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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt
Trump: "We're Not Looking At" A Pause In Tariffs; Extreme Volatility On Wall Street As Trump Tariffs Rattle Stocks; Supreme Court Pauses Midnight Deadline To Return Man Mistakenly Deported To El Salvador. Aired 4-5p ET
Aired April 07, 2025 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
REPORTER: Mr. President, was October 7th the death blow of the two- state solution? And would you consider classifying the Palestinian Authority as a terrorist organization for its continued efforts like terror financing payments?
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: So, October 7th was a horrible day that some people they -- they deny it. Now I can't believe they deny it from the standpoint of it.
[16:00:01]
They do it because they think it's good politically.
But October, I've seen the tapes. I've seen things that you don't want to see. October 7th was a horrible day, and it will go down as one of the really bad days in the history of the world. It was a horrible, horrible thing that happened. And they grabbed some of these people.
I'll give you an example, when I was with the 10 hostages a few weeks ago. I said, so how many are there? Fifty-nine. I said, oh, so 59. So, we can get 59. They sort of knew the territory pretty good.
And I said, how are they doing? They said, well, only 24 are living, the rest are dead. And these are young people, largely young people don't die. You know, young people have an amazing ability to live. They can live through horrible things.
But these are young people. And when they said that 24 are living and the rest are dead, and -- you know, I've had parents come up. Israeli parents, largely, we have some Americans, and we had I guess we have one left, Alex. We have the one left.
But -- but I've had Israeli parents come up to me at events and say, my son is there. I said, well, how's he doing? Well, he's dead, but would you do me the biggest favor ever? Could you bring his body back home?
They talked about a young dead boy and a young dead girl like they were living. And that could have something to do with religion, that could have something to do with. I guess maybe any parent would be. But I was surprised. They said, sir, my son is dead. It is just as important to bring that body back home. I asked that question as if he were alive. So, you have a lot of them dead, and we'll be able to bring them back.
But it's a horrible thing that's happened. These are young, largely young people. Some old ones too, frankly. And those people have lived in hell.
When they came off the second group, they came out. They looked like they just got out of a concentration camp. They looked exactly like the pictures that I see from the 1940s. The concentration camps.
And then they got a little bit better, you know. But that second group, those people came out and I said, this is unbelievable. We're going back into a chapter in history that is one of the worst ever. It's really very bad. Okay.
(CROSSTALK)
REPORTER: Mr. President, thank you. Youve said it could take two years to get American manufacturing fully up to speed in response to these tariffs. What happens in the meantime? Should Americans be prepared potentially for years?
TRUMP: I'll tell you what happens. We have now $7 trillion. Think of this, $7 trillion, of commitments from companies wanting to go in from Apple to many, many companies.
REPORTER: It takes time.
TRUMP: Many from Taiwan. What?
REPORTER: It takes time.
TRUMP: Of course it takes. Well, are you asking me a question or are you telling me. Yeah, it takes time. You know, you got to build a thing called a factory. You have to build your energy. You have to do a lot of things.
I'm giving them energy. You know, we're going to let them build their own power plants. They'll be their own. Essentially, they're going to be in charge of the power plant because our power is not reliable enough. You have a grid that's old and susceptible to a lot of things, including bombing and weather and a lot of other things.
And we're going to give them record timing in terms of approvals of electric plants. Most of them want to build electric plants. We need massive amounts of electricity if we're going to compete with China and others. And interestingly, were way ahead right now in the A.I. race with China.
But the way we lose that race is if we can't give them electric, but we have more plants being built, we have everything. We're doing so great and we want to keep it that way. And tariffs will be an important part of it.
But one of the other things, Lee Zeldin has done a fantastic job. Head of environmental protection and he's doing very rapid approvals for people to get for big companies to that are going to build a plant that's going to cost billions of dollars, and we're going to get them their approvals. They have to be environmentally perfect, everything good, but they're going to be in record time a matter of months versus a matter of many, many years.
(CROSSTALK)
REPORTER: Yeah. Lisa Rozovsky from "Haaretz". Turkey claims it will stabilize the situation in Syria.
TRUMP: Turkey?
REPORTER: Yeah. Israel doesn't want Turkey to influence in Syria. What do you think? Do you think Turkey's influence in Syria can actually make it a better, more peaceful country or vice versa?
TRUMP: Well, I have a great relationship with a man named Erdogan. Have you heard of him? And I happen to like him, and he likes me.
And I know the press will get very angry. He likes Erdogan, but I do, and he likes me and we've never had a problem. And we've gone through a lot and we've never had a problem. We've always got we as you remember, we got our minister back from Turkey. You remember that?
[16:05:01]
And this was a big deal at the time. And we got him back. And I told the prime minister, I said, just Bibi, if you have a problem with Turkey, I really think I'm going to be able to work it out.
You know, I have a very, very good relationship with Turkey and with their leader. And I think we'll be able to work it out. So, I hope that's not going to be a problem. I don't think it will be a problem.
Now, with that being said, I believe it was Turkey and I said that to him. I said it, I said, congratulations, you've done what nobody's been able to do in 2000 years. Youve taken over Syria with different names, but same thing.
I said, you've taken it over. He's taken it over through surrogates. He goes, no, no, no, no, no, no, it was not me. I said, it was you.
But that's okay. You don't have to say -- well, it sort of maybe it was me. Okay. But what he did, he said, look, he's a tough guy and he's very smart. And he did something that nobody was able to do. You know, you got to hand it to him.
Any problem that you have with Turkey, I think I can solve. I mean, as long as you're reasonable, you have to be reasonable. We have to be reasonable.
Thank you very much, everybody.
(CROSSTAL)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you, press. Let it out. Let it out, press. Thank you. KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST: Hi, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. You are live in
THE ARENA.
We have been listening to President Trump on a wide range of topics. The key quote here: we are not looking at a pause in tariffs. As, of course, Wall Street has been enduring an incredibly volatile day. So much money back and forth.
Let's bring in CNN's Jeff Zeleny. He's standing by at the White House. Vanessa Yurkevich is live for us with New York Stock Exchange. And we're also joined by CNN anchor Erin Burnett.
Jeff, I want to start with you, because these words from the president were what Wall Street was hanging on all day long. There was supposed to be a full press conference at 2:30 this afternoon. It was canceled amid all of this volatility. What did we learn from the president?
JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESONDENT: Well, look, it pretty much turned into a full press conference, just in a different setting there. But he was able to control that a bit more by calling on select reporters.
But I think you hit the -- the news there right at the beginning. He said, no, we're not looking at putting a pause on this overall tariff plan. And in the next breath said yes, he and the administration are very much open to a negotiating.
So that has been one of the central things hanging over all of this. Some of his advisers, like Peter Navarro, have been saying he's not open to a negotiation. In fact, the president himself said it last week when he declared this national emergency. He said, this is not a time for negotiation.
Now, clearly, there is a negotiation that is underway. I mean, the Israeli prime minister, its one of the central reasons he was here in the United States trying to negotiate his tariff off. And he said, look, we will reduce and change our trading relationship. We will take our tariffs off.
So, I think at the bottom line here is now with the Japan being the leading example of an ally that is going to have a conversation. The treasury secretary will be talking to the prime minister there, trying to negotiate some type of a tariff, likely before that Wednesday deadline. So, the bottom line to this long-ranging conversation, I believe, was that but also unusually, we were not expecting this.
The president also said on Saturday direct level discussions will be underway between the U.S. and Iran. This is something we have not seen all over trying to stop it, the nuclear weapons program there. So, we'll still get more details on that. It's unclear who's involved in those conversations, Kasie.
HUNT: Yeah, a good note there, Jeff. Certainly something we're going to be following up on here in the hours to come.
Vanessa Yurkevich, to you. Incredibly dramatic day on the street. It started really rough. There were rumors through the morning that sent it back into -- into positive territory. Then, the White House called it fake news. Kind of really jerking everybody around.
Where do we end on this day, and how in particular did people react to this this news conference that was ongoing as that closing bell rang?
VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. Well, markets closed mixed today. The Nasdaq was up about a tenth of a point. The Dow closing down about 300 points. The S&P was in bear market territory at one point, but closing down about a quarter of a point.
And you could kind of feel the energy as the markets were starting to close a few minutes before, I was keeping an eye out, watching traders making their last-minute trades. All morning, there was just so much volatility, really. The markets have just come way up off of their lows of the day.
But as you mentioned, there was that sort of 10:00 a.m., 20 minutes where we saw sort of rumors flying on social media that the president was going to be pausing tariffs for about 90 days, except on China.
[16:10:06]
That was quickly dispelled by the White House, who called it, quote, fake news. But in that time, you saw a market rally and people on the floor, traders were cheering. This was the news that they had been hoping for.
But of course, of course, their hopes were dashed very quickly. But since then, markets kind of settled. We have seen some shoots of green throughout the day. As there were some other news that investors were parsing through, maybe some encouraging signs that Japan was going to be meeting with the U.S., discussing -- discussing their tariffs.
Also, the E.U., and you heard from the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, there, saying that he was trying to erase the trade deficit with the United States. So maybe enough encouraging news for investors, but certainly a very different ending to this day than the volatile morning, Kasie, that we saw.
BURNETT: For sure. All right. Vanessa. Jeff, thank you both very much for that.
Let's bring in now, CNN anchor Erin Burnett.
Erin, you've obviously, you know, made your career covering watching this. I think one of the things I've been struck by is how many in the business community, the economics journalists are covering this as one of those moments that is like the pandemic. That is like the crash in 2008.
The difference, of course, being that this one is entirely self- inflicted. This is something that most presidents would do almost anything to avoid. Donald Trump has done it to himself because he seems to think that there are other reasons to do this. How are you taking all of this in? And what -- what does -- how the market kind of ended today tell you about where were headed?
ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR, "ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT": Well, you know, it's important, as vanessa was just saying, right, Kasie, the fact that it came off of its lows, that's significant. It had been closing at its lows on those prior days. But it's really hard to say that that's necessarily a good sign or a bad sign because of what you just said. Theres just a palpable feeling of nobody knows what is going on.
And so, when you think about covid as an analogy, no one knew what companies were going to earn because you were looking every day to see how deadly it was and how many people were dying, and what percentage of people who got covid were dying. And so, nobody could value what was going on in the market.
And we're now in an analogous moment, actually, one investor I was speaking to today said, but this time policy is the poison. In the last case, it was policy that was taking away the poison, right? In this case, policy is the poison.
So that's the real concern out there. And right now, you know, they've got to be on pins and needles. What Trump announced this morning and has stood by throughout the day is that if China doesn't back off, then he's going to have tariffs of over 100 percent on Chinese goods by Wednesday, 104 percent, could go as high as 130 percent of his threats about tariffing them extra because they buy Venezuelan oil hold.
I mean, you know, you're talking about, you know, nuclear warfare of an economic scale. And those -- that's why you're hearing words like that from Bill Ackman. You know, the hedge fund manager who had so publicly backed Trump, who has now turned on him on this issue, you know, there is the reality is there is an incredible feeling of uncertainty. Nobody can project what the future is going to be. And it really all is in the hands of just one person, as you said, self- inflicted and driven by him.
HUNT: Yeah, absolutely.
Erin, stand by for us if you don't mind. We're going to expand this out to our panel.
Elliot Williams, CNN legal analyst, former federal prosecutor; Mark McKinnon, former adviser to George W. Bush and John McCain; Ashley Allison, former Obama White House senior policy advisor; and Scott Jennings, former political director for Senator Mitch McConnell. Both of them CNN political commentators.
Welcome to all of you. Thank you very much for being here.
Mark McKinnon, appreciate you bringing the hat from out west to come hang out with us today.
Look, I actually want to start big picture with you because I think what Erin just said there crystallized it a little bit for me because in these past moments of incredible economic testing for our country, we have always looked and I have always I've been in Washington covering what our policymakers were going to do in response. And you saw extraordinary responses to COVID, right? Those stimulus checks, things I never thought I would see Congress do.
I remember watching from the House gallery when House Republicans and some Democrats together sank the TARP bank rescue bill. They watched the market fall off a cliff. Everyone panicked, and by the next day they were pulling it back together again to try to rescue Americans money quite frankly.
The opposite is happening here. This is being caused by the people in charge.
MARK MCKINNON, FORMER ADVISER TO GEORGE W. BUSH & JOHN MCCAIN: I thought that was a great line that the policy is the poison in this case. I remember 2007, 2008 when John McCain suspended his presidential campaign to come to Washington to deal with the emergency, which is interesting compared to what Trump was doing this weekend and how he dealt with it optically.
But the interesting thing I think here is the long game here. I mean, we can debate, you know, was this reciprocal, was it about trade imbalance, what have you. But what does Donald Trump really all about in the -- what's the long game? And it's about this notion that we're -- we're going to dial the clock back.
You know, his presidential campaign was really about -- other campaigns have been about embracing the future.
[16:15:00]
He embraced the past. So, we're going to -- we're going to -- people are afraid of the future and technology and immigration.
We're going to go back to a time when and he promised to bring back manufacturing. I think that's the long game. He has this notion. Its sort of like Mexicans are going to pay for the wall, that somehow, magically and in the magic, the -- the magic potion is tariffs.
He thinks we'll bring manufacturing back somehow to America. And I just think that that's misguided thinking on a grand scale.
HUNT: Well, certainly, his -- his current vice president used to think that, I mean, he's someone who's from a community that was devastated by some of the free trade policies that were put in place. But even he before he was Donald Trump's running mate, would say, these jobs are not coming back. You can't rewind the clock.
Scott Jennings, I think big picture. My question here is this president has been trying to lay at Joe Bidens feet various economic problems that he inherited. Fine, fair. Now, it does seem to me that one way or the other, this is Donald Trump's economy now. He can -- if the manufacturing comes back, he can get credit for that later. But if this -- we don't bounce back from this, if we end up in a depression, that's on Donald Trump, too.
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, yeah, this is his plan. He's been talking about tariffs for a very long time. He believes in it.
And right now, according to the treasury secretary, we have over 50 countries who have already come to the table and want to engage with the United States and talk about how we can have a more fair, free trade relationship with them. That's a good thing, number one. Number two, this is only part of the deal.
The other part of the deal is making the tax cuts permanent, and maybe, even if I were them, cut the capital gains tax and offer to slash the corporate tax rate and see if you can get any Democrats to join, because I'm amused by the Democrats who are all of a sudden free traders and for lower taxes. Well, if you're -- if you've got Democrats who would like to reduce the taxation on corporate activity, lets see how serious they are. Cut capital gains, slash the corporate income tax rate.
I find it amusing that everybody talks about the '08 crash, and no one ever mentions that in 2022, you know, the S&P was down 20, the Nasdaq was down 33. And I don't remember any of these Democrats being in hysterics when the market fully crashed in 2022.
So, I think Republicans are content --
HUNT: But would you describe the reason for that happening.
JENNINGS: I mean -- I mean, I assume it was some combination of terrible fiscal policy and lack of confidence in the president. And so --
HUNT: I mean, there's sometimes related, but in this case, this was a very specific action with a very specific reaction.
JENNINGS: And the market was flat today.
HUNT: I do. In the end, it was -- you're right about that. But man, was it a roller coaster of a ride.
ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: It's down 400 points, not flat.
JENNINGS: Did you see the percentages? I assume you can calculate percentages. I mean, 0.91, 0.10, 0.23. We're not talking about massive swings.
HUNT: It was a split decision. We should note the Nasdaq is slightly in the green.
I just want to take you back though to the campaign briefly because I think it's worth noting what Donald Trump said was going to happen if he didn't win the White House. And compare it to what we've seen for the last week. Let's watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: If you want your incomes to plummet, your net worth to collapse, your tax bills to soar, and your jobs to totally disappear -- that doesn't sound too good -- then vote for Kamala, your tax queen.
We had a great stock market. Can you imagine if Kamala won? You would go down to a 1929 style depression.
If Kamala wins, you are three days away from the start of a 1929 style economic depression.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: I mean, the reality here, Scott. Donald Trump has raised taxes.
JENNINGS: We're not in a depression. I mean --
HUNT: I didn't say we were. I didn't say we were.
JENNINGS: -- promising. We're not -- we may not even be in a recession. Although I would point out the last time we went into a recession, we spent an entire year redefining the word recession because I guess the Democrat was in the White House.
I think -- I think we're going to see how this plays out. I really do think these countries coming to the table and the treasury secretary engaging with Japan I think you got to have to give it some time. That's what Donald Trump is counseling, and that's the way the Republicans are going to treat it.
HUNT: Ashley?
ASHLEY ALLISON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I mean, the clock is ticking. Okay?
I -- I hear you and like as an American, I hope that this does not end in the disaster that it feels like has happened over the last five days. I just -- I wasn't an economics major in college, so I try and listen to economists, and it just seems so strange that the only person maybe you now, but is Donald Trump is like the exception to the rule. Like he can make up these financial policies and just apply them. And it doesn't seem to be matching.
So, we'll see. Like if this is going to be a long haul, 18 months is really all that he has. Because in 18 months we have midterms. And quite honestly even before that, because some of the folks who are frontliners, they might get primaried on your side before that. So --
HUNT: They got way less than 18 months.
ALLISON: They got -- that's what I'm saying. They got about six months. And so, the question is, when you say like, are Democrats? The question really is, are Republicans might end up siding with some Democrats, more so than Democrats siding.
JENNINGS: Let me just briefly answer that. I think this puts this puts pressure on Republicans to get the rest of it done, making the tax cuts permanent, and all of the things they want to do in the reconciliation bill.
[16:20:03]
The time to act is now because it all is supposed to work in concert. So, letting this linger out, not great. The Senate's already in the House for moving on the budget framework.
HUNT: So, I was going to say, I think that's what the White House is telling those House Republicans that are currently holding out and causing problems.
WILLIAMS: To your point, actually, it's not just the economists, it's the editorial page of "The Wall Street Journal". It is the CEO of JPMorgan Chase. It is Bill Ackman.
ALLISON: Right.
WILLIAMS: A billionaire supporter of Donald Trump. It's senators, Republican Senators Chuck Grassley and Ted Cruz and Rand Paul.
The point is embracing tariffs is certainly an economic policy. It's a plan. And maybe it will work, maybe it won't. But it's the uncertainty that the markets are responding to. And -- and quite frankly, the difference between what was coming out of the treasury secretary and the president's own economic adviser in the last day, it seems that they're not even in agreement about what they're saying about where things are going.
MCKINNON: Well, and -- and, Scott, there may be 50 countries calling, but that doesn't include China. I think China right now is saying, hold my beer. This is a huge strategic opening for China.
HUNT: And to that point here --
JENNINGS: And maybe it's a huge strategic opening for us. I mean, part of the deal here could be getting the rest of the world in league with us in in alignment against them. They are not our friend. They are not a good actor and they need to be punished.
And I frankly think the working class of America is glad the president is standing up to China truthfully.
HUNT: Okay, so let me put this question to you, Erin Burnett, because this pops up in the letter that Jamie Dimon wrote to his shareholders today. And he said, and -- and this speaks to a little bit of -- of -- of how Scott was kind of framing the world, right, taking on China. He says America first is fine as long as it doesn't end up being America alone. If the Western world's military and economic alliances were to fragment, America itself would inevitably weaken over time.
It is extremely important to recognize that security and economics are interconnected. Economic warfare has caused military warfare in the past.
Those are incredibly high stakes.
BURNETT: Incredibly high stakes. And in that context, you got to think about where we are. I mean, you have a mixed ending to the day. Who knows what that actually means? Over the past three days, you're looking at what is probably other than the 1987 crash, the worst three day drop. Just, you know, in since World War II, right?
So that's why you're getting all of these analogies to those times and to those tariffs. Right? Tariffs going from what on average two and a half to 3 percent to 20 percent overnight if Trump goes through with what he said. That puts you all the back -- way back to where we were in Smoot-Hawley, you know, 100 years ago, Kasie.
And that's the context. Thats what you're hearing from people that -- that fear and -- and exactly what Mark was said. And Scott's pointing out with China, really ultimately you can talk all you want about the 50 countries coming to negotiate. And that's good, right? You get some good things out of that -- good.
But, you know, Vietnam is not going to move the needle for the United States. The Amber and Heard Islands are definitely not going to move the needle if they're one of the 50.
And -- but putting all jokes aside, it does only matter what China is going to do, what the E.U. is going to do and what Jamie Dimon said there. You know, you hear it from the president, the prime minister of Canada talking about fighting. You're hearing about your allies saying that that that the way that the world was has changed. Thats really what's at stake, as you point out, Kasie.
HUNT: Yeah, no, it's a very, very sharp way to put it.
Erin, so grateful to have you on the show today. Thank you so much.
BURNETT: Great to see you.
HUNT: We'll see you "OUTFRONT" at 7:00 p.m. Eastern tonight.
Our panel is going to stick with us.
Up next here, a key Republican lawmaker joins us live. The Louisiana Senator John Kennedy standing by. And later, we'll be joined by Minnesota Democratic Senator Tina Smith. They'll both be live in THE ARENA.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:27:52]
HUNT: All right. We're back now with breaking news. Roughly a half hour after the closing bell and a volatile day of market surges and stumbles, President Trump, just before the stock market closed for the day, telling reporters he's not thinking about pausing the tariffs that he's put on foreign nations.
Joining us now, Republican Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana.
Senator, very grateful to have you on the show today. I -- do you want President Trump to consider pausing these tariffs? SEN. JOHN KENNEDY (R-LA): Well, what I would do, I've been preaching
it on the senate floor with respect to Canada for the last two weeks. I want to see foreign nations lower their tariffs and then us lower our tariffs. If I were Prime Minister Carney, I would think about offering President Trump zero tariffs from Canada on the U.S. and ask him to reciprocate.
When you think about it, tariffs are or -- no matter who does them, they're just interventions by government. They restrict the freedom of people and businesses. I believe the lower tariffs on both sides, the better.
Now I understand where the president is coming from, Kasie. And I think you do too. America is rich. Our people like to buy stuff. Every foreign business in the world wants to sell into America. The president's just saying. If you're a foreign business and you want to sell to Americans and take our money, then move here and hire our people.
And he's right. There has been abuse by other countries with respect to the U.S. God created the world, but everything else is made in China. We know about the abuses.
Having said that what the tariffs at the level that the president has imposed them, in my judgment, I'm not going to feign understanding. I have no idea what the impact is going to be on the American economy or the world economy. I listen to all these economists confidently predict that it's going to do this or going to do that, and they're very self-confident.
[16:30:00]
Most of them act like they discovered gravity. But they don't know what's going to happen. And they're going to -- they have a record to prove it.
So, we'll just have to wait and see. It's -- it's been painful and but it may turn out well, it may not. If it doesn't turn out well, I think the president will recalibrate.
HUNT: To that point, do you think it's Donald Trump's economy now?
KENNEDY: Oh, I think it is. Theres no question. I think once he decided to -- to add the tariffs, clearly, I mean, he will be held responsible as he should, whether it turns out good or it turns out badly.
HUNT: Is there a point at which you would consider supporting taking tariff authority back into congressional hands? There have been some efforts in the Senate to do that.
KENNEDY: Well, if I finally concluded that what the president is proposing is not going to work or -- or if the treatment is worse than the disease, sure. And I'm going to look at Senator Grassley's bill very closely. But I'm not there yet. I just don't know. I mean, I'm not trying to pretend that I do. I'm
not going to bubble wrap it. What I've seen so far in terms of the stock market, it's been painful.
But what the longer -- let me -- not longer term, what the midterm impact will be, Kasie, I don't know. And nobody else does either. But I've -- I mean, the president -- I think President Trump is like every other president. He wants to leave something behind besides Styrofoam.
He wants -- he thinks he believes in tariffs. First time I ever met him, he talked about tariffs. He thinks that this is going to make America better. And he may well be right.
If he's wrong I hope, I think he'll -- he'll be willing to recalibrate. But I would start by taking Europe -- I call, I think Israel's made the proposal. I think Vietnam's made the proposal. Some of the Europeans are making the proposal. If they want to go to zero tariffs, I'll take a dozen, say we'll go to zero tariffs, too.
HUNT: Sir, President Trump played golf over the weekend. He posted a video of himself golfing. Do you think that was a bad look considering where the markets were?
KENNEDY: No, I think -- I don't think American people care that much. They -- they understand that presidents relax on the weekends and get away. Doesn't mean that that he wasn't talking on the phone when he was on the golf course or wasn't in meetings. I don't think there's ever really a time when a president is not on call and is not thinking about or talking with his plan. So, I don't think people hold that against him.
HUNT: All right. Fair enough. The other thing that he -- that he said here is he posted, he said, don't be a panican, P-A-N-I-C-A-N. He called it a new party based on weak and stupid people.
Do you understand what he means by panican? And what would you say? I'm sure you have many, many constituents, small businesses, retirees, you know, imminent retirees in Louisiana. If they're worried about this, are they panicans?
KENNEDY: I think what the president is saying in his own unique way is, you know, like the film said, be cool, honey bunny. Don't panic. It's going to work out.
And he may be right. He may be wrong. I don't know. I've said I support his long-term objective.
But as I also said, quoting John Maynard Keynes, long term is important. But in the long term, we're dead. Short term matters too.
And some of my colleagues are saying, well, this will definitely happen and that will definitely happen. I don't -- I have no idea. I have none, zero. Zilch. Nada.
HUNT: Very quickly as we button up here, the Senate passed its budget. Sent it over to the House. There are some questions about whether the house is prepared to pass it, especially considering now the stakes for Republicans of passing that with these tariffs in place. What do you say to your House colleagues about what they should do?
KENNEDY: Follow their heart, take their brains with them. Accept our resolution. It's just a blueprint. It's just a baby step. But it's a necessary step. The hard work is ahead.
Here's what I predict will happen after the House passes the resolution. And I think it will, if I were Thune and Johnson, I would give each House about no more than 90 days, and preferably 60 days, to come up with a consensus about what ought to be in the final bill.
[16:35:10]
Neither side will achieve that. Then Thune and Johnson and others are going to have to go to the White House and sit down with the president and find out what he wants to put in it and what he wants to leave out of it. And then the presidents going to have to go sell it. And I think that's the shortest way home here, in my opinion.
HUNT: All right. Senator John Kennedy, always enjoy talking to you, sir. Thanks very much for being on the show, and I hope well come back soon.
KENNEDY: Thanks, Kasie. Thank you.
HUNT: All right. Coming up next, Minnesota Democratic Senator Tina Smith will be here with us live.
Plus, breaking news out of the Supreme Court in the case of the man that the Trump administration mistakenly deported to El Salvador.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:40:10]
HUNT: All right. Welcome back.
So, these sweeping tariffs from President Trump have prompted some of his highest profile wealthiest supporters to lose confidence in him as markets were finishing the week last week in freefall. As we discussed before, the president was on the golf course over the weekend.
Our panel is back. This has prompted Mark McKinnon. People like Bill Ackman and Elon Musk to break with President Trump on this. Bill Ackman said, what CEO what board of directors will be making will be comfortable -- making large long term economic commitments in our country in the middle of an economic nuclear war? I don't know of one who will do so, he said.
We may be heading for a self-induced economic nuclear winter, and we should start hunkering down. This if the president didn't call things out. And we also had Elon Musk as well, tweeting a video of somebody talking about free trade. Milton Friedman, I believe, was who he put up on X.
And by the way, Phil Mattingly is also with us. I'm so sorry I didn't introduce you to our audience, although they know you very well.
But, Mark, what does this say about where we are right now?
MCKINNON: Well, I mean, even as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, you know, was a long time skeptic of tariffs until he was appointed. And, listen, that's one of the reasons I joined the Republican Party with George Bush was because Republicans represented the notion of free trade.
So, I think most Republicans and most economists are very skeptical. I mean, John, the Senator from Louisiana was John Kennedy had a very tough time saying, well, maybe it worked. Maybe it won't.
You know, I mean, I think people are really but to his credit, I will say that this is what Donald Trump campaigned on. This is what people voted for. So he's doing what he said he was going to do. I just don't think that a lot of economists and other Republicans thought it would be this intense, this fast.
HUNT: Well, I mean, Pil, he campaigned yes, on tariffs, but he also campaigned on, you know, the stock market continuing to boom.
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CHIEF DOMESTIC AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: I think the difficulty in this moment for supporters like Bill Ackman or Wall Street guys who kind of converted over time weren't necessarily there to the first term, weren't there during the second reelection campaign that he lost, is not understanding the difference that Trump was entering this White House in terms of mentality and mindset, and also the difference in the advisers around him.
And I think to understand this moment, I think a lot of people right now are very perplexed. How could you possibly do this? How could you go down this path? How could you personally and intentionally destroy a global trading system?
What they're missing is the fact that Trump very much feels like he was right about just about everything from his first term. He feels like where he was restrained that kept him from being more successful than he could have been. And the people that around him that may have restrained him in the first term are very much gone.
And the people that he's listening to are those who very much align with him, not just on a policy basis, but also on an instinct basis. People like Peter Navarro, who was in the room in the first term but was often kind of pushed over to the side or considered like, hey, let's not let that guy into this meeting.
That guy is now in this meeting driving policy and drafting some of the critical things that are going. And I think understanding and he actually makes very clear -- and he did in the spray with Bibi Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, how he feels in this moment, which is unburdened and untethered to the things that maybe those people who supported him late thought he would hew to in a second term as well.
HUNT: Yeah. So, speaking of Peter Navarro, he has been going back and forth with Elon Musk. Navarro, of course, the trade adviser who was around the first time, but has this stronger voice that Phil notes this time around, he was criticizing Elon Musk after Musk criticized the tariffs for in Navarro's framing, building Teslas with foreign parts. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PETER NAVARRO, WHITE HOUSE SENIOR COUNSELOR FOR TRADE AND MANUFACTURING: Look, Elon, when he's in his DOGE lane is great. But we understand what's going on here. Do we just have to understand, Elon sells cars and he's in Texas assembling cars that have big parts of that car from Mexico, China. The batteries come from Japan or China. The electronics come from Taiwan, and he's simply protecting his own interests, as any businessperson would do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: And, Scott Jennings, it's worth noting that actually, the Tesla Model Y is at the top of the cars.com American-made index in terms of analyzing.
Now, any window sticker you have on a car, right? You can see where the parts from your car are made. I was actually looking at one of ours, you know, in the I still have it in the glove box. I was like, huh? Where was our car? Where was our car made?
The fact that these big business leaders are turning on Trump really underscores to me. I appreciate you very much. We're great colleagues at CNN, but, like, you're in an impossible position. This has been something that you, as a Republican have been arguing against for decades, man.
[16:45:00]
You know, and now you have to sit here and say like, no, actually, I think it's a great plan.
JENNINGS: Well, two things. One, it's not good when White House advisers are fighting publicly or putting out messages contrary to each other or contrary to the president's message. So that really should not be happening. That's number one.
Number two, I agree with Mark. This is new DNA for the Republican Party. That's why you hear Republicans and business guys who basically been Republicans struggling with what to do, because the DNA of the party, for as long as any of us have been around has been tariffs are bad, taxes should be low, free markets, et cetera, et cetera.
HUNT: America has done pretty well.
JENNINGS: So, well -- well, but -- but here -- but here's the flip side of that. Trump shows up with different advisers and different thoughts about asking questions. How well have we done if you're a working class, you know person and you've seen your job shipped overseas and you don't have the same kind of opportunities that perhaps you thought you were going to see -- how well have certain segments of our society done? Is wealth inequality, you know, because of some of these, you know, trade ideas over the years that have just seen jobs go away from people who previously could get jobs and live a comfortable middle-class lifestyle?
So, accepting this new DNA is going to be hard for some. You mentioned, Rand Paul and Ted. Cruz and others. You know, they've been out there. Some are reluctantly accepting it, like John Kennedy. Others are running with it hard.
How the party continues to accept that will probably be closely related to whether or not it works, you know, over the 6 to 9 months. That's why I thought Kennedy was being honest. If it works, it will be great. And if it doesn't, we'll recalibrate.
ALLISON: You talk about wealth inequality, you sound like me, Scott.
JENNINGS: Well, I mean, you know, where I come from --
ALLISON: Yeah.
JENNINGS: -- there is wealth inequality.
ALLISON: I totally agree. I think the challenge is, is that the people who are actually experiencing the brunt end of that inequality are often in this moment, the ones that want it, the eggs and the prices to go down cheaper, they are not getting any relief right now.
Their inequality is still -- it's still being experienced. And the little security they might have had with their 401(k), they're probably going, oh no, I'm about to retire and the stock market is plummeting. And that's the only access they might have had to come out of poverty, maybe to the middle class and middle class to shrinking this wealth inequality that you're talking about.
HUNT: Well, and can I just say, too, if your washing machine price goes up $100 to $200, its those people that are going to have the toughest time handling those kind of cost increases across the board.
All right. We're going to take a pause here for a second. I do want to bring in Democratic Senator Tina Smith of Minnesota. She's a member of the Senate Finance Committee.
Senator Smith, very grateful to have you on the program today. My question, I think, to start here, and we've been working through this on -- on the panel here, there are very traditionally Republican ideas about free trade. And oftentimes Democrats oftentimes from the Midwest manufacturing areas of the country who have thought that tariffs were a useful tool.
Do you think that there is anything useful in what the president is doing here?
SEN. TINA SMITH (D-MN): Hi, Kasie. It's great to be with you.
And what the president is doing is so chaotic and so out of control. Everybody can see that it is a mess. And here's somebody who campaigned on lowering costs for Americans,
and everything that he's doing is raising those costs. Now, the idea that you would use a very targeted tariff to go after illegal dumping of international steel from China, you know, I'm all for that.
But what he's doing right now is actually hurting Minnesota's Iron Range because he is creating so much chaos. He's put a huge damper on, what's happening in the American auto industry. And so, in my home state of Minnesota, that manufacturers most of the steel that goes into American made cars. We've seen layoffs of 600 people.
So, trust me, those folks are not feeling like the way Donald Trump is using tariffs is helping them one bit. Not to mention what's happening in agriculture.
HUNT: Can you talk a little bit about that? Because this is one of the places where you know, many farmers, of course, over the years have and specifically when we talk about Trump country, quote/unquote, a lot of that is rural and agricultural.
What are you hearing? What are you seeing on the ground in your state in terms of how people who probably voted for Donald Trump are feeling about this?
SMITH: So, agriculture is a very big deal in Minnesota, and I'm here to tell you that we are looking at one of the worst ag economies that we've seen in the last 25 years, with input costs being really high, prices are low. And here they sit before any of these Trump tariffs have taken effect.
And so, what effect will they have in farm country? Input costs will go up more because we input fertilizer and potash. And prices are going to be hurt because he is slamming the door on global markets for Minnesota agricultural products.
And once that door is slammed, you can't just open it up again by sending a message to China and saying, oh, we've changed our mind. The markets shift irrevocably, and it's very hard to recover from that.
[16:50:03]
So, I think you're right. A lot of those folks probably were voting for Trump because they heard what he was saying about lowering prices, and they heard what he was saying about deregulation. And a lot of them are going now, what the heck am I going to do? Because I don't even know if I'm going to be able to get crops in the ground this spring.
HUNT: Remarkable.
Senator, before I let you go, I do want to ask you about a recent comment from your party's presidential nominee, former Vice President Kamala Harris, talking about what has been happening and how she is looking at it. I'm going to play it for you and ask you to respond. Take a look.
SMITH: Sure.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAMALA HARRIS, FORMER U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: Because, you know, there were many things that we knew would happen. Many things I'm not here to say I told you so.
(CHEERING)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Do you think it's helpful to tell voters I told you so?
SMITH: Oh, you know, I don't know. I mean, generally speaking, I think that voters do what they think is the right thing to do in the moment. And I think that Kamala respects the voters regardless of what happened. And I do, too.
But I think right now, American voters are feeling a lot of people that I'm talking to. What they're feeling is betrayal, and they're feeling like they're being hurt, not helped by this administration.
And I mean, look at the people who turned out this weekend to make their voices heard. People are pretty mad.
HUNT: All right. Senator Tina Smith, thank you very much for being with us today.
SMITH: Thank you.
HUNT: I really appreciate your time.
All right. We want to bring you some breaking news. The Supreme Court has just paused the midnight deadline to return a Maryland man who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador. A lower court ordered the Trump administration to bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national, back to the United States by 11:59 p.m. tonight. The White House says the father of three was deported because of a, quote, administrative error.
Our panel has returned and Elliot Williams is now in for Phil Mattingly, who stepped away.
Elliot, can you talk a little bit about what it means at the Supreme Court intervened here? When are we going to get some sort of permanent ruling? And what you think that this says? I think it's also worth noting that the Trump administration has put on leave the attorney that was involved in this case.
WILLIAMS: Right. I am not surprised at all that the Supreme Court intervened, just if nothing else, to pause the proceedings until they have a little more time to figure it out. This is all happening on an emergency basis. The judge had ordered the government to have the person return to the United States, I think by midnight tonight. Now, that was a remarkably fast deadline. So, the Supreme Court is moving pretty quickly, asking the parties to
brief the issue starting tomorrow. So, they want to move within days, if not weeks. Pretty quickly on it.
Now, to be clear, in terms of the decisions that have already come, all the judges to have looked at the matter have been remarkably consistent in what they -- what they found. The trial judge and a unanimous appeals court judge all found that the government could at least be directed to try to get the person back into the country, even if they can't compel the Salvadoran government to make him come back.
So, there's unanimity on that point. I think there's a lot of noise around it, because the moment somebody says the words MS-13 or gang member, which are a little bit misleading in this case, I think people get really spun up and excited, but there's a lot of errors that were made by the government here. And the Supreme Court just wants to push pause for a moment, take a second, take a beat, and really look at the case.
HUNT: Well, and what does it -- what is the piece about? You know, that they acknowledged the government, acknowledged a mistake in the filing, and the administration doesn't seem thrilled that that happened.
WILLIAMS: No, they are not thrilled it happened. They acknowledge, number one, that this person should not have been removed from the United States. He had what's called withholding of removal. That's when a judge makes a finding under the immigration laws of the country, that someone can't be taken out of the United States.
He was removed in error. Theres no dispute about that point. And the government has acknowledged that point.
HUNT: Aashley Allison, we've talked about the politics of this to some degree, but these individual stories of people who are taken and then caught up in the system, are starting -- they are starting, it seems to me to add up to something, pretty difficult.
ALLISON: Yeah. I think we should be very clear that there's two reasons why Donald Trump won this election. Theres many, but two primaries. It was immigration and the economy, and he ran on being very aggressive.
Theres a difference between being aggressive and removing people who are criminals from this country and making mistakes and getting people who should not be deported from this country just become collateral consequences of this. And then not just removed, but put into in the Salvadorian prison.
I think they are trying to send a message. It is still one of fear. They hope the court will rule in their favor. They've been throwing up a lot of these trial balloons with cases, just waiting for one to go on their side.
I think people should continue to make their voices heard on this issue, because we do need immigration reform in this country. We do need to make sure that our streets are safe, but we do not need to recklessly harm people and separate families in error because you're just being so aggressive.
[16:55:03]
MCKINNON: Politically, Kasie, this is the issue where the Trump administration knows they have enormous latitude, and a lot of -- of, you know, latitude with the with the public and voters, because that's what they voted for. And so, they -- they realize that they're pushing boundaries.
This is clearly a mistake. But I think it's also -- I think Scott will say that this is a this is a legal precedent that they're trying to deal with, really. But it is a narrative problem. It[s a messaging problem. They screwed up and they got -- they sent a guy who's not apparently not guilty of the crimes. He's -- he's alleged --
WILLIAMS: Well, be very careful, no crime --
(CROSSTALK)
HUNT: Unfortunately, guys, we're against a hard a hard break right now. Although obviously we can continue to talk about this. Scott, I'm sorry you don't have a chance to confirm whether or not Mark is right or not.
That does do it for us today. Thanks to everyone for being with us.
THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER is going to start right after this quick.
