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The Situation Room

Interview With Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY); DHS Secretary Visits Notorious Prison in El Salvador; Interview With Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta; Trump's New Auto Tariffs; Signal Lawsuit. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired March 27, 2025 - 11:00   ET

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

[11:01:06]

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Happening now, breaking news: In just hours, the Trump administration will head to court, as it is now being sued over the Signal group chat, where attack plans were shared with a journalist.

Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. Pamela Brown is off today. I'm Wolf Blitzer. You're in THE SITUATION ROOM.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

And we begin this hour with the breaking news. A hearing will be held later this afternoon looking at the Trump Cabinet's very controversial group chat on the Signal app and whether or not it violates federal record-keeping laws. A nonprofit advocacy group filed the lawsuit on Tuesday after it was revealed that the U.S. attack plans in Yemen were being discussed in that chat.

Want to bring in CNN senior crime justice correspondent Katelyn Polantz.

Katelyn, walk us through this lawsuit and why the judge overseeing this case is clearly a key factor.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: He is.

It's Judge Jeb Boasberg. We have heard of him in recent weeks because he's handling another really significant national security matter related to the Trump administration, those Venezuelan migrant flights out of the country to El Salvador.

But this case, this is about that Signal chat and the Yemen -- the discussion about attacking Yemen by Cabinet secretaries, where Jeffrey Goldberg from "The Atlantic" was part of it. It is hard to get a lawsuit like this over federal records off the ground, but, by God, the American Oversight group, an advocacy group in Washington, they have done it.

They are asking for emergency intervention from the court. They're essentially saying that the Cabinet secretaries, the intel chiefs on this chat have a responsibility to preserve federal records, and they're using Signal. There's an auto-delete function here.

They want the court to come in and look at this. The executive director of American Oversight, in filing this lawsuit yesterday, said that it is a five-alarm fire for government accountability. But, like I said, these are not cases that tend to have significant, swift consequences.

What we could see here, though, is the judge wanting fact-finding, wanting answers, something that is at the top of everyone's mind right now. So, watch to see what happens at 4:00.

BLITZER: We will be watching very closely together with you. Katelyn, thanks very, very much.

President Trump's new auto tariffs are getting intense pushback right now from some of America's strongest trade partners. Canada's warning it will -- quote -- "maximize the pain for Americans" by sending the cost of vehicles skyrocketing in the United States. One expert says the sticker shock could even arrive before the cars hit the dealerships.

These tariffs are meant to steer production here to the United States, but even American-made cars rely on imported parts from Canada and Mexico.

Let's go live right now to economist and professor at Yale Law School Natasha Sarin.

Natasha, thanks very much for joining us.

Explain to our viewers what this means if they are currently shopping for a car.

NATASHA SARIN, YALE LAW SCHOOL: Yes, basically, Wolf, what it means is higher prices.

So, immediately, as soon as these tariffs go into effect and, honestly, even anticipatorily, as we're waiting to see what tariff policy is actually going to mean, you're going to see thousands of dollars of price increases on cars that are both made in the U.S. by Ford and GM and cars that are -- we think of as made by outside manufacturers, those like BMW and Mazda.

BLITZER: So it's going to be much more expensive to buy a car whether the car was made here in the United States or imported from Germany or Japan or someplace else?

SARIN: Exactly.

And even, like, made in the United States is a bit of a misnomer in some sense, because, if you think of American car companies, the Fords and the GMs, their stock prices are tanking today. The reason why their stock prices are tanking is because 60 percent of imported cars, even for many American-made cars, imported car parts are the ones that are going into those cars.

[11:05:05]

And those car parts are going to be tariffed. So they're not going to be saved from the impact of these very substantial tariffs, and the consumers aren't going to be saved from the impact of these very substantial price increases.

BLITZER: So what you're saying is, even if you buy a Ford or a Chevy or Chrysler, U.S.-made cars, it's going to be much more expensive.

SARIN: Absolutely. And it's going to be much more expensive immediately.

BLITZER: Because of the imported car parts that are needed to put the car together.

SARIN: Exactly. And those imported car parts, the Trump administration was super clear in their sort of fact sheet that they put out. They're subjecting those imported car parts to increases in tariffs, just like they're subjecting imported cars to increases in tariffs.

BLITZER: Trump says this eventually will help American carmakers. But they also rely on foreign parts, as we keep pointing out, to build these vehicles, so they will have to pay up as well.

What is -- for what it's worth, I just want to point out, Shawn Fain, the president of the United Auto Workers union, has applauded this Trump decision on tariffs. Is it possible to help American makers without hurting Americans who want to buy a car?

SARIN: You know, I was kind of struck by and surprised, frankly, by the UAW coming out in favor of these tariffs, because what's going to happen to car production in the United States and car production elsewhere is that costs are going to go up.

And when costs go up, that means prices are going to go up for consumers. But it also means that you're going to see a smaller economy and jobs shrink in these industries as a result of these tariffs being put into place.

So, frankly, like, it is very hard to see any potential upside for these tariffs for the auto industry and for the American consumer. And also, by the way, another thing that's hard, in and of itself, not just that the tariffs are going to go up, is this uncertainty that we're living in and that businesses are living in.

They have no idea what's going to happen next week, what the next tariff by tweet is going to be. And, as a result, it makes it incredibly difficult to plan and think about investing in this country.

BLITZER: Professor Natasha Sarin, thank you very much for coming in.

SARIN: Thanks so much for having me.

BLITZER: Appreciate it very much. Let's continue this conversation. Joining us right now, Leon Panetta.

He was defense secretary and CIA director under President Obama. He was also chief of staff for President Clinton.

Mr. Secretary, thanks very much for joining us. Always good to have you here in THE SITUATION ROOM.

I want to begin with President Trump's escalating trade war right now. Canada, for example, is vowing to retaliate. And the president is already warning that he could respond with even higher tariffs. What could this do to the relationship between the U.S. and its closest allies, especially Canada?

LEON PANETTA, FORMER U.S. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: Well, there's no question that the relationship with Canada is now becoming seriously undermined.

Canada has always been a good trading partner. We have always been able to sit down and negotiate trade deals with Canada. And that's what this administration, frankly, ought to do. But imposing these huge tariffs is just going to automatically start a trade war that I think is going to damage our relationship, not just with Canada, but with other countries as well.

It's something that, in the end, is going to hurt the American people with higher prices. And that's probably the worst result of all.

BLITZER: On another sensitive subject, just a short time ago, Mr. Secretary, the White House declined to offer an update on its internal investigation into that Signal group chat of Trump national security officials and Cabinet members.

Many Democrats are calling for the resignations of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the National Security Adviser, Mike Waltz. Should someone lose their job for what happened?

PANETTA: Well, there's no question that this is a serious breach of national security.

I mean, for goodness' sakes, this was an attack plan that carries, I think, the highest classification. It certainly did when I was secretary of defense. Any kind of attack plan was top secret and had to be protected. And, here, it was not only put on a Signal commercial network, which is not cleared for confidential communications, but they also included a journalist in a list of very top national security officials, who then was exposed to this kind of information.

This is a serious breach. It needs to be investigated because it could have cost lives. It could have cost us a military mission. And it certainly costs us harm to our national security. It needs to be investigated. And the responsible individual who committed these offenses needs to be punished and fired.

BLITZER: It needs to be investigated, of course, to make sure that the lessons, the appropriate lessons are learned on what went wrong to make sure it never, ever happens again. [11:10:03]

Are you surprised that Republicans have largely, largely, not completely, downplayed the significance of this potential security breach, given the very sensitive nature of these discussions taking place on an unsecured commercial app?

PANETTA: You know, Wolf, you and I have been around in Washington a long time.

The biggest problem in Washington oftentimes is the truth. And when there are those that don't want to acknowledge the truth, it will come back to undermine them in the future. We have the truth here. We all know what happened here. There's no mystery here. This is not rocket science.

This was an attack plan that was leaked and could have potentially harmed our forces in the attack. There's no question that this was an attack plan. There was talk of weapons, the talk of targets, timing, deployment. This is an attack plan. And it should not have been put on that kind of communication.

Frankly, this is the kind of thing that ought to be handled in the National Security Council Situation Room. That's where it should be handled. But it wasn't. And now I think what it does is, it puts us in danger, because our enemies are going to be all over this. They're -- they have seen us fail to protect our most sensitive information.

They're going to be all over the Internet. They're going to be all over Signal. They're going to be trying to get the information that was available that could have harmed this mission. That really does harm our national security. And it's for that reason that, frankly, Republicans and Democrats ought to be concerned about making sure that this never happens again.

BLITZER: Yes.

PANETTA: This is a matter of national security.

BLITZER: And it's not just that. The incident clearly does impact -- and you're a former CIA director, former defense secretary.

It clearly impacts U.S. relations with very close NATO allies and other allies. Their trust that the U.S. will handle sensitive information is now up in the air. I suspect you agree.

PANETTA: One of the most important things when I was director of the CIA was our relationship with our allies and with those that we could share information with, because getting that kind of information helped us protect the country.

I think, as a result of showing that we are careless in the way we're handling highly classified information, that there are going to be a lot of countries that think twice about whether or not they're going to share sensitive intelligence with the United States.

BLITZER: Yes.

PANETTA: That's going to hurt us.

BLITZER: I think it's already happening right now.

Leon Panetta, as usual, thank you very, very much.

PANETTA: Good to be with you, Wolf.

BLITZER: Thank you.

And still ahead: President Trump wants to label the Signal chat group fallout a witch-hunt, but even some Republicans are now demanding a full-scale investigation.

And the head of Homeland Security with a dire warning for immigrants here in the United States during a visit to a notorious prison.

Stay with us. We're updating you with all the important news. You're in THE SITUATION ROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:18:07]

BLITZER: Right now, the Department of Homeland Security chief, Kristi Noem, is in Colombia to meet with officials.

The visit follows a stop in El Salvador, where she toured a notorious mega prison and announced the country has agreed to take in more alleged gang members deported from the U.S.

CNN correspondent Priscilla Alvarez is with me here in THE SITUATION ROOM.

What do we know about this trip so far, Priscilla?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, as you just mentioned, she went to El Salvador.

The administration is digging in when it comes to El Salvador and the notorious mega-prison that has been offered to them for migrants who they say are accused of crimes in the United States or otherwise. And this is notable because there's still ongoing legal proceedings about that exact action of taking people from here and taking them to that prison in El Salvador.

I have spoken to some of the families who have people there. But the administration and the homeland security secretary yesterday in a video making it very clear that they're planning to use this, that they want to use this, and essentially giving the warning to people in the United States, undocumented people in the United States to leave.

Now, this is part of a grander visit. She is going across the Americas. She's also in Colombia today. Remember, Wolf, Colombia was one of the first international spats that we saw play out with President Trump at the beginning of this administration, when they were -- when the United States was sending U.S. military aircraft to Colombia.

Colombia pushed back on that and essentially created this public spat and almost a trade war that ended with Colombia in the end bringing their own planes over to take their migrants back to their origin country. So this is going to be an interesting visit to see where they can still work together, where there might still be tension points.

But, Wolf, this is part of a grander theme that we have seen in U.S. policy over the last several years, which is more attention on Latin America. The reason for that is because people are migrating from the entire Western Hemisphere. We're not just talking about three countries anymore, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Honduras.

In fact, we're talking about mobilization across the hemisphere, which means that the United States government needs more buy-in from countries to help with managing migration. Border numbers are low, but that doesn't always remain the case. So they have to work with all of these countries.

[11:20:13]

And that is something that Kristi Noem is continuing. I will also say this administration does want to use these countries to send people out that may not be from there. That is a novelty that we have seen. They floated it the first time around when Trump was in office. It's something that's coming to fruition certainly now.

So they want to lean on these partnerships to, in other words, Wolf, sort of outsource their migration management and their detention.

BLITZER: Very quickly, why do they call it a mega-prison?

ALVAREZ: Well, because it's the largest prison in the Americas. It's notorious. It has come under fire on multiple occasions.

But you saw the images with the secretary there. The conditions there are pretty poor. And that is why it has been so alarming for families, not just that there are family members who are Venezuelan were sent to El Salvador. That's another matter. It is that they were sent to El Salvador and put in this prison without a chance of due process.

BLITZER: Yes, all right, Priscilla Alvarez doing excellent reporting, as she always does.

Thank you very, very much.

The Signal group chat raising major concerns right now about how the Trump administration is handling very sensitive U.S. intelligence. A ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee is standing by. We will discuss. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:26:00] BLITZER: Back to our breaking news here in THE SITUATION ROOM.

This afternoon, a federal judge will hear arguments over a new lawsuit that claims the Signal chat about a U.S. military strike in Yemen violated federal records law. And it comes as bipartisan calls for accountability are growing even louder.

Joining us now is Congressman Gregory Meeks of New York. He's the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Congressman, thanks so much for joining us.

I know you heard the testimony from Trump administration officials, senior intelligence, national security officials this week. Did they tell the truth about the nature of these very sensitive discussions during the course of this unsecured commercial app conversation what's called Signal?

REP. GREGORY MEEKS (D-NY): They absolutely lied. They have been lying all along. They have tried to cover it up.

Look, there's been no -- there's no question, once you have heard this transmission this messaging app, that there is a violation of our national security. This is something that should have been taken care of in a SCIF on a secure line.

Had I or anyone else tried to talk about this situation, we would probably be prosecuted. The same should go here. Mr. Hegseth should be -- resign or fired immediately. It's an absolute violation of our national security. It puts our pilots at risk. And it is something that we have seen and then the cover-up afterwards.

And, sometimes, people say the cover-up is just as bad as the act itself. When you factor Mr. Goldberg was going to treat that confidential information better than these individuals, these secretaries that all were on that call, he wasn't even going to disclose it until they denied it and said that there was nothing there.

And once you read it, your eyes, or you hear it, your ears are not lying to you.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: Yes, there was very, very sensitive information during the course of that conversation.

The White House, as you know, though, is doubling down right now, and it's claimed that no classified information was actually shared during the course of that chat, while President Trump is calling all of this a witch-hunt.

What do you make of those comments?

MEEKS: Again, it's ridiculous. And I think that President Trump and all of them need to be held

accountable. Look, Wolf, I'm in a SCIF often. And, sometimes, there is intelligence that has to happen.

BLITZER: A SCIF -- I just want to point out, Congressman, SCIF is a secure room where you can have top secret conversations without worrying about someone listening in.

MEEKS: That's correct.

And so, sometimes, they tell me they have got information. Wherever I'm at, they won't tell me to pick up -- I have Signal on my phone. They won't say, OK, Signal is OK. They said, leave the meeting that you're in and get into a SCIF, where there's also a secure phone line, so that we can have this conversation.

It can't happen. And I will tell you, the information that was on that messaging app, we would not even have it as members of Congress immediately after the strike, less known during such strike. So it is clearly confidential information that should have been secured.

And, unfortunately, it seems another time where the president, who has proven to be very loose with secure documents, as we saw in Mar-a- Lago, as we saw him show some secrets to Russia in the first term, it now seems to be a situation that's continuing. And that's why Congress needs to create and start an independent investigation into all use of Signal and communications between the DOD, so that we can find out where and what has been said so that the American people know that we are secure and that they are communicating on secure lines.

BLITZER: But, Congressman, with the Republicans controlling both the House and the Senate, they have the majorities, how do you and your fellow Democrats plan to get the accountability that you're clearly calling for?