allegations here. Now, the district attorney is saying essentially this appears to have happened to one of those five student athletes. The others seem to get home safely.

[13:55:00]

But still, this is what's happened next. He says you have an ultimatum. And he spoke directly to the parents of all these athletes on this lacrosse team saying, listen, you can either turn yourself in, in the next 48 hours, the deadline being tomorrow at the end of the business day, and you face a ticket slap on the wrist, no criminal record, or you can choose to not do that. And if you are caught, which, by the way, there is video of this incident, we don't have it, but it is circulating. And police say they have it. They said there'll be more serious charges.

So he basically was very blunt, saying, listen, it is up to you. So we'll have to see what happens. We don't have word yet if anyone has, you know, chosen which side of that ultimatum they're taking.

But this is certainly, guys, dividing a community. Right now, the lacrosse team, their whole year is now canceled. The rest of the games are canceled, which is about 10 games.

And the superintendent essentially saying, listen, he knows the whole team wasn't involved in this, but this is the kind of culture that he cannot, of course, you know, deal with, and they won't deal with it. So we'll see what happens.

KEILAR: That is incredibly upsetting, those details. Brynn, thank you for that report.

And stay with us. President Trump says it's former President Biden's stock market and economy, even though he has been president for 101 days. Much more on that just ahead.

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