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Report: Multiple Injuries in "Extremely Dangerous" Tornadoes in Texas; Officials: Trump Told CBP Chief He's Pardon Him if He Broke Immigration Law; Trump Mulls Dumping Detained Immigrants into Sanctuary Cities; Rep. Ilhan Omar Responds to Trump's Provocative Tweet on Her 9/11 Comment; Hillary Clinton on Mueller Report: Mueller Considers His Job Is to Protect Trump; Mnuchin: Democrat Deadline for Trump's Tax Returns "Arbitrary"; Pete Buttigieg Gaining Ground in Iowa & New Hampshire Polls; Lori Loughlin & Husband "Not Ready" to Enter Plea Deal in College Scandal; Trump's Tax Code a Weapon Against Blue States. Aired 3-4p ET

Aired April 13, 2019 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:00:22] ANA CABRERA, CNN ANCHOR: We are live in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Ana Cabrera, in New York. Thanks for being with us.

We have breaking news on this Saturday. Right now, about 40 million people in this country are in a direct path of a severe, potentially deadly storm. We're getting our first look at some of the damage after reports of injuries from a tornado that touched down in Texas. This is in the town of Franklin, southeast of Waco, where officials say multiple people are hurt and several homes and buildings are damaged. The National Weather Service now confirmed a tornado did touch down just a short time ago. Tornado warnings are still in place now for a wide alley north of Houston all the way to the Louisiana state line.

CNN Meteorologist Ivan Cabrera is watching this line of storms and which direction they're moving.

Ivan, show us where the people in the direct path need to know especially cautious right now.

IVAN CABRERA, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Good to see you, Ana. Cautious anywhere from east Texas to Mississippi. At this point, we're beyond cautious. Let's focus on eastern Texas because here we need to take action. We have multiple tornado warnings still at the hour. That one from a couple of hours ago, that activity has continued to move off to the east and we have numerous tornado warnings across eastern Texas.

Take a look at what's been falling out of the sky, upwards of three- inch hail. We're talking baseballs made of ice coming from the sky. These aren't that large. Look at the shape, very irregular. That's showing you melting, refreezing, melting. The atmosphere is quite violent. Today, we have those strong updrafts, 100-mile-per-hour winds going into the storm. What's coming out is tornadoes. Again, a tornado watch, which means conditions are favorable for

tornados to form from eastern Texas into western Louisiana, but I don't think this is it. We're going to continue this threat. We are going to expand it further east and continue it into the late evening hours. We're just at the beginning with a couple of tornados confirmed in Texas. We have a lot more real estate to cover and a lot more time to do it with.

Again, damaging wind potential. We don't want to ignore that. A severe thunderstorm, 60-mile-an-hour winds. But a lot of those will be dropping down large hail. The twist in the atmosphere, that will produce not just tornadoes but the kinds we've seen so far today, large, violent tornados. We'll keep you posted throughout the evening -- Ana?

CABRERA: All right, Ivan, we'll check back. Thank you.

Turning now to politics, and CNN reporting that President Trump raised the prospect of a pardon to a top border official if he were to break immigration laws. Senior administration officials tell our Jake Tapper that during the president's visit to the border in Calexico, California, last week, he told border agents to block asylum seekers from entering the U.S., which, of course, is contrary to the U.S. law. But he went even further. Two officials briefed on the exchange say the president told Kevin McAleenan, then head of Customs and Border Protection and now the acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, that he would pardon him if he ever went to jail for denying entry to migrants as one of the officials paraphrased.

The Department of Homeland Security is denying this report saying, "At no time, has the president indicated, asked, directed or pressured the acting secretary to do anything illegal."

The president tweeted last night denying he offered pardons, but President Trump's apparent lack of commitment to staying within the bounds of immigration law has been a constant theme.

CNN is also learning the president is simply ignoring legal advice by threatening to release migrants into so-called sanctuary cities, in part, as a way to retaliate against Democrats.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We'll bring them to sanctuary city areas and let that particular area take care of it, whether it's a state or whatever it might be.

They say we have open arms. They're always saying they have open arms. Let's see if they have open arms.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Joining us now, the former assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Juliette Kayyem, the "New York Times" White House correspondent, Michael Shear, and former federal prosecutor, Shan Wu. Juliette, I think we get so numb sometimes to some of the headlines

out of the White House, but the idea that the president would offer a pardon to top border officials if -- at least one if he broke the law, joking or serious we don't know. But what would you say to the people who work right now at the Department of Homeland Security?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: I would say essentially to the employees of the Department of Homeland Security is you're not getting a pardon, so don't disobey the law. We certainly know that. The White House's constant justification that he was just kidding is getting tiresome. In other words, he got caught doing something unlawful and so much so that the Department of Homeland Security was sufficiently concerned by this that the lawyers got involved.

[15:05:05] I want to say something. You can have no conversation about all of this stuff happening with immigration unless you begin with the basic fact of how failed Donald Trump's immigration policies are, from the Muslim ban to family separation to the threat of closing the borders to the asylum changes. The numbers are getting worse under this administration. You know, an important number to look at in terms of unlawful migration and in terms of the flow of people into this country. It's important to say, what Donald Trump is doing is trying to mask his failures of administration and policy by throwing in all of this crazy stuff, unlawful, illegal, and ultimately unsuccessful.

CABRERA: We'll talk about the legality of this particular offer.

But first, Michael, I'm trying to figure out why the president would do this. He has offered to take care of people who have committed wrong doing in the past. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: So if you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you? Seriously.

(CHEERING)

TRUMP: OK? Just knock the hell -- I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees. I promise. I promise.

Yes, get them out. Try not to hurt them.

(SHOUTING)

TRUMP: If you do, I'll defend you in court, don't worry about it.

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Michael, is there any reason to believe he wasn't serious when he reportedly offered that pardon? And if he wasn't, why would you joke about that? MICHAEL SHEAR, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Look, who knows whether he was

actually serious or kidding. I mean I think that's kind of beside the point. What you have to understand here is that all of the -- all of the ideas that are sort of flowing out of this administration, each one kind of more -- kind of offbeat and over the line than the last, are all coming from a sense of desperation. It's like Juliette said. The administration has seen this surge at the border. The numbers are higher than they have been in a long time. And they're a different kind of population. They're families coming over the border and largely trying to seek asylum. The administration is grasping at every straw that they can. The problem is they're treating it not as a humanitarian crisis, as it is. I was down on the border in Calexico when the president was there and stayed and went into Mexico and talked to migrants. The kind of security crisis that the president talks about, with hordes of migrants coming to sort of invade the United States, that's not the crisis that it is. And so the president is trying to apply one set of very hardline restrictionist policies to keep people out when most experts that you talk to think that a whole different set of humanitarian approaches to how do you deal with these families, how do you deal with the root causes back in the Central American countries that are pushing these families into the United States. That's what they need to be dealing with and that's not what the administration is doing.

CABRERA: Shan, giving a president is within the president's legal right, but what if he's offering one to convince someone to break the law?

SHAN WU, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: That's problematic. It really is a continuing pattern on the president's part where President Trump does not understand the difference between having the theoretical authority to do something. For example, he's allowed to offer and convey pardons to people, confer pardons to people. What he is not allowed to do is to change that into basically a bribe to do something illegal. He does not get that distinction at all. To both Michael and Juliette's point, they have no coherent policy. And therefore, based on his seeing the results of that, he goes around firing people, is angry, has temper tantrums, and directs people at random to do things with no sense of whether it's legal or not. Now, he's the president, head of the executive branch. He could change a policy, they could introduce a different law, but he cannot tell people, don't obey the law. He took an oath to obey the law.

CABRERA: Juliette, on this idea to just drop off detained migrants in sanctuary cities, why would the president want to put undocumented immigrants in cities where it would be harder to deport them? Does that even make sense to you? I know it would be expensive, for one thing.

KAYYEM: Yes. No, it makes no sense. There's obviously all sorts of issues involved with this on the legality of it and the sort of horror and immorality of it. But I just want to get to the policy behind it. This president has no coherent policy for immigration and, therefore, only uses politics. That is where we are now. So we don't even need to debate it in the policy space. He's not playing that game anymore. And I think an important point to note on this is we talk a lot about

the mayors and the immigrants and the Trump administration. There are over 250,000 line agents at the Department of Homeland Security. The president does not support them. He is using them. He is using them as pawns in his political games. And so, as a security expert, I don't even get into the policies right now. I see what this is. It's pure politics. On the politics of it, it has nothing to do with our security. Meanwhile, right, back in the homeland, we have all sorts of challenges going on -- climate change, a measles outbreak, cyberattacks, and right-wing and foreign terrorism -- that we don't even talk about in the context of Homeland Security right now.

[15:10:35] CABRERA: That's such a good point because DHS covers so many more aspects --

KAYYEM: Yes.

CABRERA: -- of security than just border security.

Michael, let's pivot to another story causing controversy today and that involves Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. She made a comment about 9/11, referring to the terrorists as, "some people who did something." President Trump responded by tweeting a video of Omar as well as some of the 9/11 attack video as part of that. Well, she's now firing back at him on Twitter. So they're going back and forth. Is this not the type of back and forth the president revels in?

SHEAR: Well, of course, it's the type of -- this is what he loves, right? He creates adversaries that he can knock down, sort of a straw man adversary that he can knock down. It's also, I think, partly generated by a sense of grievance on his part because, of course, the White House thinks this is what his adversaries do to him, often taking the comments that he makes that are so outrageous, the White House would say taking them out of context or blowing them up into controversies. So for him and the White House, I think this is an opportunity to sort of hit back. He's famous for saying that's what he likes to do.

You know, the problem is there's a sort of imbalance of power here. You've got the president of the United States going after a freshman member of Congress, a minority. So there's an awkward racially tinged imbalance that most presidents would seek to avoid. Most presidents would seek to rise above it. What we know about Donald Trump, he never rises above something like this. He descends into the muck and enjoys it.

CABRERA: Shan, before we go, there's a lot of anticipation for the release of the Mueller report, which we are expecting sometime this week, if we take Barr at his word.

Our own Fareed Zakaria spoke to Hillary Clinton about this. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON, (D), FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE & FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: So we're in this bit of a "Twilight Zone," aren't we? There's a report that, depending upon which figure you believe, is somewhere between maybe 300, 400 pages long and it is not being delivered to the Congress, which has an absolute right to see it. It is not being presented to the public. So I think that what we saw in Congress with the attorney general's presentation in both the House and the Senate is someone who considers his principal duty to be protecting Donald Trump.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Shan, the version Barr puts out is expected to be heavily redacted and color coded with all these redactions he says. Can we expect anything meaningful when it comes out?

WU: I hate to give bad news. I think we're going to be very disappointed. I think the sheer volume and breadth of the redactions that the attorney general has described, it's going to look more like that recent picture of the black hole than some sort of smooth reading. I also think the critical answer of what we all want, which is what happened, with reaching out to the side of the obstruction, did Mueller perhaps instruct him to do that, that's not going to be in the report most likely. So I think it's a pretty frustrating exercise. Really, like the light at the end of the tunnel will be the fight between the department and Congress over trying to get Congress the right of access to it.

CABRERA: Shan Wu, Michael Shear, Juliette, Kayyem, always good to have you with us. Thank you.

WU: Thank you.

CABRERA: Just a reminder, catch Hillary Clinton and Fareed Zakaria one on one. From the Mueller report to the 2020 race, the former Democratic candidate for president is talking all about this. "FAREED ZAKARIA, GPS," tomorrow morning, at 10:00 eastern, right here on CNN.

Here this hour, the fight over President Trump's tax returns heats up as congressional Democrats issue a new ultimatum to the IRS. And just in, a response from the Treasury secretary.

Plus, with the tax deadline fast approaching, a CNN reality-check on why blue states that did not vote for Trump are going to pay more in taxes.

And Actress Lori Loughlin not ready to take a plea deal in the college admissions scandal. Could that strategy backfire in the end?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: My grandfather died very young of a heart attack, and my father had heart surgery when he was very young. So my father and my grandfather I think unwittingly really motivated me.

(voice-over): We know that there's remarkable things happening all over the world that can help us live longer, better, happier, more productive lives.

[15:15:20] (on camera): I felt like the needle went almost to the bone.

I thought I was in pretty good shape. This takes it to a whole different level.

Is this what helps you live long?

You can be arrested in the states for doing what I'm about to do.

Can I work here? I can work here.

(LAUGHTER)

(voice-over): "CHASING LIFE" is an opportunity for us to travel the world looking for extraordinary health practices, experiencing them ourselves, that's my job.

(on camera): That's "CHASING LIFE," to find those things and bring them back.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:20:58] CABRERA: Breaking news. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin firing back today at House Democrats and their new ultimatum to get six years of President Trump's tax returns. Mnuchin calling the new deadline arbitrary.

Here's the deadline from the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Richard Neal, writing in a letter today, quote, "I expect a reply from the IRS by 5:00 p.m. on April 23, 2019. Please know that if you fail to comply, your failure will be interpreted as a denial of my request."

Now, this letter today comes just days after the Treasury Department told Neal it would not meet a one-week deadline to turn over the returns. That deadline came and went this past Wednesday. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin saying the request had risen to a level where he needs to be involved, as well as the Justice Department.

The issue of Trump's taxes leading to this testy exchange on the Hill this week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE MNUCHIN, TREASURY SECRETARY: I've sat here for over three hours and 15 minutes.

If you'd wish to keep me here so that I don't have my important meeting and continue to grill me, then we can do that. I will cancel my meeting and I will not be back here, I will be very clear, if that's the way you'd like to have this relationship.

(CROSSTALK)

REP. MAXINE WATERS (D-CA): You are free to leave any time you want.

(CROSSTALK)

WATERS: You can leave any time you want.

MNUCHIN: Then please dismiss everybody. I believe you're supposed to take the gravel (sic) and bang it. That's --

(CROSSTALK)

WATERS: Please do not instruct me as to how I am to conduct this committee.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: OK. Where does this fight go from here?

My next guest is David Cay Johnston, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journal and the author of "It's Even Worse Than You Think, What the Trump Administration is Doing to America." He also wrote a book called "The Making of Donald Trump."

David, you're of the belief that Congress will get these returns. Why are you so confident?

DAVID CAY JOHNSTON, JOURNALIST & AUTHOR: Well, the law here is incredibly clear. Under a 1924 anti-corruption statute, "The IRS shall furnish these materials on request of the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee." In addition, another section of the tax code says that, "Anyone who fails to comply with the law is to be removed from office and can be prosecuted."

The claims being made by Secretary Mnuchin that they're weaponizing the legislative process are nonsense. And Chairman Neal's letter giving the extension to April 23rd cites a number of court cases going back to the 1930s in which the courts have held consistently that under our Constitution, it's Congress' decisions to ask for things like this. As Neal points out, it is not the place of the executive branch to instruct Congress on its duties.

CABRERA: So is there any wiggle room, or is Mnuchin really sticking his neck out here?

JOHNSTON: Mnuchin is really sticking his neck out here. There's no wiggle room whatsoever. This is part of the lawlessness of this administration, which, again and again and again, does things that violate the law and federal judges, when brought into it, find you can't do that. I've been warning people, as the person who has covered Trump longer than anybody else, for more than 30 years, from before the time he took office, if Donald got in the White House, he would act like a dictator because he does not know what's in the Constitution and he doesn't care. He believes in his own mind that he should run the country and he tells us all the time he's smarter than all of us, everyone else who stands in his way is an idiot or a fool or a traitor or something else. That's the language of dictators, not of someone who under our Constitution is there to faithfully execute the laws that Congress has passed.

CABRERA: I know you're no Trump fan, I know why, as you've just laid out. Here Mnuchin is talking about the taxes being a complicated issue, it's not cut and dry is what he is saying, and that is just needs more time for them to maybe dot the "I"s, cross the "T"s, for lack of a better term. But you don't believe --

(CROSSTALK)

JOHNSTON: There's nothing to dot the "I"s or cross the "T", Ana.

CABRERA: Why would he be willing to potentially go to jail, potentially be removed from office by rejecting this request from the House Ways and Means Committee?

JOHNSTON: Well, because Donald Trump appoints people who either lack moral character or who are willing to pledge personal loyalty to him, which you'll recall Jim Comey was not. That's why he was fired as head of the FBI. We've seen that Donald just had a purge of people at Homeland Security because the secretary there, who had been willing to do a lot of things, was not willing to violate the law. And Mnuchin here is simply showing his loyalty to Trump. He is not fulfilling the oath he took of office.

There's nothing complicated about this. This law was used to get Richard Nixon's tax returns, and it turned out the IRS had missed when Nixon was president, in his 1969 return, massive tax fraud. Nixon's tax lawyer went to jail. The only reason Richard Nixon did not is he got a pardon.

CABRERA: Time and time again, this president has used the same argument for withholding his taxes. Cue the tape.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[15:25:05] TRUMP: While I'm under audit I won't do it. If I'm not under audit I would do it. I had no problem with it.

I would love to give them but I'm not going to do it while I'm under audit.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: We have no proof he's under audit. It really wouldn't matter. It doesn't prevent, rather, prohibit him from putting his taxes out there.

But what do you think is the big sticking point for him, David? Is it that he doesn't want people to know how much he's really worth? Or is it he doesn't want people to accuse him of cheating on his taxes?

JOHNSTON: Donald Trump is not a billionaire. You know, he claimed during the campaign to be worth more than $10 billion. When he got into office, suddenly, the document he filed under oath showed one- tenth of that amount of money, and even that's inflated. His biggest concern is that he'll be exposed for the fraud he is in finance. But he's also concerned that an audit is going to get into money he likely laundered for people who were not just Russians but in the Middle East and elsewhere through real estate transactions. I've written about a number of these deals that make no sense economically but they make sense if viewed as money laundering operations.

CABRERA: David Cay Johnston, thank you very much for joining us.

JOHNSTON: Thank you.

CABRERA: Coming up, a presidential hopeful who isn't even officially in the race yet surges in the polls in two very key states.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:30:53] ANA CABRERA, CNN ANCHOR: Call it the Buttigieg bounce. New polls show the once little-known mayor of South Bend, Indiana, is moving on up in the key states of Iowa and New Hampshire.

Let's start in Iowa. And this is according to a Monmouth University poll of Iowa Democratic voters. Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders leading the 2020 pack with 27 percent and 16 percent respectively. But look who's in third, Pete Buttigieg, 9 percent, putting him ahead of big names like Senators Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris.

Now let's look at a poll out of New Hampshire. Very similar there. Biden in front, with 23 percent, Sanders with 16 percent, and then Buttigieg with 11 percent.

Earlier, I spoke to CNN senior political commentator, David Axelrod, about the Buttigieg bounce.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CABRERA: There's a good and a bad to greater name recognition. The good, obviously, is that people know who you are. But the bad can be scrutiny of every aspect of your life. What can Buttigieg expect going forward?

DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR & CNN HOST, "THE AXE FILES": Well, we already see it. Vice President Pence has been firing back on him. Some people in the evangelical right have been firing at him. You know, the late Mario Cuomo once said they only shoot backwards in cowboy movies. So if people are shooting at you, it means that you are making progress. But, you know, it is also discomforting to have people going after you. But that's part of the process. Look, this is a long audition for the toughest job on the planet. And every time you clear a bar, the bar gets raised. That's what Pete Buttigieg is going to discover here. He'll either be up to that challenge or he won't. So far, he's cleared the bar very nicely.

CABRERA: Why do you think Buttigieg is having this bounce right now? Do you think his growing support is taking it away from somebody else?

AXELROD: He's a veteran. He's a Rhodes Scholar. He's a gay married man in a conservative American midwestern town. He's got an interesting story to tell about himself. And he's making a very explicit new generational appeal. So when you ask, is he taking from anyone, the competition may be somewhat with Beto O'Rourke, who also is a new generation candidate and has drawn a lot of support from younger Americans, who now are also interested in Pete Buttigieg. But I would stress it's early in this race. We tend to -- you know, it's a marathon and we want to judge it at every 100-yard marker. Certainly, though, the early returns are very favorable for Mayor Pete.

CABRERA: You mentioned O'Rourke, who is on your show tonight. I know you spoke to him about President Trump and how he's handling the crisis at the border. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BETO O'ROURKE, (D), FORMER CONGRESSMAN & PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Donald Trump is the arsonist who gets the credit for putting out the fire. He is going to cause worst out migration and asylum seeking from central America by cutting off all U.S. aid. Then he wants to be the person who gets the credit for stopping it. What we need is someone who will not play games or politics with people's lives or the security of this country but will invest in the smart decisions and policies, like investing in Central America to stop the outflow before it even begins. We can try to address these problems at the U.S./Mexico border with walls or open arms, or we can address them in the countries of origin before they ever become a problem, and that's what I want to do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Being from Texas, you can certainly hear how passionate he is about this issue, but did you feel like he offered specifics on how he would handle immigration?

AXELROD: You know, I actually thought he was very fluent on the immigration issue. He's obviously given it a lot of thought. He's not just from Texas, but he's from El Paso, right on the border of Mexico. And he has grown up in an environment in which people freely crossed back and forth across that border. And so, you know, he is passionate on this subject. I asked him in another part of that discussion about the issue. I said, you seem to be saying to Donald Trump you want to make this about immigration, bring it on, and he said, yes, absolutely.

[15:35:15] CABRERA: Bernie Sanders, he believes his issues resonate with people who don't make millions of dollars, and yet he revealed this week he's a millionaire. He told the "New York Times" this, quote, "I wrote a best-selling book. If you write a best-selling book, you can be a millionaire, too."

Again, this is from someone who has been highly critical of the top 1 percent in the past. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SANDERS: Billionaires and millionaires have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the political process supporting Republican candidates, and today is payback time for them.

The bulk of the benefits in this legislation go to large, profitable corporations and to millionaires and billionaires.

Well, my view is you don't give, as Trump wants to, huge tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: David, is this new millionaire status going to be a problem for him?

AXELROD: I don't know. Look, in fairness to him, he is basically calling for higher taxes on people in the upper tax bracket, so if he's entered those tax brackets, maybe he's a self-hating millionaire, I don't know. But I don't think people are going punish him for that. It's funny, though, to see him be sheepish about acknowledging his own success. But he would say he earned it the old-fashioned way -- he wrote a book.

CABRERA: But not everybody writes books and becomes millionaires either.

AXELROD: No. Trust me, I wrote a book, I know.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CABRERA: Our thanks to David Axelrod.

Tune in to a brand-new episode of "THE AXE FILES," tonight, featuring presidential candidate, Beto O'Rourke, at 7:00 Eastern, right here on CNN.

Actress Lori Loughlin could face decades behind bars after a new charge in the college admission scandal. Coming up, is the government pressuring her to make a plea deal? And how does her strategy differ from fellow actress, Felicity Huffman?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:41:20] CABRERA: An important safety alert now for parents with newborn children. The Consumer Products Safety Commission is now ordering the immediate recall of 4.7 million Fisher-Price Rock-N-Play sleepers. It's the product you're looking at right there, linked to deaths of more than 30 infants in the last 10 years. Officials say the danger comes from infants rolling over while unrestrained and they recommend anyone with the Rock-N-Play immediately stop using it and contact Fisher-Price for a refund.

We have new details about the legal strategy Actress Lori Loughlin and her husband are using as they face charges in the college admission scandal. A source close to the couple tells CNN they are hoping to just let this case play out in the justice system and they are not ready to cut any plea deals with prosecutors. This comes after federal attorneys slapped an extra charge against them, meaning they could now face up to 40 years in prison if convicted.

The couple's daughter, Olivia Jade, is said to be devastated by all of this. The social media influencer has lost partnerships with major companies, like Sephora, after her parents were accused of paying half a million dollars in prescribe money to get her and her sister into the University of Southern California. A source tells CNN she's embarrassed. She's barely speaking to her parents right now.

Criminal defense attorney, CNN legal analyst, Joey Jackson, is here with us now.

Joey, apparently there was a plea agreement offered. Again, Lori Loughlin said no thanks. Do you think she could still backtrack?

JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: I think so. I am mindful of what you pointed out and that's they're hopeful it will wind its way out of the criminal system and it'll play out how it is. But it's not about hopes and dreams, it's about realities. Let's talk about what those realities are. What happens is that you're given incentives to plead guilty. Prosecutors, yes, they have playing hard ball but that's what they do. They're not your friends, they're there because they think they're doing justice by exposing something that they believe and I believe America believes was scandalous, privileged and depraved in many ways because people don't have the resources to do that. In light of that, the prosecutors indicted them. The good news is this. An indictment is a mere accusation. There's 23 members in the grand jury. It takes 12, a simple majority, to establish two things. One, that a crime was committed and, two, that she and her husband, along with others, committed it. There's not proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. They just present a bare bone case that the prosecutes to the grand jury. So that's the good news --

(CROSSTALK)

CABRERA: Let me ask you, first, Joey, if you were advising her, and you're a defense attorney, would you have said take the plea deal in this case?

JACKSON: Yes, because I didn't get to the bad news.

(LAUGHTER)

The bad news is this. Look, if those allegations are, Ana, what they are purported to be -- and let's be clear, an indictment is a list of allegations and accusations. But if they're what they're reported to be, you get yourself in worse shape. There's two ways in the federal system, in order to do yourself favors, and that's pleading guilty early. The first is acceptance of responsibility. In the federal system, there's a score, there's a guideline. They look at your prior credible history and the offense level of what you did. When you accept responsibility, it lessens the score, thereby, lessening the punishment. The second way is substantial assistance, help the government out. We know there are 50 people out there, may be more as we move forward, and people helping and assisting. They're entitled to the presumption of innocence. Everyone is entitled to have a trial. It should be fair. We should hear and air the evidence in a court of law. At the end of the day, I read the indictment. If the government can prove the facts alleged in that indictment, they're in big trouble.

Let's also say this, Ana. This is a very documentary case. What I mean by that is there are transactions. The government either has those transactions or not. I think it's a mistake for people to say, well, Singer is damaged goods. He's the mastermind who has pled guilty and is turning state's evidence.

(CROSSTALK)

[15:45:06] JACKSON: Yes, working with the government. It's not only about attacking the cooperator who, of course, lied and put all this together and has the most to gain, but it's, can you corroborate, support what the cooperator is telling you. If you have transactions that are put into half a million dollars into a for-profit and not- for-profit under the guise of being charitable donations and, in essence, they're bribes, that's a problem.

CABRERA: There's also tangible evidence as well in this case.

I want to ask you about the optics of how Lori Loughlin has handled this versus Felicity Huffman. Huffman is, again, a well-known actress. She went the other direction. She's taken the plea deal. Prosecutors are asking for her to be sentenced on the lower end of sentencing so that seems to be working in her favor. The way they have approached this is very different. We saw Felicity Huffman looking very somber. Lori is signing autographs, greeting fans. Does that matter at all?

JACKSON: It shouldn't, but, Ana, optics matter, right? So you have Ms. Huffman, who has accepted responsibility, who put out a statement, falling on the sword, saying I should not have done this, it was wrong, my daughter didn't know about it but I'm accepting responsibility and we're going to move toward and I'm going to be better. Very somber entering the courtroom. Then you have the optics of Mrs. Loughlin and her husband. She's signing autographs, it's not that serious, shaking hands, et cetera. So optics should not matter. Things that happen outside the courtroom shouldn't matter. But prosecutors watch TV like everybody else. And I don't think that's something they're looking to see. Be contrite, be remorseful. If you're guilty, accept responsibility.

CABRERA: This story is not over yet so we'll continue to chat as we move through the process.

Joey Jackson, good to always have you with us. Thank you.

JACKSON: Thank you, Ana.

CABRERA: Remember the expression there are only two things certain in life, death and taxes? It turns out maybe that's not true. How are rich people dodging taxes while other people are paying so much more, particularly those people who did not vote for Trump? Your CNN reality check is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:51:36] CABRERA: The old saying goes only two things are certain in life, death and taxes. But you can add a third certainty to that list. Blue states that did not vote for Trump are going to pay more in taxes.

CNN's John Avlon has your "REALITY CHECK."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Monday is Tax Day, a date that strikes fear in the heart of most Americans. As George Washington said, no taxes can be devised which are not more or less inconvenient and unpleasant, to reset the bar. But we can expect the tax code to be fair. This year, not so much. Because whether you see your taxes go up or down will depend if you live in a red state or blue state. That's by design.

First, a little history. December 22, 2017, President Trump's tax plan was signed into law. A Christmas gift to corporations and red states residents passed entirely along party lines. It cut taxes sharply for most Americans, raising the standard deduction. In return, it eliminated all personal exemptions, cut itemized deductions and, here's the key part, it slashed the amount of state and local taxes you could deduct to $10,000, limited the mortgage interest deduction. That's where the representation of the tax code became evident.

According to data obtained by CNN from H&R Block, among states where refunds went up, the top 10 are all red states went up. Among states where tax refunds went down? You guessed it. The top 10 are all blue states. Notice a pattern?

Let's dig deeper. Alabama's average SALT deduction was around $6,000 in 2016, well below the $10K cap. The average deduction in New York, nearly $22,000. Mississippi? It's about $6400. California? Nearly $19,000. If you look at the entire map, the story is the same. Bright blue states are paying vastly more under Trump's tax plan than ruby red states.

Let's look at population density. No surprise that areas where most Americans live, it costs more to buy a house. Guess who's more likely to need a mortgage? Red states deduct while blue states are stuck.

This has become known as the blue state triple whammy because Trump's tax code has made it more expensive to buy a home, more expensive to own a home, and harder to sell your home.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is suing Trump, along with three other blue states, put it this way.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDREW CUOMO, (D), NEW YORK GOVERNOR: If your political goal is to help Republican states and hurt Democratic states, this is exactly the way they do it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: Guess who does even better under Trump's tax code? Trump's own commercial real estate industry. The same industry that Jared Kushner's company bought a white-elephant of a building at a record price before the market crashed, nearly defaulted on a $1 billion loan and is still worth around $300 million and paid little or no federal income taxes for at least seven years. The loopholes are wider and shelter income easier than ever before. As for the rest of us? Only 17 percent of taxpayers say they expect to see a tax cut this year.

President Nixon said never make this popular but we can make it fair. But with a politically weaponized tax code that punishes blue states, President Trump seems to have failed at both.

That's your "REALITY CHECK."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CABRERA: John Avlon, thank you.

This week's "CNN Hero" is bringing a hidden population of teenagers out of the shadows. And 1.3 million kids sleep on the streets or couch surf every night here in the U.S. But our "CNN Hero" is working to change that that and give young people a chance at a brighter future.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED CNN HERO: There's a lot of shame that goes with being a homeless unaccompanied youth. They hide what's actually going on with them and so they become this very invisible population.

[15:55:09] Most people don't even know these kids exist.

(SINGING)

UNIDENTIFIED CNN HERO: The transformation of these kids is monumental. They come in so broken. And I'm just one person telling them I'm going to help them.

They become softer. It's great they can be happy and are able to be kids again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: To nominate someone you think should be a "CNN Hero," long on to CNN.com/heroes.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:00:04] You made it to the weekend. You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Ana Cabrera, in New York. We have breaking news.