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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Stocks Plunge As Trump Trade War Batters Global Markets; Trump Admin Appeals Judge's Order Directing U.S. Government To Return Mistakenly Deported Man; Rubio Says, We'll Know Soon Whether Russia Is Serious About Peace; Musk In 2017: Better To Have "Voices Of Moderation" Near Trump. Aired 6-7p ET

Aired April 04, 2025 - 18:00   ET

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

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[18:00:00]

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Welcome to the Lead. I'm Jake Tapper.

This hour, an absolutely brutal end of the week for the U.S. markets, the Dow losing more than 2,000 points today alone. What does President Trump think of this fallout from his new tariffs? And how long could this chaos last?

Plus, a striking court hearing today ends with the judge ordering the United States government to return a man who the government admits was mistakenly deported. They're on a strict deadline to make that happen.

And tell us what you really think. Former President Obama and former Vice President Harris weighing in on Trump's second term so far from the economy to immigration and the massive cuts to the federal government,

The Lead Tonight, it's day two of global market chaos, following the tariff announcement from President Trump yesterday that sent stocks tumbling and nations scrambling with retaliation now on the table.

Let's talk to Jeff Zeleny. Jeff Zeleny is in Palm Beach -- West Palm Beach with the President. Jeff?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Jake, President Trump remained defiant throughout the day in the face of global turbulence, not only in the financial markers, but in conversations with foreign leaders as well. This, of course, was the worst this economic week, the series of a couple days since the pandemic, all in the wake of the president's tariff policy that he announced on Wednesday.

But the president began his day about 15 minutes after the markets opened here in the U.S. going to his golf course. He remained there for nearly six hours. He was doing a mix of working, I'm told, as well as golfing, talking to some foreign leaders, Vietnam being one, signaling that he is open for negotiations, but also trying to pressure the chairman of the Federal Reserve shortly before he was scheduled to speak, urging him to lower interest rates. Let's take a look at one of these messages on Truth Social. The president said this. This would be a perfect time for Fed Chairman Jerome Powell to cut interest rates. The president said he is always late, but he could now change his imaging quickly. Cut interest rates, Jerome, and stop playing politics.

So, you get the sense the president trying to force some blame there on the Federal Reserve that had nothing to do with this, that tariff policy. But as Powell spoke, he said this is indeed going to be inflationary. He said there was no doubt about that.

But throughout the day, the White House officials we were speaking with said the president is a bit alarmed by the market, but he is not guided by the market. The question here, as this deadline begins to start on midnight, that's when the 10 percent tariffs are scheduled to go into effect, of course, followed by next Wednesday, the higher tariffs for several other countries, is the president still open to negotiation? That remains a bit of a conflicted question. His advisers say, no, he is not, but he has signaled that yes, he is.

So, Jake, as we begin the weekend here, certainly one of the worst weeks of the Trump presidency in terms of the markets and the global economy, and one adviser I talked to said, look, this was not caused by a pandemic or a terrorist attack. It was caused by a president's own policy. He was not out selling his ideas to the country. He was here on the golf course in Florida. Jake?

TAPPER: All right. Jeff Zeleny in West Palm Beach with President Trump.

Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin from the great state of Oklahoma joins us.

Do you think -- like just to pick up on what Jeff said, do you think the president should be explaining this policy and out there selling it more because it, I mean, it is a big idea about remaking the American economy and bringing manufacturing jobs to the United States? And I don't know how long it's going to last. I don't know how turbulent it's going to get. I think there needs to be a little bit more, at the very least explanation, don't you?

SEN. MARKWAYNE MULLIN (R-OK): Well, Jake, he's been out there since he was campaigning. He was telling everybody exactly what he is going to do. In fact, if you want to, you can go all the way back to when he was in office the first time. This is just picking up where he left off. He's made it very, very clear, we've got to reset the trade imbalance that is happening inside the United States.

We've allowed countries to take advantage of our economy. They have became rich, they have sucked trillions of dollars out of our economy, and we've lost manufacturing jobs. We're no longer a leader in manufacturing anymore. We're allowing them to lead the country, set up manufacturing companies in a different country and then sell the product back to us.

And, truthfully, these countries, they need access to our economy more than we need access to theirs. You've already seen Cambodia. You've already seen Vietnam. You've already seen Israel and United Kingdom now is saying they want to negotiate. And the president is open at making a deal. He has always been about reciprocal tariffs and equal access to the economy.

TAPPER: Israel dropped all tariffs on the United States before liberation day and still got slammed with tariffs.

MULLIN: Well -- but I said access to their economy too. Mind you, Japan has 0 percent tariffs on United States automakers selling their products inside Japan, but yet they can't actually sell because they don't have equal access to their economy.

[18:05:10]

So, Israel, they dropped the tariffs, but there is still a large barrier because the way their government is set up and the way the regulations set for us, it actually built to sell their goods in there at a compatible price.

TAPPER: So, you said that President Trump's trying to even the playing field, and obviously that's a great goal level playing field. Today, instead of removing its tariffs, China announced a 34 percent tariff increase on U.S. goods coming into China. That's matching what President Trump calls reciprocal tariff, Trump's 34 percent. Isn't there also the risk that this is just going to make the playing field even more uneven?

MULLIN: Well, now let's think about that. Over 40 percent of the manufacturing goods that are produced in China are sold back to the United States. We're not even close to having the same amount. So, they have 40 percent of their manufacturing jobs dependent on our economy. They need to sell their products inside the United States much more than we do. This is why they set up the Belt and Road Initiative years ago because they wanted to limit their dependency inside the United States.

We can walk down the Belt and Road Initiative forever and understand why that's a hard line for China to even make, but the truth is they need us more than we need them.

TAPPER: Listen to something, your Republican colleague, Senator Ted Cruz, from just down south of Oklahoma and Texas. Well, they're still trying to figure out how to play football in Texas. Well, that's another day. Listen to what he posted today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): If we're in a scenario 30 days from now, 60 days from now, 90 days from now, with massive American tariffs and massive tariffs on American goods and every other country on Earth, that is a terrible outcome.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: So, he's talking about one month, two months, three months. What do you think? Do you agree?

MULLIN: I don't think we're going to be one month, two months, or three months down the road. I think we're experiencing very short-term pain for a long-term gain. President Trump is not interested in making political decisions. He's interested in understanding that we're wanting to set up our economy for the future.

We have continued to gain bigger deficits and trade deficits with different countries around the world. If we're ever going to right the ship, if we're ever going to take care of it, this is the time to do it. And President Trump is just the president to do it because he's a business guy leading from the Oval Office, not a politician.

Someone had to eventually take this bull by the horns and change the direction we're going. And President Trump is willing to do that and he's going to do that. We're not going to be talking about this in 90 days. What we're going to be talking about in 90 days is how many manufacturing jobs are coming back to the United States. We're going to be talking about access to new markets for manufacturers that are here. And we're going to talk about reciprocal fair and trade balance with our allies across the world in our economy.

TAPPER: You know, it's not just Democrats criticizing the precedent on this. It's not just economists. It's a lot of conservatives. Take a listen to Ben Shapiro.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BEN SHAPIRO, CONSERVATIVE COMMENTATOR: It is a tax paid for by Americans. So, this is a massive tax increase on American consumers. That's what it is. And it is designed to be so.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: I mean, I've heard it described by economists who generally support Trump as the biggest tax increase since 1968.

MULLIN: Well, if I'm going to be following somebody, I'm going to be following a guy that's been very successful in business and knows exactly what's going on. He has been talking about this since 2015 about the way that the U.S. is unfairly treated and the way we allow people to take advantage of us. And he knows, because he's been in business, he's been in the retail business. He understands tariffs better than any president we've ever had, and I would say any politician that we've ever had elected to office. This is the time and this is the place to figure this out and fix it now.

TAPPER: According to the Oklahoma Department of Commerce, your state's top three export customers are Canada, Mexico, and Germany. That accounts for a combined total of more than $3 billion. And while most of us probably think of Oklahoma maybe producing farm products, nuclear reactors, industrial machinery, and parts among the state's tops experts, I'm sure you have some nervous constituents calling you, people who support President Trump, voted for President Trump, but they're saying, oh my God, what's going on? What are you telling them? MULLIN: You'd be surprised. You remember all 77 counties voted for President Trump all three times. They support President Trump and they understand what a business investment is. When you invest in a business, sometimes you take a little bit of gain and a little bit of risk to have long-term success. We're willing to do that.

Now, have I heard from some people that just want to have clarity on what the end goal is? Absolutely. Have I heard from business leaders around the state that are upset? Absolutely not. They support what's trying to happen here.

We're big in the aerospace industry. Canada has been taken advantage of us.

[18:10:00]

We literally had businesses lose their business in Oklahoma and have to go set up in Canada because the trade differences have taken place. We're going to right the ship and bill allow those companies come back to Oklahoma and build their products.

TAPPER: So, the reason that we're lucky enough to have you here in studio on a Friday is when you normally would be back in Oklahoma, is the Senate's working on a budget resolution.

MULLIN: Right.

TAPPER: There are calls to use the $600 billion or so that the Trump team claims these tariffs will raise to generate every year. There are calls to use that $600 billion to pay for more tax cuts. What do you say to that? Is that --

MULLIN: Well, we're not looking at doing more tax cuts. We're looking at extending current policy.

TAPPER: Extending the tax cuts, okay.

MULLIN: Yes. The current policy right now expires at the end of this year, and if it expires, Jake, we're going to see a $4 trillion tax increase on every American, regardless of what tax bracket you're in, on every American. What we're saying is, let's extend the tax policy that President Trump put in 2018 and make it permanent. Why would we want it to expire right now? Why would we want to increase taxes on American people right now? That is not the right plan, and we don't want to do that.

And so the budget doesn't do that. The budget gives us an opportunity to get to reconciliation that does make that happen. Remember, this is a two step process. We got to pass a budget first, before we can get to reconciliation to get the cuts that DOGE is doing to get the waste and fraud out of the American government and to make these tax policies permanent.

TAPPER: All right. Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin from Oklahoma, thanks so much. It's good to see you.

MULLIN: Thanks for having me on.

TAPPER: Coming up next, as Trump faces anger from Wall Street and the world over his second term, Kamala Harris has some choice words for the man who beat her in November. We're bring you her comments. That's next.

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TAPPER: In our Politics Lead, President Trump frequently said, tariff is the most beautiful word in the dictionary. He said that many times on the campaign trail. It's an interesting choice. It seems like he's standing by that even as his tariffs are not being seen as so beautiful by people in the markets. He posted today, my policies will never change. This is a great time to get rich.

I want to bring in CNN's Erin Burnett for more. Erin, it has been two days now of stock market lows, like we've seen in times of national and global crisis. Last time the market was going through this literally is when COVID was hitting the United States. Last night you talked to CNBC's Jim Cramer.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: Yes. And, you know, Jim was talking about how --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIM CRAMER, FINANCIAL ANALYST: Ridiculous how badly we've been taking advantage of, and I thought they were going to do something. And what'd they do? They cratered the damn stock market and gave us nothing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Sorry, we didn't cue you well enough on that, Erin.

BURNETT: No, that's okay. But Jim says it -- I mean, look, he says, he's talking about they did nothing. I mean, what they did is, you know, Jim was under the belief that they would do truly reciprocal tariffs, which is something he actually isn't against, even though many economists are. Jim said he would've been okay with that, but that's obviously not what they did. As you know, Jake, it's not what they did at all.

The overall loss in the market though, when you talk about it, $6.6 trillion over two days, Jake, it's a 10 percent plunge. It's a stunning number. Just to put it in context, obviously, these are stocks. But that plunge in two days, it is greater than the GDP of France and the United Kingdom combined. It is almost two times as big as the GDP of Germany. It is 25 percent of the GDP of the United States of America, all that just wiped out in two days.

You know, Fareed writing today, Fareed Zakaria called this capricious, capricious and dumb were the words he used. Talking to traders after the close, Jake, I mean, they're stunned. And I'm getting these uniform descriptions, whether it's from traders or investors, how do they feel? Dark, bad, there's no silver lining, ugly, grim. We're now hoping on judges to block this. That's where it is.

And that's -- it is -- I would say when you reference that it back to COVID times, that's the feeling, a feeling of completely being unmoored, of uncertainty, of fear of not knowing where things are going. That's the feeling in the market and that's what we're seeing.

And it's also important to note, Jake, the market's closed at their lows. Often when you start to see people feel better, you'll see it bounce at the end. It'll still end down, but it'll come back a little bit. You didn't see that today, and you didn't see that yesterday.

TAPPER: Yes. I don't about you. I'm just not looking at my portfolio. I'm not looking at my 401(k). I'm just going to -- like I'm 56. I got a little time before they put me on the ice flow, so I'm just not looking.

BURNETT: Yes. Well, you know, and they're -- you got Jason Furman out, you know, former, obviously, economist. He was saying, look, you've got to deal with, if this continues, you could see a real crash. And think about that, Jake, to what you just said. The past two days, not a crash, but that could be coming.

TAPPER: Erin Burnett, thank you so much. Of course, stick around. Erin will be on right after us, Erin Burnett Outfront tonight at 7:00 P.M. That's just in 42 minutes.

My political panel is here. So, for President Trump, this is promises made, promises kept. You heard Senator Markwayne Mullin say, this is what he said he was going to do on the campaign trail. Even more so, here's an interesting quote from The Washington Post. One White House official told The Washington Post, quote, he's at the peak of just not giving an F anymore. Bad news stories doesn't give an F. He's going to do what he's going to do. He's going to do what he promised to do on the campaign trail.

So, okay, he's not up for reelection anymore, at least if everybody continues to abide by the U.S. Constitution, but do you really think he doesn't care, like he's not watching the market, he's not hearing any of the criticism from business leaders who love him generally?

MATT GORMAN, FORMER SENIOR ADVISER, TIM SCOTT PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN: Yes. Look, what I'm telling people is if I think there's the Vietnam type scenario where seminal come to him and say, let's make a deal. I think he's open to that. He wants to cut a deal. But if he was going to be spooked by the markets or spooked by Republican members of Congress that were getting shaky, the off ramp was a month or two ago or even a week or two ago, right.

Like at this point, he is certainly not going to turn back now, right? He's going to be relentlessly stubborn about it.

[18:20:00]

And I think that is what we're going to see. And I would tell Republican members of Congress the same thing, is that this is happening whether you are on board or not. And so, you know, you need to make a decision what's right for you and your district. But the idea that suddenly he's going to turn this around or that, you know, you can pass a bill that's going to turn, it's just not reality.

TAPPER: Really, it's not what conservatives or Republicans have stood for in a long time, but he is just completely changed the Republican Party.

AMY WALTER, PUBLISHER AND EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, THE COOK POLITICAL REPORTER WITH AMY WALTER: He's changed the Republican Party starting in 2017. And, you know, I keep telling people this number, which is if you look at the members of Congress right now, Republican members of Congress, 70 percent of them have been elected since Donald Trump was elected in 2016.

This Congress is a Trump Congress. This party is a Trump party. This is the -- all of the things that he's doing right now are the things that he has been talking about, not just for the last four years, but since the 1980s. They did believe they could change his opinion on some of these things.

KAREN FINNEY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: But even economists in the last couple days have said they didn't think he would go this far, right? He was talking about it. And how many exit polls and polls did Americans say, well, we don't think he's really going to do it, or they didn't think he was going to do it in a way that might harm them? They didn't think he was going to do it in a way that when you then layer on DOGE and you then layer on tax cut, we're going to completely obliterate their lives.

And, by the way, it's all self-inflicted -- Trump-inflicted pain. It's not COVID, it's not a pandemic. It's something he is literally doing to us.

TAPPER: So, I just want to roll some sound because we just heard the first comment for first public comment in a while from both former President Obama and former Vice President Harris, both of them talking about Trump. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAMALA HARRIS, FORMER U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: I am not here. See, I told you so.

Fear has a way of being contagious, okay? When one person has fear, it has a way of spreading to those around them.

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: I think people tend to think democracy, rule of law, independent judiciary, freedom of the press, that's all abstract stuff, because it's not affecting the price of eggs. Well, you know what it's about to affect the price of eggs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: What do you make of the tone of their comments? FINNEY: I think both of them we're talking about both how to have courage in this moment. Personally, I felt like she could have said, I'm not here to say I told you so, but she could have if she wanted to.

TAPPER: Well, I think she was saying that.

FINNEY: No, somebody in the audience would. Anyway, more importantly, her point about courage, her point about, and his point, the other points that President Obama talked about in terms of maybe universities could be banding together, some of these law firms could be banding together, because I do believe this is going to be a moment 20 years from now, people will ask you, where were you? And as the daughter of somebody who risked his life to go do voter registration in Mississippi in 1968, sometimes you've got to take a risk if you care about democracy and moving our country forward.

TAPPER: Well, speaking of law firms spanning together, Harris didn't mention it when she was talking about people caving to fear, but Trump stuck a $100 million pro bono deal with the law firm, Wilkie Farr and Gallagher. Her husband, Doug Emhoff, works for that firm.

GORMAN: I mean, look, yes, I'm curious what he's going to do. I mean, would he stick around in that? I think that's a tough decision. But, look, it's -- a lot of these like corporations and law firms are having tough decisions being made. And it was -- it's the inverse of what we saw in 2020 when they were getting pressure from the left to do certain things for social justice movements one way or another. And they're getting pressure from their own employees, as we're seeing it from the law firms too. They're getting a lot of upward pressure from employees who wanted to take it on, that it's going to hurt their bottom line.

TAPPER: What did Democrats think about Harris and Obama coming forward at a moment like this?

WALTER: Well, I will tell you, I've been listening in on some focus groups, some of them. They're mixed focus groups in terms of people voted for Trump and people voted for Harris. But these were groups of men of color in both cases. And you know what? They still don't -- the democracy argument is not what hits them, right? This idea of what's happening with the law firms, that is not the deal for them. What they are still talking about every day is stuff is too expensive.

TAPPER: Yes.

WALTER: I was told the stuff was going to come down right. I am scared that the cost of my rent, which I can barely pay, is going to go up. That's -- if you're Democrats and you're leading with democracy, you're still not going to talk to the people who are really -- what they're really scared about is survival.

TAPPER: Yes, the rent is too damn high party. We need to bring that guy back.

Karen Finney and Matt Gorman, Amy Walter, thank you all for joining us. I appreciate it.

A twist today in a case involving a Maryland father who was apparently mistakenly deported to El Salvador, that story next.

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[18:25:00]

TAPPER: In our Law and Justice Lead today, the Trump administration is now appealing a federal judge's order that directed the Trump administration to bring back to the United States a Maryland father who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador in one of these ICE roundups. In 2019, an immigration judge actually granted this man, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national, protected status, which would prohibit the federal government from sending him to El Salvador. But that did not stop immigration officers from arresting Abrego Garcia last month alleging that he had ties to the MS-13 gang. Abrego Garcia's attorneys deny those allegations.

Let's bring in CNN's Priscilla Alvarez, who attended today's hearing in Maryland, as well as former Federal Prosecutor Elliot Williams.

So, Priscilla, the Trump administration conceded this week.

[18:30:00]

They admitted that they mistakenly deported him because of an administrative error, they said. Did the Justice Department give any evidence in today's hearing over why he was arrested and deported in the first place?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The short answer is no, and there were actually a few areas over the course of the hearing where the federal judge was asking for more evidence. One of those was on MS-13. Of course, the Trump administration has maintained that he has ties to this gang, but the federal judge said she had not seen any additional evidence to prove that beyond something that occurred back in 2019 that was part of his immigration proceedings where, again, ICE was not able to shore that up. And she also noted there was no criminal proceedings, there was no indictment. So, she sort of put that aside over the course of the hearing.

But the second thing that she wanted the Justice Department to elaborate on was on what legal basis was he detained and then also removed. And in her back and forth, she could not find what the legal basis was. Was there a warrant out for him that he was detained last March, only days before being deported to El Salvador? And if he was deported, was there any procedure that was done to remove this withholding of removal that we keep talking about that granted him that protected status?

And the Justice Department just couldn't give an answer. In fact, the DOJ attorney said this, quote, the government made a choice here to produce no evidence. The attorney also saying that it had frustrated him that he didn't have more evidence to give her. That just wasn't enough for her over the course of this hearing, as she was trying to figure out why they had deported him, and then also this idea that they couldn't bring him back.

She raised, for example, that the administration has given $6 million to El Salvador to detain migrants in this prison. So, she said, if you're paying a government, how is it that you cannot call that government to return someone to you? There wasn't a sufficient answer to that either in her eyes. So, she actually, as the hearing concluded, stepped away for about 30 minutes, came back and gave her oral order.

TAPPER: Yes. When it comes to her frustrations about asking the administration for evidence and not getting any, I feel her pain. I mean, I feel like I've been going through that since this all started, you too.

Elliot. I guess this rests on something that a confidential informant back in 2019 claimed about this individual, but there wasn't necessarily any more evidence behind that. A judge agreed with the immigration officials, but that's because I think it's law that they have to agree with immigration officials.

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Right, they defer to the finding of the immigration judge before. But the standard for establishing whether someone's in a gang doesn't exist. It's simply if officers can say that or assert that they believe that someone has gang membership, that's really as far as it goes.

Now, the broader question, Jake, is there are still a lot of questions to be answered here, and the government has appealed. The appeals court will probably send this back down for simply more findings. You got to establish how you established who this guy is, you know, these questions about where he went and how he can come back and so on.

TAPPER: And, Priscilla, how is the family of Abrego Garcia reacting to the ruling?

ALVAREZ: So, his wife is a U.S. citizen. We heard from her twice today. She did talk about the tremendous impact this has had on her family. She has three children. All three of them have special needs. She shared a little bit about that earlier in the morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JENNIFER STEFANIA VAQUEZ SURA, WIFE OF KILMAR ARMANDO ABREGO GARCIA: On March 12th, 2025, my husband, Kilmar, was abducted by the U.S. government.

In a blink of an eye, our three children lost their father, and I lost the love of my life.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALVAREZ: So, this ruling gives them some sense of relief, but she said after the hearing that the fight will continue. And as you mentioned there at the top, the government has appealed this. So, the legal proceedings will continue and we'll see if the government does bring him back on Monday. But, certainly, this has been a big stress for her family and those around them.

TAPPER: And just to reiterate this, he was in this country and the U.S. government had given him permission to be here because they were saying they, we can't send them back to El Salvador.

WILLIAMS: Right. It's called withholding of removal. Now, to be clear, Jake, this is someone who had entered the country unlawfully right to begin with. However, he was given a reprieve, a legal reprieve from the government because the conditions and the place that they'd be sending him to were unsafe. So, yes, for that time, he was lawfully present in the country because of that what had been extended to him by the judge.

TAPPER: All right. Elliot Williams and Priscilla Alvarez, thank you so much to both of you.

You're running out of time to make a deal, that warning today from U.S. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio to Russian officials. Are they listening? Do they want a deal? That's next.

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[18:35:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARCO RUBIO, SECRETARY OF STATE: The Russians know our position in terms of wanting to end the war. And we will know from their answers very soon whether they are serious about proceeding with real peace or whether it's a delay tactic. It's a delay tactic, the president's not interested in that. If this is dragging things out, President Trump's not going to fall into the trap of endless negotiations about negotiations.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaking this morning on the status of ceasefire talks between Russia and Ukraine, an example of why this ceasefire is needed. A Russian missile strike in Ukraine today killed at least 16 people, including 6 children, according to authorities. There the strike also injured more than 50 others.

With us now is Garry Kasparov, chairman of the Renew Democracy Initiative and author behind a brand new Substack called, The Next Move with Garry Kasparov, of course, former world chess champion, the next move, a nod to that. Garry, thanks for joining us.

So, you fled Russia in 2013, fearing political persecution, because unlike Vladimir Putin, you like democracy. You pay very close attention to Putin. What do you think he plans to do when Marco Rubio says he doesn't know whether this is a delay tactic or not? Do you think it's a delay tactic?

GARRY KASPAROV, CHAIRMAN, RENEW DEMOCRACY INTIATIVE: I don't think it's a delay tactic. Putin, I think, demonstrated many times that he had no interest in peace because war is the driving engine of Putin's regime now.

[18:40:06]

Everything in Russia is for war. So, the whole country, when you're looking at the top, you go to the bottom, you look at the economy, at social life, at propaganda, even in the kindergartens, Russia is a giant war camp. And Putin has no interest of bringing back nearly one and a half or so millions of Russian soldiers who are now fighting the war in Ukraine.

So, every day Putin keeps shooting at Ukraine. And, by the way, Russia increased the number of missile attacks on Ukraine since the beginning of so-called peace stocks. And the latest attack, as you said, was just another demonstration, that there's no interest in real peace. There's just -- they use the weakness of American administration and some mysterious expectations of President Trump that Putin would be a fair negotiator.

TAPPER: Well, let's talk about the Trump aspect of this. I want to play a clip from a recent foreign affairs interview with Fiona Hill who spent years studying Putin and Russia as a scholar and a U.S. intelligence official. Before she served in the first Trump administration on the National Security Council, she was privy to some phone calls between Trump and Putin. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FIONA HILL, FORMER SENIOR DIRECTOR, NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL: When you're not prepared and when you don't know where the other person is coming from, it's just about his interaction, then, of course, you're going to be taking on the talking points of Russia.

The very first time I was in one of the phone calls with Putin, and I was listening very carefully to the Russian, because the interpreters don't always capture everything. They don't capture the nuances.

Trump said, what a great conversation. I thought, actually, not really. There was all kinds of menace in what Putin had said. He chooses words very carefully.

Many times when Putin and Trump are interacting, Putin's actually making fun of him. It's just it's completely lost in the translation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: I thought that was fascinating. What do you think would happen if somebody close to Trump actually explained what Putin is actually saying to him instead of the sanding over the rough edges that goes on from the translators?

KASPAROV: Look, I'm not here to speculate why Trump was in such admiration with Putin. Actually, he admires every dictator on the planet. I guess there's something inside of him. I think that's Trump's nature. So, he would love to have the same power, uncontrolled powers of Putin or Xi Jinpin or Erdogan or whoever that's on this planet. But at the bottom, you know, it's -- Trump keeps playing into Putin's hands. And I don't think we should now speculate what is the main reason behind it, whether he is a KGB asset or it's his nature, or both. You know, a simple question. If Trump were a Russian asset, what he would do differently?

Because everything that has been has been happening since the beginning of the negotiations played into Putin's hands and Ukrainians paying in blood. Wars aren't cheap. But you could see that every day they paid the highest price. And Putin, I think, laughing at Trump, laughing at us, laughing at the free world.

TAPPER: So, you launched your new Substack and you say the phrase, threat to democracy is overused. You also say, quote, when pro- democracy forces do get their threat assessment right, that's usually where their useful analysis stop. They fail to envision a strategic way forward, saying what you're against isn't a substitute for a positive vision of what you're for, unquote.

You say that each criticism you offer in your Substack will include a recommendation for how to fix it. So, give us one big critique and your recommendation.

KASPAROV: No, I think we should understand that there's an existential threat to American republic. And, you know, it requires two things to understand the nature of the threat and also the urgency to respond. And I think the big mistake is start, you know, challenging Trump on policies. The moment you talk about policies, whatever they are, so the country's split.

I think the attack should be against unconstitutional tools. Trump and his cohort, like Musk and others, keep using to push their nefarious agenda. Again, defending Constitution, defending the rule of law and also going after those Republicans who are willingly or unwillingly are just following Trump's orders and ignoring the responsibility of the Congress that had to check these powers that had been transmitted to people who were unelected.

TAPPER: All right. Garry Kasparov, thank you so much and congratulations on your new Substack.

My next guest has spent her career profiling famous people from Elon Musk to Kevin Costner to Paul Newman, which one of the men I just mentioned is responsible for the most unpleasant encounter she ever had with any of her subjects? She'll tell you about it next.

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[18:48:50]

TAPPER: In our pop culture lead, let me take you back to the year 2017. Elon Musk is merely the 99th richest person in the world. He's being profiled by renowned 'New York Times" columnist and reporter Maureen Dowd.

Now, Musk at that point had spoken out against President Trump in some cases, but Dowd asked him about the flak he'd gotten for associated associating with Trump on other issues, writing, quote, in the photograph of tech executives with Trump, Musk had looked gloomy, and there was a weary tone in his voice when he talked about the subject.

In the end, he said, quote, it's better to have voices of moderation in the room with the president. There are a lot of people, kind of the hard left, who essentially want to isolate and not have any voice. Very unwise, unquote.

That snapshot pretty amazing in retrospect, it's all part of Dowd's new book, "Notorious: Portraits of Stars from Hollywood, Culture, Fashion and Tech". It is a great book.

And Maureen Dowd joins us now.

I can't tell you how much -- I can't tell you how much I love. This is like my nighttime reading. So, I avoid doomscrolling. And I just read these great profiles.

I just -- I reread the Paul Newman one the other day, the other the other night. It's so good. Did you get any indication at the time you were profiling Elon Musk that he would become what he has become, this kind of far-right Trump superfan?

MAUREEN DOWD, NEW YORK TIMES OPINION COLUMNIST: No, because he was anti-Trump then. But the interesting thing is, at that point, when I profiled him in 2017, he was fighting the existential threat of runaway A.I. He was going to be the one to protect humanity against runaway A.I. and then now he's turned into the existential threat of Washington. He himself is the threat.

TAPPER: It's so interesting reading this book. You say your most unpleasant encounter with anybody in here was with Kevin Costner. You interviewed him in 1991. He was a big star. He's only 36 years old.

You write: A group of sweet seniors shyly asked Costner -- Costner to pose for a picture with them as he waited at a red light, tapping his cowboy boot in irritation. Okay, he snapped at the woman, but can't you see I'm being interviewed? It was like watching someone kick kittens.

As we talked, he asked me with cocky assurance if I was going to play the tape of the interview for my girlfriends, I told him starkly. I interviewed Paul Newman and didn't play that tape for my girlfriend, so I think I can refrain from playing yours.

Do you think that that was just you just captured him at kind of a bad moment in his fame, or is that him?

DOWD: Well, all right, Yellowstone fans, don't get mad at me because I still love to watch Kevin Costner on the screen.

TAPPER: But we can all separate the artist from the art.

DOWD: Yes, but that's why I wanted to do the book, because a lot of these people in the book are at the height of their fame, and I want to see in Shakespearean terms, do they become their own worst enemy, or are they able to handle that crazy thing? Al Pacino talked about becoming notorious after "The Godfather" and succumbing to tranquilizers and alcohol and women and sycophants, and he said his life became chaos.

So, I'm curious when someone has that magnetic ability to burn through the screen and they get power, how do they handle it?

TAPPER: Yeah. And you have example after example of it in the book, you -- you often in your interviews do a lightning round called "confirm or deny" where you tell them something you've heard and they confirm or deny.

What was -- this might be tough, but what was the most surprising answer you got on the confirm or deny?

DOWD: The most surprising was confirm or deny is a little dada and silly.

TAPPER: Yeah.

DOWD: And so, you throw something at someone that isn't necessarily true.

So, I asked Jane Fonda if she had ever hooked up with Che Guevara, and she looked at me very seriously and she said, no, but I really wish I had hooked up with Marvin Gaye. She said he really wanted to have an affair with me, and I was married, and I've regretted it my whole life.

TAPPER: Oh, my God.

DOWD: I was like, oh my gosh.

TAPPER: That's a lot of information.

DOWD: Yeah.

TAPPER: Right after the 2024 election, you wrote, some Democrats are finally waking up and realizing that woke is broke. You argue Democrats could never recover until they figure out why they turned off so many working-class voters.

We should note you are the daughter of a police officer. So, this is a world that you grew up in, even if you travel in fancy circles now. So -- so what is -- what -- do you think this is in some ways also applies to Hollywood, the struggle to appeal to -- to working class folks?

DOWD: Yes. I don't know. I always thought that Washington and Hollywood were kind of similar places based on illusion. And in Hollywood, it's box office. In Washington, it's approval ratings. And now, Silicon Valley is also about illusion and clicks.

So, I think these three places kind of play off of each other. So, they have similar problems. TAPPER: Anyway, the book is fantastic, "Notorious" by Maureen Dowd,

"Portraits of Stars From Hollywood, Culture, Fashion and Tech". Pick it up. Read it.

Maureen, thank you so much. Really appreciate it.

DOWD: Thank you, Jake.

TAPPER: We'll be right back.

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[18:58:30]

TAPPER: You don't want to miss the new episode of "UNITED STATES OF SCANDAL" this Sunday. This week, I'm checking back in with our old friend Anna Delvey, from "Inventing Anna" fame, the woman who managed to convince New Yorks elite of her fictitious, fictitious backstory as a German heiress. In a few short years, Anna was able to con banks, hotels, businesses, even friends with her fake story.

Here's a little preview.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She was able to walk into a hotel without a credit card, convince them that she would pay them in the future and she was granted access to a hotel room. She was able to walk into a bank and say, I promise you, I have money. It's not here, but it's on this bank document and I'll give it to you down the road. Just give me a loan first. And they did.

TAPPER: (voice-over): Before her grift was up, Anna had conned banks, hustled lawyers, and stiffed restaurants and even friends to the tune of more than $275,000.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think there's something about the absolutely bonkers, delusional self-confidence that it requires to pull off something like this. People wouldn't want to admit it, but they begrudgingly respect it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: A new bonkers and delusional episode of "UNITED STATES OF SCANDAL", airing Sunday night at 9:00 Eastern and Pacific only on CNN. Check it out.

Coming up Sunday on "STATE OF THE UNION", I'm going to talk to Minnesota governor, former Democratic vice presidential candidate, Tim Walz, as well as Trump Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins. That's Sunday morning at 9:00 Eastern and again at noon here on CNN.

I have two books coming out. In May, "Original Sin", about President Biden's decision to run for reelection and the cover up of his decline, written with Alex Thompson. In October, "Race Against Terror", about the hunt to prosecute an al Qaeda terrorist who killed Americans and was out to kill more.

You can check them out and preorder them at jaketapper.com. If you ever miss an episode of THE LEAD, you can listen to the show whence you get your podcast.

"ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT" starts right now. I will see you Sunday morning. Have a great weekend.