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Funeral for Pope Francis Set for Saturday; Earth Day in the Age of President Trump; U.S. Stocks Tumble as Trump Attacks Fed Chairman. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired April 22, 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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[06:30:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I cried. I cried a lot.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The best pope of the era.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He was really open to everybody.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: Catholics around the world begin nine days of morning to remember Pope Francis.

Good morning, everybody. I'm Audie Cornish. I want to thank you for joining me on CNN This Morning. It's half past the hour. And here's what's happening right now.

Stocks are on pace to open higher this morning after a rough day on Wall Street Monday. Futures are in the green right now. The uncertainty somewhat driven by President Trump's jabs at Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.

In just hours, the FDA will unveil its plan to remove artificial dyes from the food supply. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is expected to target eight petroleum-based dyes. Studies have shown some of them are connected to cancer and other issues in animals.

This morning, the Vatican announced that the funeral for Pope Francis will Saturday morning at 4:00 A.M. Eastern Time. President Trump and the first lady are among those expected to attend. Right now, cardinals are at the Vatican discussing their next steps as they will after that funeral elect his successor. But for so many, it is difficult to think about someone taking his place, frankly, because of the impact that Pope Francis has had.

In his native Argentina, people gathered for mass to honor his life and service. Outside the cathedral, flowers, candles, thank you letters were lining the steps, another image of the late pontiff drawn in chalk on the sidewalk and a photo of Pope Francis lights up a historic landmark in Buenos Aires.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is going to hurt the soul of the people that the Pope has died. Honestly, it hurts me like crazy.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We hope that. The next person will follow his lead and be open to people that maybe are not really appreciated from the Catholic Church. But he was really open to everybody. He was -- he always had a good word for every person.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: CNN's Ben Wedeman is in Rome where mourners have been gathering. Ben, just help us understand first what it's like in the square this morning and what the funeral plans are so far.

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's a warm and sunny morning here in Rome. We're just outside the Vatican City with St. Peters Square behind me. And what we're seeing is a steady stream of people coming in to pay their respects. We spoke to some of them, you know, they're not even all Christians. Some Muslim man we spoke to from New York, told us that, he respected Pope Francis, respected Pope Francis' repeated and constant calls for peace and justice around the world.

We spoke to a group of young French pilgrims who told us that they had come to Rome hoping to see Pope Francis, and they were in the bus on their way here when they heard the news that he had passed away yesterday morning. One of them told us many of them had broken out in tears when they heard that news.

Others, for instance, a couple from Florence, north of Rome, telling us that they'd come here just for a family visit. Of course, this is a holiday season in Italy and they had come here this morning to pay their respects to Pope Francis.

So, the mood is somber, but nonetheless, many people, not so much focusing on the passing of Pope Francis but his legacy of humility and compassion in a world at a time when those two qualities seem to be in increasingly short supply. Audie?

CORNISH: That's Ben Wedeman in Rome.

I want to talk also today because it's Earth Day. And the theme is essentially Our Power, Our Planet. Now, when it comes to protecting the earth, the U.S. seems to be going in reverse in a way, and the group chat is going to talk about that.

So, for those of us who kind of grew up drawing pictures of the earth and trees for Earth Day we have in our mind what this is about. But since then politically there's been a lot of changes and we know, obviously Trump pulled out of the Paris Agreement way back when and continues, and DOGE is going after weather and climate programs.

But, Chuck, you're actually at the National Wildlife Federation as well. So, it sounds like nonprofits are starting to feel the effects of the new administration.

[06:35:04]

CHUCK ROCHA, SENIOR ADVISER, BERNIE SANDERS' 2016 AND 2020 CAMPAIGNS: I'm on their C-4 board, and what we do is we fight for, to make sure that animals don't become extinct and that we protect public lands and public spaces for hunting and fishing and outdoors. Which you would think, as all Americans, something's pretty easy, but we hear this morning that lots of larger nonprofits working in the environmental space are going to be a target of this administration because --

CORNISH: In what way? Like grants that they won't get, or is there something more specific?

Rocha: One is grant and the other one is they all are nonprofits so they don't have to pay taxes because they're doing good deeds, so people can give them tax-exempt donations. We accept donations. Lots of nonprofits accept donations. And he's trying to say, these folks do too many political things. And if you talk about the environment with this administration, they think you're being political. And most folks just think it's common sense.

CORNISH: Now, a lot of people think it's political and or identify with sort of liberal leaning ideas.

ROCHA: I don't know when clean water and clean air became political, but I'm just saying.

CORNISH: That's totally fair. But for the longest time, I feel like as a political reporter, I was often talking about distinct groups and especially generational. Because I remember there would always be a story that's like this conservative is into the environment, and then we would do like an essay on their existence. So, what does it mean? Like who cares about this now?

JERUSALEM DEMSAS, STAFF WRITER, THE ATLANTIC: Yes. And I think there's difficulty because as you mentioned, you're on the C-4 board and there's a question, I think, about how much can you blame the C-4 side for C-3 activities, electioneering activities.

CORNISH: Can you translate? You mean the political side for the nonprofit side?

DESMAS: Yes. So -- exactly. So, the C-3 side is a side that can do electioneering, where they can spend money and many environmental groups do spend money on elections, whether they're pushing ads up saying, X person is good for the environment.

And so the question is, can the C-4 side be held accountable for those actions, and that is something that I think a lot of nonprofits are afraid of. It's not just in the climate space. There are fear within the immigration, nonprofit space as well that this could be happening.

But on your question about the political nature of this, there's a real problem for folks who care about the environment and care about the Earth, that the environmentalists have not made a compelling argument for why that is important when everyone's first concern is their pocketbook.

We see this in Canada right now, where the liberal prime minister, Mark Carney, who's been replacing -- who replaced Justin Trudeau, immediately rescinded his party support for the carbon tax because he sees that as a liability. So, how do liberal parties care about the environment?

CORNISH: Well, to get to your point, I want to show that there actually was recent poll on how -- whether people believe that climate policies help or hurt the economy. And when you look at those numbers, like it's not officially decided, so to speak, right? Like people are still -- even as we last year, hottest year on record, land and ocean temperatures in 2024 were up, sea level rise per year up and the number of people displaced around the world due to climate impacts 36 million.

So, there's a lot of numbers we're looking at, but I think the one Jerusalem is referring to is the people who aren't sure if it makes a difference on their pocket posts.

KRISTEN SOLTIS ANDERSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Take a look at the politics of something like fracking and the way that played out during the 2024 campaign. For a long time, Democrats had been, we don't know if we like fracking, we're opposed to it. And when cost of living was so high, the politics of that issue, especially in a state like Pennsylvania, were just different.

I mean, I do think that we also have to make clear, like sometimes there will be nice intentions on the environment, but it won't pay off. There were lots and lots and lots of efforts in the Biden administration to spend public dollars to do things that were good for the environment that didn't build many electric charging stations, et cetera, that like didn't bear fruit.

And so I think for Republicans, especially younger Republicans, I've seen a real interest in trying to say, how do we just innovate our way out of an issue like carbon emissions rather than trying to put caps on it or have big government programs trying to solve it. This is going to have to be something --

CORNISH: Yes. Although I have to say, this is the kind of policy where you play the long game, like it's not a short-term impact kind of area of policy.

Group chat is going to stick around because we've got a lot more to discuss.

And still to come on CNN This Morning, we're going to talk about the economic uncertainty with a side of insult. The president is pushing the Fed chairman to cut interest rates and using some pretty pointed language to do it. Ahead, while the name calling could send the markets on another rollercoaster.

Plus, it was a courtroom drama that gripped the nation, and it's about to start all over again. Can Karen Read convince a new jury that she's not guilty in the death of her boyfriend? More from the group chat after this.

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CORNISH: President Trump is turning up the heat on the Federal Reserve. His latest attacks on Fed Chairman Jerome Powell are also threatening to destabilize the markets as he pushes for the independent commission to bend to his will, something Powell says he will never do.

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JEROME POWELL, CHAIRMAN, FEDERAL RESERVE: We're never going to be influenced by any political pressure. People can say whatever they want, that's fine. That's not a problem. But we will do what we do strictly without consideration of political or any other extraneous factors.

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CORNISH: So, Trump is now calling Powell a loser and is badgering him on social media to lower interest rates, a move the president argues would boost the economy. Powell says the Fed is taking a more cautious approach because of the tariffs, which are already impacting people across the U.S.

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SHANNON SCHULZ, ALFALFA FARMER: This warehouse is completely full of hay. We're not right now because business is just slow.

With the current tariffs in place, which is a total of about 66 percent of retaliatory tariffs by China, to us it puts our product out of the marketplace.

It could break us. I mean, it could break a lot of farmers.

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CORNISH: Joining me now, a man who makes markets less boring, Cardiff Garcia, editorial director at the Economic Innovation Group. I'm just saying, I'm just saying every time I hear tariffs, I'm like, okay.

But I want to start with this kind of talking about Powell, calling him a loser.

[06:45:02]

It has effects. The Wall Street Journal editorial board called yesterday's selloff in the aftermath of all this, the Fire Jerome Powell market route. So, why is this disruptive to the markets?

CARDIFF GARCIA, HOST AND CO-CREATOR, THE NEW BAZAAR PODCAST: You know, the Fed is supposed to be insulated from short-term political considerations so that it is free to do what's best for the economy in the medium and long-term. That includes keeping inflation stable and low. It also means keeping unemployment low as well. So, if the market suspects that the Fed really -- the Fed chair really might end up being fired, then that just shows that governance is going to weaken and that the Fed's going to lose credibility, including the credibility to maintain low and stable inflation.

CORNISH: That's crazy. So, you're saying even suspects, they don't think there's someone else out there who could do the job?

GARCIA: Well, I think the issue is that if Donald Trump successfully manages to fire the Fed chair, then anybody who replaces the Fed chair is essentially going to be seen as a proxy for whatever the White House wants monetary policy to be. And if that's the case --

CORNISH: And that's decision-making, it's whiplash decision-making.

GARCIA: Well, then you have to guess like what's in the mind of Donald Trump at any given moment in terms of setting monetary policy. And if you're actually able to do that, then we should be doing something else, right? And I think the market wants that kind of predictability, that kind of stability and the commitment from the Fed that it's actually going to hit its, you know, monetary policy and economic targets.

And if it's seen instead as a proxy for the White House and whatever the White House wants, then it's going to lose that. And, of course, if the president manages to fire one Fed chair, he can do it again.

CORNISH: Okay. So, here's the thing that I've been reading and not totally understanding. The U.S. dollar and U.S. treasuries both selling off at the same time that the U.S. stock market is falling. So, this is unusual because these things are supposed to move in opposite directions whenever the market is freaking out. So, the market is freaking out, and instead they're both going the same way. Should I be worried about -- is this something the average person needs to worry about?

GARCIA: I think so, yes. I actually can't express to you how strange this is historically. Normally, when the stock market is falling, it's because people are worried about the economy and they're putting their money into treasuries instead, which are considered the safe asset, the global safe asset. Now, what you're seeing is that investors all throughout the world are selling out of the dollar and anything that the dollar can buy, not just riskier assets, like equities or corporate bonds, but also treasuries, right?

That makes everybody's life a lot harder. It means interest rates throughout the economy are going to go up, that depresses economic activity, but it also makes it harder to counter any economic downturn, because how does the government fight a downturn? It borrows money, pays interest on that money.

CORNISH: Well, let me break this down. First, you're saying that you have a market voting with its feet, right, that if it's a poll, the poll is U.S. not safe to put my money, I can't count on the U.S. right now. But the other thing you're saying is for the rest of us who have whatever, like our credit cards rates, like are you saying there's implications for that?

GARCIA: Yes, because interest rates are going to be high, right? People who want to take out a mortgage to buy a house, those mortgage rates aren't going to fall if treasury rates are also not going to fall. That's what determines interest rates all throughout the economy. So, anybody that ever borrows money, and that's most people to buy things, it's going to affect them as well.

CORNISH: What are you going to be watching for the next couple of days? Does this name-calling matter, because Powell's like, eh, don't worry about it?

GARCIA: The name-calling itself doesn't matter. Powell's heard it all right at this point. What does matter is whether or not the market increasingly actually believes that the president is serious this time about possibly firing Jerome Powell. So that's what I'm going to be watching.

CORNISH: Okay. Cardiff Garcia, editorial director at the Economic Innovation Group, thank you so much. I appreciate your time.

It is now 48 minutes past the hour. Here's your morning roundup. Some of the stories you need to know to get your day going.

So, new this morning, Vladimir Putin says he's open to direct talks with Ukraine. The Russian president claiming he would consider a deal for both sides and strikes against civilian infrastructure. The two sides have not held direct negotiations since the early weeks of Moscow's invasion more than three years ago.

And today, opening statements are set to begin in the retrial of Karen Read after her first trial drew protest in her defense and ended in a hung jury. Read is accused of hitting and killing her Boston police officer boyfriend with her car and leaving him in the snow. This trial is expected to last six to eight weeks.

And in just hours, Tesla will release its first quarter earnings report for 2025. Investors are looking for answers when it comes to delays in the company's self-driving technology. There's also stiff competition from China and of course CEO Elon Musk's political activity. He's expected to speak on an earnings call after the closing bell. Tesla shares closed almost six points down on Monday.

And next time, you can't make up your mind, maybe just don't. President Trump announced yesterday that he was endorsing both candidates in the Republican primary in the race to be Arizona's next governor.

[06:50:07]

In a post on Truth Social, he explained that he endorsed one candidate when she was running unopposed, then decided her challenger was also a, quote, wonderful champion. Now, one other thing, maybe you're on the fence about having kids in this moment. Well, the government is considering offering some new incentives to try and persuade you. So, The New York Times reports that the Trump administration has been listening to a number of proposals that would try to convince Americans to get married and have more kids.

One idea offering a $5,000 so-called baby bonus. Elon Musk, of course, has been pushing for people to have more children.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELON MUSK, SENIOR TRUMP ADVISER: There's a lot of things that I suppose that I worry about, but and some of these things will seem esoteric to people. You know, the birth rate is very low in almost every country. And unless that changes, civilization will disappear.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Bringing in the group chat to discuss, because, frankly, this is the kind of thing that someone is going to send me a link to today, like probably five times today. There is a world that is Elon Musk who has, as we know, almost a more than a dozen kids at this point. The tech right, the traditional religious right, the sort of family conservatives, people who worry about replacement theory like nationalists, they all kind of come together in this world of pro- natalism, which is like people should have more kids because the global birth rate in the west is falling. We're actually seeing it in policy now. Is anyone else surprised, expecting it? Ooh, not surprised.

ANDERSON: I'm not really surprised. I mean, this is has been an interesting change in tone that you've seen from Republicans in recent years really embracing this much more vocally. You've seen somebody like J.D. Vance, who when he was in the Senate, actually tried to advance some policies around things like maternal care, care for newborns, I mean, because this is an important thing, but not just to folks on the right. I mean, there is one, a belief that, hey, kids are great and right now it's hard to be a parent in the United States. And so what can we do to make it easier for parents or people who might want to be parents, but think, gosh, it just seems really expensive, childcare all, you know, take it to all.

CORNISH: Yes. Does $5,000 cover that?

ANDERSON: It doesn't. But the other thing that I would say is that, you know, we sort of were laughing about this $5,000. There have been a lot of proposals for something that's called baby bonds, where you do it as a way to try to reduce wealth inequality. The idea being that if a child starts off life with $5,000 set aside that can appreciate over time, that then for a lot of kids who are not going to be getting some big inheritance one day, these are the sorts of policies that might make a parent feel better about like --

CORNISH: All right. DEMSAS: There's something like kind of weird about this, right? There's very normal policies, right? Most people think families are good. If someone wants to have a kid, we should support that. But this strange dichotomy between this administration saying, we want people to have kids, and then on the other side of their mouth in Congress, they're debating potentially reducing Medicaid, which covers 40 percent of births, two in five children are covered by Medicaid. And so to me it's a question of what does the policy actually end up looking like? Does that actually --

CORNISH: Right. Well, never mind the child tax credit, which --

DEMSAS: Exactly. There's almost like this talk about pro-natalism.

ROCHA: I like to look at the root of why I think this is happening, and I think it's twofold. First is there's just the facts in politics and policy, which is folks are dying quicker than we're making new folks so that we are not paying into Social Security as many folks who are actually taking Social Security because there's more old folks. And I was thinking this morning as we --

CORNISH: We call this the folks index,

ROCHA: Right, folks, as old folks that are on Social Security, whether you're old or not, if you're on Social Security, you're old. If you think about the money that's paid into that though, we've talked a lot about immigration here. There's a whole lot of immigrants here who's filled that void, who are paying, important for you Republicans at home to know this, Social Security that they will never use, which is actually paying for old white folks Social Security. So, this is one of the things that we're not talking about in this public policy debate.

CORNISH: It's funny. It wavers between this part of the conversation, could immigration be, and then the other part of the conversation, which is global birth rates are falling. That is a real thing. Countries like South Korea, et cetera, are totally in a spiral. In Russia, first time mothers receive about $6,000, 677,000 rubles. In Finland, they experimented with baby bonuses for a long time.

The thing is, in these places, it did not long-term -- oh, you're nodding. You know. It didn't actually move the needle.

ANDERSON: That the goal may be to make it easier for families to thrive, but it's not necessarily that we've seen a ton of evidence in policy that it actually increases the birth rate.

CORNISH: But then why do it?

DEMSAS: There's a lot of research about this that shows the number's quite high. Just think about in your own life, right? If you want to have a kid and you say you want to have two kids with your partner, incentivize you to have a third kid, like. $5,000 isn't going to do it.

CORNISH: No, they're just trying to get you to have one to start. DEMSAS: But even then, we're talking about like to get someone who doesn't want to have kid already, to choose to make that decision, it's a lot more money that's required to actually shift incentives.

ROCHA: Somebody, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it in America, one of the places where if you have a baby, we don't support you with family and medical leave less than almost every other country?

[06:55:07]

So, it seems like, to your point, Congress may think they want you to have more babies. But once you have that baby, they don't want you to have no time off work to raise that baby.

ANDERSON: Yes, and I think the goal isn't to persuade somebody who thinks like, I don't want to have kids. I love my lifestyle as is, to suddenly decide to embrace the trappings of motherhood. It's rather for somebody who's thinking, I would like to have kids, but I'm just not so sure if like I can make it work, to just begin to address some of that anxiety. Because it's not just a Social Security thing in societies where you do have fewer kids being born than people dying, I mean, there's all kinds of other things --

CORNISH: But you struggle over time, yes, for sure.

DEMSAS: I also think that on top of this, there's this problem where the entire conversation is geared towards women is if women are the only ones involved in the conversation. I mean, you hear this, how do we persuade women to have more children? There are a lot of women who want to have kids. But either they can't find a partner, they need a secure job or things like that are going to make them happy.

So, I think the question is. When we're developing family friendly policy, are we trying to improve people's lives and attacking the things that actually they're telling you or preventing them from living, you know, having children or are we just trying to mechanically increase the birth rate even if it makes people unhappy?

CORNISH: Yes. Though, you know, that's kind of an interesting point because like it is the party that men embraced in the last election, but there isn't, like maybe there's more policies coming, but there isn't one to incentivize men to have more kids with their partners.

ROCHA: If you look at parts of the internet where lots of young men are at right now, they're like women should just be having babies and not working and staying home and being subservient to their husband. I'll leave that to the side, but there's a whole movement for that crisis.

CORNISH: Maybe we should give them $5,000.

ROCHA: Just to go away.

CORNISH: I don't know. I know you guys are going to have this in your group chat. Okay. I want to look ahead this week because there's all kinds of news happening, I think, with the week kicking off with the death of the Pope, it was just like such an incredibly intense moment. I want to know what you guys are looking forward to, what you're thinking about, and, Jerusalem Demsas, can I start with you?

DEMSAS: Yes. I mean, I mentioned Medicaid, potential Medicaid cuts, but I'm keeping my eye on the Republican and budget negotiations.

CORNISH: Wait, what? Jerusalem?

DEMSAS: Yes, bringing it down.

CORNISH: Jerusalem started of the week and was like budget negotiations.

DEMSAS: Budget negotiations.

CORNISH: All right. Why? Why this moment?

DEMSAS: Well, because, I mean, I mean, I'm keeping an eye on it constantly. I mean, this is going to be the big thing that comes through Congress and there's still very little clarity. I mean, the moderates, Republicans are really holding their fire, waiting to see what the leadership is going to show. But this is going to be really impactful with the number one issue that people care about, of course, is cost of living. But number two, it's healthcare. And is that going to become salient? That has real political implications.

CORNISH: Right, or will Democrats make it salient, right, because this is very much a talking point.

Chuck, can I go to you? I know you already want $5,000 to have a kid.

ROCHA: That's right.

CORNISH: I know that you have changed from one hat season to straw hat season.

ROCHA: Bingo.

CORNISH: Okay, but what else are you thinking about this week?

ROCHA: Two things. One is Congress is not here and they're out in their district, so what's going on out in their district here? We're going to see press from CNN of town halls of folks still being mad.

CORNISH: More town halls? I thought people weren't doing town halls.

ROCHA: More town halls this week. Stay tuned.

But the good news is, I'm also looking at what we've been talking about with the pope is. This is a moment with the pope where folks on the Catholic side, on the religious side, Democrat, Republican, or independent, kind of come together and honor a great man. CORNISH: I was going to ask you about this, because when I think about southwest Latino voters, where Catholicism does weigh heavily, it has been the inroad to kind of conservative embrace, right, when it comes to partisan politics.

ROCHA: Religions did a huge part of this. Even with the Baptist Church in the Texas Valley, like a lot of that has changed. So, I think that this is something with this great man and what he's done is really something special. Do we take advantage of that or do we mess this up too?

CORNISH: Chuck, come on.

ROCHA: I'm just saying, I think we can.

CORNISH: Okay. Kristen Soltis Anderson?

ANDERSON: So this week I, the battle between the Trump administration and Harvard University is continuing. I'm going to be keeping an eye on whether the Trump administration's really combative approach to many of these institutions, does it stay confined to the Ivys, to the ones that really have had some prominent sort of clashes around the issue of anti-Semitism, or does it begin to expand out beyond what I would say are pretty, you know, easy targets, institutions that a lot of voters might say, yes, you know what, I'm not losing a lot of sleep about the idea of Harvard University and their big endowment losing money.

What does the effect become in this battle between the Trump administration and higher ed on things like state colleges and universities? How does that begin to spread and reshape the purpose and the way that higher education functions?

CORNISH: And also the nature of the debate itself, which has been helped by the backlash to the Gaza protests, right? It's much easier to say the schools are anti-Semitic, yank their funding. It's a little different to say, I'm going to reach in there, change curriculum, change a bunch of things from the White House. Well, people see that differently?

ANDERSON: Well, one of the things that's been happening over the last decade or so is that confidence in higher education as an institution has been falling, and not just among Republicans.

CORNISH: Yes, especially with the debt.

ANDERSON: And so a lot of it is the -- what exactly is it you say we do hear a problem, like institutions are trying to do a million different things.

CORNISH: Chuck, I'm going to let you jump in there.

ROCHA: It's really important that the 60 percent of Americans never went to college. You know, that's just the fact. And Harvard is not something that's very sympathetic to your point.

[07:00:00]

But when you start talking about the University of Ohio or the University of Michigan or the University of Texas, like, I think that everything changes.

DEMSAS: But also research too, if it influences Harvard's cancer research and things that people care about, that will be important.

CORNISH: Right, if there are some trials canceled or heard or something like that.

I'm also going to be looking for a number state schools have faculty senates who have voted for schools to create a mutual defense pact to try and defend against the universities, and those are at state universities, so I'll be watching that.

I want to thank you to the group chat. I want to thank you for waking up with us. I'm Audie Cornish. And CNN News Central starts right now.