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CNN This Morning

Cardiff Garcia is Interviewed about Tariffs Effect on Businesses; Russian-American Woman Freed from Russian Prison; Sanders Discusses Democrats Path Forward; Whitmer's Unexpected Oval Office Invite; Democrats Seize on Trade War; Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT) is Interviewed about Tariffs. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired April 10, 2025 - 06:30   ET

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

[06:30:00]

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: President Trump's tariffs pause means moving forward.

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's half past the hour here on the East Coast. And here's what's happening right now.

President Trump backing down for 90 days at least on the tariffs that the White House insisted were not going anywhere. But he actually boosted tariffs on China. Later today, the president will hold another cabinet meeting, his first since announcing and then pausing this tariff war.

And the death toll rising to 184 from Tuesday's tragic roof collapse at a nightclub in the Dominican Republic. Dozens of family members still waiting for word about missing loved ones, including Hall of Fame pitcher Pedro Martinez, who said he had several family members inside. Confirmed dead in the disaster, merengue performer Rubi Perez and two former Major League Baseball players.

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson facing a ticking clock. Today is his last day to get a budget resolution passed before the House leaves for a two week recess. To do that, he needs to get several Republican holdouts on his side.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): What is the - the amount of - of a minimal number of cuts and savings that we can find in the budget that will satisfy everyone to move forward with this nation-shaping piece of legislation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: House Republicans are voting on a Senate-backed blueprint, one that President Trump supports. All right, as those new tariffs take hold, small businesses in the

U.S. are scrambling to make sense of what this all means for them. One owner of baby products told us that - told CNN that she's looking into making her products in America for the past two years, but ultimately said it wasn't feasible. Now, she has $160,000 of products stuck in China, where her production facilities are located.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BETH BENIKE, OWNER, BUSY BABY: I am abandoning my products in China. I am leaving him there because I simply cannot afford to ship them here. And I'm terrified for my business.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Joining me now to talk about this, Cardiff Garcia, editorial director at the Economic Innovation Group.

Cardiff, thanks for being here this morning.

CARDIFF GARCIA, EDITORIAL DIRECTOR, ECONOMIC INNOVATION GROUP: Great to be here.

CORNISH: I want to talk about the winners and losers of this last week. Are there any winners?

GARCIA: Winners? I'm not so sure. We're still in a situation that's radically different from the situation we were in last week. Things, obviously, changed quite a bit yesterday, as you've been pointing out.

The losers, the list right now is still pretty long, unfortunately.

CORNISH: Give me top three.

GARCIA: Yes. Sure. So, first -

CORNISH: You mentioned small business owners.

GARCIA: Small businesses are definitely there. I think low income and middle class Americans in particular. If you look at the kinds of goods that they tend to buy, they're imported from abroad. Things like textiles, clothing, those make up a bigger share of the incomes of the paychecks of small - excuse me, lower income Americans than of higher income folks.

CORNISH: Yes.

GARCIA: Small businesses. And I would say workers, right? Because the longer this goes on, if it starts to affect too many American businesses, the people that tend to get laid off first are those lower income, middle class workers, right?

CORNISH: Yes. Not to mention that actually, I think, Gallup was saying more than 60 percent of Americans actually own some form of stock at this point. More of us, whether it's 401(k)s, you're Robin Hoods, your pensions, whatever it is, you are touched by this situation. GARCIA: Yes.

CORNISH: One -

GARCIA: Yes, people definitely feel it in the stock market. And if they see that their wealth is going down, they're going to be less likely to spend into the economy as well, and that further slows things down.

CORNISH: OK. So, you just brought up an interesting point, which is about the decision making were all doing in this environment. One of the things we have heard from the White House is a stated goal is to help reorient the reindustrialization of America. So, translation, there should be more stuff built and made here so that like that small business owner does not have a bunch of product in China that she has to bring back to the U.S.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick laid out his vision for this, this weekend.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HOWARD LUTNICK, COMMERCE SECRETARY: The army of millions and millions of human beings screwing in little, little screws to make iPhones, that kind of thing is going to come to America, it's going to be automated, and great Americans, the trade craft of America, is going to fix them, is going to work on them. They're going to be mechanics.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Economic Innovation Group, where you're from, is bipartisan. Can you talk about, like, what - what do people think in that world about whether this is possible and what it would look like?

GARCIA: Yes, look, when - when people start talking about re- industrializing America, they're really talking about two different things. One is, do we want to make more high tech, sophisticated goods in the country? That's possible. There are things you can do to do that. A tariff strategy doesn't necessarily get you there, but you can use targeted subsidies to make more things like semiconductors, EVs, other kind of high tech goods, right?

CORNISH: Right. So, that's what we saw the Biden administration attempt with their bills and investment in that area.

GARCIA: Right. Right.

[06:35:05]

What Howard Lutnick and some other folks usually are talking about, though, is reemploying a big share of the American labor force in manufacturing. And that's a very complicated thing, right, and very unlikely, by the way.

It is normal for a country, as it gets richer and more technologically sophisticated, to employ a smaller share of workers in manufacturing because the sector has gotten so much more efficient, so much more innovative. We still -

CORNISH: And when you say efficient and innovative -

GARCIA: Yes, please.

CORNISH: That often means robots in the factory, right?

GARCIA: Automation. Sure.

CORNISH: Like, it's fewer people necessary to make the same things.

GARCIA: Right. Fewer jobs that are higher paying, and people end up working in other higher paying services, high tech sectors in the economy. That's just the way an economy evolves, right?

So, if you want to reemploy a big share of American workers in manufacturing, you almost have to drag the economy back into the past so that now, in America, we're making the kinds of lower tech, lower value goods that we tend to import from abroad. But those jobs are way lower paying. And it turns out that those products would end up being higher cost for American consumers. So, everybody ends up poor.

So, as a goal, it's a kind of a monkey's paw situation. If they succeed, it's going to make everybody worse off, actually.

CORNISH: Right.

One more thing. If you were an investor right now looking at this market, would you be able to get the money for capitalization to build said factory? Would you be able to make those investments? Would you be able to hire people based on these up and down arrows of the market?

GARCIA: I'd be so nervous about investing over the course of the next few months. Any new money, I think, is going to be frozen because people have no idea what the outcome of the next three months is going to look like. And, in the meantime, the de-escalation strategy turned out to be the world's two biggest economies continue to escalate their part of the trade war. So, I'd be nervous.

CORNISH: Right. So, even though there's a pause on all our friends and allies, the two biggest economies are still going at it.

GARCIA: Absolutely.

CORNISH: Cardiff Garcia, thank you for explaining this. I really appreciate your time.

Cardiff is editorial director of the Economic Innovation Group.

Meanwhile, a Russian-American woman imprisoned in Russia for treason released overnight, heading home. Ksenia Karelina is on a plane right now according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The 33-year-old was sentenced last year because she donated $50 - and earlier I said $50,000. I want to be clear, it was just $50, to a charity supporting Ukraine. We just learned that this was all part of a prisoner swap, her coming home.

CNN's Nic Robertson joins us from London.

Nic, can you tell us how this all came to pass?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, it appears to be a confidence building measure between the White House and the Kremlin. And of course, it comes on a day when representatives of both White House and Kremlin are meeting in Istanbul, in Turkey, to kind of hammer out a better diplomatic relationship, hammer out how their embassies are going to function.

So, here we have this prisoner swap that happened in Abu Dhabi. We understand that CIA Director John Ratcliffe was involved in it. We don't have any video yet, but we can expect it. Both the Russian intelligence service, FSB, could be expected to release video from their side. And quite possibly images of Ksenia on her way back home to the United States could be released pretty soon. The last U.S. national to be released in this way from Russian captivity was Marc Fogel, and he ended up pretty quickly in the White House meeting with President Trump.

This is something President Trump has been working towards, as is said, bring Americans home from wrongful detention overseas. Ksenia was one of those wrongfully detained. The U.S. is tracking about six other half a dozen U.S. nationals wrongfully detained in Russia at this time.

But it does speak to this - this moment of thawing of relationships between President Trump and President Putin, at a time when President Putin is resisting President Trump's efforts to get a ceasefire in Ukraine.

But, of course, for Ksenia, who lives in California, an amateur ballerina is how we understand her to be described, this is huge. Huge for her family. And on the other side of this, the German-Russian national, Arthur Petrov being released, he was charged in the United States after being picked up in Cyprus with supplying sensitive electronic components to Russian companies, to put in weapons, to strike Ukraine. This is the bargain that appears to have been worked out.

CORNISH: CNN's Nic Robertson.

All right, I want to turn back to domestic politics for a second. The Democratic Party is trying to find its footing. Vermont's independent senator, Bernie Sanders, has a message for voters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): So, what I would say to young people and all people, go outside your zone of comfort. It's easy to talk to people who agree with you every day. But you're going to have to listen to other people who may disagree with you.

[06:40:02] Maybe they disagree with you on abortion or gay rights and whatever it may be. Sit down and talk to them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Sanders participated in a CNN town hall last night. He rejected President Trump's policies on everything from trade wars, to foreign affairs, suggesting that Americans come together and put politics aside.

We want to talk about his approach, whether it is a path forward for Democrats.

Welcome back group chat.

Isaac, you and I used to talk about Kamala Harris, because you followed her very closely. After a candidate loses, there is a vacuum, right, where people scramble again. Where is Bernie Sanders in that spectrum?

ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Well, look, he is the best known leader among Democrats who is currently still in office, right?

CORNISH: Draws a crowd. Raises money.

DOVERE: Pretty successful presidential campaigns, even though, obviously, he didn't win the nomination every time he ran.

CORNISH: Yes.

DOVERE: Has had a big impact on the party and is still drawing big crowds. I think the question that people have about his politics is how much it's influenced the - where the Democratic Party is and will be and how much it will define it, right?

CORNISH: Yes, how does it get carried forward?

DOVERE: And - and so some of that answer may be Alexandra Ocasio- Cortez. She's been appearing with him all over the place. Will be with him in California this weekend when he does some more rallies. She may be the future of it in a presidential campaign way. There's some speculation about that. She will certainly be the future of it as continuing to carry that torch politically.

CORNISH: Yes, interestingly, another name we see hear a lot about during the Democrats wish we had a primary phase was Gretchen Whitmer, Michigan governor. She visited the White House and then apparently, like, I can't understand how this went down. Zolan, do you know? Like, was she there to talk to President Trump? Was this a photo op? What message are people reading out of this?

ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: My sense thus far from the reporting is that this isn't just a photo op. It's not a matter of like appearing with President Trump for political reasons or to gain a political edge. I think state - like, state leaders and local leaders right now are

watching universities get their funding revoked, watching federal grants get threatened going to states, and are wondering, how do we - how do we - how do we handle this? We - and one of the options is engaging with the person who's threatening that federal funding.

CORNISH: Right.

KANNO-YOUNGS: I think it more speaks to the need of the state and the community than sort of - than politics.

DOVERE: I can tell you what happened (INAUDIBLE).

CORNISH: Oh, yes, please tell me.

DOVERE: She was in Washington yesterday to give a speech. She was talking about manufacturing. It was a speech that was very much in her effort to talk about reaching across the aisle. She was talking about manufacturing in Michigan and - and purple areas. She talked about a county that she won twice in her governors races that Trump won three times in his presidential campaigns. And then she was meeting with cabinet members. And she had a meeting scheduled with - with the president. It's not the first time that she's met with Donald Trump in the Oval Office since he's been back in office.

CORNISH: Yes. But people are paying attention because this does not look like the politics of resistance.

DOVERE: No, it definitely doesn't. And in the speech she said that, you know, we should have, as President Trump says, a golden age of manufacturing, embracing the rhetoric of it, including - in addition to reaching across the aisle.

CORNISH: Right.

DOVERE: And then she went for this meeting with the president, and he used her as a prop and - to be standing there.

CORNISH: Oh.

DOVERE: She was stuck at the end of the meeting.

CORNISH: Yes. Oh, you think -

DOVERE: Right?

CORNISH: Yes.

DOVERE: No, that's what happened. And - and - and he then praised her in the way that he does to people that he wants to kind of show are part of the fold. And there are these pictures of her on the side of the Oval Office that went around, that were a huge embarrassment for her. And her spokesperson put out a statement saying, it was a surprise. She doesn't endorse any of this. This is not what she wanted out of the day. And -

CORNISH: OK, this is some insight, Isaac. I'm loving this. This is helpful.

KANNO-YOUNGS: That's not the first time that's happened either.

CORNISH: Yes.

KANNO-YOUNGS: Do you remember weeks ago, Rupert Murdoch had a meeting with the president too.

DOVERE: Of course.

KANNO-YOUNGS: And then he - the president made him stay as well?

DOVERE: It's - he - yes, he does it all time.

KANNO-YOUNGS: Yes. Yes.

DOVERE: The - the - part of the - the confusion for people here is not that it happened but that like it wasn't foreseeable, that there wasn't - that when you go into that it - Trump does it all the time. He used to do it with reporters in his first time as president to make him go -

CORNISH: And you can't say no because then that turns into a thing and -

DOVERE: Yes, you would have reporters stand behind the desk and take a picture with him -

CORNISH: Yes.

DOVERE: Which is not really something that a reporter is there to interview him should do, right?

CORNISH: All right.

The reason why I'm talking about this is because Democrats say they plan to use tariffs as part of their re-election conversation in 2026. So, here's one congresswoman from Washington speaking to "Semafor," saying that, "it's important that we continue to talk, not only about the impact, what we could be doing instead."

This is a very different strategy than a general kind of, like, he's bad for democracy.

So, Saleha, what do you see in, like, this management, both of Trump policies, but also the expectations of the base.

SALEHA MOHSIN, SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, "BLOOMBERG": Look, Trump changed not only the world, he's changing the world right now with what he's doing with tariffs, but as soon as he arrived on the scene and as soon as he became president, he changed the Democratic Party.

[06:45:07]

All of a sudden the Democratic Party had to become a populist party too. Buy America. They - the Biden administration kept on Trump's tariffs. Joe Biden's first State of the Union speech, the first few minutes sounded a lot like something Trump might have said in a different way.

CORNISH: Right, even as they wrestle with their own legacy with NAFTA, et cetera.

MOHSIN: Exactly. Yes.

So, what we're seeing is a need for Democratic candidates, or potential candidates, and the party to find an economic messaging. Where are they similar to Trump? Where are they different with the new Republican Party? And what is the new Democratic Party? And where are they in terms of main street versus Wall Street, blue collar workers versus everyone else?

CORNISH: This is a great context when I think about books like "Abundance," Ezra Klein, like this, it's all about an economic language, trying to find that new language.

Stick around, you guys, we've got more to discuss.

Still ahead on CNN THIS MORNING, Republicans are looking to get a budget through Congress as on again, off again tariffs rock our economy. Democratic Congresswoman Becca Balint joins us live for more on how Democrats are talking about all this.

Plus, President Trump focusing on making showers great again as the global economy hangs in the balance.

Group chats, stick around.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:50:28]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HOWARD LUTNICK, COMMERCE SECRETARY: There is no postponing. They are definitely going to stay in place for days and weeks.

PETER NAVARRO, TRUMP TRADE ADVISER: This is not a negotiation.

SCOTT BESSENT, TREASURY SECRETARY: President Trump has maximum negotiating leverage.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I know what the hell I'm doing. I know what I'm doing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: No negotiations. The tariffs are happening. That was the line we heard all weekend, even up until Tuesday from the president and his allies. Of course, now, the majority of those tariffs are off, at least for 90 days. According to those same White House officials, it turns out this was the plan all along. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRET BAIER, FOX NEWS: Tonight you can definitively say this was not a walk back.

HOWARD LUTNICK, COMMERCE SECRETARY: No. No.

BAIER: This was not something that the bond markets were cratering and you were worried about it.

PETER NAVARRO, TRUMP TRADE ADVISER: This tariff strategy is embedded in this beautiful, huge other sets of strategies.

SCOTT BESSENT, TREASURY SECRETARY: He and I had a long talk on Sunday, and this was his strategy all along.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You have to have flexibility.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Joining me now to talk about all of this, Democratic Congresswoman Becca Balint of Vermont.

Thank you for being here on CNN THIS MORNING.

REP. BECCA BALINT (D-VT): Very happy to be here.

CORNISH: You had talked about this as an economic cliff, the potential.

BALINT: Yes.

CORNISH: Now it's pulled back. So, how does that affect things now? Do you see this as a moment to potentially reset?

BALINT: I don't. I don't. Because what I'm hearing from my businesses in Vermont is that, is it good that there's a pause? Yes. Does this change materially what businesses are dealing with right now? No, because there's still incredible instability. They can't plan. It's on again. It's off again. There is this level of contempt that the president and the administration is showing towards regular people that they can't trust their own eyes and their own ears. To say that this was the plan all along -

CORNISH: But you have this - you had Vietnam step up and say, look, OK, let's adjust tariffs. It's a pretty important country. There are going to be countries that come forward and negotiate. Is that not a better situation to be in?

BALINT: Well, the thing that I always say to constituents when they ask me this is that, so much of what is happening with this administration is happening in secret. We never get the details. We never understand fully what, first of all, what the plan is. You got the trade representative in committee yesterday being questioned, and he didn't even know that it was happening. And so, when you look at - CORNISH: And he claimed he did, just to be clear, but you sound dubious.

BALINT: I - I do sound dubious -

CORNISH: Yes.

BALINT: Because you have a - a master manipulator. That is what Trump is. He's a master manipulator of people. And people come in and, you know, you were talking about it with the panel, people come in, they kiss the ring, they bend the knee, they think somehow we're going to get something different. We don't ever get anything different. It's chaos. It's confusion. And business needs stability. And they still don't have that. They can't plan.

CORNISH: One of the reasons why I wanted to talk to Democrats about this is, because when you think about the legacy of globalization of NAFTA, these were Democrat-led projects. At a CNN town hall last night you had Bernie Sanders, from your home state, rejecting Trump's trade and foreign policy goals.

BALINT: Right.

CORNISH: But he did have this to say about these kinds of agreements.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): What these trade agreements, in essence, said to corporate America, hey, no problem, you can throw American workers out on the street, you can go to Mexico, you can go to China and hire people for pennies an hour. And I thought that that was a horrible idea. It was a horrible idea.

Tariffs used selectively are a good idea if they're going to protect American jobs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: This is the Democratic legacy that voters are upset about and responding to Trump with. So, what is the message going forward? How should the party be talking about trade policy?

BALINT: So, I agree with Senator Sanders, that whenever we're talking about tariffs, there are times to protect industries, there are times to protect workers with strategic tactical tariffs. But this broad- based tariff regime, on again, off again is not good for workers. It's not good for businesses.

Ultimately, what Senator Sanders has said for years, and which I, you know, absolutely agree with him, is that we have to bring working people back into the center of our party. We have lost the confidence of working people across this country. We need a broad coalition of working people. And when you look at - when you - when you juxtapose what's happening to workers right now and the loss of material wealth, and you juxtapose that with this constant refrain of trickle-down economics coming from Trump and the Republicans. CORNISH: Yes.

[06:55:03]

BALINT: You know, we're going to talk about my work in the Budget Committee. It doesn't work. It hasn't worked. We know this. We have all the evidence that we need. American workers don't benefit from this.

CORNISH: You mentioned the Budget Committee. Right now, Republicans are having a difficult time basically trying to pass a budget. Last night, the House speaker actually had to cancel a vote because they didn't have support, realizing it would fail. And then sort of here were all the responses over the following hours.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): That we're going to find a requisite number of savings, while also protecting essential programs. We're not going to cut Medicare, Social Security, or Medicaid. Don't believe the lies about that.

REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D-NY): A mandate to do what? To take away health care, to enact the largest Medicaid cut in American history? They have no mandate for any of this.

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And they say they're not going to cut Medicaid. What do you say to them?

JEFFRIES: They're lying.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: OK, here's the thing. When it comes to social safety net programs, Democrats can get a lot of political energy out of even talking about threats. Is there actually something in this budget that you actually just cannot support?

BALINT: Oh, so much. Look, when you look at this mythical magic that they're doing right now, they say that they're going to deliver these tax cuts without ballooning the deficit. That is not true. The math doesn't work. And they also talk about that somehow they're going to deliver these savings without touching Medicaid. It's not possible. We know where the money is in the federal government. So, when you charge a committee with making cuts to a certain part of government, and you say you're not going to cut $880 billion from Medicaid, again, its mythical magic. It doesn't work.

CORNISH: Is that why Republicans are reluctant here? I mean, as we said, this bill didn't go forward.

BALINT: They're reluctant because the hawks on the deficit know that what's going to happen is that the tax cuts that are proposed, that are going to the extremely wealthy and - and big corporations are going to be only partially paid for by the cuts. So, again, it is this sleight of hand that they're doing on paper. We know where the money has to come from, and we know - when you look at what it is that they're building this budget, they are delivering massive tax cuts on the backs of working people. And - and people can see through it. It's outrageous.

CORNISH: Well, Congresswoman, thank you for your time.

BALINT: Thank you.

CORNISH: Thank you for the insight from the Budget Committee.

BALINT: Sure.

CORNISH: I actually appreciate that.

It's 56 minutes past the hour. Here's your morning round up. Some more stories you need to know happening throughout the day.

The Supreme Court will decide whether to take up Karen Read's petition to drop some of the charges in her murder retrial. She's asking the justices to dismiss two charges, including second degree murder. Read is accused of killing her Boston police officer boyfriend. And jury selection is ongoing.

The pro-Trump network Newsmax defamed Dominion Voting Systems by falsely accusing the company of rigging the 2020 election. That is the ruling of a Delaware superior court judge who says it's now up to a jury to decide the damages, and whether Newsmax intentionally smeared the company with, quote, "actual malice."

President Trump signing an executive order to make showers great again. The order lifts Obama-era restrictions on water pressure in showerheads. Trump says the action was needed to, quote, "restore shower freedom."

And former First Lady Michelle Obama addressing her recent absence from the spotlight, and the divorce rumors that came along with it on the "Work in Progress" podcast. She said she's giving herself the freedom to do what's best for her.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHELLE OBAMA, FORMER FIRST LADY: We, as women. I think we struggle with, like, disappointing people.

SOPHIA BUSH, HOST, "WORK IN PROGRESS" PODCAST: Yes.

OBAMA: You know. I mean so much so that this year people were, you know, they couldn't even fathom that I was making a choice for myself, that they had to assume that my husband and I are divorcing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Mrs. Obama notably skipped President Trump's second inauguration and the funeral for former President Jimmy Carter.

All right, it's time to talk about what we're keeping an eye on today. But before we do, can we leave this lady alone? Is it me? That's just like, let it go. She's not running for office. Is that what this is about, people hoping she'll run for office?

DOVERE: Some, I think. And just the continuing fascination with her. But also it - it was an inauguration. It was a notable thing that the first - the former first lady was not there.

CORNISH: Yes, but not a great relationship there.

MOHSIN: It's a big deal.

DOVERE: Sure.

CORNISH: Yes.

MOHSIN: But she's a celebrity. Everyone wants to see a celebrity. No (INAUDIBLE) -

KANNO-YOUNGS: (INAUDIBLE).

CORNISH: Oh, so you're putting it in the - in the - inn the column of tabloid obsession.

KANNO-YOUNGS: Yes. And as you noted, I mean, it's a notable absence when you, you know, miss a funeral and what have you. But the continued questions, I mean, this is something we've seen now since the Obamas have been in public life.

CORNISH: OK.

You guys, what are you watching for?

DOVERE: I think everything that we've seen over the last week with the stock market is sort of magic numbers right now. It doesn't really mean anything to a lot of people.

[07:00:02]

Let's see what happens with prices, with an impact on jobs and consumer confidence overall. We're going to see some official reports of that at the end of the month, but also just decisions that families are making.

CORNISH: Last view to you guys.

KANNO-YOUNGS: The White House has a cabinet meeting scheduled today.

CORNISH: Oh, yes.

KANNO-YOUNGS: There was a pretty notable cabinet meeting earlier this year in which Elon Musk was standing above the cabinet. Does Elon Musk go today?

CORNISH: So, we'll see the seating arrangements today.

Saleha. KANNO-YOUNGS: But does he go? Is he there?

MOHSIN: I want to know if the American exceptionalism story is still a thing. Is the -

CORNISH: OK, that's a big one for the last words, Saleha. I appreciate that.

MOHSIN: Yes, but is the - yes.

CORNISH: I want to thank the group chat. I want to thank you for waking up with us. I'm Audie Cornish. And CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

[07:00:00]