This Week with George Stephanopoulos Transcript: Sunday, May 4, 2025

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ANNOUNCER: THIS WEEK WITH GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS starts right now.

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GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC “THIS WEEK” ANCHOR: One hundred days of disruption. President Trump moves to dismantle the federal government, transform the economy, and exact revenge.

TERRY MORAN, ABC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: People are worried and some people who voted for you are saying, I didn't sign up for this. So, how do you answer those concerns?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, they did sign up for it, actually. And this is what I campaigned on.

STEPHANOPOULOS: This morning, Selina Wang reports on Trump's whirlwind second term. Plus, analysis from Chris Christie, Donna Brazile and Reince Priebus.

Crypto conflicts.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I believe that the crypto world is going to take over those big banks. I think it’s going to leave them in the dust.

STEPHANOPOULOS: The Trump family expands its lucrative cryptocurrency empire, raising questions of corruption.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He can use his power, his political power, to influence the whole sector for his personal gain.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Aaron Katersky reports on the sprawling business. Plus, "New York Times" investigative reporter Eric Lipton and former SEC attorney John Reed Stark join us live.

Health upheaval.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You are suffocating. You are suffocating. And that’s what's going to kill you.

STEPHANOPOULOS: With DOGE cuts gutting public health funding, a backlash over lost protections for coal country. Jay O'Brien speaks with minors fighting black lung, and Republicans urging Trump to change course. Plus, Dr. Ashish Jha, as Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announces controversial new vaccine testing measures.

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ANNOUNCER: From ABC News, it's THIS WEEK. Here now, George Stephanopoulos.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Good morning and welcome to THIS WEEK.

A week where President Trump passed the 100 day mark of his second term. Three months of dizzying and disruptive executive action, up ending the global ordering, escalation – escalating his immigration crackdown, dismantling government institutions and using the power of his office to reward his allies and punish his enemies, all accompanied by a dramatic drop in public approval with polls this week showing Trump starting his second 100 days at the lowest point for any American president so early in his term.

This morning we examine what these 100 days have meant for the country and the world, and what comes next for the Trump presidency.

Senior White House correspondent Selina Wang starts us off.

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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This is the golden age. One hundred days and we've done things that nobody thought even possible.

SELINA WANG, ABC NEWS SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Donald Trump's first 100 days have been unlike any other, moving aggressively to reshape America’s government, society and role in the world. But even though his promises to boost the economy put him back in the White House –

TRUMP: We will end inflation, and we will make America affordable again.

WANG (voice over): President Trump's unprecedented tariffs have sent recession fears soaring. The U.S. economy contracting in the first quarter for the first time since the pandemic. In April, President Trump imposed the highest taxes on imports in more than a century, since the Smoot-Hawley Act, which deepened the Great Depression. After triggering panic across the markets, the White House paused its so-called reciprocal tariffs on dozens of countries but intensified its trade war with China. Small businesses, like this toy store in Virginia, already reeling.

WANG: What would your message be to the Trump administration?

AMY RUTHERFORD, OWNER, PIPPIN TOY CO.: We can't continue like this. You know, uncertainty is no way to run a business. And it's certainly no way to run a – a country.

WANG (voice over): Trump appearing to downplay those concerns to ABC's Terry Moran.

TERRY MORAN, ABC NEWS: People are worried, even some people who voted for you, saying, I didn't sign up for this. So, how do you answer those concerns?

TRUMP: Well, they did sign up for it, actually. And this is what I campaigned on.

WANG (voice over): But later this week, the president, for the first time, acknowledged that Americans may pay more for less because of his tariffs.

TRUMP: Maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls, you know? And maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally.

WANG (voice over): And on Saturday, the country's best-known investor criticizing Trump's trade policy.

WARREN BUFFETT, BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY CHAIRMAN AND CEO: Trade should not be a weapon.

I don't think it's right, and I don't think it's wise.

WANG (voice over): On immigration, the other key issue the president campaigned on, Trump is testing the limits of presidential powers.

TRUMP: Removing the invaders is not just a campaign pledge, it’s my solemn duty as commander in chief.

WANG (voice over): Border crossings have plunged under Trump. According to Customs and Border Protection, there were over 22,000 encounters at the southern border in February and March this year, compared to over 378,000 in the same period last year. And according to the Department of Homeland Security, the administration has deported 150,000 people in its first 100 days.

But Trump’s immigration crackdown faces escalating legal battles. His use of a century’s old wartime law to deport undocumented migrants with little or no due process to a notorious prison in El Salvador under scrutiny after the administration deported at least one migrant there by mistake. This week, for the first time, a Trump-appointed federal judge blocking the administration's use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans held in the southern district of Texas.

SEN. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN (D-MD): We will not model our judicial system on El Salvador's kangaroo courts.

WANG (voice over): And on the world stage, Trump rejecting the post-World War II order of alliances and soft power. While Trump vowed to end the war in Ukraine day one, the war rages on. Ukraine's President Zelenskyy and Trump coming face to face last weekend at the Vatican for the first time since that disastrous Oval Office meeting in February.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Wait a minute. No, no, you've done a lot of talking. Your country is in big trouble.

WANG (voice over): The Trump administration is pushing a peace proposal that heavily favors Russia. It's unclear what concessions the president is demanding from Putin. And back at home, President Trump empowering the world's richest man, Elon Musk, to take a chainsaw to the federal workforce and agencies, gutting foreign aid and science research. More than 250,000 federal workers have been cut, will be cut, or took a buyout from the administration, according to "The New York Times." Trump also carrying out retribution campaigns against his perceived enemies, firing career prosecutors who played a role in investigating him, targeting law firms and purging military leadership. Former Vice President Harris sounding an alarm for her first major public address since leaving Washington in January.

KAMALA HARRIS, FORMER U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: They punish truth tellers, favor loyalists, cash in on their power, and leave everyone to fend for themselves, all while abandoning allies and retreating from the world.

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WANG (on camera): And, George, Elon Musk told reporters this week it's been a very intense 100 days. That at times he was here at the White House seven days a week, even sleeping in the Lincoln Bedroom at times. Though, moving forward, he says he'll be spending less time here in Washington.

Musk also acknowledged that his Department of Government Efficiency hasn't been as effective as he'd like. He also admitted that it would be very difficult to reach his goal of cutting $1 trillion from the federal budget.

George.

STEPHANOPOULOS: OK, Selina, thanks very much.

Let’s bring in the roundtable. Former DNC chair, Donna Brazile, former New Jersey governor, Chris Christie, and former RNC chair, Trump White House chief of staff, Reince Priebus.

Chris, let me begin with you.

We just saw Elon Musk says the first 100 days are intense. President Trump called it the golden age. How would you sum it up?

CHRIS CHRISTIE, (R) FORMER NEW JERSEY GOVERNOR & ABC NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Well, it’s less for me, but the people of the United States, George. And let's look at just the Fox poll.

When Donald Trump got elected, he got elected by independents and some right-leaning Republicans who said they wanted to fix the economy.

STEPHANOPOULOS: They joined on his (ph) base.

CHRISTIE: That’s exactly right. He’s got a 38 percent approval rating on the economy. A 33 percent approval rating on inflation. Along with the lowest approval rating of any president at 100 days.

So, if that's a golden age, for him, I think he's misevaluating things. And, of course, now he says, well, the polls are all wrong.

The bottom line is this, if he doesn't turn around this tariff policy, if he doesn't fix what's going on in the economy and the instability that we have, everything else that he's doing, by the way, that I agree with some things, like on immigration, I think he's done the right things at the border.

STEPHANOPOULOS: The right things in the right way?

CHRISTIE: Well, look, I'm not going to get in – it wouldn't be the way I would do it, George, but the results at the border are – are going to be pleasing to the American people because we don't have tens of thousands of people a day coming over the border.

Even on that stuff, no one will care because in the end what matters in this country more than anything else is the economy. That's why he got elected. When Kamala Harris said that she wouldn't do anything different than Joe Biden in an economy that they thought was too expensive and not enough opportunity for them, they kicked the Democrats out.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Reince, the president was elected on his promises on the economy in large measure. And now we have seen the public flip on that issue, as Chris just pointed out.

REINCE PRIEBUS, FORMER RNC CHAIR & FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF & ABC NEWS POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I think some of these things Chris is saying are true. But, on the other hand, when you look at what the president campaigned on – I've got his 100-day promises. You know, close the border, reinstate remain in Mexico, begin the largest deportation, repeal EV mandate, terminate the green new deal policies, implement a 10 to 1 deregulation, create a government efficiency commission. He's doing every single thing he said he was going to do.

Now, some people don’t like it. But to think that Donald Trump was not going to disrupt the federal government, disrupt our trade relationships by implementing tariffs, he promised it.

And, you know, the most important screenshot that you put up on that package just earlier was the picture of Kamala Harris, because you know what? It actually matters who you run against.

And it turns out that when Donald Trump laid out his agenda for the American people, which I have said people were looking for the biggest middle finger and they found it, they have a choice to make. And they saw the choice. They saw Kamala Harris and said, we don't want to go that direction anymore in this country.

And, you know what? Warren Buffett and all these other guys that have made lots of money on Chinese investments, maybe they don't like it. But, you know what? I think it's too bad. But I think eventually we're going to get to the next 100 days, which we are now, and now you're going to see things -- tax cuts, rebuilding on the tariff policy.

And I just wouldn't judge too early here because I think Donald Trump does have a way of touching the fire and then going back to the drawing board and getting things lined up. And I think that's what he's doing.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Donna, two things missing from Reince Priebus' list, bringing inflation down on his first day, ending the war in Ukraine, before he even took office.

BRAZILE: Absolutely. Look, we know Donald Trump campaigned on a litany of issues, George, but I think the American people really assumed that the president would put most of his focus on lowering costs, on ensuring that Americans can make ends meet, buy groceries -- of course, pay for their rent and gasoline, create jobs, create a future for the American people.

He campaigned as a disruptor, but no one wants a disruptor in chief. They want someone with certainty, someone who could work with our allies, rebuild, you know, from the bottom up. And what we've seen with Donald Trump is something totally different.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Chris, I think you identified the tariffs as the number one issue. Liberation Day probably the most consequential day of the first 100 days.

Is there an exit strategy for Donald Trump on this? We heard Reince Priebus say he's going to double down. But can he -- can he make this sort of series of deals that limit the damage?

CHRISTIE: Well, it depends on what those deals look like, George. And I will tell you that if you -- if you look at the reaction of the rest of the world, the biggest problem is that the world now sees us as an unreliable partner.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Right.

CHRISTIE: And Donald Trump, I believe, misevaluated that. I think he thought he could come in and bully them and say, we're the biggest economy in the world, and you may not like what I'm going to do, but I'm going to do it anyway.

What he didn't count on was the affect it's had on the bond market as well, and the problem there is we're now looking at a real potential for stagflation, to have an economy that is in recession, which we're one quarter towards that now. We had a recessionary report in the last quarter.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Although the jobs market was pretty -- report on Friday was pretty solid.

CHRISTIE: Right. So, we’ll see -- but we'll see whether that translates into GDP growth or not. We don’t know whether it will or won’t, we'll see next quarter.

I hope it does because that would be good for everybody. But in the end, what most economists are now saying, and business leaders are saying, we're heading to stagflation, which we haven't had for a long time. And he didn't run on that.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And, Reince, one of things you talked, you talked to business executives over the last several weeks since Liberation Day, and you get the sense that everything is just frozen on the corporate level. People don't know which decisions to make because they don't know where the president is going to land on tariffs and other big issues.

PRIEBUS: Well, I mean, I think part of that is true, but I think that's what the president is trying to work out with his team at Treasury and Commerce and inside the White House.

And so, look, obviously there's been some disruption. There's been up and down in the market. The S&P has recovered all of its losses in April since Liberation Day.

And I think what you're going to see is I think you're probably going to see a 10 percent global tariff across the board, and then you're going to see a focus on China and a deal with China in the next one or two months.

And I think that by the time you get to the summer -- look, Donald Trump doesn't -- is not as much interested in being known as great in 50 years. Donald Trump, we know, Chris knows, he wants people to believe he's great right now. He doesn't like to see negative press about the economy. He doesn't like getting letters from folks that he knows in New York about what the tariffs are doing.

He's trying to find a balance. And I think that the American people are going to give him a few more months to find that balance. And I think you're seeing some of the results of that balance is starting to be seen by investors because the markets have been coming up -- coming back.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Donna, Ezra Klein has an interesting analysis in "The New York Times", talking about the difference between the first and the second Trump term. The first term, he was staffed by what he calls inhibitors. The second term he's staffed by what he calls accelerators. We saw that play out this week.

One of the people who could have been an inhibitor, Mike Waltz, his national security adviser, out.

BRAZILE: Out. Well, he’s on his way, I guess, to the U.N. if the Senate confirms him. And, of course, Marco Rubio has, what, 12 jobs now, in addition to being the secretary of state.

You know, I just want to raise a red flag about small businesses. They're the engine of our economy. And small businesses are also worried about these tariffs. Farmers are worried about what they're going to plant and what people will – will be willing to buy and trade and so forth.

But there's no question, Donald Trump is surrounded by people who adore him. He wants to hear – I was watching a cabinet meeting, George, and I’m like, why don't they just give him some chocolate and make him feel good or give him something. But everybody was saying, you're so great. No, what about the American people? What about helping those ordinary people who are struggling to make ends meet?

We haven't mentioned federal employees, George. And I live in a neighborhood filled with federal employees. Some of them were told back in February that their jobs have been eliminated, and then in March they come back to work and now they still don't know where the hell they stand.

So, I think there's a lot of uncertainty, and it's unnecessary. Donald Trump does not need to lead and govern this way.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Chris, after the Signal communications scandal, the president didn't want to give a scalpel, he said, to the media. But we find out a month later Mike Waltz is gone. What was behind that? What do you make of it?

CHRISTIE: I tell you, I don't think it was the Signal issue, George. I think it was Laura Loomer and the MAGA base who, you know, went in there and dumped a load of dirt on Mike Waltz and the people who worked for him. And I think it was much more than it was the Signal issue.

I think the president didn't care about the Signal issue. Sure, he wasn't happy about it, but I don’t think he saw it as a firing offense. And the proof of that is, Pete Hegseth is still there, who’s the guy who was really ultimately responsible for all the difficult information that got communicated in that Signal chat.

I think it's the fact that the president still listens to a lot of these folks who, I think, most people would not see as credible sources.

And on the difference between Trump one and Trump two, the other thing is that, he had people in Trump one that he was intellectually intimidated by. Gary Cohn at the National Economic Council.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And Goldman Sachs.

CHRISTIE: Right, from Goldman Sachs. You had his Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, who I think he was intellectually challenged by. So that when they pushed back, he really listened. The difference now is that he thinks he knows the presidency better than anyone, which he didn't feel like in Trump one. And, secondly, the people around him don't know how and don't have the capability to move him. And so, Howard Lutnick, who doesn't want to move him. I mean, you know –

STEPHANOPOULOS: Commerce secretary.

CHRISTIE: Right, he doesn’t want to move him. You know, Stephen Miller clearly doesn’t want to move him away from what he’s doing. And the Treasury secretary is really the last guy with his finger kind of in the dike.

And Reince has talked about the markets going up. That’s because the Treasury secretary keeps saying, there's going to be deals, there's going to be deals. Don't worry about it. And every time he says that, he’s got some credibility and the markets come back.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Chris mentioned Stephen Miller, Reince Priebus. Some people saying now that he could be considered for national security adviser?

PRIEBUS: Well, first – first of all, though, this is not true that the president didn't do anything. I mean he – the president actually signed an executive order and then reversed course and put a 90-day pause on the executive order. So, he did do something besides just listening to people.

CHRISTIE: Because the markets dropped, Reince. Because the markets dropped to –

PRIEBUS: Well, yes. And he – and he did something about it, OK? Now, as far as Waltz is concerned, the decision on Waltz –

CHRISTIE: Why didn’t he do it in the first place?

PRIEBUS: The decision on Waltz was made weeks ago, OK? And I – I said as much on the air basically about three weeks ago. The difference here is that, you know, a rare, soft landing, which, you know, obviously doesn't come around very often. So, obviously, he likes Waltz (ph) very much.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, but you said a decision was made weeks ago. Why, in your view, did he make it?

PRIEBUS: Well, because I think he was waiting for the right time. I – maybe he wanted to think about it. Maybe he was like 90 percent sure but wanted to see how things go. I think there were things going on there inside the White House that were percolating over time. The Signal-gate came up. That was an accelerant. And I think eventually they made the decision.

So – but as far as Stephen Miller, look, Stephen Miller does push on the president, but he pushes on the president to go back to his 100-day policies that he laid out and say, Mr. President, you said you were going to do x, y and z. Here it is. Let – let's do it. So, I mean, not all of it's bad. A lot of it can be good. And so, I just think there's two ways to look at things.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Donna, I want to give you the last word. You know, one of the things we've seen is that, Reince brought up Kamala Harris. President Trump has been losing altitude. Democrats have not been gaining.

BRAZILE: We haven't been gaining, George, in the polls. But you know what is happening right now? There are people across the country who are now looking, not just to the Democratic Party, but they’re also looking to their own local leaders to stand up, to rise up. And it's ordinary veterans and ranchers and farmers that are doing the talking for the Democratic Party. Democrats are in a stronger position today because they're unified.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Thank you all very much.

Up next, the Trump family's crypto investments are raising conflict of interest questions as the president sets crypto policy from the White House. We're going to examine that when we come back.

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ERIC TRUMP, TRUMP ORGANIZATION EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT: The banking system that we have around the world, the modern banking system, is antiquated. It's antiquated. And it's just a matter of time before, really, crypto not only catches up but just leaps, you know, really leap ahead. And so we're incredibly excited on a lot of fronts, and I think America will be the crypto capital of the world. And, you know, I fully support it. My father fully supports it. Our family, you know, is fully embracing it.

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STEPHANOPOULOS: President's son Eric talking about the Trump family's venture into cryptocurrency which has made the president a major crypto dealer when he's the industry's top policymaker, raising questions about corruption and conflicts of interest.

Here's chief investigative correspondent Aaron Katersky.

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AARON KATERSKY, ABC NEWS CHIEF INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Americans have always been fascinated by stories of boom and bust from the gold rush to the dot-com crash to now overnight bitcoin billionaires. Whatever concerns Americans may have about the stability and security of cryptocurrency --

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Hello, Bitcoiners.

KATERSKY: -- President Trump does not share them.

TRUMP: I'm laying out my plan to ensure that the United States will be the crypto capital of the planet and the bitcoin superpower of the world.

KATERSKY: Trump, once a crypto skeptic, is now one of its most prominent backers and able to reshape crypto policy to his potential benefit. He embraced bitcoin during the campaign.

TRUMP: I'm proud to be the first major party nominee in American history to accept donations in bitcoin and crypto.

KATERSKY: And the Trump family now has its own crypto venture, an unprecedented blurring of the line between private business and government policy, even if the president and vice president don't face the same conflict of interest laws that other executive branch employees are subject to.

DANIELLE BRIAN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE PROJECT ON GOVERNMENT OVERSIGHT: Essentially the president is taking the weakness in our current ethics laws that allow a president to continue to hold financial interests in businesses while he's in a position of presidency to just a whole new level in this administration.

KATERSKY: Trump, his three sons, and others including Trump's Middle East envoy Steven Witkoff and his sons launched World Liberty Financial, a firm that makes the president and his partners major players in cryptocurrency, a company associated with the Trump family holds a roughly 60 percent stake in the firm, but the president's image is all over it. The Web site dubbing him "chief crypto advocate."

JAMES BUTTERFILL, HEAD OF RESEARCH AT COINSHARES: What makes World Liberty Financial unique is that it's Donald Trump, it comes with Donald Trump's seal of approval.

KATERSKY: The White House telling ABC News in a statement, in part, "President Trump's assets are in a trust managed by his children, and there are no conflicts of interest. President Trump campaigned on being a champion for the crypto community, and he has taken significant steps to do that."

World Liberty Financial has also announced plans to launch a stable coin, a cryptocurrency pegged to the U.S. dollar. The company has reportedly sold $2 billion worth with a Trump family entity receiving a 75 percent cut of every sale. And at the same time, Trump's White House pushed for new policies that directly impact stable coins.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I've also called on Congress to pass landmark legislation creating simple common sense rules for stable coins.

KATERSKY: If Congress does what Trump wants, it could help further legitimize cryptocurrency and he says expand the dominance of the U.S. dollar. Just this week at a conference in Dubai attended by Eric Trump, World Liberty Financial announced a $2 billion investment from the United Arab Emirates to use the company's stable coin.

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA): Binance and the foreign investment firm are going to use Donald Trump's stable coin to finance their transaction, essentially giving Trump a cut of that $2 billion deal. Boy, looks like corruption, smells like corruption.

KATERSKY: After meeting with senior Pakistani officials, including the prime minister, World Liberty Financial posted this video touting a memo of understanding with Pakistan, without saying what that means.

JAMES BUTTERFILL, COINSHARES HEAD OF RESEARCH: The thing about World Liberty Financial is it's still very opaque.

KATERSKY: As World Liberty Financial expands its business and its partnerships overseas, Trump's administration is rewriting crypto policy at home.

PAUL ATKINS, SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION CHAIRMAN: A top priority in my chairmanship will be to provide a firm regulatory foundation for digital assets through a rational, coherent and principled approach.

KATERSKY: Trump's Justice Department pulled back its crypto enforcement, disbanding a unit dedicated to investigating cryptocurrency related fraud, telling prosecutors in a memo reviewed by ABC News: The Department of Justice is not a digital assets regulator.

That shift is consistent with President Trump's other pro- crypto policies including directives to the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to ease up on crypto regulation, another change that could directly benefit the Trump family, the administration's creation of a digital assets reserve where the government will buy and store cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ether.

TRUMP: This will be a virtual Fort Knox for digital gold to be housed within the United States Treasury. That's a big thing.

KATERSKY: After the president's announcement, certain digital coin prices surged, and since World Liberty Financial owns many of them, its assets inflated in value, too.

Trump and the first lady have also launched collectible meme coins which spiked then cratered in value. But according to “The New York Times”, the transaction fees still made Trump millions.

SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT): Nobody knows who buys the memecoin, but Trump makes money when people buy it. And so, it is just an open sewer valve that allows for anybody who is trying to influence the Trump administration to be able to secretly funnel money to Donald Trump.

KATERSKY: And there are also new questions over pay-to-play as the memecoin website touts exclusive access to the president, offering a private dinner to the top 220 memecoin investors, raising questions over whether Trump's embrace of crypto is meant to enrich the country or enrich himself.

For “This Week,” Aaron Katersky, ABC News, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Thanks, Aaron, for that.

Let's get more on this now from Eric Lipton of “The New York Times,” also John Reed Stark, the former chief of the SEC's Office of Internet Enforcement.

Thank you both for joining us.

Eric, let me begin with -- with you.

You and your colleagues published a major investigation this week in “The New York Times” where you conclude -- these are your words -- the firm largely owned by a Trump family corporate entity has erased centuries-old presidential norms, eviscerating the boundary between private enterprise and government policy in a manner without precedent in modern American history.

Break that down. What are the major questions of potential corruption and conflicts of interest?

ERIC LIPTON, NEW YORK TIMES INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER: I mean, this is a nation that we've always had campaign fundraising where people are taking donations uh but these donations are going to their political causes. What we've never seen before at this scale in modern American history or really in American history overall is a president who is effectively through his sons owns businesses that are personally profiting off of regulatory decisions that he's making. And the conflicts of interest here are just -- you know, the word we don't like to use too much in Washington among reporters is unprecedented. But these truly are unprecedented.

And he is, you know, appointing the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, at the same time as the SEC is shutting down investigations of some of his business partners.

He pardons a crypto executive named Arthur Hayes who is an investor in one of the companies that's partnered with his co -- with World Liberty Financial.

He's offering 220 people the right to come and have dinner with him at his golf course in Virginia. At the same time, you know, these are people who -- who are trying to influence his policies and in fact, have stated so, that they're buying his crypto and effectively giving him money so that they can get access to the president of the United States.

I mean, it's really just something we've never seen before. And it's actually quite hard to track. There's so much happening simultaneously. It's taking a whole team of us at “The New York Times” to try to keep up.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me bring in John, John Reed Stark. You worked at the SEC. Walk everyone through the regulatory changes that President Trump has made that could end up benefiting his business.

JOHN REED STARK, FORMER CHIEF, SEC OFFICE OF THE INTERNET ENFORCEMENT: Sure. Thanks, George. Good morning. For eight years -- for the last eight years, the SEC has had a very robust crypto enforcement program, bringing all kinds of cases over and over again, both under Jay Clayton, when he was Chair for the first Trump administration, he's now the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and under President Biden. They brought all kinds of cases. That was then, this is now.

The entire crypto enforcement program at the SEC has been absolutely demolished. All the SEC investigations regarding crypto closed. All the SEC litigation involving crypto dismissed or paused. All the SEC appeals regarding any crypto matter withdrawn. All the SEC regulatory pronouncements regarding crypto pulled back. It's -- the SEC has suddenly declared that when it comes to crypto, when it comes to investors, they're not investors anymore. They're collectors like Beanie Babies and American Girl Dolls and, other collectibles, Pokemon Cards. That's what the SEC has suddenly said.

They shut down their crypto enforcement unit. Well, they didn't shut it down. They gave it a rename. They call it the -- they've rebranded it, recalibrated it as the Cyber Unit. They took the person who was in charge of it and bringing all these cases, and they moved them over to the Office of Information Technology to fix printers. And I'm not making this up.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So what is this likely to mean? Is this the Wild West now for crypto?

REED STARK: Absolutely. Because again, with all these entities who were being -- who were being charged by the SEC -- and remember, the SEC was winning all of those 200 or so matters that they brought, they won all of them in court. Every single Article III judge that has ever encountered the issues involving crypto has said that digital assets are securities. Now, the SEC says they're suddenly not.

So when you say the Wild West, it is, it's more like a walking dead post-apocalyptic anarchy, because all of these entities, there's no audits, no inspections, no examinations, no net capital requirements, there's no cyber security requirements, there's nothing, you have no idea what's going on with these entities. Where beforehand, the SEC was being very aggressive, both with respect to registration and with respect to fraud. Now, they've just shut it down.

(CROSSTALK)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Eric, you point out the issue of the pay to play, and we know that they've offered this seat at a White House dinner for the 220 top investors, but so much of this, so many investments will not be known. Correct?

LIPTON: So many of the investors, I mean --

STEPHANOPOULOS: Yeah.

LIPTON: -- the investors, if they go to the dinner, will be known.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Yeah.

LIPTON: But the way it works is that if you are -- through the middle of May, if you are bidding up in this game board type competition and your status, then you'll secure a seat at this dinner that will happen in late May. Human beings will have to show up. So we may not know who they are because we will not presumably be let into this dinner. But yeah, at that point, the names of the investors behind the blockchain number will be known, at least to the Trump family.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Right. That's for the ones who go to the dinner. I didn't mean to confuse the issues there, but it is very possible for investors to make it -- we heard the word opaque.

LIPTON: Yes.

STEPHANOPOULOS: -- in Aaron's piece for huge investments will be made, and it'd be very difficult for anyone to know about.

LIPTON: Oh, no question there, like, for example, there are 85,000 individual wallets that have invested in World Liberty Financial. Those -- the company itself knows who those people are, but for the reporters and for the public, it's impossible to know unless you do a lot of detective work to try to look at that wallet, look at other investments they've made and figure it out.

So there -- but what we know for sure is that there are investments coming in from all over the world, from Gibraltar in Spain, from Israel, from UAE, from -- I mean from places in particularly, the Cayman Islands that are designed to be obscure and countries that have loose financial regulations.

And so, there is foreign money going into the Trump family in large amounts, basically, in a way that, again, we just have never seen before in modern American history.

STEPHANOPOULOS: John Stark, we're just about out of time. What, if anything, can be done about this?

REED STARK: Well, I think this kind of pressure is important. When you think about the SEC's abdication of its mission, they're -- they can't disappear the federal courts. So, the Article III judges that have all said that digital assets are securities, that's not going away. So, it's clear that digital assets are securities. We know that it -- that they are because even, whenever I go out and talk about them or say anything negative, people will threaten myself, threaten my family, threaten to burn my house down. All of that will happen because I've said something negative.

It wouldn't be true if I were talking about Rolex watches and Beanie Babies. So I think it's important, the states, the private sector, these decisions that have come down, they all still exist. So, I think it's very important that the states take action, that individuals take action to wake up the SEC and say they can't abdicate their mission of investor protection. They just can't give it up, no matter what.

Now, given this – the – President Trump did say he was going to do this, so he's keeping his promises, but I hope the SEC can be independent enough to say, we're not going to do that.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Thank you both very much.

Up next, how the Trump administration’s health care cuts are hitting coal country. Jay O’Brien reports from West Virginia and Dr. Ashish Jha joins us live.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: One thing I learned about the coal miners, that's what they want to do. You can give them a penthouse on Fifth Avenue and a different kind of a job and they’d be unhappy. They want to mine coal. That's what they love to do.

The value of untapped coal in our country is 100 times greater than the value of all the gold in Fort Knox. And we're going to unleash it and make America rich and powerful again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS: President Trump, in April, signing executive orders aimed at boosting coal production. That promise of a coal comeback comes as the Trump administration is also halting some health programs for coal miners impacted by black lung disease.

Jay O'Brien traveled to West Virginia for this report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAY O’BRIEN, ABC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Look at all this coal.

O’BRIEN (voice over): This week, in coal country, what some locals proudly told us was Trump country, the confusing and desperate fight for the future of a federal program protecting coal miners from black lung disease. Following sweeping DOGE cuts at the Department of Health and Human Services, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, or NIOSH, overseeing everything from coal miner health care to firefighter safety, was virtually gutted, hundreds of employees eliminated.

SEN. SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO (R-WV): I'm hoping that more and more of the workers will come back because of the uniqueness and the absolutely criticalness to – to work place safety.

O’BRIEN: Prominent Republicans, like West Virginia Senator Shelly Moore Capito, pushing for the terminations to be reversed. Already some workers were brought back temporarily this week, but all were told they'll still be officially fired next month. And even as the tideappeared to be changing a surprise late Friday night, another round of terminations at the agency, including nearly all remaining employees tied to the black lung program.

SEN. SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO (R-WV): I talked to Secretary Kennedy twice on this issue and he took it to the president. I think, you know, there's a reorganization going on at the Health and Human Services. I think when the function of what's really done at NIOSH was lost.

O’BRIEN: He didn't realize what they did.

CAPITO: I don't think in -- not in full.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: No, we're going to put the miners back to work.

O’BRIEN: But as President Trump calls for a coal comeback, Appalachia is facing the worst surge of black lung in 25 years. These NIOSH workers were on the front lines.

NOEMI HALL, NIOSH EPIDEMIOLOGIST: We had to send letters to coal mine operators to tell them, please don't send us any more X-rays, we can no longer process them.

O’BRIEN: In this internal email obtained by ABC News, the institute's director who himself was fired writing, we are all still uncertain about what the future holds.

Key safeguards from the agency like free black lung screenings and job transfers for sick miners already grinding to a halt. We saw this mobile X-ray van which would normally travel from mine to mine this summer providing screenings locked up behind a gate.

The last time it was used was September employees tell us.

If there was a miner sitting here, what would you say to them about what this is going to look like for them going forward?

SCOTT LANEY, NIOSH EPIDEMIOLOGIST: I'm sorry. I'm sorry for them. I'm sorry for their families.

O’BRIEN: Concerns too in this group of eight retired miners we met, all say they have black lung disease after spending most of their lives underground.

GARY HAIRSTON, RETIRED COAL MINER: They take away the people that were watching over us, taking care of -- they taking their job. We got nobody.

O’BRIEN: The majority of the men here voted for President Trump and are hopeful he'll change course.

You have faith that he'll bring back those call safety programs.

JOHN ROBINSON, RETIRED COAL MINER: I do. I really do.

O’BRIEN: Will you think differently of the president if he doesn't bring those protections back?

ROBINSON: Oh, yeah, yeah.

O’BRIEN: West Virginia's other senator, freshman Republican Jim Justice also adamant the president won't undo decades of black lung protections. But he admits Secretary Kennedy hasn't told him the exact plan.

SEN. JIM JUSTICE (R-WV): Does anybody here, and surely not Jim Justice, believe that Donald Trump is going to let our coal miners get sick?

O’BRIEN: But have you heard anything to that effect or are you just guessing that they'll put it back?

JUSTICE: Here's -- here's what I -- you know, I know Donald Trump's soul.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O’BRIEN (on camera): Now, this black lung healthcare program is congressionally mandated. So HHS has to continue it in some way which the department says will occur under Secretary Kennedy's new administration for a healthy America but how exactly that work will continue without most of their expert staff is still unclear -- George.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Jay O'Brien, thanks very much.

Let's bring in Dr Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University School of Public Health.

Dr. Jha, thanks for coming out this morning.

We just saw Jay outline the administer -- the cuts that dealt with black lung disease and dealing with black lung disease for coal miners. But let's broaden this out. Over the first 100 days, the administration has canceled about $7 billion in funding for scientific research projects, 20,000 jobs cut from HHS. We've even seen people like the top vaccine official resign.

Talk about these changes to our public health system and what they mean.

DR. ASHISH JHA, DEAN OF BROWN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: Yeah, good morning, George. And thanks for having me back.

You know these are troubling changes that the administration is making and troubling in the impact it will have on the health of the American people.

The public health enterprise of our country plays an essential role keeping our food safe, keeping our drugs safe, obviously keeping coal miners, firefighters safe. And the gutting of these programs, not just the cost but as you said, firing of all the experts in all these programs it's going to be very hard to rebuild. They’ll take years and it will be really harmful to the health of the American people.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Are you seeing the impact at Brown?

JHA: Well, every university I know of is seeing this impact, right? And certainly, Brown is not free from that. We've had terminations of grants that focus on HIV prevention among youth for instance. HIV prevention among youth I think is an essential thing.

And so, we're seeing those kinds of terminations across the country at academic medical centers at universities, and again, I just worry about where this is all heading in the long run in terms of our -- not just our scientific leadership but really our public health impact.

STEPHANOPOULOS: I want to talk about another decision was made this week by HHS. Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., he announced on Thursday that all new vaccines will need to include a placebo group during the testing process. How significant a change is this? What does it mean?

JHA: Yes, so first of all, every vaccine that has been authorized or approved by the FDA has gone through placebo-controlled testing. That is a truism that has existed for at least 50 years. What Secretary Kennedy is now doing is talking about when we update vaccines every year for COVID or flu, to add a placebo control trial.

What that will do, George, is it'll make it impossible for us to have a COVID or flu vaccine in time for the fall and winter season. So if he goes through with this, we're going to see real problems with getting Americans protected this coming winter. This is not about new vaccines. This is really about updating vaccines, which we've been doing regularly for many, many years.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let's also talk about this measles outbreak, a thousand confirmed measles cases nationwide right now. The Health Secretary has faced some backlash over his response. He's calling for investigation into new possible treatments for measles?

(LAUGH)

JHA: Yeah. Look, we know how to prevent measles. We have officially a thousand cases or so, but unofficially, when I talk to health officials in Texas and elsewhere, we probably have 3,000 to 5,000 infections. Unprecedented that we've had two children die for the first time in decades in this country. We don't need new treatments. We need to promote the one thing that works, which is vaccines.

Now, of course, new treatments would be great, but that takes years to develop. The secretary should be talking about vaccines and how effective they are at keeping kids safe.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Dr. Jha, thanks as always for your time. Coming up, we'll go to Rome as the Catholic Church prepares to select the next Pope. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

STEPHANOPOULOS: That is the chimney the world's Catholics will be watching on this week as they wait for the white smoke above the Sistine Chapel that signals the selection of the next Pope by the College Cardinals.

Ines de La Cuetara reports from Rome ahead of the conclave starting on Wednesday.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

INES DE LA CUETARA, ABC NEWS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This morning nine days of mourning for the late Pope Francis coming to an end. The last of the voting members of the conclave to choose his successor making their way to Rome, many gathering in near general congregations to get to know each other and discuss the issues facing the church.

The clerics getting the celebrity treatment mobbed by reporters tracking their every move.

CARDINAL WILLIAM GOH, PAPAL ELECTOR: We really do not know. We just wait for the Lord to tell us. It's not our time. It's God's time.

DE LA CUETARA: Preparations for the historic event well under way in Vatican City with the chimney that will blow white smoke to tell the world the new leader of the Catholic Church has been chosen now in place atop the Sistine Chapel.

The last two conclaves lasted only two days. Some cardinals saying they expect this one to be similar.

CARDINAL JEAN PAUL VESCO, CATHOLIC CHURCH (through text translation): I think it will be a short conclave. That's it. I have a bet.

DE LA CUETARA: Among the possible successors, Italian Cardinals Pietro Parolin and Matteo Zuppi who were both close to Francis, as well as Cardinal of Jerusalem Pierbattista Pizzaballa, American Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, and Philippines' Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle. 80 percent of the cardinals appointed by Francis himself like Haitian Cardinal Chibly Langlois in 2014.

While tight-lipped about his preferred candidate, Langlois tells us he thinks cardinals should stand united behind whoever the next pontiff is, that he believes Pope Francis' vision of a more inclusive church must continue.

CARDINAL MICHAEL CZERNY, PAPAL ELECTOR: This is not a political convention.

DE LA CUETARA: Canadian Cardinal Michael Czerny who will also be voting telling us the new Pope will have to face a whole new set of challenges.

CZERNY: It's very important that we're here in 2025 not 12 years ago or 100 years ago but now.

DE LA CUETARA: But Czerny also urging the Catholic fateful not to fret.

CZERNY: My message to them is please, please don't worry. We're doing our best to be in the hands of the Holy Spirit, and rather than worry, it would be good to pray.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DE LA CUETARA (on-camera): Vatican rules state the conclave will begin with a public mass. We'll then see the procession of cardinals entering the Sistine Chapel and then all the voting will take place behind closed doors.

The world's 1.4 billion Catholics could know by the end of the week who their new leader is -- George.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Ines, thanks very much.

Let's bring in our papal contributor, Father James Martin from Rome as well.

Father Martin, thanks for joining us again this morning. Ines just said the conclave will be behind closed doors in strict secrecy. But the discussions about who the next Pope will be have already begun among the cardinals.

FATHER JAMES MARTIN, CONSULTANT TO THE VATICAN: Yes, that's right. They've had these days of general congregations where they've talked about the future of the Pope, and they've also been able to kind of get the measure of the people that they may not know and, of course, they're talking in a kind of discreet way about who the best candidate would be.

STEPHANOPOULOS: We know that Pope Francis appointed 80 percent of the Cardinals. Does that mean, is it foreordained then that whoever is chosen by this group of Cardinals will likely be a successor who will carry on Francis' mission?

MARTIN: Well, that's a very good question. Even though he appointed 80 percent of the Cardinals, he often appointed Cardinals from geographically far-flung places. So if you have a Cardinal from Papua New Guinea or Mongolia, as he appointed, it's more about raising up those individual locales than having a person who is in lockstep agreement with what the Pope thinks.

I would say in general, they're sympathetic, but not all of them and some of them, even in the congregations, have been coming out as critical of Francis.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Is there a clear frontrunner?

MARTIN: There's no clear frontrunner. I mean, the names that your correspondent just mentioned, Cardinal Parolin, Pizzaballa, Tagle, Prevost, Zuppi -- those are the ones that are on everyone's lips. But really, we don't know what's going on in the general congregations and really in the Cardinal's hearts.

STEPHANOPOULOS: How about any Americans on the list? Is there any chance we'll finally see an American Pope?

MARTIN: Well, Cardinal Prevost who works in the -- he heads the Dicastery for Bishops. It's the group that chooses bishops for the whole world, who's an Augustinian, a member of a religious order, maybe best known in the U.S. for running Villanova, is certainly on everybody's lips. He's seen as someone who's a moderate, he's a kind person. He's a sort of Vatican -- experienced Vatican official. And he also spent many years in Peru. So as someone described him, he's the least American of the Americans.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You know, one thing I also want to ask you about before I let you go is, we saw President Trump yesterday send out that social media image, an A.I.-generated image of himself -- and I think we have it right there -- of himself as the Pope. I know that Cardinal Dolan has responded saying it wasn't a good luck. Has there been much talk about that over there? Much reaction?

MARTIN: I think people were surprised by it and thought it was in incredibly poor taste. But over here in Rome, people are more concerned about the next Pope than the current president.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Father Martin, thanks as always for your time.

MARTIN: Pleasure.

STEPHANOPOULOS: We'll be right back.

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STEPHANOPOULOS: That is all for us today. Thanks for sharing part of your Sunday with us. Check out "World News Tonight" and I'll see you tomorrow on GMA.

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