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Trump Admin. Invokes States Secrets Privilege To Avoid Providing Info On Deportation Flights To Court; Consumer Confidence Plummets To Lowest Since January 2021; State Lawmakers Looking To Ban Non-Existent "Chemtrails"; Trump Holds Ambassador Meeting Amid War Plan Group Chat Fallout. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired March 25, 2025 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:30:00]

REP. MARIA ELVIRA SALAZAR (D-FL): -- I know that you're paying for Biden's mistakes, but let's do this -- let's -- let's be the American way of life and allow them to continue the process in the courts and have a judge determine what's going to happen with them, which is what happens with immigration, with -- with asylum cases.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar, we have to leave the conversation there. Always appreciate you joining us and sharing.

SALAZAR: Invite me back so we can always chat.

SANCHEZ: Anytime. Thank you so much, Congresswoman.

SALAZAR: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Stay with CNN NEWS CENTRAL. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: The Justice Department is now invoking the state secrets privilege to avoid giving a federal judge information he's demanded about deportation flights of Venezuelan migrants that it sent to El Salvador earlier this month.

[14:35:05]

A federal judge temporarily halted those flights, saying, "The use of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to justify the deportations of suspected gang members is problematic and concerning."

In this new filing, top DOJ officials write, "The information sought by the court is subject to the state secrets privilege because disclosure would pose reasonable danger to national security and foreign affairs."

We're joined now by John E. Jones III. He's a former federal judge who served as the chief judge for the U.S. Middle District Court of Pennsylvania. He's currently the president of Dickinson College.

All right, Judge Jones, your reaction to DOJ invoking the state secrets privilege.

JOHN E JONES III, PRESIDENT, DICKINSON COLLEGE & FORMER FEDERAL JUDGE: Well, Brianna, my reaction is that I would have reacted the same way that Judge Boasberg is reacting. He entered a minute order today, meaning a -- a short order on the docket asking the plaintiffs to respond to the governments filings.

I am not convinced, reading the governments filings and the supporting affidavits from the secretary of state and the attorney general and the secretary of Homeland Security, that they've given enough to the judge so that he can say that the state secrets doctrine applies as a privilege in this case.

My guess is, Brianna, that the plaintiffs are going to ask for the judge to look at some material in camera, meaning that he'll look at the material eyes only to him. Lawyers won't see it for the plaintiffs.

Because I'm not sure that there's enough there for the judge to say that the government can assert the privilege.

KEILAR: The filing includes a declaration from Secretary Rubio, where he argues that foreign partners will be reticent to help with removal operations that are also counterterrorism operations if details of the arrangements are going to be revealed to third parties.

Does that argument hold up in court, in your opinion?

JONES: At least preliminarily, Brianna, it doesn't for me. Because, remember what the judge is asking for here. He simply wants to know when the flights took off. He wants to know who was on the flight. He wants to know some -- some details that I don't understand how they would necessarily implicate state secrets.

But, you know, giving the government its due, saying it doesn't make it so. I think they have to provide more context to the rather broad and generalization-type rationale that they -- that they gave in this case.

And you have to remember something else, too, that -- that I would be concerned about from a -- from a judges standpoint. This sort of predicts that, as this case moves -- and remember, this is responsive to Judge Boasberg attempting to vindicate the integrity of his order.

This doesn't necessarily, at this point, go to the heart of the case, which is whether or not the act of 1798 applies.

So it tell us that, however, that the government is probably going to take the position that we're not going to tie this up. In other words, the government has to prove, at some point, or establish that this was driven by a government, a foreign government in this case, I suppose, Venezuela, and that they propelled this thing forward.

Well, suppose they say, well, that's covered by state secrets. What it means, the larger ramifications, Brianna, are that the government can do this any time they want. And say it's -- its covered by state secrets. So we can just hoist somebody out of the country without justifying it.

KEILAR: Judge Jones, always great to get your perspective. Thanks for being with us.

JONES: Thanks, Brianna, very much.

[14:39:02]

Still to come, growing pessimism overachieving the American dream. A new survey shows two out of every three renters believe they will never be able to buy their own home. We'll tell you what is driving those numbers.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: The country's mood about the Trump administration's economic agenda appears to be in a freefall.

A week before the president's contentious retaliatory tariffs are set to take effect, consumer confidence has plummeted to its lowest level since January 2021. The latest conference board survey showed it's down 7.2 points for the month of March.

KEILAR: The board says today's reading is an extension of a decline that actually began last December, after the presidential election.

Let's talk about this now with business journalist and "Full Disclosure" radio host, Roben Farzad.

So, Roben, talk to us a little bit about this pessimism. What's driving the drop in consumer confidence?

ROBEN FARZAD, BUSINESS JOURNALIST & "FULL DISCLOSURE" RADIO HOST: A lot of it is self-fulfilling prophecy.

If you have this headline machine coming out of the White House every day, tariffs, retaliatory tariffs, we're not doing it. We're doing it now. No, we're going to think about it. We're going to punt it to April 2nd. That is a fear factor that we didn't have before this.

On top of that, people have still been complaining about egg prices, about inflation, the affordability of homes, which you saw in the renter data there.

There's this there's this creeping hopelessness for Millennials and some people younger than them that I'm always going to be a renter, that the dream of the American dream is very much the dream deferred.

SANCHEZ: I wonder, what was happening in January 2021 that caused the low point back then. That was the last time it was this low?

FARZAD: Yes, we were getting a variant on covid, right? I'm thinking back to it. And you know, we're still dealing with PPP and with stimulus checks being cut out, the vaccine issue. I mean, in the -- in the haze, in the fog of everything happened back then.

[14:45:05]

But think back to a year before that. We recently talked about the five year of Covid breaking. You know, the markets fell 35 percent in a month. Unemployment shot up to the teens.

So all of that was relative. We're really coming out of uncharted waters. So it's shocking to see when you revisit it, kind of Covid depths of -- of despair.

KEILAR: Well, Stefan Miron, who's the chair of Trump's Council of Economic Advisors, said he isn't concerned by the drop in consumer confidence. Should they be more concerned about this?

FARZAD: It could be a leading indicator. It's a soft metric. Of course, we're still creating jobs. Of course, the unemployment rate is still a notch above 4 percent. The stock market has given back some.

Inflation is a little worrisome, but I believe, if you get a couple of beers into these White House economic advisors, you take them to old Ebbitt or wherever it is they drink now, they'd say, I'd actually gladly trade some consumer despair for inflation to fall back down to trend.

You know, 2 percent, 1.8 percent, the better for the Fed to cut rates.

SANCHEZ: I want to zero in on what you we're discussing about, especially younger generations feeling like they're going to be eternal renters, like they're never going to live the American dream of buying an actual home.

You would imagine that in order to address that, an administration would create incentives for construction, to amplify inventory, therefore, to drive prices down.

They're kind of doing the opposite by putting tariffs on steel and the things that you need, lumber to -- to buy a home. What do you make of that?

FARZAD: And let's shatter the taboo on undocumented workers. Documented or undocumented, if you're afraid that you're going to get caught -- I mean, even -- even licensed bonded landscapers, roofers, sheetrock installers.

This is the dirty secret of the American economy, if you ask the Chamber of Commerce. You need undocumented workers.

And right now, in Florida, for example, Tallahassee is debating bringing down the age, child labor laws, because it's so untenable in a place like Miami, which you and I know very well, the chasm between what a house costs and what livability is there.

It's just -- it's just become the province of the wealthy.

KEILAR: Yes, we're talking about that next hour.

So if you are talking to one of these pessimistic people, a young person who is bummed, and it makes sense, it makes sense that they're bummed.

But what would you say to them about what is within their control? Because there is so much that is outside of their control? What advice would you give them?

FARZAD: It's going to sound condescending, like stay in school, drink milk, say no to drugs, dare to stay off drugs and save money.

(LAUGHTER) FARZAD: They'd be like, no, my parents. You guys see all the memes? Like, my parents, you know, with a bag of Doritos and $25,000 bought their first home in the 70s.

And I'm well into my 40s, and that's off. It's -- it's all so much cold comfort, especially like, if you had hopes that this would pass with the Biden administration or the Fed would bring rates back down to zero.

You have Boomers that are still enjoying a 2.5 percent, 2.7 percent mortgage on their homes, and they're in no rush to get out.

SANCHEZ: So your hope -- your message of hope for the future is there is no hope for the future?

(LAUGHTER)

FARZAD: Everybody hurts. Take comfort in your friends and save money.

KEILAR: I look forward to having my children live with me forever.

FARZAD: Yes. Likewise, so do I.

(LAUGHTER)

SANCHEZ: So focus on the silver lining.

KEILAR: Yes, it is.

SANCHEZ: Roben Farzad, great to have you.

FARZAD: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

SANCHEZ: Straight ahead, a long-debunked conspiracy theory is gaining more steam as some lawmakers look to ban a nonexistent threat, chemtrails, when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:53:43]

KEILAR: A decades old and long-debunked conspiracy theory is now making its way into several state legislatures and potentially even state laws.

Some people -- and this includes a number of lawmakers -- believe these things, condensation trails left by planes in the sky are actually toxic chemicals being spread by the government to control the weather and even our minds.

(LAUGHTER)

KEILAR: I can't -- I'm having a hard time -- I'm having a hard time reading this without laughing.

SANCHEZ: People do believe that thing.

KEILAR: That's true.

SANCHEZ: And it's an unsubstantiated claim that's being promoted by right-wing influencers that could, as you noted, have some real-world consequences.

CNN's Bill Weir joins us now with the details.

Bill, you know, I've gotten a lot of emails over the years about chemtrails. What are they? What is the story here?

BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: Sure. Well break it down. This goes back a couple of generations at least. That is the streaky trails that you see following commercial aircraft on certain clear days.

The chemtrails conspiracy theory is that those are chemicals and they're either used to influence the public or move weather patterns.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, of course, back in October, after Hurricane Helene hit Appalachia, suggested that maybe they were used to punish Trump supporters there as well.

The definition of contrails -- that's short for condensation -- is that water vapor condensing around that airline exhaust in certain clouds, cloudless, very cold days. And you see that from some planes and not others, depending on the conditions.

And this has been amplified lately in a couple of different state legislatures. Florida and Alabama is talking about language to ban any kind of chemical spraying overhead, either for geoengineering or any other purposes.

That conflates another thing I'll tell you about in a second.

But this is really amplified by RFK Jr, the Health and Human Services secretary, who put out on X that:

"These efforts to ban geoengineering our climate by dousing our citizens, our waterways and landscapes with toxins. This is a movement every MAHA, Make America Healthy Again, person

needs to support. HHS will do its part."

[14:55:01]

This doesn't exist. There is no spraying of any chemicals to -- to control the weather in any way. There are theories that maybe high in the stratosphere, if certain

natural particles were released to mimic volcanic ash, could cool off the planet for a degree or two for a short period of time to deal with the effects of climate change.

Very early research on that hasn't even really begun in earnest anywhere around the world. But here we've got legislatures sort of trying to preemptively ban this right now.

That's the context of what you're hearing about.

KEILAR: It is bizarre.

Bill Weir, thank you so much.

We do need to go right now to the White House, where President Trump is taking questions during an executive order signing.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: That just keeps going and we are making a lot of progress. So that's all I can report. But some very, very big talks are going and detailed talks are going on right now on both fronts.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Mr. President, you said that your national security advisor learned a lesson after a reporter --

TRUMP: Excuse me, I didn't pick you.

Go ahead, please.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Mr. President, the ceasefire agreement that was broken today allows for third-party countries to help implement the agreement. What does that look like? And who's going to be involved?

TRUMP: The ceasefire agreement?

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Yes. The maritime ceasefire agreement between Russia and Ukraine.

TRUMP: Well, they're going to get together. Look, its -- they agreed to something, and it got broken. There's tremendous animosity. There's a lot of hatred, as you can probably tell.

And it allows for people to get together, mediate, arbitrate and see if we can get it stopped. And I think it will. That'll get stopped.

SANCHEZ: Are you looking to work with sir to help implement and monitor that?

TRUMP: We have other countries involved and they're involved very strongly in the process. And the -- that'll -- that'll be resolved. That's actually as bad as it is, that's the least of the problems.

So that will well get that resolved. And we are being aided by other countries, too.

Yes. Please. Yes, Brian.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Tomorrow, the subcommittee on DOGE is going to review funding for NPR and PBS. Now, every Republican president has always promised to take away this money that's going to these two public news outlets.

If this -- if they're successful -- I know Senator Kennedy has backed it. Marjorie Taylor Greene in Congress has backed it. Would you be interested in defunding and taking away taxpayer dollars to NPR and PBS?

TRUMP: Well, I would love to do that. I think it's very unfair. It's been very biased, the whole group. I mean, the whole group of them. And frankly, there's plenty of look at all the media you have right now. There's plenty of coverage.

I was from a different age, and they spend more money than any other network of its type ever conceived. So the kind of money that's being wasted and it's a very biased view, you know that better than anybody.

And I'd be honored to see it end. We're well covered. Look at all the people that we have here today. We're well covered. And we don't need it. And it's a waste of money, especially.

I don't even know what DOJs recommendation is. I assume their recommendation is to close them up.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, after they hear all the testimony, I think they're going to make a decision relatively sooner than later.

TRUMP: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But we'll see what that turns up.

TRUMP: I can't imagine -- I can't imagine that they wouldn't because they have found so much waste, fraud and abuse. Hundreds of billions of dollars and just waste, fraud, abuse.

You heard yesterday some of the new things that were found, $22 billion just in environment. Billion. You know, if you had $22 million, Warren, it would be nice, but $22 billion --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's a lot of money.

TRUMP: -- put into environmental accounts. One was $2 billion into one account, Stacey Abrams, where they had $100 in the account. And just before I came in, they put $2 billion.

And you guys are looking. So you mean $2 million or maybe $200,000? No, $2 billion were put in the account.

What do you think of that, Mike? Do you think that's a straight deal, $2 billion?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just write me the check, Mr. President.

(LAUGHTER)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I take it with me to Israel.

TRUMP: It's just -- it's a horrible thing. And we had we have so many of those things. So they've done an incredible job.

And the country wants to hear it. I think DOGE is actually very popular because of what's happening. They're hearing about all of these scams. And for big, big money, tremendous amount.

And when you add it up, just hundreds of billions of dollars being wasted. And much of it's fraud. You know, we talk about waste and it is waste and abuse. But a lot of it's fraud, too.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: I have a question.

TRUMP: Go ahead, Brian.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: I just want to follow up on that. If Planned Parenthood is defunded, would you look into the harvesting of baby organs that they've done throughout the years and maybe go after some criminal prosecution on that?

[14:59:49]

TRUMP: Well, I think you're talking about a subject that is a heated subject. And we'll look into it. We're going to look into everything. But that's certainly a subject that's been debated for a long time, and we will look into it.

Yes?

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Mr. President --

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Some Senators have expressed hope that the White House will support a rescission package to codify some of the DOGE cuts into law.