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The Situation Room

Soon, Trump to Hold Call With Canadian Prime Minister; Deadly 7.7 Magnitude Earthquake Rocks Myanmar, Thailand and China; Judge Orders Trump Administration to Preserve Signal Messages. Aired 10- 10:30a ET

Aired March 28, 2025 - 10:00   ET

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

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WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now, breaking news. The old U.S.- Canada relationship is, quote, over. Those striking words from Canada's new prime minister as President Trump escalates his trade war against America's northern ally.

Plus, deadly and devastating earthquake, shocking video of buildings collapsing in Myanmar, hundreds feared, trapped beneath the rubble.

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.

And we begin this hour with the breaking news. President Trump is expected to hold an important phone call with Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney this morning. This comes after one of Washington's closest allies delivering a blistering rebuke of President Trump's escalating trade war.

The Canadian leader saying it has taken a terrible toll on the relationship between the two neighbors. Just listen. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARK CARNEY, CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER: The old relationship we had with the United States based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military cooperations is over. But exactly the United States does next is unclear.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: All right. Let's go live right now to CNN Senior White House Reporter, Kevin Liptak. Kevin, you're there at the White House.

First of all, do we know what this phone call -- when this phone call, first of all, will happen?

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Well, we expect it to happen this morning Wolf, and it will be a critical conversation between these two men. You know, it's been 14 days since Mark Carney was sworn in as prime minister. Typically, an American president would get on the phone much quicker with his new counterpart in Canada, and I think it really does speak to just how strained this relationship has become between Washington and Ottawa as President Trump repeatedly talks about annexing Canada, but also as he applies these stiff new tariffs, including just this week on imported automobiles. That has caused an enormous amount of outrage in Canada.

And you hear Carney there speaking about how Canada will have to redevelop and rethink its economic partnership with Washington going forward. And it will have to, in his words, dramatically reduce its reliance on the United States as this relationship darkens. Of course, remember, Wolf, Carney is in the middle of a heated general election campaign. Initially, his Liberal Party had been shown heading towards defeat. But, certainly, these Trump remarks ha have led to a boost for his party going forward.

Trump himself has acknowledged that he has scrambled Canadian politics, but just this week he has threatened new retaliatory tariffs on Canada and the E.U., saying that potentially they could be far larger than currently planned. Wolf?

BLITZER: All right. Kevin Liptak over at the White House, thanks very much, an important story indeed.

We have other breaking news we're following right now in Southeast Asia, where a devastating earthquake has struck Central Myanmar and rippled into Thailand and China. The mighty 7.7 magnitude quake has caused a high rise -- look at this -- a high rise to collapse and send panic residents into the streets, as buildings all around were falling. The scenes of terror and confusion hauntingly reminiscent of 9/11 as billowing toxic clouds of dust roll down the streets and swallow those unable to outrun them.

Let's go live right now to CNN Correspondent Mike Valerio. He's covering all of this for us. He's joining us from Seoul, South Korea, not all that far away. What are you learning, Mike?

MIKE VALERIO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, 81 people, up to 81 people could be missing underneath the piles of concrete. This is the emotional center of gravity in Thailand as far as this 7.7 magnitude, earthquake is concerned. Just the emotional undercurrents that are running raw at that scene right now. Whole multitudes of emergency rescue teams are trying to find people, trying to stage a miracle on live T.V., so many corners of Asia and the world captivated by what is happening close to the center of town in Bangkok right now.

The prime minister of Thailand, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, telling people the severity of the crisis is diminishing and it is safe to go into high-rise apartments. But, Wolf, if you've lived through this magnitude, 7.7 earthquake, this generational catastrophe, there are whole hoards of people who are calling us at CNN saying, hell no, essentially, they're not going into their apartments after something like that has beset the capital.

Moving to Myanmar, this is a country, Wolf, that has been beset by civil war since February of 2021. All humanitarian organizations from the Democratic world, from certainly this corner of the world, are wondering how they're going to stage a herculean humanitarian rescue effort when the military government is waging a civil war with rebel groups from the cities to the jungle countryside in all parts of this country that have been decimated.

So, what we're watching for in the next couple hours, we're going to be with you in the next hour, is just, are the hospitals in Yangon, the capital city of Naypyidaw, overrun with people, the scenes could be horrific, Wolf.

BLITZER: And a quick question, Mike, before I let you go. Aftershocks, have there been major aftershocks to the 7.7 earthquake? Because usually there are.

VALERIO: There was only a 6 -- yes, there was only a 6.4 that was 12 minutes after, but there are still warnings. We were talking with Derek Van Dam in Atlanta. There could be aftershocks for days or weeks, but nothing in the range of 6.4 that happened about 12 minutes afterwards, Wolf.

BLITZER: All right. Let's hope for the best. Mike Valerio, we'll stay in close touch with you. Thank you very much.

Also happening now, protesters are outside of New Jersey courthouse, a federal courthouse where a federal judge will hear arguments on a motion to transfer Mahmoud Khalil's case to Louisiana. The Columbia University student activist was arrested in New York, then flown to Louisiana where he is being held in an immigration detention center.

CNN Correspondent Priscilla Alvarez is here with me in The Situation Room. She's got details for us. Priscilla, Khalil's case is striking a lot of fear among international students here in the United States as the Trump administration is cracking down on immigration. Explain the significance of today's hearing.

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, his arrest certainly had a chilling effect, and in some cases, rightfully so. We have seen more arrests of students over the last several days. Now, this case is really going to boil down to where it's going to continue and also a continued push by his attorneys to release him from detention as these proceedings are ongoing.

Now, just to backtrack here as to how this all originated. Mahmoud Khalil was arrested in early March at his university-owned apartment. The administration saying that he has been a pro-Hamas, and the reason for that, given that he was a prominent activist in the protest last year in Columbia University is a negotiator for the pro-Palestinian Columbia students, as they were negotiating with the university.

Recall that encampment and when that all occurred, he was not arrested then. He was not accused of any crime. All of this according to his attorneys, and he's a legal U.S. resident, married to a U.S. citizen. You recall the videos of his arrest at the time. And since then there have been more like that. Now, the administration is using a law that you and I have talked about many times that he poses a national security threat, an adverse foreign policy consequence, all of this in the authority of the secretary of state. So, this is going to be a case about, or this hearing rather, is going to be about whether he -- this case goes to Louisiana, where he is held in detention or whether it remains in New Jersey.

Previously, a judge has already said that he cannot be deported as these legal proceedings are ongoing, but, of course, there is deep concern among his attorneys that he continues to be held in this detention center in Louisiana, like two other students have since his arrest.

BLITZER: And as you pointed out, Mahmoud Khalil has been here in the United States legally.

ALVAREZ: Correct. He is a legal U.S. resident, married to a U.S. citizen.

BLITZER: All right, thanks very much, Priscilla Alvarez, watching this story unfold.

There's more breaking news just into The Situation Room. We're getting new insight right now into how American consumers feel about the U.S. economy. Plus, new inflation numbers also just released this morning.

Let's get right to CNN Business and Politics Correspondent Vanessa Yurkevich. She's joining us live from New York. Vanessa, first of all, tell us what the latest numbers show.

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: The latest numbers show a decline yet again in consumer sentiment, consumer sentiment in the month of March falling by 12 percent. And in this report, it says that two thirds of consumers believe that they will see unemployment rise for the first since the highest level since 2009.

Also, we saw in this report Republicans joining independents and Democrats in signaling that they are feeling like the economy is not moving in the right direction.

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Also in this report, we are seeing from consumers that they believe inflation will rise in the next year or so.

But this is coming sort of juxtaposed to other numbers we got this morning. Consumers spending actually rose in the month of February at 0.4 percent. That is an increase from the decline we saw in January where consumer spending fell by 0.3 percent. Though, Wolf, that could be just a little bit of a holiday hangover, people spending a lot at the end of the year, so tightening their purse strings in January.

We also got inflation data this morning, which really came in as economists expected inflation. This is PCE, this is the Federal Reserve's preferred measure of inflation, it showed that inflation was up 2.5 percent year over year and 0.3 percent month over month. That was expected, but it does just show how hard it is to crack that number trying to get that down to 2 percent.

I will say, Wolf, that those two reports, consumer spending and that inflation report, doesn't take into account President Trump's tariffs. It only picked up the 10 percent tariff on China. Not all the other -- not all the others that have come out in the last month or so. Wolf?

BLITZER: All right, Vanessa Yurkevich watching these numbers for us, thank you very, very much. We'll stay in close touch with you.

Also happening now, Vice President Vance and his wife are on their way to Greenland for a visit likely to stoke the already high tensions between Greenland and the United States, as President Trump insists on his goal of actually annexing the island. Vance is expected to criticize Greenland's Danish government.

Let's go right now to see it as Rene Marsh. She's here with me in The Situation Room. Rene, the anti-U.S. blowback has been strong enough to force a major change of plans for this visit by the vice president.

RENE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It certainly has. And the vice president now joining this visit certainly escalates things. We should point out it is not just him. He's going to be accompanying his wife, Second Lady Usha Vance. We also know that within the delegation will be Energy Secretary Chris Wright and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz. You see the entire U.S. delegation visiting there. And as you said, Wolf, he's expected to have some tough words for Danish leaders, saying that they have mistreated the people of Greenland, allowing infrastructure to decline.

But this trip really highlights a couple of things. The dramatic scale back of this trip that you brought up, it highlights just the tension that is building or that is peaking between the U.S. government and Danish government and their leaders within Greenland. On Monday, just on Facebook, the government of Greenland made it very clear how they felt about this visit, saying in this post, and I'm quoting, that it had not extended any invitations for any visits, neither private or official. So, that very public about how they feel there, again, the tensions directly related to President Trump and his continued rhetoric about wanting to take control of Greenland for security reasons as well as their rare minerals.

Now, this trip, as you mentioned, was originally supposed to involve the second lady having a greater interaction with the people of Greenland, taking in cultural sites, that's not happening. They're now going to be sequestered to this military base, which I visited in 2022. I will just comment that it is quite -- and we have footage of it there. It's quite isolated. I mean. We were not able to get to any other surrounding, you know, towns or communities easily. There's like one flight a week.

But the bottom line is that this military base is far away from any interaction that they would ever be able to have with people of Greenland, and that is likely by design. We know that when he's there, he'll be getting a security briefing and he'll also be speaking to service members. But, again, just highlighting here, Wolf, that they have made the changes because that tension and the people of Greenland and the government of Greenland and Danish leaders have made it clear, they don't want them there.

BLITZER: Yes. Greenland's part of Denmark, which is a major NATO ally, but Trump doesn't apparently care that Denmark is a major ally of the United States.

All right, thanks very much, Rene Marsh reporting for us.

There's also more new CNN reporting coming in. Both current and former U.S. officials say texts sent by the national security adviser and the CIA director in that bombshell Signal group chat may have damaged America's ability to gather critically important intel on Houthi targets in Yemen going forward. And it comes as a federal judge has just ordered the Trump administration to preserve those messages sent between March 11th and March 15th when cabinet members openly discussed U.S. airstrikes in Yemen.

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But the attorney general is defending the chat and the app that was used. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is Signal not going to be used or is it going to be used going forward? Are you aware?

PAM BONDI, ATTORNEY GENERAL: Well, I think Signal's a very safe way to communicate. I don't think foreign adversaries are able to hack Signal, as far as I know.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: She may be right. She may not be right.

Joining us now, CNN Crime and Justice Correspondent Katelyn Polantz. Katelyn, so where do things stand right now in this group chat case, the investigation? First of all, is there a formal investigation by the Trump administration underway?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, we're not seeing one, but we do know that the agencies, the Justice Department, even confirmed in court yesterday that they are taking steps to make sure that the use of Signal is at least saved related to these dates.

So, we did have a judge yesterday have a hearing because there was a lawsuit from an outside non-partisan transparency group saying these are federal records. They need to be maintained, handled properly, preserved, in case there would be an investigation or just for the archives, the American public.

And so the judge talked to both the Justice Department representing the entirety of the administration, all those agencies on that chat, as well as the people who were suing and said, yes, let's put an order in. Preserve the messages sent on Signal in all of these agencies between March 11th and March 15th. Get an update to the court on Monday, so we'll wait to see what happens there. The group here says the public has a right to know about war and national security decisions like these --

BLITZER: There are laws that require the government to preserve these kinds of messages, not just for historical purposes, but to learn from them.

POLANTZ: That's right. These sorts of cases are hard to get off the ground, but because the Signal has an auto delete function that was apparently employed at least on one person's app in the federal government, that prompted this hearing yesterday to happen very quickly and the court to step in, Justice Department agreed to do this too.

BLITZER: Is it auto delete? Says within, what, a few days everything is going to be deleted, so forget about it.

POLANTZ: That's right, Wolf.

BLITZER: Yes. All right, we'll watch this with you. Katelyn Polantz, thank you very, very much.

Also happening now, abandoned vehicles are littering flooded streets across Southern Texas after thunderstorms and widespread flash flooding prompted a number of water rescues. This was the scene. Look at this inside a hospital in McAllen, where flood water gushed into the hallway due to issues with the storm water drain.

Let's go live right now to our Meteorologist Derek Van Dam over at the CNN Weather Center. Derek, first of all, what can you tell us about the latest storm hitting Texas?

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes. Well, it's hard to believe that this area has been under severe drought conditions for the past several months. But here's the problem. When you get this amount of rain over a foot in many locations, the ground actually acts as a pavement. So, it's not able to absorb that amount of water in such a short period of time. And, unfortunately, we get scenes like this with abandoned vehicles and flooded roadways looking like rivers. This is coming out of South Texas in Alamo.

The rainfall totals have been impressive, over a foot in several locations. Look at Harlingen, 14 inches of rain, Port Isabel just over 13 inches. That is why we currently have these flashflood watches and flashflood warnings for the extreme southern coastal regions of Texas.

The good news is the majority of the heavy rainfall coming to an end, but the damage has already been done. This is also, by the way, Wolf, going to fuel a severe -- round of severe weather this weekend for the Midwest. Back to you.

BLITZER: Yes. All right, Derek Van Dam reporting for us, thank you, Derek, for that update.

Still ahead, I'll speak to Democratic Congressman Josh Gottheimer on reports that the White House is eyeing even more major cuts to the federal workforce.

Stay with us. You're in The Situation Room.

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BLITZER: The Washington Post is now reporting that the Trump administration is eyeing huge cuts to the federal workforce between 8 and 50 percent of employees across some 22 federal agencies, that according to an internal White House document obtained by the newspaper. The White House claims the plan isn't final or up to date, but says this, and I'm quoting, it's no secret the Trump administration is dedicated to downsizing the federal bureaucracy and cutting waste, fraud, and abuse.

Let's get some more right now from Democratic Congressman Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey. He sits on the House Intelligence and Financial Services Committees. Congressman, thanks so much for joining us.

As you know, these are huge cuts. Is it even possible you think for a federal agency, a major part of the federal government, to cut up to 50 percent of its workforce and still properly carry out all its critical functions?

REP. JOSH GOTTHEIMER (D-NJ): I mean, Wolf, it's insane what they're doing, right? It's just pure chaos. They slash and burn without any strategy, right? So, I'm all for common sense and looking at things, but this is just pure stupidity the way they're doing this. Literally going after places like the Social Security Administration where they're closing offices, closing hotlines. You know, you have 40 percent of seniors rely on Social Security to get by. That's how they pay for their food and, and their medicine. And you're talking about literally gutting things that people rely on, that they've earned these benefits.

And now we've got lots of seniors calling us and saying, I don't know how to get information. I'm trying to sign up. I've got a problem with my Social Security. No one's answering the phone. What if they closed more offices down? And instead of having some sort of strategy the way they did this at the FAA, where they just suddenly cut a bunch of workers. We've got shortages of the FAA. We've got problems, you know, as you've seen challenges in the sky where you don't have enough people able to actually man all of our towers.

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Why would you go after play people working and looking at the bird flu and trying to stop it? There's no strategy here. And instead they're just trying to throw a lot of grenades into government agencies without any kind of plan. BLITZER: I know you've studied this, Congressman. Does President Trump even have the legal power to make these kinds of sweeping cuts?

GOTTHEIMER: No, but the point is he doesn't seem to care, right? He just does -- well, they just seem to do what they want, undermine, of course, what we've decided in Congress and debated and voted for and studied and to make sure we take care of people, right, take care of seniors, make sure kids have food for school, breakfast and school lunch, you know, that there's enough people in the towers to make sure our skies are safe.

And you do this with an appropriate strategy and the way that's how we actually build our budgets and allocate our resources. And for him it's just pure chaos. And that's what they're doing. They don't seem to really have a strategy. There is no common sense. Again, I just think this is part of their chaos and like see what kind they could throw against the wall and what might stick. And it hurts people, right? I mean, it hurts just regular seniors who are just trying to get by and hurts families and veterans who they don't seem to care about either.

So, I don't really get what they're trying to do here. All I know is it seems like they have no plans and no actually strategic way forward for the country.

BLITZER: Because the law of the land is that the House and the Senate, the Congress, they have the right to authorize specific spending limits for federal agencies and then they appropriate exactly how much money should go to those agencies. And once a president signs the authorization and the appropriation legislation passed by the House and Senate into law, it becomes the law of the land. And another president can't simply forget about it and reject it. Is that right?

GOTTHEIMER: That's exactly right. But, listen, he says, well, we're just going to shut down the Department of Education. You don't just -- you can't just shut down the Department of Education. And, you know, he just thinks he's -- he's not the king here, right? This is the greatest democracy in the world. We obviously have a Congress that debates these things. By the way, Democrats and Republicans debate these things. We then vote, as we did in the past on our budgets, and the decisions to have, the government, the way we have it.

Now, if you, we want to debate this again and make other decisions and common sense, and I'm all again for being smart and strategic and having common sense, and looking at things, great. Let's look at things and do it the right way. You don't just take a chainsaw to everything and say, hey, we're just going to cut it and leave seniors out in the cold and leave veterans out in the cold. That's not the way we do things in this country. And it certainly is not the way he's allowed to do things.

So, you know, those of us like me, we're going to fight this, fight it each step of the way, as we're doing already, and you know, introduce legislation to shut down his ability to close every Social Security office that he wants to, to cut these phone lines, the helplines to help seniors and help veterans and people with mental -- you know, people who have mental illness and other challenges that they -- they just don't seem to care about.

And so I don't get it, Wolf, but I'll tell you this. We're going to fight it each step of the way, as we're doing, and we're going to make sure we approach things with common sense, not with their crazy chaos the way they're doing things at this administration.

BLITZER: You may need a lot of Republican support to get that kind of mission accomplished.

I quickly want to get your thoughts while I have you, Congressman, on this controversy over that group chat, where top Trump officials discussed attacking Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen after accidentally including a journalist in that conversation. Current and former U.S. officials tell CNN some of those texts have already been -- have already damaged the ability of the United States to collect critically important intelligence on the Houthi terrorists. How concerning is that to you?

GOTTHEIMER: Well, obviously, without getting to specifics, it's very concerning. You know, I got a briefing yesterday in the Intelligence Committee that just reinforced the reason I called for the secretary of defense to resign.

You can't, in a chat, as you know, you just talked about, literally lay out our war plans, our attack plans, as the secretary of defense, did hours ahead of an attack putting our servicemen and women at risk. And obviously we've got a lot of enemies out there, including the Houthis, by the way, they're a terrorist organization. They deserve to be attacked. Like I'm not at ever going to say we shouldn't go after terrorists who seek to undermine our democracy and put our lives in at risk, right?

But the way we execute this is to protect everyone on our side, all of our servicemen and women. And when by putting out the plans early literally over a chat is totally inappropriate. That information should be classified. You don't -- like when I, when I go get my briefings, I don't post them online. You don't talk about them and you don't do it because you don't ever want to put any serviceman or woman or anyone in the intelligence community at risk.

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And if I were a mom or dad and my kid were flying there, putting his or her life in danger to protect our great country.