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The Situation Room

Federal Hearing on DOGE; Trump Administration Defying Supreme Court?. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired April 15, 2025 - 11:00   ET

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

[11:01:48]

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: Happening now: the growing deportation drama. Critics are accusing President Trump of defying a Supreme Court order to help get a man that the administration says was mistakenly deported to El Salvador back to the U.S.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: We want to welcome our viewers here in the United States and around the world.

I'm Wolf Blitzer with Pamela Brown, and you're in THE SITUATION ROOM.

And we begin this hour with the very controversial case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, as a federal judge prepares to hear new arguments about the legality of his deportation. President Trump is doubling down on his refusal to bring the Maryland father of three back to the United States from a Salvadoran prison, despite an order from the U.S. Supreme Court to -- quote -- "facilitate his return."

BROWN: And now the president is taking it a step further, suggesting that he could deport -- quote -- "homegrown" violent criminals as well who were here in the U.S.

So let's go live now to CNN's Alayna Treene at the White House.

Alayna, give us the latest on today's hearing, as President Trump once again pushes the limits of his power.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: I think this hearing today is going to be very significant, Pamela, particularly because this case and the questions involving this man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, has really become one of the biggest standoffs between the judiciary and the White House.

Now, as for how the Trump administration is responding to this, I'd argue that they had really been building to this line of defense for some time now, but it became more explicit than ever yesterday when they made clear that they have no intention of returning him to the United States, despite that Supreme Court ruling.

Essentially, what we have heard the Trump administration argue is that none of these -- the courts and even the Supreme Court in this case can really tell them what to do. We have also heard top Trump administration officials, from the president himself, but also from Deputy Chief of staff for Policy Stephen Miller, who's really been kind of the key architect of this administration's immigration policy, but also Attorney General Pam Bondi.

They're trying to paint that Supreme Court ruling as a win, arguing that it essentially says that the courts cannot get involved in foreign policy decisions by the president of the United States. Now, I think the big thing to look for today, of course, is whether or not the courts are going to be satisfied with the answers and the justification they are giving for refusing to return this man to the United States.

What we heard them really say explicitly yesterday in the Oval Office is, one, they argue that they don't have power to do so, that now that this man is back in El Salvador, it's really up to El Salvador and President Nayib Bukele to make that decision.

But then we also heard Bukele say that he doesn't believe he has the power to return him to the U.S. as well, all of that despite us knowing, of course, that this is really kind of in their hands. So, today is going to be a very key part of these big questions now of where does this case go from here and whether or not the courts feel like the administration is defying, openly defying, their orders.

BROWN: Right.

And the president was also asked about the notion of deporting U.S. citizens. And he said his administration is looking at deporting -- quote -- "homegrown criminals" as well, something he says they're looking at the laws for.

[11:05:02]

But legal experts, many of them, called that flatly unconstitutional. Is that proposal being seriously considered?

TREENE: It's something that I know that the president admitted yesterday was something they would have to look into the legal justifications for.

But then he said that he was directing his Attorney General Pam Bondi to do just that, to try and figure out if there is a way to legally try and send United States citizens, what he referred to as homegrown criminals, to El Salvador as well, and not just to El Salvador, but also to go into those mega-prisons that Bukele has really set up in the country.

What the president said explicitly was: "We always have to obey the laws, but we also have homegrown criminals that push people into the subways." He said he would like to see those people as well get kicked out of the country.

I think the bottom line here, though, Pam is that so much of what the president is focused on is only digging in further to this strategy and ramping up what they want to do in sending, again, maybe not just undocumented migrants in this country who have allegedly committed violent crimes, but also United States citizens, to El Salvador -- Pamela.

BROWN: All right, Alayna Treene, thank you so much.

And the Abrego Garcia case, it is emblematic of a larger issue, right, that the bounds of executive power, how far can it go as it pertains to immigration policy? The White House has put out some confusing and contradictory statements since Abrego Garcia was supported to El -- deported to El Salvador by mistake.

It's a lot to keep up with, so we wanted to bring in our senior reporter, Daniel Dale, with a fact-check to help us understand, what are the facts?

So, Daniel, from the beginning, the White House has admitted in court filings that this man was sent to El Salvador by mistake. But listen to what one of president's -- the president's top aides, Stephen Miller, told FOX.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHEN MILLER, WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF: He was not mistakenly sent to El Salvador.

BILL HEMMER, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: OK.

MILLER: A DOJ lawyer, who has since been relieved of duty, a saboteur, a Democrat, put into a filing incorrectly that this was a mistaken removal. It was not. This was the right person sent to the right place.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: So, what are the facts here?

DANIEL DALE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Pam, Mr. Miller's suggestion that some lefty saboteur at DOJ is the reason people are calling this deportation a mistake is just wrong.

Various Trump administration officials have also called it a mistake. So here are the facts. Mr. Abrego Garcia was under a 2019 court order that said he could not be sent back to El Salvador because he had a credible fear of facing persecution from gang violence in that country.

And then this year, of course, the Trump administration did send him back to El Salvador. Now, the particular career DOJ attorney Mr. Miller is calling a Democratic plant who was quickly put on leave after he expressed frustration with the administration in court over the case did say this deportation should not have happened.

But he wasn't going rogue in saying that. ICE and DOJ officials have told the courts at least three other times that sending Mr. Abrego Garcia to El Salvador was an error.

First, in March, acting ICE Field Office Director Robert Cerna told the court under penalty of perjury that it was a -- quote -- "administrative error." Then, this month, DOJ lawyers, including senior officials appointed by Trump, told an appeals court -- quote -- "He was sent to that country due to an administrative error."

And then, days later, the solicitor general, John Sauer, the Trump- appointed lawyer who represents the administration at the Supreme Court, so a top lawyer, told the Supreme Court -- quote -- "The United States concedes that removal to El Salvador was an administrative error."

So Mr. Miller pinning the idea that this was an error on one sneaky Democratic plant at the Justice Department is nonsense.

BROWN: All right.

So the Supreme Court's ruling backed in part the previous district judge's order that requires the Trump administration to -- quote -- "facilitate" -- there's a lot of emphasis on that word -- the return of Abrego Garcia.

But in the Oval Office yesterday, Miller made it sound like the White House came out on top in this ruling. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MILLER: It was a 9-0...

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: In our favor?

MILLER: ... in our favor against the district court ruling, saying that no district court has the power to compel the foreign policy function of the United States.

As Pam said, the ruling solely stated that, if this individual, at El Salvador's sole discretion, was sent back to our country, that we could deport him a second time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: All right, what are the facts here?

DALE: There are a bunch of issues with Mr. Miller's description of that ruling.

I encourage people to read it for themselves. It's pretty short. So, four things here. First of all, Miller did not mention that the ruling said the Trump administration has to -- quote -- "facilitate" Abrego Garcia's release from custody in El Salvador.

The ruling did also say the administration is owed -- quote -- "deference" in foreign affairs. But the court explicitly said they have to facilitate him getting out of jail in El Salvador. Now, the administration is arguing, as you guys have talked about, that the order to facilitate doesn't mean they actually have to do anything at all to get him out of this foreign prison.

They argue that, in the context of immigration law, facilitate just means they have to take domestic steps to make sure he can get back into the U.S. if El Salvador independently chose to release him. It's not clear how that's going to fly in the courts. Regardless, it's not what the plain language of that Supreme Court ruling says.

[11:10:06]

And, second, that wasn't the end of the ruling. The Supreme Court also wrote -- quote -- "that the government should be prepared to share what it can concerning the steps it has taken and the prospect of further steps."

And, so far, the administration has been sharing only the vaguest, slimmest of steps updates to the district court judge who ordered those updates.

Third of all, it's worth noting the Supreme Court did not explicitly guarantee that Mr. Abrego Garcia can be deported again. It simply wrote his case should be -- quote -- "handled as if it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador."

Now, that might very well mean deportation. CNN and others have reported he is deportable to anywhere other than El Salvador, but the Supreme Court didn't actually state anything about a second deportation.

And then, fourth and finally, regarding Mr. Miller's claim of a 9-0 ruling, the Supreme Court's three liberals actually signed on to a statement saying they would have let stand the district court ruling that required the government not only to facilitate Mr. Abrego Garcia's release from custody, but to -- quote -- "effectuate" his return to the U.S. within days.

The liberals wrote that it's plainly wrong to say the U.S. government cannot do anything to help someone once a deportee crosses the border from the U.S.

So this suggestion from Mr. Miller that all nine justices are on board with his own claims about the limits of the administration's responsibilities and powers here is clearly not true.

BROWN: Yes, right.

On that note, I'm just reading. It's only four pages. The liberal justices said: "I agree with the court's order that the proper remedy is to provide Abrego Garcia with all the process to which he would have been entitled had he not been unlawfully removed to El Salvador."

DALE: Right.

BROWN: There's a hearing later today. A lot at stake there.

Daniel Dale, thank you so much -- Wolf.

BLITZER: I love it when Daniel Dale does some serious fact-checking for us. He's so good.

BROWN: Right. And it's important, because there's so much being thrown around. And it's complicated.

BLITZER: Right.

BROWN: And I just think it's important to look at the facts.

BLITZER: And he does, and does a great job.

Also this morning, in Baltimore, a federal judge is holding a hearing on the Department of Government Efficiency's, DOGE's attempt to access very sensitive information at the U.S. Social Security Administration. Critics of Elon Musk and his DOGE cost-cutting team claim access could compromise your privacy. And a federal judge has barred it for now.

CNN crime and justice correspondent Katelyn Polantz is here with us in THE SITUATION ROOM.

Katelyn, explain to our viewers what this hearing is all about.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Well, Wolf and Pam, this -- of all the cases against DOGE about privacy, this so far has turned out to be the really big one, the one where people went to court and said, the DOGE person must even potentially have access to individuals' private Social Security records, their personal data.

And the judge said, everybody, stop. This is too scary. I can't let this go on for now.

So, what's happening at this hearing today is, the judge is looking a little bit closer at the legal arguments to see if there's enough there for her to expand this order or to keep this order in place to say that the people working on DOGE should not have access to individuals' Social Security information in a detailed fashion.

They can see it in an anonymized, more general fashion at the Social Security Administration as DOGE is doing its work, but, right now, they can't look at it at the individual level. There's also really big questions in this case. And the judge is asking factual questions here. What the heck have they been doing at the Social Security Administration with data?

They say, the administration says there's a project called the Are You Alive Project. There's a project called the Death Data Cleanup Project. There's something called the Fraud Detection Project, but the judge has questions about is that something that they're doing, or is there a disconnect here between what they're doing and the evidence that the plaintiffs have, saying they should really not have access to this information?

BLITZER: Yes, it's very sensitive information indeed.

And there's some concern, correct me if I'm wrong, the possibility of DOGE having access to IRS tax information for average American citizens?

POLANTZ: Yes. And there's a connection to this case, in that "The New York Times" just a couple days ago had a report saying that the Social Security Administration was looking at using the death master list as a way to add immigrants to it to revoke their Social Security numbers.

The judge had questions about that, but guess what? Just yesterday, the administration said, we're not going to allow you to question the acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration under oath in this case today. There was a possibility we could have had testimony about that, but that's not where the hearing's going.

It's much more about legal questions today.

BLITZER: Very sensitive information.

POLANTZ: Yes.

BLITZER: Katelyn Polantz, thank you very much.

BROWN: Thank you so much.

All right, still ahead in THE SITUATION ROOM: President Trump says, the higher the tariff, the faster U.S. companies will bring their factories back home. We will fact-check how long a move like that could take.

BLITZER: Plus, this: Joe Biden is back. Today, the former president of the United States is giving his first public speech since leaving office. What could he have to say?

[11:15:07]

Stay with us. You're in THE SITUATION ROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Right now, we're tracking new fallout from the controversy over a ban the Trump administration deported to El Salvador by mistake.

A federal judge is preparing to hear new arguments in the case, as President Trump is trying to dodge a U.S. Supreme Court order to -- quote -- "facilitate" his return.

Let's get some more analysis from CNN senior political and global affairs commentator Rahm Emanuel.

Rahm, thanks very much for joining U.S.

[11:20:00]

President Trump, as you know, is clearly testing the limits of his power. How far can he push it before we hit a constitutional crisis?

RAHM EMANUEL, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL AND GLOBAL AFFAIRS COMMENTATOR: Yes. You said he's testing the limits of his power. I actually think he's

testing the limits of the Supreme Court's power. When Judge Roberts -- Supreme Court justice and head of the Supreme Court Roberts said in his testimony years back that judges, they call balls and strikes.

Well, we're going to see how good this umpire is. And this is a test on the Supreme Court, not on the president alone. And it's whether you actually buy into the premise that there are three co-equal branches of government or one more powerful than all the other -- than the other two.

And that's the test here. They issued a verdict, they made a decision, and the president of the United States is defying it. So this is actually a test on both the Supreme Court and Judge Roberts specifically.

BLITZER: On another very important issue where, Rahm, the Federal Reserve has indicated it's unlikely to cut interest rates. This comes as President Trump repeatedly slams the fed chair, Jerome Powell.

CNN has learned the White House is actually starting to interview potential replacements for Powell. Do you think Trump could fire Powell before his term ends? And what would be the impact of that?

EMANUEL: Well, I think there's a couple layers here, real quickly. One, he's clearly not only trying to pressure the Federal Reserve and the Federal Reserve chairman on interest rates. He's also trying to undermine him, because, if he doesn't leave, weaken him.

And that's going to weaken the United States, not just Jerome Powell. You have the dollar. The secretary of treasury said the dollar's going to go up after these tariffs. It actually declined. It tells you something about the Treasury's knowledge.

Two, the dollar is losing its status as a reserve currency, in opposition to what the president wanted to see. It's happening in real time as we're sitting here today. You now attack the independence and the capability of the Federal Reserve, the dollar is going to be severely diminished.

And you have no idea, in a sense -- I mean, not you, Wolf. I don't mean it that way, but that we use sanctions and the dollar's primary role so we don't have to do kinetic types of battles, but we can sanction a country, sanction an individual, and it has an economic impact that limits it.

So we are actually right now diminishing America's power, diminishing America's capability of projecting that power, and we are hurting ourselves in this process all for political vengeance because the Federal Reserve is independent of Donald Trump.

BLITZER: As you know, Rahm, the president now says yet another tariff exemption is being considered in his trade war, this time for the auto industry. How do you think U.S. trading partners are going to react to this, yet another instance of Trump seemingly backtracking on part of his tariffs? EMANUEL: Well, a couple things, Wolf.

I would just focus, first and foremost, this is the most corrupt system you can have. You either have some rules in which people know how to make economic decisions, or everybody gets to appeal to the president and he gets to bless you or sanction you.

I think this is an incredible element of corruption. And if you ever tied people that are getting actually kind of relief from the tariffs, you will see a direct relationship with also the type of things that are going on at Mar-a-Lago and the fund-raising. I think this is bad economics and clearly bad politics, because it's going to lead to a level of corruption, rather than a level of economic growth.

And then, second, underneath it, look, there's no distinction here being made between toys, textiles or technology. If you want to talk about what we can do on technology and invest in high-end manufacturing, great. I'm for that. Let's have that discussion.

Where do tariffs fit in or not? Where do investments in research and development, like going on at our universities, where does that fit in? But the idea that all manufacturing is the same is wrong. And if -- take one data point. Nearly half of all our imports to the United States go into some form of inputs into our own manufacturing here at home.

So this is once again another own goal. And you have a president who's not making a decision based on a theory of the case. He's making a decision based on instinct. And the United States is both being diminished as a power and being affected, and people are losing their jobs and their economic livelihood because of it.

BLITZER: Before I let you go, Rahm, I want your thoughts. Former President Joe Biden is set to give the first public speech of his post-presidency in your hometown of Chicago later today. Is that a good idea for Democrats, considering how unpopular President Biden was when he left office?

EMANUEL: Well, it's important.

Obviously, all former presidents know what it's like to be in that Oval Office. They will shed their lights. But, to me, from a pure Democratic Party interest, I would rather focus both on voices and people thinking about the future, how they're going to fight for the American dream and the middle class of this country.

Obviously, President Biden has a lot to shed on the moment. But I don't -- as you probably, just strategically, and you saw it the other day, President Trump is still kind of drafting off of Joe Biden. And I think it's important not to have that kind of counterpoint, because that's what he's using for his own presidency and his own justification.

[11:25:13]

President Biden's voice is important, but understanding the strategic landscape we're in, President Trump is using that as his kind of backboard. And that's not helpful not only for the country, most importantly, but also the Democrats, who want to talk about and go into the future and make this a referendum on Donald Trump and his tenure.

BLITZER: Yes, President Trump keeps blaming President Biden for almost everything that's wrong in the world right now.

EMANUEL: Yes.

BLITZER: Rahm Emanuel, thank you so much for joining us.

And we will be right back.

EMANUEL: Thank you, Wolf. Thanks, Pamela.

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