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It's Thursday, March 13th. Here's what's happening right now on CNN This Morning.
Talking to CEOs throughout the economy, I hear the economy is weakening as we speak. Tariffs, trade spats and big cuts. The president says it will make the economy soar, but a new CNN poll says most Americans aren't buying that. Plus... Every time I see Mr. Musk, I think that we're saving money, and usually we are.
It's deadline day for federal agencies to tell DOGE what to cut. Ahead, how this will impact veterans, the IRS and maybe even Social Security. Also, the search for witnesses. Who else could have been on the beach when an American student went missing in the Dominican Republic? And a summer bummer, why some public campgrounds, parks and trails could look dramatically different in the months ahead.
It is 6 a.m. here on the East Coast, a live look at the U.S. Capitol. Good morning, everybody. I'm Adi Cornish. I want to thank you for waking up with me. We're going to start today with President Trump's political brand because it was built on being a businessman, a dealmaker who always comes out on top.
Many people voted for him to take that approach to the economy. Is it working? How do they feel about it now? Well, just 28% say his policies are making the economy better. That's from a new CNN poll released this morning. In fact, half say it's actually making the economy worse. There's also a pretty even split on what people think the economy will be like in a year. About half of those polls say it will be good. Another half say it will be poor.
- Financially, we'll be stronger than ever before. I think the markets are gonna soar when they see what's happening. - Canada now rolling out tariffs of its own on $20 billion worth of US goods. Joining me to talk about this, Stephen Collins and CNN Politics senior reporter, Nia Malika Henderson, CNN senior political analyst and political and policy columnist at Bloomberg, and Kevin Fry, Washington correspondent for Spectrum News.
New York won. Thank you guys for joining the group chat. I want to start with you, business gal from Bloomberg, because here's what Alabama Senator Tuberville was asked about Trump's tariffs. And here's what he said. No pain, no gain. That's what we used to tell our football players. There's going to be some pain with tariffs. But tariffs got us back as the strongest economy in the world when President Trump was in the first time. He knows what he's doing. Democrats get out of the way. Shut up. You have no answers.
Okay, no pain, no gain. Yeah, I mean, it's quite a slogan and certainly wasn't the slogan that Donald Trump ran on. He, of course, promised- Maybe Biden should have run on that. Yeah, yeah. I mean, he promised immediate relief, but you do see this shifting rhetoric now. I've actually got a piece up on Bloomberg about this, this idea that even if there is a recession, it's worth it because there is wealth and riches on the other side. You know, Senator Tuberville talked about the last time there were tariffs. There was a lot of loss-
in terms of status and stature among farmers and the soybean industry. There was some appeasing of them through, I think, some subsidies at one point, too. I think that's right. And now I think Donald Trump's message to them is something like, "Have fun." Steven, I heard you nodding. It's fine to say no pain, no gain if you're in a cabinet of millionaires and billionaires. And if the economy turns against the administration, I think that's going to be a real political liability.
It's interesting to me that how often a new president gets elected and then takes their eye off the thing that probably got them elected. Interesting. Say more. Right. The economy in this case, people were telling President Biden for months they were worried about high prices. Now, through our poll, they're telling the Trump administration that hasn't been the primary focus. They say, well, we're going to drill, baby, drill. Tariffs are going to make us all rich. But if you're telling people the economy is growing,
is good and getting better, when most people think it's getting worse, something's not gonna work. - And I do remember during the campaign, does anyone else remember this? Trump campaigning in front of cereal boxes? - Yes. - And now it's a cyber truck, and I'm like, this feels different. Here's a soybean farmer, to your point about farmers, saying nobody's gonna win a tariff war.
You know, they aren't good for the other countries, they aren't good for me. And who could blame them putting reciprocal tariffs on us? You know, it's just a match, you know, and nobody's going to win.
Okay, real talk from Polk County, Iowa. Kevin? I was talking to a farmer yesterday as well from upstate New York who's a dairy farmer. And he, obviously Trump is threatening within the last week, and he's played with this before, but putting tariffs on Canadian dairy as part of an ongoing feud between the two. And this is a longstanding issue that dates back pre-USMCA and so forth. But even if...
the tariffs go into a place that Trump is kind of toying with. One economist I spoke to said basically, Canada will just put up theirs and then they'll cut off any market access that they were even hoping to gain through some sort of leverage with Canada. But on top of that, in the meantime, in the short term, this farmer was telling me that
they could see an up to 10% reduction in their own bottom line because milk prices are down because of the ongoing tit-for-tat. And on top of that, some of the stuff they get from Canada, like their feed, has gone up in price because of the tariff. Now, what's interesting is you got all that. We just got a deep dive into commodities from you. Sorry. Which, you know, I like it. You're bringing some good energy this morning. But the farmer gave us a very, like...
people understand what tariffs are now. Right? Like he was giving me the explanation I used to hear from economists. Why else is he trying to tell us that tariffs are a tax cut this week, which they're not because they put prices up for everybody. But it's one thing for you to say it. It's another thing for the soybean farmer to say it. Sure, but those farmers, they're...
pardon the pun, right on the ground. If you're an arable farmer, you need certainty about how much feed, how much seeds you're going to buy this time of year, and you're going to take out a loan that's only going to be paid off when you get the profit in the fall. So these are like
you know, small businesses like farmers are particularly affected by tariffs, even more so than some of the bigger businesses that can bear the costs. Yeah, I like that we're starting there because we're going to hear more about the business community. There's some cracks beginning to show there. Please stick around. And you stick around because coming up on CNN this morning, the Kremlin says it's kicking Ukrainians out of the one piece of Russian territory they control. So how will that impact the ceasefire proposal?
And then, streets of fire with green flames. A St. Patrick's Day stunt or something more dangerous? Plus, are your public lands on the road to privatization? For this week's assignment, I spoke with a former wilderness firefighter about what's next for the national parks and forests. They could close all these public lands to the public with an emphasis more on extraction.
This episode is brought to you by LifeLock. It's tax season, and we're all a bit tired of numbers. But here's one you need to hear. $16.5 billion. That's how much the IRS flagged for possible identity fraud last year. Now here's a good number. $100 million. That's how many data points LifeLock monitors every second. If your identity is stolen, they'll fix it. Guaranteed. Save up to 40% your first year at LifeLock.com slash podcast. Terms apply.
I'm CNN's Francesca Street, and this week on our podcast Chance Encounters is all about friendship. Between that lonely American traveler Lindsay Debates and Doug Gist. I mean, she's cute, but loud. Big brother, protector is the vibe that I felt. That fellow American she ran into on the street of Itaewon in Seoul, South Korea back in the year 2000. Followed
Follow CNN's Chance Encounters wherever you get your podcasts.
Time check, it is 12 minutes past the hour. I want to give you your morning roundup, some of the stories you need to know to get your day going. The Kremlin claims the Russian military is in the final stages of ousting Ukrainian forces from Russia's Kursk region. That's been the focus in this war, and this is according to Reuters. Russian President Vladimir Putin visited the area yesterday. It was the first time he's been there since Ukraine seized parts of it last year.
Migrant apprehensions are down at the southern border, according to Customs and Border Protection. Officers apprehended more than 8,000 undocumented migrants in February. That's down 71% compared to January, and it's down 94% from February of last year.
New video shows the moment a cargo ship crashed into a US flagged tanker off England's coast. Both ships caught fire. One person is presumed dead. British police opened a criminal investigation and the cargo ship's captain was arrested.
And an explosion on the campus of Texas Tech. Authorities responded to a possible gas leak and found multiple manholes with fire and green smoke coming out of them. Good news for students, classes are canceled for the rest of the week ahead of spring break. And you gotta see this. There's an alligator right under your car. Oh my God! Get in the house! Where's my pizza? I'll take it to the back door. Holy s***!
Okay, this video coming to us naturally from Florida. A Florida-based writer did that. A woman ordered a pizza, but when the delivery driver arrived, there was an eight-foot alligator in the driveway. That was a police officer you heard actually talking to a woman in the house. He ended up actually bringing her the pizza. The alligator was safely relocated. Take that, New York Pizza Subway rat.
Still coming up on CNN This Morning, the next presidential election is more than three days away, but one Democrat may be getting an early start. Ahead, why Rahm Emanuel might be preparing a bid for the White House. Plus, as the Trump administration cuts the federal workforce, could public lands in the U.S. soon be not so public? And good morning, New Orleans. 14 minutes past the hour, and it is a cool 63 degrees.
Welcome back. Today's assignment, taking a deeper look at what's happening in the federal government with the letting go of all these workers, because I get up at early o'clock to host the show with the team. And even we sometimes feel like we're playing catch up with the firing and rehiring and appeals and
basically all the uncertainty. So this week on a new episode of The Assignment, I actually sat down with a former wildland firefighter, Reva Duncan. She's got decades of federal agency experience. And an interesting thing came up in our conversation about the future of public lands. And she says this is actually what's been blowing up her group chats.
Could we reach a breaking point where access to these lands is no longer guaranteed? I do think so. And I think that there's also talk and speculation that
This is a way to show the agencies, set them up to fail, to then say, look, you're terrible at managing these lands because that's been an argument for decades about who could manage these lands better, right, state or private. Usually people talk about this in the context of the VA, but you're telling me workers in your world are also thinking about this. Can you say more? There are some states that have expressed interest in managing federal lands. They think they can do a better job.
And they want the funding that would come with that, right? But then also true privatization, where these federal lands would just be sold off to corporations, billionaires, businesses, and they wouldn't have to make these lands public anymore. They could close all these public lands to the public.
with an emphasis more on extraction, like timber, oil and gas. But we're not saying they're going to sell Yosemite. We're just saying that on this path to, let's say, a public-private partnership to maintain these lands, there is concern in your world about where it ends. Right.
Okay, bringing in the group chat because a day after I had this conversation with her, Politico was reporting yesterday that Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told a group of energy executives that U.S. public lands are, quote, national assets that could be used to help pay down the national debt.
What are we looking at? I mean, listen, I mean, if you think about what Donald Trump was saying in his speech to Congress, he talked about rare earth minerals, right? Where are they going to go to find these rare earth minerals? And drill, baby, drill. Drill, baby, drill. All of this. So the idea that, you know, what she's talking about, it certainly could happen. And there is this privatization push. You think about the conversations around the United States Post Office, even with schools and cutting department education. Stephen, have you been hearing this as well? Yeah, well-
You know, when you have a president who is a real estate mogul and he's basically not giving any doubt that he sees many disputes in the world, Gaza, for example, as a real estate issue, that's the frame of reference of the administration. And I think there's a lot of people who believe that this could be creeping privatization. The issue here, though, is that when you start talking about federal land, you're touching a
a really sensitive issue that's definitional to many people, that's existential, almost spiritual. The land is so important. - Yeah, I was about to say, so national parks welcomed 333 million visitors last year. I was among them. I had planned to be this year. And I recall that in 2017, the former Republican congressman Jason Chavitz tried to introduce a bill along these lines to sell off certain federal lands. Major backlash.
Well, and I'm also thinking with it beyond the spiritual, also the economics of this, which is that these public entities have around them towns and communities that build up based on people coming to these public lands. Yes, very true. And so there could be ripple effects if they start shutting off access or restricting how many people can get on the land. Which is just the short-term stuff, when you're in line, when you're waiting for your camping permit, when there's no bathroom open for miles after you decide to go for a hike that day. I mean, this also plays into, I think, one of the potentials
the potential building vulnerabilities for the Trump administration, which is the idea of doge and constant cutbacks on what government is. And people, as we saw with the farmer earlier, kind of waking up to what government does and what role it currently plays in our lives and what it could evolve to if we start going this privatization route. All right, you guys. Thanks so much for talking about this. And you might be wanting to hear more from Reva, more about this issue. Check out the latest assignment of the assignment.
latest episode of The Assignment. New ones drop every Thursday. Still ahead on CNN this morning, we're gonna bring you the latest on the student who has gone missing while on spring break. Police now looking for more people who were on the beach where she was last seen. Plus, as Elon Musk revs up his chainsaw to cut jobs, what's happening at his own companies?
An HGTV special series. We're going to take on a town that is literally falling apart. Renovation experts Ben and Erin Napier go on an epic journey to rebuild Sebring, Florida. We're bringing life back to these houses and businesses. Brick by brick. Transforming lives.
This is really good. It's a once-in-a-lifetime change. And restoring the American dream. We are the cheerleaders of small-town America. Thank you guys for choosing us. Hometown Takeover, all new Sunday at 8 on HGTV and stream next day on Max.
Canadians expect their government to respond to what we think are unjustified tariffs in the context of a free trade agreement between Canada, the United States and Mexico. So what we did is we matched dollar for dollar the American tariffs at the same percentage.
I'll use my political translator here and say that Canada's finance minister was basically saying, hold my beer. Good morning, everyone. I'm Adi Cornish. It's 28 minutes past the hour on East Coast. I want to thank you for joining us. And let's talk about what's happening right now.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Ontario Premier Doug Ford meeting today to renegotiate the free trade treaty between the US, Canada and Mexico. In response, Ontario agreed to suspend its 25% surcharge on electricity exports. President Trump has criticized that treaty, a treaty that he actually signed during his first term.
Today, the president is meeting with NATO's secretary general. The White House press secretary says he will use the meeting to push for NATO countries to pay their fair share for their defense. Federal agencies face a deadline today to turn in plans for job cuts. Every agency head was instructed to create a reduction in force and reorganization plan. This is part of President Trump's push to downsize the federal government.
At the center of those plans to cut the federal government, Elon Musk and his Doge team. The world's richest man, fresh off selling Teslas on the South Lawn of the White House, is also trying to juggle a business empire which is getting hammered on the stock market. Now he's setting his sights on what he has called a "Ponzi scheme" social security.
The way it's important in entitlement spending, which is most of the federal spending, is entitlements. So that's the big one to eliminate. That's the half trillion, maybe 600, 700 billion a year.
Here to talk about it, Kara Swisher, CNN contributor, host of Pivot, and on with Kara Swisher. Kara, thanks so much for joining me. I know you've been hanging out at South by Southwest. I have. You've been busy. So it means you're out there hearing what people are saying. And we mentioned getting hammered by his businesses, but also like people are doing acts of vandalism against cyber trucks. You once called them a heat shield. What's going on with the heat shield for Trump?
Well, it's not good from a business point of view. The stock's been going down precipitously, largely because of reports out of Europe and here in the United States that sales have fallen off. It's not a surprise, one, because he's a polarizing figure. And the people who buy his cars are largely people who might vote Democratic. And he's got to attract the same amount of, I guess, red state people.
or or mega people to buy the cars secondly the cars haven't been innovated that much recently and there's a lot of competitors as you know and so that's probably impacting at the same time and then inevitably cars that dominate tend to not dominate and so he hasn't been paying attention a lot at tesla because he's focused on other things so that's among the many things that are happening for him but a polarizing figure is probably at the center of it
Can I ask about that clip we heard? Because it's one thing to talk about Social Security on Joe Rogan, right, and do the like, what maybe perhaps. It's another thing to do it on this, on the network, right, that everybody watches, especially people in that age group, right, who might be thinking about Social Security. What do you make of like how far he's getting out front on this topic?
Well, maybe he's testing it out. Maybe he's seeing what's what. Maybe he talked to Trump about doing that. Obviously, he can do math. Entitlements are the biggest part. And, you know, he sort of he hasn't really saved almost any money compared to how big the federal government is. And so he wants to have some wins on the board. And he's got to go, you know, why do you rob a bank? You go where the money is when you're trying to cut money from the government. You have to go to entitlements. And, of course, that's
What's beyond the third rail? It's way beyond the third rail, but he can't help himself. He has to say what the problem is, and that is where you would cut if you actually were going to save money for the taxpayer. In podcast land, Gavin Newsom, California governor, having some interesting conversations, one with Steve Bannon about Elon Musk. Here's a sample of something they talked about.
your issues with Elon, and we haven't even gotten to that. And I know that's all gone. Do I have any issues? Do I have any issues? Yeah, I know. You called him evil. You called him a racist. You have a parasitic illegal alien. Parasitic illegal alien, I think was your exact phrase, your phrase, not mine. Though we may share some commonality in terms of concern about what he's doing. But
They also had this long conversation about California made Elon. That was what Bannon was saying and talking about how basically the left was into oligarchs until they turned against them. Can you talk like what is the dynamic going on here that we're hearing out loud? Which part? Gavin chuckling it up with Bannon or which part do you want me to talk about? Maybe the part about California having made Musk and now him being like a very different political figure.
Well, that's true. I don't think I think California was critical to a lot of these people that are now sidling up to Trump. It's provided a place where innovation could thrive. And that's where most of these companies started. And Elon certainly ran his companies in California and has grown them there. And now that the taxes are too high or they disagree politically or they have issues around transgender issues or whatever it happens to be for any of them, they're moved out. They've gone to
tax-free environments, and they wanna dump on California. That's very true, that's 100% true. - There's gonna be a tech summit this Friday, I think. And I wanted to ask you about something you said about the sort of ultimate goal, that there is something called the God's view that is the goal. What is that? And sort of how prominent is this idea?
But there's a couple of things. There's a unified CEO theory. They've got a lot of theories in Silicon Valley. This one is a dashboard where you can see everything and you can see the entire government, for example. It used to be used around Uber, which was looking at everybody's rides. And you could see someone's life by looking at their Uber rides, for example, where they're going, where they're coming from, etc. So you have a God's view of the whole thing. The more of a God's view you have, the better in technology.
But are we going to get that out of the government? Is that the goal here? I mean, Musk does have access to sensitive information. He's calling himself IT support. Like he's injected into the system, so to speak.
Yeah, every time he diminishes himself, I think he knows exactly how important he is. And so I suspect he wants a God's view of the entire government. Actually, our government systems have never been joined in the way he is trying to do because for lots of reasons, inefficiency, lack of technology and the idea that we don't want all that information in one place. We don't have a department of information like other countries do. And so we don't want to have that because
We don't want the government spying on us quite that way. Of course, the government has an enormous viewpoint into every American, and that could be a dangerous thing with the wrong people in charge. Cara, thanks so much for talking. Looking forward to seeing you. Thanks. Thank you.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer says Democrats have enough votes to block Republicans' latest spending bill. His message to the GOP: work with Democrats to pass a short-term deal so they can continue to negotiate a full-year funding plan. But the clock is ticking.
Tomorrow is the deadline if Congress wants to avoid a government shutdown. House Speaker Mike Johnson already blaming Democrats for a potential shutdown. He was posting this online. If Senate Democrats block an up or down vote on this, then it's crystal clear. They want to shut down the government, period. Full stop. Even fellow Democratic Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania has a warning to Schumer.
If you shut it down, you will impact and hurt millions and millions and millions of Americans, and you run the risk of slipping us into a recession or even all kinds of other things.
Bringing back our friends, Stephen Niamalika and Kevin Fry. Kevin, you're from New York, so I want to ask you about this spat. Anytime I bring up a Fetterman quote, it's kind of like going to be oppositional, it feels like, to what Democrats are doing. Can you put this in some kind of context for us? Yeah, I mean, and you have to build off of what Mike Johnson put in that tweet. I mean, they're also dubbing this the Schumer shutdown in the event that this goes sideways in the next...
few hours. What I find kind of fascinating here is that in the lead up to this, Democrats had viewed this as essentially kind of their key leverage point to try to extract something from the Republicans.
If they let this go through as it stands right now through some procedural machinations, essentially overcoming the filibuster on the promise of a vote on some sort of thing. One, you have progressives are basically saying the public won't buy that, like the supporters won't get that. And then on top of that, you have
voters who clearly are frustrated with Democrats not being aggressive enough. This is a clear opportunity for them. - Yeah, but I feel like when people see kind of the House members shaking their canes, so to speak, there's been some nods to the age of the current resistance. They're not impressed, which is no shade on those people, but there is still a kind of disappointment there. So what position are Senate Democrats really in right now? - They're in a box politically.
Let's face it, they don't have the votes to do something serious. They can vote against this continuing resolution to keep the funding going, to make a point to their supporters. The problem is the environment has changed.
If they shut down the government, what is the guarantee that Elon Musk and Donald Trump are ever going to open it up again? A lot of Democrats fear that there will be... Wait, can you say that again? Right. What is the fear? So there's a fear among a lot of Democrats that if the government closes down, that gives Trump and Musk an excuse to get rid of even more federal workers. That makes those agencies even more...
vulnerable so when the lights go out right so when congress then comes back and finally refunds the government some of the government isn't there anymore because it's given them the opportunity to shut it down so that they do a show yeah absolutely absolutely there's a you know it's something like if you know if you check down for thirty days is like a furloughed in that
allows Elon Musk to go in and fire more federal workers. I mean, Democrats can't on the one hand be arguing for the federal government, arguing for federal workers, and then in a position to shut the government down. I think this also speaks a bit to
The failings of Senate leadership and House leadership, right, just in general. Schumer seemed pretty late to the game in terms of planning a strategy. There are apparently meetings today. There were meetings yesterday. But again, I think some of this anxiety and anger is directed at them. But in the meantime, you've got Bernie Sanders, AOC. They're out in the country having these giant rallies, talking about what's going on. What's the disconnect there?
I think there's great frustration in the grassroots that Democrats aren't doing more, but the fact is that they don't have the votes to do any more because the election didn't go too well. That's the problem here. You can make a protest, but you can't change things. They're saying, well, we need more time so we can negotiate with Republicans to get a fair deal. The Republicans don't want a deal. All the rhetoric
that the Republicans are now flinging towards the Democrats, oh, you want to shut the government down, is what Democrats have been telling Republicans for years, so they're loving this. Well, I mean, philosophically, even beyond just the politics of the here and now, it's sort of anathema to the Democratic instincts to shut down the government. And so, yes, they in theory have the leverage to go. But branding a shutdown is a tricky thing. Well, right, exactly. Okay, how do you...
I want you to stay with us for a second because there is obviously more to talk about. But I want you guys out there to know that this Sunday, the CNN original series United States of Scandal is back. I make an appearance. The show host, Jake Tapper, is going to take you inside the rise and frankly disastrous fall of Enron. One of the board members said they didn't know Ken Lay was using this line of credit like a goddamn ATM machine.
While Ken Lay was stuffing his pockets, a national tragedy suddenly gripped the nation, one that Jeffrey Skilling would use to his advantage.
on September 17th of 2001. Skilling sold about $15 million in Enron stock. He said the only reason was because he was concerned about the state of the marketplace after 9/11. But he had actually attempted to make the first sale on or around September 6th, and the shares would have traded on September 11th, but the market never opened that day.
It was clear that Mr. Skilling was attempting to use the nation's tragedy to cover his tracks for selling stock. You can learn more Sunday night at 9 Eastern and Pacific on CNN.
Next on CNN this morning, Secretary of State Marco Rubio is in Canada for the G7 summit and he could be in for a rough reception. Plus, launch delayed, why two astronauts will have to wait just a little longer to finally come home. More with the group chat after this. It was a little bit longer stay than we had expected, but you know, both of us have trained to live and work on the International Space Station and I think we've made the most of it.
NASA and Elon Musk's SpaceX will try again tomorrow to launch the mission that will bring astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams back to Earth. SpaceX Dragon was set to launch last night. That was scrubbed 45 minutes before liftoff because of a hydraulic issue. Of course, delays are nothing new for Wilmore and Williams because their stay on the International Space Station was supposed to last a week, and it's been more than nine months.
You do what's right for the team, and what was right for the team is to stay up here and be expedition crew members for the International Space Station. So, you know, you have to just pivot. You have to change your plan and then go with it and make the best of it.
Joining me now, Keith Cowing, former astrobiologist for NASA and he's also the editor of NASAWatch.com. So can you talk about what went wrong last time, what we can expect? From what I understand, it was a hydraulic clamp. It's something on the ground that holds onto the rocket until it's not supposed to and it goes off like this and the rocket takes off. You've got to make sure those things let loose or they don't go anywhere.
Our own Anderson Cooper was able to talk with Butch Wilmore last night and asked about what went wrong back in June when they were actually approaching the International Space Station. Let's have a listen.
We had some thrusters that were failing as we were coming up on our rendezvous. Unexpected, of course, so we never expect to have a couple of thruster failures, but in total we had five thrusters to fail. We took manual control. We did the best we could to maintain position. Had to point at the station because of our sensors. If we'd lost sensors contact with the station itself, then we probably would not have been able to dock.
Sorry, correction there. So that is from February. But it sounds like they had come closer to disaster than we all realized. It might not be disaster in that got to go home. Yeah. Because they don't train for the automatic thing where you hit the button and it just does it. They train for everything that goes wrong. And they, as you saw Butch go through the methodical list of things.
He was kind of at the point at which to say, "No, back off." - Yeah. You know, President Trump and Elon Musk have blamed the Biden administration, saying that they abandoned these astronauts at the space station. And I wanna ask you about that. What has been the difference
under the Trump administration for NASA? Where are they feeling it? Well, right now they're like any other part of the federal government. People are really wondering if they're going to have a job tomorrow. They're starting to cancel things that, you know, there's no more chief scientist. Say that again? There's no more chief scientist. There's no more chief scientist at NASA. Okay, what else? They're closing a lot of the, of course, the DEI stuff that's everywhere in the government. But what does that look like? Well, it means as the agency has tried to become more
representative of everybody younger people yeah it's that's just being swept away saying oh have I grew up looking at astronauts and think okay I might be you know well may like whoever was for the way I was to playing around with them about two weeks ago at the website saying hey are you're wiping things off
Here's a page from 1978 that shows the astronauts, the first selection with women, minorities, men, the whole look like America thing. And I thought, hey, let's see if they'll take this down. So I put it on my website. Hey, take this down. Six hours later, it was taken down, and it's still down. So if you go search for a picture of the first...
astronaut selection had women and blacks and people of Asian extraction, you get a 404. It's been like that for weeks now. Error message. Yeah. History erased. So I'm in the eighth grade and I'm trying to do a study on NASA. I don't get an answer. Because?
of this, whatever it is. What are some of the concerns that folks are having in the department that you're hearing and you're reporting? Well I went through a bit of a similar thing when I worked at NASA back in the day and you know you're wondering if you'll have a job tomorrow and it's a real fear, it's pervasive here in Washington. Most of the people feel that they, a lot of people can retire but have stayed on, you know they will build a space station for food. I mean that's, it's their life. Yeah they're passionate. Yeah and you can't just go do it for SpaceX though?
they'd rather do it where they are because there's they're doing it for the american people and you get to really do things you can't do at a company where there's a bottom line that really drives everything and there's some people that are just this is their life they grew up like i did wanting to work for an asset was the biggest deal in your life and now they're being told they're
they may or may not have a job and it's not because of anything they did. It's just like your last year, whatever. They're just going to riff reduction in force to reach some number that's supposed to accomplish something. And all of the plans and the advisory committees and all the people who have the smarts to figure out where to go, they're all being thrown out too. So I don't know what's going to be left of NASA, especially the science, which is why we do this in the first place. That's going to get gutted by 50, 60% soon.
Keith Cowing, thank you so much. Really appreciate your time. If you are getting ready for work, it is 51 minutes past the hour. I want to give you your morning roundup, some of the stories you need to get your day going. Investigators in the Dominican Republic say more people have been on the beach where a U.S. college student was last seen. The 20-year-old vanished a week ago early in the morning. Police are now asking anybody who was on the beach at that time to come forward with information.
And the Department of Veterans Affairs has cut an office that was designed to help minority veterans. It was focused on disparities and how the government provides benefits. The office was created under former President Biden. And just in time for spring college application season, the federal student aid website had technical issues for hours on Wednesday. This left hundreds unable to complete applications.
that are required for financial aid. The Associated Press reports that software developers and IT workers were among those the department laid off the day before. And Rahm Emanuel has his eyes on the White House. According to Politico, he was former chief of staff, of course, under President Obama, Chicago's mayor and ambassador to Japan. He told Politico he's not done with public service and he's hoping public service is not done with him.
If I have something to say, I've never been shy. I'll say it. Since returning from Tokyo in January, Emmanuel has been on a slew of political podcasts. He's now a senior political and global affairs commentator here at CNN.
And Secretary of State Marco Rubio may face a chilly reception at the G7 summit of foreign ministers in Canada. Canada's foreign minister, Melanie Jolie, plans to deliver a warning to her European counterparts about the U.S., saying if the U.S. can start a trade war with its closest friend, then nobody is safe.
We buy more from American businesses than the UK, France, China and Japan combined. So when President Trump actually imposes 25% tariffs against our economy and starts a trade war, he is actually going after his own American people.
Okay, so I recall some of the questioning for Rubio on the way in. People were asking him, like, is the U.S. going to try and make Canada the 51st state? He actually had to clarify that that is not what he planned to talk about. But like,
This is what the table is set with. Right, and look at the political moment. Tomorrow, a new Canadian prime minister takes office, Mark Carney. He's expected to call a general election almost as soon as he takes power, trying to build on this momentum his Liberal Party has managed to build up in opposition to Trump. But more than that, this is
A real issue in Canada, people feel that their independence and their separate existence in the United States is under threat. Greenland just had an election. Same thing. It became a talking point. And all of a sudden, Denmark was like watching the Greenland elections because they were talking about independence. Yeah, that's right. I mean, it has sparked this nationalism in new pride.
among these folks in these different uh... countries because of the way that donald trump is consistently any pretty with canada many keeps talking about this idea of the fifty first it's of course ruby i was asking that and of course of folks at the at the g seven meeting are kind of gonna talk about what america is now on the global stage because it isn't what it was just a few years ago and you see i think political was reporting that
foreign minister is going to go so far as to basically say we're a canary in the coal mine as their warning to the other G7 leaders about how the U.S. might treat you. I recall back when Biden went to his first G7 after being inaugurated and basically his message is America is back and there was relief amongst all of the G7 allies.
and this kind of whipsaw that these allies are now experiencing with the US after this election. - But at the same time, I mean, I think that in the Trump administration, there's been a little bit of an energy of like, we're not here to make friends. That the idea is to rebalance the relationships with other nations, looking at trade deficits, things like that.
to that point, aren't they accomplishing that? They are forcing everyone to look at the relationship and to be more honest about what America's getting out of it and what they're getting out of it. - True, if you look at Europe, for example, Trump in his first term managed to unleash more military spending
Now Europe is completely changing its strategic expectations that it's had for 80 years. Right. Out of fear, not out of cooperation. Right.
And sure, Europe should be spending a lot more money on its own defense. Why is the United States still the primary vessel of defense for Europe eight decades after the Second World War? But does this make the United States stronger if Europe goes its own way? There's a reason why Europe hasn't developed its own defense industry, because the United States didn't want it to, because it wanted to be interoperable with American systems. And one more thought about this. I'm fascinated by Carney because he is a banker. Yes.
And he helped the UK navigate a crisis. He helped Canada navigate a crisis. They brought in a turnaround guy. Yeah, yeah. I mean, this is a business guy. And we'll see what Trump's reaction is. He, of course, soured on Justin Trudeau. This is a businessman, a handsome businessman. And we know that... You're just adding that in. No, I love it. I love it. Just something that...
something that Donald Trump thinks about, right? So I think it matters that this is a handsome guy. Okay, I want to talk to you guys about what you're keeping an eye on this week. And I'll tell you what I'm keeping an eye on, although now that Nia Malika said this about the new Canadian leader, we know what she's keeping an eye on. But I want to ask you if there's anything else you think people should pay attention to in the next day or two. Yeah, listen, I think the big conversation is around the shutdown and what it means for the Democrats.
So the potential for shutdown. Potential for a shutdown. What Schumer does. Who are the Democrats that end up helping Republicans pass this thing? Yes, because only one Democrat helped pass it in the House. Yes, that's right. And here you have people like Fetterman. Who else joins him as a sort of centrist center of the party? I would say, kind of building off of that, when it comes to kind of what the Democratic brand is, this week, today, and tomorrow, Democrats are meeting out in Virginia. They're kind of...
annual retreats. I'm going there this afternoon just to get a sense, are they finding what their message is? Are they honing in on one yet in terms of how they counter Trump? We'll see if there are any answers today. - Bashir's gonna be there, Shapiro's gonna be there, Whitmer's gonna be there. - And also post-election, they're not being a clear leader, so to speak, which happens to any party. So yeah, Stephen Colson.
I'm going to be looking at whether Donald Trump's vaunted relationship with Vladimir Putin now actually delivers. Lots of international meetings today and tomorrow about this ceasefire proposal. Can the ball is now in Putin's court on this ceasefire?
can Trump leverage what has been a very controversial relationship with Putin to try and make him make some concessions? Because so far it's all been about Ukraine making concessions. Yeah, it's one thing to get people to the table, right? Almost by any means necessary. It's another thing to actually close the deal. And that's what he's pitched to the American people.
I want to thank you guys for hanging out with me. We talked about so many things. I think we started with soybean farmers and here we are at the Kremlin. So I appreciate you and thank you so much for waking up with us. I'm Adi Cornish. Please stay with CNN. We've got all the headlines coming up at CNN News Central, which is going to start right now.