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U.S. Govt. Ordered To Bring Back Man Who Was Mistakenly Deported; U.S. Markets Tank Amid Global Trade War, Drop More Than 5 Percent; Trump Pressures Fed Chair Powell To Cut Interest Rates. Aired 3-3:30p ET
Aired April 04, 2025 - 15:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[15:01:07]
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN Breaking News.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: We have breaking news in the case of that Maryland father who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador. A federal judge just ordered the Trump administration to return Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia to the U.S. by Monday.
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Let's take you live outside the courtroom with CNN's Priscilla Alvarez.
Priscilla, you just walked out of court. Help us understand how this all played out.
PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna and Boris, the week started with the administration saying that it made an, quote, "administrative error" in deporting the Salvadoran national. It is now ending with a federal judge saying that the United States has to bring him back by Monday.
Now, over the course of the hearing, and it was just over an hour, a federal judge asked multiple questions on one key issue, and that was his - him being deported to El Salvador, even though an immigration judge in 2019 said that couldn't be the case. This is something we've talked about. It's called withholding of removal, meaning that he could not be sent back to El Salvador over concerns of persecution. He was removable, just not to El Salvador. And in fact, that's exactly what happened last month after he was detained, the administration sending him to that notorious mega prison in El Salvador.
Now, there was questioning back and forth between the federal judge and his attorneys, as well as with the Justice Department. The Justice Department saying that they could not provide any further evidence about this case, including the judge saying that she was not convinced about these alleged ties to MS-13 because there was no additional evidence to shore that up.
Now, over the course of those proceedings, again, the Justice Department saying that it was a mistake that he was sent to El Salvador and also arguing that they couldn't bring him back. That is something that they also said in court documents. The federal judge, however, was not convinced. After the hearing or after the arguments ended, the federal judge took a recess, and it was in that recess that she ultimately came to her decision and came back out to the courtroom and noted the urgency of the case again because of concerns of persecution. The concerns of this man's safety in El Salvador.
She said she could not wait that she would give an oral order and would follow up with the written opinion. And we're hearing now from the lawyers, his wife also stepping up and also saying thank you to all those who have supported her earlier in the morning, saying that this, of course, has impacted her family and that she has missed him and has been unable to talk to him.
So, this offers some level of relief. Of course, we still have to see how the legal proceedings continue from here. But again, to sum this up, this was a week that started with the administration making that admission that it had accidentally sent a man to that El Salvadorian prison and now ending that week with a federal judge saying that he had to be returned. Brianna Boris?
SANCHEZ: And Priscilla, to your point about how this legal case proceeds, has the administration responded to this point? Obviously, this just happened, so they may not have cobbled together a response. But have they put anything out there?
ALVAREZ: We haven't seen anything so far. Again, as you mentioned, this happened only minutes ago, so we'll look out for those responses. The administration over the course of the week has maintained that he is tied to MS-13. They have not conceded anything beyond that fact and also saying that he - rather that they should not have sent him to El Salvador.
So, we'll see what the responses are and, of course, whether there's an appeal. But at least for right now, the attorneys and the wife taking this as a win.
;SANCHEZ: A major decision in that case. Priscilla Alvarez, thank you so much.
Also happening at this moment, the stock sell off getting even worse. The final hour of trading and what's been a downright ugly two days on Wall Street following President Trump's sweeping tariffs. Today, China hitting back in retaliation and then came a flurry of breaking news.
Just before heading to his golf club. President Trump announced that Vietnam wants to cut their tariffs down to zero, moments before Cambodia said it was immediately reducing tariffs on U. S. exports.
[15:05:09]
KEILAR: And then messages from Fed chair Jerome Powell. Powell suggesting that because of Trump's tariffs, high inflation could be here to stay. CNN's Jeff Zeleny is standing by in West Palm Beach where the President is today.
First, though, let's get to CNN's Vanessa Yurkevich, who's at the New York Stock Exchange.
Vanessa, we see things aren't looking so great there. What's the reaction?
VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it's very much more of the same and getting worse. I'm just looking over my shoulder here, checking the board, the Dow down more than 2,000 points, the S&P down over 5.5 percent and the NASDAQ also down more than 5.5 percent.
I think one analyst, Dan Ives from Wedbush, he's an analyst there said it best. He says he's been covering the markets and tech stocks for 25 years and he's never seen anything like this. He referred to the dot- com bubble, the financial crisis and COVID. He says he's never seen anything like this because this is self-inflicted, in his words, that this did not have to happen. We do not have to be seeing these numbers right now on Wall Street, but the President's trade war and the escalations that have followed have put us in this position.
Essentially, investors are planning for the worst-case scenario. Yes, there have been some conversations with other countries about scaling back on some of these tariffs, but nothing concrete just yet. You mentioned Vietnam saying that they're thinking about bringing their tariffs down to zero. Well, that actually boosted a few stocks, Nike and Lululemon, both up on that news. Those two companies import a lot from those two countries, so that is encouraging news for them.
But for most companies and most stocks here on Wall Street, they're very much in the red. As you mentioned, Jerome Powell was out today. The first time we have heard from him after the President launched this trade war, he said that inflation is likely going to stick around and rise and we're looking at a potential economic slowdown. He did not answer questions, though, about a recession if we're heading in that direction. But investors are asking that question, is that where we are headed.
They are looking for some sense of certainty that there is something that can pull the President back off this trade war escalation. They're not seeing that right now. They want to hear that in order to be able to make better decisions about where to move stocks. The - we're just about an hour away from the closing bell, but as you can see there, the Dow down more than 2,000 points as really we are just capping off a week of a very, very volatile week on Wall Street after the President has escalated this trade war.
And we are waiting for, I will say also, retaliations from other key trading partners like the European Union. We put a tariff of 20 percent on goods coming out of that country. Investors waiting to see what will happen next on that front, guys.
SANCHEZ: Yes, plenty more potential repercussions to come from the announcement.
Jeff, over to you in Palm Beach. The President has been on the golf course today, also posting a lot on Truth Social. What more is he saying? JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Would you know that the President is still at his golf club here in West Palm Beach? It's been a mix, I'm told, of playing golf, but also a series of phone calls and working. He's been out there since about 15 minutes after the markets opened this morning. And, of course, as Vanessa was saying, we are in the final hour of trading now, so essentially spending the business day there.
But look, one of the things the President has done is an effort to perhaps pass the blame a bit to the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, calling on him to lower interest rates, including saying stop playing politics with the interest rates.
But, of course, we know that the Federal Reserve has said for now they're going to be on hold and take a wait and see approach, even as inflation appears to be more sustained. But going into the weekend here, that first deadline for the tariffs is at midnight. Midnight tonight, that's when the 10 percent tariffs to most of the countries goes into effect. But it's the next week, next Wednesday, when some of those higher tariffs go into effect.
The question is, how much is the President and the administration open to negotiating down on those tariffs? Certainly, Vietnam is one example. We heard the President mentioned earlier, we do not know if there will be others. But China, of course, not taking a wait and see approach, striking back.
A couple days ago, the Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent urged other countries to sort of sit back and watch. China certainly didn't do that. We will see if the European Union does or not. But a fairly extraordinary day. During this period, we've not heard at all from the President, perhaps waiting until the market closes. Boris and Brianna?
SANCHEZ: Jeff Zeleny, thanks so much for the update there.
Let's get the perspective of two economists. We're joined by Douglas Holtz-Eakin. He served as the chief economist on the White House Council of Economic Advisers under President George W. Bush. He's now the President of the American Action Forum.
[15:10:05]
And Justin Wolfers is the professor of economics and public policy at the University of Michigan. Thank you both for sharing part of your afternoon with us.
Doug, so China hitting back with this 34 percent tariff on U.S. imports. How do you anticipate the U.S. is going to respond to that response?
DOUGLAS HOLTZ-EAKIN, CHIEF ECONOMIST, WH COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC ADVISERS UNDER PRESIDENT G. W. BUSH: Well, if taken at face value, what Secretary Bessent promised immediately after the Rose Garden ceremony was that any country that retaliated would face higher tariffs from the United States. And so, I'm interested to see if they follow through on that and if they raise the level of economic damage in this tit-for-tat trade war. And it's also interesting to hear of countries supposedly negotiating down. Are they going to get a waiver from the 10 percent tariff that's across the board? It seems to me that it's quite unclear what the administration is going to do and it's been unclear all along what exactly their objectives are.
KEILAR: Yes. The President clearly hates trade deficits, Justin. I mean, that's something that's clear. But the reaction early that we're getting right now from Cambodia and Vietnam is that they're actually addressing the tariff, right? At least in order to maybe get a reprieve so that they can put this off and ultimately not have it kick in. What do you think about how you're seeing countries respond at this point in time, Justin?
JUSTIN WOLFERS, PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS AND PUBLIC POLICY, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN: Well, this is all based on a big misunderstanding of the President. When he was young, there were a lot of countries that had very high tariff barriers. And so, if you could use your leverage to get them down, that would have been terrific. But that was 50 years ago. I just looked it up.
Vietnam's average tariff rate right now is 1.1 percent. And so, the most that Trump can win from this is concessions of 1.1 percent. And in order to get there, he's raised tariffs on the entire world, on every product, on average by about 20 percent.
So, this is one of those trade wars where if we win, we'll be able to get our trading partners to cut their tariffs by perhaps a percentage point. But as we lose, we've got countries like China raising their tariffs by 34 percentage points. So, this is a case of very, very asymmetric warfare.
SANCHEZ: Justin, I wonder what you make of the idea that trade deficits are the issue because the White House in installing these - I see you smiling and Doug is shaking his head - the White House in presenting these tariff numbers, they came to these numbers based on a formula that looked at trade deficits. So, I wonder why focus on that. Are trade deficits really an issue?
WOLFERS: Look, let me be direct. I'm a centre left economist, Doug's a centre right economist, and I'm sure he'll agree with me. This is lunacy. It doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Effectively, Trump is saying if any country runs a trade deficit with you that it must all be due to tariffs, let's get back at them for that.
So, you've got a country like Israel, which literally has zero tariffs with the United States. And we levy tariffs on them, punitive tariffs, because we have a trade deficit with them. We have a country like Australia, where if you followed the Trump formula, Australia, the United States has a huge trade surplus with. If you followed the trade, the Trump formula, that would suggest that we should have a minus 100 percent tariff on Australia, which means all Australian goods should be free to Americans paid for by the U.S. government.
It's a fundamental misunderstanding of what trade deficits are. And it means that the set of tariffs that he said are utterly incoherent and will achieve no useful goal for the United States. KEILAR: This Australian-American would like some free Vegemite, I will just tell you that.
But, you know, Douglas, what do you say? What's your reaction?
HOLTZ-EAKIN: I think Justin's wrong. I think he's an optimist. I think it's a lot worse than that. Look, he's right. He's right about their misconception on what causes trade deficits. Absolutely, that there's a lot more involved. There's trade and services, they ignore that entirely. They don't acknowledge there's a lot of capital flows out there in the world economy that flow into the United States and purchase the treasuries. And so, it's a really naive view of the of the world.
It's also a view that says somehow we're losing and he says this a lot - the President says we're losing wealth, they've been taking our wealth. So, it's a view of the universe that was literally debunked before Adam Smith wrote "The Wealth of Nations." So it's only a couple of hundred years out of date and it's just wrong.
SANCHEZ: What about the argument that the administration has made that in order to compete with China, the U.S. needs a stronger industrial base and that globalization, the ability of trade to move relatively freely across borders and products to move freely across borders has hampered the U.S.'s ability to reshore some of the very vital things that an economy needs. And that a country needs if, for example, it is potentially to - get embroiled in a war with a power like China.
[15:15:16]
WOLFERS: So (INAUDIBLE) ...
HOLTZ-EAKIN: So, if you have a specific trade problem.
SANCHEZ: Sorry, sorry, that was for Doug. Justin, you can answer in a moment.
HOLTZ-EAKIN: I mean, of course, if you have a specific trade problem, and there are places in the global trading system where there are problems, that's what the dispute resolution mechanism is for. You take specific actions to address specific problems. And so, if the problem is a large enough defense industrial base in the United States, find the appropriate tool to solve that problem. We could have long-term contracts to make sure that certain materials are made in the United States. We promise to purchase them. You might not even need to purchase them until you have an outbreak of hostilities, whatever it might be.
But you don't have to inflict a $400 billion tax on your own citizens to solve that problem. It's doing more damage than good.
KEILAR: And Justin, since we do have so many Australian imports here in the conversation, I want to ask you something that sort of stuck out as we were going through some of the indicators today was the Australian dollar. It had a terrible day. Explain why Americans should care about that. WOLFERS: Honestly, I've not been watching the Australian dollar today, but usually it's closely (INAUDIBLE) ...
KEILAR: I will tell you this, it had - let me tell you this, then, just so you can tell me why this matters, worst daily loss for the Australian dollar since the global financial crisis.
WOLFERS: Okay, so first of all, apologies to my family back home. But beyond that, the Australian economy sells a lot of commodities. Commodities rise and fall with the state of global demand. And so, what this is telling you is actually the same thing the U.S. stock market is telling you. Everyone is incredibly pessimistic about the world economy going forward. And when the world economy looks like it weakens, so does the Aussie dollar.
KEILAR: Yes, it's a real - it's sort of an indicator, right?
SANCHEZ: Yes.
KEILAR: All right. Sorry to Justin's family. We're really claiming him now. That's what's clear. He's paying attention to our dollar. Justin and Douglas, thank you so much. Great to get your perspectives.
HOLTZ-EAKIN: Thank you.
WOLFERS: Thank you.
KEILAR: And back to our other breaking story, a federal judge ordering the U.S. government to return the Maryland father mistakenly deported to El Salvador. We have some new reaction from that man's family.
SANCHEZ: Also, the timeline on the TikTok ban changing again. President Trump wants to buy more time to figure out a deal. That and much more coming your way on CNN NEWS CENTRAL next.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JENNIFER VASQUEZ, WIFE OF KILMAR ABREGO GARCIA: I want to say thank you to everyone that has helped us, that has supported us in fighting this and we will continue fighting for Kilmar - for husband.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: That was the wife of the Maryland man who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador. A federal judge has just ordered the Trump administration to bring him back to the United States by Monday. Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia was sent to a notorious mega prison last month, despite having protected legal status here in the United States. The Trump administration admitted to, quote, "making an administrative error" but argued that he could not be returned because he was now in El Salvadoran custody. Joining us now is former ICE acting director, John Sandweg. John, thanks for being with us. The judge has made this order. How likely is it that he'll be returned by Monday?
JOHN SANDWEG, FORMER ICE ACTING DIRECTOR: You know, unfortunately, of course, I expect the government's going to appeal this and seek an immediate injunction. I wouldn't be surprised if the court of appeals gives the government a little bit more time. But I mean, again, it also depends on what is the nature of this relationship with El Salvador. This is a question, of course, we've been asking as we watch the case unfold in D.C. related to the Venezuelans, the administration's position is that El Salvador is detaining these individuals as a foreign sovereign without any control over the United States.
Of course, the judge here, the court obviously in Maryland didn't buy that. So, this will be a real test of the administration's ability to direct, you know, request of the return by the El Salvadorans. But look, in the near term, I would expect the government's going to seek an injunction. I wouldn't be surprised if they get a short-term injunction, but I think obviously these issues are heading - coming to a head pretty quickly.
SANCHEZ: And as the government pursues that injunction, I imagine that part of their argument is going to be that this person is dangerous to U.S. citizens. That's why they argue that he should have been deported in the first place. But I found it interesting that Judge Xinis here was skeptical about Abrego Garcia's ties, alleged ties to MS-13. She said, essentially, that she had not seen sufficient evidence to that effect. How integral is that argument likely going to be in an appeal and in the pursuit of an injunction by the federal government?
SANDWEG: I actually don't think it is at all. I think this was an issue that was raised. You have to remember, he was arrested by ICE, what, about seven years ago, six - seven years ago. In that proceeding, ICE attempted to make the argument at that time that he was connected to MS-13. The immigration court looked at it and ultimately concluded, you know, discounted those allegations and gave him legal protection, set to the United States. He cannot be deported to El Salvador. Whereas, he was given what's called withholding of removal.
It's a kind of an unusual provision in immigration law where the United States - we can't deport a person to a certain country because they might face torture and persecution there. So, he was given legal protection from El Salvador.
[15:25:01]
And I guess the point is that those allegations of MS-13 membership were explored and - but denied by an immigration judge.
So, I think from a legal perspective, it doesn't matter today whether there's allegations that he's MS-13 or not. The bottom line is, he had a court order that said he could not be deported to El Salvador. And as the government admitted, it was a mistake that they made. Now, there are ways if they had new evidence of gang membership, they could move to reopen the case, ask the immigration judge to consider this new evidence. But of course, here are these - they concede that they made a mistake. And they did that because they were in this rush, this rush to beat the district court's order in Washington, D.C. And as we know, when you rush, mistakes are made. When you deprive people of due process, mistakes are made.
So, look, the current - whether or not the administration succeeds in arguing, well, I think he's still MS-13. That might be a good political argument. But legally, it's really of little to no value at this point.
SANCHEZ: I wonder whether you think that the government may pursue a path to deport him elsewhere, given that he can't be deported to El Salvador. Do you think that's an avenue they might explore?
SANDWEG: I mean, that's an interesting concept. I wouldn't be surprised. I hadn't thought of that, to be honest. I wouldn't be surprised if they tried something along those lines. If they do, though, again, what they're revealing - and there's a disconnect here, right, in the D.C. case involving the Venezuelans, and then this Maryland case.
The government has been saying we lack control over the prison in El Salvador. That is a foreign sovereign. They're doing that under their laws. But, of course, publicly, the administration is taking credit for it. Secretary Noem is touring the facility. Secretary Rubio has been talking about the arrangement, the $6 million the U.S. has paid.
But I think to the extent that the El Salvadorans release him and then it was arranged for his - to be transferred to another country or deportation to another country, I think that would be really strong evidence that the U.S. does exercise a measure of control over this facility. And, Boris, this is really important because as we're coming up on the stage in the D.C. case, where the district court has to decide what is the remedy, he's already found that the way in which these people were deported and violate the law, and now decides what to do about it, this case really is a very important precedent for, you know, is he going to order in D.C. that all the Venezuelans be returned to the United States to get the due process that they already found they were entitled to?
SANCHEZ: Yes, it's a fascinating case. We'll see where it goes next. John Sandweg, thanks so much for joining us.
SANDWEG: Thank you.
SANCHEZ: A dire new warning from the world's largest business organization about the financial pain that Americans are set to feel from President Trump's tariffs. We'll discuss that.
Plus, TikTok's owner given just a bit more time to sell the app after President Trump pushes back the deadline yet again. What we know about potential buyers coming up.
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