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Early Start with Rahel Solomon

Judge: Alien Enemies Act Unlawfully Used For Deportations; Netanyahu: Defeating Enemies Is "Supreme Objective"; Career Expert On Navigating Tumultuous Job Market. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired May 02, 2025 - 05:30   ET

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

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[05:30:05]

RAHEL SOLOMON, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back.

The U.S. Defense Department says that it's creating a second military zone along the southern border. It's part of President Trump's push to stop illegal migrant crossings. The new area is attached to the Army's Fort Bliss in Texas. Soldiers are allowed to detain migrants before handing them over the U.S. Customs and Border Protection. This move comes after a military zone was established in New Mexico last month where multiple migrants have already been arrested.

A U.S. judge in Texas has ruled that President Trump unlawfully invoked an 18th century wartime authority to speed up some deportations. Use of the Alien Enemies Act is being challenged in several courts across the country, but this is the first case to have reached a final decision.

CNN's Priscilla Alvarez reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A federal judge in Texas issued a significant blow to the Trump administration and its immigration agenda on Thursday in a ruling that called the invoking of the Alien Enemies Act unlawful. That is an act that the administration has leaned on to swiftly deport migrants out of the United States.

Now, the basis of the act, according to administration officials, is that the Venezuelan gang known as the Tren de Aragua was engaged in an invasion of the United States.

But a federal judge who was appointed by Donald Trump cast some doubt on that saying that the president exceeded his authority by relying on this sweeping wartime authority that has only been used three times and all during wartime. Also nothing that there is no underlying invasion or predatory incursion which would need to be met for the invoking of this 1798 law.

Now, in the ruling the judge said the following. "Allowing the president to unilaterally define the conditions when he may invoke the AEA, and then summarily declare that those conditions exist, would remove all limitations to the executive branch's authority under the AEA, and would strip the courts of their traditional role of interpreting congressional statutes to determine whether a government official has exceeded the statute's scope."

Now, the American Civil Liberties Union attorney Lee Gelernt told me in a statement that, "This is the first court to squarely rule on the fundamental question of whether a wartime authority can be used during peacetime and properly concluded it cannot."

So this is the key difference from the many other legal challenges that have popped up with the invoking of this wartime authority. Of course, there have been legal challenges nationwide to block the deportation of migrants who the administration has deemed eligible to be deported under this authority because the administration alleges they have ties to that gang, Tren de Aragua.

Now as far as what this means for the individuals in this district, they cannot be deported under this authority in the Southern District of Texas, of course. This is likely to be appealed by the Trump administration but for now it serves -- or rather will be a hurdle for the administration which up until this point has touted this authority and sought to use it.

Priscilla Alvarez, CNN, Washington.

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SOLOMON: The U.S. Army may be planning a large military parade in Washington, D.C. for President Trump's birthday on June 14. That is according to the Associated Press which has obtained planning documents for the event. And it would coincide with a festival marking the Army's 250th birthday which originally did not include plans for a parade. But now preparations reportedly call for some 6,600 soldiers along with 50 helicopters and at least 150 military vehicles.

Now, sources say the plans have not yet received the final green light. And according to the AP, the cost could likely be tens of millions of dollars.

Trump's request for a similar parade during this first term was rejected partly because of the price tag.

Germany's domestic intelligence agency has declared the far-right AfD Party an extremist group that threatens democracy. The move will let authorities better monitor the party by recruiting confidential informants and intercepting communications. The AfD Party finished second in February's federal election and the decision comes just a few days before conservative leader Friedrich Merz is scheduled to be sworn in as Germany's new chancellor.

All right. Still ahead for us, outrage from the families of hostages held in Gaza. Why the Israeli prime minister says that freeing them is not the main goal of the war.

We'll be right back. (COMMERCIAL)

[05:39:25]

SOLOMON: Welcome back.

A flotilla set to be carrying humanitarian aid for Gaza issued an SOS earlier today after what it claims was a drone attack in international waters near Malta. The Freedom Flotilla Coalition blamed Israel for what it called the "bombing of our civilian vessel" but didn't provide any evidence.

The group told CNN that activists were on board the ship named the Conscience at the time of the attack. They say that the vessel caught fire, had a hole in its side, and it was sinking. CNN cannot independently verify that information or those images.

[05:40:00]

The government of Malta sent a tugboat to assist. Its military confirmed that the fire is now extinguished and that there were no injuries on board.

The Freedom Flotilla Coalition calls itself a network for pro- Palestinian activists working to end Israel's blockade of Gaza.

For the first time, the Israeli prime minister admitted that, to him, defeating Hamas is more important than freeing the remaining hostages. Well those remarks triggered immediate backlash from hostage families and put him at odds with the majority of the Israeli public, according to opinion polls.

Benjamin Netanyahu said, "We have many objectives, many goals in this war. We want to bring back all of our hostages. That is a very important goal." He went on to say that "In war, there is a supreme objective. And that supreme objective is victory over our enemies. And that is what we will achieve."

Earlier this week his wife Sara was overheard on a microphone saying that fewer than 24 of the 59 hostages in Gaza are still alive, sparking further outrage from their families.

Still ahead for us, President Trump gets a warm welcome in crimson red Alabama. What he told graduates at his first commencement address of the year.

Plus, the latest jobs report could give us some insight into the state of the labor market and some insight for new grads looking to start their careers. Coming up I'll speak with an expert about how the Trump economy could impact the job market.

We'll be right back.

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[05:45:50] SOLOMON: Welcome back. I'm Rahel Solomon, and here are some of the stories we are watching for you this morning.

President Trump has removed his national security adviser Mike Waltz in the wake of the Signal chat scandal, but the president says that he will nominate Waltz to be ambassador to the United Nations. Waltz admitted to mistakenly adding a journalist to a chat about military plans in Yemen.

China says that it's assessing proposals by the U.S. to begin trade talks. The Commerce Ministry says that Washington has done multiple messages through relevant parties hoping to start negotiations. But Beijing insists that the U.S. must correct its wrongdoings and cancel unilateral tariff hikes.

And President Trump has signed an executive order to end federal funding for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service. NPR and PBS are among the public radio and TV stations that get more than $500 million in taxpayer money a year.

And the president got an enthusiastic reaction as he delivered the commencement address at the University of Alabama. He hit on some familiar culture war issues touting his efforts to crack down on illegal immigration, and promising that he would always protect women's sports.

The president predicting that Americans will start seeing benefits from his tariff policy soon, and he offered this advice to graduates.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: To everyone here today, don't waste your youth. Go out and fight right from the beginning. From the day you leave this incredible university go out and fight. Fight tough, fight fair, but go out and fight. You're going to be very successful because now is the time to work harder than you have ever worked before.

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SOLOMON: President Trump is also scheduled to deliver another commencement address to graduates at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point later this month.

And many graduates may be watching closely later today as we get a clearer picture of the U.S. economy when the April jobs report comes out at about 8:30 Eastern. Analysts are expecting that roughly 135,000 new jobs were added to the U.S. economy last month, and they're looking for the unemployment rate to hold steady at just above four percent -- 4.2 percent if I'm not mistaken.

Now if it all holds true it would be a drop from March when a preliminary report showed nearly 230,000 jobs were added. That was stronger than expected.

But now economists say that economic headwinds are growing stronger due to Trump's global trade war. The uncertainty around tariffs, federal spending cuts, and the crackdown on immigration -- all of this also increases the odds of a recession and it makes employment prospects for jobseekers like recent graduates even tougher.

So let's bring in Katie Smith. She is the founder of Get A Corporate Job. That's a project aimed at empowering professionals, especially women, in navigating their career. Katie, good morning. Good to have you with us.

KATIE SMITH, FOUNDER, GET A CORPORATE JOB: Good morning. Great to be here.

SOLOMON: So your content got our attention. It really focuses on young people trying to land a job. I'm curious what you have been hearing from your followers, from users about what the job market is like for them if they're preparing to graduate or if they're just out of school.

SMITH: It is -- I've been hearing a lot of things. One of the biggest things that I'm hearing is just the difference in students coming out of college and jobs on the market and the difference in what they're graduating -- like, the degree they're getting, and jobs on the market, and how the disconnect in, like, getting a psychology degree --

SOLOMON: Yeah.

SMITH: -- and an English degree is different than like a job in customer success or a job in pharmaceutical sales, right? And what those jobs mean -- the skills you need to do those jobs --

SOLOMON: Yeah.

SMITH: -- and then what they're learning in school. And I think that's the biggest disconnect for these students that I'm seeing.

SOLOMON: Oh, that's interesting. So the skills that employers are looking for may not be matching up with the degrees that people are graduating with. That's an interesting sort of phenomenon.

Talk to me a little bit about --

[05:50:00]

SMITH: Yeah, exactly.

SOLOMON: I mean, we know that the labor market -- the expectation, at least, is that it is expected to cool, at least compared to the prior few years when at times it's been really hot coming out of the pandemic.

So Katie, what's your advice to people? I mean, how do you get a recruiter's attention in this kind of market?

SMITH: I love this question. I love this question. The biggest thing I would say for these -- for these students is you've got to be creative. It's extremely competitive right now and so you can't do the same thing that everyone else is doing right now. Just sending your resume out and competing with everyone else is really not going to get you the attention that you're looking for. Like these students are looking for.

So what I would say is really what's working for students is what I call being more creative than your competition.

So a few things that are working is as you're submitting a resume think about what else could I do to show that I have the skills in order to do the job, right? So if that is something in, like, social media and content creation, right -- if I know how to edit a video can I submit a video along with my resume that shows that I have the skills needed to do that job.

Or customer success even, or account management, right? A lot of that is like pitching myself to, like, sales or pitching myself to a client, right? Can I create a Power Point deck that shows that I know what that means to pitch myself to a --

SOLOMON: Yeah.

SMITH: -- client, right? And submit that along with your resume.

SOLOMON: Yeah.

SMITH: And so that is what I'm teaching my students or my followers. Be more creative than your competition. And that's my biggest piece of advice throughout my teachings.

SOLOMON: Yeah. But Katie, I wonder, because I even have friends who are not college graduates -- I'm not that young, so I'm not fortunately that cool. But I do have friends who've have experience. They're trying to shift careers or they're looking for a new job. And what I hear is that they don't think that they're getting through to someone -- like a real person -- a real human.

SMITH: Ooh, yeah.

SOLOMON: And so I'm curious. How do you actually make content -- make contact with someone who can actually look at the video that you created or actually at the really specific resume that you've created? How do you do that?

SMITH: Yeah, network. Network is the biggest thing. And I think, you know -- still, I think referrals are the best way to get a job -- getting a job through your -- figuring out, like, is still the best way to get jobs.

SOLOMON: Yeah.

SMITH: A lot of people are sending out LinkedIn DMs -- sending messages to recruiters at LinkedIn. I think that is now oversaturated. Everyone is doing it. Recruiters are getting hundreds of messages in their inboxes daily, and so they are just -- it's now overload.

SOLOMON: Um-hum.

SMITH: So really through referrals. I personally got my job through a referral and so I know that is working still.

SOLOMON: Yeah.

SMITH: So I would say put yourself out there and be strategic about it, right? So like if you have a friend that works at the company you want to work at or has -- you have a friend that knows someone that works at the company, right --

SOLOMON: Yeah.

SMITH: -- ask them, "Hey, can you connect me to that friend?" And I can talk to them about what it's like to work at this company, right?

SOLOMON: Yeah.

SMITH: Be really strategic about what you're asking and who you're asking it to so that you can try to network with people who either work in the industry or work at the company that you want to work at.

SOLOMON: Yeah.

SMITH: And that is the best way to get someone to actually read your resume.

SOLOMON: Right.

SMITH: A real person to read your resume or look at your video or your --

SOLOMON: Yeah.

SMITH: -- whatever you're submitting. That's the best way to do it still.

SOLOMON: Last question because we're running out of time here.

Have you seen companies using AI more in terms of finding the right candidates? And can candidates use AI to help them stand out? What would you say here?

SMITH: I would definitely say in the application process I've seen it, and not so much in the upfront process. And what I mean by that is like the applying process for candidates; not the filterization (PH) process just yet.

SOLOMON: OK.

SMITH: So having -- I've seen a lot of, like, AI startups come out around how to help candidates apply -- help apply for jobs --

SOLOMON: Yeah. SMITH: -- and filter through a bunch of job applications using AI. But on the back end I haven't seen as many companies use AI to search through candidates --

SOLOMON: Yeah.

SMITH: -- yet. But I've seen a lot of new startups --

SOLOMON: Yeah.

SMITH: -- coming out to try to help candidates find matches --

SOLOMON: Yeah.

SMITH: -- for jobs on the market that match their profile.

SOLOMON: Yeah.

SMITH: That's what I'm seeing a lot of right now.

SOLOMON: Really interesting. Great tips, Katie Smith. We appreciate you being here this morning. Thank you.

SMITH: Yeah. Thanks for having me.

SOLOMON: All right.

We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back.

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[05:59:05]

SOLOMON: Welcome back.

Next Wednesday the Catholic Church will begin the process of choosing the next pope, and the stage is being set. Fire crews were on the roof of the Sistine Chapel this morning putting up the chimneys that cardinals will use to reveal their vote results. This is what people around the world watch. Once the conclave beings, smoke will periodically billow out from the chapel. Black smoke, of course, means no decision. White smoke means that the next pope has been chosen and will make is appearance shortly thereafter.

Now during the last two conclaves cardinals selected the church's new leader on the second day of voting.

All right, that'll do it for us here this morning and this week. Thanks for joining us here on EARLY START. I'm Rahel Solomon live in New York. "CNN THIS MORNING" starts right now. I'll see you next week. Have a great weekend.