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The Situation Room

Jobs Report Beats Expectations, 177,000 Added in April; China Says It's Considering Potential U.S. Trade Talks; Secretary of State Rubio Takes on National Security Adviser Role. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired May 02, 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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PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now, breaking news, stronger than expected. The April jobs report shows a resilient market. So, what does that mean for all those recession fears?

Plus, targeting public broadcasters, President Trump wants to pull all federal funding to NPR and PBS. The wide-ranging impact on stations across the country.

Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. Wolf Blitzer is off. I'm Pamela Brown and you're in The Situation Room.

And we begin with the breaking news. The April jobs report is out and it shows steady gains for the economy.

So, let's go straight to CNN's Matt Egan. Matt, what does this mean for all those recession fears?

MATT EGAN, CNN REPORTER: Well, Pamela, thankfully those recession fears are not showing up in the jobs market, at least not yet. If anything, this jobs market has been dominated by another R word and that is resilience.

Let me run you through the numbers. The latest report shows that the economy added 177,000 jobs in April. That is a solid number in any month, but especially now, given everything that's gone on. In fact, that's roughly in line with where things were in March, which was revised lower, the unemployment rate at 4.2 percent, staying the same. That is a relatively low number.

Now, when we look at the trend, which stands out to me here, when you look at how many jobs have been added each month over the past year, it's how relentless the hiring has been. In fact, when we really kind of zoom in, this is roughly since the trade war began. I mean, if you were asleep for the past three months, you almost wouldn't know that we're in the middle of a global trade war and there's been extreme turbulence on Wall Street.

Now, where are the jobs? Seeing a couple of significant gains in some key sectors, healthcare adding more than 50,000 jobs last month alone, leisure and hospitality, that's bars and restaurants, hotels, also adding jobs. Manufacturing though lost jobs, which is notable because that is the sector that the administration is trying to prop up with massive tariffs. Also, the federal government losing 9,000 jobs, that is the third straight month of job loss in the federal government as DOGE takes an axe to the federal workforce.

Take a quick look at how the market is reacting. This is one of those nice times where Wall Street sees the good news for Main Street is also good news for Wall Street and we see U.S. markets solidly higher. In fact, the S&P 500 is on track for its ninth daily gain in a row. We have not seen anything like that since November of 2004.

So where are we big picture? I think that this report shows that, yes, the jobs market is resilient. Despite all of that uncertainty, hard data, the real economic numbers, they continue to beat these really weak surveys. Also suggests that there's no need for the Fed to come to the rescue with any sort of interest rate cuts right now.

The big trillion dollar question though is, is this the calm before the storm? Because remember, the full impact from the trade war has not hit the economy yet. Many economists fear that when it does, it's going to eventually hurt the jobs market. A veteran economist Greg Daco, he told me, sure, this looks like the perfect jobs report, but there's also the risk that it is just a mirage. Back to you.

BROWN: Certainly, but in terms of the hard data, it's looking good, particularly for a month where there was a lot of economic turmoil. Thanks so much, Matt.

EGAN: Thanks, Pamela.

BROWN: Let's go live now to CNN White House Reporter Alayna Treene in West Palm Beach, Florida. Alayna, what is the White House saying about this job report?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Well, we just heard moments again from President Donald Trump himself on this, and he once again called for the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates after this, you know, as Matt laid out really solid jobs report that hasn't really shown the impact of the president's new tariffs.

So, I want to read for you some of what he posted. He wrote, quote, employment strong and much more good news as billions of dollars pour in from tariffs. He went on to say, consumers have been waiting for years to see pricing come down, no inflation, the Fed should lower its rate.

Now, just to be clear, his claim that there is no inflation is not exactly true. Data released just this week by the Commerce Department showed inflation rose 2.3 percent in March compared to last year.

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But, look, the president is once again really trying to challenge the Federal Reserve and also its independence as its own, you know, independent agency, calling on them to lower interest rates, as we are looking at the broader economic turmoil that has really shaken the economy because of the president's tariffs.

Now, the Fed is actually in a very unique position right now, Pamela, because, one, they do see that, you know, inflation is over the normal 2 percent rate, so they could try to lower rates there, but they're also you know, weighing whether or not to raise rates to account for the impact of inflation on tariffs.

BROWN: All right. I also want to ask you about your new reporting on the White House's budget proposal. What are you learning there?

TREENE: Right. Well, Pamela, we know that later today, the White House is expected to unveil its budget proposal for Congress. Essentially, they're calling for widespread cuts around $163 billion in non-discretionary defense spending. Some of the areas of the government that would be targeted by this are education, the foreign aid, environmental, healthcare programs, really all of the programs we've already seen President Donald Trump and DOGE through Elon Musk's direction really try to take aim out.

I think Axios actually put it very smartly today. They said, the proposal essentially amounts to another declaration of war on the status quo and the priorities and programs that animate the Democratic Party.

So, we're going to see more details of that later today. But just, of course, to note this is a proposal, this kind of skinny budget, as the White House refers to it, is more so a presidential wish list that they will be proposing to Congress as they mole over the next few months what to actually include in this budget.

BROWN: All right. Alayna Treene, thanks so much.

New this morning, China says it's considering possible trade talks with the U.S. in a move that could open the door for negotiations. But Beijing says President Trump would need to cancel his massive 145 percent tariff hike.

Let's go live to Beijing and CNN's Marc Stewart. So, clearly, Mar, China is softening its stance here. What are you hearing from Chinese officials this morning?

MARC STEWART, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right, Pam. This started to unfold at around 8:00 in the morning, Friday morning, here in Beijing on what's a national holiday. So, that's what's so unusual about this. But Beijing making the point, it was responding to an overture messaging from Washington about the possibility of having talks. Beijing stressing, this is not something it initiated, but rather Washington. And the language that we're hearing from the government is that it is evaluating, assessing this possibility.

And it's not something that Beijing will enter into lightly. As you mentioned, there are going to be a lot of conditions Beijing will want to see in order for something like this to happen. The last thing Xi Jinping wants to see is perhaps being portrayed as caving into the United States and having the U.S. tell it what it can and cannot do. A lot of the messaging that we have seen from China over the past few days has been very nationalistic, talking about the idea of a potential long haul in all of this, saying that it won't kneel down to the United States. So, we're just going to have to see how things unravel. But this is perhaps a soft start to a broader discussion.

Also, the other big story that we're following today concerning trade and tariffs is the expiration of what's known as de minimis exemption. If you buy something from one of the popular Chinese websites, like Shein, the fashion, the homeware websites, until now, you didn't have to pay a duty. It was duty-free. Well, that has now changed. And that could make many of these items more expensive.

Temu, which is very popular, has said that its pricing will remain the same. It's looked to the United States for sourcing. But, Pam, as you know, these sites are popular, not just because of the prices, but because of the variety of merchandise many people like to buy.

BROWN: All right. Marc Stewart, thank you so much.

And new this morning, another escalation in the fight between Harvard and the White House. President Trump announcing this morning on Truth Social, we are going to be taking away Harvard's tax-exempt status. It's what they deserve. Trump has already frozen more than $2 billion in federal funds to Harvard after it refused to stop diversity, equity, and inclusion programs among other policy changes.

Ultimately, the university renamed its DEI program, but the White House has signaled more needs to be done.

And happening now, Secretary of State Marco Rubio is taking on a second role in the Trump administration. Actually, it's another -- I think it's one of four roles. The president is booting Mike Waltz as national security adviser and nominating him for U.N. ambassador. Rubio will fill the vacant security position for now.

The sudden shakeup comes after Waltz admitted that he had added a journalist by mistake to a Signal group chat about military plans. And just this week, Waltz was photographed at a cabinet meeting appearing to browse that same app. The White House says the Signal app is approved though for use on government phones.

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This was one day before his removal.

All right, let's get straight to National Security Correspondent Kylie Atwood at the State Department. Rubio has a lot on his plate with all of these jobs, Kylie. How's he going to do this?

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: That's right Pam, and it's not entirely clear how he's going to prioritize these two rules. Because what's important to note here is that inherently the job of secretary of state, which he has now and has had since the beginning of the Trump administration, is America's top diplomat around the world. It's a very visual and very public-facing role. And then the job of national security adviser is inherently different. It is Trump's closest adviser when it comes to formulating foreign policy, when it comes to integrating all of the different departments to make sure that they're pushing that foreign policy ahead. So these are two critical roles. Of course, Henry Kissinger had both of these hats, but that was back in the 1970s. Things are incredibly different now.

Rubio was on Fox last night. And during that interview he wasn't asked, nor did he give any details as to how he's going to pursue this incredible, elevated rule that he has in the Trump administration. He did, however, talk about the Russia issue and the Ukraine war efforts that the administration is still trying to bring to an end. Just listen to what he said there.

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MARCO RUBIO, SECRETARY OF STATE: Well, let's remind everybody, this is not our war. I mean, this is a war that started under Joe Biden for three years. It went on. They've made no effort to sort of bring it to a conclusion, and it's a war that has no military solution. In essence, Putin can't take all of Ukraine. Ukraine can't push the Russians all the way back to where they were in 2014.

And so the question here is, who's the only leader in the world that can talk to both sides and hopefully bring him to a deal? And that's President Trump, and that's what he's tried to do for 100 days.

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ATWOOD: Now, presumably Marco Rubio is going to prioritize even more spending time at the White House now that he is the interim national security adviser, though we know that is something that he has done throughout the entire course of the administration today. Right here at the State Department, the deputy secretary of state is about to have an event. Presumably, his role here in the department is going to expand as the secretary of state picks up this new role as well.

BROWN: All right. Kylie Atwood, thanks so much.

And happening now, an SOS at NPR and PBS. President Trump has signed an executive order directing the Center for Public Broadcasting to end federal funding for the nation's two largest public broadcasters. The heads of both organizations have been pushing back.

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PAULA KERGER, CEO, PBS: This is probably the most difficult and serious threat in the time that I've been in public broadcasting. This idea that funds that had already been put aside for public broadcasting would be taken away.

KATHERINE MAHER, PRESIDENT AND CEO, NPR: 20 percent of Americans live in an area without any other local news coverage other than their local public radio station. This is tremendously important as a public service. And just because not every single person uses it every day, you know, I don't drive on our interstates every day, and yet when I need it, it's there.

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BROWN: All right. Let's go to CNN's Hadas Gold in New York. Where do things stand this morning, Hadas?

HADAS GOLD, CNN MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Well, this was expected. This has been expected to come for a long time, but there is a lot of concern and a lot of questions and statements about is this even lawful. This executive order came out late at night and President Trump wants to claw back already congressionally allocated funding. And he's accusing these outlets of producing biased, radical coverage. He called it left wing propaganda. And I should note, this sort of desire to claw back this funding is not new. If you remember Mitt Romney in the 2012 election had this whole thing against PBS and Big Bird.

Now, I do want to note here that the Corporation of Public Broadcasting disperses more than $535 million to public radio and television stations. This helps fund your local NPR station. It helps fund PBS programs. If your kid watches Daniel Tiger and Dinosaur Train, like my four-year-old does, then this will affect those programmings.

Now, as we saw earlier on that full screen, federal funding isn't important, but it's a small part of their overall funding. For NPR, 1 percent, this is at the national level, receives their funding from direct federal funds. The local stations, they get affected more, 8 to 10 percent. PBS gets 15 percent from direct federal funds.

Now, we are hearing some pretty strong statements from these organizations that were directly affect. The Corporation of Public Broadcasting putting out a statement saying, CPB is not a federal executive agency subject to the president's authority. They also note that Congress directly authorized when they passed the law, establishing it in the 1960s funded CPB to be a private nonprofit corporation, wholly independent of the federal government.

PBS came out and called it blatantly unlawful, saying this order was just issued in the middle of the night. And NPR noted that this will have a devastating impact on the American communities across the nation who rely on this, especially places like the Midwest and the south, and people who rely on local public radio stations.

I do think, though, Pam, we should expect some legal action on this. CPB is already establishing legal action because President Trump tried to fire three of their board members.

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Pam?

BROWN: All right. Hadas Gold, thanks so much.

And still ahead right here in The Situation Room on this Friday, Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer joins us to talk about the jobs report that beat expectations.

And later, a Situation Room special report, two transgender soldiers fight for their jobs as the Trump administration tries to kick them out of the military. You'll hear their stories just ahead.

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BROWN: Well, this morning, the White House is considering whether it can label suspected cartel and gang members inside the U.S. as enemy combatants.

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It's the same designation given to anyone accused of supporting or being part of the Taliban or Al Qaeda after 9/11 attacks.

Sources tell CNN the administration sees this as a possible way to detain them more easily and limit their ability to challenge their imprisonment.

Joining us now is CNN Legal Analyst and former Federal Prosecutor Elliot Williams. Is there a legal basis for this, bottom line?

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: You know, Pam, I really don't think so. When you're talking about a clearly defined and law definition of enemy combatant and that the only entities that have been designated enemy combatants in the past, Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and associated entities, certainly not to minimize the horrors that transnational gangs or even street gangs have caused putting them on the level of these transnational, you know, organizations that had hostilities with the United States would be a tough legal fight for the administration to win.

BROWN: And what would it mean if they were given this designation in terms of what they're able to do that they can't do right now?

WILLIAMS: Oh, the big one would be indefinite detention. We saw this throughout the 2000s, you know, in, in the global war on terror. They could lock people up, you know, without trial, without any sort of process whatsoever, enemy combatants. And also force could potentially be used on American soil against those individuals. So, it'd be a profound shift in American law, and I just don't see, you know, any courts really going for it.

BROWN: There's another big legal development on the immigration front. This Trump-appointed federal judge ruled that the President unlawfully invoke the Alien Enemies Act, and blocked the administration from quickly deporting some alleged members of a Venezuelan gang. What is the significance of that ruling?

WILLIAMS: Yes, it's a wonderful ruling in that the judge separates out. He says, I cannot weigh on what are called political questions, the specifics of whether Tren de Aragua is an arm of the Venezuelan government. That's a determination made by the national security entities within the United States. What I can weigh on as a judge is the constitutionality of how the government applied the law here. And he said that, as written, the application of the Alien Enemies Act cannot apply in these circumstances.

Now, in effect, he was invited by the Supreme Court to do that when the Supreme Court ruled a couple months ago, or a couple weeks ago. They said, we are sending this back down to lower courts to sort out the question of the proper use of the Alien Enemies Act. It'll probably make its way back up to them, but this judge was actually doing the right thing. And it could have been predicted that a judge would've been ruling in this way.

BROWN: Right, because the Supreme Court has yet to rule on the merits of that act. And that is something that, that will be very interesting if it gets to them and they do that.

WILLIAMS: Yes.

BROWN: Speaking of the Supreme Court, I want to go to these comments from Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. She had some scathing comments on recent attacks in the judiciary. So, let's highlight a part of that. She says, quote, a society in which judges are routinely made to fear for their own safety or their own livelihood due to their decisions is one that has substantially departed from the norms of behavior that govern a democratic system. Attacks on judicial independence is how countries that are not free, not fair, and not rule of law-oriented operate.

Wow. Those are strong words from a sitting justice.

WILLIAMS: They are, and you notice the word she did not use was the word Trump. Now --

BROWN: He's the elephant in the room.

WILLIAMS: The elephant in the room were her words. Those are very powerful words from a sitting justice, but she's not saying anything that anyone should have a problem with. Of course, the independence of the judiciary is important. I notice -- you know, I note that a moment ago you referenced the Trump-appointed judge who issued this ruling that was contrary to the president's interest. That happens all the time, that judges act independently, even of the presidents that put them on the bench, even of this current president, and they ought to be able to do their work without this interference from politicians of any side. This isn't really about Donald Trump. This is about criticism of the judiciary.

BROWN: I think it's worth emphasizing when a Trump-appointed judge rules in a certain way because the White House has repeatedly attacked these judges, calling them, you know, left wing activists and that kind of thing. And some of them are actually appointed by the president himself from his first term.

I want to pivot to another topic. Former National Security Adviser Mike Waltz was photographed on Signal during this week's cabinet meeting, the very app that, of course, got him in hot water in the first place, and that was because he was sharing war plans, or there were war plans shared on that and he invited a journalist erroneously onto that chat. So, the administration is saying that Signal is a, quote, approved app. I'm just curious from a legal perspective what you think about that and how that is in compliance with the Federal Records Act.

WILLIAMS: So, it might be an approved act for app for having on one's government phone, that's perfectly fine. The question is, what's he using it for? If he's, you know, engaging with Marco Rubio about the score of the Miami Hurricanes game, then that's perfectly a valid use, maybe even of a government phone. If they are discussing sensitive or protected information, of course, that's not appropriate.

There are clear standards that government officials at all levels, from, you know, people who at the lowest levels on up to the secretary, for the handling of government information.

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And it is well-established that even the use of an encrypted app like Signal is not an appropriate way to be discussing whether it's classified top secret, confidential information. So, if any of that is being discussed on apps, even these protected ones, it's just a violation of the rules.

BROWN: But even if it's just routine business, you know, I mean, why would it be on government phones, if not for the use of business? And aren't there laws on the books to preserve records from government officials in the way they do business? On Signal, you can -- obviously they're disappearing messages.

WILLIAMS: Yes. Again I'm sort of hedging a little bit only because there can be a space where something might be appropriate to engage. That's just not sensitive information. But as a general matter, and I say this, having worked -- I worked for 15 years in government. Just keep it off your personal phone. And when engaging in any sort of government business, you know, at any level of government, the appropriate thing to do is use a special phone, go to the special room, go to the secure facility, or so on.

So, this is rife with possibilities for misconduct, and I think some of that might have happened here.

BROWN: All right. Elliot Williams, as always, thank you so much.

And up next we're going to ask the labor secretary, Lori Chavez- DeRemer to weigh in on today's stronger than expected jobs report and what it means for all those recession fears,

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