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Acting IRS Commissioner Resigns; Derek Thompson is Interviewed about Trump's Tariff Policy; 98 Killed in Nightclub Collapse; Trump Administration has Supreme Court Wins. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired April 09, 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: A lot of our barrels are coming out of Europe. Our glass is coming out of either - either China or Mexico.

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AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: U.S. business owners waking up to a new reality this morning. How will reciprocal tariffs impact their bottom line?

Good morning, everybody. I'm Audie Cornish. I want to thank you for joining me here on CNN THIS MORNING. It's half past the hour here on the East Coast, and here's what's happening right now.

U.S. markets on pace to slip at opening bell. Futures all in the red right now as President Trump's latest slate of tariffs goes into effect overnight. China getting hit the hardest with a shocking 104 percent levy on imported goods.

And in just a few hours, the man accused of murdering four University of Idaho students will appear in court. The hearing will focus on what can be included in Bryan Kohberger's trial, including the use of cellular tracking devices.

And the Trump administration pressuring the IRS to help Homeland Security with immigration enforcement. A controversial agreement between Homeland Security and the IRS has actually prompted several senior IRS officials to leave the agency.

The turmoil at the IRS is actually boiling over. The acting commissioner telling her staff she's stepping down. Her decision comes just a day after the IRS agreed to provide sensitive taxpayer data to help locate and deport undocumented migrants. The IRS has also been the target of sweeping cuts, and DOGE is looking to get rid of nearly 20 percent of all IRS employees by May 15th.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SHANNON ELLIS, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL TREASURY EMPLOYEES UNION: So many of our agencies have been understaffed and underfunded for more than 15 years. For them to cut people that we've invested so much money in, to get them trained and help us out through the tax seasons, it's devastating to our agencies.

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CORNISH: Group chat is back.

This is like the third acting commissioner to walk, which sounds like a red flag to me, that at a certain point it's not just people who don't like what the administration is doing but have real concerns about it. Is this, do you think, the kind of thing that resonates with people?

CHARLIE DENT (R), FORMER PENNSYLVANIA CONGRESSMAN: Well, it's a mixed bag with the IRS.

CORNISH: Right.

DENT: You know, a lot of people will say, 80,000 people were added during the previous administration, and then they peeled that number back a little bit. And so there's some people out there saying they don't like these DOGE cuts. But on the other hand, it's the IRS and I might not get audited.

CORNISH: Yes. Oh, to your point.

DENT: Now that - yes.

[06:35:01]

CORNISH: So, tax returns filing -

DENT: Yes.

CORNISH: Tax return filings have dropped by nearly a million. And there's basically this working theory that some people might be rolling the die and taking their chances that they won't get caught.

Can you talk about what you see in this moment?

LEAH WRIGHT RIGUEUR, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST AND HISTORIAN: Sure. So, I think there are a couple of things going on.

One, and I think this is perhaps the biggest issue, which is the confidentiality issue. We don't really know the details of the agreement between the IRS and the White House. What information have they agreed to turn over? The White House right now says it is a very narrow scope, that it only is going to have to deal with, you know, criminals or people who are on the list to be - to be deported from the country, things like that.

But we also know that the White House has not had the best track record when it comes to, you know, actually making good on those promises. And I think it's partly also - a way we can look at it is thinking about it as a slippery slope. If they can turn over this confidential information, which the IRS has worked for a very long time to really work with -

CORNISH: Yes. And also the IRS has been accused of going after political targets. So, in this moment, when the administration is being accused of ideological deportations, you're basically saying to the public, we're going to get information, but we don't want to tell you why, for what reasons, under what circumstances. It won't go through any kind of court. Trust us. And Elon Musk is going to set it up. So, I - maybe I'm mis-describing it.

But, Kristen, what do you see?

KRISTEN SOLTIS ANDERSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, I mean you're right that in the past, in fact, it was Republicans during kind of the Tea Party movement era who pointed at the IRS under Barack Obama and said, we feel like we have been targeted by the - by this agency. And so, the idea that the IRS is - is something where people go, hey, they're use - this - whoever's in charge is using it for political gain is not necessarily new.

But we're in this - like to zoom out even further, we're in this moment where Republicans then handed the reins of power. Instead of saying, like, let's turn the temperature down. We think these things in the past were done wrong. They're saying, you know what, if the other side did it, we're going to do it more.

Now, this is very different because this isn't about - in their explanation it's not about targeting political adversaries, it's about going after people who are in violation of the law, but -

CORNISH: Although this is the slippery slope argument. It might not stay there in the position you're talking about.

ANDERSON: Yes. And so it's - I think that it is interesting that for Republicans, again, one, they've had problems going back over a decade with this agency has been coming after us. And, number two, with the Inflation Reduction Act, with all that money being spent on, we're going to beef up this agency, I think you can see some cuts at the IRS that would not necessarily immediately alarm the taxpayers.

CORNISH: Yes. Though one very quick cut. That Kansas City mayor was talking about the cutting of IRS workers in that state. And here was his description of what's going on.

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MAYOR QUINTON LUCAS (D), KANSAS CITY: We're not building a new 4,000 person factory to replace 4,000 jobs at the IRS at the same time. And, frankly, these folks will have very different skills.

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CORNISH: It feels like that conversation gets at the willy nilly kind of way that this government efficiency project is going. DENT: Yes. And this has been a problem with DOGE from the get-go. A

lot of these cuts have been rather indiscriminate and arbitrary, and I suspect that's what's happening at the IRS.

CORNISH: Do they achieve whatever the end goal is, though? We've heard multiple end goals.

DENT: Yes, And - but we can't under - you know, we can't overstate the politics involved, though, with the IRS. I remember Lois Lerner, you know, Republicans went nuts about her role going after conservative 501c3s, I believe. And there were - I remember I think it was Jim Jordan wanted to impeach John Koskinen. And he was the IRS commissioner, which (INAUDIBLE) -

CORNISH: Yes. Well, times have changed. OK, group chat, stay with me because we want to go back to our top story.

President Trump says his goal with some of these tariffs is to bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. The authors of the new book, "Abundance," argue that Democrats need to consider something like that, too. Instead of getting tied up with regulations and red tape, they say Democrats should embrace innovation if they want to win.

Joining me now to discuss, Derek Thompson, co-author of "Abundance." He's also a staff writer at "The Atlantic."

Derek, you have been very pointed in your criticism of Trump's tariff policy in particular, calling it chaos. But one thing I noticed is, Trump was able to be in the White House with, you know, coal workers standing behind him and signing something and saying, look, I'm doing something for you. What would be a comparable Democratic policy kind of under your "Abundance" ideology?

DEREK THOMPSON, CO-AUTHOR, "ABUNDANCE" AND STAFF WRITER, "THE ATLANTIC": Well, here's the really profound irony. There was already an American president who was seeking to reindustrialize America. His name is Joe Biden. He passed the Chips and Science Act, which tried very, very hard, and I think quite successfully, to subsidize new manufacturing projects in the U.S., not just in a random way, but with targeted subsidies that got us building the most important product for national security, which might be semiconductors, high tech semiconductors. We were seeing record numbers of fab - of fab manufacturing construction, that is to say construction of factories that will build high-end semiconductors, rising to a record level under Joe Biden.

[06:40:13]

Now the Trump -

CORNISH: But one of the things you've talked about, the idea that this - somehow Democrats are not resonating in their arguments. The way they talk about this or how it's executed. You've raised some really interesting questions about that. You know, I'm wondering, when you look at something like tariffs on lumbers, which are going to - which is going to make housing more expensive, that's an area that in the "Abundance" ideology says that, like, there should be less regulation. How should Democrats be talking about these things?

THOMPSON: Well, I think - Donald Trump sees the world in a very scarcity mindset, right? He's recognizing, maybe, that America doesn't have enough housing, but he's going about fixing that in the totally wrong way. He's raising the price of lumber that we get from Canada, or raising the price of drywall materials that we get from Mexico. He's trying very, very hard to limit immigration, despite the fact that the construction industry, that we need in order to build housing, is about 25 percent immigrant. So, in no way do the policies of Donald Trump add up to any kind of effort to bring down the cost of building houses in America.

Our plan is the exact opposite. It's to say, look, what are the inputs to housing? Whether it's materials or zoning laws or permitting, how do we find a way to identify the bottlenecks to building housing in America and bring them down? This is going about it in the entire opposite way.

Donald Trump has a deep-seated bias against trade. He's executing that bias by raising tariffs all over the world, while claiming that this is about bringing back manufacturing. If you talk to manufacturers, maybe including the people who stand behind Donald Trump when he signs legislation, they'll tell you what we need to expand manufacturing in this country is certainty. Factories are expensive. They need financing. Financing loves certainty. You know what's not certain is announcing a tariff plan, saying maybe we'll amend it, maybe we won't, maybe we'll negotiate with countries, maybe we won't, maybe this is about raising $600 billion a year, maybe it's not, it's just about negotiating. We have an absolute chaos machine in the White House right now, and that's a big reason why the stock market is puking (ph).

CORNISH: Tonight we're going to hear from Senator Bernie Sanders in a CNN town hall. He's been drawing huge crowds around the country in his fighting oligarchy tour. He is from a very different wing of the party than you. What is it that you would like to hear tonight?

THOMPSON: Look, Bernie Sanders has a message, and he's had a message for - for many decades. And it's a strong message and it resonates with a lot of people.

I'll tell you the irony right here. You know, Bernie Sanders talks about the oligarchy. He talks about the fact that we have a capital class in this country that's strong and controls all the strings.

Well, guess what America kind of needs right now. We need the oligarchy to stand up. We need the oligarchy to say, Donald Trump, this plan makes absolutely no sense. You say you want to reindustrialize America. This is the worst possible way to go around it.

Instead, what you have is a lot of corporate executives who are terrified of the president, just like you have white shoe law firms that are terrified of the president, just like you have university presidents who are terrified of the president. In a very strange way what we need right now is for the adults in the room, in the economy, some of whom represent the very class that Bernie Sanders calls the oligarchy, they need to stand up and say, this policy makes no sense, and you got to cut it out. Because if what we really want here is growth, if what we really want is manufacturing to come back to America in a stable and durable and sustained way, you cannot be announcing random tariff plans every 12 hours and expecting people to slurp back $100 billion of manufacturing expansion in this country. It just doesn't make any sense.

SIDNER: Yes. Derek Thompson, staff writer at "The Atlantic." If you want to find Derek's new book, it's out now and it's called "Abundance," co-written with Ezra Klein.

Straight ahead on CNN THIS MORNING, a tragedy in the Dominican Republic. The race to find survivors in a deadly nightclub roof collapse, which has already killed two former Major League Baseball players.

Plus, an ugly public feud between two of President Trump's top lieutenants, and the White House doesn't seem to mind. More from the group chat.

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CORNISH: The developing story right now, rescue crews in the Dominican Republic are digging through rubble looking for survivors. This was after a roof collapsed at a popular nightclub. We're going to warn you before showing these because some of these images may be disturbing.

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CORNISH: At least 98 people were killed, hundreds more were injured. Among the dead, two former Major League Baseball players, longtime relief pitcher and World Series winner Octavio Dotel and former Washington Nationals player Tony Blanco.

CNN contributor Stefano Pozzebon joins us live now from the scene in Santo Domingo.

And, Stefano, what exactly is happening at this point?

STEFANO POZZEBON, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Yes, Audie. Well, unfortunately, the breaking news that we are hearing this morning is that the death toll has just been increased to at least 113 people according to the press conference by emergency services here in Santo Domingo about an hour ago. And, Audie, as you can see, we're right in front of what used to be the entrance of these iconic nightclub. And you can see the search and rescue teams. Of course, the area is patrolled by the marines of the Dominican Republic. But behind them there are still search and rescue teams working, that have been working throughout the night, or at least since the early hours of Tuesday, to try to remove as many debris as possible from what used to be the rooftop. You can probably see these two giant cranes that are right there and are being used to remove the largest of those debris.

[06:50:05]

What's happening here, essentially, Audie, is that the rooftop of these iconic nightclub, this is where the who's who of Santo Domingo would come, especially on a Monday night to celebrate, to have fun, to have a party. The rooftop collapsed on top of what used to be the dance floor at the middle of that merengue concert. And we've seen hundreds of people, relatives, friends coming here, speaking with emergency services, trying to get a sense of where are their loved ones.

Earlier today, we've arrived here almost before dawn. There were still people that have spent the sleepless night looking for answers, Audie. And, unfortunately, of course, the scenes of pain whenever a relative or a loved one was pronounced dead.

One more thing I wanted to show you is that this story is really picking up a lot of media attention. You can see behind me, there are pretty much all over most international news channels that are here now, most of the international news agencies, because really this is an iconic place in the history of Santo Domingo. And, like you said, we've seen the people that have been already pronounced dead, some of them former MLB players, politicians. It is a wound that is hitting hard at the soul of this nation, Audie.

CORNISH: Thank you for your reporting there as emergency crews are still working through this very heartbreaking moment in the Dominican.

Now we're going to turn to the Trump administration touting this string of what they are claiming are legal victories from the U.S. Supreme Court.

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KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We called on the Supreme Court to rein in these judges who are acting as judicial activists, not real arbiters of the truth and the law. And that's exactly what we saw the Supreme Court do yesterday.

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CORNISH: This week alone, the nation's high court put several lower court rulings on hold. We're talking about everything from the ALIEN ENEMIES ACT to DOGE cuts. The Supreme Court just ruled thousands of fired federal workers, for instance, can remain fired as a lawsuit works its way through the court system. A lower court initially ordered the administration to rehire impacted workers. The justices didn't rule on the merits, but in the meantime those 16,000 fired probationary employees will not be paid.

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SHANNON ELLIS, CHAPTER PRESIDENT, NATIONAL TREASURY EMPLOYEES UNION: Give these people back their jobs, fund the agencies that - that need to be funded, and help us do our job. Help us supply the products and the needs of the American people. (END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Joining me now, CNN's senior legal analyst, Elie Honig. He's also a former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Elie, I want to make sense of this in this moment.

So, you have a Supreme Court that doesn't rule on the merits. They don't say the Trump administration is right. But they say basically - interpret this. They say, look, only the people affected can actually file this lawsuit. You can't just be all of these other advocacy groups who are stepping in.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, so yesterday's ruling was based on the technicalities. But in the law, technicalities matter. So, the ruling yesterday was not that these probationary employees were properly or improperly fired, not legal or illegal. The only ruling was that the plaintiffs in that particular case, the people who brought that lawsuit don't have something we call standing, meaning they're not the right parties here. They're not the ones who were directly injured.

Now, who were those -

CORNISH: So, here's what - why I'm asking about this.

HONIG: Yes.

CORNISH: Because what this means is, if you're a federal worker and you see fraud abuse, you lose your job. You can't go to an inspector general. They've been fired. You can't turn to a major law firm. They're scared.

HONIG: Right.

CORNISH: And you can't turn to like your union. And -

HONIG: And that's the problem yesterday.

CORNISH: And now you, all of a sudden, are being told by the Supreme Court, listen, you got to just work your way through the system while you're not being paid -

HONIG: Yes.

CORNISH: And you figure out a legal way to fight back.

HONIG: Yes, so, the big lesson from yesterday is, you can't rely on your labor union or some interest group to go sue for you. They will not have standing. They should have seen this coming. I mean there have been prior rulings to the same effect.

So, yes, it's not easy. I mean what you have to do is, you have to, a, be one of those employees, b, you have to find a lawyer who is willing to potentially incur the wrath of the administration. CORNISH: But there are fewer and fewer.

HONIG: And - and shrink - yes, exactly.

CORNISH: In the meantime, I want to play a sound bite from an attorney who was representing a University of Michigan student who had been charged with her involvement of a pro-Palestinian protest on campus last year. There was a felony arrest for resisting police. Now, he says, here we are, a year later, he's reentering the country from a family trip, and he's asked to turn over his cell phone.

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AMIR MAKLED, ATTORNEY STOPPED BY FEDERAL AUTHORITIES: This was something that they were waiting for me, ready to ask me questions. And we're, in my opinion, done with an intentional purpose, to either intimidate me or harass me. Why bring up that I'm involved in some higher profile litigation? Why mention that at all to me?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: What do you make of this moment?

HONIG: Well, it's part of a pattern. Donald Trump and the Trump administration are targeting, not just the big law firms, which is certainly happening, but also, as we see, individual lawyers.

[06:55:04]

And if you look at the reasons, there's no pretext here, right?

CORNISH: No.

HONIG: If you look at the proclamations Trump issued against those law firms -

CORNISH: Well, he's implying it's ideological.

HONIG: Well, I mean -

CORNISH: I represented someone they didn't like.

HONIG: Right.

CORNISH: A free speech point of view they didn't like. And now here we are.

HONIG: That would be completely consistent with what we've seen because what -

CORNISH: Is it legal?

HONIG: No, I don't think it is. I mean, right?

CORNISH: That's why you're here, Elie Honig, OK.

HONIG: I mean that's an easy one.

CORNISH: That's what I need to know.

HONIG: Right. Well, the law firms who have challenged this, three law firms have challenged this in court so far, and they've all succeeded. And that's why I think it's such a shame that some other law firms have acceded. They have paid - well, promised to deliver tens of millions of dollars of pro bono legal services to Trump. But I think it's a pattern. I think it's unmistakable, which is, if you are a lawyer and you commit the unforgivable sin of representing a person or cause that the administration disapproves of, you will be targeted. And again, there is no -

CORNISH: Never mind what that means for people who need legal representation.

HONIG: What does that mean for people who need legal representation? Well, I think the main onus here is on lawyers themselves. I mean, you took an oath as a lawyer to serve the courts, to serve the truth, not to serve any presidential administration. If you need - if you're a person who needs a lawyer, ask them straight up, do you have any problems here? Are you going to bend a knee to the administration, or are you going to do your job and represent my best interests as an individual or a group?

CORNISH: Elie Honig, thanks so much.

HONIG: Thanks, Audie.

CORNISH: Elie Honig, CNN's senior legal analyst.

So, at - it is five of seven. I want to give you your morning roundup. Some of the stories you need to know to get your day going.

RFK Jr. now publicly encouraging people to get the measles vaccine. The Health secretary telling CBS News that he still does not believe the government should mandate it. Just so we're clear, almost 600 Americans have contracted measles this year. Two children have died. And both were unvaccinated.

Federal investigators looking into whether a communications breakdown in air traffic control could have caused a near collision between a Delta passenger jet and a formation of military jets near Reagan National Airport. Multiple sources tell CNN this happened on March 28th, and that the crash was only narrowly avoided with seconds to spare.

And the Ohio River in Cincinnati reaching its highest level in seven years. Flooding now a major threat. Rising waters prompting emergency rescues. Officials are really worried about the flood threat for Friday morning, when the river is expected to rise significantly.

And the White House access for the "Associated Press" now restored. The Trump administration had banned AP journalists from the Oval Office and Air Force One because they used the phrase "Gulf of Mexico" instead of "Gulf of America." A Trump appointed judge in the case ruled that ban unconstitutional.

Now, the group chat is back to talk about what we're keeping an eye on in the coming days.

Leah, can I start with you? What are you watching?

RIGUEUR: Sure. I am watching out for the impact of the tariffs on people's lived experiences. And I have to say, anything that can bring together wall street and main street and can get billionaires and people - ordinary people on the ground together as they begin to feel the impacts, whether it's the impacts on the stores, on manufacturing, on their goods, on just their lived experiences -

CORNISH: Yes, check your TikTok's.

RIGUEUR: Right.

CORNISH: People are - someone brought up struggle meals last week, and I haven't been able to hear that phrase.

RIGUEUR: Yes.

CORNISH: Charlie.

DENT: What I'm watching are tariffs too, but in terms of Congress. Bills are pending in both the House and the Senate to require Congress to vote on these types of tariff increases. And I'm particularly watching to see if there will be a discharge petition moment in the House to try to force a vote, because Speaker Johnson is against it.

CORNISH: Translate discharge position for the human beings among us.

DENT: There are bills and Speaker Johnson does not want to bring up the bill.

CORNISH: Right.

DENT: But -

CORNISH: But there are some Republicans who want to.

DENT: There's Republican sponsor of the bill.

CORNISH: Trump is calling them panickins (ph).

DENT: Yes.

CORNISH: Is that going to catch?

DENT: No, not at all, I don't think, because I think these -

CORNISH: No? Thinking fetch (ph) happened there.

DENT: These members are more worried about their own survival than the president's in many cases.

CORNISH: OK, Kristen, what are you looking out for?

ANDERSON: Well, I'm also watching Congress, but I'm watching for, this morning, I believe they're - it's likely to advance out of the House Budget Committee some - or, pardon me, rules. They're beginning to advance the piece of legislation that will ultimately be the big bill that will do the tax stuff, the budget stuff, all the things that House and Senate Republicans want to try to accomplish in one big, beautiful bill. Today begins its journey. And there are some House Republicans from that kind of Freedom Caucus wing who may try to gum up the works.

CORNISH: Haven't heard that phrase in a while, Freedom Caucus.

ANDERSON: We've seen this movie before, haven't we?

CORNISH: Yes.

DENT: They're going to vote for it.

CORNISH: You know, the thing I'm actually listening for is the CNN town hall with Bernie Sanders. Not because synergy, though that's good, but because, like, he has drawn crowds. It's one thing to talk as - about Democrats and what they need to do. He has gone out there, turned on his messaging machine and brought people out. AOC has joined him. There's this, like, ongoing conversation. We heard it with Eric Thompson about, what should the party be doing right now? And now we're going to have one of the most prominent voices, I think, left in that wheelhouse actually answering questions.

[07:00:05]

Leah, for you? Do you -

RIGUEUR: Absolutely. And it goes back to, I think, the point I was saying about the conversation with Wall Street, main street, and -

CORNISH: Yes.

RIGUEUR: Bernie Sanders has been -

CORNISH: Bernie Sanders enters the chat.

RIGUEUR: Screaming - he has been screaming about this -

CORNISH: Yes.

RIGUEUR: For over a decade. And right now it is - you know, he is very much having the chickens are coming home to roost moment. And this is also a moment where even as an octogenarian he seems to have the most energy in the country.

CORNISH: All right, I'll let him respond to that tonight.

Group chat, thank you.

I'm Audie Cornish and "CNN NEWS CENTRAL" starts right now. [07:00:00]