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Trump Targets Judges, Law Firms, News Media, Colleges; Flights Landed in Central America after Judge Ordered them Turned Around; Trump Invokes Wartime Powers to Speed up Deportations; White House: Judge's Order to Halt Deportation has "No Lawful Base"; CNN Poll: Democratic Party's Favorability Hits Record Low. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired March 17, 2025 - 12:00   ET

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

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DANA BASH, CNN HOST: Today on "Inside Politics" constitutional collision the Trump Administration is gearing up for a high stakes judicial face off after seemingly ignoring a court order to stop the deportation of hundreds of individuals it claims are gang members.

Plus, plunging popularity a new CNN poll shows just 29 percent of Americans have a favorable view of Democrats as the party turns on one of its leaders here in Washington. And we're following the rising death toll after powerful storms ripped through the Midwest and Southeast. It's the first major natural disaster since cuts to NOAA and FEMA, raising concerns, serious concerns, about the devastated communities and how they're going to recover.

I'm Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines and "Inside Politics". First up the White House versus the courts. The Trump administration is defending its decision to deport scores of Venezuelans over the weekend, even after a federal judge ordered it to stop, the president used a rarely invoked wartime law, the Alien Enemies Act, which dates back to the John Adams Administration. Late last night on Air Force One the president sides to -- sidestep to question over whether he violated a court order.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I don't know. I have to speak to the lawyers.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you planning to do more deportation?

TRUMP: I can tell you this. These were bad people. Now he's got a bad group of as I say Congress, it's an invasion. And these are criminals, many, many criminals, murderers, drug dealers at the highest level, drug lords, people from mental institutions. That's an invasion. They invaded our country. So, this isn't in that sense this is war.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Now it's important to note that the Trump Administration hasn't provided any proof that these individuals are gang members. This weekend saw President Trump test the limits of his presidential power in multiple ways. President Trump and his allies are attacking judges who rule against him and trying to block business for law firms tied to self-perceived enemies.

He is also threatening higher education, making demands of Columbia University its admissions and disciplinary rules if they want to restore their federal funding that's currently in limbo over campus anti-Semitism. And then there's the arts. He's already named himself Chairman of the Kennedy Center.

Now "The New York Times" is reporting that he plans to tighten his grip by taking at least partial control over the prestigious Kennedy Center Honors. On the media front, President Trump signed an executive order on Friday shutting down Voice of America, which is designed to get pro-democracy messaging into fascist led societies, and it operates on congressionally approved funding.

He also is baselessly accusing members of the press of illegal activity, all of what I just said happened since Friday. CNN's Senior Legal Analyst, Elie Honig, joins me now. Elie, let's drill down on this court order regarding the immigrants. Tom Homan, who is the Border Czar said that the plane was already over international war water. So, my question is, is that a good enough argument when the judge ordered the flights to be turned around and they didn't comply?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, it's an -- it's a partial response Dana. I'm not sure it's entirely satisfactory. I think the first thing we need to figure out is, where were all of these planes? We know there were at least two, maybe three planes. We also know that the judge gave his ruling from the bench at 06:47 p.m. on Saturday. So, we need to know as of that moment, where were these planes.

And if you look at Homan's statement, he really seems to be arguing something else. What he is arguing is, well, it would have been a really bad idea to bring these planes back, but that misses the point. The first point is, that's what the judge ordered. You don't get to decide whether you think it's a good or bad idea.

The second point is, they certainly could have decided to tell those planes to turn around. I mean, we have advanced communications here. Planes can be rerouted, but chose not to. So, I think it's a fig leaf. I think it gives the administration something to say, and I think it's a good thing that they're at least trying to argue they did not openly defy the courts. This is all going to turn on the details.

BASH: And we just learned that a hearing on this case had been scheduled for 05:00 p.m. today. What happens now if a judge decides that the president did defy the court order what can be done?

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HONIG: So, not a surprise that the judge is going to have a hearing today. He's going to want chapter and verse. Who knew what, when? If the judge ultimately concludes that his order was defied, the remedies, I'm sorry to tell you, are not especially satisfying, the judge could enter an issue of contempt.

He could say, I find the parties in contempt, the lawyers in contempt, but that's fairly too flat. That's more symbolic than anything else, and then, at least theoretically, it's not going to happen. But there's always the theoretical possibility of impeachment, if you have the executive branch define the judicial branch, but we live in reality, that's not going to happen either. That's why this is such a problem Dana, because there's not an on-point remedy for what's going on.

BASH: I do want to ask you, while I have you, Elie about what happened over the weekend, the president targeted another law firm. It's the third one that we know of so far. Can you explain what the impact this is intended to have on the legal profession and by sort of design, the consequences for those who get legal representation from the law firms that he has singled out.

HONIG: This is intended to do two things, to chill and to punish. Let's think about what is the grave offense these law firms have committed. They're representing people who the Trump Administration does not like. For example, Covington of Burling listed here. I should say I worked there 20 some years ago as my first job out of law school.

What's their offense? They represent Jack Smith. Whether one likes or dislikes Jack Smith, he's certainly constitutionally entitled to have lawyers. People on death row are allowed to have lawyers, so this is retributive. The other thing I should know is there's an impact here, way beyond these law firms and their bottom lines.

We are -- these are actions that are going to cut at the core of our constitutional right to counsel. And so, the impact here is both direct within the legal community, but it goes beyond that as well.

BASH: Yeah. I mean, it certainly doesn't sound like a -- you know a headline that make people turn around, but it is, that's why I wanted to bring it up, particularly since now we're on our third law firm and so grateful that you explained it to our viewers. Ellie, thank you always good to see you.

HONIG: Thanks, Dana.

BASH: And I am joined by a terrific group of reporters on this St. Patrick's Day CNN's Manu Raju, Susan Glasser of "The New Yorker" Jackie Kucinich of "The Boston Globe" and Tyler Pager of "The New York Times". Hello. We got the memo. I think everybody else, I should say. Tyler is the Co-Author of the book "2024: How Trump retook the White House and the Democrats lost America" which is going to be out this summer.

Susan, I want to start with you, and I want to kind of bring back on this screen a condensed version of the details of things that happened over the weekend. Again, the define, potentially define, the court orders on deportations, attacking the legitimacy of courts, targeting the law firm demands on Columbia, the Kennedy Center shutting down VOA. And by the way, this is not a complete list, when you see that what?

SUSAN GLASSER, STAFF WRITER, THE NEW YORKER: Yeah. I mean, it's remarkable. We're only today at eight weeks since Trump began his second term. I know it might feel like eight years to some of the people who have been in the trenches covering all these stories.

But what's remarkable Dana, I think, and it shows you how different it is from eight years ago in Trump's first term, the rapidity with which he is taking inflammatory rhetoric and turning it into actions, I think, is the thing that's really distinguishing here.

For example, you've heard Donald Trump talk about a quote, unquote, invasion of the United States for years. This was a theme of his midterm campaign in 2018 -- you know going back a long, long time. What you're seeing here, remarkably in this incredible legal confrontation now playing out between the Trump Administration and a federal judge over the deportation is essentially turning that slogan into a legal argument, into reality, into the pretext. You mentioned that this was a rarely invoked law. It's actually a wartime law -

BASH: Yeah.

GLASSER: -- that's never been invoked. We are not at war. You might consider as many, many Republicans do as many Democrats do that the rise of illegal immigration has posed a national security threat to the United States, but I don't think you're going to find a reputable legal scholar to say that we're actually at a war like situation here.

And again, Donald Trump is turning those slogans very quickly into actions that are disrupting or hitting at some of the very pillars of our constitutional order.

BASH: And that's really the key Manu is the -- if you take any of these acts individually, you could say, oh OK, that's not something I've seen before. But then when you look at them and how it paints a picture?

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It paints a picture that is not only different from what we've seen, but more similar to other countries that the United States tends to criticize.

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, numerically, no question about it. And every president's recent history has tried to expand their power. I don't think we've ever seen it the -- to the extent to which Trump is trying to do it. And on the Alien Enemies Act in particular, that this has been invoked three times, really, over the -- last since it was enacted I believe.

Usually, as Susan says, while they're in war, if they are successful in the courts in doing this, this could have significant ramifications for people who hear illegally. The critics of this law say it's totally unconstitutional because it's not giving these people due process rights. But Trump is facing a lot of pressure, too, to deliver on his campaign promises of mass deportations. If he's successful in this regard in the courts, that will expand his

power. But he's trying to do this all in other areas as well, using the courts to try to give him the authority to essentially decide what he can fund? What programs of the federal government he can fund? The so-called impoundment issue, something they're trying to test in court to expand his power.

And we'll see if he's ultimately successful, because they're going well past whether things are -- whether they know it or not, they're going past the bounds of what they're allowed to do hope they can win in court and dramatically expand his power if they win in some of these cases.

TYLER PAGER, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Yeah, I think one of the really striking things about this is that we've seen Republicans in Congress and the congressional branch largely fall in line behind the president as he's taking expansive actions to try to dismantle agencies, as Manu just said that they fund.

Now he's bringing that over to the third branch of government and the judicial system, and that has largely been a check on Trump's power throughout, most of -- you know throughout his first term and into this early phase of his second presidency.

And so, I think this hearing today will be -- will be quite important to see how the administration continues to try to defend its actions. One of the things yesterday, as we saw the president on Air Force One came back and said to Susan's point, that he does believe that the United States is at war.

He says that these undocumented immigrants coming in are criminals, and they're -- you know, reigning terror on the streets of America. And so that is the justification that the administration is using, whether or not that stands up in a court of law, I think we'll find out a lot more later this afternoon.

BASH: Right. But the last three times and we put it up on the screen while you were talking Manu, we can do it again that this Alien Enemies Act was used were during actual wars 1812, World War I and World War II. Jackie, I want you to listen to what Senator Mike Rounds, Republican of North Dakota said to Jake Tapper yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: If the Trump Administration defied or ignored that order, is that a concern?

SEN. MIKE ROUNDS (R-SD): We'll find out whether or not that actually occurred or not. We don't know if that happened that way. I don't know about the timing on it. I do know that we will follow the law. We expect the executive branch to follow the law.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Mike Rounds is from South Dakota. JACKIE KUCINICH, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: And I think allowing him, I mean, maybe he was just still grappling with what exactly happened. And you've heard Congressional Republicans say things like that. Now, what's the follow up is the question? Like, if, in fact, OK, it's found that it was not legal. What's happened? What then? And that's where we've seen, I think, a big departure from Trump's first term.

All of those Republicans who used to stand up against the president, they're either not -- they're either no longer in office or moved on, and that -- and there is no real stop in the legislative branch at this point. I mean, if you would have told me that Congress would be capitulating the power of the purse and that, like -- you know eight years later, I would have said, no way --

PAGER: Right.

KUCINICH: -- but because that is the one thing that they hold dearest and they really jealously guard that's gone.

RAJU: And Mike Rounds is up for re-election. He's running.

KUCINICH: Exactly.

RAJU: He's going to worry -- the one that you have to worry about is a primary, and if he defies Trump on any number of issues, Trump could try to knock him out there. But not just the law -- the people who may push up back against him in Congress, which are a few of them, because Trump has successfully purged them from the ranks, but also the administration.

But in this first term, there were people who are not loyalists, not Trump loyalists, who would stand up to Trump to some extent. That's just not the case in his administration anymore, and shows you -- you know it's consistent with what we're seeing him do, which is push the bounds and things that some members who might have been served in the administration last time might have pushed back against.

GLASSER: Yeah, I think that's super important, is that they went out of their way to create a cabinet of yes men and yes women. And it is not irrelevant in this regard to look at the remarkable statement by the new Attorney General just the other day, saying -- you know that they're proud to serve at the personal direction of the President of the United States.

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Trump himself in the last couple days. I think this is another thing to add to the list identified himself as the Chief Law Enforcement Officer of this country. That has traditionally been the description for the Attorney General, him or herself. So, it's again arrogating directly to the president, eliminating the notion of any possible independent executive action.

Essentially taking what the lawyers call the unitary executive theory and basically saying that is the president personally who gets to determine everything, and that even requirements in law or in constitutional tradition for due process are essentially not as important or even void when it comes to simply a president decreeing something now to many Americans.

And you know, we're not constitutional lawyers on this panel, but to many Americans, that's the very definition of what we were trying to do in creating the United States of America, was to not have a monarch whose personal whims would determine what policies the country has.

And I just, I think that it's across the broad array. But to your point, the lack of opposition. Go back look at what was being said in the spring of 2017 that is the number one biggest difference Donald Trump was still Donald Trump and wanted to do many of the things, but there were constraints on him in our system, inside the White House, in Congress, that no longer exists.

BASH: And if you listen to Steve Bannon, he will say that the four years in the wilderness during the Biden Administration allowed them to kind of regroup and figure out, if they get back in, how they can do it differently, and that's exactly what's happening. All right, up next, Chuck Schumer is fighting for his political life. Can he survive the furious response from fellow Democrats to his vote for the GOP spending bill, that's next?

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BASH: 44 years that's how long Chuck Schumer has been on Capitol Hill. Now his political career seems to be at a crossroads. He's facing furious blowback over his decision to vote for the GOP spending bill last week. And today, CNN is reporting that Schumer is postponing his book tour due to quote security concerns.

The Senate Democratic Leader was scheduled to appear in at least six major cities nationwide this week to promote a new book about anti- Semitism. Let's discuss this. I will just say -- you know, it's on the anti-Semitism front if he was supposed to be in bookstores, if there were security concerns, that's totally understandable.

RAJU: Yeah.

BASH: The question about the political concerns is a different one.

RAJU: It is, and there were protests that are being planned by these liberal groups because of the way he has handled the government funding fight. So that is really seems to be what they're referring to here, a pretty remarkable decision to pull back on this book event, but it does speak to the fury and the blowback he is getting at the left at this key time.

I don't think it's necessarily just that, the fact that he did vote to break a filibuster and allow this to go forward, it's the way he handled it, too. The concern that I had heard from so many Democrats was his indecision. I mean, this was a deadline we knew was coming for months. This was the one first piece of leverage to fight back against Trump. They did not have a strategy. They were on -- Schumer was quiet behind

closed doors about how he would proceed. Then he came out publicly, of course, and said they did not have the votes. Republicans didn't to move ahead. Then the next day, said that they did have the votes, and he would vote to break the filibuster.

That flip flop and reversal, lack of coherent strategy is what has caused a lot of Democrats to lose faith in him at this critical moment. Now, his securities -- job position at the top of the Democratic leadership is not in jeopardy at the moment. There's no effort to try to cut them undercut them, but there is a loss of confidence, and that's going to be critical for him to restore as a battle for huge fights ahead, like raising the debt limit and all the rest of the fights with Trump.

BASH: Yeah. And, I mean, listen, I am old enough to remember when Chuck Schumer would do his -- he still does them the Sunday press conferences when he was just a rank-and-file House member. He understood strategy, understood how to play the media and the environment at the time.

And, I mean, I heard the same thing, obviously, you are living in and breathing it every single day, from his colleagues who were just like, what is the plan? That is the biggest frustration. You know who else is saying that apparently, the American people? Because look at CNN's a new poll questioning the Democratic Party's favorability 29 percent it's a record low in CNN polling dating back to 1992 and a drop of 20 points since January of 2021.

PAGER: I think one of the things that sort of feeds into this Chuck Schumer frustration is this broader feeling that there's a lack of leadership atop the Democratic Party. Obviously, Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries are natural people to sort of assume that position, given their stature in Congress, but the party is looking for leaders to help them move beyond the election losses and plot a path forward.

And I think the lack, the absence of that is really hampering the party's efforts to move on in sort of a coherent way. Trump, as was designed, doing this strategy of flooding the zone, doing so many things at once that Democrats having trouble figuring out what their response is?

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BASH: And go ahead. Well, let me just jump in and play what Chris Murphy, who has been trying to take a lead on the messaging of exactly what you're talking about, Tyler, he was on NBC yesterday. Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is Leader Schumer, wrong?

SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT): So, let's pull back for a second. This is not a normal political moment. This is not a normal political fight. What Donald Trump is doing right now is absolutely insidious. The American public right now want us to stand up, Democrats, to stand up and take some risks.

Every single day the president is engaging in exceptional tactics, in risk tolerant behavior. And I don't think you save the republic and save our democracy by playing it straight and maintaining norms when the president is shattering them every single day.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KUCINICH: So, he answered the question without answering the question, which, and Chuck Schumer actually was asked a very similar question in his podcast with "The New York Times", that is he the leader -- is he the best leader for right now, when there's kind of asymmetric political maneuvering going on, and he's kind of still playing a symmetrical, a very traditional game?

And he says that he is -- he's very much up to that, and he's the right leader. But what you hear, I think, what Chris Murphy is saying there is that -- you know they need -- they need to have a more creative approach to this. And that is the divide. It's generational.

BASH: Yes.

KUCINICH: And it's -- and it's also but it's also it kind of breaks the current, like liberal, middle of the road Democrat divides and it -- and you're -- because I'm hearing from middle of the road Democrats who are sounding a lot more like progressives in terms of really wanting to fight.

BASH: Let's just look at the headline from your paper exactly what you just said. Generational divide has emerged in the Democratic Party. That's a point that Jasmine Crockett, Democratic Congresswoman from Texas, was making with Jake yesterday.

GLASSER: Yeah, that's right. I think -- I think it's -- we shouldn't make it too much an ideological division, because it strikes me that it is a division fundamentally over your assessment of Donald Trump and what he's doing to the country.

And so, part of it is a fear that Chuck Schumer represents a sort of business-as-usual approach that many Democratic strategists, not just Schumer, have essentially leaned into the idea that this is excessive, perhaps, but part of the normal oscillation of American politics, and that Democrats should be focused on winning the house back in the midterm elections.

And then there are a lot of people who say, wait a minute, that narrow interests of the Republican Party right now are different than the interests of American civil society as a whole that Donald Trump is, if you believe Democrats are in rhetoric, taking a wrecking ball to aspects of our federal government and even pillars of the rule out that will not be around to be fixed just because Democrats pick up some House seats two years from now.

And so, I think it's much more about your assessment, your threat assessment of Donald Trump, and -- you know the visceral anger, by the way - (CROSSTALK)

BASH: That's what it is.

GLASSER: -- of Democrats around the country. We should be talking about that.

BASH: It's a threat assessment. But everybody has the same challenge, which is, they can put the threat at an 11, but what are you going to do about it?

RAJU: Yeah.

BASH: And that's -- and that's a question.

RAJU: It just about and quickly on that poll that speaks to that point, voters, Democratic voters, want them to stop the Republican Party.

BASH: Yes.

RAJU: That poll said three quarters of Democratic voters want them to not to work with them GOP to stop Trump. That is much different than 2017 it was flipped. The numbers were flipped. More Democrats wanted them to cut deals now they want them to fight.

BASH: All right, everybody at least 42 people -- 42 people are dead, and the number is rising after at least 80 tornadoes touched down in several states this weekend. Why it may get harder to forecast deadly storms like this going forward?

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