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Inside Politics
Trump Celebrates Tariffs As His Approach Upends Global Economy; New Polling Signals Concerns About Economy And Tariffs; Are Democratic Governors Making Moves For 2028?. Battle Lines Over Trump Agenda Put GOP Leaders in a Jam; Supreme Court Hands Trump Limited Wins as Pressure Builds; RFK Jr. Races to Reshape U.S. Health Policy at Rapid Clip. Aired 8-9a ET
Aired April 13, 2025 - 08:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[08:00:34]
MANU RAJU, CNN HOST (voice-over): Show of force.
Trump's team closes ranks while his tariff whiplash rattles Americans.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They were getting yippy.
JANET YELLEN, FORMER TREASURY SECRETARY: This is going to be devastating for American households and workers.
RAJU: As his strategy falters --
SEN. RON JOHNSON (R-WI): I don't know what the end game is here yet.
RAJU: Is America at a breaking point?
And power play.
Democratic governors test the waters ahead of 2028. Who stumbled?
GOV. GRETCHEN WHITMER (D), MICHIGAN: It was not where I wanted to be, or plan to be, or would have liked to have been.
RAJU: And who's leading the way?
Plus, supreme clash. The DOJ says a wrongly deported man is alive.
PAM BONDI, ATTORNEY GENERAL: We believe he should stay where he is.
RAJU: But as Trump piles on the pressure, what is the high court strategy?
INSIDE POLITICS, the best reporting from inside the corridors of power, starts now. (MUSIC)
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RAJU (on camera): Good morning and welcome to INSIDE POLITICS SUNDAY. I'm Manu Raju.
Donald Trump won the presidency in no small part on two key issues: controlling rising prices and promises of an immigration crackdown.
But after a volatile week where he sent markets spiraling with his whiplash tariff policies, there are growing questions about the president's strategy and fresh signs the American public is losing confidence in his handling of the economy. All as his administration flirts with defiance against the courts over his hardline immigration policy and the fate of a wrongly deported man, the administration said Saturday is alive and secure, but without providing any details about how Trump officials would secure his release from El Salvador, despite a judge's demands that they do.
No signs of anxiety last night, though, for Trump, as he was greeted by adoring crowds at an ultimate fighting championship event in Miami alongside Elon Musk, a Republican senator and other top Trump officials. And while flying there on Air Force One, he defended his tariff policies and showed no signs of stress.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We're going to the fight, and we have lots of fights going around the world, and I think we have a lot of good news coming soon about some of those fights. Inflation is dropping. Americans have more money and the country has more money. To be nice, I lowered the tariffs on everybody.
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RAJU: All right, let's break this all down with a great panel this morning. "Politico's" Dasha Burns, Jonah Goldberg of "The Dispatch"; "The Washington Post's" Marianna Sotomayor; and CNN's Stephen Collinson.
Good morning to you all. Good to see you all.
So, Trump said that inflation is being is down. There was a March report that did say inflation did cool in March to a six-month low. But, of course, this is before the real brunt of the tariffs have really hit -- hit Americans. And a lot of those came in April, of course. He also said that he lowered tariffs on everybody.
Look at the tariffs that are still in place 145 percent on all Chinese imports, 25 percent on certain Canadian and Mexican imports, 10 percent on nearly all nations and 25 percent for steel, aluminum, foreign automobiles.
Dasha, you cover the White House. Where does the president see this going? On tariffs. Or is it just sort of. Every day is another adventure.
DASHA BURNS, POLITICO WHITE HOUSE BUREAU CHIEF: Well, he said this week, it's all about his instinct, right? Look, remember how much we were reporting at the outset of this administration, that chaos is the strategy. That's how he's going about what he's doing with DOGE. That's how he's going about so many aspects of his agenda.
He's doing that with tariffs as well. He wants to keep everyone off balance. He wants people to come to the table and negotiate. And wonder, you know, how they're going to do this with the White House.
The problem is that uncertainty and chaos is not good for markets. It's not good for consumers. And it's certainly not good for the global economic order. And the question of what the end game is, I think a lot of people around Trump are asking themselves the same thing right now.
RAJU: And look, there was news yesterday, too. Over the weekend, the Trump administration announced there would be some exemptions. There would be for smartphones, computers and various electronic parts are now exempt from Trump's reciprocal tariffs. Now, this is, though, what the Trump advisers had said about possible exemptions and about making some of those iPhones in America because of those tariffs. Listen.
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HOWARD LUTNICK, COMMERCE SECRETARY: Remember, the army of millions and millions of human beings screwing in little -- little screws to make iPhones, that kind of thing is going to come to America.
[08:05:06]
JAMIESON GREER, TRADE REPRESENTATIVE: The president has been clear with me and with others that he does not intend to have exclusions and exemptions.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RAJU: So do not have exclusions and exemptions and then have exclusions and exemptions. What do you make of that?
JONAH GOLDBERG, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah. And they're -- they're particularly problematic exclusions and exemptions because look, the argument for free from free traders for over a century has been protectionism is basically inherently corrupting because it lets big incumbents, big players, stakeholders get carve out exemptions and stuff. And that's exactly what the Trump administration did on Friday night, where they gave a handout to Apple and to Nvidia and a bunch of other big incumbent players, so they're going to continue to manufacture stuff in China.
But American manufacturers who rely on the intermediary parts are still going to get screwed by tariffs. It makes no sense. And I think Dasha had the right word for it. It's instinct.
That's Donald Trump his entire life has said he makes policy and decisions based on instinct. He couldn't even back up Scott Bessent last week, who said this was all part of the plan. He's like, actually all my instinct, right?
(LAUGHTER)
GOLDBERG: And that like, like it's one thing to have that sort of chaos theory escape monkey from a cocaine study kind of thing when it comes to doge or whatever. But, you know, bond markets, they're kind of more conservative and they don't like that kind of stuff.
RAJU: Exactly. And you mentioned about people getting exclusions, perhaps having access to Trump. I mean, Aapple, Tim Cook, he gave a million bucks to Trump's inauguration campaign. Inauguration committee, as they launch the inaugural festivities and announced also $500 billion in Apple investment in the United States.
Look, this is what they were trying to do. Grease the skids, worked closely with Trump and get protected by some of his policies.
MARIANNA SOTOMAYOR, WASHINGTON POST CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER: Absolutely. And I think we should probably be on the lookout for not just businesses doing this, but I am sure lawmakers on Capitol Hill are going to start going to the White House trying to call Trump and say, hey, remember that business that is really big in my state? Can we get some exemptions?
That's what was happening already when he initially put those tariffs against Mexico, against Canada. You saw lawmakers really start to make those calls privately because they obviously publicly say, you know, I'm still with Trump. I think he's great. I think he's making all of these good decisions.
We've seen that wane a little bit. But I would not be surprised if we see a lot of different corners start to go to the White House.
BURNS: And some of the messy messaging here. And the messy policy is also a factor of that. The different ideological perspectives that you have in the cabinet. You have a Peter Navarro, right, who loves tariffs. He's a big driver of this. Howard Lutnick, who's very much on the tariff train.
And then you have Elon Musk also there. Then you have Scott Bessent. So, this is something that we've been watching for a long time to see how that, that kind of ideologically schizophrenic cabinet would end up impacting policy. And here you have that push and pull.
STEPHEN COLLINSON, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: To your point that there doesn't appear to be anyone involved in this who knows very much about China. And we're just about to go into a trade war, which could be catastrophic with the other 21st century superpower. And the idea that Xi Jinping, the president of China, was just going to respond to an order from Trump to come in to talks, to call him up, to do a deal that flies in the face of everything that Xi Jinping's political project is about.
RAJU: Threatening to go -- (CROSSTALK)
COLLINSON: -- against American power. And they see the United States and its allies as a neocolonialist power. And Xi Jinping's entire ideology is set up against that.
GOLDBERG: They've been preparing for this moment for a very long time. America has not been preparing for this moment, but China has been trying to boost up domestic consumption, reorient its economy in a more spartan, I don't think, a smart way, but in a way that makes it more resilient to this kind of trade shock.
RAJU: And so, where does the American public think about all this? I mean, we saw the consumer confidence really plummeting over the last several weeks and months. Just look at this chart on your screen. Really down. According to University of Michigan survey down 11 percent just this month. And then just on the polling as well, the American public, their view of Trump's handling of the economy, 59 percent disapprove of his handling.
That is a significant increase in his disapproval number from just a few weeks ago. And then there was a Washington post poll that had to ask manufacturing workers about whether Trump's tariffs will impact their job. Fifty-seven percent believed it would impact his job.
These are the people that Trump -- a lot of them voted for him.
SOTOMAYOR: Absolutely. And this is something that, you know, over time, as much as the Trump administration and Trump himself are saying, oh, look at the job numbers. Look at -- look at everything going, well, eventually this is actually going to be felt by everybody.
[08:10:02]
And a lot of those manufacturers in that "Washington Post" poll, many of them had voted for Trump, and they're nervous.
And that's why I think you're seeing those poll numbers for him start to go down, because, as you mentioned, that chaos, that uncertainty, that's only going to continue to build if this this is still Trump's plan.
RAJU: But does Trump care about those that anymore, the polls? I mean, yesterday, he was at this UFC event and he came out and he said that -- he said he told reporters it says we're doing a good job because of this applause he got from the crowd there. As you can see on your screen there, he's -- he's waving to the crowd. He's shaking hands.
You know, he -- there were a lot of people like Joe Rogan who came and talked to him. People who have expressed concerns about his tariff policy. But he seems to feel like things are going okay because of episodes like that.
COLLINSON: And that's the imagery of a fighter, someone who's bombastic, who has no doubt that he wants to put across. I think it's a very good question whether he does care, given that he's supposedly a lame duck president. But if people start losing their jobs in the thousands, trade is going to pretty much die out between the United States and China. Key things like pharmaceuticals. It's not just iPhones.
So, I think the political question is how much pain is he prepared to submit or to impose on the American people? And a lot of people think Xi Jinping is willing to impose a lot more pain. And we saw how he did that during COVID.
So, I think there's going to be a crisis point coming up fairly soon in the administration.
BURNS: But pain is a key part of what we witnessed on that stage last night, too. I mean, that what you saw there is a key image from the Trump, the MAGA cinematic universe, right? This is the kind of imagery he wants to show that he is not going to back down. He's good with pain. He has the stomach for it.
The question is, does the rest of the country?
GOLDBERG: Well, and the question also is does congress, because, you know, it's a constitutional nitpick, but the president doesn't have the authority to do any of this according to the constitution. And a lot of people think that even the Supreme Court may step in on him.
But even if the Supreme Court doesn't, all those senators and congressmen who have businesses in their districts, at some point, those donors to their campaigns are going to look up in the Constitution and say, oh, hey, it says you're in charge of trade. They, Congress, could end this tomorrow if it just reasserted its constitutional authority.
RAJU: And the speaker has said that they are not going to step in and give the Trump -- Trump latitude to act on this.
I do want to turn quickly to the news that happened over the weekend involving this case of this Salvadoran man who is in -- who is in Maryland. The administration admitted it wrongly deported him to El Salvador. The courts have -- a judge has said that they want daily updates from the administration about how they are going to secure his release and bring him back to the United States. The administration responded with a two-page filing yesterday saying that the man is alive. He's secure, but no details about how it's securing his release.
Trump is meeting with the Salvadoran president tomorrow in at the White House, and he doesn't seem to be mentioning this situation, at least not yet. According to this truth social post where Trump said these barbarians are now in the sole custody of El Salvador, a proud and sovereign nation, and their future is up to President B and his government.
It sounds like -- do you think is the White House going to comply with this with this judge demands? SOTOMAYOR: I mean, we will see. The one thing about Trump, though, is
that he doesn't like to admit he made a mistake. This is clearly a mistake.
RAJU: And he hasn't admitted it yet.
SOTOMAYOR: No. Exactly.
RAJU: So, I mean, his administration has, but he hasn't.
SOTOMAYOR: Right. And if the executive branch defies the judicial branch, not even the judicial branch, the Supreme Court of the United States is not following the law. I mean, we're entering some weird territory at that point.
BURNS: Well, speaking of weird territory, one of the reports we have this week, myself and my colleague Maya Ward, is at that meeting with Bukele, one of the -- one of the plans that will be discussed is vastly expanding the deportation operation of undocumented immigrants detained in the U.S. to El Salvador.
Private military contractor Erik Prince and his group are looking to get in on that business, to be the commercial partner to do that, a piece of that plan involves giving part of that prison complex in El Salvador to the U.S. so that they can get around some of the legal challenges with sending Venezuelans and Hondurans and others to El Salvador. They technically be sending them to U.S. territory down there.
This is a complicated web of characters involved here, and potentially quite lucrative for some of those military contractors looking to get in.
RAJU: I'll see if any of this comes up at that White House meeting tomorrow. Of course of high interest. We shall see.
All right. Coming up, a picture is worth a thousand words. President Trump putting Democratic governors through the wringer as they start making moves ahead of 2028.
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[08:19:27]
RAJU: Democratic governors are facing a quandary, make nice with President Trump or fight him. With hundreds of millions of dollars of federal aid on the line, governors like Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan see a benefit in not antagonizing the president.
But take a look at this. This is the risk, and she clearly knows it. She hides her face in the Oval Office this past week. It's an image you might see in a presidential campaign attack ad in 2028.
My panel is back. That was a pretty remarkable moment.
GOLDBERG: I was tempted to come back from the commercial break hiding.
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[08:20:01]
GOLDBERG: Some of my friends at Fox don't want to see me here.
That was an amazing moment, and I think it is -- you can understand in the moment she's. Because apparently she got ushered in there and it wasn't planned to be in the Oval Office. And you can imagine the flop sweat of thinking, oh gosh, it's going to be terrible if I have my picture taken here. But this is just it's not a great political instinct moment.
RAJU: Perhaps not. But she had to have known that this was going to be a photo op, or that she's going to be part of the -- Trump always has press conferences in the Oval Office. He does or has at least answers questions from reporters.
SOTOMAYOR: That picture is just like the quintessential image of how the Democratic Party is struggling to figure out how to deal with Trump right now.
GOLDBERG: Dems in disarray.
SOTOMAYOR: Dems in disarray. Folder in front of the face. Like are we there or are we not there? Do we -- do we play? Do we not play? Do we resist? Do we work together?
It's -- they're in a quandary and they have not solved it. And that just shows.
RAJU: Absolutely. And this is how Whitmer is dealing with Trump, according to "The New York Times", had a little nugget in a story from just yesterday. It said the day after the inauguration, Ms. Whitmer penned a handwritten letter congratulating Mr. Trump, saying she looked forward to working together and praising his support for the auto industry in his first address, according to a person who relayed the text of the letter, Ms. Whitmer included her cell phone number and invited Mr. Trump to call her if she could be of any help to him. It's not going toe to toe with Trump that a lot of people in the base may want.
SOTOMAYOR: No, it's been interesting to see how different constituencies of governors are kind of approaching this moment. You've seen someone like Newsom who is so aggressive against Trump suddenly, you know, hug him on the tarmac when he visited California, obviously embracing more of those conservative MAGA voices on his podcast. So, you know, just handing out a phone number.
And Whitmer essentially said, you know, I wanted to get things for my state done. I wanted to talk to him about it.
Then you see other governors, like Shapiro, for example, recently suing the Trump administration for withholding funds. So, you're starting to see kind of a breakup among the governors of which path is the right path. And I don't think anybody knows which ultimately is going to help them when they do decide to run in 2028.
RAJU: Just on the issue of tariffs, how Gretchen Whitmer dealt with it. And we'll listen to how another governor dealt with it.
Here's Whitmer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WHITMER: I don't know how I would have enacted them differently. Tariffs are -- need to be used like a scalpel, not a hammer. I understand the motivation behind the tariffs. And I can tell you here's where President Trump and I do agree. We do need to make more stuff in America. And let's usher in, as President Trump says, a golden age of American manufacturing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RAJU: Oh, wow. So that's the golden age of manufacturing. Okay. And also saying that Trump and Whitmer agree on some certain parts of the tariff policy.
But this is Andy Beshear, who is a Kentucky governor, a Democrat, someone who potentially could run in 2028. He told "Politico": at the end of the day, it's going to be more than just our voices. It's going to be everybody who goes to the supermarket that sees their grocery tab going up, you know, X percent needs to take a picture or video of it and needs to post it and call it the Trump tax.
That's all he's saying we should talk about Democrats, should talk about the tariffs.
COLLINSON: Right. And each politician has their own constituency and they're all working out. How do I protect my state? How do I perhaps plot a path through the Democratic primary?
Like running for president is really hard, even in a normal political environment. At this point in the cycle, people would be quietly starting to campaign for midterm candidates, building a foundation their campaign.
But they are facing a president who we've seen will use presidential power to punish his political opponents and their states. At the same time, they're feeling the massive pull from the Democratic base to do more. Shapiro, for example, went on Bill Maher, who was talking about Schumer, should have done more to use his leverage.
So, they're in a very difficult position. And you see that picture any moment over the next three years can define their campaign, even though they've said they're not even necessarily running for president yet.
RAJU: In speaking, you mentioned Gavin Newsom. You know, he's been making waves on this podcast of his he had some conservative voices on like Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon. And he's been trying to moderate or pull back from his position or Democrats views on social issues.
This is what he said about the Democratic brand.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM (D), CALIFORNIA: I mean, this idea that we can't even have a conversation with the other side.
BILL MAHER, TV HOST: You have to, they won.
NEWSOM: These guys are crushing us. The Democratic brand is toxic right now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RAJU: What do you think about the way he's handling this moment?
GOLDBERG: I'm just really impressed by his hair. Look --
(LAUGHTER)
RAJU: He does have nice hair.
GOLDBERG: I think the problem with Newsom is that his glibness is so priced into his persona that nobody listens to him as a conviction politician anymore, at least. And I mean that among Democratic hardcore primary, like the number of consultants I've talked to who are like, yeah, that's not going to happen.
[08:25:00]
And so, I think he's sort of directionally right about the toxicity of the Democratic brand. I think the party does need a reboot, but I think that his brand in particular is sort of just say whatever you need to say to become the nominee. And that's not the brand the Democrats need.
RAJU: It seems like it's very calculated to, which is potentially not very helpful this early, this far out from a Democratic primary.
BURNS: Yeah. I mean, right now, the top quality that that most voters want, wherever they are on the political spectrum is authenticity. I mean, that's why Trump captured so many people in this really unique way because they felt like he's raw, he's real. He says it like it is. And you just don't get that from -- from a Newsom. The question right now for Democrats is, they do need someone to galvanize the message and be the messenger and help with the playbook. And there just isn't that one person right now. And that's what I'm hearing, both from voters and from operatives, is like, who is leading the charge right now to have us sing from the same?
RAJU: We know who is leading the charge right now. This -- look at Tim Walz, what he said about how they're trying to deal with this.
He said: Donald Trump did a wonderful job of articulating why these people are angry. He's done nothing to improve that. And they don't believe we have either. That's what I'm trying to figure out.
So, he's trying to lead the charge by reaching out to those voters that rejected them.
SOTOMAYOR: Yeah. And you're seeing Democrats going into these conservative states or conservative districts just trying to understand and finally talk to those voters. That was a big takeaway from the 2024 election, is just talking directly to voters. I think on the messaging front, when you mentioned tariffs, there isn't a voice on that, and you are seeing a divide even among House Democrats who want to explain and say, kind of like Whitmer did.
Oh, yeah. Like I do agree a little bit with the tariffs. Let's -- let's be strategic about it. Then you have a whole constituency of Democrats also saying, can we just stay united on that message and say, exactly like Beshear did, taxes, it's going to raise prices. This is bad. This is a Trump tax.
So, like even that, like we're just watching them in real time, whether it's tariffs or other messaging, just trying to figure it out in real time. You don't have that uniter.
RAJU: A big problem, yes, because there's no uniter, no leader to actually drive a message. It's going to be an issue for them in the next several years, next year at least.
All right. Coming up, a GOP fight is intensifying over Trump's agenda. My new reporting on the jam House and Senate GOP leaders find themselves in as we hit day 100 of the new Congress.
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[08:32:01]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-NY): I do believe that the Republican Party in its first hundred days has set themselves up. Yes, not only to lose majorities, but also to frankly enrich themselves in the process.
I don't even know if they want to keep their majorities next year more than they are here to enrich themselves. And everyone should be enraged at that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MANU RAJU, CNN HOST: Voters are starting to feel the full scope of Trump 2.0 as we hit day 100 of the new Congress. And Democrats see an opening with a newly energized base.
Just yesterday, progressives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders drew what organizers, organizers said was 36,000 people in L.A. as anger over Trump's tariffs fuels more Republican concerns about holding on to the House.
It's only raising the pressure on GOP leaders who find themselves in a jam over their big shot at passing the president's priorities. This morning, I have new reporting, along with my colleague Sarah
Ferris, about how the GOP battle lines are already being drawn over their controversial package to advance the sweeping Trump agenda, which includes a massive overhaul of the tax code and more than $1 trillion in spending cuts.
My panel is back.
I just want to start talking about what AOC said there at the top, what she's trying to position Democrats as the opposition, the check and accused Republicans as enriching themselves.
Is that the message that Democrats want to be heading into the midterms? She represents the wing of the party, but simply being the opposition, is that enough?
STEPHEN COLLINSON, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: I think what she's trying to do is devalue the Republican brand but at the same time, what people are worried about is their 401(k)s tanking, the price of groceries, everything else.
And the Democrats in the last election didn't really have a good answer on that. So potentially that might be their winning message. But it's interesting how presidencies now -- we seem to have gotten to this point where there's almost an assumption that each president gets two years to pass their agenda, and then they lose the house.
It's the -- I think it's a cycle that shows the absolute volatility of our politics now.
RAJU: Let's talk about that agenda. The Republican leaders made a whole bunch of promises to clear the first step to advance the Trump agenda. One of them would do $1.5 trillion in spending cuts. They're not specifying where those spending cuts are coming from.
They want to make the 2017 Trump tax cuts permanent. They also said they would not raise the deficit. And you're already hearing some pushback from some Republicans, including Senator Susan Collins of Maine, who says that she's not going to support any cuts in Medicaid that harm people with disabilities, low-income families or seniors. And she went on to say that she's open to some other changes to it.
[08:34:44]
RAJU: Marianna, you cover Capitol Hill. What are you hearing about how complicated it's going to be for the Republicans to get this through in this key moment?
MARIANNA SOTOMAYOR, WASHINGTON POST CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER: It's going to be so messy. It's so messy.
I mean, I think everyone's kind of looking at this and knowing how intense it's going to be because it's not just, you know, Republicans in the House and Senate who have their differences, which we saw this week. But even within the House, you have the fiscal hawks, the budget
hawks, who just want to cut an insane amount of money. You have the moderates who are thinking, well, if I have to vote for these aggressive cuts and maybe the Senate doesn't pass this bill from the House, then I just took a really intense vote that's going to screw me. It's going to be in ads and likely could lose my seat.
So all of these tensions are coming into play, especially a lot faster given the economy that we're in right now. A lot of members, you could have asked them a couple weeks ago, oh, well, you know, we have to get this done before next year because everything becomes political next year. Well, everything is becoming political right now.
RAJU: Right. Exactly. And speaking of which, you talked about the anxiety of the economic policies about the tariffs. I put that question to Republicans about this, about asking them about the impact that the tariffs could have on their reelection chances.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. DON BACON (R-NE): If we end up having a recession or depression, just like in any other election, going back 250-some odd years, the party in power pays for it.
RAJU: Politically, do you think if this goes on, this could be -- what kind of impact does this have on the midterms, do you think?
SEN. RON JOHNSON (R-WI): Well, I mean, the stock market were to crash and continue falling and we have a recession that have dramatic impact on the midterms and Trump fully understands that.
REP. THOMAS MASSIE (R-KY): We are not using the majority. We are not capitalizing on the mandate that we received in November. And we're running out of time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RAJU: It speaks to what you were saying earlier about the anxiety within the ranks.
JONAH GOLDBERG, CO-FOUNDER/EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, THE DISPATCH: Yes. I mean, there was this -- there's a great quote passage from, I think, "The Wall Street Journal" this week on one of the TikTok pieces, saying that Trump was willing to have a recession, but he drew the line at a depression. And that's the kind of reassuring "I've got your back" message the House GOP wants to get.
RAJU: Yes, right.
But I mean to -- what Ron Johnson said was that we have a recession that would have a dramatic impact on the midterms and Trump fully understands that.
Is Trump thinking about that?
DASHA BURNS, POLITICO WHITE HOUSE BUREAU CHIEF: I don't think he's thinking about that in this moment. He's thinking about his legacy. He's thinking about what he wants to accomplish. He's not at the moment concerned about what the midterms are going to look like for the GOP.
But I've talked to members of the House who work in districts in Pennsylvania where manufacturing and voters are going to take a real hit, people on Medicare and Medicaid, and they're looking at this requirement to cut.
And they're saying, I don't know how we cut without cutting some of these programs that are critical to my voters. This is going to be a serious problem.
RAJU: They went through one step in advancing the agenda. Now, the real hard part, actually making decisions. And those decisions could impact the lives of voters. And that could have an impact on the midterms.
All huge issues that will play out in the months ahead.
All right. Coming up, will the president end up in a direct confrontation with the Supreme Court? One of the foremost Supreme Court experts joins us next on signals from the justices about how they would respond.
[08:38:11]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
RAJU: President Trump's domestic policies rest in large part on whether the conservative supermajority in the Supreme Court will go along with them as he tests the boundaries of his powers and federal law.
The justices, a third of whom Trump appointed in his first term, have given some clues on how they'll handle the onslaught of litigation his administration is facing.
Now, A new test over a man the administration wrongly deported to El Salvador, and remains to be seen whether they will try to bring him back.
Joining me now is CNN's chief Supreme Court analyst, Joan Biskupic. Joan, so great to see you this morning.
I want to get your take on how the Supreme Court is handling this, all this -- all these cases. And you know, this case involving this Maryland man really kind of gives a window into it because they said that the nine-zero decision the Trump administration must, quote, "facilitate" return of the man. But it wasn't as strong as perhaps some people would like.
JOAN BISKUPIC, CNN CHIEF SUPREME COURT ANALYST: Definitely. And I think that's a good example of what's happening here.
The Roberts court has given Donald Trump some outright wins. For example, letting him continue the cancellation of Department of Education teacher grants, letting him keep probationary workers off the payroll.
But then, this case that you're talking about, where this man was mistakenly deported to El Salvador, this very, you know, notoriously brutal prison and a lower court judge had said essentially that the government had to bring him back, had to bring him back.
And the Supreme Court said, no, we're just saying the word "facilitate" -- what a jargony word. But what it means in this kind of -- in this situation is assist -- assist as you can.
And the justices even wrote in their opinion that the lower court judge still has to give due regard for the deference that the administration would have in foreign affairs. So --
RAJU: Essentially vague.
BISKUPIC: Vague, but also providing the administration sufficient latitude and wiggle room.
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BISKUPIC: So a lot of people initially thought, oh, a great win for the challengers. In all practicality, it might not be a win for this Maryland father who was wrongly deported to El Salvador.
And I think this is a good example, as you say, that something might look like they're putting a check on the Trump administration, but I don't know, Manu, how much of a check our nation's highest court is truly going to be on Donald Trump.
RAJU: That's interesting. And, you know, we've seen the court's conservative justices like Amy Coney Barrett and the Chief Justice John Roberts, they are siding with the three liberals at times.
Roberts sided with them twice. Barrett sides them in two cases as well. They both joined the liberal justices, making a majority and forcing Trump to pay foreign aid that Congress approved.
Barrett also sided with three liberal justices in the minority in a 5- 4 decision that Trump was allowed to continue to deport people under the Alien Enemies Act. What do you make of Barrett and Roberts?
BISKUPIC: Ok, first of all, I should make sure our audiences know they are still very conservative. They're very conservative.
When they inch away from the hard right majority, it's very incrementally. You know, face it, ever since Obamacare, the right wing has really been suspicious of John Roberts, and he is more apt to go a touch to the left more than Justice Barrett.
Justice Barrett, she has a real interest in procedure, rule following, a textualist approach that gives her a real narrow kind of conception of what is allowed.
So when you see her move over, it's almost always because she doesn't feel like the procedures have been followed correctly.
But I don't want anyone to think that we've got a lefty in the making. This is no David Souter. If you remember back in the day when everyone said no David Souters anymore from the Republicans.
You know, she still voted to reverse abortion rights. She still voted to reverse affirmative action. She still has really curtailed the regulatory power of the government. But she is someone who's very much mindful of how procedures should be followed.
And the other thing, one last thing about how they dissent. When they dissent, they do it with minimal statements. The chief when he dissented in the education grants one, wrote one sentence that said, I would have denied the administration's appeal. Very unlike the liberals who are shouting.
RAJU: And I want to ask you about that, because you have this new reporting about Ketanji Brown Jackson really writing in depth in a lot of these dissents.
BISKUPIC: Yes.
RAJU: And she also raised concerns about the so-called shadow docket. These are these emergency applications that have been filed to the Supreme Court. Ten times the Trump administration has filed these emergency applications.
You compare that to, collectively, Bush and Obama presidencies. There were eight emergency applications in the -- collectively in their two terms, totaling 16 years in office.
What do you make of that and how the liberals are responding to this?
BISKUPIC: Ok, so just so people know, when something is filed under an emergency process, there's not a full briefing, there's not oral arguments. So the court doesn't have the advantage of what are the true arguments on both sides and the liberal justices, especially Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, are saying doing it this way is careless, essentially. You're not giving us proper heed to arguments on both sides. And she's writing in the strongest, most forceful terms.
The other two liberals are also complaining, but she's breaking away to go even further. And I think in some ways not speaking to her colleagues, but speaking to people out there.
You know, you mentioned Justice Barrett before. Those two, Justice Jackson and Justice Barrett, are our youngest justices, so they will be the face of the Supreme Court going forward.
RAJU: All right. So fascinating. This is such -- it's great to get your insight and analysis --
BISKUPIC: Sure.
RAJU: -- and breaking down the dynamics of the Supreme Court. Always great to hear Joan Biskupic on that nation's highest court.
All right. Next, RFK Jr. is rapidly upending the health care industry from vaccines to fluoride to autism and massive cuts. There's a lot you may have missed this week -- the moves that he is making and why it all matters. That's next.
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RAJU: This week we saw Robert Kennedy Jr. racing to reshape the nation's health care policy faster than many expected, with fundamental changes that could upend the health care system for years to come.
CNN's Meg Tirrell joins us now. Meg, bring us up to speed on this whirlwind week and why it matters.
MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well Manu, RFK Jr. started the week in Texas, where he attended the funeral of the second child to die in this growing measles outbreak.
There, he actually offered his strongest endorsement yet of measles vaccination.
But at the same time he sent out social media messages praising doctors on the ground who were using unapproved treatments to treat children with measles. So public health experts worried he was really spreading mixed messages about vaccination.
Then we saw him embark on his Make America Healthy Again tour starting in Utah, which of course was the first state to ban adding fluoride to drinking water. This, of course, is a practice that's been done for decades across the United States in order to prevent tooth decay.
And RFK Jr. said as part of that, he's going to direct the CDC to recommend that nobody add fluoride to drinking water. So that was alarming to public health experts as well.
But probably the biggest bombshell that came this week was when Kennedy said at a cabinet meeting that he was launching this massive study into the cause of the, quote, "autism epidemic" and that he planned to have an answer by September.
[08:54:49]
TIRRELL: Now, this raised a lot of eyebrows, because scientists don't believe that a real, rigorous and large study of this kind could yield an answer so predictably in just five months. But they're also skeptical, of course, because of RFK Jr.'s past comments tying vaccines and autism.
And of course, all of this comes after HHS has fired a huge number of employees -- 10,000 in the latest reduction in force, on top of another 10,000 who had already left, shrinking the size of the department by 25 percent. It sounds as if more movements are on the horizon, Manu, and this has
already really dramatically changed the scientific landscape and the public health infrastructure of the U.S. And it sounds like that's going to continue.
RAJU: And thanks, Meg. And of course, dozens of studies have shown no link between autism and childhood vaccines.
That's it for INSIDE POLITICS SUNDAY. You can follow me on X @mkraju. Follow the show @INSIDE POLITICS. Follow me on Instagram @manu_raju.
If you ever miss an episode, just catch up wherever you get your podcasts and search for INSIDE POLITICS.
Up next "STATE OF THE UNION WITH JAKE TAPPER AND DANA BASH". Jake's guests include White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren.
Thanks again for sharing your Sunday morning with us. We'll see you next time.
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