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Judge to Rule on Dropping Mayor Adams Charges; Trump Administration Expected to Issue Public Health Order to Restrict Immigration at U.S.-Mexico Border; White House Says Illegal Border Crossings Plummeted in January; Trump Administration Cuts Off Access to Legal Services for Unaccompanied Migrant Children. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired February 19, 2025 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:00]

MICHAEL WARREN, SENIOR EDITOR, THE DISPATCH: Or cutting it, which is, you know, accountability and information, which is in and of itself inefficient, right? It is inefficient to try to go out and talk to reporters and bring us in on what is happening, so we can tell readers and viewers what is happening. That is a language that Elon Musk and I guess, Donald Trump just don't speak. And I think it's to the detriment, and Congress is sort of waiting around for, I don't know, for Elon Musk to just tell us what he's doing. They're going to be disappointed. I do think this kind of anger you're or people -- concerned people are giving, constituents to their, lawmakers, that's going to be where the actual transparency ends up coming from. Maybe not until the midterm election though.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT AND ANCHOR OF 'INSIDE POLITICS': If, if, OK, everybody, standby by. Up next, the Justice Department inside the Trump Administration, of course, they want to drop all charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. But first, they need a judge to approve it. That judge is going to decide yay or nay in the coming hours.

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[12:35:30]

BASH: This afternoon, New York City Mayor Eric Adams will be in court as the Justice Department asks a judge to drop the corruption case against him. CNN Chief Legal Affairs Correspondent, Paula Reid is outside that very cold courthouse there in New York. Paula, what do your sort of spidey senses tell you about whether or not this judge will go along with it?

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Look, I think there's a chance, Dana. It's rare for judges to reject motions to dismiss like this, but it does happen. And this is an extraordinary case. This is really the first big test to see how far the federal judiciary will let the Trump Justice Department go. Because of course, here we're talking, about this move to dismiss the criminal case against Mayor Adams not based on the merits of the case, but because it would help free up his bandwidth to help with immigration enforcement, a key policy priority of President Trump.

This raised concerns about a quid pro quo, caused a mutiny inside the department, over half a dozen prosecutors have resigned, including the Trump appointed U.S. attorney here in Manhattan. Now today, to defend this decision, the Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, he will be in court today. He is the one who directed this case to be dismissed. He has made a lot of controversial moves and I'm told by a source familiar with his thinking that he believes it is important to have a senior Justice Department official in court today to defend this decision.

I'm also told that he is unbothered by the controversy and outrage that this move has prompted. So what we're looking for today, Dana, is to see does the judge have just some tough questions for the Justice Department, or is there going to be a signal that is possible this judge will reject this move to dismiss. It's a huge test for the judicial system and also for the Trump Administration.

BASH: It sure is. Thank you so much, Paula. Appreciate that reporting. And coming up, we have brand new reporting on President Trump's plans to declare a public health emergency at the southern border. We're going to explain to you what it is and break down what to expect after a quick break.

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[12:42:10]

BASH: Now to some brand new reporting from our own Priscilla Alvarez. The Trump Administration is expected to issue a public health order to restrict immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border. The order labels migrants as risks for spreading diseases, and it could come as soon as this week. We are lucky to have Priscilla still at the table with us, tell us about your reporting.

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is ultimately one of a string of moves by this administration to strengthen their posture at the U.S.-Mexico border even as border crossings have plummeted to now less than 300 people a day, which is remarkable as someone who has covered the border for a very long time. This order may sound familiar to people because it is a call back to the first administration and the Public Health Authority known as Title 42.

At the time, the basis of it was the Corona virus pandemic, but it has always been an authority that Trump Adviser, Stephen Miller, has thought of and wanted to invoke. In fact, in 2023 in the New York Times, he was already saying then that he wanted to find a basis to invoke this again. And I'm told by sources that they're very much working toward that and that we could see it as soon as this week.

Now, there are a lot of measures already implemented at the U.S.- Mexico border that make it extremely difficult for anybody to seek asylum. But as someone described this to me, it's almost like insurance. They know that they're going to face litigation for many of these measures, but there's so many layers now that it increasingly makes it difficult for anyone to come across the U.S.-Mexico border and to seek asylum.

So again, it's all part of this push to seal off the border. It is already far lower in crossing than it has been in a very long time, but certainly it would make it harder, not only right now, but in the future.

BASH: Yeah, and just Michael Warren, from Priscilla's reporting, the U.S. is currently grappling with a measles outbreak in West Texas. As of Tuesday afternoon, the number of cases linked to the outbreak has grown to 58, but it isn't known whether there's a connection with the U.S.-Mexico border.

WARREN: And it doesn't seem to really matter to the White House. I mean, I think that this is part and parcel of Stephen Miller's, certainly, sort of pre-textual approach, find any weapon at hand --

BASH: Sure.

WARREN: -- to achieve the outcome that you want to achieve. And this is not limited to this presidency and this administration, this is something that lots of administrations do, but it's sort of on overdrive and really being driven, I think, by a sense that, I mean, again, whatever, whatever you can do to achieve the goal that Stephen Miller and President Trump has to seal off the border, however tenuous, however it's not been sort of fully vetted, they're going to -- they're going to do that and probably be politically rewarded for it.

JEFF MASON, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, REUTERS: Also, just to draw a contrast between now and 2020, there is not a pandemic happening.

[12:45:00]

There's a -- there's a big difference between using that at the time which was, as you rightly said in your story, was also controversial at the time. But there was a justification because of what was going on with the -- with the pandemic. That is not the case now. I also -- I'm glad you mentioned Stephen Miller because I think this also underscores how powerful he is in this second administration. He was in Trump 1.0, but even more so in Trump 2.0.

BASH: Yeah. No, he's blowing the doors off of that for sure. I don't want to lose sight of the promises made, meaning what Trump promised the base --

MASON: Yeah.

BASH: -- in the election versus what they're actually doing now. They're only four weeks in. But I talked to Tom Holman, the borders are over the weekend. I know you do reporting on this every minute, about the fact that there is frustration that they're not getting their numbers up on the interior of the United States, and finding more undocumented immigrants who fit that criminal background label.

ALVAREZ: This is what happens though with any administration, ambition on the campaign trail is going to meet the realities of the federal government. That's exactly what is happening with these interior arrests. It is extremely difficult to arrest as many people as they want with the very limited resources and personnel they have, even if they have pulled every lever of government to shore that up. But it's also part of one bigger and broader agenda, and that's also important not to lose sight of, for example, we learned overnight that there are groups now that receive funds from the federal government to provide legal representation to children who cross the U.S.-Mexico border alone. Well, they have stripped those funds. They have issued a stop work order.

BASH: We'll put the headline up as you are talking.

ALVAREZ: And that essentially means that these kids who have arrived to the United States unaccompanied and usually have pro bono attorneys working with them, they're in immigration court now and they may not have that legal representation. And to give you a visual, as someone who has covered this for a long time, you see children in court, their feet do not touch the ground, that may not have legal representation to navigate what is a very complicated immigration system and what they're trying to fight is the immigration.

BASH: Don't touch the ground, meaning little, little kids.

ALVAREZ: Little kids, because unaccompanied minors is the whole gamut until you get to 18. So, this is going to have ramifications. I talked to one lawyer just before I got on the show who told me this is the worst-case scenario and this is the legal black hole that they have been talking so much about.

BASH: All right, thank you so much for bringing all that in the reporting. Thanks to you guys. Don't go anywhere because, what, wait, there's more. We've got new reporting on another topic, a really important one, and that is the man Donald Trump wants to install as the top prosecutor here in Washington, D.C. He is a right-wing activist. He defended January 6th rioters, and he's already pushing an agenda of retribution.

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[12:52:12]

BASH: A right-wing firebrand in an interim position uses the power bestowed upon him by Donald Trump to aggressively push Trump's retribution agenda, while bashing Democratic critics and posting all about it on social media, and it worked. On Monday, the president tapped Ed Martin to be D.C.'s top prosecutor. CNN Senior Justice Correspondent, Evan Perez is here with some brand new reporting. Evan, what do we know about him?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, look, I mean, this is a case where the crazy-like-a-fox strategy may actually work, right? This is Ed Martin. He's a right-wing activist from Missouri. He was very, very big in this Stop the Steal movement back in 2020 and is now, obviously, he was put in place by President Trump to be the acting U.S. attorney in Washington. The plan, as I understand it behind the scenes, was for him to come in and do, and help do some of the initial cleanup of things that Trump wanted including, of course, pushing to get rid of the January 6th cases, perhaps getting started on this weaponization push.

But he had all the plans. He decided that he was going to perform and has actually now won the nomination for the job permanently. Now, behind the scenes, there was this whole effort, Klay Stimson (ph), a respected conservative lawyer was supposed to be the pick. The president even told people he was going to make Klay Stimson (ph) his pick.

But in the meantime, you saw what Ed Martin has been doing. One of the things he's been doing is very active on social media, but some of his memos have really gotten a lot of attention. You've seen ones where he's accusing critics of, behind the scenes, of leaking some of his -- some of his memos, which of course then got promptly leaked. He has also written an office-wide email suggesting someone may have stolen his gloves. So that's the kind of colorful things we're getting behind the scenes.

But there's a serious part of this. He has an agenda, which is absolutely part of this idea of retribution. We know he is, now, saying that he has permission to hire 20 people in that office. So he is gotten rid of a lot of people, a lot of the career people, and the plan here is that he's going to have loyalists to help carry out this agenda.

BASH: And I just want to put up on the screen what he tweeted around three o'clock on January 6th, 2021, "Like Mardi Gras in D.C. today. Love, faith, and joy. Ignore, #fakenews." This is the guy who's going to be the top prosecutor in one of the most important jobs in the Justice Department.

PEREZ: Right. And they've made this office even more important because they -- it has a lot of jurisdiction for crimes around the country.

BASH: All right, Evan, thank you so much. Appreciate it. Everybody should check out your story on cnn.com.

PEREZ: Thanks.

BASH: Thank you for joining "Inside Politics" today. "CNN News Central" will start after a quick break.

[12:55:00]

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