Return to Transcripts main page

The Lead with Jake Tapper

Trump Speaks In Michigan To Mark 100 Days In Office; Trump Says, China Probably Will Eat Those Tariffs; Trump In New Interview Reiterates Support For Hegseth; Trump: GOP Tax Bill Will Be "Biggest Focus" Going Forward. Aired 6-7p ET

Aired April 29, 2025 - 18:00   ET

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

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: And even though 100 days are in the books, the hardest part is still to come.

[18:00:00]

Jake?

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: And, Jeff, as you noted, it's a rare outing for the president during this administration. And we haven't really even seen him hold a rally like this in quite some time.

ZELENY: We haven't. The last one I can actually think of is the eve of his inauguration at the Capitol in Washington. And now he is doing this. He traveled that first week going to North Carolina and California. Since then, he spent most of his weekends in Mar-a-Lago. He's gone to the Super Bowl and NASCAR races, but not out selling his message. And that is one of the many of the differences that we saw in the first term versus now again, of course, he's not running again. But there is no doubt at all that the president is trying to get some energy here as he sets off to his second 100 days that begin tomorrow. Jake?

TAPPER: All right. Jeff Zeleny in Warren, Michigan, thanks so much.

Our panelists are here in D.C., New York and Michigan, and, obviously, when President Trump starts speaking, we'll bring that to you live.

I have here with me in studio Chalian and Bash. David, a new CNN poll -- I think that's a good sounding -- it should be like a cop show.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF: Yes.

TAPPER: Chalian and Bash. Oh, he is walking out right now. But, David, while we're waiting for him to start speaking, there's a new CNN poll out this morning shedding lights onto how Americans are thinking about Trump's first 100 days. What stood out to you the most?

CHALIAN: One number that popped out in our new poll, Jake, I think, gets at the whole Trump project, which is this notion of risk versus necessary shakeup, and he's on the wrong side of it, percent of Americans in our new poll say that Trump, United States at risk his, with his approach to his presidency. Only 43 percent say this has been a necessary shakeup. That is the argument Trump and his allies make all the time is that this norm-busting, what he's doing, this is necessary to shake up the way things have been done, that people have been so upset and yet clearly the public is not rewarding him in that theory of the case at the moment.

TAPPER: All right. He looks like he's about to speak. No, he is still taking in the crowd, taking in the adulation.

Dana, until the president starts speaking, the number of unlawful border crossings at the southern border has dropped dramatically. It was 140,000 in March, 2024. It's just about 8,000 in March, 2025. That's according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Could his success on that immigration figure help divert some of the attention on less pa popular policies?

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: They certainly hope so. Inside the White House, I think there at the White House, like 8:00 in the morning on Monday with a briefing from Tom Homan, who is the border czar. The challenge that they have is that for that a bit of good news and mission accomplished, so to speak, or at least close to it on the border crossings, it has somewhat been diluted by a lot of controversy about how they are dealing with deporting people who are already in the interior of this country.

TAPPER: And, Scott Jennings, you're in Warren with President Trump. You flew with him on Air Force One. What's his demeanor behind the scenes today?

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: Pretty bouncy today, actually, flew down with Pete Hegseth and Dr. Oz and a few other people. And he just had a great event at a military base. The crowd here is loud, as you can see behind me. It's his first rally since the campaign.

I spent some time in the crowd. These people are excited to see Donald Trump and he's excited to be here. I sensed a lot of, frankly, optimism out of the president on the plane today

TAPPER: I'm hearing the chance of USA, USA, as President Trump takes the mic. Let's listen to him.

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: We just had the biggest victory in Michigan. They said, sir, it's going to be hard. Well, we won it twice. We won it twice. We actually won it three times. You want to really know this,

But I'm thrilled to be back in this beautiful state. I love this state. Got a lot of auto jobs coming. Watch what's happening. The companies are coming in by the tens. You got to see what's happening. They all want to come back to Michigan and build cars again. You know why? Because of our tax and tariff policy. They're coming from all over the world. They're coming up and they're opening up plants, and they're talking to us all day and all night. They want to get here and they're coming in at levels you've never seen before. And I want to thank the auto workers for your support. That was great. But I'm thrilled to be back in this beautiful state with thousands of proud, hardworking American patriots. And we're here tonight in the heartland of our nation to celebrate the most successful first 100 days of any administration in the history of our country. And that's according to many people.

[18:05:00]

This is the best, they say, 100-day start of any president in history and everyone is saying it. We've just gotten started. You haven't even seen anything yet. It's all just kicking in.

And week by week, we're ending illegal immigration. We're taking back our jobs and protecting our great American auto workers and all of our workers, frankly, we're protecting all of our workers.

We're restoring the rule of law, which was sort of out the window with this crazy guy we had. How the hell did that guy ever become president? Could somebody explain to me how the hell did that happen?

There's my friend Blacks for Trump. I like that guy of, like he follows me. He follows me. We love you. Your whole group has been so supportive over the years. I want to thank you. I want to -- everyone thinks I pay you a fortune. I don't know -- I don't even know who the hell he is. I just like him. So, thank you very much. Thank all of them fellows, thank them all.

But we're ending the inflation nightmare, the worst that we've had probably in the history of our country, getting woke lunacy and transgender insanity the hell out of our government. We're stopping the indoctrination of our children, slashing billions and billions of dollars of waste, fraud, and abuse. And above all, we're saving the American dream. We're making America great again, and it's happening fast too.

What the world has witnessed in the past 14 weeks is a revolution of common sense. That's all it is, really. We're conservatives. You're conservative, you're liberal, whatever the hell, you know what it's all about? It's about common sense when you think about it. We're for common sense. We like strong borders. We like good education. We like low interest rates. We like being able to buy a beautiful car and now deduct the interest on the loan. That's never happened before. We want a strong military. We want low taxes.

You know, the Democrats they campaign on, we will raise your taxes. It's the first time. You know, I haven't been doing this that long actually, compared to a lot of people. They've been doing it for a long time. They say, you became president, I can't get out of Congress, or some of them can't even get into Congress. But, you know, I haven't been doing it that long. But all my life, I've been watching and I've never heard people campaigning that they're going to raise taxes. It's always been, we will reduce your taxes, Democrat, Republican. Now they go, we're going to raise your taxes.

If our bill doesn't pass, the Republicans, we have 100 percent just about Republican support, but it would be nice if we had just a couple of Democrats just to make sure because, you know, every once in a while you have a grandstander Republican. We have some grandstanders. But every once in a while -- not many, but remember who those grandstands were and vote them the hell out of office, okay? Will you do that? Vote them out of office.

You know, they do it morally, they're morally bound. You know what the answer is? If you don't get it, you're going to have the highest tax increase in history instead of the greatest tax cut in history. If the Democrats prevail on this bill, you get a 58 percent tax increase. Would you like that? These are the Democrats. But I've never seen all the years they campaign, we will raise your taxes. I say, and what -- this place has gone -- this country has gone crazy.

And today they did it again. Some guy that I'd never heard of, John James, is he a congressman, this guy? He said, ladies and gentlemen, I am going to start the impeachment of Donald Trump. What the hell did I do? Here we go again. They want to impeach me, this lunatic. This lunatic, he was up -- actually, I had the television weighed down and I said to our great first lady, listen, did I just hear I was being impeached again? We are getting good at this though. No, they've gone totally crazy. These people -- and you know what? They've totally lost their confidence too. They can't even tell a lunatic like this dumb guy that said it.

And then you have the other one that's always with a cane. He's always impeaching. He raises his cane. He always impeaches, but they have no control over those people. They have no control. And the reason is they've lost their confidence. They have no confidence anymore as a party. They have no candidates.

And, you know, when they say that Bernie's probably the best they have.

[18:10:01]

By the way, he's about seven years older than me, more, eight years older. One thing, I got to give him credit, he's a lunatic, but he's still pretty sharp and he's going around with AOC plus three. You know, the plus three. Follow him. You hang on for little bits. They hang on for nuggets and they get crowds. They say, oh, the crowd was -- our crowds are so much bigger than their crowds. Their crowds are small. If I ever had a crowd like their biggest crowd, they'd say it's over for Trump. He's lost the magic, but this is great. And all the people outside, we love you. We put screens up.

We're taking back our country from a sick political class that got rich selling America out and bleeding America dry. We don't let that happen anymore. And we had four great years. We had the greatest economy in the history of our country. The stock market went up 88 percent. We did great and we're going to do better now because now we're really -- we learned a little bit after years of leaders who sent your money to defend the borders of distant foreign nations. That's what we did. We'd fight for other nations, but not for ourselves. You finally have a president who is defending our borders and our nation. After decades of politicians who destroyed Detroit to build up Beijing, you finally have a champion for workers in the White House. And instead of putting China first, I'm putting Michigan first and I'm putting America first.

After a lifetime of unelected bureaucrats, stealing your paychecks, attacking your values, and trampling your freedoms, we are stopping their gravy train, ending their power trip, and telling thousands of corrupt, incompetent, and unnecessary deep state bureaucrats, you are fired. Get the hell out of here, you're fired. Get out of here.

In 100 days, we have delivered the most profound change in Washington in nearly 100 years. I read an editorial today that this is the most consequential presidency in history. How about that? And it wasn't even by a group that would normally be supporting us. It was a group of people that I think they tend to be on the liberal side, but they said it's the most important election, the November 5th, it changed it all. You have to see when you hear some of these numbers. But that is the most consequential election that we've ever had in our country, and what a nice thing.

I'm going to start again subscribing to that particular paper. Even if I don't read it much, I'm going to subscribe. But it was a very nice compliment, especially from them. They know who I'm talking about. We're ushering out the long reign of special interest in the radical left lunatics, and we're ushering in the golden age of America. That's what we have, right?

Front row Joe, look at your front row Joes, I miss you guys. I missed the campaign. You haven't changed. You've lost a couple of pounds. Oh, he's probably getting to one of those jabbers. You've lost a couple of pounds. You look good. And I have Mr. Wall here, this guy. How many rallies have you gone to? Like hundreds. And we love them here, the Wall. I'm going to, one day I'm going to get that suit and I'm going to wear it on stage. We appreciate it, fellows, great, thank you.

You know, we have a group of ladies, I don't know if they're here, but we have a group of women from North Carolina, large group, like 50 of the most beautiful women, and they've been to 129 rallies. They're happily married, I think, too. They just keep going to rallies all the time. But they're great, North Carolina, where we won by big numbers.

Nowhere has this transformation been more dramatic than our southern border. You have seen a change on your southern border that Sleepy Joe said couldn't happen. Sleepy Joe, the worst president in history, said it couldn't happen. The last administration engineered a massive border invasion allowing gangs, cartels, and terrorists to infiltrate our communities and rape and murder our citizens. And that is being nice about it. That's actually being nice about it. They are the worst.

But standing before you today, I can proudly report that this heinous betrayal is over and that we have achieved the most secure border in American history by far, in American history.

[18:15:02] For two months in a row, we have now set all-time records, and this is by the media, the fake news media, because most of it is fake. We've set all-time records for the lowest number of illegal border crossings ever recorded. Think of that, ever recorded. The number of illegal border crossers released into the United States is down. Listen to this, please, 99.999 percent. Think of that, 99.999. Three people got in, three.

And I got angry as hell at Tom Homan. How did you allow three, Tom? I called up Kristi. Kristi Noem's doing a great job. Tom Homan, I said, how did you allow three people? No, they allowed a few in for medical reasons. Honestly, they had a couple were very sick. The ones that got in were really very sick and we had to take care of them. But it was a few people. But three people got in versus hundreds of thousands in the last administration. Hundreds of thousands a month were pouring in. Biden had no control. Thank goodness, he appointed a great border czar, right? Kamala. Kamala.

Kamala, she was a great candidate. She was fantastic. Joe Biden was down 35 points. The debate was not a good one for him. He said, you know, if I didn't debate, I could have gone all the way. He was down 35 points and they decided to replace him. That never -- nothing ever happens, like what happens to me, it never happens to anybody else. I had to beat two candidates, so he's down.

This is like, you're in a fight. Dana White, the UFC, you're in a fight and you're just beating the guy so badly, and they say, oh, let's put in another fighter. That's what happened. And I knew nothing about her. She was vice president, but nobody knew a damn thing about her. She had nothing to do with the border, even though she was appointed border czar. The great people, all of the great people, Paul, and all of the Border Patrol people, they never spoke to her. They never heard about her for four years. She never called.

But there's never been such a difference in anything as the difference between the border today and the border, what it was just six months ago. So, I want to say congratulations, America. It's about time. If we had not won the 2024 election, oh, does that sound good, right, we won the '24, all that work, the radical left Democrats would right now be importing the next 10 million invaders and giving amnesty to 30 or 40 million illegals, many of them criminals, many of them frankly, murderers and people of crime at the absolute highest level, real, real bad people. It would only be a matter of years or months until America itself became a failed third world nation.

That was happening to us. We were going to be a third world nation. I'll tell you what. If these guys won, if this group of radical lunatics, and, by the way, you know, Biden, we find out that whoever operated the autopen was the real president and Biden knew nothing about it. You know, we had a group of radical left guys who were very smart and a woman, a particular woman, very, very smart people. These are not stupid people. These are sick people, but they're not stupid people, and they were very smart. What they're best at is cheating at an election. They cheat on elections. That's their single greatest trait. They cheat like hell. And let me tell you, they tried to cheat on this election, but we made it. Too big to rig, remember? Too big to rig. They tried.

I watched those numbers. I watched those numbers. We had Elon with us. Elon is a smart guy. Elon was with us. Elon Musk and I were sitting with Dana White and Elon Musk, and I'm watching the numbers in Pennsylvania and we are winning so easily, then all of a sudden it flatlined. And I said, you know, I said, I think they're cheating again. Look at this. What's going on? I think they're cheating again. And Elon looking at us, he goes, no, you are going to win. They just don't know it yet. And about 15 minutes later, we won. You know, it was sort of crazy.

TAPPER: All right. We've been listening to President Trump celebrating his first 100 days at a rally in battleground Michigan, in Warren, Macomb County.

[18:20:04]

This is a state that he flipped red to win the 2024 election. Today, he's marking 100 days in office.

Let's bring back our panel to discuss what we just heard. And I want to bring in Van Jones and Alyssa Farah Griffin in New York.

Alyssa, obviously, the president talking about the economy and talking about deportations and immigration and also raising the one issue that, according to CNN's polling, a majority of the American people are still with him on, and that has to do with trans rights.

ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. Listen, Donald Trump clearly misses the campaign trail. And I remember when I was working for him, there'd be times he'd get frankly just restless, being in Washington, D.C., dealing with Capitol Hill, being in the confines of the White House, and we'd say, we need to get him back out on the trail. He loves being an entertainer-in-chief and being in front of an adoring audience and rattling off these stories. So, that's what you're seeing here. You know, he's highlighting the first 100 days. But this seems really that Trump wants to get back out there and be bragging about what he's been doing.

What stood out to me, there were a few things, but the White House is underwater right now on immigration, which has been an issue Donald Trump has dominated on since 2016. And I think a large part of that is because both the messaging and policy around these deportations has been a disaster. You've had a lack of due process, you've had mistakes made. He used a line today that is such a winning message, and I'm shocked it took them this long to come up with it, which is he ended the border crossings. They're down by 99.9 percent.

That's an issue, that's a stat that the vast majority of this country, right, left and center supports. He would be very wise to keep highlighting that and slow his role on the deportations and on the highlighting who's been kicked out of the country, only to have to walk back later because there may have not been due process.

TAPPER: And, David Chalian, President Trump says he enacted the most profound change in Washington and in a century. Fact check, true. CHALIAN: Yes. I mean, there's no doubt he has upended the domestic economy. He has reshuffled the global order in a very short amount of time. I think what all of the pace of his actions and how much he's trying to tick through does, it sort of begs the question now, is this the change? Is this the manner of change and the content of change that voters voted for? And at the 100-day mark, I think the answer is that not for a majority of Americans at the moment.

And so I think looking at his slide with independent voters particularly, what does he do in the next 100 days and the 100 days after that to continue this agenda, but to -- does he try in any way to alter what he's doing in order to elicit his point, like on immigration, lean harder into the things that are actually popular inside this change agenda? Because right now, I think the country is a little wary that this is exactly the kind of change they ordered up.

TAPPER: And the higher prices in the emptier shelves that economists keep warning about haven't even fully come to fruition, Dana.

BASH: They haven't. And, you know, it is interesting that he went to Michigan. He is easing up on the tariffs relating to the auto industry a bit. And that's definitely good news for the people there. But if you look at not just the CNN poll, but across the board, it is really stunning how consistent the anxiety is on economics, how consistent the uncertainty is, particularly because of the chaotic nature that Donald Trump put these tariffs into place.

And just even today, I mean, sure, it's great news for these people who are dealing with auto manufacturing that he'll ease up a little bit, but it also is a reminder that if an automaker, like the big three, apparently, CEOs called him and can get him on the phone and can convince him, then he can change it. That's fine. But it's also an indicator of the fact that he can change on a dime, which is not what Wall Street likes.

TAPPER: Yes. Van Jones, what do you make of what you heard in Warren, Michigan, from President Trump so far?

VAN JONES, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, you know, first 100 days for Donald Trump, worst 100 days for almost everybody else. He talked about Democrats don't have confidence. You know, who doesn't have confidence? American consumers, the American consumer confidence level is in the toilet and starting to swirl because whatever happy talk he's doing now and getting his little, you know, joy on, because people like him, he has crashed into a pylon, called the American people's patience with all this nonsense. Yes, it's a transformative president. Running your car into a telephone pole is transformative too, just in a bad way.

And I think that, you know, what you're starting to see now is gravity starting to take hold. You can't just have a tariff a day and change everything around because regular small business people who aren't big billionaires and auto titans who can call him, don't know what to don't know what to order, don't know who to hire, don't know who to fire. Though you've got the entire business class in America and suspended animation while this guy figures out what's what to do, meanwhile, you know, people's 401(k)s have become 401(k)s. They're even smaller and smaller every day. This is not what anybody voted for, whatever he says.

Now, listen closing down the border, that's wonderful, but you're deporting American babies and won't bring them back. You're putting tariffs on penguins in places who aren't even people. None of this is what people voted for. People in that state voted for somebody that's going to do something about the price of eggs, and instead we've had nothing but chaos, chaos, chaos. And a little happy rally's not going to change that for most people.

TAPPER: Scott Jennings, I'm sure you disagree, and you're at that happy rally. What's your reaction to what you've heard so far?

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I disagree with Van that nobody voted for this. I just talked to, you know, several dozen people here who are more than happy with what's happened over the last 100 days. I was asking people, what's your proudest moment for the 100 days? A lot of people said the border, they're extremely happy with immigration, but a lot of people told me the tariffs. They said they were waiting for someone to come along and rebalance the scales because they believed the United States has been taking advantage of, and only Trump had the guts to come along and try to rebalance the scale. So, I'm not sure it's as unpopular, at least among his base, as maybe Van and Alyssa want you to believe.

Looking forward, though, I do think he has some opportunities here. You started to hear him talk about it tonight on the issue of taxes. He is going to draw, and I picked this up on my travels with the president today, he's going to draw a bright line between the Republicans and the White House who want to cut your taxes and the Democrats who are, he says, running to raise your taxes. I think just the general income tax, but then all these other tax cuts that he's proposing, I think, for the next five or six weeks as he implores Congress to pass reconciliation, it's going to be tax, tax, tax, tax, I'll cut them and the Democrats will raise them. That's the message to come.

TAPPER: All right. Everyone, stick around where. We're monitoring President Trump's comments at this rally in Michigan where he is marking his first 100 days of his second term.

Plus, pressure is mounting on congressional Republicans to pass what Trump calls his big, beautiful bill. But what's in it and does it have the votes to pass the House and Senate, what one Republican Senator told CNN about it today?

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:30:00]

TAPPER: Back with our Politics Lead, we continue to monitor President Trump's first 100 days rally in Warren, Michigan. Our panel's back. Dana, look at what Speaker Mike Johnson tweeted earlier today. It says, America's back, very celebratory image, all caps, celebrating the first 100 days. It is quite a difference, that image in what we've seen from members of the administration and Republican leadership to how voters are responding to Trump's first 100 days, at least according to all the polls I've seen.

BASH: No question. And Mike Johnson, the speaker of the House, spent some time with the president talking about the tax bill. So, you have to kind of remember what the kind of dynamic is there is that he, the speaker, is somebody who has to constantly make sure that the president understands that Johnson is on his side. And it's a difficult thing. It's a very difficult relationship for him to manage and it's very clear that he understands he has to continually prove that. That's, to me, reading that from the outside in, what that was about.

TAPPER: And, Scott, I mean, I understand it's celebratory where you are celebratory among Republican voters, the Republican base, but the polls indicating discomfort have to have some people in the Trump White House concerned, no?

JENNINGS: Well, I think they're watching them and paying attention to it, but they also know there's more work to do. I mean, they're going to roll out some more announcements on trade deals. They've got more private investment announcements, as I understand it. They think that will help.

But, really, what I am picking up from these guys here is that over the next several weeks, the pressure on Congress to pass the reconciliation bill, the big, beautiful bill, as he's been talking about, that's where the real focus is. Because they think if they can lay down a marker on taxes and energy and all the other changes they want to make, they're going to be able to paint their opponents, the Democrats, as obstructionists, and people who want to raise your taxes and so on and so forth.

So, that's the battle to come, and they think if they win that battle, they're going to see a boost out of it.

TAPPER: Yes. And, David Chalian, I mean, the one thing that every Republican that I have at this table to talk about the president's polling ever since it started taking a dive after liberation day, April 2nd, is, well, I'd still rather be President Trump than any of the congressional Democrats because his polling numbers are much better than theirs are.

CHALIAN: I mean, we see it in our poll today as well, where you see that Democratic voters are extraordinarily displeased with their own party's leadership. That is not true on the Republican side. Republican voters are overwhelmingly pleased with their Republican leadership. And part of that, which is why, to what Scott was saying, like part of why I think the White House, not only do they want this bill passed, but that's going to be the main message focus for the weeks ahead, is because it's going to put pressure on the Democrats for how they are going to try and convince some people on the Republican side or rally voters to convince Republicans to vote against it.

Because this pressure cooker, there's a reckoning coming inside the Democratic Party, it's not just a binary choice, Jake. We're seeing these polls. It is true that Donald Trump is bleeding support with independents, that his numbers are a historic low at the hundred day mark, but that the Democrats are not benefiting from that right now.

[18:35:03]

TAPPER: Right.

CHALIAN: And the pressure's going to be on them because their party members want to see their elected leaders actually do something to stop Trump's advancement. And this tax bill is going to be a very key example of a moment where they are going to try to do that.

TAPPER: Alyssa, why do you think that Democrats have not been able to benefit at all from the independent support and other support that Trump is losing? Why have they not been able to step up and gain any of it? Do you think it's the poll of the Biden administration, the gaslighting about President Biden's acuity? What do you think it is?

GRIFFIN: All of the above. I think Democrats lost a lot of faith with the American public in just defending Joe Biden at every cost. They're also effectively leaderless right now, and I think they're struggling to find a message. You'll see in polling that people think the leader is anyone, from AOC to Kamala Harris to Bernie Sanders. Well, that's not exactly a clear leader of the party, and it's certainly neither of the two congressional leaders.

And then you've got folks on the campaign trail talking about fighting the oligarchy. With due respect, no one sits around the table when they're thinking about how they're going to pay that next bill and talks about the oligarchy. For all of Donald Trump's flaws, he's remarkably good at honing a very simple direct message that resonates people, build the wall, bring down costs for Americans. That's what Democrats need to get back to. They need to get to what is their agenda that is not just anti-Trump but what are they going to do to make the lives of Americans better day to day? And I haven't seen someone emerge capable of doing that quite yet.

TAPPER: Everyone stick around. We're continuing to follow President Trump's rally in Warren, Michigan, to mark his first 100 days in office. Next, we're going to fact check some of the claims we just heard from that stage.

Stay with us.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: If you think of it, gasoline was almost $4.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:40:00]

TAPPER: And we're back with our breaking news. As President Trump is speaking at a rally in Warren, Michigan, to mark his first 100 days, we're also hearing comments he just made about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in a new interview on ABC News. Take a listen.

All right, guys, we're having some issues, obviously some technical issues, difficulties, with that interview with Terry Moran and President Trump. Are we -- control room, are we ready for it yet? Anyone? All right, well, let's keep talking then.

I want to go to Scott Jennings, who is in Warren, Michigan. Oh, you have it now, you have the interview? Okay. Here is President Trump talking to Terry Moran of ABC News.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ask one question about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. There's a lot of turmoil at the Pentagon right now. There's the Signal chat with his wife on it where he is discussing that attack in Yemen. There's another Signal chat discussing the attack on Yemen. There's a reporter accidentally involved. You said the other day that you had a talk with the secretary. Did you take him to the woodshed?

TRUMP: I had a talk with him. And whatever I said, I probably wouldn't be inclined to tell you, but we had a good talk. He's a talented guy. He's young. He's smart, highly educated and I think he's going to be a very good defense -- hopefully a great defense secretary, but he'll be a very good defense secretary.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have a hundred percent confidence in Pete Hegseth?

TRUMP: I don't have 100 percent confidence in anything, okay, anything. Do I have 100 percent? It's a stupid question. Look --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a pretty important position.

TRUMP: I have -- no. You don't have 100 percent. Only a liar would say I have 100 percent confidence. I don't have 100 percent confidence that we're going to finish this interview.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We will.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: Our panel's back. And, Scott, you just saw Secretary of Defense Hegseth on the trip to Michigan on Air Force One with President Trump. Did you get any feeling about their interactions at all?

JENNINGS: I did actually, and what I saw was Donald Trump has a lot of confidence in Pete Hegseth. I saw a commander-in-chief who's standing behind his secretary of defense. And we went over before this rally to Selfridge Air Force Base here, where President Trump made an announcement about saving that base and putting new fighter jets there. And he had Pete Hegseth on the trip and brought him up to the podium and let him say a few words.

My observation was it was a big vote of confidence in Pete Hegseth coming out of, you know, some of these issues we've been discussing. So, my observations today is Pete Hegseth is in good stead with the commander-in-chief, Donald Trump,

TAPPER: David Chalian, be that as it may, Pete Hegseth has had the two biggest mess ups of any member of the Trump administration so far, one, Signal gate and two, the second Signal gate.

CHALIAN: Yes, Signal gate one and two. Listen, the reason Hegseth's job is safe today, and who knows if it will be going forward, is because of all the political capital spent to get him to the position that he's in. So, Trump and his team are really loathed to give that scalp up, if you will, in a way to political opponents, to the press coverage around this, they put so much to get him into that role that I think that in and of itself right now has protected him a little bit, but I don't think that that's guaranteed to protect him all the way through if there is some other screw up.

[18:45:01]

BASH: And just to put a finer point on what you just said, it's the political capital that the president spent, the people around him, but its also that he asked his fellow Republicans in the United States Senate to spend in order to get him over the finish line, which it wasn't easy.

TAPPER: And., Alyssa Farah Griffin, you know, Pete Hegseth, I don't think -- there are probably a number of individuals, including Senate Republican former leader Mitch McConnell, who voted against Hegseth who are not surprised by this because they have already said that they didn't think he had the maturity and was too reckless a candidate to be secretary of defense.

GRIFFIN: Yeah. Listen, I think Donald Trump has legitimate affection for Pete Hegseth. I remember being with him when he stopped -- I stopped an interview he did.

He likes his wife. He likes him as a person. He thinks he's good on TV. Looks the part.

But listen, Donald Trump's not one to want to give a scalp to the media or to the outrage, especially in this kind of first 100 days. I would be stunned if there aren't some staffing and even senior changes that come in the coming months, though, and Hegseth has been marred by scandal, and Donald Trump has gives people he likes some rope, but not too much, especially somewhere as important as the Department of Defense.

And I think what also matters is in Trump world, there's always going to be people around him who are jockeying to replace if that position were to become vacant. So he's going to be hearing from senators, from elected officials about who should be in that role and who could do it better than Hegseth.

TAPPER: All right. Thank you all.

President Trump says his next focus will be his, quote, big, beautiful bill. Will Republicans stand up to Trump if they don't like it? I'm going to ask somebody incredibly familiar with this song and dance. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:50:25]

TAPPER: Sticking in our politics lead, 100 days into the Trump administration, President Trump is now turning to Congress as Republicans in the House and the Senate are working to hammer out details to pass his massive agenda.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We want to get and very importantly, the big, beautiful new deal. If we get that done, that's the biggest thing. What's happening in Congress right now. And I think -- I think we're going to get it done. We have great Republican support.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Joining us now to discuss, former Republican Congressman Peter Meijer from the great state of Michigan, where the president is speaking right now.

Congressman, thanks for joining us.

President Trump's in your -- your home state battleground Michigan, marking the first 100 days of his second term. Trump carried Michigan by just over 80,000 votes.

How would you grade President Trump's job so far?

PETER MEIJER (R), FORMER U.S. REPRESENTATIVE, MICHIGAN: I'm not going to sign a letter like a -- like a teacher would, but honestly, this administration came in far more prepared in 2025 than they were in 2017. They obviously took immediate effect on the border, which was a dominant issue.

There has been uncertainty around the tariffs for sure, though. Thats something that has been greeted with a lot of excitement here in the state. UAW President Shawn Fain, who is no fan of the president, has been vocally supportive of those.

Now, I'll be honest, that makes me a little queasy as a Republican to see, you know, Shawn Fain lavishing such praise on his tariffs.

But honestly, this is just the opening act. You know, the midterms aren't for another 18 plus months. There's a lot that's going to happen between here and there. This is an opportunity to throw things at the wall, to figure out what's going to stick, to be able to hone. And I'm sure Susie Wiles and the management team at the White House

are paying careful attention. They're looking at the polls. They're looking at what is resonating, and they will continue to adjust and adapt as the situation continues.

TAPPER: People who know Michigan know your last name, Meijer. It's a big family business. How is -- how are the tariffs affecting your family business?

MEIJER: Yeah. I'm not an employee of a family business. Obviously, we come from a retail background. My current work right now is helping companies reindustrialize and building factories for startups. And so there's a tension. The tariffs have been fantastic for our thesis that we need to be building more things domestically.

But as the president recognized with his relaxing of some tariffs, of some component materials, even are things that are made in the United States, our domestic manufacturing is still heavily reliant on imported materials, whether that's steel and aluminum products that were anticipating a relaxation of sanctions of, excuse me, of tariffs on.

But, you know, obviously on the consumer side of the house, you look at the prices that have gone up on Shein, the online retailer from China, they've gone up 347 percent or so. So, you know, we're going to see a lot of disruption on the cheaper end of the scale.

But I think it's towards in service of that broader imperative that if we don't control our supply chains, if we don't have the ability to provide a lot of not only the critical minerals, which is a whole different question, but those critical national security items on the manufacturing side. You know, what are we going to do when China invades Taiwan, right? All of this is demonstrating the interlinking, the snapback of some of these tariffs on China is demonstrating how much there's interdependence.

Now, I hope we can move away from that. And I know the president is firmly supportive of that. But it's a scary prospect.

TAPPER: All right. Former Congressman Peter Meijer from Michigan, good to see you again. Thanks so much.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:57:59]

TAPPER: We're back with our politics lead as we continue to monitor President Trump's speech marking his 100th day in office, CNN's resident fact checker Daniel Dale, is here.

And, Daniel, we heard several claims from Trump tonight about the past three elections in Michigan, 2016, 2020 and 2024. Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: We just had the biggest victory in Michigan. We won it twice. We actually won it three times. You want to really know it?

Well, we actually already served three. But if you count. But remember I like the victories. I like the three victories which we absolutely had.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Mr. Dale, fact check that for us.

DANIEL DALE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: I think there are actual school children who could fact-check some of this for us, Jake. President Trump did not win three victories. He won in 2016 and 2024. He lost in 2020.

He did not win Michigan three times. He again won in 2016 and 2024, lost in 2020 to Joe Biden by more than 150,000 votes.

If anyone is surprised that he's still lying about not only the election more than four years ago, but the election he won as he did tonight. They haven't been paying attention. He has repeatedly this term as well as the election he ran in, continues to deceive about the last three campaigns, questioning in a recent interview Joe Biden's vote total in 2020, asserting that there were shenanigans in the vote counting even in 2024.

So, all of this is nonsense, but no amount of fact checking appears to have deterred him on the subject.

TAPPER: All right, Daniel Dale, thank you so much. A good reminder.

I have two books coming out on May 20th, "Original Sin". It's about President Biden's decision to run for reelection and the cover up of his decline. That's coming out in three weeks.

In October, "Race Against Terror", it's about the hunt to prosecute an al Qaeda terrorist who killed Americans was out to kill more. You can check him out and preorder them at jaketapper.com.

Until tomorrow, you can follow me on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Substack, X, and on TikTok @jaketapper. You can follow the show on X @theleadCNN.

If you ever miss an episode of THE LEAD, you can listen to the show when you get your podcasts, all two hours, just sitting there like a like a juicy plum waiting for you to pick.

"ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT" starts right now.