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Erin Burnett Outfront
Trump Announces Massive Tariffs Impacting 185 Nations; GOP Senators Side With Dems To Rebuke Trump On Tariffs; Putin Trolling Trump. Aired 7-8p ET
Aired April 02, 2025 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[19:00:21]
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: OUTFRONT next:
Breaking news, Trump's world war, unleashing tariffs on 185 countries.
Plus, Senator Chuck Schumer is OUTFRONT, not holding back on Elon Musk. Why he thinks Democrats won in Wisconsin. And does he think Cory Booker should run for president?
Also, Putin trolling Trump. Why Putin's choice of who he sent to Washington today for crucial negotiations says everything.
Let's go OUTFRONT.
And good evening. I'm Erin Burnett.
And OUTFRONT tonight, the breaking news, Trump's world war.
President Trump announcing a massive worldwide series of tariffs, in fact, bringing tariffs to levels that have not been seen, according to Fitch, since just before the first world war.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: China, 67 percent. We're going to be charging a discounted reciprocal tariff of 34 percent.
European Union, we're going to charge them 20 percent.
Vietnam, they charge us 90 percent. We're going to charge them 46 percent tariff.
Taiwan, 64 percent. We're going to charge them 32 percent.
Japan, 46 percent. We're charging them 24 percent.
India, 52 percent, Switzerland, 61 percent to 31 percent.
Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, 97 percent. We're going to bring it down to 49.
United Kingdom, 10 percent, and we'll go 10 percent. South Africa, 60 percent, 30 percent. Brazil, 10 percent. Bangladesh is 74 percent. Pakistan, 58 percent. Sri Lanka, 88 percent.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: So, what you're going to see now to the right of me are the countries listed on Trump's giant poster. Just look at it scroll. We had to speed it up because this is 185 countries. Trump was -- took pleasure in it, detailing what he was about to do to these 185 countries.
Some of the hardest hit places include the world's poorest nations. Others are in the midst of actual wars, physical wars.
And look at the view if you just put up the map. Look at this map. It seems like nothing was too small to be included.
That includes the Heard and McDonald Islands. It's a speck out there. See, we wanted a real speck because the population there is zero. According to the U.N., just look, the merchandise exports, imports and trade balance of that speck are zero.
So, when -- you know, you look at that speck, which you wouldn't even know existed, I did not know that existed until today. And I love geography.
It is hard to notice when you see the speck, the things that aren't included, right? The largest country in the world, Russia.
Trump's treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, just explained why.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCOTT BESSENT, TREASURY SECRETARY: Russia and Belarus, the -- we don't trade with, right? Like it's -- they're sanctioned.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Well, there's the speck that doesn't export anything. They -- they -- they -- they're on the list.
But we also should note that Iran also subject to U.S. sanctions, is on the list. And Syria, also subject to U.S. sanctions is on the list, subject to 41 percent tariffs, in fact.
Trump clearly making a statement by adding them even though they were subject to sanctions. So, the fact that they didn't add Russia and Belarus, who knows? Maybe they're making a statement to someone.
Now, after Trump ticked through every country that he is adding to his tariff list, the markets immediately reacted.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: President Trump just wrapping up an event at the Rose Garden where he laid out his tariff plans. Stocks moving sharply lower as he spoke in the last hour. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You saw a huge turnaround in the market. Futures
went from being up 1 percent from where they closed at the 4:00 p.m., close to being down more than 1 percent.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: All right. So, futures are down. That's what after the formal markets closed. You can continue to make trades. Thats what we're seeing. Trump making the announcement after stocks closed for the day.
Trump's claiming that this though will, quote, supercharge Americas industrial base. There are concerns though. I mean even if that happens, it would take a long, long time. But it also could do the opposite.
A 2019 study from the Federal Reserve, from two economists there, found the overall effect of tariffs was actually a decline, a decline in manufacturing employment. And that was because, they said, of higher input costs and retaliatory tariffs from Americas trading partners.
And of course, there's the cost to anyone watching to all of us, consumers, a 25 percent tariff as part of this on all cars made in other countries. The hit to automakers like Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes, Porsche and others, which all in could add $5,000 to $10,000 or more to the price of a car. People have been desperately trying to buy cars in recent days in the U.S. to get ahead of the tariffs. And now, we'll see what's going to happen.
Well, the National Restaurant Association has come out saying new tariffs will create challenges for restaurants of all sizes, driving up food and packaging costs, adding uncertainty for operators and consumers alike.
[19:05:03]
The National Retail Federation says the tariffs would cause more anxiety and uncertainty for American businesses and consumers. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, it's like I get out of breath here. These broad tariffs are a tax increase that will raise prices for American consumers and hurt the economy.
They're all speaking in unison. And as for that supercharged economy that Trump is promising, Pimco, one of the largest bond managers in the world, as in holders of U.S. treasuries, is sounding the alarm tonight, warning that the U.S. could see a rating downgrade this year because of tariffs, which would also serve to increase borrowing costs.
Tariffs, which when Trump announced them, did come out to be much worse than many had expected.
Here is CNBC's longtime economics expert, Steve Liesman.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) STEVE LIESMAN, CNBC SENIOR ECONOMICS REPORTER: I think it's worse. People modeled in 20 percent, and they were detracting from GDP. They were adding to the CPI. This just seems like the president having his own sort of school of economics that's different from everybody else.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Jeff Zeleny is OUTFRONT live outside the White House to begin our coverage.
Jeff, you know, when we hear the president at the top of the show, he goes through country after country after country. They've got all these slides ready. What is so stunning from your reporting, though, seems to be that the actual plan, what those numbers were came together very last minute for Trump?
JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Erin, it was an extraordinary scene in the rose garden. You saw the president there looking at the chart, reading country by country, but it almost had the feel of a game show. At one point, he even threw out a red Make America Great Again hat into the crowd, which was packed with some union workers as well as members of the cabinet and lawmakers.
But it did come together, we are told, really over the last several days. There were some dissenting voices inside his administration. Some wanted a 20 percent baseline tariff, if you will, across the board. He settled on a 10 percent, but then had separate reciprocal tariffs for so many of these other countries.
But when you look at that there, this is how some of the U.S. allies and adversaries alike learned that they were going to be on this list. They saw the president reading from this, this chart in the Rose Garden.
But when you sort of step back and look at all of this, the question now is the retaliatory tariffs that are likely to follow this are really sparking and causing alarm across the ag sector, the lumber sector, pharmaceuticals and so many more.
And when you also add up these, it's not just 34 percent for China, it's actually 54 percent. The treasury secretary was telling reporters earlier because it's on top of the 20 percent already there for fentanyl. So, the bottom line to all of this -- it's the biggest gamble of this presidency.
Theres no doubt about it. It's a historic move. That is clear. Not since the Second World War has there been this type of a reordering of the global economy.
But the bottom line is what does not only the market do, but other countries do. Back to the U.S. but, Erin, one thing we noticed in the Rose Garden today, the cabinet was there. Lawmakers were there. Elon Musk was not there.
Of course, this came on the heels of that embarrassing defeat in Wisconsin last night. I can recall him being at virtually every other major announcement. This is the first one in the Rose Garden. No sign today of Elon Musk.
BURNETT: Obviously, what that is a harbinger of anything.
All right, Jeff, thank you very much. I mean, it is incredible when you think about all these countries finding out from hearing the president speak.
OUTFRONT now, Richard Quest, Saira Malik, head of equities and fixed income and chief investment officer for Nuveen, and Douglas Holtz- Eakin, who served as chief economist in President George W. Bush's Council of Economic Advisers.
Richard, you're here with me.
Trump is calling this liberation day standing there. You heard jeff describe it. That game show atmosphere, all these countries finding out from as he was listing them, except for apparently, the Heard and McDonald Islands, because the population there is zero. He calls it liberation day.
RICHARD QUEST, CNN BUSINESS EDITOR AT LARGE: It would be grotesque if it wasn't so serious to have the U.S. and the global trading environment literally turned on its head like this. There is no doubt -- let's be clear about this -- there is no doubt there is a kernel of truth in the fact that the U.S. has been taken advantage of over many years, and that needed to be addressed.
The president is right, but you don't do it this way. You don't do it with wholesale baseline tariff of 10 percent. Ridiculously large tariffs on your major trading partners, all in some benign hope that you're going to bring back business to the United States, which at its very best could take a decade or more to do.
BURNETT: And to imagine what that would go through in the time.
I mean, Saira, the head of U.S. economic research at Fitch Ratings, just put out a note. I don't know if you saw it, but it said the U.S. tariff rate on all imports is now around 22 percent from 2.5 percent in 2004. So that's almost a nine times increase, just that he just did today. But then they point out that that rate, this rate of tariffs was last seen in 1910, obviously, the eve for the U.S. of the First World War.
[19:10:05]
I mean, how do the markets react to this, Saira?
SAIRA MALIK, HEAD OF EQUITIES AND FIXED INCOME, NUVEEN: Well, poorly. We're seeing markets down over 3 percent after the close today. To summarize Liberation Day, tariffs were much bigger than feared. We think the effective rate for tariffs is actually close to about 25 percent.
The good news is we did get another piece of the puzzle today for tariffs. But the bad news is it creates a lot of uncertainty. So, three buckets we're looking at for tariffs. Number one the 10
percent blanket tariff across the board. Number two is that reciprocal tariff. And this is where the issue is for the markets. The reciprocal tariffs are not only against direct tariffs from other countries against us, but it's also including indirect tariffs from other countries.
So, it's a much bigger number than markets expected. And then third of course is sector tariffs in areas such as autos. So, what you're seeing here is a potential haircut to GDP for 2025 of about 3 percent. Markets trading down a little bit over 3 percent.
And so, where we go from here is probably increasing focus on the economy. And whether we're going to hit an air pocket, a short-term shallow recession or a stagflationary period.
BURNETT: All of which is sort of dumbfounding that we're here, Doug. And to this, we do have some breaking news. We talk about reciprocal, so Mexican President Sheinbaum has just said she will come out and she will announce Mexico's response tomorrow at 2:00. Okay?
So, I mean that just saying that she did this this came out from Mexico minutes after Trump's treasury secretary said this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BESSENT: My advice to every country right now is do not retaliate. Sit back, take it in. Let's see how it goes. Because if you retaliate, there will be escalation. If you don't retaliate, this is the high watermark.
(END VDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Doug, what's been unleashed here?
DOUGLAS HOLTZ-EAKIN, CHIEF ECONOMIST UNDER PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Well, probably my worst fears, to be honest. This is much bigger than anyone expected. This is, you know, Smoot-Hawley territory in terms of the size of these tariffs.
For perspective, the U.S. Congress is working like mad to avoid a sunset of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act because a $425 billion tax increase next year, it will knock the economy sideways, if not into a recession. And this is much bigger than that and doing it right now.
And so, the risks are enormous. And that's just what the president announced.
If Mexico and other countries retaliate, as one would expect, they would. They saw him in 2018. They watched him on the campaign trail. They've been planning this. They have got the U.S. farmers in the crosshairs, and they're going to retaliate on our most productive sectors.
And if the response is going to be even higher tariffs, it's a bigger self-inflicted wound. It's also a bigger wound on the global economy and tit for tat, trade wars are what have produced really, really prolonged downturns in the past.
BURNETT: Prolonged downturns. And of course, and I'm not trying to make everything analogous but have -- have come before horrible times of war. I mean, just to be, you know, that just is also been a historical reality over the past century.
HOLTZ-EAKIN: Find the silver lining here, Erin. Come on.
BURNETT: No, Saira. To the point, though, looking at the markets here, just as we're speaking. And obviously futures markets can be very volatile. You now have the Nasdaq down almost 5 percent, S&P 500 down 4 percent right now as we're speaking just in the past hour. And -- and just to emphasize this was announced after the markets close.
I mean, how does something like this settle. This is -- it's not as if, okay, tomorrow everybody can just get used to this is the new world order. This is this is now this is what it is. It's incredibly uncertain.
MALIK: It's going to be an ugly opening for the markets tomorrow. From a technical point of view, at about 5,488 on the S&P 500 is where it's been bottoming recently. So, one question will be, do we go through that? If we do, I think buckle up because it's going to get more challenging to the downside.
But looking at tariffs, you could take the other side of this bet and say okay, was today maximum pain for tariffs. And from here they get watered down. Theres less retaliation back and forth. Also with the U.S. economy, we need to ask ourselves who eats the tariff costs here. Producers might be the ones that eat it. Thats less painful for the consumer, but it will be a margin hit for producers or consumer eats it, of course, and that's even more inflationary.
And then finally, let's not forget the Fed. I know it seems like a long time ago, but Jay Powell just spoke recently and still talked about two cuts on the table this year and that he thinks tariffs are transitory and he's willing to look through them.
BURNETT: Although I think he mentioned and don't -- don't even ask why I remember this. I feel like I forgot a lot lately. He mentioned the word "tariff" 36 times, Richard, in his press conference.
QUEST: He did, and terrified about it because we don't know how -- look, tonight in about three hours, the E.U. president, Ursula von der Leyen, is going to speak and give her initial reaction would be 11:00 at night here, middle of the early morning over there. They're going to retaliate in some shape or form. She has to. Again, you're going --
BURNETT: You can't sit there and say, okay, Scott Bessent, we're just going to sit here and take it.
QUEST: They've got electorates of their own Australia, for example.
[19:15:01]
Albanese is about to fight an election in Australia. BURNETT: We don't even have a trade deficit with Australia.
QUEST: And he's got to retaliate.
So there, of course, is going to be tit for tat. Theres going to be escalation. It's the nature of the beast. This is why it's never been done. This is why Ronald Reagan famously said don't start a tariff trade war. It ends up in an unholy god mess, everyone.
BURNETT: Final word, Doug.
HOLTZ-EAKIN: Well, just think about this. Somehow, the tariff policy, the United States has managed to unite China, Japan and South Korea, countries who have been mortal enemies for hundreds of years have united in their desire to retaliate against the United States. That's nearly unthinkable and ought to give everyone great pause.
BURNETT: All right. Thank you all very much. I appreciate the conversation.
And next, breaking news of something we rarely see in Washington. Thats what this moment has brought a bipartisan rebuke of Trump and his tariffs. Trump is clearly upset at this moment. We have some breaking news coming in here.
And the Maryland father, who was accidentally deported to El Salvador, now fighting back, his attorney now taking on the Trump administration and his attorney will be OUTFRONT.
And also this hour, U.S. National Security Adviser Mike Waltz reportedly set up at least 20 chat groups for crises around the world. Trump officials, though, are silent. But as our KFILE found out, this was not always the case when it came to others mishandling classified material.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:20:55]
BURNETT: Breaking news, Republican senators breaking with Trump, supporting a Democratic-led resolution against Trump's tariffs on Canada. The Senate voting right now, just moments after Trump signed new and sweeping global tariffs. Republican Senator Susan Collins voting yes, along with McConnell. At least two other Republicans have indicated they could support this.
Now, just to emphasize, obviously, it's meaningful in some senses, but the vote is largely symbolic. The House is not going to take it up. Clearly, though, it has gotten under Trump's skin already in these past moments. He posted that senators need to, quote, get on the Republican bandwagon for a change.
OUTFRONT now, the Democratic Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer.
And, Leader Schumer, I appreciate your time tonight. So, Republicans voting with Democrats on this bill. But Trump's
tariffs, of course, are still happening in mass. I mean, is there anything else the senate Can do?
SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): Well, look, first let me say this: the tariffs that Trump proposed this afternoon are even worse than we thought. In addition to all the other bad things in these tariffs, he's added a 10 percent additional tariff on everything. And what does that mean? It's a huge tax on the average American family, Erin. The average American family will pay approximately $5,000 more each year.
And why is Trump doing this? Tax breaks for billionaires. But even now Republicans are realizing that these tariffs are bad. And many of them voted for the proposal that Tim Kaine made to roll back these tariffs.
They are terrible. And to do it all, to give tax breaks to the billionaires, that's where the money they say is going to go. It's outrageous.
And one more thing.
BURNETT: Yeah.
SCHUMER: The American people are seeing this. Thats why in Wisconsin, we had such a healthy victory. Trump won the state in November and they lost this race, Musk and Trump and DOGE by 10 percent.
And one of the main reasons is people hate these tariffs, they're a tax on the average American family, all to help the billionaires.
BURNETT: Now -- now, Trump says, of course, that that his reason for doing this, as you know, Leader Schumer is that he wants to bring manufacturing back to America, that he wants fairness. He makes all these arguments. Obviously, economic economists take issue with those.
But on the question of motive, do you believe him?
SCHUMER: Look, one of the worst thing about these tariffs is how its going to hurt the average working family. But almost as bad is just how erratic he is. He says one thing one day, one thing the next day, one thing two days ago. And it's outrageous because American businesses and American consumers need safe certainty.
Big businesses, big and small, if they think they're going to get hit by these tariffs, they stop spending, they stop employing people. They cut back on jobs.
And the average consumer, what the numbers have shown, Erin, is that the average consumer now has less confidence in the economy than they have in a very long time. Again, because Trump is so erratic in what he says and so much aimed like a dagger at the middle class.
One more thing. Trump said he doesn't care if it makes prices go up for the average family. How callous can these billionaires be? Don't they understand that when the average family gets $5,000 taken from their income, they have less money for food and groceries? Maybe they can't take that vacation that they've been planning for a whole year. Maybe they can't, you know, buy a new car.
It's just -- it's the nastiness, the callousness of it. And the fact that they're in a bubble, so far away from the average American family is catching up with them as Wisconsin and even the Florida elections showed.
BURNETT: You mentioned Wisconsin, and last night we did see a move to the left. Virtually every district in Wisconsin. When you look there specifically, Republicans lost that Supreme Court race or their backed judge lost despite Musk's visit to the state. And obviously, he poured millions and millions of dollars into that race.
A new poll out today, Leader Schumer, shows that 38 percent of Americans approve of Musk, only 38 percent. Thats actually about ten points lower than Trump's approval rating, which is below 50, but quite close to it.
Musk downplayed it. Now, you know, as you know, he had said that losing this race was -- was, you know, foundational to civilization as we know it.
[19:25:05]
SCHUMER: Yes.
BURNETT: But then he came out and said, I expected to lose. but there is a value to losing a piece for positional gain. What's he saying?
SCHUMER: No one knows what the heck he's saying. Elon Musk personifies what's wrong with the Trump administration. A very wealthy person, a callous person. This is a person who said Social Security is a Ponzi scheme and should be eliminated. The sort of sacred part of American politics. Doesn't he understand that the person getting $100 a month, a senior citizen who's paid into this, needs their money for drugs, needs their money for food?
He is just so far out of it. That and so is Trump. And that's why they're losing ground across the country. The message that we have that they are cutting taxes on the billionaires, like themselves, all for -- and making the middle class pay for it is terrible.
And one more thing here -- they're all self-dealing. They're all trying to make money off the federal government. They're billionaires. But Trump, his family, Musk, they're all self-dealing. And people hate that as well.
BURNETT: So you were the person who told Senator Cory Booker last night when I was watching it, he broke the record for the longest speech on the Senate floor. And you cut in at that moment. Let me play it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCHUMER: Would the senator yield for a question?
SEN. CORY BOOKER (D-NJ): Chuck Schumer, it's the only time in my life I can tell you no.
SCHUMER: I just want to tell you a question. Do you know you have just broken the record? Do you know how proud this caucus is of you? Do you know how proud America is of you?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHUMER: That was a great moment, Erin. And he did it, 25 hours and such stamina.
And I know he talked to me about preparing for it. Such preparation, such strength. But, you know, even as important as the length of time, the 25 hours was what he said, it was one of the most severe indictments of the Trump administration, done in a careful, thoughtful and comprehensive way.
Cory Booker spoke far more for America than Donald Trump or Elon Musk has.
BURNETT: So, there are some asking Booker on the heels of this if he's going to run for president in 2028. Obviously, he's had those ambitions. We've seen him run before.
But -- but, you know, he's there's -- there's a lot of admiration, to say the least, out there among Democrats for him. Do you think he has earned a bigger leadership role in your party?
SCHUMER: Well, he's in our league. He's already on my leadership team. We talked to him all the time and he's great. He's one of the most talented people. But let's not forget, we have so many talented people in our caucus.
And the one thing we're all united on, which Cory's speech personified, is showing America, telling America every day, fighting for America and showing them how bad Trump is. And the speech made a major advance in that direction as well.
So, I salute Cory and love him for doing it.
BURNETT: Leader Schumer, thank you so much. I appreciate your time.
SCHUMER: Great to be here, Erin. Thank you.
BURNETT: All right. And next, Putin has a message for Trump. And it has everything to do with who the Russian president sent to Washington today. Russian -- Putin did send someone today. They were there. Important meeting.
Plus, lawyers for the Maryland father who was deported to El Salvador by mistake, are now going after the Trump administration. But do they have any chance of getting him home? His attorney will be OUTFRONT tonight.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:33:01] BURNETT: Tonight, Putin trolling Trump, sending the first senior Russian envoy all the way to Washington since Russia invaded Ukraine. So, it's a big deal. It's not just the first time in these negotiations, first time since the war.
And this envoy is exactly like Trump's envoy. Kirill Dmitriev is a close Putin family confidant. He's not a public figure. He is a financial guy. He runs Russia's state owned investment fund.
Yet it is Dmitriev who is in Washington now to meet Steve Witkoff, who is also not a public figure, happens to be a close Trump ally, financial guy, real estate guy whose son helps the Trump family with its crypto business.
At this hour, the world is still waiting for a readout from the meeting between these two men who have very similar backgrounds.
All of this pointed out by our next guest, Vladimir Kara-Murza, Russian opposition politician in one of Putin's fiercest critics, recently released a major prisoner swap after being sentenced to 25 years in prison for criticizing Russia's war in Ukraine and suffering in solitary confinement there.
Vladimir, it is good to see you tonight.
You say that the choice to send Dmitriev to the U.S. is clearly Putin trying to mirror Trump, right? That this -- Kirill Dmitriev is not a diplomat per se, although he's been involved in Putin's outreach to the Trump family in years, over the past years.
What is Putin doing here?
VLADIMIR KARA-MURZA, RECENTLY FREED FROM RUSSIAN PRISON AFTER CRITICIZING PUTIN: Well, good evening, Erin. It's always wonderful to be on your program.
Well, I think fundamentally Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin have a very similar psyche. They have a very similar worldview. And, you know, there's been a lot of conversations in these past two months of how Donald J. Trump was trying to parrot and mirror what Putin is doing in terms of, you know, essentially behaving himself as a strongman as opposed to as a leader of a constitutional democracy.
Well, in this case, we see something that's the opposite, and it's Putin mirroring or parroting what Trump has done. And it's -- it's -- it's fascinating to see how similar these two envoys are. As you just pointed out in your introduction, neither of them is a public figure. Neither of them. Neither of them is a diplomat.
[19:35:00]
Steve Witkoff was somebody who was a real estate investor, who's done business with the Trump family for, for many years, for many decades.
Kirill Dmitriev is somebody who's very close to Putin's family in a literal sense. He's -- his wife, is the best university friend of Vladimir Putin's daughter. For many years, he has headed this Russian sovereign wealth fund, which is a shadowy government agency that is very nonpublic, even by the not very public standards of Putin's dictatorship in general. Billions and billions of dollars go through that entity.
Just literally a couple of days ago, there was a major investigation published by the Anti-Corruption Foundation, which is, of course, the organization set up by the murdered opposition leader Alexei Navalny. And that investigation showed the extent of the corruption that this guy Kirill Dmitriev was involved in. And he's -- he and his wife have been shown to own more than $80 million worth of luxury real estate, including in France, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates and so on.
And so, I mean, its I think it's very telling, actually, quite frankly, and very illustrative to see how these talks are taking place. You know, there is a war going on in the middle of Europe. People are dying every single day. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed as a result of this aggression, and tens of thousands of people are being kept captive as a result of this aggression.
But judging by the personalities of these two interlocutors, they're not going to talk about people. They're not going to talk about peace. They're not going to talk about, you know, the future of -- of Ukraine.
They're going to talk about money. They're going to talk about profits. They're going to talk about rare earth minerals.
And it is, frankly, shameful. And it is shocking. I don't know what other epithet I could use to describe what is happening here.
BURNETT: And yet, you know, when you what -- Steve Witkoff as you say, right? He's a real estate guy. He's not a diplomat. He doesn't have any background in diplomacy at all, but he's already met with Putin to discuss a ceasefire and something that Witkoff actually discussed afterwards with Tucker Carlson.
I wanted to play what he said for you.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEVE WITKOFF, U.S. SPECIAL ENVOY TO THE MIDDLE EAST: It was enormously gracious for him to accept me. I don't regard Putin as a bad guy. That is a complicated situation, that war and all the ingredients that that led up to it. And it's, you know, it's never just one person, right?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: How does the kremlin view Witkoff?
KARA-MURZA: Well, you know, it's more than a century ago now that the founder of the soviet communist state, Vladimir Lenin, talked about useful bourgeois idiots, meaning those people in the west, people like Lion Feuchtwanger and others who were happy to sort of believe in all the propaganda that was coming out from -- from the Kremlin.
Well, we see, unfortunately, that this sad tradition is carrying on. And, you know, I've watched that interview that Steve Witkoff gave to Tucker Carlson, and I was I was just listening to what he was saying, and I wasn't sure what planet this man has been living on for the past 25 years, because that's how long Vladimir Putin has been in power.
It's not some sort of an enigma. It's not a newcomer. It's not somebody whom we don't know anything about.
This man has been in power for a quarter of a century, and throughout his time in power, he has waged wars. He has attacked other countries, he has murdered his political opponents inside Russia, like Boris Nemtsov, the leader of the opposition, like Alexei Navalny, another leader of the opposition. He's keeping thousands and thousands and thousands of political prisoners. People who disagree with him are being jailed in Russia for no other reason is that they have views that happen to differ from -- from the views of Mr. Putin. And for the past three years, Vladimir Putin has been waging the largest war, the largest land conflict on European soil since the end of the Second World War.
And then we see the envoy of the president of the United States saying that he likes this person, that he's not a bad guy, that it's -- it's never about just one person, you know, often or at least sometimes in history.
It definitely is about one person. It was about Adolf Hitler. It was about Joseph Stalin. Now it is about Vladimir Putin. And I think it's completely unacceptable to see senior officials of the United States administration acting as propagandists for the kremlin and whitewashing all the crimes that Vladimir Putin has committed, both against our own people in Russia, against the people of Ukraine, and against the people of so many other countries around the world.
BURNETT: Vladimir Kara-Murza, thank you so much, as always.
KARA-MURZA: Thank you so much for having me.
BURNETT: And next, the Trump administration says that it was an administrative error, that that's why they sent a Maryland father to Salvadoran prison. That man's attorney is now taking action. The Trump administration has indicated they're not going to bring him back. So what's going to happen?
Plus, Mike Waltz reportedly creating at least 20 signal group chats to discuss sensitive information, 20. And our KFILE is uncovering new information about what people close to Trump and in the administration now once said about this issue.
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KASH PATEL, FBI DIRECTOR: That's a leak of classified information. That is a federal offense punishable by, I think, over a decade in prison.
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[19:44:27]
BURNETT: Tonight, the Maryland man whom the Trump administration admits it deported to El Salvador accidentally, or, you know, it says it was accidental administrative issue, is fighting back. The attorney for Kilmar Abrego Garcia slamming the Trump administration in a new court filing for doing, quote/unquote, nothing at all to fix the mistake.
And they say in part, I quote from it, defendants have already washed their hands of Garcia and his U.S. citizen wife of his autistic, non- verbal, five-year-old U.S. citizen child. This is an outrageous set of facts.
This as Garcia's wife speaks out about her husband's three-week-long detention in a notorious maximum security prison known for housing the, quote, worst of the worst.
[19:45:02]
She shares the moment she saw this photo and realized her husband was in the prison.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When I saw it, I immediately broke down because I knew it was him.
INTERVIEWER: What was your biggest fear when you identified him?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was scared for his life. He's not a criminal. My husband is an amazing person, an amazing father.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Kilmar's lawyer, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, is now OUTFRONT.
And, Simon, I appreciate your time. So, how confident are you at this point that U.S. courts will go in this direction and be able to force the Trump administration to get your client back home?
SIMON SANDOVAL-MOSHENBERG, ATTORNEY FOR FATHER MISTAKENLY DEPORTED TO EL SALVADOR: The Trump administration has already admitted that they deported him recklessly, knowing that he had an order from a judge saying that he could not be deported to El Salvador. The question now is what comes next?
The administration is basically saying, well, we've tried nothing and were all out of options. We don't accept that. The very first thing they have to do is make a good faith request to the government of El Salvador to return Kilmar to our custody. They haven't even so much as picked up the phone to ask yet. So, we figured that that's the first step. At the very least, that the
court can order on Friday afternoon. I actually expect that that's going to be successful. From what I understand, right now, the government of El Salvador pretty much does more or less whatever we ask them to do. We say jump. They say, how high?
So, I think if the government of the United States actually makes a real ask, not a wink and a nod, but a real ask to give him back, I expect that they will.
BURNETT: So, all right, on this issue of whether they would do that is the issue of who he is. So, there's the law and due process issue. And then there's the issue of who they say that he is, right. His wife says he's not a criminal.
You say the reason he came to the U.S. in the first place was because he was afraid of gang violence. But you know what? Vice President Vance has said, and anyone who doesn't, let me just share a couple of the things he said about your client. He said he's a, quote, convicted MS-13 gang member with no legal right to be here.
And then he said, quote, in 2019, an immigration judge under the first Trump administration determined that the deported man was in fact a member of the MS-13 gang. He also apparently had multiple traffic violations for which he failed to appear in court. A real winner.
Obviously, one of those things is at a very different level than the other. But what do you say to the vice president? I mean, they're essentially saying he's a gang member. That's what we're saying, and that's the way it is.
SANDOVAL-MOSHENBERG: The gang allegations arose in 2019 when he was working as a day laborer in front of Home Depot. It was a confident -- it was an anonymous tip from a confidential informant. There was never any hard and fast evidence.
When he was arrested by ICE at a preliminary hearing, the judge sort of took a look at these allegations and said, well, I don't know what's going on here, so I'm not going to allow him to be released pending his court case. But then he went to trial and he won his trial. He won his trial.
And the government decided not to appeal. At that time, the Trump administration decided not to appeal, released him from the detention center and gave him a work permit. And he's been renewing that work permit and working legally in the United States ever since.
BURNETT: So then, you know, so the Trump Justice Department says your client's wife is wrong to fear for his life because they've determined he would not likely be tortured or killed in El Salvador.
Again, not something indicating that they're going to be bringing him home, but that they're saying basically he's -- he's fine there. Don't worry about him. What's your response to that?
SANDOVAL-MOSHENBERG: We have judges who make these determinations as to whether or not someone is going to suffer torture in a particular country, and so therefore should not be deported there under the convention against torture.
BURNETT: Yeah.
SANDOVAL-MOSHENBERG: This is the job of immigration judges. What they were supposed to do, if they thought that he should have been deported to El Salvador, they could have brought him back in front of the immigration judge, asked the judge to lift his order. They could have appealed if they, you know, if they think he's committing crimes, they could have brought criminal charges. Theres all sorts of legal proceedings that they could have done.
What they can't do is just stick them on an airplane and short circuit all of those legal proceedings preventing them from taking place.
BURNETT: So this case, you know, it's gotten some people to think about this maybe differently than they did before. You know, you warn in your filing that you just put out that this is about more than your client, right? You're saying that without any action here, it would show the government can deport whomever they want, wherever they want, whenever they want, and no court can do anything about it once it's done. And that's a really fearsome place to be. And a lot of people agree with that. Maybe people who politically don't stand where -- where -- where perhaps, you know, you may stand on this issue.
Podcaster Joe Rogan, right, he supported President Trump. He's been very open about that. He had this warning recently.
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JOE ROGAN, PODCASTER: You got to get scared that people who are not criminals are getting like lassoed up and deported and sent to like, El Salvador prisons. This is kind of crazy that that could be possible.
[19:50:03]
That's horrific. And that's -- again, that's bad for the cause. Like the cause is let's get the gang members out.
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BURNETT: So, you know, when you hear that, do you think your client's situation, his deportation could make other Trump supporters, maybe even Republican officials, think twice about what Trump is doing on deportations.
SANDOVAL-MOSHENBERG: I certainly hope so. If nothing else, we hope that the rule of law is going to be respected from here on out, and they won't do this kind of indiscriminate round people up and stick them on airplanes without even checking twice.
I've had multiple cases over the decades in which there have been erroneous deportations. It does happen from time to time, but in every previous case, as soon as we brought it to the government's attention that they had done it, they moved mountains to get the person back. What's new, unique and terrifying about this case is that their attitude is, yeah, we made a mistake. Too bad for him.
BURNETT: All right. Well, I really appreciate your time, Simon. Sobering conversation, but important. And thank you.
SANDOVAL-MOSHENBERG: I'm glad to be here.
BURNETT: All right. And next, Attorney General Pam Bondi defending the people who use that group chat to discuss the U.S. military strikes in Yemen. Wait until you hear what she had to say about others when it came to openly discussing classified information. There's a lot here.
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[19:55:56]
BURNETT: Tonight. U.S. national security advisor Mike Waltz setting up at least 20 Signal group chats for crises around the world, coordinating official work on Ukraine, China, Gaza, often discussing sensitive information in those chats.
Now, this is according to "Politico's" reporting tonight, the sheer number of signal group chats going way beyond anything previously known. The White House had just said two days ago, case closed on this. But as our KFILE found the same Trump officials who are now silent in the case closed category had a lot to say about Democrats handling of classified material.
So, Andrew Kaczynski of KFILE joins me now.
So, you know, we mentioned Pam Bondi, now the highest ranking law enforcement official in the United States, she's vigorously defending people in that Signal chat, right? But you have found many instances where shoe on the other foot was a very different reaction.
ANDREW KACZYNSKI, CNN KFILE SENIOR EDITOR: Right. All of these top DOJ and FBI officials in the Trump administration previously argued that mishandling classified information, they didn't just say it was wrong or careless. They said it was criminal. They called for prosecutions. They called for jail sentences.
And now many of those same officials are either defending in Bondi's case or they're totally silent on that Signal chat, where CNN reported that highly classified information was shared at the time.
Now, something to remember. Here is these were some of the loudest voices who were calling for Hillary Clinton, her aides, Joe Biden to be prosecuted for mishandling classified information.
Let's just start with Bondi, and let's roll the tape on how she used to talk about Hillary Clinton.
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PAM BONDI, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: I cannot believe the secretary of state with the highest of security clearance could ever do such a thing, and she has to be held accountable.
We live in a nation of laws, and we have got to look at the Clinton emails.
Let me make myself perfectly clear. This has nothing to do with politics. This has everything to do with the security of our country. When you have the top secret security clearance that Huma Abedin had, you know, when you send those emails that you are violating the law and there is no objective law enforcement officer in this country that would not charge her based on that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right.
BONDI: No one.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: That's extremely definitive, detailed and definitive, shall we say.
Kash Patel also had gone very detailed and clear on this. He called for harsh prison sentences for anybody who leaked classified information, which I guess would be Pete Hegseth in this case, although not saying that now, but what has he said?
KACZYNSKI: So, he was -- again, he's largely silent on this now, but like you said, he has previously called for prison sentences for people who have leaked classified information. He specifically talked about the Russian investigation into interference in the 2016 election. He said that information had been leaked from that. He noted that was a federal crime.
And he previously attacked the decision to not charge Joe Biden. Listened to him here.
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PATEL: That's a leak of classified information. That is a federal offense punishable by, I think, over a decade in prison, off the top of my head. Yeah, it's a pretty serious matter. And they let the guy off the hook, and they just said, it doesn't matter.
So we'll prosecute a guy who has a legal justification to have those documents because we don't care. It's Trump, and we won't prosecute the sitting president because you've made up a new legal standard that applies to exonerate him and to not even charge him.
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KACZYNSKI: But look, now, with the Trump officials under scrutiny, he hasn't said a word. And also, Erin, we found that the deputy director, Dan Bongino of the FBI, that's the person who runs the day-to-day operation. He also previously said that Clinton should be charged. He called it a clear-cut case.
We reached out to the FBI. They declined to comment to us. We reached out to the attorney general's office and they said Bondi's remarks. He basically pointed us to Bondi's remarks defending the Signal chat.
BURNETT: And, of course, we'll see what happens now that there's 20 more chats, at least, that that "Politico" is reporting. What actually -- what actually comes of this, although they are they're making it clear they hope it is a case closed.
All right. Thank you very much, Andrew Kaczynski of KFILE.
And thanks so much to all of you, as always, for being with us. See you tomorrow.
"AC360" starts now.
