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Harvard President: University 'Will Not Surrender Its Independence'; Trump Administration: Mistakenly Deported Man's Return 'Not Up to Us'. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired April 15, 2025 - 06:00   ET

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

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PAIGE BUECKERS, #1 WNBA DRAFT PICK: You know, I don't want to assume anything in life. Nothing is guaranteed. So, for this moment, to be here, and it actually happened, it's nerve-wracking. You just have a level of excitement, nervousness. Bittersweet feeling, knowing that my journey at UCONN is over, but excited for the next one to begin.

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RAHEL SOLOMON, CNN ANCHOR: Congrats to here.

Thanks for joining us here on EARLY START. I'm Rahel Solomon, live in New York. CNN THIS MORNING starts right now.

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. It's Tuesday, April 15th. And here's what's happening right now on CNN THIS MORNING.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is literally political ransom.

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CORNISH: The White House standoff with America's wealthiest university. Harvard says it's not budging, even with billions of dollars on the line.

Plus, no can do. The White House says it does not have the power to bring back a man deported by accident. So, what happens now?

Plus, tax day in America. Could your sensitive tax information soon be in the hands of DOGE?

And also, this.

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DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: I'm looking at something to help some of the car companies.

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CORNISH: Will the auto industry be thrown a lifeline? The changes that could help some companies when it comes to tariffs.

It's 6 a.m. here on the East Coast. Here is a live look at Boston this morning. A showdown in nearby Cambridge as the Trump administration pushes for big changes at Harvard University.

Good morning, everybody. I'm Audie Cornish. Thank you for waking up with me.

Now, since retaking the Oval Office, Donald Trump has been successful at bending U.S. institutions to his will. Whether that's government agencies, tech companies, law firms, one way or another, they've been forced to decide whether or not they want to comply with the president's demands.

Now, the Trump administration is taking the fight to America's oldest university.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When ICE agents show up at our doors, Harvard should have our backs.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Standing up for our values comes at a cost for our future. But I didn't travel 5,000 miles all the way from Pakistan just to be afraid of walking five feet out of my dorm.

ANDREW MANUEL CRESPO, HARVARD LAW SCHOOL PROFESSOR: It's a transparent effort to change what is taught, what we -- what we say in our classrooms, what we teach our students; to make sure that the only things that are actually said on university campuses are things that the Trump administration wants to hear and wants to be said.

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CORNISH: On Monday, the Trump administration froze more than $2 billion of Harvard's federal funding. That decision made after the university rejected a list of demands that the White House sent it last week.

Among those demands, an end to so-called DEI practices. They also want an external audit looking for, quote, "viewpoint diversity" in everywhere from coursework to the student body itself.

And new discipline policies, including retroactive punishments, including for protests that happened two years ago.

And a comprehensive mask ban. The Trump administration even specified that people who wear masks should be punished with no less than suspension.

So, in a statement, Harvard's president described Trump's desired changes as a violation of the university's constitutional rights.

But for the White House, they represented yet another chance to make good on something they've been talking about for years.

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TRUMP: Schools that persist in explicit, unlawful discrimination under the guise of equity will not only have their endowments taxed, but through budget reconciliation, I will advance a measure to have them fined up to the entire amount of their endowment.

J.D. VANCE, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: I think if any of us want to do the things that we want to do for our country and for the people who live in it, we have to honestly and aggressively attack the universities in this country.

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CORNISH: Joining the group chat today, Phil Mattingly, CNN anchor and chief domestic correspondent; Gabby Berenbaum, Washington correspondent for "The Nevada Independent"; and Kevin Frey, Washington correspondent for Spectrum News, New York One.

Everybody, I want to just start with what the president is trying to do, because in that old clip we played, he talked about taxing endowments, which is not what he's doing. Right? He's specifically saying, here's a list of demands. Comply, or I'm going after your federal funding.

So, sort of who in the administration is pushing this? What can you tell us about the thinking?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR/CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I mean, why slog through a legislative process that you don't know how it's going to end when you can just do it yourself?

And I think this is so -- people cannot view what's happening here in isolation. Right? We've been talking about this for the last several months, where the agility and kind of relentless nature with which the Trump administration and top senior advisers, who have been planning for this for several years, have really, to your point, initially, bent institutions that never saw this coming, even though Trump talked about it --

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CORNISH: Yes.

MATTINGLY: -- on the campaign trail, to their will, has been something that people are just starting to kind of get their head around.

CORNISH: I know.

MATTINGLY: And Harvard being the first school to say no is a fascinating moment to see whether this is the start of a tipping point or --

CORNISH: And if there's any school that can do it, it's Harvard. It has a massive endowment. MATTINGLY: No question about it.

CORNISH: But meanwhile, Colombia faced a similar predicament; quickly caved. Kevin, talk about the dynamics there that are different.

KEVIN FREY, WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, SPECTRUM NEWS, NEW YORK ONE: Right. I mean, look, they have -- obviously, they were the center point of the antisemitism accusations early on.

Congresswoman Elise Stefanik and other top lawmakers in Washington have been very loudly condemning what happened there, because they really became the face of the protest movement, and they --

CORNISH: And that made them vulnerable to public backlash and vulnerable to political backlash.

FREY: Correct. And you also saw those dramatic images that played out when you saw the police go onto campus, and they took over the building. And I mean, this kind of --

CORNISH: Yes.

FREY: -- built and built and built. And so, they were already under the microscope in that respect.

And then they come in, and they basically comply with a lot of what the -- the administration is looking for, including sort of this mask ban and other sort of curriculum oversight, including on their Middle East studies program.

And on top of that, there's now conversations about whether or not there should be some sort of judicial oversight of whether or not they are in compliance.

CORNISH: Right. I don't want to just skip by some of the things you said. Oversight into actual curriculum. So, we want to tell you, or at least be able to look at what you're teaching, which is ironic, since they're kind of dismantling the Ed. Department.

But they want to do this in higher ed.

Democrats and their allies coming to universities' defense. Here's a sense of what they've been saying.

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SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): He is putting pressure on universities, as well. Good news is, Harvard University today said, Go to hell.

REP. JIM CLYBURN (D-SC): That may break the fever. I really hope it does. I do know this. If Harvard had capitulated, I really fear for what next year would be.

REP. RO KHANNA (D-CA): There are things that matter more than simply the size of one's endowment. We need the presidents to be banding together and standing up for free expression. (END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Gabby, I probably could have stopped with Clyburn, because he really lays out the stakes.

But what are you hearing in congressional delegations? What are you hearing in your reporting about people seeing this as, like, a pivotal moment?

GABBY BERENBAUM, WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, "THE NEVADA INDEPENDENT": I think Democrats in general have been waiting for somebody, some institution, some group, to stand up and say, you know, we won't -- we're not going to abide by this.

And I think Harvard, right, the big dog of academia doing it. I think we'll see. But, I would imagine, gives permission for some smaller universities, those with endowments that aren't as large, that don't have that you know, 100-year, multiple hundreds of years history, to say we can outlast any one political moment or administration; to sort of band with them. And I think we'll see.

Some former Biden legal officials have talked about law firms need to do the same, that if they stand together, it will be easier to stand against some of this rhetoric and action coming from the Trump administration. And so, I'll see what moves forward.

CORNISH: We're going to talk about this more today. But Phil, I just -- you are very good at big-picture things. And it feels like this is a moment where people are deciding, like, if you give an inch, they'll take a mile.

MATTINGLY: Right.

CORNISH: So, if the concern is antisemitism, but you let that go into, also, you need to wear a mask. Also, we want to go into curriculum. Also, like the list just gets longer. And so, do you think that that is the kind of thing that the public responds to, that they start to see as an overreach?

MATTINGLY: I think it converts --

CORNISH: Or is it still, like, a Harvard problem? I don't mean like immediately.

MATTINGLY: I know what you're saying.

CORNISH: You're from Boston. I know you're just like, OK, how about them apples? Like, you don't move forward with thinking it's a problem.

MATTINGLY: Probably give a hunting reference. No.

So, I think anybody who can predict how anything is going to go at this point in time --

CORNISH: Yes.

MATTINGLY: -- is probably pursuing a fool's errand.

The one thing I would say is they have gone so long -- now, three-plus months -- with little to no obstacles or tangible opponent in their face. Whether it's law firms, whether it's Congress, whether you name it across the board, that at some point that was going to change.

And I think the question becomes, how does the Trump administration react to this? Do they keep trying to just roll over people and steamroll everybody, or do they start to calibrate, as well?

Tariffs was really kind of the first time they've lost their footing a little bit. Does this start to kind of carry over?

The thing I would just emphasize here is this wasn't an ad hoc thing that they just decided to launch. Stephen Miller, who has a lot of stuff on his plate as the deputy chief of staff for policy. Russell Vought is controlling the budget operation.

Like, these guys have been working in groups under the same umbrella over the course of several years, planning all of this out and recognizing that it turns out, because of government funding, because of government authority, that the president and the administration, the executive branch, can do an awful lot in an awful lot of spaces if they just are willing to do it.

CORNISH: Right.

MATTINGLY: And they are.

CORNISH: Create a lot of choke points. We're going to talk about this more today.

Coming up on CNN THIS MORNING, the suspect accused of setting the Pennsylvania governor's house on fire has been arrested. What he told police he would have done if he saw the governor that night.

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Plus, the benefits of tech. What it could mean for your risk of dementia.

And one month. That's how long a Maryland father has been in prison in El Salvador. Why both President Trump and El Salvador's president say they can't get him out.

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NAYIB BUKELE, EL SALVADORAN PRESIDENT: I don't have the power to return him to the United States.

STEPHEN COLBERT, HOST, CBS'S "THE LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT": Yes, you do. You're a dictator. All you have to do is dictate that he gets out of prison. Then go on Orbitz and get him a one-way ticket to Maryland. And his torture will be over, as long as you don't fly him on Spirit Airlines.

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CORNISH: If you're getting ready, it's 15 minutes past the hour. Here's your morning roundup. Some of the stories you need to know to get your day going.

Investigators in Pennsylvania are trying to determine whether the suspect who allegedly set fire to Governor Josh Shapiro's residence was motivated by antisemitism. The governor and his family were there at the time, asleep inside.

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FRAN CHARDO, PROSECUTOR: We're looking at the possibility that it was geared towards the governor's -- well, his religion and his -- his views on -- on Israel.

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CORNISH: And according to court records, the suspect claimed that he would have attacked the governor with a hammer if he had seen him.

Cody Balmer faces several charges, including attempted homicide, aggravated arson and terrorism.

And in Hungary, the parliament there passed an amendment that gives the government permission to ban public LGBTQ-plus events.

Before the vote, opposing politicians and protesters attempted to block the entrance to the parliament's garage. Police removed them.

Critics say this is another step towards authoritarianism by the government there.

And there is a new study showing how using technology may be linked to a lower risk for dementia. Researchers were looking at the theory that, if we rely too much on technology, then it could hurt our cognitive abilities as we age.

But they claim, based on their research of previous studies, that might not be true.

And a 5.2-magnitude earthquake rattled Southern California to start the week. You can see the moment that it hit on this video, when a mother quickly picks up her baby and runs out of the house.

So, some 25 million people felt the shaking from L.A. to San Diego.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Since I've been here since 2001, we've never -- I've never felt one like this, because it was only three miles away.

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CORNISH: And scientists are now on alert for the potential risk of -- of aftershocks.

And I want you to see this. As the ground began to shake in San Diego, elephants at the zoo there went into survival mode, springing into action to protect their young. Just like that mom did.

The herd quickly scrambled to huddle up and shield the two seven-year- old younger elephants, giving us a glimpse of how animals handle things in the wild.

Still coming up on CNN THIS MORNING, President Trump's tariffs are leaving many industries in limbo. But at least one group is hopeful they'll get a reprieve.

Plus, your taxes are due today. And we're looking at the Trump administration's reported plans for the

IRS. And I want to say good morning to St. Louis. That's where we're monitoring a fire at a commercial building. You can see some of the smoke and flames there, actually, just under the arch.

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CORNISH: So, the highest court in the land says the Trump administration needs to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. According to Merriam-Websters Dictionary, the word "facilitate" means "to make something easier."

But making his return easier appears to conflict with the White House's plans.

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BUKELE: How can I return him to the United States? Like, I smuggle him into the United States? I don't have the power to return him to the United States.

PAM BONDI, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: That's up to El Salvador if they want to return him. That's not up to us. If they wanted to return him, we would facilitate it, meaning provide a plane.

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CORNISH: So, I want to bring in Republican election lawyer Ben Ginsberg, because we've been talking the last couple of days about this Maryland father who had been deported due to, quote unquote, "an administrative error."

Attorney Ginsberg, we have heard a lot about the reasons for why this happened. We've also heard different reasons for why they can't bring him back.

First, can you just talk about the Trump administration's interpretation of what the Supreme Court said when it said, facilitate this return?

BEN GINSBERG, REPUBLICAN ELECTION LAWYER: The Trump administration's interpretation of this is, I think, certainly different from the way the trial judge in Maryland interpreted the word and probably the way the U.S. Supreme Court did, as well.

In other words, this was an individual who did not have any due process rights, who was wrongly deported, by the government's own admission. And so, to facilitate that return would imply, in common usage, that the person should be brought home.

So, you got a very different message yesterday in the -- in the Oval Office.

CORNISH: Yes. The reason why I've been asking is because, I mean, we heard even Stephen Colbert on "Late Night" saying what people hear is the common sense interpretation to bring him back.

And you have two people, two world leaders, who have basically made themselves -- they're recognized for their attempts to have power. Right? And you have El Salvador's president calling himself the coolest dictator.

So, what does it mean when they say, well, I can't do it, and, well, I can't do it, and then no one does it?

GINSBERG: Well, these are two very powerful people who, you intuitively know, could make it happen if they wanted to. So, the answer is they don't.

And from the Trump administration perspective, this appears to be one of several instances where they are trying out the -- the powers of the executive branch.

In other words, here, you've got their theory of a very strong presidency, the unitary presidency executive, where they don't have to listen to any other branch of government.

[06:25:08]

And their opponent in this case is not only the courts, but the due process rights of an individual.

And so, this is the case that is going to tee up very much just how much power the president, the executive branch really can exert in the face of pushback by a co-equal branch of government.

CORNISH: I want to underscore something you just said about due process there, because the Trump administration claims that Garcia is a terrorist. That's probably in part because of the gang they claim he's a part of, they've also described as a terrorist organization.

Here's what a homeland security official said yesterday.

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TRICIA MCLAUGHLIN, DHS ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR PUBLIC AFFAIRS: The media would love for you to believe that this is a media darling, that he's just some Maryland father. Well, Osama bin Laden was also a father, and yet, he wasn't a good guy. And they actually are both terrorists.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Help me understand this analogy. I mean, yes, I just need help.

GINSBERG: Well, this was someone who was in the United States, married to a U.S. citizen, which generally confers citizenship rights.

And the larger point is that he was in the U.S. There was an order in 2019 from a court saying he shouldn't be deported. Now, he was deported.

Normally, under our system of government, under the rule of law, that means there has to be due process -- in other words, a trial here in 2025 -- before he can be taken away from the country and put in prison.

In this case, the administration has acted as judge and jury on his status.

And so, in the normal course of things, there's an immigration judge who should hear and determine whether he is a member of the gang and whether he does deserve to stay in the country or not.

CORNISH: Ben Ginsberg, I've talked to you in the past because, as a Republican, you have in the past represented administrations and Republicans in campaign issues, right? And in election law.

When you see something like this, as you said: the administration acting as judge and jury in one context, immigration, which I think is in some ways understandable legally. What implications does it have for other areas of the law? What are you looking for in the coming days and weeks?

GINSBERG: Well, as I said, this is really setting up how much power the administration and the president can exert without involving the two other branches of government. Right?

So, there are other examples of this. The whole tariff policy is part of it. Not spending money that Congress has appropriated. Going after universities, going after the news media.

It is really -- are there checks and balances on the executive branch today? And so, that's -- that's really a matter of the rule of law and the fundamentals of the Constitution that you have to look at to see.

Can the administration basically ignore orders from courts? Is, I think, where this issue will be focused the most. Although certainly the role of Congress in appropriating money and setting up programs and whether the administration can just unilaterally end them or not will be other flashpoints.

CORNISH: Well, Ben Ginsberg, thank you for your insights. Appreciate you for being here on CNN THIS MORNING.

GINSBERG: Thanks.

CORNISH: Still to come, the case that helped set off the #MeToo movement is back in court. Harvey Weinstein on trial again. Plus, what President Trump said about so-called homegrown criminals and where he's willing to send them.

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