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Trump Orders Cuts to U.S.-Backed Global Media; Interview with Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI): Democratic Party's Favorability Rating at a Record Low; Long-Awaited Return of Astronauts Expected Tomorrow. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired March 17, 2025 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA ANALYST: But there are lots of dates on the calendar, lots of performers to book. We'll see who Trump and his friends want to bring in. I suspect we're going to hear a lot of opera.

You know, think about the playlist at Trump's rallies. That's a preview of what we're going to see at the Kennedy Center going forward. But some of this, Brianna, is performative in nature.

It's about Trump racking up what he says are cultural wins. We heard one of his allies a few weeks ago say, we're going to have a big Christmas production at the Kennedy Center. He acted like that was a new thing, something special that was going to happen that wouldn't have happened in the past under previous administrations.

The reality is the Kennedy Center celebrates Christmas every year. But Trump will do it in a very Trumpian way. He'll be very loud about it. And it'll be part of his performance that he is enacting in Washington, where he's really taking over. So I think this is full of symbolism today as he tries to make his

mark. And it will be interesting to see what performers do decide to participate, because so many Hollywood stars, so many big entertainment figures, they don't want to be anywhere near Trump, right?

When he performs -- when he plays their music, they send him cease and desist letters. That's been a pattern we've seen for almost a decade. So it will be interesting to see who decides to participate at this new Trumpian Kennedy Center.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Yes, I do want to note that he just said that we can't have this looking like it does. He says, I never realized this was in such bad shape.

And that's just the notes that we're getting from some of his comments. I've recently been to the Kennedy Center. So I don't really connect with what he's saying here, I have to be honest. So we'll have to see what he says and what he's talking about exactly.

I want to ask you, though, Brian, President Trump has also signed an executive order to terminate all grant programs at the U.S. Agency for Global Media, the parent agency of broadcasters like Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia and Middle East Broadcasting Networks. What's the administration attempting to do? What does this mean for the promotion of democracy across the globe?

STELTER: This is a really important story. It's an example of the wrecking ball that's swinging in Washington in the same way that Trump went after USAID. He's going after these international broadcasters that are funded by American taxpayers.

Most viewers in America don't see Voice of America. They don't hear Radio Free Europe. These are stations that are supposed to operate in other countries.

But if you go to voanews.com, you'll see what's happened to the website. That news operation stopped functioning on Saturday. No new articles, no new coverage. That's because Trump put everybody on administrative leave and has started to fire those employees. All those grant programs in Asia and Europe and in Cuba and other places have also been shut down.

For decades, this was a form of American soft power where news and democratic values were being exported to other countries.

Today, Reporters Without Borders said, quote, authoritarian regimes such as Beijing and Moscow now have free reign to spread their propaganda unchecked. For Trump and his allies, this is about trying to shrink government. They say these outlets were bloated and biased.

What we don't know is if they'll be reconstituted in some other form in the future. But for now, Voice of America has been rendered silent.

KEILAR: Wow. Brian Stelter, thank you for that.

And still to come, Democrats hitting record low approval ratings. A CNN poll shows the party's favorability is the lowest it has been in more than 30 years. We'll discuss that with Congresswoman Debbie Dingell next.

[15:35:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: With Congress on recess and out of Washington all week, some Democrats are contemplating a major reset moment. Last week's whirlwind fight over funding rocked the party to its core and exposed some deep divisions. Just a short time ago, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who's facing frustrations over his decision to vote in favor of keeping the government open with a Republican spending plan, canceled several public events he was supposed to have in the coming days for a new book he has coming out.

His team cites security concerns after protests were planned by progressive groups. And this comes as brand new CNN polling finds that Democrats are at a record low favorability rating of just 29 percent. Let's discuss with Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Dingell of Michigan. Congresswoman, thank you so much for being with us. I want to start with that favorability rating from the CNN poll at 29 percent. Why do you think that is?

REP. DEBBIE DINGELL (D-MI): Boris, it's good to be with you this afternoon. I'm someone who's always blunt. Democrats have to do some soul searching.

I predicted in 2016 that we were not going to win, that Donald Trump is going to win because of trade policies, and we weren't connecting with working men and women. And the same issues happened again.

Now, I don't think Republicans are far beyond us. I think the American people are frustrated with everybody. But Democrats have to do some soul searching. We have to be a party that has to stop this circular firing squad.

I think you're going to see us united as we fight to protect Medicaid, Social Security, and Medicare. But we need to reconnect with everybody. And a lot of our base we've got to reconnect with and understand why they don't think we are doing the job they want to see us do.

SANCHEZ: It's really fascinating you mentioned that because Senator Schumer did an interview with the New York Times that was published today in which he talks about a decline in popularity for Democrats among the working class. Part of his argument was that messaging has to improve.

[15:40:00]

I do wonder whether you think the party is generally connected to working class voters on cultural issues beyond just messaging and the platforms that you use to connect with them?

DINGELL: So look, I think it's more than messaging. I think they want to see us deliver. Let's be really candid about that.

And we have to go beyond the traditional media of, quite frankly, cable and newspapers because most young people are not getting their news from them at all. They're getting it from social media. They're getting it from podcasts.

We are trying to expand, ensure that we are communicating on social media, getting people where they are. But, you know, it's also about, I make sure I'm in a union hall every weekend. And I don't think it's just about, you know, yelling at somebody or yakking at them with the message.

It's about listening to them, understanding what they're worried about, what they want to see us working on, and then showing that we understand it and are working and delivering.

SANCHEZ: You talked about avoiding the circular firing squad a second ago. I do wonder, for those calling for Schumer to be primaried, those calling for him to step aside from leadership, what's your response? DINGELL: I'm going to just say this. I was as upset as anybody was last week, quite frankly. I spent a lot of time talking to my labor brothers and sisters last week about how they felt.

AFGE, which is the union that is the most impacted by many of these cuts, has lost a lot of people, debated whether people should oppose the budget bill or not. And they came out and said, our people are already being hurt. It's already happening. If this budget cuts the asses, it's just going to hurt them more.

But right now, we've got to move into reconciliation. And for reconciliation, we better be united on protecting Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security.

So I'm focused on what we're going to be doing the next few weeks, talking to people what we are doing to protect them, and asking our friends across the aisle, how is it that they're going to cut $880 billion out of the Energy and Commerce Committee that I sit on and not touch Medicaid? And I don't think that they can't do it. And we've got to hold them accountable and show people what they want to do is give tax cuts to billionaires and corporations, enough so that these billionaires can buy their own private plane and not protect working men and women.

And that's what we've got to do is to make sure what the consequences of what they want to do is going to do, even simply to the Affordable Care Act and how it's going to be more expensive for every working family to get more health insurance.

SANCHEZ: So would you say that your message to your colleagues pointing a finger at Schumer would be that this is the leadership and we essentially have to focus on delivering guarantees to those most at risk of losing the benefits that they have? We need to focus on voters, essentially, and not necessarily on leadership right now.

DINGELL: Well, I'm not in the Senate, so the Senate picks their own leadership. I think Hakeem Jeffries needs to make sure that he and Senator Schumer are on the same page. But I hope that we do not have to fight with any United States Senator right now to be united on protecting Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security.

I don't think we do, and that's the immediate fight, and that's where our focus needs to be right now.

SANCHEZ: Congressman, there is one more question I had for you because you and I had previously spoken on the issue of tariffs, and obviously you represent an area where unions and automaking are a huge part of the constituency. Last week, I spoke to a fellow Michigander, Republican Conference Chairwoman Lisa McClain, and I asked her about predictions from automakers and sellers and economic experts that vehicles are going to get considerably more expensive in this country as a result of Trump's tariffs. She accused me and the network of fear-mongering in a very spirited conversation.

I do wonder if you believe those prognostications.

DINGELL: You're not fear-mongering. You're telling the truth. I wanted to say this.

I probably believe in tariffs more than most Republicans do. I think they're a tool in the toolbox, but the way that this is being applied right now, you need to understand the auto industry, and quite frankly, they're a ping-pong right now between everybody. Every business needs certainty, and what's going to happen changes every minute, but people do not understand.

You need time to adjust your inventory, your production plans. If you want to build a plant here, if everything went right, it would take two to three years. Taking a meat cleaver and just putting it across the board.

[15:45:00]

The other thing about autos is they have a very small profit margin. 25 percent tariffs and having to eat it would put these companies out of business. I want to work with this president. I actually believe that trade policy, I think it's why he won in 2016. I think we need to bring manufacturing home. We need to bring our supply chains home.

The tariffs at 25 percent, and by the way, I also think Canada and Mexico are two different trading partners, and we need to renegotiate USMCA as soon as we can so China can't put a plant in Mexico and market it as North American product.

But I also understand the companies don't want to get crosswise with this White House. They want to protect their consumers. They want to be a successful business, and what's happening right now is an extremely dangerous place to be.

SANCHEZ: Congresswoman Debbie Dingell, appreciate you sharing your perspective. Thanks for joining us.

DINGELL: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: So they were supposed to be on the International Space Station for only about a week, and now almost 10 months later, Butch and Suni are finally coming home. The latest on their journey back to Earth when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:50:06]

SANCHEZ: It's the out-of-this-world homecoming Earth has long waited to see. Astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore expected to return home after being delayed in space for more than nine months. Their initial mission called for them to come back in June of last year after spending just a handful of days at the International Space Station.

But NASA thought their return trip on the Boeing Starliner would be way too risky. KEILAR: So now, Wilmore and Williams will come home in a SpaceX Dragon capsule after their relief crew reached the station yesterday. Lots of excitement there around that. The capsule is scheduled to splash down just before 6:00 p.m. tomorrow off the coast of Florida.

And with us now is Anthony Colangelo, the host of the space podcast Main Engine Cutoff. All right, Anthony, I don't know about you, but I feel a little bit complicit in telling people constantly for the last almost 10 months that these guys are on their way home. How can we be sure that everything is on schedule? Because we really want to see them get back.

ANTHONY COLANGELO, SPACE PODCAST HOST, MAIN ENGIN CUT OFF: Yes, and this is the first time that, in a long time, that I can remember that a departure of the ISS had actually moved forward in time. They weren't supposed to come back for another couple days, but they moved it up to capture some good weather opportunities after some of the recent Dragons have had a long delay when they've been trying to get back. So I think NASA was trying to head off any other astronauts still not home coverage in the meantime.

But it certainly seems like tonight they'll be on docking to the space station and heading home by tomorrow.

SANCHEZ: This whole operation was supposed to serve as proof of concept that Boeing could provide space services to NASA. Spacecraft obviously is the reason why Butch and Suni are still up there. What's Boeing's future with NASA looking like right now?

COLANGELO: You know, it's been very quiet on that front for a couple of months now. Which is concerning. They are still tracking down the root cause of how we got in a situation.

They had thrusters that were failing during that mission because they're overheating. They thought they had recreated what they saw in space on the ground. But then the spacecraft actually worked a little bit different than they expected when it came home a couple of months ago.

So they're still tracking down exactly what caused it. I don't think we're going to hear anything out of NASA until they really do understand fully what was causing that and how they can fix it.

There are no more Starliner missions currently on the schedule. They'll get scheduled after they complete this investigation. There's a lot of thought that, you know, NASA might decide to just stick with SpaceX all the way. There's a lot of thought that they have to contractually carry out the missions that they're already contracted for, which is another six full rotation missions to the space station.

Of course, there's not that many years of the ISS left at this point. There is a little bit of a ticking clock for them to actually get those underway and about a cadence of once per year. So it's up -- it's a big debate in the space community right now exactly what's going to happen, how this is all going to play out.

KEILAR: Yes, and this is really, Anthony, solidified SpaceX's place when it comes to travel and getting these astronauts places, right?

COLANGELO: Absolutely. SpaceX is the premier outlier in the industry. Everything that they do, they are, you know, probably the premier company at literally everything they put their company efforts towards.

They operate more satellites than the rest of the world, the rest of history combined. They have the two biggest launch vehicles that are operating right now, Starship and Falcon Heavy. They've got the premier spacecraft and they are launching almost every NASA science mission this day and age.

They have the contract to deorbit the ISS when it comes time for that. They have the contract to put the first humans back on the moon since the Apollo program. And all of that was really won by them just executing brilliantly for, you know, just many, many years now, almost a decade that they've been sort of the premier contractor.

And that's definitely the case with the crew side of things as well. They're not only flying these NASA missions to the space station, but they're doing a lot of commercial missions not to the space station as well.

SANCHEZ: Anthony, we only have a few seconds, but I have to get your thoughts on this. For months, we've been arguing that they've been stuck or stranded in space. NASA and Boeing have stressed they've never been stranded or stuck.

You know, they were stranded and stuck in space, right, Anthony?

COLANGELO: I do agree with NASA that that was a mischaracterization. I don't think it was a great scenario. Some of the ways they would have to come home, they were going to be riding on top of cargo pallets.

So I certainly wouldn't want to fly home like that. But they did have a way out of the space station if they needed it. But things would have to get really bad for them to have used that.

KEILAR: OK. Well, they didn't have to come home in, like, the restroom of, you know, the whatever. OK. All right --

SANCHEZ: At least they're coming home.

KEILAR: All right, Anthony, I don't know. You make a good case. But all right, Anthony Colangelo, thanks so much.

COLANGELO: Thank you very much.

KEILAR: Just ahead, the American tourist who caused an uproar after picking up and running off with a baby wombat in Australia. Speaking out now what she's saying about the incident next.

[15:55:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) KEILAR: The American influencer who sparked backlash after taking a baby wombat from its mother in Australia says she's sorry. In a video, this one here shared widely on social media, Sam Jones can be seen running with the baby as the mother chases her.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(LAUGHTER)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Look at the mother. It's like, oh, it's chasing after her. Oh my God.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Now, the footage horrified Australians and non-Australians, we should mention. Some called for Jones to be deported. The prime minister described the incident as an outrage.

SANCHEZ: Jones took to social media to say that she found the baby and its mother motionless on the side of the road. She says that fearing for the animal's safety, she made a snap decision to pick up the baby. We should point out her caption was something along the lines of, my dream of holding a baby wombat has finally come true.

Experts say the animals in the video are common wombats, which are protected by Australian law. And Jones voluntarily left the country on Friday to which the home affairs minister of Australia responded, quote, there's never been a better day to be a baby wombat in Australia.

[16:00:00]

KEILAR: You're buying that?

SANCHEZ: I don't know. This is like, this falls under a subgenre of people going overseas and acting like morons for like LOLs.

KEILAR: And when they could just stay here and act like morons.

SANCHEZ: Indeed, it affects fewer people, fewer baby wombats, yes.

KEILAR: Oh my goodness -- well --

SANCHEZ: You had a chance to do the Australian accent that you did in commercial break and you didn't do it. You want to try --

KEILAR: No, I don't want to.

SANCHEZ: -- when tossing the Kasie Hunt?

KEILAR: I was born there and I'm afraid of messing it up. I'm going to toss to "THE ARENA" with Kasie Hunt, starts right now.

SANCHEZ: Hey mate.

KEILAR: Goodbye. END