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The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper
100 Days of Trump. Aired 8-9p ET
Aired April 27, 2025 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: All right, Abby, thanks so much. It's an all- new episode of "THE WHOLE STORY WITH ANDERSON COOPER." It is next. It is only on CNN.
Thank you so much for joining me this evening. I'm Jessica Dean. We're going to see you right back here next weekend. Have a great night.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Welcome to THE WHOLE STORY. I'm Anderson Cooper in Rome, where Pope Francis was laid to rest yesterday.
Leaders from all over the world attended the Pope's funeral, including President Donald Trump in his first international trip of his second term. It comes at a time when U.S. alliances and the global economy have been rattled by the swift actions President Trump has taken so far.
This week marks 100 days since he was sworn in, and since day one, he's moved with a velocity that has surprised supporters and critics alike by issuing a record number of executive orders and attempting to drastically reshape the federal government. These actions have been consequential and have tested the outer bounds of executive power.
Over the next hour, CNN's Abby Phillip takes a comprehensive look at these first 100 days and the real-world impact so far.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: A spectacular view of chilly and snowy Washington, D.C., where President-elect Donald J. Trump will make history as the second former U.S. president ever to return to power.
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: January 20th, 2025. The Capitol rotunda, packed with former presidents, billionaires, political opponents, and MAGA supporters to witness the 45th president become the nation's 47th.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The golden age of America begins right now.
We have accomplished more in 43 days than most administrations accomplished in four years.
RENE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Words that I would use to describe this current presidency is intense, wide-reaching, impactful.
TRUMP: In some cases, they'll fire people and then they'll put some people back. Not all of them.
TIM NAFTALI, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Focused. Dangerous. Ambitious.
TRUMP: The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it, too.
JOAN BISKUPIC, CNN CHIEF SUPREME COURT ANALYST: Shocking, startling.
TRUMP: You're not in a good position. You don't have the cards right now.
SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Fast-paced. Unrelenting. Chaotic.
TRUMP: I know what the hell I'm doing.
FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN ANCHOR: Trump comes to the second presidency with a view that the United States has gone seriously awry. It's seriously off track, and a lot of that is the elites, the established institutions, the government. And so what he's trying to do is mostly tear it down, burn it down. Maybe there will be a period of creation after that. But right now, the purpose is very much disrupt and destroy.
TRUMP: Our country is going to be based on merit again.
MARSH: One of the first executive orders that they announced was this abolishing DEI efforts across all of government.
COOPER: We've been following the Trump administration's efforts to rewrite history. They deleted references to the struggles and accomplishments of black Americans, gay, lesbian and transgender Americans, trailblazing women who fought for equality.
The National Park Service erased references to abolitionist Harriet Tubman from a Web page about the underground railroad. Some of those Web sites have been restored after public outcry.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Shame on Trump.
PHILLIP: And there has been much public outcry.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do we do?
PROTESTERS: Stand up. Fight back.
PHILLIP: Even as some MAGA supporters cheer on the president's very public fights on everything from banning paper straws to pardoning more than 1200 convicted January 6th rioters, including those with violent offenses on day one, to calling for the impeachment of judges.
DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: The chief justice of the United States of America just issued a rare statement.
PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: This is a huge deal, the chief justice writes, "For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.
PHILLIP: To withholding federal funding to elite universities, including Harvard, claiming the pressure is meant to combat antisemitism on campus.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: President Trump is now freezing funding to Harvard University and threatening to revoke the university's tax exempt status.
KRISTIE LU STOUT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Harvard reiterated that it will, quote, "not surrender" its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.
LARRY SUMMERS, FORMER HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT: He's telling law firms that they're not going to be able to do business with the federal government if they have clients he doesn't like.
PHILLIP: There is the list of media organizations that Trump is punishing by starving some of them of access, others of money that they need to cover the news.
[20:05:00]
BASH: President Trump targeted in an executive order he signed last week, accusing the Smithsonian of promoting a, quote, "divisive and improper race centered ideology."
SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: The Kennedy Center President Trump gutted its bipartisan board and appointed a slate of loyalists. The board then elected him chairman.
NAFTALI: We have a president now who, in a sense, is leading a cultural revolution, a political cultural revolution, and he's doing it via executive orders. That's new for this country.
PHILLIP: April 2nd, 2025.
TRUMP: This is liberation day.
PHILLIP: The White House Rose Garden.
TRUMP: For decades, our country has been looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by nations near and far.
RANA FAROOHAR, CNN GLOBAL ECONOMIC ANALYST: Tariffs have been something that he's been for for 40 years. April 2nd was a very Trump style, good TV kind of event. He comes out with his board. It was about spectacle.
TRUMP: I will sign a historic executive order instituting reciprocal tariffs. That means they do it to us and we do it to them. Can't get any simpler than that.
PHILLIP: It turns out the immediate aftermath of his tariff policy would be far more complex.
Donald Trump declared a national emergency to justify slapping at least 10 percent of tariffs on most countries in the world.
SUMMERS: The immediate market reaction in the first two days was that U.S. stock markets lost over $5 trillion of value. This was a direct response to a statement by the president of the United States.
PHILLIP: The president's main reason for steep tariffs -- bringing manufacturing back to the U.S., an effort lauded by many of his supporters.
NORMAN ZEITER, OWNER AND CEO, SWANTON WELDING: I believe if we can live through this short-term pain, I think in the long term it's going to take some time, but I think manufacturing is going to come back strong.
DREW GREENBLATT, CEO, MARLIN STEEL: Tariffs are going to be very good for the American manufacturing worker. We're very excited about this new leveling of the playing field.
OREN CASS, FOUNDER, CHIEF ECONOMIST, AMERICAN COMPASS: The need for corrective is very real. We need to do a better job getting it right on the specifics. But I'm really concerned by the people who look at the situation and say, no, no, what we really should do is just what we've been doing since the year 2000, which is embrace this kind of hyper globalization that has not worked well for America at all.
PHILLIP: Donald Trump fervently believes that the hollowed out parts of America, the places that used to build the middle class with manufacturing jobs, have been the biggest victims of free trade. But will those jobs come back with tariffs?
ZAKARIA: It is inconceivable that large numbers of manufacturing jobs will come back to the United States.
NAFTALI: He wants to reorganize the U.S. economy to look the way it looked in 1946.
SUMMERS: I understand the idea of having permanent tariffs so as to get businesses to locate here. I think it would be way expensive for households and consumers and damaging to businesses that imported relative to any benefits.
PHILLIP: If the president followed through with his plan outlined on April 2nd, grocery prices were predicted to balloon. Clothing and apparel prices were expected to rise by 17 percent, and the price of a car would increase by $4,000 and the cost of living would go up by $3800 for the average middle class family, according to the Yale Budget Lab.
SUMMERS: These policies follow from no existent economic logic. Whether it's one I agree with or one that I disagree with. This is to economics what creationism is to biology, what astrology is to astronomy. This is the biggest self-inflicted wound in U.S. economic history. PHILLIP: It was shocking to a lot of people how they came up with some
of these sky high tariffs that they called reciprocal on essentially the entire rest of the world.
FAROOHAR: Absolutely. And, you know, not only the rates but the countries that were being hit. I mean, when you're trying to put tariffs on islands that have mostly penguins, that's a problem. This was not about a really thought out strategy.
PHILLIP: But Americans did think things through in the days following Trump's announcement. And many became increasingly worried about their pocketbooks. Payroll, pensions and retirement funds.
BOBBY DJAVAHERI, PRESIDENT, YEDI HOUSEWARE APPLIANCES: We feel like were collateral damage here in the middle of this trade war that's just -- there's no end in sight.
[20:10:04]
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Groceries are already outrageous. And then we put the tariffs on across the seas or whatever, like China, all that. It just makes everything more expensive for everybody.
SUMMERS: They talk about making American consumers better off, but it's very clear if you talk to any retailer that the effect of these tariffs is going to be higher prices.
DAVID URBAN, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Americans are going to have to be a little patient because the economy is not prepared for some of these things.
PHILLIP: But patience waned as stocks plummeted and prices surged. The pressure mounted and bond markets, a major economic indicator, moved erratically.
Seven days after his liberation day, President Trump reversed course or at least paused most of it for 90 days.
TRUMP: People were jumping a little bit out of line. They were getting yippy, you know.
PHILLIP: It only took about a week for President Trump to blink. He announced a 90-day pause on most of the tariffs.
FAROOHAR: I think at that point you start seeing the president cover his tracks a little bit and say, oh, this was all part of a grand strategy.
KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Many of you in the media clearly missed the art of the deal. You clearly failed to see what President Trump is doing here.
PHILLIP: Was the expectation that Trump would back down all along?
BRYAN LANZA, FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN SENIOR ADVISER: I don't think that was the expectation. We all knew that some countries were going to come and negotiate. And that's what he wanted politically.
PHILLIP: Politically this issue of tariffs has been largely unpopular among Americans. Is there a risk to President Trump of giving Americans whiplash from tariffs going into place and then going away and then going into place again and then going away? Are there risks?
LANZA: I have whiplash, so, yes, there are risks, but what's the risk of doing nothing, Abby? The risk of doing nothing means we continue to hollow out American cities, good-paying jobs for the American workers.
DAVID CHALIAN, CNN WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF: Now are people getting what they voted for? What they voted for were lower prices. They're not seeing lower prices across the board yet. And there is the threat because of the tariffs that prices will rise. We don't yet know at the 100-day mark what the ultimate resolution will be of this economic policy. It's a huge gamble he's making. And if it fails miserably and people feel economic pain, he will likely suffer political pain as well.
PHILLIP: Coming up, the president's biggest donor now running the Department of Government Efficiency.
JEFFREY TOOBIN, AUTHOR, "THE PARDON: THE POLITICS OF PRESIDENTIAL MERCY": Elon Musk is controlling a government that pays him billions of dollars.
PHILLIP: And later, the mounting number of legal cases and court rulings.
BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA ANALYST: When Trump signs an order, it's who follows up, who rejects it. What happens in the courts? What is the actual ultimate impact?
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[20:15:13]
TRUMP: We're going to be signing a very important deal today. I'm going to ask Elon to tell you a little bit about it.
TOOBIN: I think the most consequential thing Donald Trump has done is turn over the core functions of government to Elon Musk.
TRUMP: Elon, go ahead.
ELON MUSK, DEPARTMENT OF GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY: Sure. If the bureaucracy is in charge and then what meaning does democracy actually have?
URBAN: The American people want radical change in their government. They are tired of seeing their government not work.
MUSK: The people voted for major government reform, and that's what people are going to get.
STELTER: Republicans have wanted these kinds of cuts implemented for a long, long time.
RONALD REAGAN, 40TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I would like to dissolve the $10 billion National Department of Education.
GEORGE H.W. BUSH, 41ST PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Real and lasting spending cuts.
STELTER: For better or worse, Elon Musk and DOGE, they're willing to implement some of this. And now we're all going to see the impact.
DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: It's of a historic nature to have the world's richest person and with a billionaire president.
URBAN: Elon Musk is a multi-billionaire. He doesn't have to be doing this.
BRINKLEY: But proximity to power is very important. Musk has figured out how to be standing next to the chair of the Resolute Desk day after day.
TRUMP: He's a successful guy. That's why we want him doing this.
BRINKLEY: Showing up in the middle of the State of the Union.
TRUMP: DOGE. Perhaps you've heard of it. Perhaps.
MARSH: At his very first Cabinet meeting.
MUSK: I actually just call myself a humble tech support here.
BRINKLEY: How did it occur I would go back to Butler, Pennsylvania.
PHILLIP: Musk endorsed Trump just moments after the assassination attempt.
TRUMP: Take over, Elon.
PHILLIP: He went on to spend more than $290 million supporting Trump and other Republicans' campaigns.
MUSK: This is what victory feels like.
PHILLIP: And the endorsement paid off.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Today following Trump's win Musk's net worth rose by $12 billion.
PHILLIP: But Musk had his sights set beyond just the election.
MUSK: I have discussed with Trump the idea of a government efficiency commission.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Clearly, he has made strides in his own companies for efficiency.
ZAKARIA: What might work in a private company might not work in governmental institutions.
PHILLIP: Just days after Trump's inauguration, an e-mail was sent out to all two million federal workers with the subject line "Fork in the Road."
KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: 75,000 federal workers taking a buyout offer.
TRUMP: We're cutting down the size of government. We have to. We're bloated. We're sloppy.
PHILLIP: Then came the mass firings.
ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: Trump is now drafting an executive order to eliminate the Department of Education hours after Musk jumped on X, urging him to do just that.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: DOGE has fired about 1,000 employees from the National Park Service and 3400 forest service workers.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: More than 6,000 new employees are starting to be fired at the IRS.
TAPPER: The Department of Veterans Affairs plans to cut 80,000 jobs.
SERFATY: It was broad strokes cuts, not thought-out, no plan, no direction.
NAFTALI: Part of this whole assault on the U.S. government is a learning experience. What can we get away with?
SERFATY: We've seen this since challenge in court.
LAURA COATES, CNN ANCHOR: A federal judge finding that DOGE's mass firing of thousands of federal probationary employees was likely unlawful.
SERFATY: Morale is low in the federal government. People don't know when the next round of terminations are going to happen, and that's causing a considerable amount of anxiety.
PHILLIP: One of the architects of Project 2025, now a Trump appointee, has said anxiety is the goal.
RUSSELL VOUGHT, UNITED STATES OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET DIRECTOR: We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. When they wake up in the morning we want them to not want to go to work.
PHILLIP: What is the reasoning behind not just firing federal workers, but also making their lives difficult, anxiety ridden and uneasy?
LANZA: I don't feel, you know, pleasure by people losing their jobs, but the reality is, is government got too big and you can't put that burden on the American taxpayer.
MARSH: DOGE has not operated with a lot of transparency. It's really hard to gauge at this point what they've really saved.
PHILLIP: While DOGE originally aimed to save $2 trillion, Musk says it's on pace to save just $150 billion in the upcoming budget year.
MARSH: They have something called the wall of receipts that shows all their work for all the savings that they're doing throughout the federal government. It's been plagued by mistakes and inaccuracies, quite frankly. In one instance, they said that they saved some $8 billion on a contract. It was actually only worth $8 million. They accidentally fired multiple people who were working on the bird flu. They had to recall them.
[20:20:03]
MUSK: We won't be perfect, but when we make a mistake, we'll fix it very quickly.
NAFTALI: You can see a logic to their targeting of institutions. You start with the least popular. Americans have never fully embraced foreign aid.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 83 percent of the U.S. Agency for International Developments Programs will be canceled.
ZAKARIA: All U.S. aid, most of which is feeding hungry people and giving people medicines. It's a tiny part of the budget, and yet it has this huge impact on the world and on America's image in the world. And so what's going to happen is a lot of people in the poorest countries in the world are going to suffer and die as a result of this.
PHILLIP: Are these sweeping changes even legal?
TOOBIN: As far as I can tell, DOGE is doing what it's doing and is not particularly worried about what the courts say.
BISKUPIC: Elon Musk and his DOGE effort are moving so fast. The federal courts move like turtles.
TRUMP: Should I get in?
MARSH: It really is unprecedented to see someone who has no accountability, really, to the American public. He hasn't been elected. But also this conflict of interest.
TOOBIN: Musk is controlling a government that pays him billions of dollars. Nothing like that has ever happened in the history of the country.
MARSH: He has this great amount of power over these federal agencies, the very agencies that regulate his businesses.
PHILLIP: Did anybody in the transition team raise that as a red flag?
LANZA: Everybody knew there'd be a tremendous amount of more scrutiny in the process. And that scrutiny is welcomed. But the transparency behind it is at a level you haven't seen.
SERFATY: We have seen considerable pushback at town halls.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're lying. I'm a veteran and you give a (EXPLETIVE DELETED) about me.
URBAN: We've seen, you know, stocks going down. Teslas are not being purchased as much. Some violent folks burning Teslas and vandalizing cars.
MUSK: Tesla is a peaceful company. We've never done anything harmful. I've never done anything harmful. I've only done productive things.
PHILLIP: But many are supportive of Musk and DOGE's mission.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We got to cut the spending down. We're just too far in debt. I don't want to become another third world nation.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If Elon Musk wants to cut trillions of dollars out of this budget, and if my family has to tighten our belt and not go on vacation because of it, I'm down with that.
SERFATY: We have heard from some Republicans, a few, that Elon Musk needs to be a little bit more sensitive here in his approach.
MUSK: This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy.
MARSH: For many of these federal workers, the bills continue to arrive and they're going to have to figure it out.
PHILLIP: And people like Jared Blockus, an Army vet, has had to do just that.
JARED BLOCKUS, DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS: So I actually started donating blood plasma to supplement what income we have to make sure that we can afford daycare, groceries and still make ends meet. It's extremely stressful for me. I'd never imagined I'd have to start looking for a job again.
PHILLIP: 35-year-old Anna Conn received her termination notice in mid- February.
ANNA CONN, CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL: I am eight and a half months pregnant, and I'm also an above the knee amputee. I never thought I wouldn't have maternity leave or health insurance. Because, yes, that's what you plan for.
URBAN: I think that we probably got rid of some good people that we should keep. I'd like to see a more scalpel approach. There was no cruelty intended by this. It was -- they're just trying to be efficient in getting rid of people who were probationary employees. So, again, I'm sorry for the people that lost their jobs because I understand it's a tough thing to have happen, but it happens all across America day in and day out.
CONN: I think there's room for reform, but the approach that's currently being taken is neither effective nor humane.
URBAN: This administration has been forced to do some things, but they're doing it because they're trying to help the American people.
PHILLIP: For both Jared and Anna, they feel like they're still in limbo. Jared has been reinstated to the Department of Veterans Affairs due to a court order.
BLOCKUS: The whiplash of being terminated, being reinstated, and then potentially being terminated again. At this point, there's just a huge loss in trust. It feels almost safer to just have one foot out the door. It's extremely inefficient to pay current employees to sit at home on administrative leave.
PHILLIP: Which is exactly what happened to Anna Conn, who is now in her second month of administrative leave and is still bracing for a layoff.
CONN: I think the hardest part about this termination process has just been the ambiguity. It's just hard to kind of move forward in a space where you're going in circles.
PHILLIP: As for Elon Musk, his temporary role as a special government employee ends after 130 days.
[20:25:05]
MUSK: My time allocation to DOGE will drop significantly.
PHILLIP: On April 22nd, the 93rd day of the Trump presidency, Musk told Tesla investors that he'd be scaling back his efforts in Washington, D.C.
MUSK: I'll continue to spend, you know, a day or two per week on government matters, as long as it is useful.
PHILLIP: What do you think becomes of the Musk-Trump relationship?
LANZA: I think they're still going to have a relationship, and I wouldn't be surprised if Elon still calls from time to time.
PHILLIP: Coming up.
TRUMP: You're gambling with World War III.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:30:21]
TRUMP: It's an honor to have President Zelenskyy.
PHILLIP: February 28th, 2025. From the start of that notorious White House meeting with Ukraine's leader, President Trump echoed a claim he had made many times before.
TRUMP: If I were president, this war would have never happened. We would have had a deal negotiated for you.
PHILLIP: Forty minutes later, the meeting had devolved into a shouting match.
TRUMP: You're gambling with World War III, and what you're doing is very disrespectful to the country. This country.
PHILLIP: The now infamous Oval Office meeting between Ukrainian President Zelenskyy, President Trump and Vice President Vance was an explosion for the world to see between two nations that are supposed to be allies. What was the consequence of that meeting?
ZAKARIA: What Trump was doing in that Oval Office meeting was saying to Ukraine, we're not really with you. We're going to hang you out to dry.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Press, let's go.
PHILLIP: To be sure, the tension had been brewing in the weeks leading up to that Oval Office meeting with President Trump falsely accusing Ukraine of starting the war with Russia.
TRUMP: A dictator without elections. Zelenskyy better move fast or he's not going to have a country left.
PHILLIP: And Zelenskyy volleying back, saying President Trump lives in this disinformation space. But many say the strained relationship dated back to Trump's first term.
KATIE BO LILLIS, CNN SENIOR INTELLIGENCE AND NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Trump held a phone call with the president of Ukraine in 2019, in which he asked that the president of Ukraine do him a favor. And that favor was to effectively investigate Joe Biden. That phone call, which President Trump would later call a perfect phone call, was the genesis for his first impeachment.
TRUMP: You're not acting at all thankful, and that's not a nice thing. I'll be honest. That's not a nice thing. This is going to be great television. I will say that.
ZAKARIA: Trump treated Ukraine in that meeting not as the leader of the free world trying to find a way to support a democratic country that had come under vicious aggression, but rather as the head of a kind of protection racket, saying, what's in it for me? And no president in eight decades has ever treated an ally like that.
PHILLIP: From allies to adversaries, to deal or no deal, President Trump seems more than open to redefining the United States's long standing relationships.
How is he in the second term changing the world order?
LANZA: The way the world order is changing now is President Trump is saying, world, you're no longer going to be able to take advantage of America.
PHILLIP: What is the Trump doctrine?
ZAKARIA: The Trump doctrine, I think, is probably best described as a view that the United States has been the sucker of the world. It's a settling of scores on trade by jacking up tariffs against all these countries that have apparently taken advantage of us. It's a settling of scores on security by forcing the Europeans to do more. Trump's view is what animates him. This idea that the U.S. is the victim.
PHILLIP: His willingness to upend the global order is evident on so many fronts, from rebranding bodies of water.
TRUMP: We are going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.
PHILLIP: To undercutting NATO, the coalition of more than 30 countries formed in 1949. One of NATO's greatest strengths is Article Five. An attack on one member is considered an attack on all.
TRUMP: If you're not going to pay, we're not going to defend. You know, the biggest problem I have with NATO, if the United States was in trouble and we called them, we said, we got a problem. Do you think they're going to come and protect us? They're supposed to. I'm not so sure.
PHILLIP: Important to note that the one and only time Article Five was invoked the day after the September 11th, 2001, terror attacks on the United States. NATO forces were deployed to Afghanistan.
URBAN: The Europeans are paying their fair share. It's plain and simple.
LANZA: He's not afraid to challenge allies who are making bad decisions.
PHILLIP: From challenging partners to potentially normalizing relations with Vladimir Putin's Russia.
TRUMP: We've had serious discussions with Russia and have received strong signals that they are ready for peace.
URBAN: He's trying to get Putin to the table. President Trump recognizes that Vladimir Putin isn't our friend. But you don't need to be at war constantly with a country that has enough nuclear weapons to, you know, obliterate the world five times over.
PHILLIP: And he's made no secret of his desire for the Panama Canal.
[20:35:02]
TRUMP: My administration will be reclaiming the Panama Canal.
PHILLIP: And getting Greenland.
TRUMP: We need Greenland for national security and even international security.
PHILLIP: As evidenced by Vice President JD Vance's recent visit, which the country's government called highly aggressive.
TRUMP: One way or the other, we're going to get it.
PHILLIP: Though it's unclear exactly how the president would acquire either territory, he's also picked fights with our neighbor to the north, Canada. He and his administration referring to it as the 51st state.
TRUMP: Canada should be our 51st state.
PHILLIP: And their then prime minister as governor.
LEAVITT: The president did just put out a statement on his call with the governor, Justin Trudeau.
TRUMP: For the 51st state, I call him Governor Trudeau.
PHILLIP: He shocked the world with his jaw-dropping ideas for the Middle East.
TRUMP: The Riviera of the Middle East. This could be something that could be so bad. This could be so magnificent. We'll make sure that it's done world class. It will be wonderful for the people.
PHILLIP: He doubled down on his vision of Gaza's future when he reposted this A.I. generated video to social media.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No more tunnels, no more fear. Trump Gaza is finally here.
PHILLIP: What was the A.I. Gaza video all about?
LANZA: I just think he wanted to troll. He wanted to have fun. But at the end of the day, he wants to show what the potential for Gaza can be. It doesn't have to be this place that's war torn. If the Palestinian people reject Hamas, legitimately reject Hamas, which means rejecting terrorism and violence, that we can have peace in the Middle East. There can be more, but you have to have a change in mindset.
PHILLIP: And of course, there were his liberation day tariffs, his chosen tools in his attempt to break down and restructure world financial systems.
TRUMP: Foreign leaders have stolen our jobs. Foreign cheaters have ransacked our factories, and foreign scavengers have torn apart our once beautiful American dream.
SUMMERS: President imposed tariffs on almost every country in the world except for Russia and North Korea. There was no rhyme or reason to the tariff levels that were selected. So this was just some kind of demonstration of power. I can do it so I will do it.
PHILLIP: But even with all the tariff flip-flopping, the trade war with China continues to escalate. ZAKARIA: President Donald Trump paused his tariffs on the world. He
raised them on one country, China. The levies on Chinese goods stand at a staggering 145 percent.
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Dire new warnings about the consequences of the world's two biggest superpowers and the two biggest economies being engaged in an all-out trade war.
LANZA: Before we used to look away and just be happy with our cheap products. Now we're looking and saying, is this safe? It's clear to him, and it's clear to a lot of people that we need to get our supply chain out of China because they're not going to be reliable partners during international crises. It's more about national security.
PHILLIP: Coming up, mass deportations, and later.
TOOBIN: The courts have taken on an outsized importance in these first 100 days.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:43:00]
TRUMP: And we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came.
BASH: With the stroke of a black sharpie, President Trump is drastically changing U.S. immigration policy. The crackdown includes declaring a national emergency at the southern border, deploying the military, deporting illegal immigrants, making it more difficult for people to seek asylum, limiting birthright citizenship. And that's just the beginning.
PHILLIP: From the signing of those 10 immigration and border related executive orders on his first day, including the one ending birthright citizenship, a constitutional right enshrined in the 14th Amendment. To a barrage of pictures, posts and videos of deportations. The message is clear.
URBAN: If you break the law, if you come into this country illegally, you will face consequences.
PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN IMMIGRATION CORRESPONDENT: The border was seen as out of control over the last four years.
CHALIAN: On the issue of immigration and border security Donald Trump is at his most popular with the American people.
HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA CORRESPONDENT: Deport all undocumented immigrants. Voters favoring the government trying to deport all 11 million of them.
BRANT STURGILL, GEORGIA VOTER: We have to secure our borders. There are people on this planet that want to destroy us.
CHALIAN: He campaigned on this idea of mass deportation. ALVAREZ: There has been a level of theater when it comes to the
execution of the president's immigration agenda.
KRISTI NOEM, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: Here in New York City this morning, we are getting the dirtbags off these streets.
RAHEL SOLOMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The raids have begun. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested nearly 1,000 people including an enforcement blitz in Chicago that featured a ride along by reality TV star Dr. Phil.
DR. PHIL, TV TALK SHOW HOST: Are you a citizen?
STELTER: This is a made-for-TV and also a made-for-social media show where migrants are being rounded up.
ALVAREZ: The White House account posted multiple videos, ASMR videos of these detentions and deportations.
[20:45:03]
PATTY MORIN, MOTHER OF RACHEL MORIN: We are finally ridding this country of illegal criminals that have come in and that are destroying families and taking life.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No. Oh, mommy. Don't grab her like that.
STELTER: The cruelty is the point sometimes and the cameras are the point. These deportations are meant to be seen by a global audience.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, you can't.
ALVAREZ: I have talked to Homeland Security officials who say part of it is making it so scary, so difficult to be in the United States. They want people to make the decision to leave on their own.
TRUMP: If we truly care about protecting America's children, no step is more crucial than securing America's borders.
ALVAREZ: Numbers at the border have dropped dramatically. They were already dropping before this president took office, but certainly they are at a low, low now. That is less than 300 people a day when there was a time where we were over several thousand a day at the U.S. southern border.
PHILLIP: Chains, shaved heads, tattooed men shoved behind bars. It looked like something out of a Hollywood action movie.
COOPER: President Bukele posted this highly produced video, deportees from the United States landing in El Salvador, shackled and bused into the country's infamous terrorism confinement center.
DAVID CULVER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: More than 250 alleged criminals deported from the U.S., arriving in El Salvador over the weekend. Most are from Venezuela, accused of belonging to Tren de Aragua, a violent transnational gang. It will cost the U.S. about $6 million to keep them here for at least the first year.
PHILLIP: Those deportation flights sent to El Salvador are at the heart of fierce legal battles, continuing to play out in federal courts, where a U.S. district judge ordered a pause in these immigration removals and later ruled that probable cause exists to hold the Trump administration in contempt for violating court orders.
ALVAREZ: The Trump administration has shown that they are willing to push the bounds of the law. The Alien Enemies Act, a very old measure that has only been used during wartime. Think World War I, World War II. The administration was arguing that Tren de Aragua, that Venezuelan gang, was the basis for this invasion, and therefore for the invoking of this authority. This authority is extraordinary because it also wipes out all due process.
PHILLIP: Were the deportation flights even legal, considering that they were carried out seemingly after a court ordered them to stop.
TOOBIN: The flight of the 200 Venezuelans to El Salvador is a perfect illustration of how the Trump administration is pushing its authority to the absolute limit. And the question the courts are still trying to deal with is whether they went over the line.
ALVAREZ: While they have been cast as being affiliated with or members of the Tren de Aragua in court declarations, we have senior immigration and customs enforcement official said that many did not have criminal records in the United States.
COATES: Still ahead, did the Trump administration mistakenly deport a Venezuelan man because of a soccer tattoo?
COOPER: The Trump administration is arguing that Hernandez Ramirez's tattoos prove he's actually a member of this Venezuelan gang, something his attorney denies.
JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: It is shocking to me, even how the government does not have even a sort of what we call a colorable law argument that these men were even put through any kind of review to determine whether we should send them to El Salvador.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Protesters turn out in support of a man who was mistakenly deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador.
PHILLIP: And then there's the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man sent to El Salvador in what the Trump administration called, quote, an administrative error in court filings.
COLLINS: But both President Bukele and President Trump were on the same page when it came to this. Neither plans to return the man who the Trump administration has acknowledged was mistakenly deported to El Salvador back to the U.S., despite a Supreme Court ruling that he should be returned.
PHILLIP: There has been some collateral damage. There was a particular case of a man from Maryland who had been in the country under a legal protection and was still deported to El Salvador. LANZA: Sad to see the collateral damage, but what's even sadder is
those families that are being harmed by these illegal immigrants that are being harmed by these criminal gangs.
PHILLIP: They're making mistakes. They're catching people based on tattoos. Why do you think that's happening?
LANZA: Listen, government is sloppy.
[20:50:01]
Theres's nothing that's going to be perfect. But I think what you see is the vast majority of the people they are deporting are illegal aliens. Let's be clear. I'm more sensitive than most. Like I said, I'm a Latino. I have a Latino kid. Like, we can't hide who we are. But you know what? I have a driver's license, I have ID., I walk around with my passport I.D., You know, those are the things that offer the protective status for me to make sure that I'm safe.
ZAKARIA: Trump is using a particular device in asserting presidential authority. What he says is, I need to do this because there is a national security threat. But the reason he does it is it will pass the court test. Courts are reluctant to overrule a president if he says I'm doing this for national security.
PHILLIP: Coming up --
Some people say that this is a constitutional crisis. Is it?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:55:08]
JESSICA DEAN, CNN ANCHOR: While the administration has suffered some legal setbacks in pushing its bold agenda, the White House has its eyes set on the Supreme Court.
JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: The big picture here is the flex of executive power and authority in which of these cases will end up in the Supreme Court.
JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, the Supreme Court evaluate cases, predicated upon the facts and the law or political agenda.
PHILLIP: Did the Trump administration expect that this would be the battle, that it would play out legally on all of these different fronts?
LANZA: We learned that from the first term. That's why when we started this term, it was like we're at the racetracks and the gates open, and we're racing because we knew inevitably, because of the way Washington operates and how it slows things down, that we'd end up in court.
PHILLIP: Is the goal to get up to the highest court of the land, the Supreme Court?
TOOBIN: This Supreme Court is much more sympathetic to the expansion of executive power at the expense of the other branches of government.
BISKUPIC: You have to remember that today's Supreme Court is actually in the image of Donald Trump. He named three of the justices, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, and then two other justices, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, have been energized by the Trump agenda.
PHILLIP: The Supreme Court is under an extreme amount of scrutiny in this era. One of the reasons is because of their ruling in "Trump versus the United States."
JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking news this hour. Justices ruled that Trump and all former presidents are entitled to some immunity for official acts.
COATES: The president is now a king above the law. That's how Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor characterized the impact of the court's historic ruling today.
PHILLIP: Has the Supreme Court's ruling there possibly emboldened President Trump by giving him some degree of presidential immunity for certain actions?
TOOBIN: Yes. When you look at what the Supreme Court said in "Trump versus United States," it's really clear that there is essentially nothing a president can do in office that would lead to his prosecution later. And with such a strong supporter as Pam Bondi, as attorney general, he knows he's not even going to be investigated.
PHILLIP: Some people say that this is a constitutional crisis. Is it?
TOOBIN: Donald Trump's first 100 days have tested the Constitution in ways that we have never seen in generations.
BISKUPIC: What people fear is that we're going to get to a moment where the Trump administration will defy a court order. The president himself has said that this administration will not defy a court order. That remains to be seen.
TRUMP: I have great respect for the Supreme Court.
The answer is I always abide by the courts, always abide by it.
PHILLIP: Despite the president's comments on adhering to Supreme Court rulings, his administration entered murky waters with the case of the mistakenly deported Maryland man.
STEPHEN MILLER, HITE HOUSE DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF: No version of this legally ends up with him ever living here because he is a citizen of El Salvador.
BASH: Defying the courts? The Trump administration is refusing to bring back a man they admitted in court was mistakenly deported to a dangerous prison in El Salvador.
CHALIAN: It's not as clear cut that the White House is defying a Supreme Court order because it's not clear cut what the Supreme Court order is saying.
REID: The Supreme Court, after looking at that order, said, OK, yes, they need to facilitate his return. But when it comes to effectuating it, they sent it back down to the lower court. So the Trump administration is seizing on this ambiguity.
PHILLIP: But the Supreme Court was crystal clear the next time the Trump administration invoked the Alien Enemies Act.
WHITFIELD: The high court issued an order overnight, temporarily pausing deportations of migrants potentially targeted under the Alien Enemies Act.
MARSH: When we look back at this first 100 days of this presidency, we have made such a dramatic turn from what we knew as Americans prior to January 20th. While there are a lot of actions from this administration, there are also a lot of legal battles. There's a lot of resistance.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER: He's a criminal. Get him out now.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER: This is Donald Trump's America, and I don't want it, y'all.
MARSH: So what will stick and what wont? It really does remain to be seen. And it will be interesting to see what America looks like and what the federal government looks like and what society looks like when all is said and done.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
