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The Situation Room

Children's Mattresses and Bedding Face Scrutiny; Retail Sales Surge; Interview With Rep. Rich McCormick (R-GA). Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired April 16, 2025 - 10:30   ET

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

[10:33:03]

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: A federal judge is expressing deep frustration with the Trump administration's handling of the man that the administration itself said was mistakenly deported to a notorious El Salvador mega-prison.

During a tense hearing yesterday, she scolded Justice Department attorneys for doing -- quote -- "nothing" to comply with her orders.

Joining us now is Republican Congressman Rich McCormick of Georgia.

Congressman, thank you so much for coming on. I know in the past, and your February town hall, the latest example, you have expressed concern about presidents of both parties having too much power in the executive branch.

When you hear the president and his top officials suggest that they could simply ignore the court orders here from this federal judge, do you think that is an example of the executive branch overstepping its authority?

REP. RICH MCCORMICK (R-GA): No, in this case, I think it's been very clear there has been a process. You can say it's not due process, but, actually, he has appealed his deportation. He lost that appeal.

He was going to be deported.Whether he should have gone to El Salvador or not is really one question. It also begs the question, when anybody says that they request asylum because their life is threatened and they have this due process, the question is, how are you going to deport them to that country of origin if he belongs to a let's say it's MS-13 or whatever, and there's a rival gang that doesn't like him?

Are we going to have this hold up our deportation of criminal elements here in the United States? But when it comes to the due process, he did have due process. And he appealed it. And he still lost that.

BROWN: Well...

MCCORMICK: He was deported perhaps to El Salvador by mistake.

BROWN: He didn't have due process. Right. He didn't have due process most recently...

MCCORMICK: What do you consider due process?

BROWN: Well, he didn't go before a judge before he was taken off the street and then sent to a mega-prison in El Salvador.

And so the question that's raised here is, are you OK with...

MCCORMICK: He went before a judge twice actually.

BROWN: And...

MCCORMICK: He lost his first case for deportation. He appealed it.

He was again ordered to be deported.

BROWN: OK.

MCCORMICK: Whether he had habeas because he was under distress due to life threats from another rival gang is a separate issue from the due process question that you're calling into question.

[10:35:08]

BROWN: OK.

So, the bottom line is, are you OK with people being taken off the street and sent to a notorious foreign prison without going to see a judge to determine whether this person is a gang member or not? Are we supposed to just blindly trust the government when they...

MCCORMICK: I think you're confusing the due process here.

BROWN: Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Let me just finish.

MCCORMICK: Realize that whether he's part...

BROWN: Are we supposed to blindly trust the government when it alleges gang ties without providing the evidence to back it up?

Again, we don't know. Maybe he is, maybe he isn't, but the administration hasn't provided that evidence.

MCCORMICK: So realize that he was deported because he's here illegally. He said, I don't want to be deported because I'm afraid of going back to my country of origin. He was given that due process.

The question is, can he be sent to El Salvador because of life threats? Has nothing to do with being part of MS-13, in and of itself. The MS-13 issue is another issue, and there is evidence, from what I understand, that will be presented. He may come back for a day for habeas, but he's not going to stay in the United States.

He's here illegally, end of story.

BROWN: OK. He -- and you're right. He was given a protected status from going to El Salvador.

MCCORMICK: And he's had that due process on that.

BROWN: That doesn't mean he couldn't be deported elsewhere.

MCCORMICK: Correct.

BROWN: But do you agree, Congressman, that there's a difference between being deported to a mega-prison under the premise that this is a MS-13 gang member, which there hasn't been evidence to prove that, and being deported to another country, where you can -- you still have your liberty intact, versus this mega-prison that is known for...

(CROSSTALK)

MCCORMICK: So, now you beg another question.

Now, let's say you're going to go deport somebody to Venezuela. Let's say it's a gang member. Let's say it's somebody horrible, and you deport them there. They're going to go to a bad jail. I promise you, Venezuelan jails are not a good place.

Matter of fact, we know for a fact that Venezuela has cleared some of their jailed people and sent them here. Do we say, oh, we can't send them back to Venezuela because their jails are too bad, we should keep those criminal elements here in our jails?

I don't think that's what the American people want to hear. I don't think what our legal system was designed for. I think it's a false claim to try to make President Trump look bad. But I don't think it resonates with the people. I think the Democrats are barking up the wrong tree, as well as the media.

When you say that you can't be sent back to Venezuela or El Salvador, some country that has bad jails, because they should -- they may have really bad things from the country they came from, even though they may be part of a criminal element, that's a false, falsely resonating message, whether it comes from the media or the far left. I don't think the American people are buying that.

BROWN: This isn't a message. We're just asking the important questions based on facts and based on the fact the administration itself, under penalty of perjury, said that...

MCCORMICK: The fact is, you just said -- you asked a very specific question, though.

BROWN: ... that this was an error.

MCCORMICK: Your question was this. You said, should we send them back to a mega-prison, if that's what we're going to do, because they could have bad treatment?

My question is, if they are somebody who's here illegally and they have broken the law, they're going to be sent back to that country. That country will determine their fate at that point.

BROWN: But that wasn't proven in this case. MCCORMICK: That's a sovereign nation. You said legally. You said

these are the facts. And I'm answering you the facts.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: Congressman, listen, listen, and I'm also talking about the facts here.

If the administration is so confident in what it has done and that this is actually -- that this person is a member of MS-13, why isn't it proving this in court? It's had ample opportunity before this district judge. But, instead, this district judge just said yesterday that the administration has done nothing to show what it is doing here, despite the court order asking it to do so.

MCCORMICK: The Supreme Court said it's going to be pushed back for further clarification from the lower court on what they exactly want done.

Now, I know for a fact, when we have congressional inquiries or when we ask for the government to do something more, they can say, hey, this is what we're doing. But, in this case, you have the president of one country agreeing with the president of another country that individual should stay there at this point.

Now, he may come back for a day of habeas, but he's not going to stay here either way. But you have two presidents who have decided that they have agreed that this person is somebody of consequence, somebody who's of the criminal element, somebody who doesn't belong in the United States, somebody who came here illegally.

And you're saying that an appointee from the Obama era can order the judge -- can say the president's not doing enough. Well, prove what you think is enough. That's what's going to be determined in court.

BROWN: Well, it will be, and the Supreme Court did weigh in and say that it agreed with the...

MCCORMICK: And said what?

BROWN: That it agreed with the district judge, saying that the U.S. administration...

MCCORMICK: No, it did not. It did not. That's false reporting. You know that's false.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: Let me finish my sentence. Congressman, I know you're trying to create a moment.

MCCORMICK: They said that they wanted them to have clarification. That's all they said.

BROWN: I understand you're trying to create a moment right now to try to get pickup, and that's self-serving. That's not serving our viewers.

MCCORMICK: I think we know who's trying to commit the moment here. We know that.

BROWN: No, what I am laying out here is facts.

The Supreme Court, the four-page opinion, agreed with the lower court judge that it should -- the administration should -- quote -- "facilitate his return."

[10:40:04]

Now, in terms of effectuate, it left it to the lower court to clarify.

MCCORMICK: That's not facts, by the way. Just so you know, that's not facts. You're not reporting the facts.

BROWN: And it said that the president -- everyone can read it. It's online.

MCCORMICK: Yes, they can. Thank you.

BROWN: And it said that the president does have foreign affairs protections and that the district court judge should take that into account when providing that clarification.

That's exactly what was said. It was not a forceful opinion. It was not. It was -- it certainly had ambiguity. But that's what the Supreme Court said.

The president also says he is looking into deporting U.S. citizens who have committed violent crimes. Many legal experts say that's just flatly unconstitutional. Do you agree with the president on this case, or do you think he should back off this threat?

MCCORMICK: I didn't hear what he said specifically. I'm not sure what the context is. So I'm not going to comment on what the context of that comment was, because I don't think the president would be inferring that he's going to break the constitutionality of due process for citizens of the United States.

I think that's absurd.

BROWN: All right, Congressman Rich McCormick, thank you for your time.

MCCORMICK: Absolutely.

BROWN: We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:45:39]

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: New this morning, key data on how Americans are spending, retail sales for March -- that was before Trump launched his latest round of tariffs -- surging to the strongest monthly pace in over two years, that according to the Commerce Department.

However, this record spending could be very, very short-lived.

For more on what's going on, we're joined now by CNN's Vanessa Yurkevich, who's watching all of this unfold in New York.

Vanessa, is this data a sign of a new normal or simply shoppers buying in bulk to hedge against rising costs?

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Wolf, it is the latter.

This report shows that consumers are nervous about increasing prices. And so they went out and spent in the month of March, retail sales in the month of March rising to 1.4 percent. That is a dramatic increase from the 0.2 percent that we saw in February, and on an annual basis, spending rising to 4.6 percent.

And this is really driven, and pun intended here, Wolf, by people spending on cars and car parts. Cars -- spending on cars in the month of March there, you can see 5.3 percent. And look at it year over year, 8.8 percent. We also heard from Ford Motor Company, who said that they saw dramatic increases in retail sales in the month of March as well. So that tracks right in line with this report.

Also, two sectors to watch here is spending on furniture and clothing. Americans get a lot of furniture and clothing right from our trading partners, particularly in China. Those tariffs are set to go into -- or those tariffs are in effect right now, the 145 percent.

So we could expect those numbers that you see on your screen right there to rise a little bit as people potentially in the month of April looking forward were trying to get deals on furniture and as well as clothing.

Economists agree that we could see a similar report, Wolf, in April as people tried to get ahead of the tariffs that were looming. But economists predict maybe in the summer months, as this trade war extends and goes on, that's when consumers will likely start to pull back and you will see those retailer -- retail numbers, Wolf, start to tick down again.

BLITZER: Excellent analysis. Vanessa Yurkevich in New York for us, thank you very much -- Pamela.

BROWN: All right, coming up, two studies about something your child may be using right now raising safety concerns. I know that my baby is using it.

I will speak with an expert about the possible health risks of certain bedding and mattresses and which ones you should look out for up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:52:22]

BROWN: Listen up, parents. There is new research about where your young children lay their heads at night, and it's cause for concern.

There are these two new studies that reveal that some baby mattresses and bedding emit brain-harming chemicals while they sleep. Now, no brand names were included in the studies, but we're told that they were well-known lower-cost mattresses found at major retail stores.

Joining us now is Jane Muncke, the managing director and chief scientific officer at the Food Packaging Forum. And she studies how plastics impact our health.

And I got to be honest. After reading this about these studies, Jane I went and I checked my baby's mattress. He's 14 months old. And I thought, oh, my gosh, is this safe? Is this emitting chemicals? I mean, it really is worrisome reading about this. What are the key takeaways from these studies and how credible are these studies?

JANE MUNCKE, MANAGING DIRECTOR AND CHIEF SCIENTIFIC OFFICER, FOOD PACKAGING FORUM: Hi, Pamela. It's good to be with you today.

Yes, I share your worry. These studies are very credible. They have been done by well-recognized researchers at the University of Toronto and colleagues. And they're very concerning, because chemicals that are hazardous to health should not be in children's bedrooms, and they shouldn't actually be in our daily lives either.

Unfortunately, there is quite a big discrepancy between what the regulators consider safe and what you and I would consider safe. And that's what we're seeing here with the studies.

BROWN: So tell us more about what kind of health problems are potentially linked to these kinds of toxic chemicals. And what do you know about the regulation of these chemicals in the United States?

Because I know, in this -- some of these studies, they were done in Canada, but they had U.S. parts as well.

MUNCKE: Yes.

So, these chemicals can interfere with the hormone system. And that's why they're called endocrine disrupters. That's a big word. But, basically, what they do is, they can mimic the way that natural hormones signal in the body.

And that can lead to all kinds of different effects, because the hormone system is responsible for so many different aspects of health and development. So, we're thinking here of impacts on brain, neurological development, but also things like allergies. Diseases that are connected to the immune system health can be affected, and then also, of course, reproductive health.

So, some of the chemicals that they found at quite high levels are the phthalates. And those are known to be linked for example to declining sperm count and so on.

[10:55:02]

BROWN: So what are we supposed to do about it as parents? Like, what am I supposed to do for my 14-month-old who has to sleep in a crib?

MUNCKE: Yes.

So I think the first point is, don't panic. It is a concerning situation. And it's really also annoying that our regulators do not have our backs, because most of these chemicals are present at levels where they are legally allowed to be there, even though we know that they are not safe, in the sense that they don't cause disease.

I think educate yourself. There's great resources out there. There are some great organizations out there, like the Environmental Working Group, for example, or Healthy Babies Bright Futures. What a great name that also is. There's lots of resources from these independent organizations that are evidence-based, that are science-based, and that will help you do your own research and find products that are safer.

In general, I think less is more, to be honest. When I had my children, I tried to get products that were secondhand, just simply because a lot of the volatile chemicals will have gassed out by then, but also for environmental considerations.

Try to use natural materials like cotton, wool. A lot of textiles these days on furniture, clothing are made with polyester, which is plastic, and even worse off, and it will be recycled polyester. And recycled plastic contains even higher levels of hazardous chemicals.

And then, in the kitchen, try not to put hot food into plastic. Don't have a plastic water kettle. Don't heat food in the microwave in a plastic container.

Those are sort of the easy things that you can...

BROWN: The basics, OK. That's enough today to digest for now, I think.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: Sorry, quickly, go ahead. We're running out of time.

MUNCKE: Importantly, I think we can vote with our wallets. And we need to demand change.

So, we should let our favorite brands know that we don't want hazardous chemicals in our products. And there's also some great action going on at state level in the U.S.

BROWN: OK.

MUNCKE: So, you can reach out to your elected state officials and let them know that you are worried about toxics.

BROWN: Jane Muncke, thank you so much -- Wolf.

BLITZER: And coming up: A new CDC report shows that autism rates are rising here in the United States. We will take a closer look at the numbers and what they mean.

All that and a lot more coming up right here in THE SITUATION ROOM.

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