On the Outs
en
January 28, 2025
TLDR: President Trump fires more than a dozen DOJ officials investigating him, his new defense secretary initiates measures to transform Pentagon as per Trump's list, and border crackdown leads to 2,000 arrests in two days.

In the latest episode of the podcast On the Outs, the discussion revolves around President Trump's drastic actions during his second presidential term. From a purge at the Department of Justice (DOJ) to aggressive immigration enforcement and military reforms, the episode covers the implications of these changes on various sectors. This summary highlights key topics, expert opinions, and some practical insights gleaned from the episode.
Key Points Discussed
DOJ Purge Under Trump
- Department of Justice Purges: President Trump has dismissed over a dozen DOJ officials linked to investigations against him. This marks a significant shift towards consolidating power within the DOJ, a move criticized as politically motivated.
- Lack of Trust: The acting attorney general stated that those fired could not be trusted to support Trump’s agenda, raising questions about the independence of the DOJ.
- Political Ramifications: Experts express concern that such purges undermine legal precedents and could demoralize the DOJ workforce, leading to a crisis in enforcement capabilities and justice.
Immigration Crackdown
- Mass Arrests: Trump's administration reported approximately 2,000 arrests within the first days of his new term. This crackdown has left immigrant communities in fear.
- Immigration Policy Shift: There is a harsh shift towards aggressive measures, contrasting with the previous administration’s approaches that focused on public safety threats rather than indiscriminate sweeps.
- Public Opinion: While many Americans support tougher immigration policies, there is concern about potential collateral damage to non-threatening undocumented individuals.
Military Transformation
- Executive Orders: On his first day, Trump signed multiple executive orders aimed at reshaping the military. This includes reinstating service members discharged for not complying with COVID-19 vaccine mandates and banning transgender individuals from military service.
- Focus on Recruitment: The administration argues that these changes will enhance military recruitment, aiming to create a more traditional military structure.
- Cultural Conflicts: Critics argue that the focus on gender identity issues distracts from real performance metrics in military effectiveness.
Emergence of Chinese AI Competitors
- DeepSeek AI Launch: The episode discusses the rise of a Chinese AI startup, DeepSeek, which has disrupted the market and posed a competitive threat to U.S. tech companies.
- Economic Implications: This sudden emergence has led to a decline in stock values for American tech giants and raised concerns about national security and technological competitiveness.
- Potential for Collaboration: Despite political tensions, there is recognition that public-private partnerships will be crucial in addressing AI and technological advancement in the U.S.
Expert Opinions
- Panelists’ Insights: The discussion included insights from political analysts, highlighting how Trump's strategies mirror past behaviors and actions aimed at consolidating power while playing to his base.
- Legal Concerns: The episode underscores the legal challenges the Trump administration may face as they continue to push policies that might appear excessive or ungrounded in law.
- Public Sentiment: Many panelists noted that while some policies may initially gain support, long-term implications could lead to backlash from the broader public and specific communities affected.
Takeaways
- Power Dynamics: The current political landscape reflects a significant shift in how federal agencies operate under Trump’s influence, particularly in terms of loyalty and trust.
- Immigrant Communities at Risk: The immediate impact of the immigration policies is a chilling effect on immigrant families, leading to a heightened sense of vulnerability.
- Future of Military Policy: Changes to military regulations may provoke cultural discussions and disputes about the inclusiveness of the armed forces.
- Technological Arms Race: The rise of foreign competitors like DeepSeek might necessitate a reevaluation of U.S. technology policies and investment in innovation to maintain global leadership.
Conclusion
The On the Outs podcast episode presents a critical analysis of the early actions taken by President Trump during his second term. As policies evolve, the implications for justice, immigration, military, and technology will continue to reverberate through American society, making it crucial for citizens to remain informed and engaged.
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It's Tuesday, January 28th, right now on CNN this morning. The FBI and the Justice Department have become vicious monsters. On the outs, a Justice Department purges President Trump fires more than a dozen DOJ officials who investigated him. Plus,
The law forwarders of the president of the United States will be executed inside this defense department, swiftly and without excuse. Full speed ahead, on day one of the job the president's new defense secretary vows to enforce Trump's to-do list aimed at transforming the Pentagon. And... As many as we can rest and deport, we're going to force love. If they're in the country legally, they got a problem and they're not off the table.
The immigration blitz, the president's border crackdown gears up with 2,000 arrests in just two days, chilling immigrant communities nationwide. And then... The release of deep-seek AI from a Chinese company should be a wake-up call for our industries. The deep-seek shake-up, the stunning rise of a Chinese AI platform, tanks U.S. stocks. What it means for the future of Big Tech's artificial intelligence arms race.
At 6 AM here on the East Coast, here's a live look at the Washington Monument in downtown D.C. Good morning, everyone. I'm Kayla Toushey, and for Casey Hunt, it's wonderful to have you all with us. It's been just one week since the inauguration, and already Donald Trump is demonstrating that he is not the president he was eight years ago. No longer is he an outsider, hindered by the norms and traditions of Washington. Instead, Trump's second term is proving that he now knows just how.
and where to use the powers of the presidency to implement his vision for America's government.
Last night, the White House ordering a pause on all federal grants and loans. It's a decision that could impact trillions of dollars in federal assistance for communities in every state and the president issuing yet another slate of executive orders, this time designed to reshape the nation's military by barring transgender Americans and by reinstating service members who were discharged for failing to comply with COVID vaccine requirements. And amid those decisions, President Trump hinting
may be joking that he might seek an unconstitutional third-term in office. I've raised a lot of money for the next race that I assume I can't use for myself, but I'm not 100% sure, because I don't know. I think I'm not allowed to run again. I'm not sure. Am I allowed to run again? Mike, I better not get you involved in that argument.
Not 100 percent sure. In another era, that comment alone might have dominated the headlines. Instead, the biggest story this morning, the firing of more than a dozen Justice Department officials who worked on the criminal investigations into Trump's alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election and to retain classified documents.
In a letter to those being terminated, the acting attorney general writing, quote, given your significant role in prosecuting the president, I do not believe that the leadership of the department can trust you to assist in implementing the president's agenda faithfully, end quote. Multiple sources telling CNN that the Justice Department has also launched an investigation into the prosecutors who brought obstruction charges against many alleged January 6 rioters.
The scales of justice will be rebalanced. The vicious, violent, and unfair weaponization of the justice department and our government will end.
One week in Donald Trump's use of presidential power has been nothing short of swift and sweeping, as CNN Stephen Collins in writes, quote,
Joining me now to discuss Alex Thompson, CNN political analyst and national political reporter at Axios, Isaac Dever, CNN politics senior reporter, Kate Bettington, Bettingfield, rather. Sorry, I know you. No problem. No problem. No problem. No problem. No problem. No problem. No problem. No problem. No problem. No problem. No problem. No problem. No problem. No problem. No problem. No problem. No problem. No problem. No problem. No problem. No problem. No problem. No problem. No problem. No problem.
Alex, you think about the fact that during Trump's first term, he fired his FBI director for the Russian investigation, and he was upset at his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, who had been the first member of Congress to endorse him, all because Sessions recused himself in that investigation. And so those were sort of lampposts for what he could do with the department under his second term, and a lot of this was so well-telegraphed.
Absolutely. I mean, you showed that he ran on doing this. And I think it's a sign that he honestly wanted to fire Jeff Sessions the first time. And now he is really just taking control in a way and the guardrails are off. Now, Donald Trump also just believes that
The civil service should be completely loyal to the president in the executive branch. There should not be a professional bureaucracy sort of operating independently, and that's why he is firing or purging whatever word you want to use some of these civil servants.
I don't think it's a belief that there shouldn't be an independent civil service. It's that there isn't one. It's that the members of the federal bureaucracy tend to lean to the left side with Democrats. I think Republican antipathy to the Department of Justice runs deeper than the investigation into Donald Trump. You remember under Merrick Garland, they put out a memorandum that said parents who complained that school boards might be terrorists. They said Catholics who attend Latin Mass might be radicalized to become terrorists.
Conservatives, Republicans, and right-leaning independents are very, very frustrated with what they think is a weaponization of the Justice Department. So this is going to get wide support on the right. But I think this is also, this is Donald Trump leveraging that sentiment, which I would certainly disagree with and push back on in many ways. But I think this is what is so troubling about this is he's leveraging the sentiment to eliminate accountability for the president moving forward.
I mean, that's really—to me, it's—I don't—I think it's less about that he's aligned with hard-right people about how the civil service in the federal government works and more, that he's exploiting that to lay a precedent that anybody who is working to hold a president of the United States accountable isn't able to do their job. And that, to me, is what is really, really troubling and what he's—about what he's signaling here as he moves forward into his term.
Republicans have broadly defended his ability to do this in the way that he's gone about doing this. But there was one comment that I found particularly interesting, Isaac, I'd like to get your reaction to it. It was former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who has advised Trump for the last several years. He largely defended what Trump did, but he also suggested that maybe it should end here. Let's take a listen to what he said.
I would be kind of like, maybe there'll be a little payback. That's just human. Now, I think, however, that on reflection, he will conclude that his destiny, the reason God saved him was not to go after Joe Biden in his old age. God saved him in Pennsylvania by turning his head at the right moment so he could focus on America, not focus on revenge. And I think deep down he knows that.
Focus on America, not focus on revenge. This is the man who ran saying, I am your retribution. And I maybe, Speaker Gingrich has spent a lot more time talking to Donald Trump than I have.
You look at the way that Donald Trump has approached his first four years in the White House, his time in between, and this first week as president again. And it does not seem like what he takes away from any of these experiences is, that's enough. I'm not going to go any further. That's not how Donald Trump operates. He is pushing, constantly, seeing how far he can go. And so far, we have seen whether it's the Supreme Court decision last year, saying that
There's nothing that he did as president that could be criminally liable or nominating some of these cabinet positions that have really pushed further than anybody would have expected another president to go for in terms of their qualifications or their backgrounds. You do not see a president who is backing down. And in fact, on top of all this, it's the inspector generals that were fired on Friday night.
If that was something, if Donald Trump thought, maybe we're doing enough, you wouldn't fire 12 inspectors. Yeah. Well, I was just establishing Republicans like Newt Gingrich desperately want to normalize Donald Trump because they don't want to accept that Trump is the Republican Party now. And I don't know what
campaign Newt Gingrich was watching that he thinks that Donald Trump wants to put America's interest ahead of his own. He unabashedly has said many, many times that he views the office of the president as an engine to pursue his enemies and settle his scores. And I understand why Newt Gingrich desperately is trying to paint him with a different paintbrush, but that ain't the canvas the rest of us are looking
You know, he's learned a lesson from Barack Obama. In 2014, Republicans were in charge of Congress, and Obama says, don't worry, I'll just use the pen and the phone. I'll use my executive orders to do all the things that we want to achieve as Democrats. Donald Trump's taking that playbook and now turning it back on Democrats. And I think right now, so far, the American public likes what they see. He's more popular than he's ever been. And we even see Democrats. You see a majority of Democrats supporting his policies on immigration, which is a signature issue. This is not the same Donald Trump we saw years ago.
But do you think that the way that the Trump team is approaching it now opens them up to legal challenges, not notifying Congress of the fact that they plan to fire inspector generals, not even giving these prosecutors any notice? They were fired effectively immediately, which essentially is against
They're going to lose some things in court. I think they'll lose the inspector general case in court. I think they'll lose birthright citizenship in court. But I also think that's okay with Donald Trump because if he loses a few things in court, then the other things he does, you're going to, it slows people down and having to fight them. I think the shock and all strategy is admit to have some things that win, some things that lose.
I just want to say, Brad is completely right that a lot of these things, Trump expects to be challenged at court. That isn't part of the point. Yeah, exactly. And if you win in court, then you get the president, and then it's even more powerful than one of these executive orders. We're going to talk about that element.
As it pertains to immigration, some of these executive orders on the military, a lot more to come with our panel coming up. Straight ahead on CNN this morning, President Trump's borders are promises more raids are on the horizon, sparking fear among immigrant communities across the country. Plus, gutting DEI at the DoD, Pete Hegseth echoes the president's orders to reform the U.S. military.
And China's new AI chatbot, Rattles Wall Street, how the rise of deep-seek is pushing the boundaries of big tech's arm joints. China, for example, is a terrible trading partner. They abused the system. They steal our intellectual property. They're now trying to get a leg up on us on AI, as you've seen the last day or so. It's a serious threat to us.
I'm CNN Tech reporter Claire Duffy, this week on the podcast Terms of Service. Natasha Schul is a cultural anthropologist who studies technology design and addiction. So I'm 53. If I'm scrolling on some form of social media, it's going to be Facebook. She has some answers about why we're so hooked on our devices and some steps we can take to curb our infinite scroll. Follow CNN's Terms of Service wherever you get your podcasts.
The dumbest phrase on planet Earth in the military is our diversity is our strength. The integration of the military racially was a huge success. But now we're pushing boundaries and lots of different levels that are different than that because men and women are different because being transgendered in the military causes complications and differences.
That was now Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth prior to his confirmation, and yesterday, his first day on the job. President Donald Trump signed four new executive orders that could reshape the U.S. military. His directives include banning transgender service members, gutting the military's diversity programs, and reinstating with back pay members who were discharged for refusing to get a COVID-19 vaccine. The President claiming these actions will increase military recruitment.
and we were having a hard time recruiting people because they were looking at these people that they were supposed to be their leaders, and they weren't happy.
Let's bring the panel back in. Alex Thompson, this is essentially a restoration of a policy that Biden overturned in 2021, but it does go a step further by establishing some rules around gender pronouns and physical and mental readiness for military members.
What was really striking is that they weren't also just making an argument about fitness for duty, about maybe hormone therapy, made it so that you couldn't go in combat or any something with physical. They made an explicit statement about being transgender. The order said, a man's assertion that he is a woman and his requirement that others honor this falsehood is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required a base service member. It was as much a political statement as it was a policy change.
It's striking to me if you listen to what the clip we just saw of Pete Hegstad saying, the integrating the military was racially successful, but what we're talking about now is different. There are real differences. If you took that sound bite and you took it back to 1940,
he would sound like people who are arguing against the racial integration of the military so i just there is a it feels to me like they are trying to solve for a problem that doesn't exist women are serving in combat they're doing so effectively of course are there physical differences and limitations but with women relative to men in terms of physical strength of course but the military is effectively uh... solving for that in a way that's allowing women to serve and so
creating this division and creating this barrier to people who want to serve their country, being able to do so.
It's solving for a problem. It doesn't. He's softened his stance a little bit on women serving in the military, suggesting that it's just about the standards for the physical standard. The military has to have one standard, which is lethality. We have to have a lethal fighting force. And that has to be the only standard by which they judge who's in and who's out. Or do you help make the United States more fearsome, more strong, more difficult to deal with in a combat situation? We're peeling back a lot of the layers of social experimentation.
Liberals don't really like the military much, so they want to use it to achieve a lot of other political domestic gains. That's what's going to come to an end. If PTEXIS gets this way, although the Pentagon's big bureaucracy will see. The striking thing to me is that we spent a lot of last year during the campaign talking about how Democrats were overly focused on transgender people.
that it was such a small group. Why was so much attention to it? Now, the first thing that the new Secretary of Defense does and implements when it gets to the Pentagon is executive orders on this. There are, whatever you think of it, there are about 9,000 active duty people by estimates who are transgender of a military that's 2 million people.
And that is the opening focus for the Secretary of Defense. It tells us I think something about his focus going forward and about how the administration is looking at this. Again, looking at, just like Democrats were last year, focused on a very small percentage of people, but that has a big political impact. If you look at the polls, though, voters agree with Donald Trump on this issue.
Kate, I want to get your response to the view that liberals don't like the military. And also Trump's comment that there was a military recruitment problem for the last four years. Was that true? No. Liberals, I think the idea that liberals don't like the military, that is absurd. You look at people all across this country, all political stripes, who serve their country, who take up the sacrifice necessary to do so. And I think
politicizing the military and suggesting that there are, there should be political lines drawn here, which I think is what Hegsef is doing here. I mean, this is sort of what I was saying before. I mean, he's really, he is trying to create conflict around a cultural conflict around an institution that is about sacrifice and patriotism and has historically been a place where people are, you know, united behind the idea that America should be strong and able to defend itself and able to advance its interests on the world stage.
And so, no, I'll hardly reject the idea that liberals are not supportive of the military. As a liberal who is very supportive of the military, I stand in stark opposition to that. All right, we have to leave this conversation here at this moment that's straight ahead on CNN this morning. Thousands of immigrants rounded up in the first week of Donald Trump's presidency, leaving entire communities terrified. Plus, the Chinese startup that's shaking up global markets and the world of AI.
Welcome back to weather systems expected to cause one big headache in the Midwest and the South is finally warming up after weeks of wintery weather. Let's go to meteorologist Derek Van Dam. Derek, where's the good news here?
Alright, we'll start with the good news. The warm-up coming to the south today. The bad news, it's going to be a difficult and challenging morning commute across the interior of the Northeast. Check this out. This is a band of snow that is actually worn at the moment with a shade of pink that's a snow-squall warning moving across central New York. What's a snow-squall you ask? Well, it's a rapid drop in visibility and intense snow with winds gusting to 35 miles per hour.
look at this you can see the difference Syracuse to Cortland we're dropping under a mile visibility just with that band of heavy snow and wind that's moving through it will impact places like the central Hudson Valley through the next couple of hours so slow down take it easy before this band of snow and the cold front associated with it moved through the winds were very
very strong, so strong that it was actually pushing the ice. You can see that from a Southwesterly direction here on Lake Erie starting to cause some ice jams downwind from that. So here's all the wind associated with it. Expect a windy next 24 hours across the Northeast. The next storm system waiting on its heels. This will be more of a rainmaker for the East Coast. So keep that in mind and I'll leave you with this. The above average temperatures, Kayla, that we're all looking forward to. It's coming. We just need to wait a few days if you're along the East Coast.
All right. And I saw a little bit of warmth coming to Washington, DC, too. It is. It's coming. That ends up happening. Derek Van Dam, thank you. I appreciate it. All right. Still to come on CNN this morning. There's a limited number of days until TikTok is banned yet again. But President Trump says a major tech company could be in talks to buy it. Plus, immigration enforcement raids are sweeping through major cities across the country. We were locating and loading.
illegal aliens into military aircraft and flying them back to the places from which they can. We're taking on some of the most unique and challenging projects we've ever done. And definitely what? A cameo. A what? Have you ever heard of a cameo? No, I haven't. For Dave and Jenny Mars, the bigger the challenge. An old lodge. How much work does it need? A lot. We have today and today only to do it.
The greater the reveal. Oh, my gosh. Welcome home! Fixer to fabulous all-new Tuesday night at 8. See it first on HGTV. Stream next day on Max. More than 3,500 immigrants have already been rounded up in the first week of the Trump administration, with the latest raids being conducted in Chicago, Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Diego, Denver, and Miami.
So this, this operation right now is concentrated on public safety threats and national security threats throughout the country. We're focused on, we're focused on criminals, but I think the United States discussed before, but in sanctuary cities, you're going to see a higher number of collateral arrests. CNN's Ed Levandera has more on the president's aggressive immigration crackdown.
The Trump administration is celebrating images of immigration officers fanning out across the country, arresting undocumented migrants. The president's supporters call it a new day in controlling the U.S. southern border. I think what I've seen in the first week has been very positive as far as deporting people that deserve to be deported. These convicted criminal aliens need to go home.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, or ICE, says in the last five days it has arrested an average of 710 people a day who will face deportation. In Colorado, the Drug Enforcement Administration says nearly 50 people suspected of being undocumented gang members were taken into custody Sunday.
ICE officials say they carried out enhanced targeted operations in Chicago, searching for criminal immigrants. In Georgia, cameras recorded ICE agents arresting a Honduran man in his 50s at his home. The man's family says he is a construction worker with no criminal record other than a ticket for driving without a license.
While the Trump administration is touting its deportation efforts, critics say not much has really changed in Trump's first week from the Biden era. In fiscal year 2023, the Biden administration deported about 390 people a day according to ICE data that jumped to 743 a day in 2024.
What the Trump administration is doing right now is performative, a form of propaganda so that he can tell his base, look, I'm doing exactly what I told you I was going to do.
Trump administration is also boosting the military presence along the southern border. More than 1,500 troops have been brought in and will be deployed along various points on the border. Texas Governor Greg Abbott is also bringing in 400 additional National Guard soldiers to work alongside Border Patrol agents.
They're down there to create a secure border and knock that border down. And DOD's helped administration before, but not at this level. So it's a forced multiplier. And it's sending a strong signal to the world. Our borders close. Tom Holman is the Trump administration's borders are and he's valing more arrests to come, which is triggering a sense of fear among immigrant communities across the country, especially among farm workers. Right now farm workers, not an enemy being opening their doors to anybody.
knock under those because they afraid that he's going to be somebody who's going to separate it from the family. So this is the words that I personally have seen in many years. There have been some operational changes here on the ground along the U.S. Southern border. Military aircraft are now being used to carry out deportations, repatriating
undocumented immigrants back to their home countries, as well as more cooperation, interagency cooperation in terms of being able to arrest undocumented immigrants around the country. So we have seen those changes, but the question is just how long will this be sustainable? Ed Lavendera, CNN, El Paso, Texas.
Our thanks to Ed for that reporting. Let's bring back our panel here in Studio Alex. We just saw some of the data about how these enforcement actions have been ramping up in the new administration. ICE has been posting daily data about how many arrests they're conducting. It was more than 1,100 yesterday up from 956 on Sunday. And these are measures that do have large support from the American public.
Do you think that this is sustainable to continue ramping this up or do you think that there's going to be an initial burst and then it's going to settle out?
Oh, no, I think we're actually going to see it ramp up even more from where it is. And honestly, they would be even higher if they had the resources to do it right now. One really interesting sort of wedge in the early administration is Tom Homan, who you saw there, he really wants them to pass an initial bill, just focus on the border. And he's been very public saying, listen, we need more money now because you need to hire ICE officers, everything else. I think in his ideal scenario, like you would have two, three, four, five times this number. And it'll be really interesting to see what happens
in the next month.
We've talked about some of the reverberations in the migrant communities, and Tom Holman, the border czar that we just heard from, has suggested that there will be collateral arrests, people that they're not necessarily targeting that get arrested alongside people who are undocumented or convicted of a crime. And that's one key difference from the way that the Obama and Biden administration's approached immigration. I want to play a soundbite from President Obama's former ICE director who was on CNN earlier this week about that key difference and then get your reaction. Take a listen.
In the Biden administration or Obama administration, you don't take those people into custody unless they also pose a threat to public safety, you know, have a criminal conviction or there's some other, you know, there are gang members, something of that in nature. Under the Trump administration, they've been very open that they're going to arrest everybody in the House. That does drive up the number of arrests. But of course, those are individuals who really don't have an excess public safety.
So the Trump officials saying this is a byproduct of what is happening, but they're not apologetic about it. No, and Tom Holman, I remember an interview he did with 60 minutes right before the election when he was asked about this, and he said, yeah, that's what's going to happen.
This is another example of the Trump campaign, the president himself, saying what he would do if he was elected, and then carrying it out. We have seen that over the course of this week. Now, I think the question is, what happens when these continue when these ramp up? Are we going to see the things that had been talked about of deputizing lots of law enforcement, National Guard, to go in?
path was cleared last week for going into churches and schools, that gets to a different place. I don't think you'd find most Americans who would say, deporting gang members who are in the country illegally is a bad thing. And it's where it goes after the first week and what the reaction is then.
Okay, the bet that the Trump team is making is that actions will speak louder than words. And I remember during the Biden administration being in the press briefing room and have DHS Secretary Mayorkas there and saying, in no uncertain terms to migrants, do not come. Do not come. The border is not open. But that message was never heated.
Yeah, look, I think Congresswoman Askabar, as we saw in that package, is right. There is a huge performative element to this. They are trying to send the signal that the border is closed, that you shouldn't come. They're trying to send a signal to the American people, that they're delivering on what they believe that Trump was elected to do.
I do think there will be over the course of time. I think there will probably be some blowback. If you look back at 2020 and 2021, family separation was a huge political liability for Trump. Even people who said they wanted more robust immigration enforcement were
outraged and horrified by the uh... by the process of family separation so i think as more and more you as we get more and more of these images of people who uh... you know who as as uh... that general saying don't have a nexus to national security being swept up i think there will be some blowback i also think um...
Where is the business community going to go? There will be a moment where the business community will start to say, look, this is not good for our economy. This is negatively impacting our bottom line. So I don't think that Trump is going to have the political wind at his back in the way that he does right now forever.
We'll see. Republicans have never been more popular among Latinos than we are right now, right? At this very moment, with the strongest immigration enforcement highest on the list, that's when Republican strength is highest in the border communities that are on the southwestern side of the United States. So we'll see. 83% of Americans support the porting criminal illegal aliens.
This was something Barack Obama focused on. Democrats used to be for this, and then Joe Biden let in 10 million people, 10 million people in four years. That's why we are where we are. I think Donald Trump's immigration policy is going to be popular longer than you may think. We were also, let's not forget, we were post-COVID in a time where there was a massive influx of people after the, essentially, the hemisphere had been shut down due to COVID. So throwing out numbers without that context, I think, is a little
But Biden did 11 executive orders in the first three months that softened the border. It was on purpose that we did this. He was trying to undo Trump's strong border policies. We saw the results. And we also had companies saying that they couldn't find the workers that they needed. So I think where the business community is right now will be very important.
and very telling. Still ahead on CNN this morning, a Chinese tech startup is shaking up the stock market. How the new AI model called DeepSeek could change the tech industry. Plus, Donald Trump's purge at the Department of Justice taking aim at prosecutors who pushed cases against him. Some Trump allies call it payback. For those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution. I am your retribution.
the gravest threats to our civilization are not from abroad, but from within. None is greater than the weaponization of the justice system, the FBI, and the DOJ. We must conduct a top-to-bottom overhaul to clean out the festering rod and corruption of Washington, D.C.
President Donald Trump, making good on a promise, he first made when he announced his second presidential bid just over two years ago. Trump's Justice Department yesterday firing more than a dozen prosecutors who worked on the two federal criminal cases against him. It comes amid a flurry of restructuring and just a week after the president pardoned more than 1,000 January 6th rioters the department worked to convict.
Some employees at the DOJ telling Politico, quote, it feels like a non-violent war. Nothing that happened during the first Trump administration came anywhere close to this, another saying, quote, it's got to be among the most demoralizing moments in the history of the Department of Justice and calling it a, quote, wholesale, politically inspired demolition. Trump's allies, however, say none of this should be surprising.
That would be kind of like maybe there'll be a little payback. That's just human. I would suspect that if you were in his position and you had been prosecuted, you probably would do the same thing, or at least you seriously consider it. The fact that he has actually pulled the trigger is news to me, but once again, it would not surprise me.
Joining me now is former federal prosecutor Jennifer Rogers. She is now a CNN legal analyst. Jennifer, I want to get your reaction first to what the acting attorney general said in his letter announcing some of these firings suggesting that the people who were involved in the prosecution of the president in his view could not be trusted. What message does that send?
Well, it's a terrible message. I mean, the president is not supposed to direct the activities of the Department of Justice. The notion that he has policies and priorities that he wants the Justice Department to act on is not something that historically has been a thing at the Justice Department, right? Criminal cases are supposed to be brought based on evidence. They're supposed to be based on the law. They're not supposed to be based on the whims and
the retribution desires of the president. So just the notion that they are being fired, I mean, I guess at least they were upfront about it, that they were fired because they had displeased the president in prosecuting him, but that doesn't make it legitimate. It doesn't make it right. And I think the notion that it's demoralizing and really, really damaging to the Department of Justice going forward is true.
Pam Bondi, who's nominated to become the attorney general, she'll be voted on by the Senate Judiciary Committee in just a couple days. She said in 2023, essentially that a second Trump term would pursue this type of retribution, but then more recently in her confirmation hearing, she said that the department would not be politicized. Do you think that in some sense doing this now provides political cover for her before she gets installed there?
I think it does. I think it does. I mean, she knows that she can say one thing when she's a Trump advocate, but when she's going to be the attorney general, she needs to say the right thing. And she knows, of course, that the right thing is not to fire people just because they worked on the Trump cases.
She's saying the right thing in her confirmation hearings and the fact that this purge has happened before she was confirmed. I think you're exactly right about the timing. It's been done so that she doesn't have to do it herself at her boss's direction as soon as she takes the helm.
And there's been the focus on these handful of officials who were involved with the prosecution of January 6 riders, as well as the classified documents case. But then the morale more broadly within the department has caused an exodus that some legal recruiters say that they have not seen ever in their time in the industry. And I'm wondering what practical effects you think that ultimately has for national security and for the department moving forward.
Well, when there are not enough people to prosecute the crimes that are happening, including very important national security matters, then they don't get done or they don't get done well. And there's no question that a lot of prosecutors understood that Trump too would be problematic at the Justice Department, that he would likely have an attorney general who would do his bidding and that that might result in inappropriate
and even illegal prosecution. So I think a lot of people probably hit the road just when he got elected. But now that he actually has reached into the Justice Department to purge people without good reason, likely illegally, who are just doing their jobs, I think people are even more afraid that either they'll be asked to do inappropriate things or they'll be fired for just doing their jobs. And so I think it puts a chilling effect
on the department. And when people leave, there aren't enough people to do the work, the American people suffer. And how tall is the order for Bondi once she takes the job and is confirmed and her deputy Todd Blanche and other senior officials at the department as they try to restock some of those ranks?
It's going to be tough. I mean, the best prosecutors, the best lawyers in the country are not going to want to work for this administration. They're not going to want to do what a Trump Justice Department is going to be asked to do. So I think it's going to be very challenging for them to get the best people and even people at all, to be honest, to work in this department.
And there's a lot of important work every day that's not at all political, that everyone would agree these are cases that should be prosecuted, but when you don't have the bodies there to actually do the work, they don't get done. So that's part of my fear that there just won't be enough people to actually do the work that needs to be done every day. Well, Republican allies of Trump say he has the authority and he is simply exercising it. We will see what the ramifications are. Jennifer Rogers, we appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank you.
53 minutes past the hour, here's your morning roundup. Protesters lighting fires and demonstrating outside a U.S. embassy in Kinshasa. Reuters reports that a number of embassies in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have come under attack this morning. The unrest coming as thousands flee fighting between the Congolese military and rebels in the nation's east.
President Trump continues to lash out at California's leaders over the recent wildfires in Los Angeles. In a truth social post late last night, the president announcing in a statement, quote, the United States military just entered the great state of California, adding the military, quote, turned on the water.
The California's Department of Water Resources is pushing back, issuing their own statement, which says, quote, the military did not enter California. The federal government restarted federal water pumps after they were offline for maintenance for three days. State water supplies in Southern California remain plentiful.
and knew this morning the White House pressing pause on all federal grants and loans. It's a decision that could impact trillions of dollars in federal assistance to communities across the country. An internal memo, a copy of which was obtained by CNN, specifies that the pause should not impact Social Security and Medicare.
The sudden rise of a new Chinese tech startup is shaking up the stock market and our understanding of artificial intelligence. On Monday, a new AI model by DeepSeek burst onto the scene when it was revealed to be much more advanced than previously thought. The news sent the stock prices for some tech giants tumbling.
the Wall Street Journal editorial board, writing this about the new Chinese competitor, saying, quote, more startling, deep-seek required far fewer chips to train than other advanced AI models, and thus cost only an estimated $5.6 million to develop. Other advanced models cost in the neighborhood of $1 billion. Venture capitalist Mark Andreessen called it AI's Sputnik moment, and he may be right, end quote. The president Trump seems to view the new competition as a potential positive.
This is very unusual when you hear a deep-seek, when you hear something, somebody come up with something. We always have the ideas. We're always first. So I would say that's a positive. That could be very much a positive development. So instead of spending billions and billions, you'll spend less and you'll come up with hopefully the same solution.
My panel is back. Has anyone actually tried DeepSeek? No. No. OK. I haven't either. I mean, I think there's a general weariness of entering your data into a Chinese search engine to see what it what it populates. That being said, the fact that Beijing was able to create this with far less money, less advanced chips. Alex, what does it say about the export controls policy that the Biden administration had been pursuing to try to keep a lot of this technology from being developed?
Well, you're going to see all the tech and AI companies be making a version of the argument you just said. They're going to be like, we need more government funding, more government help, not government prosecutions or investigations into antitrust stuff, because we need to be able to compete with China.
The Mark Andreessen, though, has been saying that the government should not be in the business of creating winners and losers, deciding who gets to succeed in this arena. But how does that actually work in practice? This seems like a universe where public-private partnership is going to be critical. I think this is going to be a technology that's going to be infused in almost everything that we do as we look 10 years, 20 years, 50 years down the line. I think it's sort of inconceivable to think that the government is not going to have a hand in trying to ensure that
You know Americans privacy is protected that you know jobs are protected So but it is a space where government and the private sector do you have to work hand-in-hand private sector will be clearly be the engine the predominant engine of innovation on this and if this is a moment that spurs a Innovation in the United States on AI then then yes, that's a good thing But I think the the point that you raised at the top here the
This is not just a question of, is the United States advancing an economic edge? And it's also, in the information space, do we want the Chinese government to have control of the, to use Ted Stevens's term, the tubes that provide information to people? I mean, there's the economic piece. And then there's also the information piece. It's very fraught. We have a situation where
We have been told by a lot of the CEOs of these companies, this is where the economy is, and then look what happened yesterday. In the last hour, you said, NVIDIA had lost half a trillion dollars in its value yesterday. It does seem like this would be in other conceptions, a little bit of a stock market bubble.
We have a China problem. And it's going to disentangling our strategic industries, like AI from China, is going to be very problematic. We have to do this. But maybe we can do it in a bipartisan way. It's a thing where Republicans and Democrats actually have some agreement. And with our Trump's AI team, he's perhaps the first president to actually have an AI and cryptocurrency czar. He has a kitchen cabinet of sorts that Mark Andreessen and other valley luminaries are part of. So what do you
sense that they're suggesting them? Well, I think, you know, Trump likes competition, so in some ways he values competition from China, but he also is very wary of China and sees it as the enemy. I think that in ways that some of his predecessors did not. That's going to be put to the test, though, and it's going to be complicated, and there are going to be prices to pay. It's also a moment where you think about
what truth is and how that goes. You see some of the early interactions with the Chinese model yesterday where people are trying to get what, asking what happened in Tiananmen Square. And one of the responses that I saw that it spit out was, well, there's what factually happened, but then I have to follow the guidelines of what I'm allowed to tell you. And that, it seems like a funny thing that people do on it. But when you think about what that means,
in a bigger sense, as AI is populating more the information that is being put out and that people in America and beyond are getting. That is actually quite frightening, I think. This could be a tip. It's an iceberg, though, that you're not America's creator class with its investor class and its security class. There are not many issues that pull those pieces together.
The creator class, a lot of that creator class though is on TikTok, right? And Trump has some internal contradictions on his China policy. He has been one that has changed the politics of China, but also, just last week, he's like, well, TikTok's fine. Our phones are made there too, isn't that okay? Every American's going to go through this push pull, but in the end, we have to disengage.
And last night, Trump suggested that perhaps Microsoft could buy TikTok. I mold enough to remember when he tried to do that in 2020 and then scrapped the deal. So anyway, we shall see how that ends up playing out. Thank you so much to my panel today, Brad, Kate, Isaac, and Alex. It was so lovely to have all of you here. And thank you for letting me be in for Casey. We really appreciate you joining us today. CNN News Central starts right now.
Science is constantly evolving, with new discoveries happening every week, cracking your genetic code, microbes surviving in space, just a glimpse of the breakthroughs happening right now. I'm Dr. Samantha Yumin, and I'm the new host of Curiosity Weekly from Discovery. Each episode, we dive into cutting-edge topics. With expert guests, we make sense of the biggest questions shaping our world. Listen and subscribe to Curiosity Weekly wherever you get your podcasts.
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