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Interview with Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA): Senate Panel Questions Top U.S. Intel Officials After War Chat Mistake; Trump Nominates Dr. Susan Monarez to Lead CDC; Justice Department Wants Court to Lift Ban on Use of Alien Enemies Act; Gov. Wes Moore on Impact of DOGE Cuts in Maryland, Juvenile Justice, Key Bridge Collapse. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired March 25, 2025 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:30:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, we are standing by to hear from National Security Advisor Mike Waltz for the first time since he accidentally added a journalist to a group chat discussing war plans.

Politico writes this morning: Questions are swirling about the future of Waltz over his role in what is surely, hands down, one of the dumbest security breaches of recent times, they wrote. They go on to add that someone told them, someone close to the White House told Politico, everyone in the White House can agree on one thing, Mike Waltz is an effing idiot.

With us now is Congressman Jake Auchincloss of Massachusetts, a Democrat, congressman, thanks so much for being with us this morning. What do you think should happen to Mike Waltz?

REP. JAKE AUCHINCLOSS (D-MA): Good morning, thanks for having me on.

The same consequences that would befall a corporal in the United States military, should they have a similar breach of national security. One of the core tenets for military officers is leadership by example and being treated differently because of your rank is corrosive to morale throughout the United States military.

So Hegseth, Gabbard, Waltz, they should all face the same Uniform Code of Military Justice as the average rank and file would.

BERMAN: And for those of us who did serve, you're a marine veteran. What would that mean for Michael Waltz?

AUCHINCLOSS: It would be contextual based on the -- on an investigation, which there needs to be. So there needs to examine how much was revealed. There needs to be an examination of security practices that were breached by revealing those national security plans.

So I can't put forward the punishment until I know the facts and the investigation. And these individuals get due process. But there needs to be an investigation and there needs to be accountability, and it should be done under the UCMJ without any fear or favor based on their rank.

More to the point, though, this Signal chat -- really, it should have been called the John Thune club because ultimately, the Senate majority leader owns this incompetence. He is the one, along with Senate Republicans, who confirmed a group of characters who are manifestly unfit and unqualified for the offices they hold.

And when you do that, you reveal war plans to the public. You have measles outbreaks, after it was declared eradicated in the year 2000. You fire nuclear safety administrators for our nuclear stockpile. This kind of incompetence sows chaos that ultimately can tip a good economy into a recession and makes Americans less safe. John Thune and Senate Republicans own this.

BERMAN: One of the things that we've heard overnight from the White House and its allies, oh, this was just a mistake. It was a mistake. They own it.

And you also hear it also reveals how they conducted what they consider to be a successful foreign policy action. What do you say to those arguments?

AUCHINCLOSS: Let's just all imagine that this same breach had happened when Joe Biden was president, and what Republicans would be saying then. And I'll leave our viewers with that image, because the hypocrisy is -- is eye watering.

BERMAN: And one other response has been from the secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, who, as you note, was confirmed by the Senate with one vote. He attacked the reporter here and went on to say this. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETE HEGSETH, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: Nobody was texting war plans. And that's all I have to say about that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Now, we should note that the National Security Council has confirmed the authenticity of the Signal text messages, which did include, according to Jeffrey Goldberg, examples of targets and who would be targeted and what they would be targeted with.

But what do you make of what Hegseth has said right there?

AUCHINCLOSS: Attacking journalists is the last resort of scoundrels. Secretary Hegseth is the least qualified, the least fit secretary of defense in the history of this country. He should never have been nominated to this position. He should certainly never have been confirmed to this position. And every Republican who voted for him owns every horrendous decision he makes going forward.

BERMAN: So take a step back from this.

[07:35:00]

Aside from John Thune, what do you think the major takeaway is here? What do you want to see happen with this?

And as Tulsi Gabbard and John Ratcliffe face questions from the various intelligence committees starting today on Capitol Hill, what should they be asked specifically?

AUCHINCLOSS: Whether they -- whether they typically flout security protocols in discussing sensitive war plans on commercial messaging apps, and whether there's going to be a full and impartial investigation done by a disinterested third party that can hold people of their seniority to account under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. And also what they are going to say to their rank-and-file employees, whether it's within the Directorate of National Intelligence, whether it's within the Department of Defense, whether it's within the Department of State, how they are going to explain to people why they are held to a different standard than they hold their rank-and-file to.

Because I can tell you, as a former commander, that is toxic to morale, officers eat last in the United States military. These men and women have been serving themselves first.

BERMAN: Again, you've served in Afghanistan. There were discussions about plans that involved manned military strikes here. How would you have felt if an operation that you were involved in were discussed like this?

AUCHINCLOSS: It's demoralizing because it tells you that the chain of command is incompetent and incompetence is bad for unit cohesion and esprit de corps.

BERMAN: Congressman Jake Auchincloss from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, we appreciate your time this morning. Thank you very much -- Sara.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: All right. New this morning, President Trump has picked Dr. Susan Monarez to head the CDC. She is a veteran of government service and is the current acting director of the CDC.

The reason you're learning about her only now, the president was forced to withdraw his first choice to head the agency over concerns about his past anti-vaccine commentary.

CNN's Meg Tirrell is tracking all of this. Tell us a little bit more about her and how she came to be able to keep this job.

MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Sara, she's seen as a little bit more of a mainstream candidate for this position than the previous pick from the Trump administration, Dr. Dave Weldon. He was a former congressman and a doctor down in Florida, but there were a lot of concerns from the public health world about what they saw as his anti-vaccine views. And of course, his nomination was abruptly pulled right before his confirmation hearing just a couple weeks ago.

And so Dr. Susan Monarez is a veteran of government service. She'd been serving as the acting CDC director. And before that, she was the deputy director of an agency called ARPA-H, which is a health-focused agency really focused on high-stakes, innovative research. And before that, she'd served in the government for a long time.

And so what we heard after this nomination came out yesterday from a lot of folks in the public health world was excitement that she was nominated, a lot of respect for her among colleagues in the public health world, who noted that if she's given the resources and the staff to be able to lead CDC, they think she'll do a good job. But of course, there's a lot of questions about the future of the CDC, which is bracing itself for potentially very deep cuts.

We also heard from staffers at the CDC, of course, where Dr. Monarez has been serving as the acting director for the last couple of months, who were pretty concerned about the pick. They noted that she hasn't had a presence at the agency, which is based down in Atlanta. They haven't heard a lot from her, and they worried a lot about whether she would stand up to the Trump administration on their behalf as they are facing such deep cuts -- Sara.

SIDNER: Mayor Tirrell, thank you so much. I know there are quite a few people in public health and some in the public who are breathing a sigh of relief to know that someone who has been there for a long time and has a lot of information is still at the helm. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it -- Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: In its latest attempt to bypass the court, the Trump administration is now invoking the state secrets privilege to try to avoid giving federal Judge James Boasberg the information that he's demanded about deportation flights. Those are the same flights at the center of the legal battle over Trump's deportation authority and whether or not he explicitly violated Judge Boasberg's prior order blocking the flights.

Right now, we're waiting to see if a federal appeals court will uphold or lift that temporary order. 238 people were sent to El Salvador on President Trump's use of the Alien Enemies Act to quickly, immediately deport alleged Venezuelan gang members, all allegedly tied to the gang's TDA and MS-13.

Joining me right now to talk more about this is President and CEO of the Hispanic Federation, Frankie Miranda. Thank you so much for being here.

The judge here wants more detail on when the planes landed and who was on board. And that is when the administration invoked this privilege saying that the information would harm diplomatic and national security concerns. What do you think of this move as part of this broader effort by the administration to deport people quickly?

[07:40:00]

FRANKIE MIRANDA, HISPANIC FEDERATION PRESIDENT AND CEO: Well, this is a country where due process is the rule of law. And we need to continue making sure that people that are being part of this process are not innocent people, people that are here. The focus of this administration always has been supposedly to focus on the dangerous criminals. The Department of Homeland Security already admitted that they had been deporting people with no criminal records. This is creating confusion, chaos. People are scared, mixed status families, people are witnessing crimes, are not going to law enforcement to report crimes. So this is part of a process to try to really find out and making this administration accountable.

This is not about quotas. This is not about a PR campaign trying to say how many people they have deported. We need to make sure that we follow the rule and the administration is not above the law.

BOLDUAN: The gang TDA, I mean, is real and is a real problem. And the administration defends these moves as part of saying this is part of the job to protect the American people, something that Donald Trump campaigned on and won on. I want to play for you what the border czar is saying about this and defending this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOM HOMAN, BORDER CZAR: Many gang members don't have a criminal history. We have a kind of social media, we have kind of surveillance techniques. We had to count on sworn statements from other gang members. We had to count on, you know, wiretaps and Title threes. Everything involved with criminal investigations come into play. They were given due process as according to the laws on the books.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Do you see his point?

MIRANDA: I don't see his point when you admittedly are telling the American people that you're deporting people with no criminal record. That means that there is a failure in this process in this way that they are seeing this problem. And the fact that they keep demonizing immigrant communities, hardworking people, making blanketed statements about that all immigrants are dangerous criminals is really dangerous.

Latinos, immigrants in this country contribute enormously to our economy. We are an essential part of this country. And the fact that the country has recovered better than other countries after the pandemic is because of the added bodies to the economy. These are workers.

So we need to really get to the facts and making sure that this administration is serious about security and law and order. We need to make sure that we could -- that the administration comply with these orders and that is transparent in the way that they are executing these deportations.

BOLDUAN: And I'm wondering if this what you're talking about now is part of what your goal is today, because your organization is bringing together more than 100 organizations in D.C. for a day of advocacy and action to defend the Latino community. What is what is the goal? What would you like -- well, the administration to hear, but also, I assume also even Democrats on Capitol Hill to hear.

MIRANDA: Let's admit it. The last nine weeks has been incredibly hard for the direct service providers and for the nonprofit sector, especially those that serve the most vulnerable communities. We have been in triage mode, emergency mode with all the funding freeze and the way that agencies have been withholding funds for essential services.

Now it is our time to reclaim our narrative, making sure that elected officials, that people on The Hill understand that this sector is essential, that funding cuts are completely destabilizing communities, vulnerable communities, and that we need to reclaim our narratives. Latinos voted for the candidate that they felt that provided the best solutions for their pocketbook issues.

And let's admit it. In these nine weeks, we have heard very little or nothing about how to improve the lives of overall Americans pocketbook. So that is our message here in Washington, making sure that elected officials know that we're united and that we are going to reclaim our narrative. We're not dangerous criminals.

Immigrant communities, Latino community contributes so much to this economy, and we're proud to be Americans. And that is our message.

BOLDUAN: Frankie Miranda, thank you so much for coming on -- Sara.

SIDNER: All right, a growing number of states are looking to ban non- existent chemtrails fueled by unfounded fears over airplane exhaust. What's behind this decades old conspiracy theory that just keeps resurfacing.

And an incredible survival story. A man crashed his plane onto an icy Alaskan lake and managed to survive for 12 hours with his two children. How he was found and saved. That's ahead.

[07:45:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SIDNER: Tomorrow marks a year since that jaw-dropping, horrific moment when America watched an entire bridge collapse that ended up, you see it there, killing six construction workers in Baltimore. It was struck by a container ship. And a new study out of Johns Hopkins University says the reality is the chances of another similar incident are still quite high.

Joining me now is the governor of Maryland, Wes Moore. Thank you so much for being here. We are going to get to that in just a bit.

But first, there's a heck of a lot of news that I have to ask you about. And I want to start with this.

So you're hearing this news. You were a decorated Army veteran. And you're hearing this news about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth using a messaging app for sensitive information.

[07:50:00]

And as it happens, they ended up putting a reporter on this group chat where they laid out war plans on Yemen and accidentally added this reporter. And then hours later, they carried out those very war plans, bombing Yemen.

As a decorated Army veteran, how would the Army handle an intelligence breach of this kind?

GOV. WES MOORE, (D) MARYLAND: I mean, this is astonishing. And I think about, you know, we always, in Afghanistan, we always took things like op-sec very seriously. And op-sec is operational security. And there are 19-year-olds who I serve with in Afghanistan who are seemingly taking op-sec more seriously than what we're seeing from senior leaders in the U.S. government right now.

And so at a time, specifically right now, at a time when we are having public servants who are losing their jobs, when all they were doing was making sure our food was safe. At a time when we have public servants who were losing their job and all they were doing was making sure they were protecting critical infrastructure, that they are losing their jobs and all they were doing were making sure that we were supporting our veterans.

My question is, who's going to lose their job for this? Who is going to lose their job to know that we have violated serious and significant national security operational secrets? And I'm still wondering who is going to be held accountable for what we saw.

SIDNER: Do you think it should be the top of the chain, which is the Department of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth?

MOORE: I mean, I believe in accountability. And I think they have to figure out who is responsible for this and under whose watch did this happen and was it allowed to be tolerated. But I know that, you know, when I was leading soldiers in Afghanistan, we took operational security very, very seriously. And it's my hope that the federal government is doing the same thing.

SIDNER: All right let's talk about your state, because you mentioned this. You have a large number of people who are employed by the federal government.

How are the DOGE cuts hitting your state, your economy? Are you seeing an effect?

MOORE: Absolutely. I mean, and it's really unfortunate because the people who are being hit most are people who have simply raised their hands to serve. You know, I was at a -- you know, we have done a whole series of initiatives.

I think Maryland's been arguably one of the most aggressive states in the country when it comes to supporting and protecting our federal employees. And not just because we have such a large portion over over 270,000 federal employees live in the state of Maryland. We have over 160,000 federal jobs in the state of Maryland.

But because these are good public servants who are doing admirable work and are now being told that their service is no longer needed. And one in three federal employees and federal workers is a military veteran. And so I was just at a job fair over in Frederick, Maryland, which is

a red to purple county in the state of Maryland. And I was with, you know, I was with an individual named Steve, who is a Republican who said he voted for me, but he said he did not -- has still has not told his children that he has been laid off from his job. So every morning he gets up and puts on a suit so his children thinks he's still going to work.

I was talking with Jonathan just a week before that, who is an army veteran who is now working in Homeland Security, protecting our critical infrastructure. And it was fired on Valentine's Day and was told for some reason that some of his performance, despite the fact that he's had glowing performance reviews his entire career.

And so it is wrong. It is inhumane. And it's actually hurting our economy and impacting our national security and our national standing.

SIDNER: Let me ask you this. Democrats -- Republicans have been getting it at these town halls, but even Democrats are getting it at town halls, getting people standing up, being so frustrated. Do you have a leadership problem? And if you do, how do you solve it?

MOORE: Well, I think one thing we all have to do as leaders is you've got to deliver results. You know, I've been going all around the state of Maryland and speaking to people. We just did a -- we just did another tele-town hall just last week.

So we are we are unafraid to go all over the communities, just like we have done for our entire time since the two years when I was running and since for the two years since I've been the governor and saying you have to go directly to the people and you've got to show results. The message or how you make the message is not going to matter if you're not delivering results.

And I think about what's happening here in the state of Maryland. We have added over 100,000 jobs. We've added more jobs since I've been the governor than the previous administration did in eight years. We've added more in two years than they did in eight years.

Maryland is now leading -- amongst the states, leading the nation in drops in violent crime. The last time the homicide rate was this low in Baltimore City, I was not born yet. So we are --

SIDNER: Let me ask you about --

MOORE: -- seeing differences in their lives. We're bringing it.

SIDNER: Are you going to run for president? Are you the next leader?

[07:55:00]

MOORE: No, we're going to keep on delivering for the people of our state. No, we're -- I think, I think leadership is about results. And if you want to see where's the future? Look at what's happening in the states. Look at what's happening in our state where we're doing things like increasing housing supply and bringing down housing costs. Where we're doing things like raising the minimum wage and making sure that no one should be working and in some cases multiple jobs and still living at or below a poverty line. Leadership is results. And that's exactly what we're driving in the state of Maryland.

SIDNER: All right, you've tackled a lot of things as governor of Maryland. One of the things you have spoken passionately about is juvenile justice reform.

In 2023, you signed a law to end Maryland statute of limitations for when civil lawsuits for child sex abuse can be filed against institutions. There are now thousands of cases across the country, including the state of Maryland, where men and women are coming forward to say they experienced horrific sexual abuse as children in juvenile dissension centers. What needs to happen to the juvenile justice system?

MOORE: Well, there needs to be accountability. And I think we've seen that, not just in the state of Maryland, all over the country, and not even just with states, where we're seeing that damage happen with religious institutions. Damage happens in private sector places, in schools.

I mean, there was a horrific trend that took place over a long period of time where people were hurt and violated. And one thing that we said in the state of Maryland is since there wasn't a statute of limitation about how long those damages were going to be felt by the victims, so we needed to make sure that our legal recourse actually acted accordingly. And so, we want to make sure that all of our people, people who were hurt by systems that were supposed to protect them, that there actually can be accountability for it.

And I think that Maryland is -- Maryland is not just eager, but willing to help to lead the charge on that.

SIDNER: Governor, can you tell us what the latest is? What's happening after the deadly Key Bridge accident? What is the latest? What is the rebuilding? How has it impacted your economy? What's happening with that?

MOORE: I mean, I think our state is still recovering from what was one of the most traumatic incidents in our state's history, where at 2:02 in the morning, my phone rang and let me know that a ship the size of three football fields slammed into our iconic Key Bridge and brought it to the bottom of the Patapsco River, a bridge that had been there literally since I've been born. I didn't know what the Baltimore skyline looked like without that Key Bridge there.

And you know that morning, I knew that Marylanders were hours away from waking up and realizing that not only was around 13 percent of our economy shut down, but we lost six Marylanders that morning.

And I made a pledge that very first morning that we were going to bring closure and comfort to the families of the victims, that we were going to reopen the federal channel. And when people said it would take 11 months, we got it done in 11 weeks to show what government efficiency and speed of government efficiency can look like. When we said we were going to take care of all of our workers and their families and the small businesses, we did that.

And now the fourth thing that I said that morning was we are going to rebuild the Francis Scott Key Bridge. And I'm thankful that we received support from both Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill who have pledged a 100 percent cost share.

And we know that we plan on getting this done quickly. We plan on getting it done safely. And we plan on getting -- rebuilding the Francis Scott Key Bridge in a way that doesn't just honor those that we lost, but in a way that also continues to make sure that our our roads and our bridges and our tunnels in our state are going to be safe and protected.

SIDNER: Governor Wes Moore, I really do appreciate you taking the time this morning and coming and hanging out with us here on CNC. Appreciate it -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: So a decades old conspiracy theory promoted by right wing influencers appears to be gaining steam in several state legislatures. The conspiracy theory claims falsely that condensation trails left by planes flying in the sky are filled with toxic chemicals spread by the government to control the weather or even people's minds.

CNN's Bill Weir has much more on that. He's joining us now. Bill, this conspiracy theory isn't just getting discussed. It's leading to new laws with real world impact.

BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, they passed a law in Tennessee last year around this. Florida and Alabama legislators are discussing this right now.

Chemtrails is one of the original conspiracy theories. It goes back generations. That is those streaks in the sky behind airplanes. You don't see them from all planes. And so the theory is that they're releasing these these chemicals. It's condensation essentially on cold, clear days is when you see those contrails. And this is being now conflated with theoretical ideas called geoengineering.

That is solar radiation management. Some scientists have argued that if you send planes very high into the stratosphere, much higher than your flights commercially and release sulfur particles, maybe even diamond dust, you could basically mimic a volcano and reflect enough of sun's energy to cool the earth by a degree or two while humanity figures out how to decarbonize it.