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Trump Shrugs Off Wall Street Losses, Compares to Operation; China Fires Back, Slaps 34 Percent Tariffs on U.S. Imports in Retaliation; Trump Calls Loomer a Very Good Patriot, Says Admin Will Fire People Who May Have Loyalties to Somebody Else. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired April 04, 2025 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. The breaking news, retaliation, huge new tariffs just moments ago on American goods now. Dow Future Stock Futures across the board tumbling over just the last few minutes. We are braced for the stock markets to open after a brutal day, the worst in five years.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: And then there's this relentless rain and the potential for generational flooding heading into the weekend, the same storm system that caused dozens of tornadoes across the Central United States. At least seven people killed.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: A Michigan couple released after nearly a month inside a Mexican prison. The couple caught up in a payment dispute over their Cancun timeshare.

I'm Sarah Sidner with Kate Bolduan and John Berman. This is CNN News Central.

BERMAN: and the breaking news this morning, look out below. Take a look at U.S. Stock Futures, all markets on edge, and dropping. These futures just took a notable turn downward again on the heels of the worst day Wall Street has seen in five years. Now, right now, futures aren't quite as bad as yesterday, almost as bad, but they're still not looking good at all. And they just dropped more on the news that China retaliatory tariffs, big ones, much more on that in just a moment.

All of it is driven by the sweeping terrorists President Trump imposed on 185 U.S. trading partners. That whistling sound you may have heard yesterday was the Dow falling more than 1,600 points. That was yesterday. And we're already seeing this new fallout today. European stocks extended losses after their worst day in eight months.

The White House up until now has been shrugging it off and the president keeps describing it like he's an E.R. doctor.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: It was a sick patient. It went through an operation on liberation day, and it's going to be -- it's going to be a booming country. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: All right. Again, it may have been an operation performed without anesthetic. And based on what we see this morning, it was only one incision. A lot more cuts are happening. Question now is what comes next. A lot, apparently.

We get some new vital signs on that patient in about 90 minutes. The new jobs report is out for March. It will give us an idea of how the deep federal jobs cuts are affecting the market.

Let's get right to CNN's Alayna Treene at the White House in the middle of all of this, in the middle of stocks diving again this morning, Alayna. You've got some information about the behind the scenes maneuvering here.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: That's right. I think what's very clear, John, and it was very clear yesterday and kind of the tour of top advisers, top economic advisers, from Scott Bessent to Howard Lutnick, the list goes on, that they were trying to be very deliberate in their messaging, to make it clear that, you know, these tariffs are here to stay, that negotiations maybe could happen.

But for now, that's not really the plan, that the president and this administration are committed to really trying to see this broader global realignment, a break in the way that trading has been done globally for the last 70 or 80 years. Lutnick yesterday told CNN that the president is not going to back off.

But that comes as now we're learning that this message, again, was deliberated behind the scenes with the president. When the president was huddling with his top advisers earlier this week, as we reported, it was really up to the 11th hour that they were making some of these decisions on the details of what these tariffs would look like.

We're learning that the president actually told them, he wanted to make sure that this tariff plan could not be seen as weak or soft. And that's partly because so much of the conversation and the rhetoric leading up to that announcement on Wednesday was kind of shrugged off by some of people on Wall Street, by people on Capitol Hill who argued, you know, that perhaps the president would back off from this. What they really wanted to do with these tariffs was make clear that the president is firm in his decision.

And that's kind of what we saw yesterday with a lot of that messaging around this, that even as the president is saying, maybe he would be open for negotiations in the future, that he's very serious about these tariffs.

Now, one very interesting thing as well is that this tariff blitz might not necessarily be over.

[07:05:00]

The president, when speaking with reporters yesterday, said that there could be some new tariffs to come on pharmaceuticals. Take a listen. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: The chips are starting very soon. The pharma is going to be starting to come in, I think, at a level that you haven't really seen before. We are looking at pharma right now, pharmaceuticals. It's a separate category, and we'll be announcing that sometime in the near future, not too distant future.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TREENE: So, John, you heard him say there, he said that there'll be looking at potential tariffs on chips, on pharmaceuticals. Notable as well, you saw Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick kind of hanging out in the background while the president was saying all of this, all to say, again, they are moving very, swiftly ahead with this. I'd note as well that these tariffs haven't even necessarily all been imposed yet. So, still waiting to see the reaction to some of those.

But, again, and just to your point at the top here about the stock market, the present himself is really trying to show no worries about that. He said yesterday when leaving the White House that the markets are, quote, going to go boom. The stock market is going to go boom. We'll see if that ends up actually being the case.

BERMAN: Well, it appears the stock markets are going boom, just not in the way he may want.

Alayna Treene at the White House, thank you very much for that. Kate?

BOLDUAN: And going boom while we are watching it right now. Let's dig more into the breaking news that John was talking about at the top. China is now hitting back, retaliating against the Trump tariffs, announcing this morning it is now slapping a reciprocal 34 percent tariff on all U.S. goods with stock futures, I mean, this is not looking good.

The next piece of data that investors and beyond are also going to be looking at this morning is the March jobs report. It comes out next hour. To date the labor data has painted a picture of a jobs market that's cooling but not contracting. Is that all about to change?

CNN's Matt Egan is here. Let's start with this breaking news though, which is China now says 34 percent.

MATT EGAN, CNN REPORTER: Yes. Look, that is why we're seeing more mayhem in financial markets around the world. Markets are going boom, but they're going boom down. Look at this. Dow future's off by almost 3 percent. This signals another 1,200-point loss at the opening bell. That's on top of yesterday's 1700 point loss. Steeper losses for the NASDAQ, futures down 3 percent.

So, what happened was futures were down a bit and then China retaliated. They came back and they say they're putting a 34 percent tariff on goods that are made in the United States. It's not shocking to see China fire back, but this is an escalation that investors, of course, did not want to see because retaliation, it can kill jobs here in the United States. It can slow economic growth, and it could just fan more retaliation. You could get into this escalatory cycle that is almost impossible to get out of.

One other big development that happened last night is JPMorgan came out with a new recession warning. They previously said that they thought there'd be a -- there's a 40 percent chance of a recession in the U.S. and in the world economy. They've just upped that to 60 percent, citing specifically the tariffs. And, of course, this is one of the reasons why we've seen markets take such a hit in recent days, but another recession warning here.

BOLDUAN: And how bad was yesterday?

EGAN: Yes, it was so bad that some people on Wall Street have said, instead of calling it liberation day, they're calling it obliteration day. It was the worst day for U.S. stocks since COVID. We saw the S&P 500 closed at a seven month low. We saw oil prices fall very sharply. Tech stocks get clobbered. Bond yields went down because investors piled into the safety of ultra safe government debt.

One of the only things that went up on the day was fear. We saw the VIX Volatility index go straight up. One of the stocks that got hit the hardest is Apple. Apple's really kind of at the epicenter here, right? It's the world's most valuable company. Yesterday, it lost $310 billion, worst day since 2020 for Apple. And that's because they make a lot of their stuff, their iPhones and other items. They make it all overseas, and those products are now facing steep tariffs. And, again, now you have China retaliating.

BOLDUAN: All right, let's see what happens. It's all going to happen in this show. Matt, stay close. Thank you so much. Sarah?

SIDNER: It's all going down, literally. All right, breaking overnight, in a major shakeup, the Trump administration has fired the director and deputy director of the NSA. And this morning we're learning new details about why they were fired.

Plus, a string of severe storms could potentially bring deadly flooding to parts of the U.S. already slammed by historic rainfall and tornadoes. Millions under flood warnings this morning.

[07:10:00]

And the boss, Bruce Springsteen, set to release 80 never before heard tracks. That's seven full length albums. It is going to to be great. We have a preview of that coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SIDNER: Breaking overnight, a major shakeup of America's intelligence community. The Trump administration fired the director of the NSA, the powerful Wiretapping and Cyber Espionage Bureau. It is not clear right now why General Timothy Hugh was fired, although he was also fired along with his deputy at the NSA.

But the dismissals come after President Trump fired a number of National Security Council officials at the urging of the far right activist, Laura Loomer, Loomer, who once claimed 9/11 was an inside job among many other conspiracies pushed President Trump in a meeting on Tuesday to get rid of several members of his security council staff, including his principal deputy national security adviser, claiming that they were disloyal.

[07:15:26]

A source tell CNN Loomer, who brought a list with roughly a dozen names of people she deemed insufficient in their support of Trump, also advocated for the firing of the NSA director and his deputy. President Trump weighed in on the NSC firings calling Loomer a great patriot.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We're going to let go of people that we don't like or people that we don't think they can do the job, or people that may have loyalties to somebody else.

Laura Loomer is a very good patriot. She is a very strong person, and I saw her yesterday for a little while. She makes recommendations of things and people. And sometimes I listen to those recommendations, like I do with everybody.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: Just a reminder, she has not elected, she has not appointed to anything, but she makes recommendations.

Top Democrats on the Senate and House Intelligence Committees denounced the firings. Here's Senator Michael Bennet, who sits on the Senate Intel Committee.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MICHAEL BENNET (D-CO): What it says to me is that Donald Trump wants loyalty to himself, not to the United States of America. You know, he had six secretaries of defense, I think, in his first term as president, because nobody could stay in the job because nobody could find it a way to stay in the job and be loyal to the Constitution, not just loyal to Donald Trump.

So, it's not surprising that he would put somebody like Pete Hegseth in his secretary of defense, forced my colleagues in the Senate to walk the plank to approve his nomination, just to show who's in charge at this moment of the Republican Party and what kind of loyalty he's demanding from other people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: He is not the only one accusing Donald Trump of loyalty to self over country. We'll continue to monitor this developing story coming up ahead.

All right, coming up, happening -- there was a sound bite that was said to be there, but it is not there. So, I will continue on. Happening now, what forecasters are calling generational flooding. This morning, millions of Americans being warned of historic rainfall.

And, overnight, an American couple who were jailed in a Mexican prison while on vacation minding their own business, now back finally in the United States, what they're saying happened to them this morning.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:20:00]

BERMAN: All right. The breaking news, we do have our eyes on stock futures, which just took a sharp downturn on the news that China is going to impose 34 percent tariffs on U.S. goods. Again, futures were down, but they turned sharply worse on that news.

What we're looking at right now is the possibility of a steep drop when the markets opens, and this follows the plunge from yesterday. So back to back, the possibility of back to back, really bad days. We're going to keep our eye on this all morning long course. Stay with us for the markets to open in just a little bit.

In the meantime, this morning, millions across Texas and Arkansas face a new threat of extreme weather, historic rainfall that could trigger generational flooding. And this follows deadly tornadoes in the Midwest that kill seven people.

Let's get right to Michael Yoshida, who's in Lake City, Arkansas, for the latest there. Michael, good morning. What are you seeing?

MICHAEL YOSHIDA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good morning, John. You don't have to look very far to see the impact of that severe weather, the strength of the tornado that ripped through Lake City on full display. See these vehicles tossed around like they were toy cars slipped over some against trees, power lines, bricks, scattered across the ground following the tornado that came through Lake City earlier this week.

As we walk this way, again, you can see we had vehicles, trees, power lines, but also homes severely damaged. Half of this home completely gone at this point. Our colleague was able to speak with those who live in this area, we're told, everyone was all right, and in talking with officials, emergency management officials for this area.

Remarkably, we're just talking about injuries here. At last check, they had seven people here in Lake City who had suffered injuries as a result of this storm. We do know that a lot of people used their own storm shelters. The storm shelter for Lake City, we're told, that was at capacity at the time of this tornado, and obviously, thankfully so because of sites like this.

Now, as we go through this cleanup process, of course, we have that ongoing weather threat. The big concern here, flooding now. It can tell you that they have opened up sandbag centers for people to try and get prepared for all of the potential rainfall. We also know that swift water rescue teams, according to officials, are also now on standby in case they're needed as well.

Officials saying they don't think they'll be out of the woods, at least for the next few days with all of the expected weather.

BERMAN: Yes, they're in it for a few days. I got to say, Michael, that house behind you made a brick, the brick not enough to withstand the storms and the wind.

Michael Yoshida in Lake City, Arkansas, thank you for that report. Kate?

[07:25:00]

BOLDUAN: And with cleanup now, just beginning that same storm system is not done yet, now expected to trigger life-threatening, flash flooding, and possibly more tornadoes heading into the weekend.

CNN's Derek Van Dam tracking this latest forecast with us for us. It has been a rough go of it already this weekend. Now, what are you looking at for the weekend, Derek?

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, Kate. And we're starting off the weekend with another severe weather threat right over Arkansas in the same locations where Mike Yoshida was just reporting from Lake City, Arkansas, that was devastated, flattened by a tornado, has another threat of to tornadoes yet again today. To complicate matters, it's the flood risk we're also monitoring. The Weather Prediction Center warned that some locations that have never flooded before could indeed flood.

Now, I'm not saying that's the what happened here in Nashville. This apartment complex though inundated with water. You can see these vehicles, they're complete write-offs. Of course, we know that anytime water gets into the engine of a car, we can basically write that vehicle off.

Now, it's not just Nashville, it's a large swath of rainfall that fell from the sky that continues to fall. Look at some of these rainfall totals across Kentucky topping the ten-inch mark. And guess what? It's still raining and we've got a weekend full of wet weather for some of these same locations. We've got considerable tags on these flashflood warnings, so the likelihood of excessive runoff leading to rapid rises in rivers and streams, urban flooding is high.

So, the highest rainfall totals that we have here are expected across parts of Arkansas, that's where we have this high risk of flash flooding, but it's the severe weather threat we mentioned just a moment ago. Heads up Arkansas as well as Western Kentucky and Tennessee once again under the threat of tornadoes. Kate?

BOLDUAN: So many, dozens of tornadoes. I mean, it has been wild this week.

Derek, thank you so much for that. We're going to keep a much -- very close eye on this all throughout the day.

SIDNER: I used to work right there near Paducah.

BOLDUAN: Did you?

SIDNER: And we used to have these crazy storm, Cape Gerardo, Missouri in the boot hill of Missouri. You know, these storm --

BOLDUAN: Indiana.

SIDNER: You know how bad these storms could be. People really need to pay attention.

All right, coming up and breaking this morning, China is now retaliating to President Trump's sweeping tariffs. We will bring you the very latest on the counter, they are laying out.

And Karen Read, the woman on trial for a second time accused of causing the death of her police officer boyfriend, is now asking the Supreme Court to step into her case. That story and more ahead.

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[07:30:00]