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CNN Poll: 59 Percent Say Trump Has "Worsened Economic Conditions; Trump to Mark Milestone with Rally in Michigan"; How Trump's First 100 Days Have Changed America; What's Left on the Project 2025 Agenda; What Will Trump Administration Do Next. Aired 12- 12:30p ET

Aired April 29, 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: Welcome to "Inside Politics". I'm Dana Bash in Washington. We're exactly 100 days ago at this hour; Donald Trump took the Oath of Office as the 47th President of the United States of America. And what a turbulent convention smashing 100 days it's been.

As the president moves at a frenetic pace to transform the United States and its role in the world. There have been obvious successes, like illegal border crossings plunging to the lowest level in decades, and some things not so successful, like trillions of dollars lost in the market. It's been the most chaotic first 100 days in modern presidential history, from taking a sledge hammer to the federal government to targeting political opponents and launching a global trade war.

The chaos of the last 100 days is a feature, not a bug. It's always been an intrinsic part of Donald Trump's style, and unlike in his first term, the president is now surrounded by people who want the chaos for millions of his hard-core supporters, this is what they voted for in November.

But nearly six months after Election Day, a flurry of new polls show the president has lost the middle less than a third of independents approve of the Trump Presidency so far. And a new CNN Poll out this morning reveals that 41 percent say they're afraid about the rest of the president's term. Another 1362 days.

I want to start with CNN's Jeff Zeleny, who is in Warren, Michigan, that is where the president is heading later today for a rally, Macomb County. It is probably the most famous political county in the country, Jeff.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: There is no doubt it is Dana, and that is why President Trump is coming here to Macomb County, Michigan. It tells a story, not only of our changing American politics, but how Donald Trump arose to the White House and returned again. He won Macomb County, just north of Detroit, by 14 points, and of

course, that helped seal his statewide win in Michigan. However, as he takes a victory lap today, there is deep concern on the economy. There is deep concern over the on again, off again, tariff policy, including the White House.

Again today, the president signing a new executive order. He will be to ease auto tariffs, once again, that is good news for some auto manufacturers here Dana. But just gives you a sense of the chaotic nature as you talked about of the first 100 days.

But the president coming here for a reason to make the point that he is invested in remaking American manufacturing, but what he also needs to do, as the White House well knows, is to sell his economic agenda. This is actually the first time he's visiting a battle state, a battle ground state, for a rally like this.

He spent much more time in the White House or at Mar-a-Lago, but he's back on the road and talking to voters here and Republicans. They believe he has some selling left to do Dana.

BASH: Jeff, thank you so much for that report. And today we're going to take a step back to look at how President Trump's first 100 days have transformed America and what comes next. Here's just some of what happened so far. On day one, President Trump pardoned more than 1000 January 6th rioters. He's cut at least 121,000 people from the federal work force.

Used his famous sharpie to sign more than 200 executive orders and proclamations. Shuttered USAID slashed the education department and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau declared a national emergency on the southern border, deported scores of alleged gang members to a prison in El Salvador, moved to punish perceived political enemies inside and outside.

The government removed countless DEI initiatives, withdrew from the World Health Organization and Paris Climate Accord slash funding for scientific research at the NIH and top universities took over the Kennedy Center, threatened to withhold funding from universities, signed an order proclaiming only two sexes and banning transgender women from female sports.

Criticized Ukraine's President in the Oval Office and held high level talks with Russia, and there are those sweeping tariffs. Of course, this is actually not even close to comprehensive. I'm joined now by a terrific group of reporters on this 100th day of Trump 2.0.

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CNN's David Chalian, CNN's Jamie Gangel, Laura Barron-Lopez of the PBS NewsHour and CNN's Phil Mattingly.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICS DIRECTOR: So, you're saying he's been quiet -- job.

(CROSSTALK) BASH: -- got to catch your breath. Going to go around the horn one sentence to describe the last 100 days.

CHALIAN: Well, as you just encapsulated, I would say my sentences, in these first 100 days, he has taken significant steps to upend the domestic economy and the global order, and now begs the question to voters, if this is the change they still believe in to borrow a phrase from political history and at the moment, voters seem to have questions about that.

JAMIE GANGEL, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: That's more than one sentence. It's the economy stupid, to quote James Carter, look all of those things that you talked about and more absolutely. But I think right now, what we're looking at is he promised the best economy, not to steal film acting, least subject, and we're not there.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I'm going to quote the Reagan appointed judge from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, Harvey Wilkinson, because I think that it encapsulates the confrontation that the courts are potentially headed for with the administration.

I mean, Harvey Wilkinson, again, a Reagan appointed judge said it takes no small amount of imagination to understand that this is a path of perfect lawlessness, one that the courts cannot condone when talking about this administration's actions on deportations.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: Jokes on Jamie, I can talk about it.

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MATTINGLY: My sense is, you break it, you own it. And I'm not saying that to be snarky or even critical on some level, but when it comes to the economy, the Trump Administration inherited a solid, stable economy from the Biden Administration. There are plenty of concerns on prices, but that's what they brought in in terms of the underlying data points.

The euphoria that was described by chief executive officers at Davos at the start of the administration, the speed with which that has completely fallen off a cliff, not just for the business community, but for everyday consumers. Consumer confidence at its low point since the pandemic, it's a mess right now based on what people think is coming, based on what the president delivering, on what he said he was going to do?

BASH: And on that very note, we have a new round of numbers from our latest poll on the economy. And this is very telling. And David, I want you to weigh in on this. Trump's policies have improved economic conditions. 27 percent worse than economic conditions, 59 percent, 59 percent almost 6 in 10 Americans. And this is not just about the economy that is happening. It is about the economy that is happening because of Trump's policies, from the perspective of these voters.

CHALIAN: Yeah, and by the way, that 59 percent number just last month in March was 51 percent. We don't see that kind of movement usually in American politics like that in one month time, moving eight points against the president there. So now it's now, as you noted, it's 6 in 10. That is not a good number for the president.

Now inside the White House, they will tell you, this is precisely that short term pain that we anticipated, that we knew these policies would sort of inject into the system, but that there will be a long-term gain. How long will Americans give him the benefit of the doubt? Obviously, his supporters will hang in there longer than Independents will, as we're already seeing.

BASH: Yeah. I mean, we saw the Treasury Secretary go out first thing this morning and talk about the tariffs only being one part of the larger economic picture, and talking about the fact that there are other things to come. I mean, we'll see.

And what you're seeing on the screen, by the way, Jamie, these are CNN headlines, and it could go on for days, just to sort of remind people some of the examples, and as we keep talking of all of the Tsunami of news that we have gotten because of the just frenetic nature of 100 days.

GANGEL: So, whether we're talking about the economy or immigration or federal workers, all of there's been a lot of whiplash. There's been chaos, there's been confusion, but there's policy whiplash. It leads to uncertainty. And the Treasury Secretary can come out and promise, and the White House can come out and promise.

But you listen to prominent CEOs Wall Street business leaders. No one knows what Donald Trump will do next. 2.0 is very different from 1.0 to quote I think it was "The Wall Street Journal" Editorial Board they said at 100 days, Trump 2.0 is in trouble. So, the White House can say this is short term pain, but certainly consumers don't see it, and the business community doesn't.

BASH: And speaking of consumers and the business community, there was a pretty important. development that just happened continues to develop, but we saw a big shift right before we came on air.

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And this has to do with Amazon and President Trump and Jeff Bezos. What happened?

MATTINGLY: Yeah, speaking of needing seven hours to explain something. So, Punch Bowl News, our great friends and colleagues over at punch bowl news broke the story this morning that a one of the offshoot websites of Amazon was going to post the price differential based on tariffs on the website so consumers would see it.

You've actually seen companies do this in the past with inflation, prices, those things like that. Trump, according to our colleague, Alayna Treene, the great reporting, picked up the phone called Bezos, who he's gotten increasingly close with over the course of the last several months, was very upset about what happened.

Now Amazon is saying that is not under consideration. It will not be implemented. They backed off. And I think there's a bigger picture here that's important to note. Trump has a level of authority and influence over the business community that he never had before.

Now the problem in this specific case is, Amazon is one of hundreds of thousands of companies that are trying to grapple with, OK, do we eat these prices? Do we pass them on to consumers? How do we kind of deal with this going forward? And it would become a game of whack a mole to be able to knock out every single company and jaw bone them away from doing that, it's just kind of getting to the uncertainty idea right now.

The underlying economy is good, the numbers are still good. Inflation is good, wages are good, jobs are good. What everybody is looking forward to is what Amazon was trying to figure out when they were considering this proposal for one of their offshoot websites, which is things are about to potentially get really bad, and just the perception of that in a consumer driven economy can lead to those things actually happening, whether they're going to or not.

CHALIAN: And when I think there's a difference between a mom-and-pop shop in Minnesota putting on their website the differential price and a multi billionaire company that probably can afford to take the hit on tariffs to some extent, without passing it on to the consumer. And it was that the politics of that gave the White House and Trump in that phone call to base as, I'm sure, a bit of a card to play.

BARRON-LOPEZ: Even if Amazon has backed off, there are a lot of those small businesses across the country that are making it very clear that they're saying to their -- the people that buy their products look this good, this stroller that you're about to buy, the cost of it is going to change from this much to this much if this goes into effect.

I mean, you see it all the time them posting on social media, making very transparent and clear the impact on their small business. So even if the massive retailers don't say it, the voters are seeing it, which is why they're so scared about the terror.

BASH: Well, on that note, let's look at another new figure we mentioned at the beginning of the show. But I think it's important to bring it back up. Best describes feelings for the rest of Trump's term 41 percent say that they are afraid.

GANGEL: So, look Donald Trump. You know, does he care what people think about this? He cares about these poll numbers; what he often calls his ratings. But he has not reacted to the market going down the same way he did in 1.0. My question is, will these poll numbers change any of the policy directions that he is going in?

Because there is no question. Americans are afraid of what's to come. I was -- I was talking to some business people out in the world, sort of mid-size businesses, and they said, look, in three weeks, six weeks, we could be back to COVID shortages because of supply chain. We don't know whether that's going to happen yet, but they're worried, and not just because of China, because of tariffs all over the world.

BASH: OK. Coming up, CNN asked people around the world to submit questions about the Trump Administration. Our excellent panel will have some answers. Plus, what will President Trump's next 100 days look like? Well, we've come through Project 2025, remember that agenda certainly gave us clues about the first 100 days. What's left?

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BASH: Donald Trump's first 100 days in office, we have seen a break neck pace of major boundary shattering, fundamental change in how the government works. What could the next 100 days look like or maybe the next 1300 days. Project 2025 gave us some hints. Despite his campaign's denials, it has been pretty good road map for what we have seen in the first months of Trump 2.0.

What could project 2025 still have in store if it continues, if the Trump Administration still continues to follow the playbook. Well, let's take a look at what is there. On abortion, hospitals could no longer be required to provide abortion care, even if the mother's life is at risk. That's in Project 2025.

Medication abortion could be banned. Federal funding for daycare should be redirected to families to incentivize parents to stay home. That's part of Project 2025 as well, also steep cuts in climate research we've already seen NOAA could be shuttered, including the National Weather Service, some aspects privatized and the Department of Homeland Security. It could be gone.

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Its agencies divvied up between other departments, or maybe even privatized. And the DOJ could use its civil rights division to prosecute state and local governments and private companies for pursuing DEI initiatives. My Smart reporters are back now, just to emphasize that is what's in Project 2025. We don't know what will be adopted. We just know that a lot of what we saw in the first 100 days looked pretty familiar.

MATTINGLY: Yeah. And look, I don't think anybody who knew the officials that were going to be in the Trump Administration in the second term, many of whom were involved with that really bought the kind of wink a nod, like, I don't even know what this is. I don't know what this is. I don't know what this came from.

It was very clear that they thought it was politically damaging, and therefore they were going to step away from it. The reality. And I don't think that this is necessarily exclusive to Project 2025 I think there are several outside groups that had spent several years preparing for this moment, and their top officials, particularly on the policy side and on the legal side, are now throughout the administration, in the most senior roles with the most prominent voices within that administration. And the reality, when you look forward, whether it's Project 2025, or

other groups, is for people like Russell Vogue, for people like Stephen Miller, for people like Peter Navarro, for kind of across the administration, these officials who had big ideas that very much aligned with Trump's kind of gut instinct of where he wanted to go on policy. Have now learned a ton of lessons from the first term, and spent four years planning and fleshing out the policy and legal authorities with which they were going to pursue and now they're doing it.

BARRON-LOPEZ: I mean, one of the biggest themes or theses of Project 2025 was the unitary executive theory, which we're seeing. I mean, that is another way to sum up the first 100 days, which is that, essentially, the president is testing, and, according to some judges, has potentially broken the limits of his own presidential power.

And so that was one of the biggest motives and goals of Project 2025 which was in areas that they thought, that the executives should be expanded, that the president should have more power that they were going to test and push and pull and potentially break in any area that they thought they could and I think we're continuing to see it, whether it's across the executive actions or across the different legal challenges that they're presenting.

GANGEL: I have a real question about, will any of this have an impact on Republicans, on elected officials, because speed has been an extraordinary weapon. Now we're going to start seeing potential fall- out. Will people be able to get someone on the phone for their Social Security?

Will you know at 03:00 a.m. there be a national security crisis, and all of a sudden, all of these people have been cut from different national security departments. I don't think we have a clue what's going to come next, but I do wonder, will there be a moment when Republican elected officials say this is not so good for us?

BASH: It's a really good question. It's one that David and I were texting about yesterday, whether or not that could be the hallmark of the next 100 days. One of the many, many differences at the beginning was that he -- forget about Democratic opposition. Republicans were largely silent on all of this on Capitol Hill.

And the question is whether or not if they hear from their constituents on pick your issue, whether they're willing to speak.

CHALIAN: And they have heard already, in the first 100 days, some of this right, and have gotten that feedback back to the White House or in the early days of the administration to me on this issue of what comes next, and you went through the potential agenda items here.

The big question that hangs over it to your point about the courts is like this will test the limits, right? And so, I think all of this will now be tested against the limits of what is legally allowed and the limits of public support for these things. Those are the things that will be tested in the days ahead. They've got the plan. I just don't know that we know yet when they cross a line on? BARRON-LOPEZ: The public support, and to Jamie's point about whether or not Republicans start feeling even more pressure than they have in the past. I mean, just yesterday, one of the executive orders that the president signed would potentially target sanctuary localities in states that provide in state tuition to Dreamers.

Dreamers who you know, 25 states allow for that. In state, tuition paid for Dreamers, the children that were brought to the U.S. as young minors. And so, there are Republicans that have supported that for so many years and have supported Dreamers and DACA recipients being allowed to stay here.

Are they going to start hearing from constituents about those things being taken away as we see more and more immigrants, especially legal immigrants, being targeted.

BASH: And there's one other thing that I wanted to bring up, because we have understandably talked so much about the economy and about sort of the push and pull between the judiciary and the executive branch. There's something else that is has been a goal of many people who helped get Donald Trump elected, which is what they call for Project 2025.

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It's on the family. And they specifically say, quote, restore the family as the center piece of American life and protect our children. First, says the secretary should proudly state that married men and women are the ideal natural family structure, because all children have a right to be raised by the men and women who conceive them.

The role that labor policy plays in that promise is to restore the family supporting job as the center piece of the American economy. They want leave it to beaver.

MATTINGLY: That shouldn't be as true. Again, I'm not trying to be dismissive of this. The entire kind of theory of the case that Trump has pushed since his first campaign is what we had in the 1950s that economy, that version of the economy, was the golden age that I want to return to, and golden age 2.0.

I think the difficulty, of course, is, you know, when they when policy officials talk about manufacturing jobs and bringing manufacturing back to the United States, they're making clear we don't actually want those kinds of jobs. We want the jobs for the new era. We want high tech jobs. We want high paying jobs.

It's really hard to square those things. I just one of the things that connects directly to this is, how are they going to square this legislatively in things like the tax bill. Like, what we are not talking about right now is Congress has atrophied to the point of complete ineptitude, bordering on like we don't even care what they're doing, because they're literally not doing anything --

BASH: -- but they are going to do --

MATTINGLY: But they have to do a tax bill, or they're trying to do a tax bill.

BASH: Yeah, that's such a good point.

MATTINGLY: Cornerstone, and that's the vehicle if they want to try and do things like this, Child Tax Credit related issues. Josh Hawley, those the proposals they have pitched the Vance. J.D. Vance was a big part of that's their vehicle. Let's see if they prove it out.

BARRON-LOPEZ: He said they would prioritize localities in states that also are encouraging reproduction -- you know, higher birth rates. Essentially, they've made that very clear, yes.

BASH: Yes.

BARRON-LOPEZ: And I mean, you know, they've already taken steps to get to what you just said, Dana, that they -- which is their end goal of this nuclear family that is between a man and a woman and kids by essentially erasing the identity of transgender people across the government, saying that we are going to attack any kind of institutions that try to say that transgender people exist, or that people who have a different gender identity exist. So that's how they're effectuating and getting to what Project 2025, outline.

GANGEL: I would just say the world has changed. We are in a different place. Donald Trump may still think of the world as leave it to beaver, but most Americans don't, and I don't think this will work.

BASH: OK, up next, we are going to answer your questions about President Trump's first 100 days in office, don't go anywhere.

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