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Inside Politics

DOJ Filing in Disputed Deportation Case Accuses Judge of "Continuing to Beat a Dead Horse" by Demanding More Info; Judge: DOGE "Likely" Violated Constitution in Shutting USAID; Judges Rule Against Trump on Dismantling USAID, Ban on Transgender Troops, Effort to Cancel Clean Energy Grants; Trump After Zelenskyy Call: "We're Very Much on Track"; Fed Meets as Trump Tariffs Spark Recession Fears. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired March 19, 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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MANU RAJU, CNN HOST: Today on "Inside Politics", we got some breaking news. President Trump just wrapped up a pivotal phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He says they are, quote, very much on track for a ceasefire deal. We'll get the details from the White House.

Plus, clash of powers. The president is unleashing a full throttle attack on the federal judge who derailed the deportation plans. The courts are pushing back and sending a clear message that there are limits to presidential powers.

And you can't just fight that's Chuck Schumer's message to Democratic critics who are still furious at him for not fighting harder against a Republican spending bill. But that's not what the party's base wants to hear. I'm Manu Raju in for Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines "Inside Politics". We start with the Trump Administration escalating its fight with the federal judge who ruled against the president's use of an obscure 1798 law to speed up deportations.

Literally just seconds ago, the federal judge extended what was a noon deadline for the Justice Department to turn over more information about those weekend deportation flights to El Salvador, seemingly in spite of a court order that's after the Attorney General filed an aggressive new motion calling that deadline a risk to national security. CNN's Katelyn Polantz is here to tell us the latest. So, Katelyn, what's going on?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Manu, this is a court fight that is becoming much bigger than what it's actually about. The Justice Department even made that argument in a filing earlier today. They're saying that the judge he's trying to micromanage the executive branch and what Donald Trump wants to do to deport people.

In a filing they wrote, continuing to beat a dead horse solely for the sake of prying from the government, legally immaterial facts and wholly within a sphere, sphere of core functions of the executive branch is both purposeless and frustrating to the considered -- consideration of the actual legal issues at stake in this case.

They made that filing because they didn't want to reveal to the judge more information, he's demanding about these flights that took off with migrants on board, taking them to other countries, south of America on Saturday.

And since then, the judge has looked at what they filed and said, OK, I'm going to give you 24 more hours to think about whether you actually want to not give the facts and to give a reason under the state secrets abilities to protect state secrets in court.

So, he was only asking them to reveal it to him under seal. The Justice Department hasn't said there's classified information here, and the judge is saying, tomorrow, by noon, I still need those details. Think a little bit more about whether you want to evoke -- invoke a state secrets privilege. We'll see what the Justice Department does next.

RAJU: Yeah, huge clause. We'll see if they listen to what the judge wants from them. Katelyn Polantz from Washington. Thank you for that. And this is all happening as President Trump intensifies his attacks against U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, here's what he said on Fox last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I don't know who the judge is, but he's radical left. He was Obama appointed, and he actually said we shouldn't be able to take criminals, killers, murderers, horrible the worst people, gang members, gang leaders, that we shouldn't be allowed to take them out of our country.

Well, that's a presidential job. That's not for a local judge to be making that determination. And I thought it was terrible -

LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS HOST: Going forward -

TRUMP: I had judges.

INGRAHAM: Would you defy a court order? We all know that, that was out.

TRUMP: I never did defy a court order.

INGRAHAM: And you wouldn't in the future.

TRUMP: No, you can't do that. However, we have bad judges. We have very bad judges, and these are judges that shouldn't be allowed. I think they -- I think at a certain point you have to start looking at, what do you do when you have a rogue judge?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: And I'm joined by a terrific group of reporters to break this all down. Jasmine Wright of "NOTUS", Hans Nichols of AXIOS, CNN and Bloomberg's Nia-Malika Henderson and CNN's Paula Reid, nice to see you all. Good afternoon.

Paula, this is your beat. You got all this so well, so great, grateful to have you here. There have been several legal setbacks now for Trump, really, four in the last since Saturday, three in the last 24 hours, what is your takeaway from this back and forth with this judge just now in the deportation case, and the fact that they are seeing setback after setback in district court?

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Let's start with the setbacks then we can talk about the back and forth. The setbacks were expected, and sources close to the president were telling me back in December, look, we're going to push forward a series of policies, some at the edges of executive power.

These will be challenged in court. We will likely lose in the District Court, because these challenges are usually filed in friendly districts for the challengers and said, we might lose a lot of these at the appellate level. But if we get these questions before the conservative super majority, we will prevail.

[12:05:00]

So, they are playing a long game here, and it never feels good to lose. These decisions do have an impact on the lives of people who are at the center of these suits, but they again, they are seeing this as a long game, and they are undeterred by these losses.

As for the back and forth this is not the first time government lawyers have complained about a judge asking for more information. So, before we suggest there's a constitutional crisis or they're not abiding about what the judge is asking, this is just what lawyers do, particularly -

RAJU: Pretty impressive language, though, from the Justice Department.

REID: What I think is more interesting, who signed it right? That's aggressive, and that is interesting. You see the Attorney General, the Deputy Attorney General -- every top leader signing these otherwise pretty routine filings. And I asked the source why they were doing this, and they said they realized that there could be repercussions for the lawyers who were in court, the line prosecutors.

And we want everyone to know, including that line prosecutor, that all of us stand behind this so that person faces sanctions for what happened over the weekend, or contempt of court. We are all behind them. It's a show of force that is interesting. And I think, aggressive. But there again, there they would argue that they're using their power and their seniority for good to support the rank and file.

RAJU: It's very interesting. And you know, while they are facing these setbacks, I guess the question is, have some of the damage release I guess effect already taken place? Let's say USAID, right? They had a setback in the USAID case, but they've already really gutted this agency. NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yeah.

RAJU: -- even though they're losing, maybe they're still being effective in carrying out their mission.

HENDERSON: Yeah, one of the iconic images of this moment were the workers taking down the letters from the building of the USAID. They have dismantled these organizations, and more importantly, they have discredited them in the eyes of a lot of voters and Americans, and to sort of rebuild and undo the damage will be quite a feat.

Obviously, some of the judges have ruled that this is illegal, that these workers should come back. But in a lot of ways these workers have been dispersed. You know, they don't necessarily know their way back to getting these jobs. Maybe you can piece them together a bit, but so much of the damage I think has already been done to these institutions.

RAJU: And just come back to a Paula said, this is clearly, obviously a Supreme Court effort here. This is what your colleagues at AXIOS reported Hans. The DOJ officials summarize the Trump Administration's legal attack plan this way. We really do want to push the court, ultimately, the Supreme Court, to take a stand. We're trying to get clarity.

We're not putting all eggs in one basket, but it's why we're seeing all efforts to remove people. It's pretty clear why they're doing all the 6-3 conservative majority. Yes, we may lose on the district court, but -

(CROSSTALK)

HANS NICHOLS, POLITICAL REPORTER, AXIOS: They wanted expedited decision. They want to rush it. They might not be putting all their eggs in the same basket, but whatever basket they have, they are rushing to the court, and that's where they want certainty.

I think the interesting thing to me about that piece, which is by my colleague Mark Caputo, is it was just focused on the immigration arguments, right? There are so many across the board. You can pick up the newspaper today and go inside, and there'll be three or four decisions not on the front page that will be or have hugely consequential effects.

You mentioned USAID, we've talked about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. We still haven't announced Fed-day, and we're not in the Fed segment yet, but we haven't had the Fed conversation yet. And these are we know directionally, where the Trump Administration wants to go. We just don't know how fast they're going to get there? And ultimately, what the final decision of the final verdict from the court's going to be?

REID: That's such an important point, because they're rushing birthright citizenship to try to get before the justices. And the court is sort of like, slow your role. You can go to some stuff in April and also say birthright citizenship is the only policy that I've ever seen any official sort of look at me and go, yeah, we're not super confident.

We're going to win on this. Everybody's got a boss. We've got to defend it. But as for all their other moves, they're confident they can get in front of that conservative super majority. They'll see it their way.

RAJU: -- we're seeing Trump, of course, rash of this language about impeaching judges. Stephen Breyer was just on the Former Supreme Court justice, sort of supporting what John Roberts said the Chief Justice, saying, that's not the way we do this here. We don't impeach judges. You go through the appellate process.

How are Republicans going to deal with that call? It was interesting to see Tom Emmer of the House Majority Whip the number three in the House Republican Conference on our air last hour, not really embracing Trump's call to impeach, saying that's not going to happen, because you need the votes in the Senate to 67 votes actually convict and they're not. That's not going to happen, but Trump is. He's going to ratchet up this rhetoric. How do you think the GOP is going to respond?

JASMINE WRIGHT, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, NOTUS: Yeah, it's going to escalate. And I think what's interesting is the difference between Tom Emmer response earlier today and Donald Trump's response last night, basically faced with the question of, you know, Chief Justice Roberts issued this kind of rare and slamming call for you to basically back off.

He said, listen, he didn't name me by name. There are a lot of other people who are talking about impeaching the judges, putting it back on his party to kind of take the brunt of this idea that these judges should be impeached. And so, I think that the GOP is, once again, in this position where they have to really be able to defend and also kind of deflect what Trump is saying.

RAJU: Yeah.

WRIGHT: Say, I understand where he's coming from. I understand why he is upset and why he feels it's unfair? But I don't know if I would take it that far.

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But I think what we have seen over the last 60 plus days is that this is not a GOP that is ready to rebuke Trump. They are ready to go along with what he says. They are let -- they're ready to kind of swallow that pain and run away from reporters on the Hill. They don't want to talk about something, because they understand where his legislation is going, and they are on board, not just with him personally, but with where the legislative agenda is.

RAJU: Yeah, and they could go through impeachment proceedings in the House Tom Emmer might have said well, the Senate may not do it, but they have the power to do that in the House, and we'll see what Mike Johnson has to say when they come back into town. They're in recess right now. In fact, speaking of recess, these members are back in their home

districts. They're dealing with some pull back, shall you say, from some of their members. It's happening on the Democratic side. We're going to talk about that later in the show as well. But also on the Republican side, about a lot of the cuts that are being pushed by DOGE and Elon Musk.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. CHUCK EDWARDS (R-NC): How do you justify cuts to staff of the VA helping veterans, especially those with long term care needs?

REP. MIKE FLOOD (R-NE): So, first of all, there have been no cuts to the staff at VA, as in this point.

REP. MICHAEL BAUMGARTNER (R-WA): I know you disagree with what Mr. Musk is doing. I know you disagree with the way this is rolling out, but this is the process that we are using to find waste, fraud and abuse.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: By and large what people of America see with people of Eastern Washington sees President Trump delivering on his promises. And so -

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Do you think that there's going to change how Republicans when they come back to town next week, how they talk about how they deal with Elon Musk or just --?

NICHOLS: Yeah. Look, it really depends on numbers. I think you showed a Town Hall from Spokane, Washington there, right, which is a big city, a blue city in a red district. So, if Mr. Baumgarten, who I think is the lawmaker there, that was on scene the new elected member of Congress, first term, or second.

If he's reading that and says, oh, these are big numbers in Spokane, I've got a big problem, then we might see. Because remember, survival instincts are going to kick in eventually for members of Congress, the United States Senate. They just have to worry about it on two fronts.

One, are they going to get primaried? So, if they go against the president and they go against Elon Musk, they could be perceived as not loyal. And two they're going to look to see how much they can push on the other side, and can they still see a path to victory.

So, I think that's really, that's really the challenge the next couple weeks is to talking those members and seeing how they read their districts. But a lot of them, as we know, aren't actually home.

RAJU: Yeah. And then there is a Republican Leadership said don't have Town Hall --

HENDERSON: Yes, yeah.

RAJU: -- because they're worried about moments that we just showed on air.

HENDERSON: That's right. And you hear a lot of Republicans essentially saying -- you know these are Democrats who are flocking to these town halls. These aren't our voters. Our voters are still with us on this. The problem is that there is going to be real pain felt by some of these voters in Republican voters as well.

And maybe most especially if you think about what's going on with tariffs, if you think about what's going on with the VA and also if you think about what's going to go on with the Social Security Administration, where it's going to be more difficult for people to file claims.

They won't be able to use the phone initially, they'll have to go in in person. This is going to cause some real upheaval, people having to travel, older people, people with disabilities, and so there is going to be some pain. The problem, again, is so much is going to be done by the time the pain possibly starts, and it's going to be very difficult to completely reverse course and undo some of the things --

RAJU: Yeah.

WRIGHT: I think that one of the interesting things about it, because we saw lawmakers basically go to Elon Musk and say, hey, you need to involve us in your plans. You need to tell us what's going on. And I think in parts of that, they could go back to their districts and say, I can call Elon Musk. I have his phone number. I can reach out to him.

You're not able to access this. OK, let us figure it out. But at a certain point, when does that become a poison pill? Because we know that Elon Musk approval numbers, now that we are tracking them, are go -- are lessening, lessening, lessening. And so, at what point does it become impertinent to not have, you know, such a close relationship?

RAJU: I'm going to guess closer to midterm elections perhaps that's just a guess. I too get to guess about it. All right, coming up breaking news, President Trump just wrapped up a call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. What we know about their conversation that's next.

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RAJU: President Trump just finished his phone call to with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. It's the first time the two have spoken since the Oval Office debacle almost three weeks ago. He says President Trump's nearly two-hour phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin just yesterday. CNN's Chief National Affairs Correspondent Jeff Zeleny joins us live from outside the White House. Jeff, what is the president saying about this phone call with Zelenskyy?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Manu, certainly a different tone from that explosive conversation here 19 days ago. The president spoke with President Zelenskyy for about an hour or so this morning, and the readouts we're getting so far are quite positive, at least from the Trump Administration's point of view.

And that is significant because, of course, Zelenskyy was essentially thrown out of the White House, and it really got those talks -- you know stalled. But the president is writing this on a -- on a Truth Social let's take a look at it. He said much of the discussion was based on the call yesterday with President Putin in order to align both Russia and Ukraine in terms of their requests and needs.

[12:20:00]

Key words here we are very much on track. Now what does all this mean? We do know that these -- you know the phone call yesterday, which was a couple hours long, with the American President and the Russian President was talking about a broader ceasefire. That is not happening. It's a much-limited cease fire about the energy and the infrastructure of Ukraine.

That, of course, has left Zelenskyy with many, many questions. He said, we cannot trust the Russian President. He said this. He said war has made us practical people. So, the bottom line to all of this is a yes, it's a limited step, potentially a step toward a broader ceasefire, but not yet at that point, but again, at least the first to read out of this, it was a positive phone call, and that in itself, is a big deal.

RAJU: And Jeff did the Trump call with Putin actually live up to that ceasefire agreement the U.S. and Ukraine reached last week.

ZELENY: It didn't. It stopped well short of that. I mean, this was not a land, sea and air ceasefire. In fact, it was not that at all. It was talking about a ceasefire any much more limited capacity, which certainly raises skepticism from the Ukrainian side, and it leaves the U.S. side open to some vulnerabilities here in terms of not being able to reach a broader deal.

So, now this is going to go into a technical discussion, if you will, subject matter experts will be meeting next week in Saudi Arabia to go through some of the fine print here. So, it's moving toward a limited ceasefire, but again, not the broader ceasefire for 30 days that the U.S. had talked about last week, Manu.

RAJU: And we'll wait to see what Trump actually says. He said the more details will be coming. Of course, we'll digest those when those come out. Jeff Zeleny from the White House, thank you so much. And next for us, will the Trump tariffs send the economy into a tailspin? The Federal Reserve will weigh in today. The stock markets are eagerly awaiting its answer.

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[12:25:00]

RAJU: Wall Street on edge, anxiously awaiting the Federal Reserve's forecast for the economy. Central Bank will make a formal announcement just over an hour from now, but it is expected to hold interest rates steady. This as economists and top Trump officials openly debate the possibility of a recession.

In other words, it took the Fed years to bring down inflation, then came Trump's trade war. That's the headline there. My panel is back to digest all this. Hans, we do expect the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates steady, but there's going to be so much interest. And what Jay Powell, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, will say in this afternoon press conference, particularly as it relates to the impacts the tariffs could have on inflation?

NICHOLS: And I suspect he won't say a whole lot, right? I mean, Jay Powell is in a tough position where if he starts openly criticizing the president, that could potentially invite a response. I don't think that's too crazy to suggest from the president.

Jay Powell finds himself the same predicament that central bankers across the world face -- are facing, and that is, they are frozen. They are waiting to see and they're waiting for the direction on what Donald Trump does, because they're in a reactive position right now, and no one knows April 2nd is the date for potential tariffs.

No one knows how high they're going to be? Who they're going to be applied to, even if they're going to be applied? And so, the Federal Reserve, like the rest of Americans right now, and they're in a wait and see posture might be nerve wracking, but that's the best you can hope and again, no free investment advice here, but just don't look at your portfolio -

(CROSSTALK)

RAJU: Just -

NICHOLS: -- don't do it like the -

HENDERSON: -- case -

(CROSSTALK)

NICHOLS: You know, don't look.

WRIGHT: Yeah.

NICHOLS: Don't look.

HENDERSON: -- yeah. You have the administration saying, oh -- you know there could be some bumps in the road, even if there's a recession. It's worth it, because --

RAJU: I don't remember that being a campaign.

HENDERSON: No, no, no I do not either. I remember the campaign talking point well, being immediate relief, right? Inflation is terrible. It's all Joe Biden's fault and that Donald Trump was going to come in and fix it all. And that, of course, hasn't happened. You have Americans increasingly not thinking that Donald Trump is very

good with the economy. I think his disapproval rating is something like 55, 56 percent. Again, there is some wiggle room. If you look at the data, they give Donald Trump some room six months to a year to bring down grocery prices, for instance.

But listen, we're going into the summer. People are running going to -- you know go on vacation and buy some snacks for their kids are going to be eating them house -- you know, out of house.

NICHOLS: Here's the counter to that. Gas prices are down. Egg prices are down. And if and when they get a tax credit through Congress, Americans going to have potentially more -- and the economy can take off. I mean, when you look at the pronunciations in the forecasters, their odds of a recession are much lower than they were in 2022 and 2023 when Biden was president. You know, we didn't have when Biden was President a recession.

RAJU: Yeah.

HENDERSON: Yeah.

(CROSSTALK)

NICHOLS: And so again, we all look at forecasts. We all look at the economist's estimates. They're not actually that predictive. And if an economist wants to come and yell at me after the show, it's fine. I've got a lot of anger over the years with economists.

WRIGHT: Yeah -

HENDERSON: Yeah -

RAJU: It depends how the American public feels right? That is a significant point.

HENDERSON: Yes.

RAJU: And look, just look at the you mentioned -- Nia mentioned the polls. The economy is from NBC Poll about Trump's handling of the economy, 44 percent approve, 54 percent disapprove. And it's a similar too with inflation 55 percent disapprove of his handling of inflation compared to 42 percent. Look, this is another poll. CNN had his poll too. He's under water on the economy. That was not the case in his first term.

WRIGHT: Yeah. And I mean, what we've been hearing from the White House is that this is a period of transition.