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Dr. Dhruv Khullar is Interviewed about the Measles Outbreak; DOJ Lawyer Placed on Leave; Asian Markets Plunge over Trade War; Roben Farzad is Interviewed about the Trade War; Pam Bondi Says Trump Will Probably Leave After Second Term. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired April 07, 2025 - 06:30   ET

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

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE, COMEDIAN, "SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE": It's simple economics, OK. If the stock market goes down and down and down and down and down, that means there's nowhere to go but up or perhaps further down.

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AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: And global markets continue to plunge this morning following last week's wipeout on Wall Street.

Good morning, everybody. I'm Audie Cornish. I want to thank you for joining me on CNN THIS MORNING.

If you're getting ready, it is half past the hour here on the East Coast. And here's what's happening right now.

Stocks are on pace for another tumble. U.S. futures remain in the red this morning following President Trump's aggressive tariffs last week. More tariffs are set to go into effect on Wednesday.

And rising river levels forcing people to leave their homes in Kentucky. Some residents saw water up to their windows. In Frankfort, the mayor is warning the river there could crest at historic levels today.

President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meeting this afternoon at the White House. They're expected to talk about the new tariffs imposed by Trump on Israel, as well as the ongoing hostage negotiations with Hamas and joint efforts to counter Iran and its proxy network.

And a second child in Texas has died in the measles outbreak spreading across the U.S. More than 630 cases reported in 21 different states, with the majority of those in Texas, where nearly all cases were of unvaccinated people. Health Secretary, and longtime vaccine skeptic, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. traveled to Texas to attend the child's funeral. Faced with questions about his handling of the outbreak, he posted on social media, quote, "the most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine."

Joining us now, Doctor Dhruv Khullar, professor of health policy at Weill Cornell Medical and contributing writer for "The New Yorker."

Welcome to CNN THIS MORNING. Thanks for being with us.

DR. DHRUV KHULLAR, PROFESSOR OF HEALTH POLICY, WEILL CORNELL MEDICAL COLLEGE: Thanks for having me.

CORNISH: So, there's some new analysis that finds declining rates for the first dose of the measles in children, meaning fewer people are getting their kids vaccinated. Can you talk about what's going on there?

KHULLAR: Absolutely. So, you know, the most important thing that people should know about the measles virus is that two doses of the vaccine are more than 97 percent effective in preventing infection. The first dose is usually given around 12 to 18 months, and the second dose around five years. You need about 95 percent of a community to be vaccinated to get something called herd immunity, when it makes it very difficult for the virus to spread, even to unvaccinated people.

What we've seen under - over the past couple years, however, is that vaccination rates have been falling. And so even three or four years ago you had 95, 96 percent of most kindergartners in the United States being vaccinated. That number is now down to 92 percent. And that's when you can really see the virus spread, particularly in these pockets of the country that have even lower rates of vaccination, like west Texas.

CORNISH: The backlash to vaccination after the pandemic, in - in a way, kind of got us RFK Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine skeptic. Can you talk about the changes that have been made under his tenure at HHS that are affecting this outbreak?

KHULLAR: Well, Audie, as you know, you know, Secretary Kennedy has finally acknowledged that the most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is through vaccination. But in most people's estimation, that is four months too late. We've had this virus spreading, particularly in west Texas, but not only in that state, for the past four months. And as you note, this has been the second death that we've seen. An eight-year-old child died last week. A six-year-old child died earlier this year. Both of those children were not vaccinated.

And every death is really a tragedy. But not only a tragedy, but a preventable tragedy. And so, people should know that in the year 2000 measles had been effectively eliminated in the United States. And now we have this enormous outbreak where more than 500 people in Texas, 600 people at least across the country, have been infected. Just for context, last year, all of last year, there were only 285 cases across the entire country over the entire year. In the first four months of this year, we have at least 600 cases in this country. And so, this has really been a huge step backwards. And we need a really effective and coordinated public health response to address it. CORNISH: You know, a reporter asked President Trump about his concerns

about the measles outbreak after this second fatality. Here's what he said.

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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's, so far, a fairly small number of people relative to what we're talking about.

[06:35:05]

It's something that people have known about for many, many years. I mean measles has been - you know, this is not something new.

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CORNISH: Doctor Khullar, I hear this a lot, like, don't make such a big deal out of this. It's just one or two. Which, of course, to the - those families out there that are suffering, that means a lot. But how do you respond to people who are minimizing what we're looking at?

KHULLAR: Well, it's not a small number of people. As I mentioned, this is the first measles death that we've had in a decade in the United States. And for every death, we know that it is preventable. This is one of the most infectious pathogens on the planet. So, it's estimated that in an unvaccinated population, every person who's - who has the virus will spread to at least 15 other people.

It has incredible levels of infectivity. And the virus can - can linger in the air for hours after a person has left the room. And so someone can be in a room, be breathing or sneezing, and then someone else can enter that room hours later and pick up the virus.

And so the virus typically causes things like, you know, a red rash, a high fever, watery eyes, cough. But about one in 10 children who get the virus will go on to develop an ear infection. About one in 20 will go on to develop pneumonia. And sadly, about one in 1,000 will develop encephalitis, brain damage and even death.

CORNISH: Will the cuts to these departments affect the monitoring of this outbreak, our ability to deal with it?

KHULLAR: Absolutely. And so, we've seen about 20,000 employees of the Department of Health and Human Services being fired or asked to resign or leave over the past few months. And that's a reduction in force from 82,000 to 62,000. That includes thousands of jobs at the CDC, thousands of jobs at the FDA, at the NIH. All these agencies come together to deliver our public health response in this country. And by doing this, we're really weakening our ability to respond to immediate term threats, but also long term threats as it relates to infectious and chronic disease.

CORNISH: Doctor Khullar, professor of health policy at Weill Cornell Medical College, thank you.

KHULLAR: Thank you. CORNISH: Today is the deadline for the Trump administration to return

a Maryland father who had been sent to a prison in El Salvador. Kilmar Abrego Garcia was deported last month in what ICE calls an error. Now, the Justice Department is placing one of its own lawyers on leave after he publicly expressed misgivings over the case. The DOJ attorney said he was frustrated by his inability to answer the judges questions. And then here's what the attorney general said about that.

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PAM BONDI, ATTORNEY GENERAL: I firmly said on day one I issued a memo that you are to vigorously advocate on behalf of the United States. Our client in this matter was Homeland Security, is Homeland Security. He did not argue. He shouldn't have taken the case. He shouldn't have argued it, if that's what he was going to do. He's on administrative leave.

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CORNISH: My group chat is back.

And, Errol, I want to just take on what Pam Bondi said just then, because we've seen a lot of lawyers representing the administration who sound baffled or uninformed, and judges have pointed that out as much.

ERROL LOUIS, POLITICAL ANCHOR, SPECTRUM NEWS: Yes, look, you - you are required to be baffled. And if you are baffled and uninformed, you are required to tell the court that. The reality is, you have an oath of office. You're an officer of the court. If you don't have the facts and the law on your side, or if there's an important material point on which you are not clear, you are absolutely ethically and legally required to say so.

And so, Pam Bondi's memo doesn't change that. And she can fire all the lawyers she wants. But if they don't have a coherent policy, or if there are facts that are just not known about how this mistake was made, she can't fire her way into generating those facts. And I think we're going to find that out over time.

CORNISH: Stephen, first you had the administration, frankly, joking about it, saying, oops. Now they're saying it's a clerical error. This person had legally protected status. And now he's in a supermax prison and they're claiming they can't get him back.

What - like, why not? And, frankly, can we trust this administration when they say that?

STEPHEN COLLINSON, CNN POLITICS SENIOR REPORTER: It's revealing that the attorney general is taking action against a lawyer in the case that tried to square facts, as Errol was saying, that can't be squared and is not fulfilling the orders of the judge to bring Mr. Garcia back to the United States. Simply put, the administration doesn't want to bring him back to the United States. It's harsh form of immigration enforcement is at the key of its agenda. It's one of the few areas where the president has positive approval ratings on immigration, more generally.

If they were to act on the judge's orders, that would risk unraveling quite a lot of this policy.

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I think what they're trying to do is appeal this all the way through the courts. Eventually, they want to get to the Supreme Court. But the facts show that Mr. Garcia, although he was accused of being a gang member only in a bail hearing five or six years ago, there is very little evidence that he is. But the problem the administration has is that if it acts on this case, it opens the floodgates to many cases. And a lot of lawyers who are acting for people who are caught up in this enforcement are warning about the lack of due process in many of these cases.

CORNISH: Jerusalem, does this become a case to rally around? You have Garcia's wife speaking out, you have more people in their community speaking out because fundamentally he is not a gang member. He did not do anything wrong.

JERUSALEM DAMSAS, STAFF WRITER, "THE ATLANTIC": Yes, I mean, we see in the past that cases like this can really galvanize action because, you know, if you have someone who is sympathetic, where there's really not much evidence that they're a gang member or a criminal, I mean, the American people are pretty positive on deporting criminals. But what we're seeing, I mean, there was a "60 Minutes" report that showed that 75 percent of the Venezuelans sent to the El Salvadorian prison have no evidence of any criminal history. And once that becomes known, I think that it's going to take a lot of effort for the administration to keep Americans OK with this.

And this has happened in the past. There's a case of Mark Lyttle several years ago where he was deported. He's an American citizen, he was born in North Carolina, and was literally pushed over the U.S./Mexico border with $3 in his pocket and a prison jumpsuit because there was an administrative error that had marked him as someone else. And he spent over 100 days wandering through Central America, was imprisoned in Honduras, eventually has to be returned and the - and a court case ends up awarding him over $100,000 in - after he sues.

So, this is something that's happened before. It spurred a lot of action. This was something the ACLU got involved in. So, cases like this, there are many more instances of the Trump administration deporting someone who, you know, legally immigrated here.

CORNISH: Yes. I want you guys to stick around. We have more to discuss. Also coming up on CNN THIS MORNING, we're going to keep talking about the president's trade policy because it's shaking the world. Asian markets on a downward ride overnight. Will Wall Street see more of the same?

Plus, she helped slaves escape during the Civil War. Now the Trump administration has scrubbed her face from a government website.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I don't think that policy certainty is going to come for at least a little while. So, I think we're - we are in for an uncertain period.

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CORNISH: OK. So, that tariff uncertainty, it's been rocking investors all around the world. So, take, for example, in Taiwan and South Korea, trading had to be halted to prevent panic selling. In Japan and China, markets also trending down. Japan's prime minister told his country's parliament that he's actually going to reach out to the U.S. to cut tariffs, but he warns this won't be fixed overnight.

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SHIGERU ISHIBA, JAPANESE PRIME MINISTER (through translator): We must explain to them clearly that our country has done nothing unfair to the United States.

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CORNISH: Joining me now to discuss is CNN's Marc Stewart. He is in Beijing with the latest.

Marc, we just heard the idea that people want to make some kind of change or deal. What are we actually going to see from the Chinese so far?

MARC STEWART, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, right now, as far as a possible deal from the Chinese government, that just does not seem to be on the table. China has been very firm with its talking points. We just had a briefing, in fact, around three hours ago here in Beijing. Let's listen to what a Chinese government official had to say.

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LIN JIAN, SPOKESPERSON, CHINESE MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS (through translator): The United States, under the name of reciprocity, practices hegemony, sacrificing the legitimate interests of other countries to serve its own selfish interests, placing America first above international rules.

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STEWART: There is a lot of anxiety and uncertainty. And the Chinese government, at least for its part, did not give any kind of roadmap for the future. And that's why, when we look at these numbers, we are seeing very significant declines.

Just to give you some context, normally if we see losses of 1 to 2 percent in Asia, that's seen as a big deal. The losses that we have seen today are much greater. So, for example, Hong Kong down by more than 13 percent. The Shanghai composite here in China down more than 7 percent. The Nikkei, which we heard from the Japanese prime minister not too long ago, as well as the Kospi in Seoul, also down. These are big centers of commerce here in Asia. Very big in the auto industry.

And whether you are on main street or Wall Street, people are craving some kind of certainty. In fact, if you go to cnn.com, we have what's known as the fear and greed index. It looks at a number of components to tell us exactly how people are feeling. Right now, as you see there, its at extreme fear. One year ago it was neutral.

So, Audie, until we get perhaps some more guidance from government leaders here in Asia as to what will happen next, where things will go, it may be some very rough days of trading here in Asia, but also globally.

CORNISH: That's CNN's Marc Stewart in Beijing.

And I want to move here to the U.S., because markets are going to open in just a few hours. And after closing last week with two straight massive sell offs, futures are still trending down. Some of the president's top trade advisors spent the weekend trying to reassure investors.

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PETER NAVARRO, TRUMP SENIOR COUNSELOR FOR TRADE AND MANUFACTURING: The market will find a bottom.

[06:50:01]

It will be soon. And from there we're going to have a bullish boom. And the Dow is going to hit 50,000 during Trump's term. The S&P 500 is going to have a very broad-based recovery. And wages are going to go up. Profits are going to go up. And life's going to be beautiful here in America. Trust in Trump.

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CORNISH: Joining me now to discuss, Roben Farzad, a business journalist, host of "Full Disclosure."

Welcome back to the show.

And let's start with those comments, right, about hitting the bottom, and that going to spur some change in people's lives. What do you make of how they're trying to sell this?

ROBEN FARZAD, BUSINESS JOURNALIST AND HOST, "FULL DISCLOSURE": It's a dream scenario for them because you can bridge this chasm between capital and labor, which has always been kind of anachronistic. Either you're having stock market gains or you're having job gains. In this world, almost pollyannaish world view, you can have both, as long as we adjust and we bring the jobs back, and then the profits are made, quote/unquote, more legitimately with American jobs and American domiciled profits. CORNISH: It's interesting because the American Enterprise Institute

was basically publishing an op-ed saying this fixation on trade deficits, that basically, "we should not wish for American workers to return to the days of sewing tennis shoes together in factories." Is that what we're talking about when we talk about what the administration is trying to do?

FARZAD: Yes, I want - I want them to conjure up this idea of an ideal U.S. factory job for me. What is it? Where - where was it last? I mean, you could pick up a cover of "Life" magazine in the early 1970s with the bored factory worker. A lot of those jobs have left. A lot of Americans would not want to take those jobs at minimum wage or minimum wage plus a dollar or two levels. You're already having difficulty filling restaurant and hospitality jobs at $15 to $20 an hour.

So, show me, I mean, more than notionally, what would that look like, and how quickly could you bring that back? I mean these people talk about the Dow and the S&P 500 targets when we know it takes years to bring a factory online.

CORNISH: Right. And in the meantime, we're hearing from our viewers here at CNN who have real mixed response to what we're dealing with, who are, some of them, finding it's going to cause them to struggle, while others are saying, look, I voted for Trump, I'm not too concerned. And then the flip side, if your washer goes out, you know, it - that's $300. That's a struggle.

Roben Farzad, thank you so much.

FARZAD: My pleasure.

CORNISH: And tell us what you're going to be looking for in the next day.

FARZAD: I'm looking for market reactions and what the cry uncle point is. Can he really - you know, he went golfing over the weekend, and that's kind of a negotiating tactic. You guys want me, you know how to reach me. Come to Mar-a-Lago. Let's make a deal. It's very much trying to - I don't - I don't think it's gaslighting, but it's a tactic. Whether it's successful, let's see if the market forces his hand.

CORNISH: And if you're crying uncle, CNN wants to hear from you. Are you making changes to how you live or shop based on tariffs? I want you to take a minute, scan this QR code on the screen because it's going to take you to CNN online where you can actually tell us all about it. We're going to keep an eye on that inbox. Your response could end up on our site or, of course, here on CNN THIS MORNING.

It is 52 minutes past the hour. Here's a couple more headlines. Things you need to know to get your day going in our morning roundup.

Japan battling a rice crisis. The government now dipping into its strategic reserves to lower prices for the country's most important food. In recent years,, bad weather, heat waves, supply chain issues have led to people panic buying rice. The average price of a bag has gone up 55 percent in two years. And a quote and a photo of abolitionist Harriet Tubman removed from a

National Parks web page about the Underground Railroad. It's one of several notable changes to government websites under the Trump administration. In fact, several references to enslaved people and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 were also scrubbed.

UConn on top of women's basketball once more. Huskies winning their 12th national championship by trouncing defending champion South Carolina 82-59 on Sunday. It's UConn's first national title in nine years. The men's title? Well, that could be decided tonight. It's Florida against Houston, with the Cougars seeking their first national championship ever.

So, one more thing. President Trump will, quote, "probably leave the White House" after he completes his current term in office. That's what Attorney General Pam Bondi is saying after Trump has indicated he may try to hold on to power and serve a third term.

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PAM BONDI, ATTORNEY GENERAL: He's a very smart man. And we - I wish we could have him for 20 years as our president. But I think he's going to be finished probably after this term.

SHANNON BREAM, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Probably?

BONDI: Well, the Constitution would - we'd have to look at the Constitution.

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CORNISH: My panel is back to discuss.

The Constitution states it pretty plainly that he cannot.

[06:55:01]

I want to make it clear, I don't want to be talking about this. Like it feels - like, at all. You know what I mean?

Jerusalem, but here we are. And why do you think this is worth paying attention to, our nation's chief law enforcement officer?

DAMSAS: You know, I also don't want to be talking about this. And I think, honestly, giving it too much legitimacy is propagating fear potentially in the American public. I do not believe that we're going to allow anyone to so clearly violate the Constitution. You can see the Trump administration really trying to push their luck with the courts repeatedly. But there's a difference between what they're doing now and what it would mean for Trump to try to run again on a third term.

And I do think there's a large swath of the American people that would just say, we are absolutely not going to vote for someone to completely destroy the foundations of, you know, our democratic legitimacy. CORNISH: But just to jump in there, Jerusalem, you said "we." Stephen,

who's the "we", right? I mean this is part of the reason why people keep putting this question to administration officials.

COLLINSON: Yes. One person that does want to be talking about this is Donald Trump, because it allows him to create an impression that he's all powerful, that he's exceedingly popular. I would say, however, that we do seem to be talking about this issue in somewhat of political isolation. Political factors have changed just in the last few days. You have Republicans on Capitol Hill who are increasingly concerned about the president's impact and those of his policies on the midterm elections next year. So, it does seem rather premature to be thinking about him running for a third term in an election in 2028.

CORNISH: Errol, do you hear that? Do you see some stirrings of opposition or even just eyebrow raising?

LOUIS: Well, yes, there's eyebrow raising. Look, this is - this is fun talk and a bit of a distraction on one hand. I would caution everyone, though, to take us back to January 6th of 2021. We never thought that we would see an attempt to ransack the Capitol and overturn the results of an election. So, with that caveat in mind, you have to keep in mind that you have to take this seriously.

And then finally I'd say, look, Donald Trump has a lot of political success. It's not clear whether or not he has a successor. It's not clear whether or not Republicans do well when he's not at the top of the ticket. And I think some of this talk is, in part, a recognition that they're going to have a real serious political problem when he finally does step off the stage.

CORNISH: So, as Trumps policies reshape America, Democrats are searching for a momentum and a path forward. We want to talk about what's next for the left. And Senator Bernie Sanders joins Anderson Cooper to take questions in a CNN town hall. That's Wednesday at 9:00 p.m. Eastern, right here on CNN.

So, you guys, that's one thing I'm going to be keeping an eye on. I want to know what you're going to be keeping an eye on this week.

Jerusalem?

DEMSAS: Yes. So, I mean, we talked about an immigration case in Maryland, but I'm keeping my eye on Andre Hernandez, who is a 31-year- old gay man who was deported. He has no criminal record. He's currently in a - you know, in the El Salvador jail. And they're fighting to get him back. So, I'm really keeping an eye on what's going on there.

CORNISH: And, Errol, for you, anything you're watching in the days ahead?

LOUIS: Absolutely. My son just went back to school. Going back to college from his spring break. A lot of other students are doing the same. This is traditionally when protests start to heat up. Of course, universities are under a lot of pressure now to crack down on campus protests. I'm going to be keeping an eye on whether or not that actually happens.

CORNISH: Yes, a truly different environment. And also, many more restrictions and rule changes, I think, at campuses across the country.

Stephen Collinson, last word to you. You're always keeping an eye out on things that you're writing about for your columns. What are you watching?

COLLINSON: There's two bills on Capitol Hill that would take back trade authority from the president. One in the Senate, to which seven Republicans have already signed up, and one in the House. I don't expect these to gather veto proof majorities. Indeed, the one in the House may not be brought up by speaker Mike Johnson at all. But I do think it shows increasing disquiet among some Republicans, especially centrists. Those who are at the top of the list to lose their seats in the midterms about the domestic impact of the president's tariff policies.

CORNISH: One other thing, Stephen. Do you think we're going to see more world leaders coming to Trump, as he has claimed they would?

COLLINSON: I think you're going to perhaps test - see world leaders testing the waters on whether there's a deal. The problem is, it's contradictory with the president's underlying goal, which is to transform manufacturing, if he does individual deals with companies, which will perhaps improve slightly U.S. trade conditions, but will basically preserve the trading status quo that he's trying to destroy.

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CORNISH: Thank you. I needed some clarification because, frankly, we've heard so many different reasons for these tariffs that that's going to come into play in figuring out just what is the solution, just what does the president want to accomplish here?

I want to thank my group chat for being here today. I want to thank you for waking up with me.

I'm Audie Cornish. And "CNN NEWS CENTRAL" starts right now.