China Retaliates ... Again
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It's Friday, April 11th. Here's what's happening right now on CNN This Morning. China retaliates overnight, raising tariffs on the U.S. again. So who's going to blink first, Xi or Trump? Plus... I want to know if he's okay. I just want him back with me and the kids. We're learning that the Trump administration is now ordered to get a mistakenly deported dad out of a mega prison in El Salvador. But how?

Also a surprise trip, the president's foreign envoy just arrived in Russia. What we're learning about this visit and... The helicopter plunges into the Hudson River in New York, killing everyone on board. Was this aircraft safe to fly? It's 6 a.m.

It is 6 a.m. here on the East Coast. Here's a live look at New York City where the NTSB is actually going to be looking into what caused that deadly helicopter crash. Good morning, everybody. I'm Audit Cornish. I want to thank you for joining me this morning. And we're going to turn to the breaking news out of China.

because they are raising retaliatory tariffs against the U.S. imports to 125%. And overnight, China's Xi Jinping addressing the escalating trade war for the first time. According to Chinese state TV, Xi said China is, quote, not ready.

afraid. His comments come as President Trump raises his tariffs on Chinese goods to 145%. We have CNN's Mark Stewart joining us now from Beijing. Mark, we're hearing directly from China's leader here. What's the indication about how far they'll go?

Well, Adi, what's interesting is not the fact that China has retaliated yet again. It's very much part of its foreign policy. It's the fact that China has now said it's going to set a threshold, a ceiling, that it won't raise tariffs any more than what we have seen today, up to 125%.

but also saying that if it needs to fight back further, it has countermeasures that it can use. The other thing which is very interesting is that if we look at some of the statements that we're getting from China's Ministry of Commerce, the office that is responsible for raising the tariffs,

It's almost mocking making fun of the United States for raising the stakes, the numbers, in all of this so high. Let me share with you a statement that came out late today here in Beijing. A spokesperson saying that this is nothing more than a numbers game with no real economic significance, going on to say this is a practice of weaponizing tariffs as a tool of bullying and coercion turning itself into a joke.

So China standing very resolute, saying that it will fight back, but it's not going to get into this numbers game. The other big headline of the day is that we're also hearing from Chinese leader Xi Jinping. He was meeting today with the Spanish prime minister, and that's where we have now heard his first remarks, really, since this tariff war has escalated to such a high level.

You mentioned the headline phrase that China is not afraid. He also went on again to say that there are no tariffs in a trade war and that China will stay focused and concentrate on itself. He also made reference to the fact that China and Europe are both global economies and that they are supporters of free trade, yet another jab at the United States. So Xi Jinping has now spoken. A lot of people have also been bringing up this idea

about a phone call between Xi Jinping and President Trump. In fact, it was over the last 48 hours or so that we heard from the Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, suggesting this happen. But, Adi, this is not something that China will likely do. The Chinese government really prefers on having backdoor diplomatic conversations before raising it to a level where Xi Jinping and Donald Trump would have a conversation.

CNN's Mark Stewart in Beijing, thanks so much. Now we want to turn to immigration politics here because the man who was deported by mistake to a notorious prison in El Salvador while the Supreme Court is telling the Trump administration to bring him home. In a unanimous decision, the justices ruled that the White House must facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego-Garcia, but the court stopped short

of mandating his immediate return. This decision is being taken by both sides as a victory. Garcia's lawyers saying the rule of law prevailed, they need to stop wasting time and get moving. The Trump administration claiming that the ruling quote illustrates that activist judges do not have jurisdiction over foreign policy. And in the meantime, Garcia's wife and family are left wondering when they're gonna see him again. - We're very hurt. My kids ask daily, when is dad coming home?

My husband is not a gang member. He's actually an amazing father, an amazing husband. That's who he truly is. The last time I spoke to him was March 15th when they were about to abort a plane. And since then I haven't heard from him.

So here's where things stand this morning. It's going to be up to a lower court to clarify a previous order mandating Garcia's return. Joining me now to make sense of all of this, Kayla Gardner, White House correspondent for Bloomberg News, Andrew Egger, White House correspondent for The Bulwark, and Haima Moore, former chief of staff for DNC chairman Jamie Harrison. Y'all welcome to the...

the group chat on a Friday morning. Sorry, we're starting with some pretty dark news, but Akayla, I wanna start with you. The White House at first was kind of joking about the way they were shipping people off and fighting the courts.

After this moment, what kind of messaging are we seeing about what the courts are saying about due process and what needs to happen? - We still have yet to see the White House respond about this specific case, but I think what stands out to me is this really follows a major victory that they had on Monday where the court upheld their use of the Alien Enemies Act

and still-- - Or at least didn't get in the way of it. - Yes. - Yeah. - But now we're seeing with this case, as that order said, there is due process for individuals. And I think that's what we're seeing here. And I think we'll continue to see is more people bringing individual cases because in that particular case with the Supreme Court, they said,

grouping these migrants together was not the right way to go about this, criticizing the ACLU. So I think we're going to continue to see more individual cases. But the White House originally said this was an administrative error. And yet at the same time, they've doubled down and said they believe he is a gang member. So I think we're going to continue to see the White House and the Justice Department really pushing back on this idea. You're calling it a clerical error, but I'm under the impression that the head of El Salvador, the president, is coming to the U.S.

as he's been very, like, he lets them run around taking photographs and bringing cameras into the prison, so obviously they have some sway. How is the argument holding up, do you think, as people talk about this online, about why they can't bring him home? - Well, that's what's been so unusual about this case, right, is that you almost have this situation where lawless or extra-legal action breeds lawless or extra-legal action. There's this very unusual setup where President Bekele is essentially functioning as

the White House's jailer for these people. But at the same time, the administration argues that because El Salvador is a sovereign nation, that limits the amount that they can actually be compelled to go and ask to get a guy like this back. And so you get what on its face would be a very straightforward Supreme Court ruling. Yeah, he deserves due process. Yes, you need to give it to him.

and instead starts to implicate some of these national security conversations. And that's where you get into the parsing out between facilitating his return and effectuating his return. And it does give the White House a lot of room to kind of say, well, you know, we're going to do what we can to get him back. But it's this very strange split screen where they have been ordered to try, but it's not at all clear what enforcing them really trying would look like.

- Jaime, you know, one of the things I'm interested in is way back when, during Trump one, when their big deterrence policy was separating migrant families at the border. And Democrats spent a lot of time saying, look at these children, children are in cages. That did not necessarily move the public

against Republicans on immigration policy. The president still enjoys good kind of polling numbers around policy. So how do you talk about this now? - Look, I mean, I think we've talked about this for a long time. I think Democrats, Republicans, - But effectively. - Independents, I think, no, you're right. But I think most people are okay with immigration reform when you talk about it in ways of making the country safer and making processes for people to become legal citizens

a better process. But I think this is, Donald Trump, this has been embarrassing for the country. This is not about him having good immigration policies. This is about the United States government making a mistake. And we've seen a lot of incompetency over the last couple weeks. And this proves that I think Donald Trump, while he does

have a lot of support around getting people out of this country, making it safer. He does not have support to just go in in people's homes and rip them away and take them away and put them in El Salvador. And so I think Democrats-- - Or Louisiana, which we've been talking about with students who are on student visas that have been revoked. I think that number, according to the State Department, is more than 400 visas who have been revoked.

And, you know, when I think about how Marco Rubio has been talking about this, I want you guys to hear, because I think it sounds like a very kind of common sense response. A student visa is like me inviting you into my home. If you come into my home and put all kinds of crap on my couch, I'm going to kick you out of my house. And so, you know, that's what we're doing with our country, thanks to the president.

I don't know who takes this, but that's a laugh line in the room. And I think in the heat of the protests over Gaza, there were a lot of the public that just felt like they were very upset with these students. Now, all this time later, how is it coming across? I don't know what it's like in bulwark land, but how is it coming across to yank student visas, ship them to Louisiana, and throw away the key because of something they said? DAVID LEVIN: And I think that gets at it.

it depends what you mean by these students, right? Because there were a lot of scenes of disorder, chaos, potential law breaking that were taking place during protests last year. - And they were charged. - And that's exactly it. And this is a completely different thing. I mean, we're seeing people who have been, essentially had their legal presence in America vaporized

because of a perfectly kind of polite and cogent op-ed that they wrote in a student paper just arguing that the administration ought to participate in the BDS movement, things like that, things that are a far cry from, I think, that potentially more commonsensical reaction against some of the disorder that we saw last year. But the administration is using kind of the

memory of that, the atmosphere of that to push the door far wider open than I think a lot of people expected. All right, group chat, stick around because we are just getting started. Coming up on CNN this morning, we're going to bring you more news about that deadly helicopter crash in New York City. We have new details about the aircraft, the company behind it.

Plus, back on U.S. soil overnight, a wrongfully detained Russian-American ballerina finally arriving home. And auto tariffs not part of President Trump's 90-day pause. A former Michigan lawmaker joins me to talk about what that means for his state and the industry. If you try and get this car in the next month, it's going to be like an increase of $5,000 to $7,000.

I'm CNN tech reporter Claire Duffy. This week on the podcast, Terms of Service. How did your experience talking to the dad bot compare to the expectations that you went into it with? One dimensional. Grief is one of the most human experiences we have. So what happens when AI gets involved? It wasn't my dad. I knew it wasn't going to be perfect, but I was hoping that it was going to be closer than it ended up being. Five years later,

Follow CNN's Terms of Service wherever you get your podcasts. We're learning more about that helicopter crash into New York's Hudson River. All six people aboard were killed on Thursday afternoon. And I'm going to warn you because the video of this is disturbing. Spectators watched in horror as the chopper dropped from the sky and splashed into the river upside down.

River traffic, we advise you do have an aircraft down Holland Tunnel. Please keep your eyes open for anybody in the water. Please keep your eyes open. You guys see anything in the water, please let us know. All right, we're just circling over Holland now. Killed in the crash, Agustin Escobar, an executive with Siemens based in Spain, along with his entire family and the pilot. Polo Sandoval has the latest from New York. Polo, I want to start with the investigation. I know it's still very early, but what are we learning about the company involved?

Adi, that video that you shared with viewers, it is disturbing, but it is extremely important here as investigators essentially try to piece together this investigation to try to determine exactly what happened. And I say the video is crucial because in it you can see what appears to be the rotor of that aircraft.

also come off and you see that aircraft basically plummeting down towards the Hudson River before it crashes here. Now also important will be the trail or the track of the helicopter. By the way, that is the highlighted rotor that comes splashing down as well. So there's a big question there as to what caused it to detach.

from the aircraft. There were some also other materials that appear to be falling from the sky. But let me get you that track that this helicopter took yesterday, according to investigators, where we heard the NYPD basically say that it was just before 3 p.m. when that helicopter was

was wheels up from a helipad in lower Manhattan. And what it did, as you see there, basically traced a route that's very familiar for sightseeing helicopters. It heads west and circles the Statue of Liberty before it begins that northerly path, essentially tracing the Manhattan skyline. And it wasn't until it reached the George Washington Bridge that it turned back where it came from and then initiated that southerly path. And it wasn't until a few minutes later at about 3.15, 3.16 p.m.,

that 911 calls began to come into the NYPD of that

aircraft crash that took place just off the New Jersey shore. So investigators right now are trying to piece together the evidence. What they can certainly confirm is that it caused the deaths of not just the pilot, but that executive that you mentioned, as well as his wife and their three young children vacationing in New York City, went out for a sightseeing tour, instead ending in tragedy, Adi. So a lot of questions in the investigation here by the NTSB is just getting started.

CNN's Polo Sandoval with those details. Appreciate it. Ahead on CNN this morning, talks between the U.S. and Iran are set for this weekend. And Tehran is laying out red lines that it doesn't want Washington to cross. Plus, is the federal government going too far with their high-tech tracking devices? And good morning to Arlington, Virginia. Here's a live look at Reagan National Airport, where two planes clipped wings on the runway. That is now under investigation.

Is the Trump administration turning to big tech to track down undocumented migrants? A new report from 404 Media shows a government contractor developed a web scraping tool called SocialNet. It searches and maps out an individual's publicly available online data, and it turns out it can get access to your data throughout just about any app out there.

Joining me to discuss is Nabiya Syed, the executive director of the Mozilla Foundation, which has been pushing back on this kind of surveillance for some time. So Nabiya, I want to talk about this. I know people have mentioned contractors like Shadow Dragon. They are data brokers that get things that are publicly available or are the companies cooperating and sharing some of this data?

Good morning. So this is publicly available information, and here's what we know. The government uses these data broker companies to amass data from websites you know, love, and visit for your private enjoyment. So if you're open to work on LinkedIn or you're actively following with your username a subreddit on mental health,

or you're searching something cute on your public Etsy, you wouldn't think that someone is tracking you or really following what you're doing, but the data brokers are doing just that. Take that private information and

Combine it with what we know the government can already collect about us, our social security information, our tax information, all kinds of things that you give for a very particular purpose. And imagine it in a singular profile. That is a very rich snapshot of everything that you do.

and it can be used for anything. Now, your nonprofit is calling on some of these companies, you mentioned Amazon, Etsy, Google, to push back, but what would that even mean, right? There's already just this huge marketplace for data just with advertising. So would they be saying we stop at sharing with who?

Let's say we demand more robust privacy measures here. We don't want this type of sharing. All these businesses depend on trust with their consumers. So we are asking these companies to say, listen, you are fracturing the trust we have with people who want to use us to look for work, who want to browse privately. Don't use it in this way.

And that's why we have 20,000 users who have said, we demand something different, more robust privacy protections, more robust legislation. And that is really the sort of groundswell that Mozilla Foundation has been working on for decades now. - So how are you feeling as you're reading this reporting about the different ways that the government is interested in using

AI or surveillance tools like this to scrape in the areas they're concerned about, meaning people they think might be undocumented or what we've heard most about, students with people on student visas who had been protesting the war in Gaza.

In so many ways, these are the privacy nightmares that advocates have been warning about for 15 years, right? Since the Edward Snowden disclosures. Everything that we said could happen is now actually coming to roost. So we think of this as a moment, really an activation moment for the American public to say,

this is enough, right? We've allowed the expansion and the intrusion into our private data for so long. We now have very tangible examples of harm, and this could just be the beginning. This is a moment really to crystallize that energy and say enough is enough. Nabiha Syed, Executive Director of Mozilla, thanks so much for your time. Thanks for waking up with us. Thank you so much.

Coming up, will the Menendez brothers be released? Today, a judge in California is actually going to make a decision in their bid for freedom. Plus, RFK Jr. calling for radical changes at HHS. What does that mean? What is he preparing to do?

Well, aren't you a big, brave girl? Hacks is back for season four, and so is the official Hacks podcast. I'm Bobby Finger. And I'm Lindsay Weber. We're your hosts this season, and each week on the podcast, we'll break down the latest episode and all the drama behind Debra's new late-night show. Along the way, we'll also be joined by very special guests from the cast and crew. Hacks season four is back Thursday, April 10th on Max. Listen directly on Max or wherever you get your podcasts. Blackmail on day one? Not good!

good morning everybody i'm audie cornish thank you for joining me on cnn this morning it's half past the hour here on the east coast and here's what's happening right now top trump administration official steve whitcoff just arriving in russia the kremlin confirming this visit overnight but they won't confirm whether there is a meeting on the books between whitcoff and the russian president

And the fate of Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil will be decided by an immigration judge in Louisiana today. The Palestinian activist is a legal permanent resident being detained by ICE. The Secretary of State claims Khalil should be deported because of his beliefs, statements or associations and says that those compromise U.S. foreign policy.

This morning, President Trump will undergo the first annual physical exam of his second term. In January, he became the oldest president in U.S. history to be sworn into office at the age of 78. Trump has routinely kept the results of his exam in secret.

So we've been following breaking news out of Asia, China's latest escalation in the mounting trade war. They're raising tariffs on U.S. imports to 125 percent. Yesterday, the White House said that Chinese goods coming to the U.S. could face a 145 percent tariff. All of this is roiling markets. It's raising concern about a potential recession here in the U.S.

This is the worst self-inflicted wound that I have ever seen an administration impose on a well-functioning economy. The tariffs that have been imposed on China are what I would call prohibitive. They're going to result in massive impacts on the United States and the global economy.

Joining me now to discuss former Michigan Congressman Fred Upton. Welcome to CNN this morning. Thanks for being here. So I really wanted to talk to you because obviously being from Michigan, you care about Detroit, the auto industry. I was learning from you that soybean farmers and soybean crops are in Michigan as well. And the thing that really strikes me about this moment is like where Congress is, right? Janet Yellen is saying this is all self-inflicted on U.S. policy. Well, it is. It's a tax on Americans' consumers, let's face it. And

We import three times as much from China as they import from us. So as you have this tit for tat, as they raise their tariffs tomorrow to 125% and with a new number at 140% now in terms of what our new tariff limits are, I

expect that they'll probably, China will probably raise their tariffs again. So if you're a farmer and you're debating whether you're going to grow soybeans or corn or whatever, I guess all of a sudden that market collapses because China's going to purchase that from someplace else.

What are you going to do this spring? You know, it's planting season. It is. And we've talked about farmers having a lot of debt. We've talked about kind of how they're... Hot ash in terms of coming from Canada. But for autos, you know, Michigan's the auto state. One in seven jobs in America are auto related. So my old district, Southwest Michigan, we had a lot of auto parts. We didn't have any auto assembly. But, you know, I can remember going to the auto show with President Biden back in 2022, saying,

And there were just thousands of Ford trucks that were just sitting waiting to go to the showroom because they didn't have the chip.

the microchip in there for all the different functions, which is why we needed the chip bill there. - Let me jump in here for a second, because as you mentioned the auto industry, you had Sean Fain, head of the UAW, speaking to the union. And the reason why is because he does support some tariffs and you do hear some union activists talking about supporting protectionist policies on car manufacturers.

But there is a reason for tariffs. And it's also a mistake to just defend the status quo, especially when it comes to free trade. We support some use of tariffs on auto manufacturing and other similar industries. We don't support the use of tariffs for political games about immigration or fentanyl. We do not support reckless, chaotic tariffs on all countries at crazy rates.

So I have heard every description of these as reckless, as we heard self-inflicted, but there is also a strain of the American public that says we were really screwed over by free trade agreements. This is a chance to shock the system into something different. And why shouldn't we give that a chance? Well, the question is, the whole issue is, what is the timing of it? Do you threaten? Say, look,

Yes, we want to sell cars to Japan. We want to sell cars to South Korea. We want to sell more cars in China. But you might want to put that on the table first before you have this huge tariff that all of a sudden is going to hit American consumers to the tune of, as I saw earlier, $4,000, $6,000, maybe even $8,000 a vehicle.

we want jobs created here in this country but it takes a long time to get an auto plant to get done whether it's you know there's thousands of parts in these things i mean you get the whole supply chain issue is is huge parts go back and forth we did and i was a proud supporter of usmca a great

plus for the Trump administration in the first half to two. But it needed to be redone. It was done. It had support of the UAW as well as the big three. It was bipartisan majorities in both the Republican and Democratic side. And we worked through it. But

You negotiate first with maybe the threat of a tariff coming at the end if you don't get the deal that you think you might be able to achieve. You were in Congress for a very long time. Some say not long enough. Some say not long enough. I'm glad I'm not there now. Well, to my point, you've had to do the work of going out and messaging on Trump policies.

in a moment when there's backlash. So when you listen to your former colleagues, what do you hear? Do you hear people who are going along to getting along and trying to make this work? Do you hear people who actually believe in this tactic? Well, you know, I think it seems to be, at least on the Republican side, a little bit of a wait and see.

They want to see how this is going to work. They hope that it's going to work okay. They know that they've got terrible disruption, not only in the ag community, but also in the auto industry and manufacturing. Of course we want more manufacturing jobs. But on this topic, is the sort of MAGA support that those people who make the phone calls to congressional offices, those people who threaten lawmakers with being primaried, are they also...

enjoying this moment. I think they're pretty nervous. And we saw that with the vote on the budget just yesterday. But the real tough vote is going to come a little bit later on as they try to piece together a reconciliation package that perhaps has cuts to Medicaid as much as $880 billion.

So there's a lot of rough waters ahead. And so far, Speaker Johnson has been able to corral his groups. Yeah, but I hear you listening for the canaries in the coal mine, the people who are upset about the math. And we're going to start calling out the math. Yeah, the big votes are going to be coming up in the next probably May or June in terms of trying to put together this budget package called reconciliation.

We'd like to think that the tariffs that are there are ultimately, you know, the 90-day pause that was announced earlier this week was a great thing for the market, but all of a sudden things tanked again yesterday, and I think the futures are down again already for today. So people are speaking with their money.

they're worried about their 401 case yeah yeah fred upton thank you so much for some of this insight we want to bring you now back to this developing story we actually have more detail about that charter company operating the helicopter that crashed into the hudson river on thursday

Again, I want to give you a moment, a warning, because this video is disturbing. So the helicopter is on a sightseeing excursion when it goes down. Everyone on board was killed. And at this point this morning, the NTSB is investigating this crash and the company compliance with two recent FAA directives that required testing and replacement of tail rotors and the main rotor blades.

Bringing in former NTSB Managing Director and CNN Aviation Analyst Peter Goels. Peter, can you just start with this idea of the mechanics at play? Because obviously we look for human error, you look for the mechanics. What do we mean when we talk about these airworthiness directives?

Well, every company that operates commercial aircraft is regulated by the FAA, and they have to respond to these periodic directives from the FAA, which is based on their monitoring of the industry.

The first thing the NTSB does when an accident occurs is they contact the company to freeze all maintenance records, to freeze all pilot records, so that they can see whether the company has adequately and documentally

adequately responded and documented to these documented that they've completed the work ordered by the FAA. This was clearly a catastrophic failure and and

very unusual where you've got the videotape tragic showing the aircraft going down without its tail rotor and having lost its main rotors uh there are airworthiness directives that told the company to check certain parts of its rotor engine uh assembly and uh

the FAA and the NTSB will want to see that those work, that that work has been completed.

They'll also look for more videotape to see if there are any other perspectives. But this is a there are upwards of 30 to 50,000 of these types of tourist flights each year. It's a big business in New York and it needs to be regulated safely.

You talked about looking for more video. What are the other angles going to show you? Is it about where these engine parts are falling? What is it people will be looking for? Well, you're exactly right, Artie. The NTS, the most important part of a wreckage field is what came off first on the aircraft.

That gives you a hint of what started this succession of events that ended up in the fatal crash. So they may be able to see some parts coming off the aircraft, where they landed, and search for them. Underwater searches are difficult, but the NTSB has conducted research.

many of them and they will want to get down and see each and every part that came off the aircraft. It will also show whether there was anything in the vicinity of the helicopter. Could it have possibly been a mid-air collision of some sort with something? But the videotape in this case is very dramatic and very important to the investigation.

Peter Goels, CNN aviation analyst, thank you for explaining that. Appreciate you this morning. All right, we're going to turn to the radical changes coming to the Department of Health and Human Services. In an op-ed published in the New York Post, Secretary RFK Jr. says he's trying to streamline HHS. He plans to close multiple field offices and merge others. What this reorganization is meant to do is to eliminate the redundancies, to streamline the agency.

and to reorient it so that we are trying to make America healthy. The group chat is back. Akilah, what have you been hearing about what is actually happening there?

Well, one thing that really struck me about this op-ed is it comes after there's been concerns about the communications response from HHS and directly from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And so now we're seeing him write in his own words his vision for the department. And we're seeing them have these plans to cut about 20,000 workers at the agency. Democrats are really pushing to meet with him and learn more about those jobs, what exactly parts of the agency is going to be affected. And there's real concerns that there's going to be critical jobs that are lost.

And yet he's saying- - And they wouldn't be concerned if they didn't do an op-ed, right? Like that's the panic when you get the guy himself to actually write about this. And it's coming off the heels of him attending a funeral, a child's funeral, right? Somebody who had unvaccinated, who got the measles. So it's more than just showing like this reorg is going well. I mean, am I misreading that?

- No, I think you're right. I mean, I feel like we're in the upside down world in some accord. Look, I think what struck me about this op-ed is he talked a lot about cutting jobs, not enough about what he's actually gonna do to make America healthy again. And so I think most Democrats, Republicans, Independents think America should be healthier. And they agree with most of the things he's saying, but he's not laying out a vision or a plan to do that. He's cutting critical jobs at the CDC. Senator Warnock has talked about this and Ossoff talked about this in Georgia. Those are critical, not just for our health and public health,

for the workforce in Georgia. And so these cuts are going to be catastrophic in some ways for the country. I know he didn't publish his op-ed in the Bulwark for a reason, okay? So it's not your audience. However, what does it mean that he aimed it at the audience that he did? What does that say to you about how things are going? Well, one thing it says is that, you know, the way that these different factions play out on issues like, you know, cutting jobs in the federal government, issues like, you know, how people feel about that,

about vaccines, they cut across political lines in sort of a strange way. The one thing I wanted to add on what you were saying is 80% of that op-ed is him walking through in kind of granular detail everything they're planning to do with different job reorganizations within the agency. And then there's basically a tiny little footnote at the bottom, which is, oh, and we're also going to reorient what we're actually trying to do, like the actual goals. But I mean, I think a lot of people want to hear a lot more about that, because when you hear RFK gesture toward these things, I mean, the

there are some relatively alarming things that he wants to do. I mean, like he talks about, you know, we're going to get to the bottom once and for all of what's causing autism in America. Well, we know what he thinks. Not a minor footnote. Right, right. Like, yeah, and so that's, I mean, it's strange to see. I mean, it's in keeping with

the doge sabbats in keeping with all the stuff that's going on in the government to try to shrink the workforce. But I think there's a real significant other shoe to drop as far as the actual policy rollouts that they're going to be doing in the next couple months. To what end? Andrew, thank you. Ahead on CNN this morning, immigration officers may be stopping more than migrants and contraband from entering the country. Why they're also focusing on illegal ideas and what that even means.

Plus, live from London, it's Saturday night. New version of SNL about to cross the pond. More from the group chat after this. We've also found cooperation in other countries that are willing to take some of these people, some very dangerous criminals. I know the president, El Salvador, will be here next week. Has really been a good friend of the United States in that regard.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio praising El Salvador for imprisoning hundreds of deported migrants in that country's super prison. But now one of those men may be returning to the U.S. Last night, the Supreme Court ruled the Trump administration must, quote, facilitate deportation

the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. He was mistakenly deported to El Salvador. White House officials have claimed that the ruling is actually a vindication for them. Advisor Stephen Miller says the Supreme Court rejected a lower court ruling, adding Abrego Garcia is now, quote, in the custody and control of a sovereign nation. Joining me now to talk about this case and a bunch of legal things this week, Elliott Williams, CNN legal analyst and former federal prosecutor. And we should say you worked for ICE at one point, which is another reason that you're here.

So the Trump administration claiming victory, but then also very specifically saying, and this person is now being held by a sovereign nation. I think the implication is there. We can't control them. The Supreme Court sort of gave something to everybody. Yes, it's a victory for the Trump administration because he's out of the country. And in effect, the court did not require them to get him back here. It's still a victory. They just said work on it. Just work on it.

work on it, which is kind of a victory for him too, because there's still a chance, I guess. But the court does this, it kicks decisions back down to lower courts to just sort of sort out, keep their hands clean. - Okay, we're gonna watch that, especially because as they mentioned, El Salvador's president is coming, so I think this story is not going away.

I want to ask you about something else, because there have been a ton of students around the country who have had their student visas revoked because of the things they may have said during the Gaza protests. They haven't been formally charged. But in the context of this, people are paying attention to what ICE is doing. And then out of nowhere, this ad gets posted by ICE. I want you to take a look.

And it talks about what ICE's job is to stop illegal, as we see, people, money, products. What's that last one, Elliot? - Ideas. - Okay, they quickly deleted this post, probably 'cause it sounded like a bad idea. They said that it actually meant intellectual property. - Yeah, uh-huh. - Okay, continue with the eyebrows. - It's very Olivia Rodrigo, bad idea, right? - Okay, okay. - Literally bad idea about ideas.

Two things can be true at once, and two things ought to be true at once. One, ICE has broad authority to decide who gets to stay in the country, and they have broad authority. And we have robust speech protections in the United States. And when we as a nation start targeting lawful exercise of thought or speech, it starts getting very dangerous. Now, ICE is saying, with the aid of the Secretary of State,

Marco Rubio, that look, bad ideas are dangerous to the United States and we need to crack down on getting them out of here. Yeah, and they would argue, look, it was a mistake. I think the thing I noticed is that because of what they're doing, because of their actual actions in other areas, people immediately looked at this. Okay, maybe it's a mistake. It's a

pretty stupid mistake for the government to make to talk about putting the sanctioning or tracking down on ideas. Look, there are robust communications offices at the White House, Department of Homeland Security, wherever else someone needed to vet that and realize. Well, someone thought it was a good idea at one point, so that's the other thing. But even under the most aggressive of circumstances, you just can't put that on

All right. This one is just hard to explain, but we're going to try. We're learning that the Trump administration is moving to ideas, to an idea where they would basically take the migrants who they've revoked their visas or taken away their status. They would move them to a list under Social Security. It's like the dead name list, basically. And when that happens.

their legally issued social security numbers go away. Yes. What happens to you when that happens? I think you have a really hard time working. Working, banking. Working, banking, but also coming forward and making yourself known to the government. But this is what confuses people because they're like, oh, if they had a social security number, then they're like... But a lot of people have...

A lot of people work in the country, even if they're unlawful. Right, and they have tax numbers. And they have tax numbers. And once again, you have a tension here where the government, sure, wants to crack down on illegal immigration, but also wants people to pay taxes and go to the hospital and engage in society. And this is their way of doing it. Now, from my time at ICE, I know that getting even the 400,000 people a year that we were removing from the country at the time is very...

exceptionally hard. And what they're doing here is by any means necessary, quite literally getting people to leave the country on their own. They're creating the conditions to make them so bad that folks want to go. And the social security things- - Self-deport. - Self-deport. - Deterrence and self-deport. - Because they don't have the resources or people to be able to get a hundred million, you know, hundreds of thousands or a million people kicked out of the country. So they're just trying to get them to go on their own.

People are still watching this. There are so many different hearings around the country for all of these different migrants. CNN legal analyst Elliot Williams. Okay, if you are getting ready, it's almost 7 o'clock, 3 minutes to the hour. Here's your morning roundup. Some of the stories I want you to know to get going. Tomorrow, the U.S. and Iran are going to hold high-level talks in Oman. And new overnight, Iran laid out its red lines for those talks.

There are strict terms including no threatening language or excessive demands about its nuclear program. President Trump has warned that if these talks fail, Iran would be in quote, great danger. And in California, the Menendez brothers bid for freedom now in the hands of a judge. A resentencing hearing is scheduled for this afternoon. The LA County District Attorney opposes this push and claims that the brothers haven't taken responsibility for the murder of their parents. California's governor is also considering clemency.

and a russian american ballerina wrongfully detained in russia now back on u.s soil jenya karina arrived in d.c just after 11 p.m reunited with her fiance on the runway there the 33 year old was sentenced last year for donating 50 to a charity that supported ukraine

And Saturday Night Live: Crossing the Pond, NBC's iconic late-night comedy show, launching a British edition. Saturday Night Live UK, which will debut in 2026. SNL mastermind Lorne Michaels will serve as executive producer.

Okay, guys, I want to talk now with the group chat about what you are keeping an eye on in the days ahead. Elliot and I mentioned that El Salvador's leader coming to the U.S., that's the thing I'm watching. Jaime, for you? I'm watching. So Ben Wickler, the state party chair of the Democratic Party in Wisconsin, just stepped down, or will be stepping down this summer, and the new party chair will take place. So I'm watching. We really care about Wisconsin. Democrats are on it. We will keep caring about Wisconsin. It's going to be a really big election, and Ben Wickler's been fantastic.

Okay, what do you keep an eye on? Watching the bond market. Stocks freaking out all over the place. Usually you'd see investors... Which sounds nerdy, but I have learned to explain to say to people that this matters. Usually you would see investors kind of piling into bonds as a safer haven. That has been looking a little concerning the last few days, raising some questions as to whether investors are thinking, you know, oh my gosh, the whole thing might have some problems, so hopefully they can restable it. Okay, last word to you.

I'm looking at the gold card. The White House says they're rolling this out next week. We saw the president holding a copy of it on Air Force One. But this is $5 million. We have to see if there's actual interest in people paying for this and whether investors are actually going to line up as the president says that they will. Okay. Well, I want the group chat to, I want to thank you for being here. I appreciate it on a Friday. Thank you for waking up with us. I'm Adi Cornish and CNN News Central starts right now.

This week on The Assignment with me, Adi Kornish. People often say these models suffer hallucinations. They make stuff up. Well, actually, they're designed to make things up, right? We want them to tell us something that we don't know. The CEO of Microsoft AI, Mustafa Suleiman, on the next era of the tech industry and about what it means to hold on to your values when the industry is moving faster than the rules meant to govern it.

Listen to The Assignment with me, Audie Cornish, streaming now on your favorite podcast app.