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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Trump Pushing Presidential Boundaries; Tariffs On Foreign-Made Cars; Smithsonian Institute Now The Target Of Trump; Cas Closed On Group Chat Controversy Says White House; WH Press Secretary On Group Chat Controversy: "Case Has Been Closed"; Death Toll Passes 2,000 Amid Frantic Search For Survivors; Elon Musk Invited To CIA To Discuss "Technology". Aired 5-6p ET

Aired March 31, 2025 - 17:00   ET

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TAPPER: President Trump is giving South Korea and Japan reason to team up with China. "The Lead" starts right now. A Rose Garden rollout planned as Trump gets ready to push his tariffs and nations around the world prepared to push back. Unlikely allies, South Korea and Japan, two democracies planning to respond with communist China. Will there be any eleventh hour tariff reprieves?

Plus, two teenagers and a grandmother among the survivors after that devastating 7.7 degree earthquake in Southeast Asia. Can more victims be found alive in these crucial hours? CNN teams are there as crews race to find survivors. Plus, the buzz on torpedo bats in Major League Baseball after home

runs hit a near record with them just one week into the season, and all sorts of teams are saying, hey, I need to get me one of those.

Welcome to "The Lead." I'm Jake Torpedo Bat Tapper. Today, President Donald Trump is continuing to push the boundaries of traditional behavior by a president or an administration. The president getting ready to announce tariffs on, at least as he puts it, basically every country on earth, every country that has import duties on U.S. goods.

That starts in two days, Wednesday. Then on Thursday, in addition to the existing tariffs on aluminum and steel, President Trump will impose a whopping 25 percent tariff on all foreign made cars and auto parts.

This tariff tsunami is threatening, according to economists, to flood our own economy. U.S. stocks are on track for their worst quarter in years, though we should note the Dow did close-up today. And economists are warning of more inflation and a growing risk of recession. What might that mean for you? Well, in a new CBS YouGov poll, 72 percent of the American people believe this is, this tariff war is going to mean higher prices for them in the short term.

On Saturday night, the president told NBC's Kristen Welker, quote, "I couldn't care less if automakers raise prices because of tariffs." It's an interesting comment for a guy elected in no small part to battle inflation. Mr. Trump also told NBC that military force was not off the table with regard to acquiring Greenland, although that would not obviously be his first choice. There are, of course, more ways the Trump administration is pushing the limits of traditional behavior. Just a short listing now.

They are using a relatively obscure law to detain and deport migrants, in many cases, flouting due process, presenting limited evidence against the people they are targeting, including some people in this country legally, though not citizens. In another norm breaking move, Trump has signed executive orders targeting two law firms with ties to Democrats and past investigative nemesis, James Comey and Robert Mueller. And among the stated reasons for targeting these firms from the Trump administration's own statements, the pro bono, completely constitutional and legal representation of undocumented immigrants.

Federal judges have now frozen parts of Trump's orders saying they're likely unconstitutional because they retaliated against protected speech. In the health world, the Trump administration appears to be laying the groundwork to change the way that life-saving vaccines are approved and implemented.

On Friday, Dr. Peter Marks, the head of the department responsible for assuring the safety and effectiveness of vaccines, including the COVID vaccine that was part of Operation Warp Speed, Trump's signature achievement in his first term, Dr. Marks resigned. He said he was given the choice to resign or be fired. Then on top of everything else, there is this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I'll tell you, I have had more people asking me to have a third term, which is, in a way, it's a fourth term because the other election, the 2020 election was totally rigged.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Okay, 2020 election was not rigged totally or not totally, but the sitting president now openly discussing being president for a third term. Of course, the U.S. Constitution's 22nd Amendment states that, quote, "no person shall be elected to the office of president more than twice." Mr. Trump insisted to NBC that he's not joking about considering ways to serve a third term, though that that's not top of mind, the White House said today.

It is not as impossible a legal theory as you might think. We'll have more on that later. CNN's Kaitlan Collins is at the White House for us right now. And Kaitlan, President Trump could be risking the success of his second term and the success of the economy on these tariffs set to roll out Wednesday. It seems like it's gonna be a pretty big day.

[17:05:04]

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR & CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. And the president certainly has been billing it as much, Jake. I mean, this is one of his clearest promises on the campaign trail. He made very -- he was very upfront with voters about how he felt about tariffs, how he would implement them, should he be reelected. And now we are less than 48 hours away from that day that he has billed as Liberation Day for the United States where those reciprocal tariffs are going to kick in.

What remains to be seen, Jake, are a few things, namely what those tariffs are going to look like, who they are going to apply to, how those countries that they are implemented against, how they will respond to that. And, of course, overall, the biggest concern here at the White House is how the American consumer will be impacted by these tariffs.

We still don't have a lot of clarity into which countries exactly this is going to go up against. We've seen some trade advisers to the president say it'll be the 10 to 15 worst countries that have the worst trade imbalance with the United States. The president himself seemed to push back on that notion of it only being 10 to 15 countries last night as he was flying back here to Washington. And so that remains to be seen, but, of course, that is the big question that businesses have.

That is why the stock market has seen so much uncertainty in the last few weeks as companies are trying to either prepare for what Wednesday is going to look like or brace themselves that there are no exemptions. The White House press secretary said earlier today there would be no exemptions. And, Jake, we do know there will be an event in the Rose Garden on Wednesday, the president's full cabinet, including those top economic advisers who have been working with him on implementing this, and what Wednesday is going to look like will be there.

And so that really remains to be seen. And, of course, the big question is how this will impact people here in the United States, whether it comes to automakers and cars here, Jake, or farmers in Iowa and how they're impacted by all of this as well and how they're impacted by those countries retaliating or responding to these tariffs that are put in place. And so a lot of this remains to be seen, Jake.

And I'll note, we will see the president here shortly. He's gonna be inside the Oval Office signing some executive orders, and it could be the first time we've heard from him on this plan specifically and what this could look like and what businesses should anticipate on Wednesday, also for the first time since you saw the stock market reacting negatively today and, upon close as they wait to see what this is going to look like, Jake.

TAPPER: All right. Kaitlin Collins, thanks so much. Appreciate it. And don't forget to look out for Kaitlin, with more on her show, "The Source with Kaitlan Collins" tonight at 9:00 eastern only here on CNN.

Let's bring in CNN's Phil Mattingly, Republican strategist Shermichael Singleton, and Alyssa Farah Griffin, former Trump White House Communications Director. Alyssa, let me start with you. So Trump's campaign, obviously, being a disruptor is part of his whole thing, and his campaign in 2024 was also to buck the traditional standards of the presidency. Have any of these moves, surprised you? And if so, which ones?

ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN, CNN POLITCAL COMMENTATOR: The ones that probably surprised me the most are sort of talking about this American imperialism, taking Greenland, taking the Panama Canal, making Canada the 51st state. I mean, one of the most appealing things about Donald Trump in 2016 was he was the first Republican in a generation who was talking about ending endless wars and talking about having fewer foreign interventions.

So this notion that he's kind of leaning into stuff he didn't really run on about expanding American power abroad in a way that really sounds imperialistic has been something very surprising to me.

TAPPER: And Shermichael, obviously, one of the reasons, and I think Trump even acknowledged this early on when he talked about grocery prices, and I think that was with Welker too, about how that was really one of the main reasons he got elected, Bidenflation, inflation under Biden, etcetera. I haven't really sensed a big focus on that and in fact, pretty much every credible economist thinks that these tariffs are gonna bring prices up. Are you surprised?

SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I'm surprised that the president hasn't gotten out there more to explain the argument for why he's attempting a tariff-based or focused strategy. And I think a lot of economists would agree for the most part that free trade, while there have been some benefits, there's also been a lot of negatives, particularly to working class people as well, why a lot of unions have said, wait, we need to reset here in various ways. But I think the acknowledgment, whether you're talking to economists

on the left or the right, they would all agree that this isn't something that you would see in the immediate. This is something that's gonna take some time. And so I would want the administration to try to focus on tax incentives for some of these companies. Maybe you have rebates, for the consumer.

Just various economic ways administration can attempt to lower costs that's not passed on necessarily to the consumer, but also the corporation say, look, we understand there's going to be an increase in the production cost, so maybe let's incentivize you via taxes to not pass that cost on to the consumer. That's a strategy that I think could be effective as we rate to see a level set for the tariffs to come in.

TAPPER: And this can't be good news. Phil, explain this to me. South Korea and Japan, Democracies, American allies, we have troops in both countries, are teaming up with communist China to respond to these tariffs?

[17:09:59]

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR & CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. Two linchpins of the Indo-Pacific strategy of any administration, Republican or Democrat. In fact, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was in Japan, just a matter of hours ago to talk about the U.S. troops that are there, the force posture that Japan is so critical to. This is the reality of the moment. And I think what's important to note here is let's see how this goes over course of the coming days and weeks.

But one thing is clear, China, Xi Jinping, their leader, has moved very quickly over the course of the last several weeks to try and fill what they believe is a void being left in the geopolitical space, in the international economy space. Xi hosting 40 business executives, I think, three or four days ago. The foreign ministers of these three leaders -- of these three countries met the 22nd, I guess, about a week, a week and a half ago. That was the first time since 2023.

This meeting with the trade ministers, the first time since, in more than five years. And I think what it underscores right now is there are still very, very significant tensions between these three countries related to territorial disputes, North Korea, Russia's, war in Ukraine. But they are opening a dialogue, one that China will certainly aggressively pursue.

What to watch here is they're talking about a comprehensive effort on free trade agreement between the three countries. There's been no progress made on a trilateral free trade agreement since 2012. If that starts to move, that signifies this is more than just a warning sign. It's a significant problem.

SINGLETON: If I can just touch on that quickly, Jake. It also gives China an opportunity to further expand their encroachment with BRICS.

TAPPER: Yeah.

SINGLETON: We haven't talked a lot of focus, a lot on BRICS --

TAPPER: BRICS, that's Brazil, Russia, India. Go ahead.

SINGLETON: China and South Africa.

TAPPER: Yea, yeah.

SINGLETON: And there's also a lot of other smaller countries that have also come into play. And the objective here has really been to usurp the U.S. dollar on the economic world stage. To your point, Phil, opening up this door, I would argue, gives China an opportunity to go to other developing nations and see the U.S. as receding, come and partner with China that is not in our long term interest.

TAPPER: Which China is also doing because of all the money from foreign aid that the United States is cutting back, under the Trump administration. Alyssa, I want to ask you, President Trump signed an executive order last week to influence the Smithsonian Institution's ordering no more government spending on, quote, "exhibits or programs that degrade shared American values, divide Americans based on race, or promote programs or ideologies inconsistent with federal law and policy."

Now, the Smithsonian Institute, obviously, has an entire museum dedicated to various groups that have been discriminated against in this country, Native-Americans, African-Americans. There was a genocide against the Native-Americans. There was slavery imposed on African-Americans. Are you worried about how the Trump administration is gonna handle this? I wouldn't exactly say that we've seen evidence of a careful light and deaf touch when dealing with these images and historical issues.

GRIFFIN: Well, and Jake, that E.O. is basically one page with very vague language that's open to interpretation. And what's interesting is J.D. Vance is gonna be heading up this effort. And as I heard it announced, I was reminded that in 2018, I was with then Vice President Mike Pence at the African-American History Museum in Washington, D.C., where he was celebrating Black History Month and honoring the, as he called it, incalculable contributions of African-Americans to the history and fabric of this nation.

And it just brings me back to this place of Donald Trump was elected to address the cost of living. These side issues are not what the American public was asking for. We've seen how disastrous this has been at the Department of Defense, for example, where taking away DEI has turned into just erasing basic American history. So within -- with tariffs, the 69 percent of Americans think they're gonna raise cost for them. And then these sort of side projects, he's really going against what he ran on saying he was gonna do.

TAPPER: Alyssa, just on that note, did you have any reaction to the fact that Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense, who's made such a big deal out of making sure it's only merits that counts at the Pentagon, did you have any response, or reaction to the fact that apparently, he's given his brother, a top position? GRIFFIN: It doesn't sound very merit-based, and I would say this. If it was merit-based, with due respect to Pete Hegseth, who did serve in the military, he is the least qualified Secretary of Defense in American history. He replaced a four-star general, C.Q. Brown, as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, who had decades of experience more in that role than he brings to the table.

TAPPER: Thanks to our panel. What the White House said today about the chances of President Trump and a third term.

Plus, "The Atlantic's" Jeffrey Goldberg is gonna be here one week after his bombshell revelation. How did he get added to that group text about a military strike? We'll ask after having a week to reflect.

And later, the special invite to Elon Musk to visit CIA headquarters, the concern sweeping through intelligence agencies. That's ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:15:00]

TAPPER: President Trump this weekend not ruling out a possible third term as president despite that pesky Constitution. Mr. Trump telling NBC's Kristen Welker in a phone interview that quote, "I'm not joking" when it comes to a third term. Continuing, there are methods which you could do it. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt today kind of shrugging off the possibility.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: You guys continue to ask the president this question about a third term, and then he answers honestly and candidly with a smile, and then everybody here melts down about his answer. He said, it's not really something we're thinking about. He has four years. There's a lot of work to do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Joining me now, CNN senior political and global affairs commentator Rahm Emanuel, also the former U.S. ambassador to Japan, former White House Chief Of Staff for President Obama, a former member of Congress, former mayor of Chicago, and on and on. Rahm, Welker did push Trump on how he could possibly serve a third term.

[17:19:54]

Would he have Vice President J.D. Vance run for president with Trump as the vice president, and then once he gets elected, resign, pass the baton to him? Trump responded, well that's one, but there are others too. He wouldn't elaborate. What do you make of all this?

RAHM EMANUEL, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL & GLOBAL AFAIRS COMMENTATOR: I make exactly what's embedded in the question. It's a distraction from the failures around the administration. We're using time on this and he's throwing this out as a shiny bubble over here, but not focused on the fact that consumer sentiments drop through the bottom.

The markets obviously, if we're disregarding today, is down over the quarter dramatically. They've had a massive problem where they're more focused on Greenland than they are on the price of groceries. And they want you not to focus on the scandal around Signal.

So this is the -- this is the distraction of the day. If there's also bad news after the tariff, trust me, there'll be another scandal. There'll be another distraction after that. So I think this is all intended to basically pull your camera and your questioning away from where the American people are. And they're focused on the fact that he's not focused on the economy like he promised. He's chasing everything else but the core issue that they're facing, which is how to make their family budget work.

TAPPER: Let me ask you about that Signal controversy with Secretary Hegseth giving information about the pending attack, then pending attack on Houthis in Yemen on a Signal conversation that included, apparently, accidentally, Jeffrey Goldberg, from "The Atlantic." You were -- you have delved in classified materials both as a member of Congress, as a U.S. ambassador, you probably had your highest classification, I would guess, as White House chief of staff.

EMANUEL: Yeah, chief of staff.

TAPPER: Yeah. What did --

EMANUEL: Correct:

TAPPER: -- you make of all that stuff? That stuff, I'm not a member of the military. I've never had a classification. That looked like pretty sensitive stuff to me.

EMANUEL: Well, I mean, I said last week when it first broke, I said, you had six months of planning in and around the Osama Bin Laden operation where you're making a decision between bombing or putting boots on the ground. Nothing ever leaked in that situation. You're risking the men and women who are off the coast of Yemen where some of that information, what kind of jets you're gonna use is valuable, what kind of missiles you're gonna use, when you're gonna launch them, what hour.

All that information is sensitive. And if Jeffrey Goldberg, as claimed by the administration, got himself on, that means the Chinese, the Russians, and the Iranians are all on. They should figure it out.

TAPPER: Yeah. I think it's --

EMANUEL: So that was a crazy excuse. This is an incredibly dangerous thing. I was there with President Obama when we planned the operation on the pirates in some -- off of Somalia in the first weeks. We're down in the situation. We've planned over 14 different sessions of situation room as it relates to Afghanistan. This was nothing short of reckless, which is why the moniker for this national security team will be always dumb and dumber.

TAPPER: Lastly, "Politico's" John Martin has reported Rahm Emanuel is gearing up to run for president. Are you gonna run for president?

EMANUEL: Hey, Jake, I already answered this question last week with you. No. I've -- I said the answer is gonna be the same. I'm not done with public service. I'm hoping it's not done with me. There's plenty of time to focus on not me, but what you have to do for the American people. And when I have something to say, you know I'm not shy. I'll say it.

TAPPER: All right. Rahm Emanuel, always good to see you, sir. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. My next guest --

EMANUEL: Thanks, Jake.

TAPPER: -- is "The Atlantic's" editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, one week after he dropped a bomb of his own. The scandal, chat stunner, still raising questions at the White House. You just heard what Rahm Emanuel had to say. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:25:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LEAVITT: As the president has made it very clear, Mike Waltz continues to be an important part of his national security team, and this case has been closed here at the White House as far as we are concerned.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Case has been closed. We heard it there from White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. A week after, editor-in-chief of "The Atlantic" Jeffrey Goldberg published a shocking story about having been accidentally added to a group chat on Signal by Trump's national security adviser, Mike Waltz. That group chat included other top Trump administration officials texting about imminent plans to bob the Houthis in Yemen.

Joining us now is Mr. Goldberg himself. Jeffrey, you have had quite the week. Secretary Hegseth accused you of, quote, "peddling hoaxes." It wasn't a hoax. Mike Waltz called you a loser. You're not a loser. He claimed he never met you, which you say isn't true. Waltz also said your number got sucked into his phone.

Now, some have posited that maybe Waltz was, when he was setting up the Signal group, was also trying to somebody whose -- add somebody whose last name started with G-O, Goldberg, in your case, Sebastian Gorka, head of counterterrorism at the White House. Is that a is that a plausible theory to you? And what's your general reaction to how they've attacked you?

JEFFREY GOLDBERG, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, THE ATLANTIC: Well, yeah. The Gorka thing is as reasonable as anything else. Somebody mistyped, you know, mistyped a name into the chat. It happens all the time to people who are going fast. It doesn't usually happen in relationship to an imminent bombing of Yemen, but it happens to people all the time on their phones.

My general reaction is they have one playbook, which is when they get caught on something, they deny and they attack. They issue ad hominem attacks on a lot of reporters, not just me. You, on occasion, have been the target of these sorts of ridiculous attacks, so have a lot of our colleagues.

Sometimes it works either because the person they're attacking is bullied or intimidated, but we're not bullied or intimidated. And it doesn't work when the goods are just there visible for everybody to see.

I mean, they can say that, I don't know, you know, that it's fake news. I mean, Donald Trump literally said it's fake news, but it's actually real. The White -- his own White House acknowledged that it was real. This is a thing that happened on Signal. It was obviously, from my perspective, a -- a massive breach of national security. They are shutting down the file on this.

[17:30:21]

I would only say that if this happened six months ago and it was Tony Blinken, the secretary -- the former Secretary of State, and Jake Sullivan and Kamala Harris talking about an imminent strike on some location in the Middle East, I don't think that Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump would be dismissing it out of hand. I think they would be going to town on it, and -- and probably rightfully so --

TAPPER: Yes.

GOLDBERG: -- because it does represent a pretty big breach, you know, a pretty big breach.

TAPPER: I mean, they -- I mean, they -- I mean look, everybody knows, and just assume right now, I could insert right now so many clips of Donald Trump or Pete Hegseth or Mike Waltz decrying all the national security issues that were legitimate, and we covered them as legitimate in 2016 with Hillary Clinton's private server.

And that was, in no small part, why Mr. Trump won in 2016, because of concerns that she wasn't taking classification materials, classified materials, seriously enough. But I guess nothing matters anymore. "The Wall Street Journal," we should note, reports that two U.S. officials also said that Waltz has created and hosted multiple other sensitive national security conversations on Signal with cabinet members, including separate threads on how to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine, as well as military operations.

I guess, first of all, you weren't included on any of those, were you? And -- and would you be surprised if he -- if he was doing this?

GOLDBERG: Well, no, it's not surprising, obviously, because it didn't seem like they're -- why -- why would they just have one conversation on Signal? They were obviously feeling like this is a good place to -- to talk. It's not. It's an -- it's an open access commercial app. It is end-to-end encrypted. But it's -- it's out there in the world. And one of the problems is you can wind up inviting people you don't mean to invite.

So, it wouldn't surprise me at all if they were using it. Alas, the Yemen Houthi conversation was the only one I was invited to. But, you know, I'm interested in the policy arguments in this thing, but, you know, when they started talk -- when they started pivoting toward very, very secret, imminent attack plans when planes are launching from aircraft carriers to attack Yemen, I felt, as an -- just as an American, like, wait, guys, what are you doing?

Like, why -- why -- this is not, even as an inquisitive journalist who believes that there should be a lot of transparency in the way the government operates, I don't feel like this is information, as an American, again, that -- that -- that should be distributed in open channels. Obviously, if someone nefarious had gotten hold of this, they could have warned an American adversary, a terrorist organization, that attempts all the time to kill Americans. So, you know, it -- it's just -- it's just poor tradecraft. It's just poor behavior.

TAPPER: And we heard the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mark Warner, react to reports that the Israelis are upset about this story because some of the classified information apparently came from them. Warner said, what happens if the Israelis are this mad and the 5i partners, our key allies, it's like New Zealand, Canada, Australia, U.K., et cetera, are upset?

Will they continue to share information with us if it's treated this sloppily? Do you think that the repercussions could actually be that strong, given your experience covering national security issues, especially international ones?

GOLDBERG: Yes, of course. And -- and I -- if -- if our partners in intelligence sharing think that we are sloppy or reckless, they are going to obviously hold back information that's important to share. But you've got to lay this over an even larger story, especially when it comes to European allies. You know, we are -- Donald Trump now is talking about not ruling out military action against Denmark, a NATO ally, a treaty ally of the United States, over this issue of Greenland.

So you -- you put this all together, it's not just, oh, some permissible sloppiness. It's much bigger than that.

TAPPER: Yes. All right, Jeffrey Goldberg, good to see you. Happy one- week anniversary on the bomb you dropped a week ago.

GOLDBERG: Thanks, Jake.

[17:34:46]

TAPPER: Coming up next, the frantic search right now to find more survivors from last week's earthquake. Hear what two women told women -- told about trying to stay alive -- told CNN about trying to stay alive in debris of a five-story collapsed hotel.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) TAPPER: In our World Lead, Myanmar's leaders say the death toll from Friday's earthquake now surpasses 2,000, with at least 4,000 others injured. The magnitude 7.7 quake also killed at least 18 people in neighboring Thailand. CNN's Ivan Watson now takes a look at the frantic search for survivors as well as the growing desperation of those who lost everything and need food and shelter and hope.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (Speaking in Foreign Language).

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Desperate cries for help, two teenage girls trapped in an air pocket with their grandmother under the rubble of their home, trying to get the attention of the outside world by banging on concrete with a butter knife.

[17:40:05]

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (Speaking in Foreign Language).

WATSON (voice-over): The trio, trapped and terrified for 15 hours until rescuers pulled them to safety. Frantic rescue efforts repeated across Myanmar since a deadly 7.7 magnitude earthquake shook the country on Friday. These two women, who asked not to be identified, say they were also trapped when their five-story hotel in Mandalay collapsed.

WATSON: Could you see outside? Could you see daylight from where you were?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): We were trapped in total darkness, but the good thing is we had a phone and we could use its light to see. If we didn't have that, we could have died. We could see to clear rubble from on top of each other.

WATSON (voice-over): They say civilian volunteers from the neighborhood rescued them after five frightening hours. Also in Mandalay on Monday, a Chinese rescue team pulled three people from the wreckage of a residential high-rise, including a pregnant woman and a little girl. But now, as more time passes, hope starts to dwindle.

The majority of those still missing now thought unlikely to be alive. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of people in quake-damaged cities and towns must now find food, clean water, and shelter. Myanmar's military ruler, Min Aung Hlaing, who rules over a closed society and rarely cooperates with the international community, is asking for international aid and help.

Already one of the poorest nations in Asia, Myanmar has been further devastated by four years of civil war. And the earthquake zone crosses the war's front lines. With its people in desperate need, some have been critical of the military junta.

YANGHEE LEE, FORMER U.N. SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR ON MYANMAR HUMAN RIGHTS: Why hasn't Min Aung Hlaing sent in all of his military assets for rescue and relief? We don't see any helicopters with rescue and relief teams. We only see civilians digging into the rubble.

WATSON (voice-over): Some lucky survivors in this majority Buddhist country are giving thanks to a higher power.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): While being trapped, we learned that nothing is permanent, and the most important thing to do before death is to live a happy life and do many good deeds. Don't do bad things, because karma will follow you. They say they may become nuns to show their gratitude for their miraculous escape.

Ivan Watson, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: And our thanks to Ivan Watson and the CNN crews on the ground there for that report.

[17:42:51]

The invitation for Elon Musk to visit the CIA and the concern it is raising in the intelligence community, I'm going to ask the former director of the CIA, Leon Panetta, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: In the World Lead, Elon Musk's invitation to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. CIA Director John Ratcliffe says they will discuss, quote, technology and, quote, advancing the mission. CNN's Katie Bo Lillis is with us. Katie Bo, we're hearing news of this invitation to Langley. We're hearing it got a pretty tepid response from intelligence officials in the building.

KATIE BO LILLIS, CNN INTELLIGENCE AND NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yes, look, Jake, I have to say I've kind of been waiting for -- for this moment because at least every week or so for months now I get a text from one source or another reporting a rumor that Elon Musk is on his way to the building. It hasn't wound up being true up until today, but it gives you a sense of sort of the sense of -- of trepidation and anxiety kind of in that building.

Look, DOGE has taken a -- a pretty light-handed approach to the intelligence agencies up until now. Musk has personally visited the National Security Agency. But it -- and it is true that the CIA, of course, has undertaken a number of dismissals, probationary employees, officers deemed to be working on DEI initiatives. But that was done under CIA Director John Ratcliffe's own authority, not DOGE's.

And, in fact, he made kind of a big deal about this in the House Intelligence Committee hearing last week, telling lawmakers that DOGE had had zero impact on his organization. And, of course, two days later, here he is announcing to the workforce that Elon Musk is coming for this meeting on Monday. So certainly fair to say there's some anxiety among some career officials that we spoke to.

One source that spoke to CNN kind of described the reaction as, well, here we go. And I guess now we -- the -- the big question that we wait to see is -- is this, you know, is this a one-off meeting? Let's make sure we get everybody on the same page. We're all singing from the choir book, same choir book. Or is this a presage to more direct operational influence or involvement by DOGE in CIA work?

TAPPER: All right. Katie Bo, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Leon Panetta is here. He served as CIA Director and Defense Secretary under President Obama. Secretary Panetta, as a former director of the CIA, do you have any concerns about Musk being at the CIA?

[17:50:05]

LEON PANETTA, FORMER OBAMA ADMIN. CIA DIRECTOR: Well, let's put it this way, Jake, I'd be very nervous about Elon Musk coming to the CIA, largely because I don't know what hat he's wearing. He -- he wears lots of hats in this administration. Is he wearing his DOGE chainsaw hat?

Is he wearing his hat on satellites where there's a lot of business with the CIA -- CIA and Elon Musk? Is he wearing his intelligence hat trying to get more information on China, the way he was when he went to the Defense Department? I just don't know what exactly Elon Musk is up to when he visits the CIA.

TAPPER: And there isn't any apparent oversight of him other than President Trump, which is obviously troublesome for any administration and any individual. I want to ask you about the Signal controversy. We just had Jeff Goldberg on a few minutes ago. You've said that the contents of what Defense Secretary Hegseth wrote in that signal chat should have been protected as, quote, highly classified information.

And I'm wondering that, coupled with "The Wall Street Journal's" reporting that Mike Waltz, the national security adviser, has created and hosted multiple other chats discussing sensitive national security measures. What's your position on Hegseth and Waltz? Do you think they don't take this seriously enough? Do you think there should be any sort of repercussions? What's your take?

PANETTA: You know, Jake, this is a pretty sloppy operation that's going on in Washington right now, particularly when it comes to highly classified information. Look, there is no question that attack plans are highly classified.

In my day, they were classified top secret. And to be using a commercial Internet-like signal to discuss these plans is just -- it's not just sloppy, it's careless, it's reckless. And to have, obviously, a journalist join that conversation, a mistake was made.

What -- what disappoints me more than anything else is that the White House now says it's a closed matter. To hell it's a closed matter. This is a -- a very serious security breach, and an investigation needs to be done as to what happened.

And if the White House isn't going to do that, then Congress should, because we need to find out who's responsible, who made these mistakes that were involved here, and then who should be fired as a result of that.

TAPPER: Well, I guess, I mean, it seems I don't know anything for a fact, but it seems like, you know, in Washington, I think as Jeff Goldberg has said, the obvious explanation is usually the correct one. It seems like Goldberg was in Waltz's phone. That's unusual. I have plenty of phone numbers in my phone of senators and congressmen, many of whom might hate me, but we have our phone numbers there. And he accidentally added Jeff. I don't think it was on purpose.

And then the Signal conversation took place in which Hegseth and Waltz said things that our -- our adversaries would love to know. When these -- the -- he, you know, Hegseth literally wrote, this is when the bombs definitely will drop. And there was some indication as to how they had the intelligence about one of the -- the targets in Yemen. I mean, this is the kind of thing, I mean, you tell me, you were the head of the CIA and the Pentagon, this is the kind of thing that if a private, a colonel, a CIA operative did it, not the secretary of defense, not the national security adviser, but just a working functionary of the government, they might get court-martialed. They might get thrown in prison.

PANETTA: No, there's no question. Anybody -- anybody who would handle classified information in that manner would be punished, would be court-martialed, would be fired. That's the bottom line. And so I think what -- what really concerns me is that although, you know, perhaps this information did not get out, we don't know yet, because if it got to a journalist, it could very well have gotten to the Russians or to the Chinese or to the Iranians. But the bottom line is the danger here is that if an adversary had gotten that information, then clearly lives would have been endangered on the Harry Truman, on other ships in the Red Sea.

[17:54:59]

And clearly, it -- it undermines our credibility with our allies, where we're sharing intelligence with a lot of other countries. They are going to question whether or not we're credible in the way we handle classified information, which then weakens our national security. So there are big issues involved here, and you can't just brush it off by saying case closed.

TAPPER: Leon Panetta, thank you so much. Good to have you on, as always, sir.

PANETTA: Good to be with you.

TAPPER: Any minute now, President Trump is expected to be alongside Kid Rock, the pride of Michigan, and sign an executive order on price gouging on ticket resales. But it's the big tariff event coming up Wednesday that has the world's attention. We're going to go live to the White House next. Stay with us.

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[18:00:04]

TAPPER: Welcome to The Lead. I'm Jake Tapper.