Return to Transcripts main page

Inside Politics

Sources: Trump Privately Concedes Ending Ukraine War Has Been Harder Than He Thought; Trump Won't Comment On Whether He's Spoken To Xi Since Levying Massive Tariffs, After Claiming Xi Called Him; Trump Targets Democratic Fundraising Site With DOJ Probe; Sources: DOGE Planning To Use Sensitive Federal Data For Immigration Crackdown. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired April 25, 2025 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:00]

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF & POLITICAL DIRECTOR: -- and fast and around the 100 days mark, perhaps, and announce a deal. It seems to me that this is still -- we've got some time here to go before we know that there's a road out of this.

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: Yes. And you're so right about -- it's sort of classic Trump, that he says thing -- generally speaking, when a president speaks about a negotiation, it is parsed incredibly carefully, intentionally, either to send a signal to one side, to push another side. That's not true with President Trump.

He just says things that he wants to say because he wants to say them. An example, yesterday in the Oval Office, being asked about whether Russia is giving up anything.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What concessions has Russia offered up thus far to get to the point where you're closer to peace?

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Stopping the war. Stopping taking the whole country, pretty big concession.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

BASH: And then in a interview, a really lengthy interview that he did for his 100-day mark with TIME Magazine, he said the following, "Putin would rather go and take the whole thing," meaning Crimea. "And I think that because of me, I believe I'm the only one that can get this thing negotiated."

He also, by the way, said that Crimea is basically Russia's now, which Ukraine does not agree with.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR & CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: I think you both make a really important point that people, for some reason, despite four years of his first presidency and his campaign and how he speaks about foreign policy, geopolitics, direct negotiations, how he speaks about autocrats and dictators and strongmen, this tracks -- and I think people revert back to, well, that's not what you're supposed to say or that's not how you're supposed to say it or that's not the U.S. position on these things traditionally.

This is Donald Trump. He negotiates and often just throws and lavishes praise upon strongmen. Part of that, according to his advisers, is intentional. It is an effort, it is a negotiating strategy. Part of it is he also identifies more with those individuals.

He very clearly believed from the very start that he could move Ukraine by browbeating them in a way that the U.S. refused to do, E.U. allies refused to do, even though Biden administration officials had plenty of their own friction with Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his aides, and he has done that.

What pressure he's exerting behind the scenes on Russia I think is a very open question. What he said about Crimea, what he said about NATO, all of those things are things that privately, even those who are huge supporters of Ukraine, more or less acknowledge at this point.

He just says it out loud. I think the biggest question right now, given his strategy, which again tracks very -- in a very similar manner to what we've always seen with him in these moments, is what's the outcome? What's the outcome? And no one can really define --

BASH: Right.

MATTINGLY: -- what it's supposed to look like, what it could look like, or what they're driving towards right now, and that I think is the hardest part.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: And --

BASH: Go ahead.

BARRON-LOPEZ: But the implications -- the ramifications of the way he's handling the negotiations, of the way he's handling Russia and Ukraine, and the way he talks about it publicly, and all this rhetoric, I mean, the impact of it is that our traditional allies are now viewing -- you know, reckoning with the fact that they believe that the transatlantic alliance is potentially dead, and that they're having to find a new way forward without the United States.

I mean, that's one of the biggest impacts of what we're seeing play out right now. And on Phil's point about Trump's fascination with strongmen, I mean, he also -- he's fascinated by them partially because he wishes that he could be a little bit more like them. And we know this because it's been reported that he says it privately, that he wishes he could take actions that they take, whether it's Bukele or Viktor Orban in Hungary, or others, that he wishes that he could lead the country in a way that they lead theirs.

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, but the other part of this too is that he also cushions it a little bit by putting blame on Zelenskyy. And remember, they had that combative Oval Office meeting. He has said that Ukraine has started the war, that Ukraine is actively creating this, sort of diminishing the fact that Russia started the war, right?

So placing blame on Zelenskyy as he similarly tries to buy more time after his campaign promises to end this quite quickly.

BASH: Right, in the first day.

ALVAREZ: Right.

BASH: So on that, if you take the Russia-Ukraine situation and put it on the side for a second, there's also the question of his negotiating prowess when it comes to China, which is the whole ballgame right now when it comes to the U.S. economy, the global economy.

And our colleague, Alayna Treene, asked the President about whether he has spoken with Xi Jinping.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN REPORTER: You said you spoke with President Xi.

TRUMP: I did.

TREENE: Have you spoken to him since the tariffs? When did you last speak with him?

TRUMP: I don't want to comment on that, but I've spoken to him many times.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

BASH: And then back to that TIME Magazine question, the President said, "Xi's called. And I don't think that's a sign of weakness on his behalf." The question, "But your conversations with Xi have made you feel like we're moving towards a more productive -- "

"Oh, there's a number at which they will feel comfortable."

[12:35:06]

So first and foremost, there is the question of their conversations because there's definitely been mixed reporting about whether they've even spoken. He obviously insists that he has spoken with the Chinese leader. But again, the campaign promise was get me in there.

Not only will I make the trade deficit go away, fairness, as he talks about, but I can do it in a productive way because I have relationships with these leaders. And that's not bearing out yet.

CHALIAN: Not yet, and yet is the operative word there, right? We will see if it does. I mean, apart from China, he has promised a slew of deals are coming our way. I think we're going to have to redefine what deal means, because I don't know that we're going to have actual deals in place. Those usually take some time. So is there going to be some sort of memo of understanding or something, some fig leaf for Donald Trump to claim victory on that may not actually be an actual trade deal.

MATTINGLY: Can I just cut through everything real quick? He's not spoken to Xi since the tariffs actually transpired. There are no high- level talks between principals of -- on a bilateral basis that are occurring. There are some low-level discussions on issues that are not tied to trade.

I was told that, well, sometimes news of day comes up in those discussions, but the idea, the back and forth right now, there is no alternative, like, fact here. There is complete freeze in this bilateral relationship at the principal-to-principal level, but also at the top deputies level.

BASH: Yes.

MATTINGLY: There were two top Chinese economic officials who were in town for the World Bank IMF meetings over the course of the last 72 hours for two full days. There were no meetings. That says everything you need to know about where that relationship stands.

Again, yet being the key caveat that David mentions right now, but this kind of game they're playing with ambiguity and wording --

BASH: Yes.

MATTINGLY: -- and timing of talk, like they aren't happening right now.

BASH: Yes. I'm so glad you said that, Phil. That's really important. And I'm reading again what he said to Alayna Treene, the President, "I don't want to comment on that, but I've spoken to him many times". That's his way of, not it.

CHALIAN: Many times when.

BASH: Yes, exactly. We don't know.

Still ahead on Inside Politics, President Trump has a new target, and that is how Democrats raise money for campaigns against Republicans. We will explain after a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:41:55]

BASH: Doing, quote, "exactly what he campaigned on". That's what President Trump told TIME Magazine as he flexes his executive power in ways we really haven't seen in any modern president, and there is no precedent as well.

In a new interview to mark his 100th day in office, the President told TIME Magazine, quote, "Well, I don't feel I'm expanding it," referring to his power. "I think I'm using it as it was meant to be used. What I'm doing is exactly what I've campaigned on."

And my panel is back now. This is one of the overarching themes. There's so many bits and pieces that in and of themselves would be an oh-my-goodness moment, but they all fall into an overarching theme, which is he, the President, fundamentally believes in executive power, as you were saying earlier, wants more, wishes he had more constitutional executive power.

And even in areas where he might not, he is very liberal, small l, in using that power to go after people he wants to diminish or he wants to undermine.

MATTINGLY: And this is the most important difference whenever everybody tries to compare first term to second term, that people need to understand. His kind of personal views or theories of the case behind what he should be able to do as president have always existed in this space.

The difference now is he has a large team of lawyers that support the unitary theory of the executive, which now give him the legal underpinning to push the boundaries here. He has a large team of senior advisers who have spent several years working through, like you can go through the proposals by the outside groups led by Stephen Miller, led by Russ Vought, led by those kind of close cadre of Trump allies who are now in the West Wing.

And if you talk about universities, if you talk about DEI, if you talk about law firms, if you talk about weaponization of the Justice Department, they have laid all of this stuff out and the authorities they want to use to pursue it. That's what's different.

He's always said these things, he's always thought these things. Now he has the basis to actually pursue them.

CHALIAN: I'd argue he has one more thing, which is a party remade --

MATTINGLY: Yes.

CHALIAN: -- in his image on Capitol Hill. So if you think about it years ago --

BASH: Not common thing (ph).

CHALIAN: Right, I mean, think about a Paul Ryan speakership and a Mitch McConnell-led Senate and a swathe of Republicans that still existed in a sort of non-Trump supportive space, that is gone.

BASH: Yes.

CHALIAN: That doesn't exist anymore.

MATTINGLY: Yes.

CHALIAN: So there is -- that was a huge story we covered constantly --

BASH: Sure. CHALIAN: -- in the first time around. If Republicans on Hill trying to express to the rights premises of the world in the White House that this needed to be reined in, that is gone.

BARRON-LOPEZ: It's also gone within the administration.

CHALIAN: Yes.

BASH: Yes.

BARRON-LOPEZ: Any kind of person that would have stood up to him isn't there anymore.

BASH: I want to read another quote from this TIME Magazine piece because it really does kind of encapsulate part of what we're talking about here, talking about John Adams. "John Adams said we're a government ruled by laws, not by men." This is the question, "Do you agree with that?"

"John Adams said that? We're a government ruled by laws, not by men? Well, I think we're a government ruled by law, but you know, somebody has to administer the law. So therefore men, certainly men and women, certainly play a role in it. I wouldn't agree with it 100 percent. We are a government where men are involved in the process of law, and ideally you're going to have honest men like me."

[12:45:23]

OK, so sit on that for a second, and then let's look at what I think is a very, very important development that happened in the last, what, 12 hours or so, which is the President of the United States telling the Department of Justice to investigate ActBlue.

What is ActBlue? ActBlue is a fundraising mechanism that almost all Democratic candidates use. And just what does this mean in real terms? It means that he is trying to undermine the ability of Democrats to raise money. Why do they raise money? For their campaigns. Why do they raise money for their campaigns? To run against Republicans.

Now, there might be some things going on that DOJ should investigate. I'm not saying there isn't. We'll see. But it's the fact that the President is ordering DOJ to do that fits with this larger pattern that we're talking about.

BARRON-LOPEZ: Right. There's no separation anymore between the Justice Department and the Executive Office, which traditionally there has been in the post-Watergate era. And so he is broken through all of that and essentially directing the Justice Department whenever he wants to go after anyone he wants them to go after, whether or not there is any kind of whiff of a crime or not. Or he's just saying, go search for one against any kind of political opposition.

I mean, historians will tell you that this is textbook, what they call competitive authoritarian regime, which is essentially where you try to annihilate any kind of opposition, whether it's through harassment, whether it's through investigations, making it so the playing field is not even at all anymore.

And that's something that you've seen across the board, whether it's going after law firms, universities, any people that he thinks may present a challenge to him. That -- I mean, that's essentially what we're seeing right now.

And I think that when you look at over the past 100 days, that what judges have been saying, what the judiciary has been saying, they've used terms like, quote, "We are on a path of perfect lawlessness". They've described his actions as capricious. They've described it as brazen.

I think there is a lot that the judiciary is warning about in terms of the coming conflict between the two branches.

ALVAREZ: Can I also go back to that quote about John Adams? Because one of the key measures that the administration is using on its immigration agenda is from the John Adams era, the 1798 Alien Enemies Act. So that went to your point about preparation and to tie this all together.

They were prepared and they are -- this is what's fascinating about this time around, they are using laws on the books that are centuries old to try to execute on their agenda now. And it is fascinating to see them dig into the books to find those legal authorities to do it. Now, whether or not they can do it in this context or in this moment, that is something that the courts are wrestling with, but it is fascinating to see them dig those up --

CHALIAN: Let's also acknowledge the irony of somebody who campaigned for a year on -- against the so-called weaponization of the Justice Department, using it literally as a political weapon to go after your political opponents, Democrats in this case, and try -- talk about a chilling effect that you mentioned earlier, and try to wipe out --

BASH: Yes.

CHALIAN: -- Democrats' ability to raise those small dollar donations.

BASH: Bingo. That was the point I was trying to make and you just said it in 10 seconds per usual. Thank you.

Up next, a massive new database to drive President Trump's deportation machine. We've got brand new CNN reporting on how Elon Musk's team plans to use sensitive IRS and Social Security data to find people to deport. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:53:24]

BASH: Brand new CNN reporting now, sources tell CNN that Elon Musk's team is combining sensitive data from across the federal government to create a master database for immigration enforcement. CNN's Priscilla Alvarez is part of that reporting team and is still with us. So tell me about this database, how it's being made, and how it's going to work.

ALVAREZ: So, of course, we've been reporting on how DOGE has been trying to collect information from different parts of the federal government. The idea here is to create one master database to make it easier to more quickly identify, detain, and deport undocumented immigrants.

And you have to understand a key component of immigration enforcement to understand why this is so important to them. So when officers are going out to find someone, they build these targeting lists. That's a technical term, but essentially it's a list of people that they think or know are removable.

Tom Homan, the Border Czar, talks about them quite often. And that's why we saw so many arrests in the first few days of the Trump administration because they had those lists already. And then we started to slow down. And the reason it slowed down is because they don't have the list.

So the hope from the Trump officials that I am talking to say, this would be a way for us to more quickly find people who are deportable, or we believe to be deportable, build those lists and have officers go and detain them, and then speed up deportations in that manner.

Now, the company that they're using is one that has been a federal contractor for years. It's founded by a Musk ally, it's known as Palantir. They have worked with Immigration and Customs Enforcement on their criminal investigations before. But when we looked at public records, we also found that they are expanding that contract to also include more information to do more work for them.

[12:55:09]

Now, when I've talked to some former Homeland Security officials, they tell me, look, it is a general purpose data tool. That means you can find all kinds of data in it. But it is much harder sometimes with Immigration Enforcement because even if someone's undocumented, that doesn't always mean that they're immediately removable. So that is something that they would have to work through in this instance.

Now, Trump was asked about the collection of data by DOGE. This was in the TIME Magazine where TIME asked, "What does your administration plan to do with information obtained by the IRS and other agencies as part of the DOGE effort?" Trump said, "Well, I don't know about the IRS because as you know, I'm not involved in it, but we found tremendous waste, fraud and abuse. Tremendous."

You know, the TIME went on to ask, will you use it to speed up the deportation operation? And he said, "Not that I know of". Well, I can tell you from my sources, they certainly want this database to do exactly that because they need numbers to go up amid White House pressure.

BASH: All right, thank you so much for bringing us that reporting, Priscilla. Appreciate it. And thank you for joining Inside Politics. Be sure to join me on State of the Union this Sunday. Among my guests is Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York. I hope to see you Sunday at 9:00 a.m. Eastern right here on CNN.

CNN News Central starts after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)