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Trump Holds Cabinet Meeting; Atlanta Falcons Fined; Federal Judge Orders Release of Mohsen Mahdawi. Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired April 30, 2025 - 11:30   ET

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

[11:32:02]

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: There's more breaking news.

A federal judge is now ordering the Trump administration to release Mohsen Mahdawi from ICE custody. Immigration authorities arrested Mahdawi, who is Palestinian, during an interview that was part of his U.S. citizenship process.

Let's go live right now to see that's Polo Sandoval, who's covering this for us.

What else did the judge rule in this case, Polo?

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So, Wolf, what we know is that the release of this man is in fact going to be pending the ultimate resolution of the case.

I will let you hear directly from him in just a few moments, but, first, just some quick background on what we know about him. You will remember that he was detained on April 14 as he was essentially doing his interview for part of his naturalization process to become a U.S. citizen. That's when authorities then detained him, had been in detention as authorities had been arguing for his release.

Today, that in fact happened, again, released on bond pending the ultimate resolution of his case. I want you to hear directly from Mohsen Mahdawi as he spoke outside the courthouse in Burlington, Vermont, flanked by his supporters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They have all been fearful: What have I posted on my social media? Should I scrub it? They're getting countless inquiries.

And I'm so proud that Mohsen released today has been somewhat of a victory for all noncitizens in the United States, for everybody...

(CHEERING)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... and for Americans too, because...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's right. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... if you -- if you attack noncitizens and take

their rights away, ultimately, you're taking the rights of citizens too.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's right! That's right!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So thank you for supporting Mohsen.

Mohsen, we are very proud of you, and we will continue to support you in this effort. This is a great beginning, and we will prevail until the very end.

(CHEERING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANDOVAL: And, just to be clear, Mohsen was actually the young man there with the keffiyeh that you see now taking the mic. The person you spoke with was one of those voices that have been supporting that young man from the very beginning.

His attorneys have really been arguing that he was specifically targeted by the Trump administration for being an outspoken critic of the Israeli campaign in Gaza. Remember, he was born and raised in a refugee camp in Israeli-occupied West Bank. He moved to the United States in 2014, had been a permanent resident for 10 years, enrolled at Columbia University here in New York, was slated to graduate this May, before then enrolling in a master's program.

And it was just over two weeks ago, Wolf, when he attended that interview to ultimately become a U.S. citizen, one of the final stages of what is a very long and, in some cases, even costly process, thoroughly vetted to eventually reach that moment, but instead was detained by federal authorities, was detained for two weeks, a little over two weeks, until today, released pending the outcome of the resolution of this case -- Wolf.

[11:35:09]

BLITZER: All right, Polo Sandoval reporting.

Polo, thank you very much.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: Also new this morning, Wolf, the NFL is coming down hard on the Atlanta Falcons and their defensive coordinator for that prank call made to Shedeur Sanders during the draft.

So I want to go now to CNN sports anchor Andy Scholes.

What is the latest on this, Andy?

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Well, Pam and Wolf, in the past hour, the NFL hitting the Atlanta Falcons with a $250,000 fine and defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich with a $100,000 fine for that prank call that was made to Shedeur Sanders during the draft. Now, the NFL said the fines were for failing to prevent the disclosure

of confidential information distributed to the club in advance of the draft. Now, Ulbrich's 21-year-old son, Jack, admitted to the prank call and apologized to Shedeur on Instagram.

Now, the Falcons said in a statement that Jack got the number from his father's open iPad while visiting his parents' home. Now, the Falcons added today that the team appreciates the NFL's swift and thorough review of last week's data exposure and the events that transpired due to it. They also said they accept the discipline that's been levied by the league.

All right, and the NBA playoffs last night, the Pacers advancing with a win over the Bucks. Tensions were high in this game. And the Bucks, they had a seven-point lead with 40 seconds left, but had an epic collapse. The Pacers down one, 10 seconds ago, Tyrese Haliburton drives it, gets the game-winning layup on Giannis. Pacers win 119-118 to take the series in five.

Now, Haliburton's dad then came on the court.

BLITZER: All right, Andy, stand by. Andy, stand by.

I want to just go to the White House right now. The president's Cabinet meeting is just beginning. Let's listen in.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: ... have the right president and the right people working it. Congratulations, by the way, and to Tom.

For two months in a row, we have set the all-time records for the lowest number of illegal border crossings ever recorded. The number of illegal border crossings released into the United States is down 99.999 percent. That is usually 100 percent.

So I think it's an amazing tribute. And, Kristi, congratulations, and Tom and everybody else. It's an amazing job, actually. And it was done very quickly. We officially designated Tren de Aragua, MS-13, and the Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. And we're expelling these monsters from our country rapidly and working with the Department of Justice.

Pam, you're doing fantastic. Your people are amazing. We're having some judge problems. And everybody's reading.

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: We're having some judges that don't like killers, murderers being thrown out of the country. So I don't know what their problem is.

But we have a little difficulty. We won on the basis of a great border and of getting criminals out of our country. That was why we won every swing state. We won by millions of votes. We won everything. Every metric, we won by a lot. It was a massive victory. And we won, I think, largely because of this issue.

I put this issue as number one issue. And they don't want us to do what we're supposed to do. And I don't think that can be. I hope the Supreme Court is going to fully understand what's going on. We have to get the criminals out of our country. And that's the basis under which we won the election.

Core GDP -- and this is -- you probably saw some numbers today. And I have to start off by saying that's Biden. That's not Trump, because we came in on January. This is quarterly numbers. And we came in. And I was very against everything that Biden was doing in terms of the economy, destroying our country in so many ways, not only at the border.

The border was more obvious. But we took over his mess in so many different ways. Core GDP, removing distortions from imports, inventories, and government spending, was up plus-3 percent when you add it. We had numbers that, despite what we were handed, we turned them around and we're getting them really turned around.

Gross domestic investment was a whopping 22 percent. Now, that is a number that people are coming in at numbers -- for instance, I just walked in. I heard Samsung is now, because of the tariffs, they're going to build massive facilities in the United States. If we didn't do the tariffs, they wouldn't be doing that.

So it takes a little while to get those facilities built, but they're coming in with big, big numbers. They're all coming in with big numbers. We have more money being spent than any -- at any time in the history of our country. We're up to close to $8 trillion, I think I can say.

And, really, it's going to be a lot higher than that. Those are just the ones that we know about, $8 trillion. I'm not going to say, but I don't think -- I'm not sure if Biden did a trillion for four years, $1 trillion.

[11:40:00]

But we're at $8 trillion for two months, because let's give us a pass on the first month. We were sort of getting a little bit used to things, right? But after two months, we have $8 trillion. There's never been a number like that. And that includes chip companies, car companies, every form of manufacturing, high-tech companies.

Nobody's ever seen anything like it, so $8 trillion. I can talk about gross domestic product, gross domestic investment. I can talk about a lot of things, but, to me, the biggest number is the kind of numbers that are -- and these people are coming in.

Our secretary of commerce spent the weekend. He went down to Arizona to see what was happening with the chip -- the biggest chip company in the world. And he said -- Howard, you have never seen anything like it.

HOWARD LUTNICK, U.S. COMMERCE SECRETARY: Amazing. TRUMP: You want to just describe what you saw?

LUTNICK: So, they're investing $165 billion in 1,100 acres in Arizona.

And they're building the highest-tech chip manufacturing semiconductors and 4,000 employees, American tradecraft, right, technicians doing every kind of work. The classic foundation of America is building it. They have 14,000 people. They're expecting 40,000 people to build the rest of their plants and to employ 20,000 people for the rest of the time.

And this is all driven...

TRUMP: And you never -- and you never saw a site like that.

LUTNICK: And this is all driven by your tariff policies. No chance this would be happening with you.

TRUMP: It's going to be about 40 percent of the chip market from that one section. And this is the biggest chipmaker. They have 99 percent of the market. They come from Taiwan.

And unlike the CHIP Act, which was done by Biden, where they had everybody billions of dollars, the thing they don't need is money. They got plenty of money. What they need is an incentive to come in. And the tariffs -- they're building because of the tariffs. Without the tariffs -- and I like to say they're building because of November 5, the election and the tariffs.

But I'm going to be a little more blunt. They're building because of the tariffs. And November 5 gave them the tariffs. So the -- it's amazing when you look. And these are not companies that go out and say, well, we're going to build. We have to go get our financing. Let's go -- like, we would -- in New York, everybody would look. You get a building site, and then you would look around for money.

You look around for financing for six months. You get your financing. You build your building. The market would be good, you would make money. The market would be bad, it wouldn't be so pretty. You would have to negotiate, bah, bah, bah. This is different. These people have so much money they don't know what to do.

They are -- I asked Howard, did they finance it? No, they do it through cash.

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: And they say that site -- and they just started. They just announced it like a month ago. And they have already started. He said, I have never seen a site like it so big.

So you're talking about a 50 -- essentially a $50 billion building. Now, if you build a warehouse for $50 million, that's a big warehouse, Scott. But a $50 billion building, that's a lot. They're building the electric. They're building -- they become a utility. And I'm giving them the right to become.

They're going to build their own electric. They're going to build their own electricity, which they need tremendous amounts of electricity. They're going to build it themselves. Anything they have look -- left over, they will hook that into the grid.

But the grid is old, and they're unreliable and bad things can happen to grids. I said, if you want, you can hook into the grid. But that's a little bit risky. Or you can build your own electricity and become your own utility. And they, I think, in all cases, are deciding to do that.

So, it's very exciting. And we have a lot of things going. We took over on January 20. These are quarterly reports. We took over on January 20. The tariffs haven't kicked in yet. I know that -- and I don't want this to happen, but I know that China is doing very poorly right now. I just saw some reports coming out.

And I don't want that to happen to China. I like the president a lot, President Xi. I don't want it to happen. I was actually saddened to hear it, but they are getting absolutely hammered in China. And they're sending boats, the biggest boats in the world carrying cargo like nobody has ever seen before.

These are the biggest boats in the world, biggest cargo ships in the world. And they're coming. And they're turning around in the Pacific Ocean. They're doing a big U-turn and going back because they don't want the goods, because 145 percent tariff.

But at a certain point, I hope we're going to make a deal with China. We're talking to China, but their factories are closing all over China because we're not taking their product. We don't want their product unless they're going to be fair with us. And that includes intellectual property and other things.

There are a lot of things far beyond just buy, sell. So, we will see what happens. But I was not -- because somebody said, well, are you happy? I said, I am not happy. I want China to do well. I want every country to do well. But they have to treat us fairly also.

[11:45:00]

So, with that, I think we're going to maybe go around. And we have some letters where the secretaries and people around the table are making statements about how they're doing and what's happening.

And I could start with Pete on the left, because he's my least controversial person at the moment.

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: No, they don't know how good he is. So we will go around the table. And you can hear. These are Cabinet meetings where they're very open and transparent.

And I can guarantee you Biden didn't do this. He didn't do this. Go ahead, Pete.

PETE HEGSETH, U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: Well, Mr. President, I think we're controversial because we're over the target.

And like so many things, Mr. President, you inherited a demoralized military that couldn't recruit, that was perceived as weak after what happened in Afghanistan and elsewhere because of Joe Biden. And what we have seen since your election and the inauguration was -- has been nothing short of a recruiting renaissance.

TRUMP: That's true.

HEGSETH: Decades -- it hasn't been -- been decades since we have seen this kind of recruiting in the Army, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the Air Force.

The men and women of America want to join the United States military led by President Donald Trump.

TRUMP: And the police, by the way.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

HEGSETH: Absolutely.

TRUMP: And fire. I always mention the fire, but the fire likewise are -- I mean, they have waiting lists now. And six months ago, it was a disaster.

Go ahead.

HEGSETH: Truly historic. We can barely absorb the volume and retention as well. Men and women in the military who don't want to get out now that they have a real commander in chief.

We're reinforcing standards. We're going to be fit, not fat, in our formations. We have welcomed back all the COVID -- the folks who were forced out because of the COVID mandate. We have ripped wokeness out of the military, sir, DEI, trans.

And it's Fort Benning and Fort Bragg again at the DOD. We're rebuilding the military, sir. The Golden Dome is well under way, F-47, reassuring allies and deterring enemies. We found nearly $6 billion in DOGE savings that we're going to reinvest, including $50 billion from the Biden administration focused on things like climate that have nothing to do with lethality and war fighting.

And we will have, as you said, sir, the first trillion-dollar budget that we plan to spend wisely. From day one, sir, we have gotten 100 -- helped get 100 percent operational control of the border, coming alongside the DHS and CBP. We have got 11,000 troops on the border who now, because of the new national defense area, sir, can help detain illegals at the border and hand them over to CBP.

It used to be, if you saw camouflage on the border, they could hold binoculars, and that's it. And now we can detain and assist. And we are going to get 100 percent operational control of that border. Our NATO allies are -- know they have to step up. The Houthis in the Middle East are feeling the weight of American power, and we're deterring communist China.

So, because of your leadership, sir, I believe we're making the military great again. And I thank you.

TRUMP: Thank you very much. Thank you, Pete.

Howard.

LUTNICK: So, I have the pleasure of running the investment accelerator, which gets to recruit these companies. And you have never seen anything like the companies committed to building in America.

Technology companies have committed over $2.5 trillion to build in America based on your tariffs, right, sovereign countries, all backing -- the whole Middle East and all these countries backing their sovereign wealth funds, they all want to invest in America, and they're coming in, again, over $3 trillion committed.

So, just those two topics, you're at $5.5 trillion. And then you have got the whole pharma industry knows it's got to come home, because America pays for all the drugs of the world. So the pharmaceuticals have to come home, right, autos coming home, industrials coming home.

So we have got to train. And your great secretary of labor together and the secretary of education, together, we're going to train the work force to build America. It's unbelievable. We have got so much -- as I travel around, the attention on the Trump gold card, I mean, it makes me very popular.

Last night, I was out to dinner and somebody came up and said, can I buy 10? And how do I buy 10?

(LAUGHTER)

LUTNICK: And I'm like, that's pretty good. That's $50 million for dinner. So it's paying for my dinner.

(LAUGHTER)

LUTNICK: The external revenue service, right, you have got the tariffs, and the hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars coming in to build the external revenue service, that our objective, of course, is to replace the Internal Revenue Service and let those outside countries trading with us, let them pay their fair share to America.

And then, of course, you got rid of de minimis. And what happened is, these foreign countries were sending in little packages for free and knocking out our mom-and-pop businesses across America. You put an end to it, and you're going to rebuild the mom-and-pop and the small business of America.

You're their president, and I'm proud to support you.

TRUMP: It's very important, de minimis. It's very -- it's a big deal. It's a big scam going on against our country, against really small businesses. And we have ended it. We put an end to it.

[11:50:04]

SEAN DUFFY, U.S. TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY: Mr. President...

TRUMP: Please.

DUFFY: So, CAFE standards, we have fuel economy standards on vehicles that are going to go to 50 miles per gallon.

We are going to rewrite those standards, bring it down to something that's far more reasonable. Elon's fine with that, I hope.

(LAUGHTER)

DUFFY: But it's going to drive down the price of a car in America, making cars more affordable for families.

Also, Biden had the social cost of credit when we build infrastructure, roads and bridges, adding 3 to 5 percent on infrastructure costs. We have gotten rid of the social cost of carbon, driving down the cost to build roads and bridges across the country.

We have what is called follow the law. So we have so many states and municipalities that don't follow the law, so whether it's DEI discriminating against Americans, whether they give illegals a driver's license or they're sanctuary cities or states. If you don't follow the law, if you're giving a license to illegals, if you're having DEI policies, we're not going to fund your projects.

So you got to certify in your state or in your city to get road and bridge money or rail money that you're actually following the law, which includes the executive orders from you, Mr. President.

We're cutting back funding. We send research money, Mr. President, to universities to do research on more equitable and sustainable transportation systems, projects that will use data and public opinion to inform policy and infrastructure and technology benefiting diverse communities, including women and gender-nonconforming people, just stupid wastes of money.

We're pulling that money back from universities, who should do good research if they're doing research in universities. And then one last thing. Air traffic control, we don't have enough air traffic controllers, about 3,000 short. We're working on an agreement with the union, so when controllers become retirement-eligible, we're going to cut a deal to try to get them to stay longer, stay in the tower.

And then we have a plan to put more butts in seats in Oklahoma City, so we can get more students through the academy and into towers as well. It's going to take us a while to do that, to train them up. But we're in the process. Before our four years are done, well before that, we're going to be at full capacity.

TRUMP: Sean, do you want to tell about -- I think we have to bring it up. We have very obsolete equipment for air traffic controllers.

The equipment -- the towers have horrible equipment. It's been renovated for years. The money they spent over the last four years, this Buttigieg did a horrible job. They wasted billions and billions of dollars hooking up wire equipment to non-wire equipment to satellite equipment.

And you're not -- a third-grade student would know it doesn't work. It can't work. And they spent -- they wasted tens of billions of dollars. But we want to put a brand-new air traffic control system in. And you might want to describe that, please.

DUFFY: Yes, this -- you and I have talked about this.

It's a state-of-the-art system, envy of the world. And it's -- I mean, listen, I don't -- our system is safe, but you would have hoped someone would have seen that there's a problem with fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters coming in at DCA. Someone should have seen that before we lost almost 70 lives.

It's our job to look and see that we have an aging infrastructure around air traffic control. And so, if we don't build a brand-new system, there's going to be failures and people will lose their lives. And so we need the help of Congress to help fund this.

But it's going to be all brand-new. And after you build a brand-new system, we have the bedrock and the foundation to actually build on top of it. But no one has done this, Mr. President. There's Band-Aid fixes that have happened over the course of 20 years.

You can't have a Band-Aid fix. It doesn't get done. It has to be brand-new. The technology, it's -- it looks like it's out of a 1980s movie, old computers, floppy disks. We're using copper wires, not fiber. So there are great solutions we have available that -- and, by the way, if everyone's sick of their delayed flights or their canceled flights, we have more capacity in the airspace.

(CROSSTALK)

DUFFY: And if we rebuild -- not rebuild -- if we build this brand-new system, what you will have is more efficiency in the airspace and it will be safer.

So the economy will be stronger. We can have more flights and less delays. So I appreciate your support on that, Mr. President.

TRUMP: Rebuilding that is very important. You wouldn't have had the helicopter crashing into the plane at 400 feet up, when it's supposed to be 200 feet.

DUFFY: That's right.

TRUMP: That would have -- bells and whistles would have been gone over and you would have heard -- you would have heard the screaming equipment saying, there's a problem coming up in 15 seconds. You got to do something about it right now.

And it would have -- it would have also sent the word right into the helicopter, because I guess you will be doing the full report on that. But it was pretty obvious what happened.

[11:55:02]

DUFFY: Right.

TRUMP: And they were supposed to be at 200 feet. They were at 400 feet, and a terrible thing.

And that wouldn't have happened if we had the right equipment. If we had the right equipment, you would have heard bells and whistles going off, and it would have alerted long before that would have happened, two minutes before. They would have had a lot of time.

So we have to do this. We have no choice. And we're going to do it, and we're going to be very proud of it. They did old equipment and new equipment. And you can't hook in old equipment to new equipment, because it's a different -- some is satellite and some is ground. The satellite doesn't work -- this man would know better than anybody, but you can't hook up a satellite system to a ground wired system.

And if you do, you're wasting a lot of money. They spent billions -- this is Buttigieg -- they spent billions and billions of dollars trying to patch a system together. They had hundreds of different contractors, and the contractors were all fighting with each other. We're going to have one great big contractor, like the great big, beautiful bill...

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: ... which is going -- which is going along very well.

I guess I like great big, beautiful. But we're going to have one great big, beautiful contractor, whether it's maybe Raytheon, maybe IBM. Maybe -- it could be anyone of four or five different groups. But you put one in charge. They're very big, very powerful monetarily, and they give you a guarantee, and they hook up everything.

They do every single thing. So they're responsible for the digging of the ditches and the fiber and every single element. And it's one system that's hooked in. It's not all these hodgepodge systems that don't work together. It's just a shame. I mean, it's basic construction, but it's complex stuff.

And there are a few companies that do it unbelievably well. And we're going to have that.

BLITZER: All right, we're going to continue to monitor this Cabinet meeting.

But I quickly want to get some reaction. Mark Preston, what did you think?

MARK PRESTON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, lookit, we're getting used to this. He does this pretty often. He likes to go around, and he likes to have his Cabinet secretaries heap praise upon him.

And that's certainly what we saw right there, specifically on a day where there's been nothing but bad news.

BROWN: Well, and it was interesting too the way he went to Pete Hegseth, his defense secretary, sort of noting the controversies surrounding him.

He said, I'm going to my least controversial Cabinet member. And it is notable, though, that he went to him, went to him first, and...

PRESTON: Went to him first.

But, in many ways, I think that was -- some would say that's the kiss of death. I wouldn't say so. I think that Trump likes Pete Hegseth, and Pete Hegseth is in a much better position today than he was a few days ago.

BLITZER: Right at the beginning of the Cabinet meeting, the first subject that Trump spoke about was illegal immigration and how successful he has been in dealing with that issue. That's clearly a political gift, if you will, because he thinks that that really raises the stakes for the Democrats, who are not with him on that issue.

PRESTON: And he certainly hasn't looked at the new poll numbers from CNN or any of the other news organizations that shows that this signature issue, he is now underwater. He's at like 40 -- 52 percent unfavorable right now on.

BROWN: Right.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: Alex, I was going to quickly ask. I didn't hear him even look at Marco Rubio, the secretary of state.

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: No, I -- we will obviously be watching closely. It'll be very interesting to hear what Marco Rubio has to say.

He's been one of the most forward-leaning Trump administration officials when it comes to saying that, essentially, we need to get to some kind of cease-fire or peace deal in Ukraine. Otherwise, the administration is going to walk away. So we will definitely be looking out for an update from him.

I was speaking with a U.S. official earlier today about where things stand, and they said it's always quietest before a deal happens or a deal falls apart.

BLITZER: All right, we're going to continue to monitor the Cabinet meeting.

And, to our viewers, thanks very much for joining us this morning. You can always keep up with us on social media @WolfBlitzer, @PamelaBrownCNN. We will see you back here tomorrow morning 10:00 a.m. Eastern.

BROWN: "INSIDE POLITICS" with our friend Dana Bash is next right after a short break.