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At Least Eight People Killed In Extreme Weather This Week; Around 4M People Under Flood Warnings Across 5 States; Senate GOP Takes Final Vote On New Budget Blueprint; Trump Tariffs Trigger Stock Market Plunge; Trump Tariff Announcement Derail TikTok Deal; Pentagon Inspector General To Review Hegseth's Use Of Signal Chat; 25 Percent Tariff On Imported Car Parts In Place By May 3. Aired 7-8a ET

Aired April 05, 2025 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:27]

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Glad you stuck around. Good morning, welcome to CNN THIS MORNING, it is Saturday, April 5th. Here's what's happening this morning. Tornado watches are in effect across parts of the south right now, with storms stretching from the Gulf Coast to the Canadian border. And meteorologists say that some areas will experience generational flooding through the weekend.

China is hitting back at the U.S. after markets closed down Friday over fears about tariffs and inflation. The foreign ministry there posted this message to President Trump, the market has spoken.

And President Trump just threw TikTok a lifeline, a short one for now. Millions of U.S. customers will still have access to that app for another 75 days. But what happens after that, we'll have to see.

And yes, it's April, but March Madness still in full swing. The final four teams in men's college basketball will be down to two by the end of the day. And Coy Wire has more on how the coaches are getting their teams ready for that big championship game.

We're starting this hour with that extreme weather moving through parts of the country this morning. Communities hit with severe storms all through the week are now bracing for more rain and that chance for generational flooding that I mentioned.

At least eight people were killed across Tennessee and Missouri, Indiana, and Kentucky this week. One of them was a little boy swept away by floodwater while on his way to his school bus stop in Kentucky.

Right now, the Mississippi Valley is under the highest possible risk for flooding rain, and that's almost unheard of outside of hurricane season. The National Weather Service has identified at least 31 tornadoes since Wednesday. One woman in Indiana was trapped in a car as the storm rolled overhead.

Now, she survived, but one of her dogs, trapped in her home, died when it collapsed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ASHLEY RICHARDSON, STORM VICTIM: My windows busted out. That's all I remember. The debris coming everywhere and hitting me, and I ducked my head, and he got me out of my vehicle because I couldn't open my door. He was trapped underneath and I think it crushed him, but he was alive when they found him, and my sister-in-law and brother took him to the vet and he was -- there was nothing they really could do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: All right, let's take a look at that storm system again right now. Texas, Arkansas, parts of the Midwest getting slammed. Arkansas is where we find CNN's Michael Yoshida. It looks like the rain has picked up since we spoke with you last. What are you seeing and feeling there?

MICHAEL YOSHIDA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good to be back with you, Victor. Right, the rain has started to pick back up again. You talk about that generational flooding. We have historic water levels here in Hardy, Arkansas. A short time ago, I spoke with the mayor. He says, he's never really seen levels quite this high. We, at last check were around 23.6 ft for the water level of the Spring River, which is about more than a football's length away from where I'm standing.

But still, you can see just how much water has started to fill the Main Street area of this town. The mayor saying at least 50 percent of the residents here going to be impacted by this flooding. We know throughout the night they have already been water rescues. The fire department, the police department, the sheriff's office all teaming up as part of this effort.

The sheriff himself had a chance to speak with him a short time ago says he actually had to do one of those rescues. Had to go rescue some dogs that had been left behind by homeowners, three of them. He had to pile into his sheriff's vehicle to get them out and away from all of this high water, the water continuing to rise.

And when we talk about this water level, to put it in a historic context again, at last check, the water gauge level was around 23.6. Flood stage here is 10 feet. So, you go back to 2011, they saw levels around 21 feet. 2008, we saw levels around 22 feet. And it's hard to see, we probably can't see it, but if we look off into the distance, it looks like some sort of container actually is just kind of floating along.

Again, this water level is so high, the water out of the banks of the river to a level at this point where even homes were told that are on stilts near the river. They are being impacted by this again. A major concern throughout the last few days following the other severe weather leading up to this weekend about these rain conditions. The mayor saying thankfully a lot of people heeded those warnings.

They either evacuated, grabbed sandbags, but obviously the water here continuing to impact and something they're going to be watching throughout the rest of the day, and obviously through the next few days watching as this weather system continues to move through. Back to you.

[07:05:01]

BLACKWELL: All right, Michael Yoshida there, in the rain covering it for us. Thank you.

New this morning, Senate GOP members took a key step forward in advancing President Donald Trump's multi trillion dollar agenda overnight. But half a dozen House GOP lawmakers and say senior aides told CNN that they're a little skeptical that the Senate plan will survive the House. The Senate's vote-o-rama ended early this morning Democrats hammered back by forcing votes and offering amendments. A lot of them failed, including Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer's amendment that targeted President Trump's new tariffs.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): President Trump's tariff tax is one of the dumbest things he's ever done as president. And that's saying something. Markets are plummeting.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: GOP leaders are scrambling to pass the full package before recess in August. And CNN's Eva McKend up with us live on a Saturday morning, mostly because this went into the morning hours. What are the main takeaways folk need to know about this vote-o-rama?

EVA MCKEND, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It did, Victor. Listen, now the inter- party war over how to pay for this among Republicans begins. But listen, Democrats are running out of messaging tools, mechanisms to push back against the Trump agenda. And what we saw in the vote-o-rama last night is them really have a platform to at least air some of their grievances.

Among the amendments we saw from Democrats included efforts to support Ukraine, combat DOGE or the Department of Government Efficiency, and save Social Security. As they insisted, Republicans are pushing for tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and argued spending cuts would slash programs like Medicaid. But now, this budget blueprint that includes trillions, trillions of dollars in permanent tax breaks and new money for national security will have to survive the much more conservative GOP-led House.

And it's important to note, the blueprint offers little detail about what Trump's bill will ultimately look like. We don't know what programs will be funded, what programs will be cut, or how the money for the border will be spent. So, this is an opportunity in the House to make this effort more bipartisan, Victor.

BLACKWELL: August sounds like a long time away from now. But with legislation of this size, it certainly is not. Eva McKend, thank you.

Let's turn to the economy now. It was a rough end to the week on Wall Street. You saw it. The Dow dropped more than 22,000 points Friday, closed out two days of steep losses. Tech-heavy NASDAQ entered a bear market, closed nearly 6 percent lower. That's a more than 20 percent drop from the NASDAQ's record high in December.

The plunge came after President Trump announced tariffs against 185 countries, got even worse after China retaliated and announced 34 percent tariffs on all imported U.S. goods. Businesses and Americans are digesting President Trump's tariff announcement. So, let's break down the impacts with Greta Peisch. She's former general counsel for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representatives.

Greta, good to have you. We heard from the President via social media yesterday and just minutes before the market closed, he posted on one of his accounts in all caps, "ONLY THE WEAK WILL FAIL." The fail is relative. But what do you make of the framework, the framing that the president's putting against or around these tariffs?

GRETA PEISCH, FORMER GENERAL COUNSEL FOR THE OFFICE OF THE U.S. TRADE REPRESENTATIVES: Well, thank you for having me. So, the president is following through on something he's been talking about since the campaign and since coming into office, that he wants to reset trade relationships, to put in tariffs that in his view are reciprocal, that are counterbalancing actions that other countries have taken against the United States and their treatment of the United States. And in his statements, when he announced these tariffs and since, really signal that he means it. And he's digging in, and he is not going to react at least in the short term to the movements of the market.

BLACKWELL: Well, we are seeing some reaction overseas. Cambodia has announced that they're going to immediately work to lower tariffs on us imports there. Let's take Cambodia as an example here. I think, 49 percent was the the tariff that the president placed on imports into the U.S. from that country. But last year, the U.S. imported nearly 40 times the value of goods from Cambodia than the goods that Cambodia imported or sent to the U.S. So, the trade deficit was the starting point here. 321 million exports from Cambodia, 12.7 billion imports from Cambodia. That is not going to narrow substantially because of their population, their economy. How do you get to closing that gap or eliminating the tariffs when you're dealing with a country of that size economically?

[07:10:05]

PEISCH: That's a great question. And the way that the president and the administration has talked about this is mirroring the trade barriers that other countries impose on the United States. But as you mentioned, in fact, that's not how they've calculated this tariff. It's based on the magnitude of the trade deficit relative to exports to the United States.

So, it raises a great question for an economy like Cambodia. They are very export reliant. They manufacture mostly low cost goods, textiles, other products to the United States. And they don't purchase much of what the United States sells, which are aircraft, other high technology products, agricultural products. They probably import some.

But there really isn't a room to balance that trade relationship. They can, as they have proposed to, reduce trade barriers, but only so much, right? It's not going to equalize our trade with a country like Cambodia.

BLACKWELL: Yes. So, those non-trade barriers, which the Commerce Secretary, the Treasury Secretary, the President himself have highlighted as where they say that these countries are, "taking advantage" of the United States. Give us a timeline. You've you've negotiated these trade agreements and disagreements as they are. It can take years, can it not?

PEISCH: Absolutely. I mean, some of these barriers are quite complex. They're in other countries, legislation and regulations. You can't just snap your fingers and make those structures go away. And so, layered on top of that, you have negotiations with potentially over 100 countries simultaneously who are all coming to the administration saying, what can we do to remove these tariffs? And you just don't have the capacity to talk to all of those countries at once, much less even a handful who have quite complex and entrenched trade barriers that the United States faces.

BLACKWELL: Some of these negotiations and impacts are at this point at 30,000 feet. There is also the loophole for people who are buying their, you know, the short sets and the sundresses on Shein or housewares on Temu, these companies in China, and they're coming here. The president has closed a loophole and people are going to have to start to spend more as they just go straight to these Web sites to buy these items, right?

PEISCH: Absolutely, that's correct. So, in U.S. law, there is an exception for tariffs, but also the formality is the kind of filing and sort of red tape that goes along with importation for those small packages at $800 or less. And with respect to China, one of the orders of the president signs this week was to remove that treatment.

And so, that means you're not only paying the tariffs and needing to calculate what are the tariffs on those products and the shippers needing to do that for customers, but also bring those products in with all of the documentation and information about what's in the packages in order to comply with the normal importation rules.

BLACKWELL: Greta Peisch, a lot changing. And we'll see if April 10th is implementation day for some of these higher tariffs. We'll see what happens then. Thank you.

President Trump gives TikTok more time to find a buyer before being banned in the U.S. Teen coverage from the U.S. and China. We have that for you straight ahead.

Plus, it's a high stakes court clash in the making. The Trump administration appeals a federal judge's order to bring a Maryland father who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador back to the U.S.

Plus, a Department of Defense Inspector General opened an investigation into the Signal group chat scandal, but we know about it a little later this morning.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:19:00]

BLACKWELL: TikTok is here to stay for at least 75 days. President Trump said he'll postpone enforcing the sailor ban law that was set to go into effect today. Now, control of the social media apps, U.S. operations were set to be transferred to an owner here in the U.S. Well, that was until Trump's tariff announcement derailed the deal.

CNN's business writer Claire Duffy is here with more. So, TikTok staying around for another 75 days. What has to happen between now and that deadline so that U.S. users will be able to keep it?

CLAIRE DUFFY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Victor, that really is the question here. Can Trump get this deal back on track? This delay was sort of surprising because President Trump and Vice President Vance had repeatedly said that they expected a deal to be in place by today, but now Trump is saying that more time is needed to make a deal. And what we're hearing from a source familiar with these conversations is that there was actually a deal in place that was set for Trump to certify it this week.

That deal would have given majority control of TikTok US to American investors, leaving ByteDance, TikTok's parent company, with just a 20 percent stake, which is a major requirement of this law, but that the deal went off the rails when Trump announced these tariffs on China and ByteDance representatives essentially came to the White House and said China is not going to approve of this deal while these tariffs are in place. So, the question is, can Trump get China to agree to the sale of TikTok as this trade war is going on?

And for me, the other big question is, did Trump have the authority to delay this ban for a second time? A lot of the legal experts I'm talking with say that, no, because the law allowed for a single 90-day extension of the ban if the president could prove to Congress that a deal was making significant progress, I should say. And this is now the second time we're seeing a delay. So, I'm wondering if we're going to start hearing from members of Congress who passed this law on a bipartisan basis on national security grounds, whether they will start to speak up about why a deal hasn't happened yet, Victor.

BLACKWELL: And so, Claire, do we know who would have been involved in that deal that was scuttled to buy TikTok?

DUFFY: Yes, what we're hearing is that most likely Oracle, which is a TikTok tech partner in the U.S. right now, this is the company that manages TikTok servers, it would have been Oracle along with another, a number of U.S. investors, other private equity and venture capital firms, all investing in a new company called TikTok America, and that they would have all had the majority stake in the U.S. operations of TikTok, leaving ByteDance as just a minority investor. So, you know, it is interesting to see that ByteDance had signed off on this, we're told. U.S. investors were ready to go. The Trump administration was ready to go. And now, this tariff war has really gotten in the way.

BLACKWELL: Claire Duffy with us. Thanks so much. For more on the reaction from China, let's bring in CNN Correspondent Mark Stewart in Beijing. Mark, what is China saying about this? Have they signed off on a deal?

MARK STEWART, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Victor, clearly the focus right now in Beijing is on this whole trade and tariff back and forth. So, for the moment, we're not getting any real insight from the Chinese government. But just by nature, this is one of the most contentious issues in this U.S.-China relationship in the sense that China, on this particular matter, has accused the US of acting like a bully in the past. We are getting some response from ByteDance, which is based here in Asia, the parent company of TikTok. The response, though, very generic.

Claire alluded to it earlier, just saying that there is not any agreement, an agreement has not been reached, and that there are still significant differences between the two. So, a very generic statement there. There's also, though, some conversation on Chinese social media, including on the social media platform Weibo, which is basically China's version of X. It's not the top trending topic by any means, but it's a point of conversation.

There is a hashtag, a very long hashtag, that says Trump gives TikTok another 75-day grace period. We heard from one user who said, don't give it a grace period, just ban it. Every so-called grace period is really just like a bargaining chip to force China into tariff concessions and the like. So, that's some of the conversation that's taking place. But really at the end of the day, the Chinese government is going to have a very big stake in all of it.

It is going to have to give its approval because the last thing it ever wants is to appear that it's being told by the United States what it cannot do, what it can do with one of its platforms, especially in the American market. And it would not want to do anything that would give American investors any insight into TikTok's very valuable algorithm, which is seen as the secret sauce and that algorithm within itself is what has made TikTok, Victor, just so valuable.

[07:24:09]

BLACKWELL: Yes. We'll see if there's any deal that satisfies that. Mark Stewart, thanks so much.

Bad news for gamers, pre-orders for Nintendo's highly anticipated Switch gaming system have been delayed. How the president's tariffs are impacting that company.

All right. It's down to the final four teams of the NCAA men's basketball championship tournament, coming up we'll hear from that for coaches looking to lead their teams to a big win.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:29:02]

BLACKWELL: In a narrow 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court sided with President Trump on Friday to temporarily freeze roughly $65 million in teacher training grants. It's the administration's first win in the Supreme Court of the second term. Now, the funds were supposed to have helped several states address teacher shortages. The states could still ultimately win in the case. The court pointed out that they could get funding back in later lawsuits.

The Trump administration has until Monday night to bring back a man mistakenly deported to El Salvador. A federal jude handed down that order after the Trump admitted that Kilmar Abrego-Garcia was deported as a result of an administrative error. The judge called the deportation illegal. We'll hear from Abrego-Garcia next hour on "FIRST OF ALL."

Los Angeles county has reached an agreement in a $4 billion lawsuit over sexual abuse claims at juvenile facilities. Officials say there were more than 7,000 allegations of abuse claims going back to 1959. The deal still needs to get approved by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

Now, if it is approved, the settlement will far surpass a more than $2 billion lawsuit settled in 2022, involving sexual abuse claims within the Boy Scouts of America.

Nintendo has now postponed its new Switch 2 gaming console pre-orders in the U.S. The company says the latest tariffs are responsible for that.

Nintendo revealed that the pricing and release date for the device on Tuesday. They released all that information just a day before President Trump introduced the series of tariffs on foreign goods, including ones from Asia, where Nintendo's tech supply chains are based. The company is not given a new date for when the pre orders in the US will begin.

The acting Pentagon inspector general has now launched a review of Pete Hegseth's use of the Signal in a group chat discussing war plans.

That chat group was used to discuss military strikes in Yemen with other high-ranking officials. CNN's Natasha Bertrand has the details on what this review could mean for the defense secretary. Natasha?

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Good morning, Victor.

The acting inspector general at The Pentagon, he has launched a review of the use of Signal by Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, to discuss an impending military operation against the Houthis.

And in a letter to the secretary of defense issued this week, the acting inspector general said that he is going to be looking at whether any rules governing classification or records retention laws were violated. Because, of course, Secretary of Defense Hegseth, according to these texts that were published by The Atlantic last week, he did disclose very sensitive information related to the exact timing of these military strikes against the Houthis, as well as the kinds of aircraft that would be used in these attacks and other weapons systems.

Now, while Secretary of Defense Hegseth has said previously that, that information was not classified, CNN has been told by multiple sources that it was, and that disclosing it prior to the operation actually taking place, Hegseth could have put service members who were conducting that operation at risk.

And so, while this inspector general review is not any kind of legal review, it is going to provide some measure of transparency once it is over, about what exactly transpired here, because it is the first independent review we have seen of this entire Signalgate, as it's come to be known at fiasco.

Of course, we know the National Security Council had said previously that they were going to review this, but the White House said later that they consider the case to be closed.

So, this inspector general review is going to be carried out here at The Pentagon. They are going to be conducting interviews and requesting materials from the secretary of defense and his aides. It's also going to be carried out at U.S. Central Command Headquarters in Tampa, because this was a central command operation against the Houthis in Yemen.

And so, it might take some time for us to get any kind of answers or any kind of disclosures about what this review produces, but it is a step towards getting some information about why Signal was used, how widespread the use of Signal is across the Department of Defense, and whether any information was improperly handled or disclosed here. Victor?

BLACKWELL: All right. Natasha Bertrand, thank you.

Automakers are already preparing for the fallout from President Trump's tariffs. Coming up, we speak with a mayor in Michigan who is concerned about how the economic fallout could impact his community.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:38:21]

BLACKWELL: 25 percent auto tariffs are now in effect on all cars shipped to the US from other countries. Let's put that into some context and perspective. If you buy an import a car with a value of $40,000 it will come with a $10,000 added tax on it, and you'll likely bear at least part of that cost, add on those auto parts imports that will be rolled out over the next month, and every car will get more expensive.

That news put automakers and community leaders on edge, especially in Michigan, where several U.S. automakers are located, Lansing Mayor Andy Schor joins us now.

Mr. Mayor, thank you for being with me. You've got two G.M. assembly and stamping facilities in your city, 7 million square feet of workspace there.

The president says that these tariffs are going to force more companies to build similar facilities and factories to manufacture parts assembled here. Big businesses will thrive. What do you say about that promise?

ANDY SCHOR, MAYOR OF LANSING, MICHIGAN: Well, I'm more concerned about the right now. You know, what he's talking about could be years in advance. What I'm talking about is tariffs with Canada are going to increase the price of cars. You just said it. We've got a back and forth for auto parts. We make cars in Lansing, we make G.M. cars.

So, if you drive a Traverse, you drive a Camaro, you're buying a Lansing made car. But if the price of that car goes up, we're going to make less cars, we're going to - they are going to sell less cars, we're going to make less cars. And my concern is we're going to see less shifts, we're going to see potentially, plant closures, all of these things are going to hugely effect, not just the UAW employees at these G.M. plants, but also our economy here in Lansing and in Michigan and throughout the U.S.

[07:40:08]

We've already seen it. We saw Stellantis lay off 900 employees, which affects two Michigan cities and Midwest states. So, these are my concerns, the immediate. You know, I want people to buy American cars just like everybody else, and they should, because we make the best cars here in America. But with the supply chain, with Canada, you know, the - you talked about auto parts, these prices go up, people are going to buy less cars. We're going to be tremendously impacted.

BLACKWELL: There are some supporters of the president who say, respectfully, I'm sure, Mr. Mayor, you are wrong.

SCHOR: Yes. Yes.

BLACKWELL: And one of them was on stage with the president on Wednesday when he announced these new tariffs, specifically on the auto tariffs are now in place. This is Brian Pannebecker. He is a few counties away on Macomb, and I want you to listen to what he said, and then respond.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRIAN PANNEBECKER, RETIRED AUTOWORKER, FORD MOTOR COMPANY: I have watched -- my entire life I have watched plant after plant after plant in Detroit and in the metro Detroit area close. There are now plants sitting idle, there are now plants that are underutilized, and Donald Trump's policies are going to bring product back into those underutilized plants. There is going to be new investment. There is going to be new plants built.

We support Donald Trump's policies on tariffs 100 percent. So, Mr. President, we can't thank you enough, and in six months or a year, we're going to begin to see the benefits.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: So, what do you tell, Brian Pannebecker?

SCHOR: Well, you know, I respectfully disagree. We certainly have seen issues with plants in Lansing. You know, 30 years ago, there was a threat of a plant closure, and at the end, we added a plant. We've seen the Camaro, which was made in Canada, onshore back into Lansing. This give and take is always happening, but we've always had fair trade with Canada. You haven't needed a 10 or 25 percent tariff in order to have this conversation.

We have the best auto workers in the world, and because of that, we expect that plants are going to be here, stamping plants and assembly plants are going to be here. We have a new $2.7 billion battery plant that is just being finished, being constructed.

We don't need these tariffs in order to make sure that everyone knows we make the best cars right here in Lansing and in Michigan and in America. But we do need to have the auto parts and the back and forth with Canada without adding the costs.

I certainly want to see everybody come and work here and do the jobs here. But if the auto parts rely on the global supply chain, and that is going to be more expensive than the cost will increase, and we'll see layoffs.

You know, if in two, three, four years, we have a new billion-dollar plant. That's great. But in the meantime, we're going to be in trouble, and we're going to see layoffs, and it's going to be our UAW employees, and that's a huge concern for me, in addition to everything it's going to do to the economy, both here in Lansing and everywhere else. And it's not just autos, you know, we also have shipments of vegetables and steel and wood and other things where we go back and forth with Canada.

We're building all over the place in Lansing, we're growing our city one to $2 billion and if the costs increase that could hamper all of our construction for all the things that we're doing here.

BLACKWELL: Yes. Is this -- I mean, we've discussed this in a Michigan- Canada framework for most of this conversation.

SCHOR: Right.

BLACKWELL: Is that and autos, you talked about the agriculture there in Ingham County. You're surrounded by farmland and outside of the capital. Take me to that perspective, that angle of this conversation.

SCHOR: Well, there is - there is a back and forth, you know, we sell, we have things grown here, but we also have things grown in Canada. The -- I think, there are the most greenhouses anywhere, are in Essex County, which is right outside of Windsor, right across the border from Detroit.

You know, they sell avocados and other things. You know, in Michigan, we sell cherries. We do cherries better than anybody else up in the Traverse City area. So, if we export cherries and sell cherries in Canada, and they sell avocados, it's a back and forth. And adding prices to that means that we're not going to be able to have the peppers and the avocados and other things that are made across the bridge in Canada, and they are going to have to pay more for things like cherries.

It's a back and forth, and it's a -- it's a fair trade. And when you add a lot of costs to that, you know, the groceries are going to go up and the agriculture is going to go up, and that's a huge concern for us. You know, this isn't -- this isn't, you know, trade with China, this is trade with Canada.

And that's new. That's not something that was talked about in the campaign in terms of increasing costs due to our supply chain and back and forth trade with our neighbors to the north.

BLACKWELL: Lansing, Michigan mayor, Andy Schor, thanks for the conversation. Enjoy the Saturday.

SCHOR: Thanks.

BLACKWELL: New episode of "UNITED STATES OF SCANDAL WITH JAKE TAPPER", follows the story of Anna Delvey.

[07:45:03]

Now, she managed to convince New York's elite of her fictitious back story as a German heiress. In a few short years, she was able to con banks and hotels and businesses, some friends with her falsified story. Here is a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She was able to walk into a hotel without a credit card, convince them that she would pay them in the future, and she was granted access to a hotel room.

She was able to walk into a bank and say, I promise you I have money. It's not here, but it's on this bank document, and I'll give it to you down the road. Just give me a loan first. And they did.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Before her grift was up, Anna had conned banks, hustled lawyers and stiff restaurants and even friends to the tune of more than $275,000.

I think there's something about the absolutely bonkers, delusional self confidence that it requires to pull off something like this. People wouldn't want to admit it, but they begrudgingly respect it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Watch the new episode of "UNITED STATES OF SCANDAL WITH JAKE TAPPER" airs tomorrow at 9:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific on CNN.

First major forecast of the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season is out, and forecasters are predicting a very busy season. Just as NOAA grapples with major cuts to its staff.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:50:46] BLACKWELL: We're about what, eight weeks away now from the start of the Atlantic hurricane season, and according to a new outlook, it could be a very busy one.

Meteorologist Allison Chinchar, breaks down the numbers for us.

ALLISON CHINCHAR, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Colorado State University's first official forecast for the Atlantic hurricane season is now out, and they are calling for a total of 17 named storms, nine of which are expected to become hurricanes, and four to become major hurricanes, meaning a Category 3, 4 or even 5 storm.

Now, compare this to an average year, when you would typically have 14 named storms, seven, of which would become hurricanes, three becoming a major hurricane. Now, one of the main components to these forecasts is whether or not we are going to be in El Nino or La Nina conditions.

This year is going to be a bit interesting, because most of the forecasts are actually calling for neutral conditions. So, what a lot of forecasters are actually having to look at is sea surface temperatures elsewhere.

Take, for example, the Atlantic, the Caribbean, or even the Gulf of Mexico, where right now, those sea surface temperatures are well above average. If it continues to stay that way, we all know warm water is fuel for these types of storms, and would likely enhance any tropical development.

Now, when we take a look at the names on the list for this year. You may notice one new one, and that is Dexter. This replaces Hurricane Dorian from back in 2019. We are also looking at some other names that were retired from last year. The World Meteorological Organization, this week, releasing the names that they will be retiring, and that includes Beryl, Helene and Milton from last year's list.

Now, the new names that will be replaced several years from now will become Brianna Holly, and Miguel.

BLACKWELL: The matchup is set for the women's college basketball national title. South Carolina will face UConn tomorrow.

The game council are looking to repeat as national champions after they defeated Texas, 74 to 57 in Friday's Final Four.

South Carolina guard, Te-Hina Paopao, scored a team high 14 points in that win. The Huskies secured their return to the title after they dominated number one ranked UCLA, 85 to 51.

This match will give the college games most high-profile UConn player, Paige, Bueckers -

Bueckers, sorry, another chance at the championship, one last shot before she is expected to move to the WNBA,

68 teams down to the men's final four, the conclusion of March Madness is set to tip off in San Antonio tonight. CNN's Coy Wire goes one on one with the four head coaches set to lead their teams on college basketball's biggest stage.

COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Hi, yes. Only one other time in the history of March Madness have all four teams in the Final Four been number one season, 2008, it was on the exact same dates, April 5th and 7th, and it was in the exact same place, right here in San Antonio.

I caught up with the final four coaches just a bit ago who led their teams on this whirlwind of a season, and asked them, what's one key to being a great leader?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRUCE PEARL, HEAD COACH, AUBURN: Trust in your players, trust in your staff. Everybody making sacrifices, you know, for the greater good. Understand that when we, as a team are successful, you as an individual will benefit far more than if you as an individual successful, the team fails. All these kids cared about all year long, is winning.

TODD GOLDEN, HEAD COACH, FLORIDA: I try to lead, you know, from kind of the players' perspective. And even though obviously I'm the head coach, I want them to feel like I'm in it with them.

And so, whether it's practice, you know, or some of our workouts and when we're watching film, we always want our staff and team to feel connected. And you know, one of our kind of traditions is shooting half court shots the day before the game, and that was an example of that today.

KELVIN SAMPSON, HEAD COACH, HOUSTON: Respect the people you're leading and make sure they understand that we're doing this together. And somewhere along the way, I've learned the importance of being a servant leader and not a boss.

I like working with people and helping them become better at whatever they are doing, and I think that should always be a joint effort.

JON SCHEYER, HEAD COACH, DUKE: I've learned that in order to ask anybody to do anything, you better be willing to do it yourself. And that's something I've always tried to take brighten.

[07:55:02]

You know, I've tried to use the fact that I'm younger to get out there with our guys when possible, but end of the day, I don't think you can ask them to do anything you're not willing to do yourself.

WIRE: You are out there dunking on them. Are you?

SCHEYER: No, I'm not. I'm not. I can - I can shoot on him, but not dunk on them. I'm not sure about defense either, but I'll give it -- I'll give the effort.

(END VIDEOTAPE) WIRE: It's about to be on Saturday night. We have Auburn and Florida tipping things off. Then, we have Duke and Houston duking it out for a chance at the national championship game. For all the live updates and analysis, you can check out our March Madness live story at cnn.com.

BLACKWELL: "FIRST OF ALL" is coming up at the top of the hour. We'll hear from a small business owner who came to this country from Columbia. He's worried that President Trump's trade war is putting his American Dream at risk.

Plus, you know, there is not a lot that can stop the U.S. Navy, but its future leaders are being blocked from reading books on race and discrimination, diversity, even testimony from victims of hate crimes.

We just got a list of books pulled from the Naval Academy library and the Pentagon's first chief DEI officer, also a Navy vet, also a current member of Congress, is here to react to it.

And a wise man once suggested that we take our shirt off and twist it around our head, spin it like a helicopter. My conversation with hip hop artist Petey Pablo about how his iconic track could be an official state song.

Those conversations and more coming up on first of all, after a quick break.

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