Shownotes Transcript
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Shop Abercrombie's new long weekend collection online or in store. It is Monday, March 31st, and here's what's happening right now on CNN This Morning. I can't imagine them doing anything else but making a deal. President Trump's threat, make a deal or quote, there will be bombing. And overnight, Iran is responding. Plus this. Consumers and Americans are going to be better off.
Bracing for impact, Wall Street and markets around the world prepare for the latest round of tariffs just days away. I don't want to talk about a third term now because no matter how you look at it, we've got a long time to go.
President Trump, is he considering a third term? Well, he's not dismissing it, but would independent-thinking Americans go for it? And devastation that hasn't been seen in more than a century. Some survivors are pulled from the rubble of last week's earthquake in Myanmar, but that surge grows more grim.
It's 6 a.m. here on the East Coast. Here's a live look at a foggy New York City where just hours from the opening bell and stocks are slipping. Good morning, everybody. I'm Adi Cornish. I want to thank you for waking up with me. We're going to begin with that ultimatum from President Trump to Iran. It's agreed to a nuclear deal with the U.S. or, quote, there will be bombing. Overnight, Iran responded, saying any action will be reciprocated.
Now, the president sent a letter to Iran proposing direct talks with the country, and that request was rejected. I can't imagine them doing anything else but making a deal. I would prefer a deal to the other alternative, which I think everybody in this plane knows what that is. And that's not going to be pretty, and I do not prefer that. So here's how their supreme leader characterized President Trump's offers to negotiate a new nuclear treaty earlier this month.
Some bullying governments insist on negotiation, but their negotiation is not aimed at resolving issues. It's for domination.
- All right, to talk about this, we're bringing in Joel Rubin, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Obama Administration. Joel, thanks so much for being here. - Great to be with you, Adi. - So yesterday, Iran's president basically said that they were rejecting this because of quote, "Breach of promises," alluding to the fact that Trump withdrew from the 2018, in 2018, Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal. So are we looking at the fallout from that diplomatic approach?
Well, we certainly have not benefited from that diplomatic decision by Donald Trump seven years ago to get out of the nuclear deal. There's one fundamental point about nuclear negotiations with Iran, which is that the only way to verifiably constrain their nuclear program is through a diplomatic agreement that they sign up to.
And they did that in 2015. They were restrained. It was verifiable. The international community said so. And we should say many conservatives, the Trump administration, of course, they have long criticized that deal. They did not see it as airtight as it was built by the Obama administration. And so they're approaching this differently.
Yeah, and they were critical of the nuclear components to a certain extent, but what they were more upset about was the broader issues related to Iran's engagement in the region, support for militias and terrorist groups, ballistic missile program, all legitimate concerns. And so now the question for President Trump is, is he going just for a nuclear arrangement, or does he want to deal with the other issues as well? Which is their activities in the region.
How far will he go to stop that? Exactly. They've talked about, Iran has talked about indirect talks through a country like Oman. Is that even possible at this point? Can secret talks work, so to speak? It can, but you know, with President Trump, it doesn't seem like much is very secret at this stage. I mean, when he's going on an airplane and threatening to bomb another country, he really puts the whole dynamic into a box. Having back channels now do not, there were some back channels actually,
Early on in December, Elon Musk did meet with Iran's ambassador to the UN. So there were some discussions. Say that again. It was Elon Musk who met. Elon Musk met with Iran's ambassador at the United Nations in December. And in fact, now President Trump, he did send a letter to the Supreme Leader, which is a smart move, a back channel of sorts. But now that's all blown up and now it's out in the open.
I want to talk about Russia for a second. And the reason why is because yet again, here's where Trump is issuing a kind of deadline. He's basically saying because Vladimir Putin is not exactly embracing this approach to a deal with Ukraine, he says that he's going to threaten Russia with more tariffs. Listen to how he explains it. It's a psychological deadline. If I think they're tapping us along, I will not be happy about it. A psychological deadline.
I want to talk about this approach. What do you hear in this? Diplomacy by diktat. I don't hear diplomacy. I don't hear a plan or a strategy. I don't hear that there's a real mechanism for follow through. I agree that more pressure needs to be put on Vladimir Putin. I think that President Trump has failed to do that for the first couple of months. But people are arguing that Trump has also brought many more conversations to a negotiating point than was happening under the prior administration.
well he certainly is spoken to the russians in his head steve wickoff engage in go to moscow have the obtain concessions no uh... and right now looks like united states rather than building a coalition of diplomatic allies in support of this process is kind of doing it on his own and making pronouncements and that's not structural it's like what we saw
with Kim Jong-un back in 2019 when President Trump said, "I'm gonna make a deal with North Korea." There was no follow through, there was no process, and ultimately even after meeting with him, there was no deal. - All right, Joel Rubin, thanks so much for your insight. - Thanks, Lani. - I hope we have you back. In the meantime, we're gonna have the group chat coming up on CNN this morning. Before that, I wanna tell you about a rocket that exploded just seconds after liftoff, why the company behind the launch is still trying to call it a success.
Plus, breaking overnight, French far-right leader Marine Le Pen found guilty of embezzling government funds, the sentence that could end her political career. And bad news for coffee drinkers, it's not just the drive-thru anymore that's pricey, why every kind of cup of joe is about to get more expensive.
Oh, you want this type of milk? 50 cents more. Oh, you want this syrup? Oh, this one comes included, but not the seasonal syrup. It's $1.50. Why am I paying $9 for a cup of coffee? This podcast is supported by Sleep Number.
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As you're getting ready, it's 10 minutes past the hour. Want to give you your morning roundup. Some of the stories you need to know as the day goes on as the search for survivors continue in Myanmar, the death toll rises. That's following last week's 7.7 magnitude earthquake. At least 1700 people are confirmed dead and that number is expected to continue to go up more than 3400. Others are reported injured. In the meantime, the destruction has left thousands homeless.
And a rocket crashes seconds after takeoff from a spaceport in Norway. So the trip lasted about 30 seconds before spinning out of control, crashing in the water and exploding. Still, the German company behind the rocket calling it a success, saying that even this short flight was just enough time to gather data.
And a fast-moving fire led to evacuations in California that started Sunday afternoon near Fresno, quickly spread more than 1,000 acres because of winds. Today, the area is expected to have wind gusts reach up to 65 miles per hour. The storybook season continues for Auburn.
And Auburn secures the last spot in the men's Final Four last night during the NCAA College Basketball Tournament. They beat Michigan State 70-4. So it's going to be Duke, Florida, Houston, and Auburn making the first time since 2008 that all four number one seeds advance to the Final Four. And you've got to see this. It's going to take a lot to break this up.
And an old school brawl breaks out between the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Detroit Pistons. Every pro player on the court, coaches, trainers, everyone gets involved. Seven people get kicked out of the game, and that includes the Pistons head coach.
Still coming up on CNN this morning, major cuts underway at the Department of Health and Human Services. Donna Shalala, former HHS secretary, is joining me live to discuss how it could impact your health. Plus, have you noticed that your coffee is costing a little, you know, extra? We'll dive into those rising coffee prices and just how serious is President Trump about a third term? We're going to take that one to the group chat.
And good morning to my friends in Nashville. Some severe storms move east. They're rolling through middle Tennessee. Stay safe. Every morning for you is a coffee morning. This is a jumbo coffee morning. I need coffee and an IV.
I got a new mug today. And if you were drinking a coffee this size, this off script is for you because we are talking about how tariffs are going to affect coffee prices. So even though prices of other goods have started to go down, the cost of coffee is actually at its highest in decades. Last month, the average cost of a pound of roast ground coffee reached $7.25.
So what's causing this? Joining me now to discuss coffee roaster Kat Melheim. She's also the marketing and social media manager at the online coffee trading platform Algrano. CNN previously reported that, first I should just say hello. I'm sorry about that Kat. Hi, how are you? Thank you for coming in. Thank you so much. All right, so we have talked about the fact that coffee prices are super volatile, right? Because they're affected by labor issues. They're also affected by
even the threat of tariffs, is that true? - Yes, absolutely. Because yeah, volatility right now is at an all time high in the coffee sector. We're seeing all time high prices of, you mentioned roasted coffee, but roasters are seeing all time highs of green, raw, unroasted coffee. - So you gotta buy the beans first. - You gotta buy the beans first. You can't have roasted coffee without unroasted coffee.
And then on top of that, there are these threats of tariffs. There's climate change, which is completely unpredictable, and shipping delays, yada, yada. So there's tons of volatility in the coffee industry right now. Because these prices are so high, I'm also seeing reports about organized coffee prices.
Does this mean like stealing a full truck or what are we talking about? Yeah, it can be. It can be stealing a full. I'm hearing the same thing. I was in Honduras last week and there are like, yeah, escorts for full trucks, full container loads of coffee, because that can be tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars right there.
I want to talk to you about the strategies that roasters or local coffee shops might be using to try and deal with all this. Are they raising prices?
Yeah, so the event I was at last week both had producers, coffee producers and coffee roasters, and I was hearing from a lot of roasters that they're really afraid to raise their prices because they're afraid that consumers won't kind of go along with it, that they'll just leave for whoever's cheaper. Because we expect coffee to be cheap. Like a cup of coffee is supposed to be, I don't know, a dollar, two dollars. Right, right. I mean, you need it to wake up in the morning, right? But yeah, so I'm hearing from roasters that they're afraid to raise their prices, but the...
The problem with that is that, as I said, the green coffee, unroasted coffee prices are at an all-time high. So roasters really, in order to kind of stay in business or in order to support the coffee farmers, they're going to need to raise their prices.
One other thing, the National Coffee Association, I understand, has been, like everyone, trying to lobby for an exemption. I feel like every lobby group is out there, retailers, automakers, and it's basically going to the White House and being like, this is all fine, but maybe not us. How is that working out?
I mean, I'm not involved in the leadership of those organizations. But is there a push? Oh, for sure. Absolutely, yeah. Because, you know, coffee, everybody needs their coffee to wake up in the morning. And if we aren't exempt, then the prices must go up. All right, you're saying the prices must go up. Should they go up?
I mean, how do you think about what the price of a cup of coffee should be? - No, that's a great question. So coffee has really been undervalued. Farmers have been underpaid for decades, if not centuries. A lot of times farmers have a hard time covering even their cost of production, which includes inputs like fertilizers, but also labor. They have a really hard time
covering the cost of labor. - Yeah, you're talking about Honduras, Colombia, these are countries where also there's been a mass kind of exodus of labor heading to the US southern border. - Yeah, well, coffee picking, most coffee is picked still manually by hand, and it's a really, really arduous job. They're on like steep hillsides, the sun is really hot, they're very, very long days, they're carrying sacks of coffee on their back all day.
Who can blame them? Nobody wants to do that. Fair trade coffee has always been more expensive. I mean, I don't know. Should it be more expensive? Should people adjust to this price or is this something to fight about? Yeah. I mean, in my opinion, people need to, consumers, I know this is probably a hot take, but consumers need to kind of get used to paying more for
coffee, especially if they're going to local roasters, independent roasters who have direct relationships, direct sourcing from the coffee farmers. Because that's how you know that the farmers are actually making the money, the extra money that we're paying. But yeah, I mean, it's been years and years and years where people in producing countries have kind of taken a loss. And so that's kind of why we're seeing this bounce back. So is it a luxury from now on?
I mean... Not a psychological one, an actual one. I mean, people are happy to pay $10 for a glass of wine when they're out, $15 for a cocktail. I think, in my opinion, we need to get used to paying a little bit more for coffee. Now that, you know, lattes also have additions of milk and syrups and things like that. So those prices are...
set aside like apart from the price of coffee but yeah I think we need to get used to paying more for coffee. All right Kat Melheim thank you so much for talking with us. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate you for coming in. Kat is a sorry one second straight ahead on CNN this morning we've just learned French far-right leader Marine Le Pen will be banned from running for political office after being convicted of embezzling. Now
When that ban could go into effect, we're going to learn more. And we're just hours from the opening bell. The Dow futures already down this morning. They're still slipping. The manic Monday ahead on Wall Street. The new season of United States of Scandal has bribery, fraud, undercover agents and politicians suffering from a moral virus. You know, the usual. United States of Scandal with Jake Tapper. Sunday at 9 on CNN.
Tariffs are tax cuts. Tariffs are jobs. Tariffs are national security. Tariffs are great for America. We're just days away from what President Trump calls Liberation Day. This week he plans to impose a 25% tariff on imported cars, car parts, as well as so-called reciprocal tariffs, something his advisers are framing as tax cuts.
Good morning, everybody. I'm Adi Cornish. I want to thank you for joining me on CNN this morning. It is half past the hour here on the East Coast. As you're heading out the door, here's what's happening right now. Global markets selling off as President Trump prepares to impose those sweeping new tariffs on countries around the world. Looking at U.S. futures, the Dow, Nasdaq and S&P 500 are all in the red just hours before the opening bell on Wall Street.
And a line of dangerous storms caused this damage in Indiana. That system is actually moving east today. So far at least two people were killed in storm-related incidents over the weekend. And right now, much of Louisiana to Tennessee is under a tornado or severe thunderstorm watch.
In France, French far-right leader Marine Le Pen now banned from running for public office after being found guilty of embezzlement that happened just a short time ago. A Paris court found Le Pen and several others used parliament money to pay staff. She denies any wrongdoing. She had been seen as the frontrunner for France's 2027 presidential race.
And turning back now to Washington and quote, "A silly new bureaucracy." That's what my next guest is calling the big overhaul coming to Health and Human Services. That department cutting 10,000 jobs. It's also consolidating many departments. And Donna Shalala, former HHS secretary under President Clinton, says this insults a generation of patriotic federal workers. Donna Shalala joins me now. Welcome to CNN This Morning. I want to start with your op-ed.
where you describe it as silly. You've been approached in the past about reforming or making changes to the department. Why do you think these changes are silly? - Because they're structural and they're going to slow down both the approval of drugs, all of the programs at NIH,
There's no question that you don't start with structure. You start by trying to improve the programs that you have. And this reorganization makes no sense. It was done from the top down without consultation with the people that really understand the programs. It's very disappointing and it's very dangerous.
the resignation of the head of vaccines at FDA is also dangerous. - I wanna talk about that, Michelella. Hold on one second because you mentioned this stepping down, you're referring to Dr. Peter Marks. He was actually given the choice to resign or be fired. Now in his resignation letter, he wrote that it's become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the secretary, but rather he wishes subservient
confirmation of his misinformation and lies. In the meantime, Republican Senator James Lankford was asked about all of this, and here's what he had to say.
I am concerned. I'm concerned twofold. One is if he's making that strong of a statement coming out on it, it's pretty clear why RFK Jr. actually released him and said, hey, there's a real difference of opinion of where things will go on this. But there's a lot of other scientists that are still there. There are other scientists that are joining in. He has been RFK Jr. has been clear he supports vaccines and especially the childhood schedule on this. The president has been very clear on his support of vaccines.
There's a lot to unpack in what Langford said there, but I want to get to the idea of there's other scientists who could be involved in this. How do you hear this kind of, I don't know, sort of sweeping response to what we're looking at?
Well, RFK Jr. has not been clear about vaccines. He has not been clear about managing the measles outbreak that's occurring in this country. And we start with measles. What happens if we have a polio outbreak? Because he has said it's up to parents, but he has not encouraged parents to get vaccines.
His mother got him vaccinated. He got his own children vaccinated. Why would anyone in a leadership position in this country want any child to get sick from something that we already know the science is?
and we can prevent it. So you don't start with structural reorganization. You start by looking at the programs and seeing if you can make them better. Structural reorganization will simply slow down the process of science. And that's not what we want to do. And you don't fire people willy-nilly.
thousands of people and expect the department to be able to produce a better quality for the American people. The department's about health and safety and the future. - Ms. Shalala, I wanna jump in here. - And RFK Jr. is focusing on structure. - One of the things people are going to say that you may, there's backlash to this approach, that I understand. There have been many years when HHS could have been changed for more.
efficiency, right? And you also have a huge constituency of voters out there who believe that they don't trust the current public health establishment. How do you get them back? Because arguably, we wouldn't be in this position if they didn't have real concerns.
Look, we politicized the COVID vaccine. That's what caused a lot of the dissatisfaction with the public health. But people trust the Medicare system. They trust the Medicare, the Medicaid system. So most of public health, most of what the department does is, in fact, in Medicare and Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program, Medicaid.
These programs are trusted by the American public. That they don't trust public health as such, it doesn't mean that they don't trust the programs of the department. They trust Head Start, they trust child care, they trust the National Institutes of Health, which drives the economy in this country.
You can't pull the rug from under these programs and expect Americans to be healthier and frankly safer in the future. And that's exactly what this administration is doing. I want to thank Donna Shalala, former Health and Human Services Secretary.
- All right, so I wanna move on to another area of the government, right? Like if you want better roads in your state, what we're hearing now is have more babies. The Transportation Secretary, Sean Duffy, asked his department to prioritize communities with marriage and birth rates
higher than the national average when awarding grants. A CNN investigation found that red states would benefit the most under this plan. Joining me now for the group chat, Stephen Collinson, CNN politics senior reporter, Michael Warren, senior editor at The Dispatch, and Joel Rubin is back. He's the former deputy assistant secretary of state during the Obama administration.
So it may be weird that I'm talking about this with a group of men, but there are actually a lot of men behind this movement, which is known as pro-natalism. Elon Musk is one of them who says there's a population crisis around the world. People need to do more to have children, and they want this to be reflected in policy in the U.S. About 70% of the states President Trump won actually had above the national birth rate. That was back in 2011.
23 compared to just 15% of states that Kamala Harris won. Okay, Mike Warren, have you heard about this movement and what do you think about seeing it actually play out in policy? Oh, absolutely. And look, this is not new in the sense that there have been efforts, particularly in tax policy, to try to encourage people to have- Yeah, childcare tax credit. Exactly, childcare tax credit, all, or really any tax credit. I just finished filing my taxes yesterday.
I get a tax credit for the number of kids that I have. So that's not new. What I find kind of odd about this is going through sort of the depths of transportation policy in order to sort of privilege this sort of thing. - Yeah, to be fair, Sean Duffy has nine kids. He's long talked about birth rates. Here's how he describes the issue.
I think it is a crisis. And again, if you look at what's good for countries, societies is to reproduce, to have kids. That shows that you're healthy, you're strong, and you're patriotic. What do you make of seeing this play out in policy? Well, if you get on a plane and you fly somewhere, planes just don't go to places where there are high birth rates, right? So as a way of making transportation policy, this doesn't seem to make a lot of sense.
Now, you could argue, OK, a town, say in Texas, has got a higher birth rate, so we should plan ahead and think about the transport needs for that town. That seems great, but this seems to be about ideology. Now, one answer to the question of there aren't enough people is to encourage more immigration. So it seems like two of the administration's priorities
are actually working against each other here. It's interesting that you went in that direction. Joel, how are you hearing all of this? Because we're having the, we've always done it with kids, it's a thing, and this looks suspiciously partisan. It looks highly partisan. First of all, how would you implement it? What's the timeline for it? When do they start the clock? Is it the day Donald Trump was inaugurated? Is it nine months after that? And I
I think that what we're looking at here is an attempt to shift the entire population of the United States to try to bias and push towards red states, quite frankly, whiter states, and to try to move in that direction to depopulate from immigration. Immigration is a lifeblood.
of this country. Yeah, but to challenge that, so many Democrats, especially in progressive circles, have talked about what does it mean to have a family. There's a lot of conversation about being childless by choice. There is a perception that maybe culturally Democrats aren't exactly selling the idea of family. Yeah, you know, but that's everyone's choice.
and that's the right as an american to choose what kind of family and how large a family you want and i personally we have three kids three daughters i love having three it's it's uh it's wonderful but i don't think that the way i choose to live needs to be forced on other people and certainly not by the government telling people how many babies to the other person with three kids on the panel unless you have three kids oh no no we're in the two clubs exactly well look i
It just seems odd. If we're talking about implementing policy, transportation policy, because of population growth expectations, that seems fine. I do agree. This seems ideological. And it seems like often the Trump administration is trying to implement social change through government. That's certainly...
that's kind of new for Republicans. Right, and also what they accused past Democrats of doing. I don't want the group chat to go anywhere. We have more to discuss ahead. So on CNN this morning, we're going to be talking about a tense moment at Reagan National Airport, a United Airlines flight striking a kite while trying to land. Plus, President Trump set to impose auto tariffs this week, and he says he doesn't care if car prices go up for you. More from the group chat after this.
I love Tesla. Which one did you buy? Mr. President, which car are you going to buy? The one I like is that one. And how does this work? And I want that same color.
President Trump joked about buying a Tesla. Meanwhile, can you afford a new car? On Sunday, President Trump told NBC News in a phone interview that he, quote, couldn't care less if his auto tariffs cause prices to rise because people will buy more American-made cars. Some of the president's supporters claim his tariff threats are nothing more than a negotiating ploy.
I feel like in some ways in the economy this is kind of like a kitchen remodel or a bathroom remodel. There's a bit of a mess at the beginning, but everybody has a long-term look of where we're headed. It's going to be noisy for a little while, but we all know where we're headed trying to reduce the prices for Americans and increase jobs.
Okay, bringing the group chat back. Look at your eyebrows. Kitchen remodel. Do you buy it? Because by the way, if anyone's remodeled their kitchen, I haven't, but I have friends who've had and they're still traumatized. Okay, it's a lot of pain. Exactly. It feels more like taking your old house and then just ripping it all the way down to the studs and rebuilding it and trying to do that.
And doing it with less money. So then what do you make of the way Lankford was explaining it? Because, like, what is that messaging? I think that messaging is, you know, he's, like, blinking in Morse code. Please do not actually do these tariffs. I think there's a lot of terror. And you can see the Wall Street Journal had a great story about this where the automakers had this meeting with Donald Trump in which he basically said, make sure you keep your prices low. So when he says he doesn't care about prices, I think he does. But it's a contradiction. He's saying it's not my gig to fix that.
That's what they need to do. It's what he's trying to say. Okay. I know, Stephen, you have talked about whiplash, the uncertainty. What do you make of this general approach? Because I know the markets don't like it because they just don't like not knowing what's going to happen. But how do you see this moment and him calling it Liberation Day and the way he's trying to talk about it?
You know, the damage that's being done is almost as much being done because no one knows what's going to happen. Trump says, "One day we're going to have reciprocal tariffs on everybody. The next day," he says, "I'm going to let some countries off." That level of uncertainty hurts the markets, but more fundamentally... So there's nothing wrong, and it's quite laudable, the fact that the president is trying to respond to these areas of the country that were hollowed out by globalization. The question is,
Is the way to do that to recreate the economy of the 1950s a quarter of the way into the 21st century when the economy is now not based on manufacturing, it's based on services, it's based on AI? Perhaps you use tariffs to promote AI industries in the future. Now you're getting ahead of where they are, though, because they're still talking manufacturing. Stephen brings up globalization, which I think for Democrats, the legacy of that lives on.
right, in angry constituencies. Yeah, and absolutely there's a need for the industrial center of the country to get the support that it has to have to reindustrialize, to get the investments working for the workers there. But this is chaos, this is uncertainty. The thing about it is, let them eat cake day on April 2nd, rather than Liberation Day.
President Trump was not voted in to raise prices, but that's what's going to happen. 90% of global trade is going to be affected by these tariffs. There is no clear plan for how to get Americans to buy American cars now. Where did that come from? Where's the legislation for that? So this is chaos. What is an American-made car when so many foreign manufacturers here and so many parts come from other places?
to play one other piece of tape from you. It's from a car dealership owner. And the reason why I want to say this is because we are hearing so many descriptions of tariffs. Tariffs are actually going to make you money. Tariffs are going to give you jobs. Tariffs are actually revenues. Here's how the average person hears it who actually sells a car. And the manufacturers, it's going to cost them more money. And there's no way that I foresee them not passing those costs on to me and ultimately to the consumer.
We are going to pay, both of you with the hands, we are going to pay this. How many times can you tell people something else if what they're hearing in their neighborhoods is that we're going to pay this? I mean, there is so much consensus on this among people who study the economics of tariffs. So why do they keep trying to spin it into something else? Because it sounds good, but it's also a misunderstanding of manufacturing in this country. For instance, there is still a lot of manufacturing in this country. There's also just a lot of
cross-trade, one small part that gets traded to another country that can build a bigger part that then comes back to this country for a car part. That's sort of the legacy of globalization. And that's something that you don't hear from sort of anti-globalists in both parties, that it's a global economy and all this stuff works together in one system. That's where you do on this topic. To use the president's term, this does not pass the common sense test.
Oh, okay. Mic drop. Stay with me, you guys, because it is 10 minutes to the hour. I want to give you a little bit more morning roundup, some stories that you need to know to get your day going. So Elon Musk flexing his billions, handing out $1 million checks to two voters in Green Bay, Wisconsin, ahead of tomorrow's critical Supreme Court race there. I feel like this is one of those things that may not seem...
that it's going to affect the entire destiny of humanity, but I think it will.
Musk handed out those checks ahead of voting day, he said, because it was in appreciation of two people who signed a petition against activist judges. Well, over $80 million has been spent on Tuesday's race. In New Mexico, the Republican Party said someone started a fire deliberately at their Albuquerque headquarters. It says the phrase "ICE = KKK" was also spray painted on the wall. Fire officials, along with the FBI and ATF, are investigating.
And U.S. Bank believes one of its executives was on board a small plane that crashed into a home in Minnesota over the weekend, setting it on fire. The executive is presumed dead, along with five others on board. A person inside the house escaped without injury. And another scare near Reagan National Airport. A United Airlines flight from Houston apparently striking a kite while landing over the weekend.
The plane landed safely, with 131 people on board. And then there's this. At the White House in Washington, crowds gather for the inauguration of Franklin D. Roosevelt as President of the United States for a fourth term.
So FDR, who served for four terms, of course, the Constitution has changed to not allow that to happen anymore. But will that change with President Trump? Trump told NBC News he wasn't joking when asked about seeking a third term, adding there are methods to it. Will you clarify, are you planning to leave office January 20th, 2029? Are you saying you might not? Go ahead. Any other questions?
The group chat is back. I know you have talked about the idea that Trump doesn't exactly fear the Constitution or making changes to it or challenging it. So how do you hear this? Well, the way the FDR got a third and fourth term was by not talking about it because he wanted to be acclaimed.
Trump seems to be the exact opposite. He can't stop talking about it. I think one reason for that is it enhances the idea that he's this great political figure and multiplies his power. So do you think it's just bluster? Well, let's put this in context. They just pulled Elise Stefanik's nomination to be U.N. ambassador because they were frightened that they couldn't win her seat.
which Trump won by 24 percentage points or 24 points five months ago. So maybe talk of a third term is perhaps a little premature. Okay, because you're saying political gravity is still real. I want to bring it over to this side of the table. Are you guys...
We're past the era of do we take it seriously or not seriously, right? Greenland's taking threats seriously. Canada's taking threats seriously. Yeah, but I mean, the method for doing this is amending the Constitution. I don't think we're in a position where we're going to be amending the Constitution. The 22nd Amendment makes it clear that a president can only serve, it can only be elected to two terms.
But wait, Mike Warren, okay? Steve Bannon, the architect of all things, had this to say about the idea. I am a firm believer that President Trump will run and win again in 2028. You know he's term limited. How do you think he gets another term? We're working on it. I think we'll have a couple of alternatives, let's say that. We'll see what the definition of term limit is. I mean...
Okay, I would love to hear what his other definition of term limit is. I mean, I think we might. This is ridiculous. What are you hearing? Well, you know, Vladimir Putin did this with Dmitry Medvedev about a decade and a half ago where he sat to decide, became prime minister. Medvedev stayed in for a term and then Putin came back. Who knows what can or can't happen. Donald Trump could be vice president on a ticket in a few years and then not be elected to the office of the president for
uh... third term but then couldn't come in if the president quits ok a lot of ways around here shaking your head you're bringing up russia both of those things sort of make sense in the context i think but here's what i'm gonna throw out there if you are based basically making all the lawyers around to my challenge you in the future take a seat if you're saying all the judges are activists and shouldn't be listened to and if you have complete in total control of the law enforcement mechanisms of this country
How does that not raise concerns, especially in progressive circles that we are looking at someone who is laying the groundwork to even talk about this? I mean, I think everybody should be concerned and we should take it seriously in the sense that I imagine there are people in the White House talking about this right now. They must be, yeah. But...
But I would say, for instance, this idea that Trump could be vice president, I think if you look at the 12th Amendment, for instance, it would make him essentially ineligible to be vice president. So for this scheme to work,
You would have to go through, jump through so many hoops. I think Stephen's point about the political environment in four years is something to consider. Oh, say more. Or even now, right? Exactly. Exactly. I just think this is something to take seriously, but I think we should also be realistic about all of the roadblocks in between that. Yeah, but we were talking during the break about how there's always kind of a fringe legal theorist out there who's got a thought. Right, and look at all the fringe legal theorists that convinced...
Trump and people in the White House that he could actually challenge his loss after the 2020 election. Which he did many times. But this idea that some vice president is going to win the presidency, J.D. Vance for example, and then decide, oh yeah, I don't want to be president. I'm going to step down so Trump can be president again, doesn't seem very likely. Really? Given the loyalty around him?
I know. I mean, but when you're president, you're just going to step aside for a break. He's freezing the field. He's making it clear that he wants to be the leader in a few years, and everybody's going to have to decide if they're loyal to that. And I guarantee he's going to have a lot of tests coming up on that question. OK, I don't want to belabor this because you guys are going to tell us what to keep an eye on this week. I want to start with you.
Sure. On Saturday, April 5th, a big grassroots mobilization is happening amongst progressives and Democrats. This is really a sign that energy... This is not the Bernie Sanders thing? This is another thing? No, it's not, although it's certainly building off of that momentum. It's a sign the grassroots across the country are fed up with what they see coming out of Washington and are going to make some strong statements, in particular focusing on health care, Social Security, Medicare, about Trump keeping his hands off of those programs. Can I ask, do you know who's organizing it? It's a whole...
mixed group. It's like literally it's going to be a total mixed bag of every issue under the sun. Okay, Mike Warren. Tomorrow there's some elections actually. Yes, there's not just the Wisconsin Supreme Court election. There's a couple special elections for House seats. Michael Waltz's House seat and Matt Gaetz's House seat. These are Republican seats. Democrats have
raise a lot of money for those seats. I'm not expecting Democrats to actually win those elections, but I do want to look at the margins and of course what happens in that Wisconsin Supreme Court race as well. Is that an indication that Trump's political position is weakened? So far the indication has been money, right?
And the Democratic Congressional Committee has raised a fair amount. Oh yes, and they've raised a lot of money as well. And Elon Musk has backed that in the Supreme Court election as well. I just want to see what those final margins are and what does that tell us about the political environment. Stephen, I always want to know what you're looking for. Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far right in France, was just found guilty of embezzlement. She was banned.
immediately from running for election. The question is, does that rule her out of the 2027 presidential election in France when she has her best chance that she's ever had for what used to be the national front, now it's the national rally of winning? I think you're going to hear her forces say it's a hoax, just like they tried to do to Trump. They're trying to stop her running. And it's going to be interesting to see how someone like the vice president plays into this. J.D. Vance, because who has been vocal
about the politics in europe and going there right and he's been trying to undermine the more mainstream parties in favor of the populist parties of france so
I'm going to be looking to see what he says about that too. Are we going to learn more about that? We only have a verdict so far today. There's a verdict, but she was banned in the interim from running for election. The question is, does that last until the 2027 election in France? All right. You guys, thank you so much for sticking around. We talked about a lot today. We covered a lot of ground for a Monday. I hope you feel like you're ready for the week. I want to thank you for waking up with me. I'm Audie Cornish.
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This week on The Assignment with me, Adi Cornish. Is there a place in the U.S. that Democrats can point to and say, see, this is the way forward? Well, first of all, let me just say it is truly an honor to represent the working people of the greatest city in the entire country, right? And that's the city of Chicago. Mayor Brandon Johnson is the leader of a city seen by many as the very symbol of Democratic dysfunction. But he says we should give Chicago a second look.
And that despite the blowback from the Trump White House, we shouldn't underestimate Democratic city leaders at the forefront of navigating the new political landscape. Listen to The Assignment with me, Adi Cornish, streaming now on your favorite podcast app.