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White House Focuses on Immigration Ahead of Trump's 100th Day in Office; CNN Poll: Trump Approval on Handling Economy is 39 percent, Lower Than Any Point During his First Term; Buttigieg: "I Want you to know that your family is going to be fine, even if it's a Family like Mine"; Democrats Look to Break Through as Trump Approval Falls. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired April 28, 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, INSIDE POLITICS: Today in "Inside Politics", a widespread rebuke. 99 days into President Trump's term, a new CNN poll shows his approval dropping to the lowest level on record for any president at this point in their presidency, as the White House attempts to turn the public's attention to what they see as their biggest accomplishment so far.

Plus, searching for a counter attack. One top Democrat says it's time to, quote, stop surrendering. So, what's the Democratic Party's plan for the next 100 days? And its Election Day in Canada. One of, if not the, top issue for voters, Donald Trump, his trade war and his fanciful push to make the critical U.S. ally America's 51st state.

I'm Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines and "Inside Politics". First up, dismantling the federal government, igniting a volatile trade war, strong arming key American allies, threatening perceived political enemies at home. Those are just some of the ways President Trump has spent his first 99 days in office.

Ahead of tomorrow's hyped-up benchmark, the White House is choosing to focus on immigration. Border Czar Tom Homan took an early morning victory lap in front of reporters earlier today, highlighting the plunge and illegal border crossings over the last three months. But as we've been reporting, the administration's crackdowns on undocumented immigrants who are already in the U.S. has come with plenty of problems.

My colleague Priscilla Alvarez asked Tom Homan about a mother who was deported over the weekend with her young children who are U.S. citizens. Here's how Homan responded.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOM HOMAN, WHITE HOUSE BORDER CZAR: If you choose have U.S. citizen child, knowing you're in this country legally, you put yourself in that position. You put your family in that position. What we did is remove children with their mothers who requested the children depart with them.

This is a parental decision. Parental want to -- parenting one on one, the mothers made that choice. And I tell you what, we didn't do it. The story today be Trump Administration separating families again. No, we're keeping families again. Parents will make a decision what happens to their child. Having U.S. citizen child, does that make you immune from our laws?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: I'm joined here by a terrific group of reporters today. CNN's John King, Jackie Kucinich of "The Boston Globe", Jeff Mason of Reuters, and CNN's Priscilla Alvarez, who, again, is the one who asked Tom Homan that question. I want to -- as we start this discussion, as we are talking a lot about the first 100 days.

Let's just start where the White House wants to start, which is immigration, because they obviously think, as we mentioned, all the issues, this is the best one. But even the best one, they're struggling. This is the CNN poll that came out 24 hours ago. Look at this. Right now, it's only 45 percent approval on immigration. Back in March, it was 51 percent. So, it is going down, John.

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Some of it is the what he is doing, and some of it is the how he is doing it, when you travel the country. Broadly, the president has a pretty long leash when it comes to let's get tougher at the border. Let's deport criminals. He's fine there

The issue is, when you start making mistakes and deporting people aren't supposed to be deported. Or I would also posit, in my travels in the country, in places where he did better with Latinos. There's fear in the community. They think he's going to overreach. They think he's going to come for people again.

I know some people at home will say, too bad, but there are a lot undocumented who are doing work, who have support in their community, who, yes, they did break the law when they came into the country, but they haven't done anything wrong since. And a lot of people say, well, why would you go after them?

So, the debate continues, and so broadly, this is the president's best issue, sure, but when you get into the nuts and bolts of a how he's doing it and how it impacts certain communities. That's when you get the debts. And you do see a drop in his support among Latinos, which is a big part of his sweeping the battle grounds.

BASH: Yeah.

KING: And you do see some damage there.

BASH: And on that note, there's a new lengthy piece from "The Atlantic" out this morning, which includes a new interview with the president. And one of the questions is, what would happen we asked this is "The Atlantic", if his administration accidentally got the wrong person, a legal resident or even an American citizen. This is obviously before the weekend events. Let me tell you that nothing will ever be perfect in this world. Is how the president responded.

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I think it was also telling is thereafter, there's another quote from the president saying, well, they're all bad guys. They're all dangerous people.

[12:05:00]

But today, one of the headlines is that there are children U.S. citizen, children who have been removed from the United States with their mothers. Now that was part of the question that I was asking the White House Border Czar who said, look, it was up to the mother to leave.

But the point of how they're doing it is so critical here, because when you look through these court filings, the attorneys are saying, sure, the mother decided to do that, but she didn't have a chance to speak to anyone. She spoke very briefly to the father. Now you have a four-year-old who's in Honduras, who has stage four cancer, and they don't have their medications.

BASH: The four-year-old --

ALVAREZ: The four-year-old, and so as these stories pile up, that's when I think you start to see the outrage bill -- wait a minute, though, those people weren't bad guys, and these mothers, in this case, were going for their routine check ins.

BASH: Yeah.

ALVAREZ: They weren't necessarily just at home in some raid.

BASH: Let's take a step back. And Jeff Mason, you are at the White House every day when you're not here at the table. And I just want to talk about the CNN poll, and also, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, other polls that have come out in the last few days. And they are consistent, and we can put this up on the screen, and they are consistently not good for the president.

Now we know what they say in public. We also know how they, especially the president, feel in private. So that's the overall and as I bring you in, there is one issue where he is not under water, meaning where he is above 50 percent. And the only issue there is, and this is in the CNN poll, is on gender identity.

All of the other issues, including immigration, which, again, the White House thinks is pretty good or bad for President Trump.

JEFF MASON, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT OF REUTERS: Couple of things. Number one, I think that the White House, obviously, any White House cares about polls, so this is not what they want to see. But they will dismiss them, because all White Houses also dismiss polls when they're not going in the direction that they want them to go. Number two, I actually, in this case, believe the dismissal, the extent that even bad polling is not going to have an impact on them implementing the agenda that they absolutely feel. It's the one that they want and should be doing. It's the one that he said he was going to do on the campaign trail.

I was in a briefing last week with a couple senior officials who were talking about the next 100 days. And one of those officials said it was like living in a dreamscape every day because they're making their conservative dreams come true every day on all of these issues. So, there's not going to be any back tracking just because of a handful of bad polling.

BASH: Well, I interviewed the president's agriculture secretary yesterday. We were talking mostly about tariffs and how it impacts farmers. And we did talk more broadly about the fact that the president's approval rating is really suffering.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BROOKE ROLLINS, AGRICULTURE SECRETARY: This president has never, ever governed by poll. And I just saw those same numbers too, so I haven't had a chance to dig in. But the second thing is that every you know, there are 100 different polls that say 100 different things. At the end of the day, President Trump is resolutely focused on ensuring that we are realigning the American economy to put Americans first.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: And Jackie, as I bring you in, let's talk about the economy again. This is in the CNN poll. His approval on the economy is 39 percent back in March, which was a month ago, it was 44 percent and the thing to keep in mind is that this is about not how he's sort of managing an economy that's happening around him.

JACKIE KUCINICH, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Exactly.

BASH: It's what he is doing to the economy with his policies.

KUCINICH: Exactly. And you know when you think about, you go back to why this president was elected. A lot of voters told us it was because of the economy. They missed the Trump economy. That was -- that mark, the last administration they remember from the last administration, which is why they decided to throw in with him again.

And now, because of the -- a lot of this is uncertainty, just because businesses don't know how to plan. Farmers don't know how to plan. They don't know what the next 100 days are going to look like, because they don't know what the tariff rates are going to be. How they're going to be able to conduct their business, if they're going to be able to conduct their businesses, from small businesses all the way on up to Home Depot.

So really if that is the line, if he was supposed to be the economy president, people aren't happy. KING: Go back to the first 100 days of the first Trump term and see how many of these conversations were that his problems are because of so many self-inflicted wounds. This tariff debate, the disruptions he's called in the economy is on him. Is on him. Whether people out there who support the tariffs, who don't support the tariffs, so Mr. President, make up your mind.

It can't be. There are tariffs on Monday. They're in place for three days, that we're taking them back, then businesses can't plan, but Trump says a lot of things that are not true. That's a fact. You can say a lot of things that your voters maybe believe for a long time. You can't tell people whether they voted for Donald Trump or Kamala Harris, that the price of eggs dropped 82 percent because it hasn't. They're going into the grocery store.

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Their prices are not down, and some prices are actually, going up, and this disruption in their communities because of this tariff debate. So, he was elected because people thought the cost of living was too high. And again, we're only 100 days in. He deserves some time, but the disruption he has caused, if there's going to be prices coming down, he is making it worse at the moment, not better.

BASH: I want to go back to one thing that you touched on John, which is some of his key voting groups that helped him win the election, win the White House back. We have some numbers that I think are really telling white non-college educated voters. Those are the sort of core Trump voters.

He's down 8 points just since February. Young people, who he did well with, down 6. Non-white voters, down10 percent. Independents, down 12 percent. Is that what you're finding as you travel the country?

KING: Yes. And again, sometimes we try to divide people too much, right? How is he doing with the Trumpy Trump voters? How is he doing with the soft Republicans who don't really like him and how he conducts himself, but they're Republicans by DNA, young people, whatever.

The Democrats lost the last election because a broad swathe of America, their president was visible number one. And he wasn't dealing with their biggest issue, which is the cost of living. This president is ever present in their lives, and they see him all the time, but he is not dealing as fast as he promised.

Remember, he said prices will go down on day one. Again, there's a lot of hyperbole with President Trump, you have to give him some grace. But their life experience is not better. They're not feeling better in the ways they want to feel better. And he's the President of United States, so he's down with everybody.

ALVAREZ: And having been on the Harris campaign, they were going after those young voters aggressively. So, to see the drought there is interesting, because what they were trying to tell young voters is remind them of what Trump was before. KING: Yeah.

ALVAREZ: Because they hadn't experienced it in the same way. And so, it's interesting to see those numbers now as they've experienced --

KING: Yeah. This is the same fun that got him elected. The country is in a funk, and lots of -- most of it is cost of living and the feeling that this town doesn't work in a way that's relevant to their lives. And they feel the same way now than when they elected him except, he's in the office now.

BASH: And he is focused on what you said that your sources call a dream skate, that they've got the power. They're not afraid to use it this time. And I just want to, as we go, to break this quote is very telling from the president in the interview he did with "The Atlantic". Quote, the first time I had two things to do, run the country and survive, I had all these crooked guys.

These are the people who were working for him, and the second time I run the country and the world. That quote, read it. Take it in, absorb it. That tells you everything you need to know about the president's mindset as he continues in the next 100 days. Coming up, quote, these Republicans cannot have a moment of peace.

One Democratic Governor is calling for mass protests and disruption in Donald Trump's next 100 days. We'll talk about that next.

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[12:15:00]

BASH: Nearly 100 days into the Trump presidency and six months since a devastating election loss. Democrats are still searching for a message that breaks through. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker wants to help find one. He gave a fiery speech last night. Where else New Hampshire?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. JB PRITZKER (D-IL): Never before in my life, have I called for mass protests, for mobilization, for disruption. But I am now. These Republicans cannot know a moment of peace. They have to understand that we will fight their cruelty with every megaphone and microphone that we have. We must cast eat them on the soap box and then punish them at the ballot box.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: We need a better microphone there. He also criticized his fellow Democrats for, quote, listening to a bunch of do-nothing political types who would tell us that America's house is not on fire, even as the flames are licking their faces. Wow. My panel is back now. Jeff Mason, you have covered White House's campaigns, Democrat and Republican alike for a few years.

MASON: Yeah.

BASH: What's your sense of this kind of strategy that JP Pritzker is trying to lay out?

MASON: Well, I think number one, it shows that there's plenty of room for anyone on the Democratic side to jump in. And he's jumping in and trying to give voice to the frustration that he and others in his party are feeling. And also underscoring some frustration that is probably very popular in the rest of the country, with Washington itself and with Democrats in Washington itself.

He's a bit of an outsider to the extent that he's a governor, he's not a senator, he's not a congressman, so he's got some leeway there. You know what that means in terms of what impact is going to have? I don't know. You know, you've seen a lot of other Democrats say things, and it hasn't led to any major shift in strategy.

BASH: So OK, so impact, that's kind of the key word that I want to use in this discussion.

MASON: That is --

BASH: We were talking this morning among the team about what breaks through and what doesn't. Pete Buttigieg has broken through. He did a very -- I think, kind of went viral, a very impactful podcast last week. Maybe it's because he has a new beard. Maybe it's because of what he said. Maybe it's both. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETE BUTTIGIEG, FORMER TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY: Get to that job. I want you to be paid well, and if you're about to have a kid, I want you to know that you're going to have parental leave when you have that kid.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Absolutely.

BUTTIGIEG: And if you don't want to have a kid, I want you to have the right to choose whatever kid, which means access to birth control and abortion.

[12:20:00]

When you go to bed, I want you to know that your family is going to be fine, even if it's family like mine, despite there being some Supreme Court Justice who wants to obliterate your family because it doesn't match his interpretation of his religion like that's the life, I want everybody to be with.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: So, you've got that. You know, those are two potential 2028 contenders. And then you have the people who are here in Washington. And Sunday morning, I was here very early for State of the Union, and I saw on my phone that there was an Instagram Live going on by Hakeem Jeffries, Cory Booker.

And at the time, very early, it was Senator Chris Coons. And then throughout the day, people were coming and going to the steps of the U.S. capital. That was kind of the general gist of the scene that we saw, Jackie.

KUCINICH: So, thing to know about Democrats right now is they are under so much pressure, particularly the elected from their base, to do something. What that something is open for interpretation, which is, I think, is one of the reasons you're seeing all of these people -- happened to being in New Hampshire, really -- coincidentally in New Hampshire.

But -- and what you're hearing from Pete Buttigieg, but -- and on the steps of the capital, but you're also seeing the Bernie Sanders, AOC tour around the country. They want to see their people doing something. So, whether that's enough, but they're unhappy. I mean, look at all those polling.

It's not like Democrats are riding high because Trump Administration, isn't doing well. They're having a family discussion as well on what the right path forward is and how they're going to get these people they lost back.

MASON: It's also not a dearth.

BASH: Yeah.

MASON: There's not a dearth of material for Democrats.

BASH: Right --

MASON: I mean the quote that you were reading earlier from the president to "The Atlantic" about some mistakes will be made. Is that acceptable to voters? Is it acceptable to voters when those types of mistakes end up leading U.S. citizens, potentially, to get pushed out of the country?

Elon Musk made the same type of comment. The mistakes will be made. Well, they have real life impacts, and that's something that Democrats can talk about.

BASH: And Priscilla, I mean, look at you mentioned, where Democrats are still in the eyes of voters. This is also part of the CNN, excuse me. This is the "Washington Post" ABC News poll. Who do you trust to do a better job handling the country's problems? President Trump is still higher than congressional Democrats, despite the fact that he is not in good shape with regard to his approval.

ALVAREZ: Yeah, you know, it's interesting. I was reading our colleagues reporting about and they mentioned Senator Murphy and some of what he's been doing -- also, but yes, what I've been watching as well, in terms of sort of the immigration space. And he mentions that part of what he's trying to do, in tackling everything that the Trump Administration is doing, which is really flooding the zone, is that he's going long form.

He's having to explain more, do the longer threads, and a lot can get lost in that when you're talking about politics and campaigning. But it speaks to the administration is throwing a lot, a lot of spaghetti at the wall. In some cases, some things are sticking, some things aren't. I mean, on border security, they're doing really well after the last four years when people were citing that as a top concern for them.

And it's taking the Democrats practice. And in this case, having to explain what it means for people. And we're seeing this too, with like explaining due process and why U.S. citizen would get caught up to try to take it to the finish line.

BASH: And then there is the question of who were the leaders, and did the Democrats have the right leaders? I interviewed Chuck Schumer, who, of course, is the -- now, the minority leader in the U.S. Senate. I mentioned to him that Dick Durbin, his number two, retire, is retiring, and said it's time for a new generation to be in place.

He said he is Senator Schumer said that he is staying in place. And then we were talking about the fact that the president is really going after a whole bunch of entities, but including Harvard University, on the sort of issue of antisemitism. But of course, pushing on a lot of other issues besides antisemitism. Here's what Senator Schumer said in response.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): We sent him a very strong letter just the other day, tell asking eight very strong questions about why this isn't just a pretext.

BASH: Well, you'll let us know if you get a response to that letter.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: -- OK. Yeah, sending Donald Trump a very strongly worded letter. I get it. I get it. It's, I'm not minimizing at all the questions people have about, why are you doing this? Is it right for you to do this? Harvard is a private institution. Why is the President of United States, you know, getting into their business?

However, part of this conversation is, which conversation are we having, right? If you're Chuck Schumer, you're Hakeem Jeffries sitting on the steps. Chuck Schumer writing strong word letters. You are under enormous pressure from the base to do more. If you JB Pritzker and Pete Buttigieg, you're thinking about running in 2028 you're starting to make the rounds to try to get a little bit of traction.

There are some Democrats who say the next 100 days will be critical for the Trump Administration. Get out of the way.

[12:25:00]

Look at House Republicans just today. They said they're going to increase pentagon spending. They're going to increase border spending. Where does that money come from? That has to come from Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid.

BASH: So, the struggle -- KING: Let them do their stuff. Let them do their stuff, and hope they implode themselves, because, again, the history of Trump one was self- inflicted wounds, the history of the Republican Congress. Trump had a Republican Congress. We have seen this movie before. They were going to repeal and replace Obamacare.

They never did. They did pass the Trump tax cuts. They were going to get to a whole bunch of other things. They never did. Their math is even harder this time. So, there are some Democrats who say, step back --

BASH: Right. But you're talking about the pressure from the base that --

KING: Right.

BASH: They don't want to -- they don't want their leaders to do nothing.

KING: Right, but again, Donald Trump in a fight with Harvard is good for Donald Trump with his base. The Democrats, the part that where they have to connect the dots is Donald Trump was elected to secure the border and fix the economy. Why is he doing all this other stuff? Is that relevant to you?

Is that helping your life? That's where they have in my travels. That's where they haven't done it yet. But voters get it. Voters say, what's he doing.

BASH: Real quick.

KUCINICH: And we're talking about Chuck Schumer. I think he's really benefiting right now from not having anyone really standing up to him in his own caucus and challenging him.

KING: Right.

KUCINICH: Because he's on that line. John Boehner used to say, a leader without followers is a guy taking a walk.

BASH: Guy taking a walk.

KUCINICH: Yeah. We get in that territory, particularly with the base. They're really angry at Chuck Schumer and the Democrats.

KING: Yeah.

BASH: All right, everybody standby. Coming up, Ukraine warns that Russia has announced three-day ceasefire may just be a quote, tactical game. If that's the case, who are they playing?

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