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It is Tuesday, April 22nd. Here's what's happening right now on CNN This Morning. We hope that the next person will follow his lead and be open. Cardinals are meeting in Rome right now, talking about the funeral of Pope Francis, their next big decision, who will be the new pontiff. Plus, another group chat crisis for the Secretary of Defense. So far, his loyalty to the president seems to be paying off.
And also Harvard hits back, taking its fight with the Trump administration to the courts. And later... We stopped and then all the shades came up, everything turned orange. Smoke and flames pour from a plane on the tarmac, chaos inside the jet as passengers rush to evacuate.
It's 6 a.m. here on the East Coast. Here is a live look at St. Peter's Square in Vatican City as mourners gather the day after Pope Francis' death. Good morning, everybody. I'm Adi Cornish. I want to thank you for waking up with me and joining us. This morning, we're going to talk more about the pontiff because the Catholic cardinals from around the world are gathering in the Vatican, and they're going to be planning the next steps following the death of Pope Francis.
So the Vatican just announced that his body will be moved to St. Peter's Basilica starting Wednesday morning at 3 a.m. Eastern Time. There, Pope Francis will lie in state for a public viewing until his funeral, which is now set for Saturday morning.
And Catholics will continue nine days of mourning across the world. Pope Francis was the first pontiff from Latin America and the first Jesuit elected as well. He was also the first pope to take the name Francis and presented himself as a modernizing force in the church, demanding it become more welcoming to all.
It's like the world was sitting next to him on the front porch, listening to your grandpa, sharing wisdom, because he's been through it all. And he's aware of God's design and God's will and wants to share that wisdom with us. That's what he was. And I think that's going to be essential. We've got to keep that in the man who occupies the chair of Peter next.
- Joining me now to discuss is Susan Timoney, Associate Dean at the Catholic University of America. Susan, thanks so much for being here this morning. - Thank you for having me, Audie. - This is obviously a time of mourning for Catholics, but also around the world, and I wanna give you some time to talk about the pontiff in a moment. First, just for context, these cardinals are flying in for the funeral. These will also be, a number of them anyway, making up the decision makers for what's called the conclave in a few weeks.
Tell me about this mix of people. It is one of the most diverse that we've had in the history of the church. They come from seven different continents, 94 different countries, some places within those countries that we wouldn't necessarily think about. For example, Stockholm, Sweden, from Mongolia. It's the largest group of cardinal electors that we've seen in history. And is that because of the pontiff that Pope Francis actually expanded the number of people in that college who
who the ones under the age of 80 anyway will make up the kind of voting group. - Correct, he had a lot of opportunity to elect because there was a generational shift in the age of the cardinals and so it opened up the opportunity for him to be able to appoint new men. - Not just new, two thirds I was reading. - Yes, exactly. - People talk about him being a modernizing force and one of the things he did was expand the role of women in the church. I wanna play this thought from Juan Carlos Cruz.
Pope Francis was so transparent that people saw really who he was. He had no filter. He just said things. He was courageous. The role of women in the church, he wanted to enhance it. He named what they call prefix ministers that are women. A governor of the Vatican, that's a woman.
I want to bring this up because it's an example of an area where he, as we said, modernized against maybe some of the feeling in more conservative parts of the church. Can you talk about that legacy and do you think it'll extend past him? Yeah, you know, I think
what he was able to do, which was really effective, was call attention to the women who were in senior level positions. So there's lots of women who serve right in leadership capacities, but it's not necessarily the forward public facing ones. And so he certainly made an effort to say, no, we have women in key leadership positions who are really doing significant work.
And I think that was good for the church, certainly good for this sense of the collaboration of clergy with both lay men and women. And I think that will continue. You know, there are so many aspects of the way he operated. And people think because of the way maybe he helped remake that College of Cardinals,
that the next pope will be quote-unquote "like him." But how is that actually complicated by the fact that we don't know that much about this group because they're new and the rising kind of conservative movement within the church over the last few years that in some ways was in opposition to Francis?
You know, I think the bridge is thinking about mission. One of the reasons that the Pope was elected, because he had this sense that the church needed to think about its mission in terms of being able to walk with people, being able to be where people were suffering. And so I think what we'll see among these College of Cardinals is much more a mission focus,
That becomes primary. And some of the questions related to the way in which liturgy is celebrated, related in the way in which they choose leaders within their own diocese, within the local church, may vary as it typically does. But I feel that what he's really, what was most important to him in
in choosing some of these cardinals is did they have a clear sense of the mission of the church moving into, well into the 21st century. - And as you were pointing out to me during the break, even in the past, his own name wasn't on the list of potential, even though he had come in second. So it's very complicated trying to read the tea leaves on this. - You know, I think what's so important are the meetings leading up to the actual conclave because that's where the cardinals come together. They talk about what are our priorities? What do we really need to be doing as a church?
And previous to Francis's election, he and the Argentinian bishops had written this document that really became the hallmark of his own papacy. So clearly, it was the vision cast in that document that made people-- - Helped influence. - Exactly. And I think that same kind of thing is likely to happen in the meetings over the next couple of weeks. - Okay, Susan, we're gonna keep an eye out for that. Thank you for that insight. That's helpful. Susan is Associate Dean at the Catholic University of America.
Now coming up on CNN this morning, more fallout about those signal chats. Sources say the defense secretary shared military plans again. Could he lose his job over this? Plus opening statements today in the retrial of Karen Reid. Can the court avoid another hung jury? And $3,000 blank checks and DHS access badge. A thief swipes the purse of the secretary of Homeland Security.
What could be more embarrassing than our head of Homeland Security getting robbed? It's unbelievable. And the funniest part is none of this would have ever happened if she hadn't shot her guard dog.
If sharing details about a planned military strike in Yemen to one group chat wasn't bad enough, sources tell CNN there was a second signal chat where Defense Secretary Pete Hague says shared military plans. And that chat included his wife, lawyer, and brother. Still, President Trump appears to be standing by his pick to lead the Pentagon, at least for now. There's no dysfunction. Ask the hooties how much there's function there. There's none. Pete's doing a great job. Everybody's happy with him.
Now our own CNN Stephen Collinson writes that it's no surprise that the president is continuing to backheg Seth. He says because he says firing him after only three months on the job would force an embarrassed Trump to admit he'd made a mistake.
It's what you get when you don't really care about qualifications for jobs like that, when you're not picking people who are experienced, when your major qualification is personal fealty to Donald Trump. That's what he's got in Hagseth. That's why he's sticking with them. But it's not what you need to do the job.
Okay, here to kick off the only other group chat that matters here is staff writer at The Atlantic, Jerusalem Dempsis, Democratic strategist Chuck Rocha, and CNN political commentator and Republican strategist and pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson. Okay, so no love lost between Trump and John Bolton. So that's not a quote that surprises me. But what Collinson said about somehow being
worried about firing Hegseth is surprising because in the first term it was all about firing things. It was like, "Oh, it's the guy from The Apprentice. He was firing people left and right." Are there different stakes this time, Kristen? I think this has been an administration that the second go-round has approached things very differently, in part because of lessons learned from the first term. Think about somebody like John Bolton. Comes in, serves under the president, it ends badly, they part ways,
Books are written, accusations are thrown, and I think that is now a well-worn playbook for the Trump administration. So when you look at what's happening with Hagsath and you look at the other folks in the admin or the staffers underneath him who have left and are now making these allegations, Trump says, look, this happens to me a lot.
that we have people who leave, they say things that I say are fake news. And so this is sort of well-trod territory. I think in terms of Trump actually taking action, it will only be if he perceives that it is hurting his political standing. And right now, I don't know that the second group chat revelation is
as damaging or I mean I just think any damage you would have already seen would have come from the first revelation you see a drip dripping this went on from felt how cowboy hat season to straw cowboy hat season and we're still talking about it that sounds funny but how long will we continue to talk about it as we move into the summer will there be something else I don't think one thing politically damages anybody but a number of things where folks every time they turn on their TV in the morning it's a little something else and now it's his wife and I think
That's where they build on each other. Jerusalem. Yeah, I mean, I think from the political stakes, I agree with a lot of what's being said. But I think from policy perspective, it's really dangerous to have a situation where the president of the United States or people in the administration are not interested in hearing the feedback loop that someone's not working out. This is the head of the Defense Department.
But in fairness, they hear that all the time, that it's not working out, right? Yes, but I mean, you have to be able to evaluate. Democrats are like, that's not working, that's not working. Sure, but you have to be able to evaluate the difference between your opponents disagreeing with you and someone literally sharing national security secrets, not one, but two unsecure group chats, some of which are not even people who are in the administration at all. Am I the only one who has, when we heard this, was like, is his whole family working at the Department of Defense? Like, that was a thing that struck me. Right, because his brother was working.
And the lawyer, his personal lawyer, everybody. If that was Democrats and we was hiring our brother-in-law and our literal brother, I think there would be more folks talking about that, but we mentioned it. The other thing that's curious is I think multiple aides actually were commenting on, exited the Pentagon. They were actually people who had worked with Hegseth at his previous nonprofit, which people said he wasn't able to run properly. And now they are out there talking about how they were wrongly fired. And I think...
I feel like that's not helpful in this moment, right? Because he's not getting criticism from longtime Democrats or longtime Pentagon people. It's like his own buddies, basically. Well, and again, about the idea that this is a common Trump administration playbook. I mean, this was Donald Trump had many people that he brought into his first administration and very quickly that didn't work out. And it seems to be that that is what is happening at least within the Department of Defense, if not
the overall Trump administration. And I think that is part of why Trump in some way probably sympathizes with Hankseth a little bit. But at some point, does it move from it's a joke to he's a joke? And I'm not saying that's what's happening, but it starts out, Operation Overture, and then next thing you know, it's like... I also think one of the allegations that was put out there was that the Department of Defense is in, quote, meltdown. And I think the average voter...
needs to see what does total like meltdown at the Department of Defense sounds bad but right now I think there's still not enough detail around like what does that mean signal chat thing not great but does that constitute a meltdown at the Department of Defense yeah although arguably I don't want to see meltdown at the Department of Defense I would like that to stay in firm ground but yeah I think it signals incompetence to voters that you're making these kinds of mistakes it's not just policy disagreements or oh the people who are liberal are disagreeing with you it's can you even
execute on your own priorities, which is why you see Trump saying, oh, well, things are fine. Look at our Houthi operation. But then the problem becomes what happens when it's distracting from the other administration's message on Medicaid cuts on immigration and things like that. Quickly, Jerusalem, when you talk to folks, people may not understand what USAID did, but folks understand Department of Defense, and they think it's pretty serious.
So I think voters get that piece. Okay, you guys stay with me because we've got a lot more to talk about. Straight ahead on CNN this morning, people had to use the emergency slides to evacuate a plane that was on fire, actually on the tarmac. Plus, Catholic cardinals from around the world are gathering right now in the Vatican as they plan a massive funeral for Pope Francis and begin to think about his successor.
Okay, it's almost 25 minutes past the hour, so if you're getting ready, here's your morning roundup, some of the stories you need to know to get your day going. So Harvard is suing the Trump administration over its threat to cut billions from the school's federal funding. Earlier this month, the White House sent a letter demanding a say in the private university's teaching curriculum, admissions, and hiring. Harvard's suit alleges those demands violate the First Amendment.
and a Delta jet caught fire Monday afternoon. Just as it was preparing for takeoff, you can actually see flames shooting from the engine while the plane was still on the ground in Orlando. Passengers say the evacuation was chaos. People ran right towards the door that's over that wing and we're getting ready to open it and she stopped them and said, "No, no, I cannot open this door over the wing."
So here's what happened. All the passengers got out. Some had to use these emergency slides. And the FAA is now investigating what happened.
And Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had her bag stolen while she was eating at a restaurant in DC. A source telling CNN that the thief got away with her passport, driver's license, her DHS access card, apartment keys and $3,000 in cash. The Secret Service is now looking into it. And we want you to see this. Roads in New Orleans looking more like rivers.
Basically, this is drone footage that is showing this extensive flooding in Louisiana. There are cars submerged and homes are now dealing with the rising waters. Up next on CNN this morning, Tesla prepares to release its earnings report.
With its stock price slumping and major competition from China, can Elon Musk convince investors he's on the right track? Plus, it's a baby bonus what the federal government might pay you to have a kid. And live view of Vatican City as the Cardinals meet to discuss funeral plans for Pope Francis. CNN is on the ground there. You'll hear more next.
The Last of Us, the HBO original series based on the critically acclaimed video game, is coming back. I'm Troy Baker. I played the character Joel in the video game. And I'm also the host of HBO's official The Last of Us podcast. Each week, I'll be joined by showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann, where
where we'll unpack every new episode right after it airs, bringing you deeper into the show. You can stream The Last of Us Season 2 starting April 13th on Max. New episodes of the podcast launch that night, so make sure to subscribe so you don't miss a thing. I cried. I cried a lot. The best Bob of the era. He was really open to everybody.
Catholics around the world begin nine days of mourning to remember Pope Francis. Good morning, everybody. I'm Adi Cornish. I want to thank you for joining me on CNN this morning. It's half past the hour, and here's what's happening right now.
Stocks are on pace to open higher this morning after a rough day on Wall Street Monday. Futures are in the green right now. The uncertainty somewhat driven by President Trump's jabs at Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. In just hours, the FDA will unveil its plan to remove artificial dyes from the food supply. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is expected to target eight petroleum-based dyes. Studies have shown some of them are connected to cancer and other issues in animals.
This morning, the Vatican announced that the funeral for Pope Francis will be Saturday morning at 4 a.m. Eastern Time. President Trump and the First Lady are among those expected to attend. Right now, cardinals are at the Vatican discussing their next steps as they will, after that funeral, elect his successor.
But for so many, it is difficult to think about someone taking his place, frankly because of the impact that Pope Francis has had. In his native Argentina, people gathered for mass to honor his life and service. Outside the cathedral, flowers, candles, thank you letters were lining the steps. Another image of the late pontiff drawn in chalk on the sidewalk. And a photo of Pope Francis lights up a historic landmark in Buenos Aires.
It's going to hurt the soul of the people that the Pope has died, honestly. It hurts me like crazy. We hope that the next person will follow his lead and be open to people that maybe are not really appreciated from the Catholic Church. But he was really open to everybody. He always had a good word for every person.
CNN's Ben Wiedemann is in Rome, where mourners have been gathering. Ben, just help us understand first what it's like in the square this morning and what the funeral plans are so far.
It's a warm and sunny morning here in Rome. We're just outside the Vatican City with St. Peter's Square behind me. And what we're seeing is a steady stream of people coming in to pay their respects. We spoke to some of them. You know, they're not even all Christians. Some
One Muslim man we spoke to from New York told us that he respected Pope Francis, respected Pope Francis's repeated and constant calls for peace and justice around the world. We spoke to a group of young French pilgrims who told us that they had come to Rome hoping to see Pope Francis.
and they were in the bus on their way here when they heard the news that he had passed away yesterday morning. One of them told us many of them had broken out in tears when they heard that news. Others, for instance, a couple from Florence, north of Rome, telling us that they'd come here just for a family visit. Of course, this is holiday season in Italy, and they had come here this morning to pay their respects
to Pope Francis. So the mood is somber, but nonetheless many people not so much focusing on the passing of Pope Francis, but his legacy of humility and compassion in a world at a time when those two qualities seem to be in increasingly short supply. Hadi?
That's Ben Wiedemann in Rome. I want to talk also today because it's Earth Day and the theme is essentially our power, our planet. Now, when it comes to protecting the Earth, the U.S. seems to be going in reverse in a way. And the group chat is going to talk about that.
So for those of us who kind of grew up drawing pictures of the earth and trees for Earth Day, we have in our mind what this is about. But since then, politically, there's been a lot of changes. And we know, obviously, Trump pulled out of the Paris Agreement way back when and continues, and Doge is going after weather and climate programs. But Chuck, you're actually at the National Wildlife Federation as well. So you...
It sounds like nonprofits are starting to feel the effects of the new administration. I'm on their C4 board, and what we do is we fight to make sure that animals don't become extinct, and that we protect public lands and public spaces for hunting and fishing and outdoors, which you would think, as all Americans, something's pretty easy. But we hear this morning that lots of larger nonprofits working in the environmental space are going to be a target of this administration because they've- In what way? Like grants that they won't get?
or is there something more specific? One is grants, and the other one is they all are nonprofits, so they don't have to pay taxes because they're doing good deeds. So people can give them tax-exempt donations. We accept donations. Lots of nonprofits accept donations. And he's trying to say these folks do too many political things, and if you talk about the environment with this administration, they think you're being political, and most folks just think it's common sense. No, a lot of people think it's political or identify with sort of liberal-leaning ideas. I don't know if clean water and clean air became political, but I'm just saying. That's totally fair.
but for the longest time I feel like as a political reporter I was often talking about distinct groups and especially generational because I remember there would always be a story that's like this conservative is into the environment and then we would do like an essay on their existence so what does it mean like who cares about this now yeah and I think
there's a there's difficulty because as you mentioned you're on the C4 board and there's a question I think about how much can you blame the C4 side for C3 activities electioneering activities. Translate, you mean the political side for the non-profit side? Yes, so exactly. So the C3 side is the side that can do electioneering where they can spend money and many environmental groups do spend money on
elections, whether they're pushing ads up saying X person is good for the environment. And so the question is, can the C4 side be held accountable for those actions? And that is something that I think a lot of nonprofits are afraid of. It's not just in the climate space. There are fear within the immigration nonprofit space as well that this could be happening. But on your question about the political nature of this, there's a real problem for folks who care about the environment and care about the earth that
The environmentalists have not made a compelling argument for why that is important when everyone's first concern is their pocketbook. We see this in Canada right now where the Liberal Prime Minister Mark Carney, who replaced Justin Trudeau, immediately rescinded his party's support for the carbon tax because he sees that as a liability.
So how do liberal parties care about the environment? - Well, to get to your point, I wanna show that there actually was a recent poll on how, whether people believe that climate policies help or hurt the economy. And when you look at those numbers, like it's not officially decided, so to speak, right? Like people are still, even as we last year, hottest year on record, land and ocean temperatures in 2024 were up.
Sea level rise per year up and the number of people displaced around the world due to climate impacts, 36 million. So there's a lot of numbers we're looking at, but I think the one
Jerusalem is referring to is the people who aren't sure if it makes a difference on their pocket. - Take a look at the politics of something like fracking and the way that played out during the 2024 campaign. For a long time, Democrats had been, we don't know if we like fracking, we're opposed to it. And when cost of living was so high, the politics of that issue, especially in a state like Pennsylvania, were just different.
I mean, I do think that we also have to make clear, like sometimes there will be nice intentions on the environment, but it won't pay off. There were lots and lots and lots of efforts in the Biden administration to spend public dollars to do things that were good for the environment that didn't build many electric charging stations, et cetera, that like didn't bear fruit. And so I think for Republicans, especially younger Republicans, I've seen a real interest in trying to say, how do we just innovate?
innovate our way out of an issue like carbon emissions rather than trying to put caps on it or have big government programs trying to solve it this is gonna have to be something although I have to say this is the kind of policy where you play the long game like it's not a short-term impact kind of area of
of policy. Group chat is gonna stick around because we've got a lot more to discuss and still to come on CNN this morning. We're gonna talk about the economic uncertainty with a side of insults. The president is pushing the Fed chairman to cut interest rates and using some pretty pointed language to do it. Ahead, while the name calling could send the markets on another roller coaster. Plus it was a courtroom drama that gripped the nation and it's about to start all over again. Can Karen Reid convince a new jury that she's not guilty in the death of her boyfriend?
More from the group chat after this. President Trump is turning up the heat on the Federal Reserve. His latest attacks on Fed Chairman Jerome Powell are also threatening to destabilize the markets as he pushes for the Independent Commission to bend to his will, something Powell says he will never do. We're never going to be influenced by any political pressure. People can say whatever they want. That's fine. That's not a problem. But we will do what we do
strictly without consideration of political or any other extraneous factors. So Trump is now calling Powell a loser and is badgering him on social media to lower interest rates, a move the president argues would boost the economy. Powell says the Fed is taking a more cautious approach because of the tariffs which are already impacting people across the U.S.
This warehouse is completely full of hay. We're not right now because business is just slow. With the current tariffs in place, which is a total of about 66% of retaliatory tariffs by China to us, it puts our product out of the marketplace. It could break us. I mean, it could break a lot of farmers.
Joining me now, a man who makes markets less boring, Cardiff Garcia, Editorial Director at the Economic Innovation Group. He tries anyways. I'm just saying, I'm just saying, every time I hear tariffs, I'm like, okay. But I want to start with this kind of talking about Powell, calling him a loser. It has effects. The Wall Street Journal editorial board called yesterday's sell-off, in the aftermath of all this, the "fire Jerome Powell market route." So why is this disruptive to the markets?
You know, the Fed is supposed to be insulated from short-term political considerations so that it is free to do what's best for the economy in the medium and long term. That includes keeping inflation stable and low. It also means keeping unemployment low as well. So if the market suspects that
that the Fed share really might end up being fired, then that just shows that governance is gonna weaken and that the Fed's gonna lose credibility, including the credibility to maintain low and stable inflation. - That's crazy. So you're saying even suspects, they don't think there's someone else out there who could do the job?
Well, I think the issue is that if Donald Trump successfully manages to fire the Fed chair, then anybody who replaces the Fed chair is essentially going to be seen as a proxy for whatever the White House wants monetary policy to be. And if that's the case... And that's decision-making. It's whiplash decision-making. Well, then you have to guess, like, what's in the mind of Donald Trump at any given moment in terms of setting monetary policy.
And if you're actually able to do that, then we should be doing something else, right? And I think the market wants that kind of predictability, that kind of stability, and the commitment from the Fed that it's actually going to hit its monetary policy and economic targets. And if it's seen instead as a proxy for the White House and whatever the White House wants, then it's going to lose that.
And of course, if the president manages to fire one Fed chair, he can do it again. OK, so here's the thing that I've been reading and not totally understanding. The U.S. dollar and U.S. Treasury is both selling off at the same time that the U.S. stock market is falling. So this is unusual because these things are supposed to move in opposite directions whenever the market is freaking out. So the market is freaking out and instead they're both going the same way. Should I be worried about is this something the average person needs to worry about?
I think so, yeah. I actually can't express to you how strange this is historically. Normally when the stock market is falling, it's because people are worried about the economy and they're putting their money into treasuries instead, which are considered the safe asset, the global safe asset. Now what you're seeing is that investors all throughout the world are selling out of the dollar and anything that the dollar can buy, not just riskier assets like equities or corporate bonds,
but also treasuries, right? That makes everybody's life a lot harder. It means interest rates throughout the economy are going to go up. That depresses economic activity. But it also makes it harder to counter any economic downturn, because how does the government fight a downturn? It borrows money.
Pays interest on that money. Break this down. First, you're saying that you have a market voting with its feet. Right. If it's a poll, the poll is U.S. not safe to put my money. I can't count on the U.S. right now. But the other thing you're saying is for the rest of us who have whatever, like our credit cards rates, like are you saying there's implications for that? Yeah, because interest rates are going to be high.
right? People who want to take out a mortgage to buy a house, those mortgage rates aren't going to fall if treasury rates are also not going to fall. That's what determines interest rates all throughout the economy. So anybody that ever borrows money, and that's most people, to buy things, it's going to affect them as well. What are you going to be watching for the next couple of days? Does this name calling matter? Because Powell's like, eh, don't worry about it. The name calling itself doesn't matter. Powell's heard it
all right at this point. What does matter is whether or not the market increasingly actually believes that the president is serious this time about possibly firing Jerome Powell. So that's what I'm going to be watching. OK, Cardiff Garcia, editorial director at the Economic Innovation Group. Thank you so much. Appreciate your time.
It is now 48 minutes past the hour. Here's your morning roundup. Some of the stories you need to know to get your day going. So new this morning, Vladimir Putin says he's open to direct talks with Ukraine. The Russian president claiming he would consider a deal for both sides and strikes against civilian infrastructure. The two sides have not held direct negotiations since the early weeks of Moscow's invasion more than three years ago.
And today, opening statements are set to begin in the retrial of Karen Reid after her first trial drew protests in her defense and ended in a hung jury. Reid is accused of hitting and killing her Boston police officer boyfriend with her car and leaving him in the snow. This trial is expected to last six to eight weeks.
And in just hours, Tesla will release its first quarter earnings report for 2025. Investors are looking for answers when it comes to delays in the company's self-driving technology. There's also stiff competition from China and of course, CEO Elon Musk's political activity. He's expected to speak on an earnings call after the closing bell. Tesla shares closed almost six points down on Monday.
And next time you can't make up your mind, maybe just don't. President Trump announced yesterday that he was endorsing both candidates in the Republican primary in the race to be Arizona's next governor. In a post on Truth Social, he explained that he endorsed one candidate when she was running unopposed, then decided her challenger was also a, quote, wonderful champion.
Now, one other thing, maybe you're on the fence about having kids in this moment. Well, the government is considering offering some new incentives to try and persuade you. So the New York Times reports that the Trump administration has been listening to a number of proposals that would try to convince Americans to get married and have more kids. One idea offering a $5,000 so-called baby bonus. Elon Musk, of course, has been pushing for people to have more children. There's a lot of things, I suppose, that I worry about, but
And some of these things will seem esoteric to people. The birth rate is very low in almost every country. And unless that changes, civilization will disappear.
Bringing in the group chat to discuss, because frankly, this is the kind of thing that someone is going to send me a link to today, like probably five times today. There is a world that is Elon Musk, who has, as we know, almost more than a dozen kids at this point. The tech right, the traditional religious right, the sort of family conservatives,
People who worry about replacement theory, like nationalists, they all kind of come together in this world of pronatalism, which is like people should have more kids because the global birth rate in the West is falling. We're actually seeing it in policy now. Is anyone else?
expecting it? Ooh, not surprised. I'm not really surprised. I mean, this has been an interesting change in tone that you've seen from Republicans in recent years really embracing this much more vocally. You've seen somebody like J.D. Vance, who when he was in the Senate actually tried to advance some policies around things like maternal care, care for newborns, I mean, because this is an important thing. But not
just to folks on the right. I mean, there is one, a belief that, hey, kids are great. And right now it's hard to be a parent in the United States. And so what can we do to make it easier for parents or people who might want to be parents, but think, gosh, it just seems really expensive. Childcare, you know, take it. Does $5,000 cover that?
It doesn't. But the other thing that I would say is that, you know, we sort of are laughing about this $5,000. There have been a lot of proposals for something that's called baby bonds, where you do it as a way to try to reduce wealth inequality. The idea being that if a child starts off life with $5,000 set aside that can appreciate over time, that then for a lot of kids who are not going to be getting some big inheritance one day, these are the sorts of policies that might make a parent feel better about
like, oh, okay. - This is what's kind of weird about this, right? There's very normal policies, right? Most people think families are good. If someone wants to have a kid, we should support that. But it's this strange dichotomy between this administration saying we want people to have kids, and then on the other side of their mouth,
Congress, they're debating potentially reducing Medicaid, which covers 40% of births, two in five children are covered by Medicaid. And so to me, it's a question of what does the policy actually end up looking like? Right, or never mind the child tax credit, which would know where. Exactly, there's all this talk about pronatalism. I'd like to look at the root of why I think this is happening, and I think it's twofold. First is, there's just a fax in politics and policy, which is,
Folks are dying quicker than we're making new folks so that we're not paying into Social Security as many folks who are actually taking Social Security because there's more old folks. And I was thinking this morning-- We call this the folks index. Right. Folks is old folks that are on Social Security. Whether you're old or not, if you're on Social Security, you're old.
If you think about the money that's paid into that though, we've talked a lot about immigration here. There's a whole lot of immigrants here who's filled that void, who are paying, important for you Republicans at home to know this, social security that they will never use, which is actually paying for old white folks' social security. So this is one of the things that we're not talking about in this public policy debate.
It wavers between this part of the conversation, could immigration be, and then the other part of the conversation, which is global birth rates are falling. That is a real thing. Countries like South Korea, et cetera, are totally in a spiral. In Russia, first-time mothers receive about $6,000, 677,000 rubles.
In Finland, they experimented with baby bonuses for a long time. The thing is, in these places, it did not long term. Oh, you're nodding. You know, it didn't actually move the needle. That the goal may be to make it easier for families to thrive, but it's not necessarily that we've seen a ton of evidence in policy that it
actually increases the birth rate. - But then why do it? - There's a lot of research about this that shows the number's quite high. Just think about in your own life, right? If you wanna have a kid and you say you wanna have two kids with your partner, incentivizing you to have a third kid, like $5,000 isn't gonna do it. - No, they're just trying to get you to have one to start.
Even then we're talking about to get someone who doesn't want to have a kid already to choose to make that decision, it's a lot more money that's required to actually shift incentives. - Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it in America one of the places where if you have a baby, we don't support you with family and medical leave less than almost every other country? So it seems like, to your point, Congress may think they want you to have more babies, but once you have that baby, they don't want you to have no time off work to raise that baby.
the goal isn't to persuade somebody who thinks like, I don't want to have kids. I love my lifestyle as is to suddenly decide to embrace the trappings of motherhood. It's rather for somebody who's thinking, I would like to have kids, but I'm just not so sure if I can make it work to just begin to address some of that anxiety. Because it's not just a social security thing. In societies where you do have fewer kids being born than people dying, there's all kinds of other things. Oh, you struggle over time. Yeah, for sure. I also think that on top of this, there's this
problem where the entire conversation is geared towards women as if women are the only ones involved in the conversation. I mean you hear this, how do we persuade women to have more children? There are a lot of women who want to have kids but either they can't find a partner, they need a secure job or things like that that are going to make them happy. So I think the question is when we're developing family friendly policy are we trying to improve people's lives and attacking the things that actually they are telling you or preventing them from living, you know, having children or
Are we just trying to mechanically increase the birth rate even if it makes people unhappy? Yeah. Though, you know, that's kind of an interesting point because like it is the party that men embraced in the last election, but there isn't like maybe there's more policies coming, but there isn't one
incentivize men to have more kids with their partners. If you look at parts of the internet where lots of young men are at right now, they're like, women should just be having babies and not working and staying home and being a surrogate to their husband. I'll leave that to the side, but there's a whole movement for that craziness. Maybe we should give them $5,000. Just to go away. I don't know.
I know you guys are going to have this in your group chat. Okay, I want to look ahead this week because there's all kinds of news happening. I think with the week kicking off with the death of the Pope, it was just like such an incredibly intense moment. I want to know what you guys are looking forward to, what you're thinking about. And Jerusalem Demps, can I start with you? Yeah, I mean, I mentioned Medicaid, potential Medicaid cuts, but I'm keeping my eye on the Republican budget negotiations. Wait, what? Jerusalem? Yeah.
bringing it down. Jerusalem started the week and was like budget negotiations. Budget negotiations. All right, why? Why this moment? Well, because, I mean, I'm keeping an eye on it constantly. This is going to be the big thing that comes through Congress, and there's still very little clarity. I mean, the moderates, Republicans are really holding their fire, waiting to see what the leadership is going to show. But this is going to be really impactful. The number one issue that people care about, of course, is cost of living. But
Number two, it's health care. And is that going to become salient? That has real political ramifications. Or will Democrats make it salient? Exactly. Because this is very much a talking point. Chuck, can I go to you? I know you already want $5,000 to have a kid. That's right. I know that you have changed from one hat season to straw hat season. Bingo. Okay. But what else are you thinking about this week? Two things. One is Congress is not here and they're out in their district. So what's going on out in their district? Are we going to see press from CNN of town halls? Are folks still being mad? More town halls?
I thought people weren't doing town halls. No, town halls this week. Stay tuned. But the good news is I'm also looking at what we've been talking about with the Pope. Is this a moment with the Pope where folks on the Catholic side, on the religious side, Democrat, Republican, Independent, kind of come together and honor a great man? I was going to ask you about this because when I think about Southwest Latino voters where Catholicism does weigh heavily, it has been the inroad to kind of conservative politics.
embrace when it comes to partisan politics. - Religion is a huge part of this, even with the Baptist church in the Texas Valley, like a lot of that has changed. So I think that this is something with this great man and what he's done is really something special. Do we take advantage of that or do we mess this up too?
Oh, Chuck. I'm just saying. I think we can. Okay. Kristen Soltis Anderson. So this week, the battle between the Trump administration and Harvard University is continuing. I'm going to be keeping an eye on whether the Trump administration's really combative approach to many of these institutions, does it stay confined to the Ivies, to the ones that really have had some prominent sort of clashes around the issue of anti-Semitism, or does it begin to expand out beyond what I would say are pretty
you know, easy targets institutions that a lot of voters might say, yeah, you know what, I'm not losing a lot of sleep about the idea of Harvard University and their big endowment losing money. What does the effect become in this battle between the Trump administration and higher ed on things like state colleges and universities? How does that begin to spread and reshape
the purpose and the way that higher education functions. And also the nature of the debate itself, which has been helped by the backlash to the Gaza protests, right? It's much easier to say the schools are anti-Semitic, yank their funding. It's a little different to say, I'm going to reach in there, change curriculum, change a bunch of things from the White House. Will people see that differently? Well, one of the things that's been happening over the last decade or so is that confidence in higher education as an institution has been falling. Yeah, especially with the debt. And not just among Republicans. And so a lot of it is the, what exactly is it?
you say we do hear problem, like institutions are trying to do a million different things. Chuck, let me let you jump in there. It's really important that 60% of Americans never went to college. That's just a fact. And Harvard is not something that's very sympathetic to your point. But when you start talking about the University of Ohio or the University of Michigan or the University of Texas, like I think that
Everything changes. But also the research, too. If it becomes influences Harvard's cancer research or things that people care about, that will be important. Right, if there's some trials canceled or heard or something like that. I'm also going to be looking for a number of state schools have faculty senates who have voted for schools to create a mutual defense pact to try and defend against the universities. And those are at state universities, so I'll be watching that. I want to thank you to the group chat. I want to thank you for waking up with us. I'm Adi Cornish, and CNN News Central starts right now.
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