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Trump's Proposed Tariffs On Mexico And Canada Rattle Auto Industry; Harris Team Speaks Out For First Time Since Election; Food Banks See Major Spike In Need During Holidays. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired November 27, 2024 - 07:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:30:50]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Kamala Harris telling supporters what she is thankful for right now. She held a virtual call with her campaign contributors and praised their grassroots support network and their huge fundraising haul during the -- their abbreviated campaign. She also had a message though for Democrats going forward.

CNN's Sunlen Serfaty is tracking this one for us and she's joining us now. Good morning, Sunlen. What did Kamala Harris say?

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kate, this is certainly significant because this is the first time we're hearing from Vice President Kamala Harris since she -- that concession speech nearly three weeks ago when she lost the election.

And in this video to supporters you can certainly sense her disappointments, acknowledging, of course, that this is not the outcome that she wanted. She did not wade into any of the blame game. She did not offer any reasons for why she believes that her team lost. But she did notably reference the very short timeframe of her campaign -- only 107 days -- saying that she believes what they were able to achieve during that time, she said, was unprecedented.

And she had this message for her supporters going forward.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAMALA HARRIS, (D) VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I know this is an uncertain time. I'm clear-eyed about that. I know you're clear- eyed about it and it feels heavy. And I just have to remind you don't you ever let anybody take your power from you. You have the same power that you did before November 5.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SERFATY: And as Harris is speaking out for the first time so too are some of her senior advisers who went on the podcast Pod Save America. And they were, to put it lightly, much more blunt about what they thought went wrong in the campaign, namely blaming the very short duration that they had, saying that it did not give Harris enough time to distinguish herself in this selection. That she couldn't -- she didn't -- wasn't able to craft her message to appeal to more Democrats.

Put bluntly, David Plouffe who was, of course, a senior adviser to her, said there was a price to be paid for the short campaign.

So, Kate, certainly much more to learn from the Harris campaign's team post-mortem of what went wrong. But certainly, a first blush at how at least they are defining it for the first go-around -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Yeah.

Sunlen, good to see you. Thank you so much -- John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. This morning, President-elect Trump's promise to impose 25 percent tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada is sparking concern across many U.S. industries. One of them -- maybe chief among them is the auto industry.

CNN business and politics correspondent Vanessa Yurkevich is here. And look, this has an impact on the auto industry, like, every which way.

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, and us as consumers -- buyers of vehicles. The U.S. imports the majority of car parts and cars from Mexico. And we do have the big three U.S. automakers but so much of the cars that are made are made with foreign parts, including from China as well, and Canada, and Mexico. And we import cars from Mexico directly.

Just to give people a sense, there are -- the cars that we import that have parts from Mexico. Tesla, actually, Model 3; Honda Ridgeline; the Ford F-150, the most popular vehicle in America right now.

The reason we do this is to keep prices low for consumers because it's much more affordable to import parts and make cars in Mexico. And that is so that we can pay $47,000 on average, which is still a lot for a vehicle, and not upwards of $100,000.

We also make a lot of cars in Mexico and import them directly. Chevy Blazer, Hondo HR-V, the Ram, Chevy Silverado. Those are cars that don't even get made here in America.

The question then is why don't we just make everything here? Well, it's more expensive, we don't have the capacity, and we are working on building facilities here in the U.S. However, it takes three to five years to even get those up and running.

The CHIPS Act -- CHIPS Act in 2022 allotted $30 billion for semiconductors for vehicles that are mostly made in China, but that's a long way off.

[07:35:00]

Now, the big three U.S. automakers didn't comment on these tariff proposals, but the markets certainly did. All of the auto stocks were down yesterday. GM down about nine percent. So people clearly a little bit nervous about these tariffs. Twenty-

five percent on Canada and Mexico. Ten percent coming out of China. Nervous about what it means for the auto industry and for the average consumer. Does that mean that people are not going to be as interested in buying these certain vehicles because now they're simply more expensive?

And that could shift demand all the way down to used cars. And we saw that over the pandemic if you remember. Used cars were out-of-control expensive.

There could just be a huge, huge ripple effect in the auto industry if these tariffs take effect.

BERMAN: Yeah. I was reading there are some cars when during the manufacturing process that actually cross the border several times --

YURKEVICH: A couple of times.

BERMAN: -- and they would be slapped with a tariff every time they cross. So you can see how it would run up the prices.

YURKEVICH: (INAUDIBLE).

BERMAN: Vanessa Yurkevich, thank you very much.

YURKEVICH: Thank you.

BERMAN: Kate.

BOLDUAN: And joining us right now is former Republican congressman Charlie Dent. And Christy Setzer, Democratic strategist and former spokesperson for Al Gore's presidential campaign. Guys, thanks for being here.

Charlie, let's talk about these tariffs just as John and Vanessa were talking about it.

Chuck Grassley, a top Republican senator -- he told Politico this and he was telling reporters this, Politico reporting. "I'm concerned about the potential of it," when asked if he was worried about another trade war on the horizon. "But," he says, "right now, I see everything that Trump's doing on tariffs as a negotiating tool. And we'll have to wait and see how successful he is about that."

As a negotiating tool it gets back to the question do you take him seriously? But should Republicans, do you think be worried about Trump and this negotiating tool and/or Trump implementing this?

CHARLIE DENT, (R) FORMER U.S. REPRESENTATIVE: Well, I think Sen. Grassley is right to be concerned because no state would probably have more to lose in a trade war than Iowa. Much of the corn of Iowa goes I'm sure to Mexico -- Mexico retaliates against tariffs.

But as a negotiating tool, yes, Trump wants to use this -- these tariffs as bargaining chips. But he also wants to use these tariffs as a revenue source to help pay for or at least partially offset the reauthorization of the 2017 tax cuts. And so he wants to use this as a revenue source. So I think he's wanting to use this more than as a simple bargaining chip or a negotiating tool.

I'm not sure what part of the Smoot-Hawley tariffs of 1930 we didn't learn about. When you think about it, in 1930 we imposed 20 percent tariffs across the board, which exacerbated the Great Depression. Global trade after that dropped from $3 trillion to $1 trillion.

So these tariffs, if implemented as proposed, would have devastating effects on American manufacturing and agriculture for all the reasons you just pointed out in the lead-up to this segment with all the various inputs coming in from other countries to make things here in the United States.

BOLDUAN: Yeah.

I mean, Christy, I haven't found -- in my brief searching, and listening, and absorbing, I really haven't found a company head that's saying that tariffs would be great for their business. Walmart -- from IKEA now -- just now this morning saying that --

CHRISTY SETZER, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST, FORMER SPOKESPERSON FOR AL GORE'S PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN: Um-hum.

BOLDUAN: -- if these go into effect they could really -- they could force them to increase prices.

Politically, then, what is this? Because it's not like Trump can't hear this and it's not like those around him haven't --

SETZER: Right.

BOLDUAN: -- warned of this. And it's not like even those he's appointed to key cabinet positions have kind of -- have been careful and treading lightly before they got their nominations to say how they felt about this. It's -- it is kind of plain to see what the math is.

What's the -- what's the politics here that you see?

SETZER: Right. It's terrible politics. It's sort of baffling to understand why Trump has been embracing this, and I think that it might just be that he doesn't understand how tariffs work.

It is obviously bad political strategy because so many people that just voted for Donald Trump in just a couple of weeks ago did so because they were frustrated by the fact that inflation was still happening. That prices were still slightly higher than what we were seeing pre-pandemic. This is going to take a sledge hammer to that in terms of it will jack prices up.

So if you are someone who doesn't want to pay more at the grocery store for basic fruits and vegetables, up to things like buying a new car, unfortunately, Trump's policy is going to make you do exactly that. So it's not just bad political strategy; it's also bad economic

strategy as we just alluded to. It's going to almost immediately bring back inflation to a degree that had gotten under control under President Biden.

So it's very confusing as to what he's doing here -- obviously, even other countries.

[07:40:00]

Claudia Sheinbaum, in Mexico, today was saying that look, we have a shared interest, obviously, in trade. This might hurt us but it's obviously going to hurt American consumers just as much.

And so what is doing? Really, it's hard to know.

BOLDUAN: And Charlie, tariffs and implementing them -- it was one of the more consistent campaign promises that you did hear though from Donald Trump on the -- on the trail. I mean, voters were aware, and voters voted for him.

That's my segue to the search for what then happened that Democrats are doing right now? Because the Harris campaign heads -- they are out speaking for the first time with Pod Save America. Sunlen Serfaty was playing just a little bit of it.

Let me play what David Plouffe said about what went wrong.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID PLOUFFE, SENIOR ADVISESR TO VICE PRESIDENT HARRIS: So this is where there was a price to be paid for the short campaign. And you can't even say 107 days because to Quentin's point, some of that was spent shoring up the Democratic nomination. Then you really have to have said everything you want to say by the time people start voting early. So we had a little more than two months to do bio, contrast on the economy, on health care, raising the stakes of Trump's --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: And I want you both to weigh in on this but Charlie, first to you. You hear that and you think what?

DENT: Well, I think the fact that Kamala Harris lost is largely because of the unpopularity of Joe Biden and most Americans thought the country was on the wrong track. That was their biggest problem. And she was unable to separate herself from Joe Biden as her vice president. That was a major problem for her.

And so -- and, of course, they failed to respond on that transgender ad. I mean, where was the response? That seemed to me to be campaign malpractice.

But the fact that Biden was so unpopular and most of the country saw it was on the wrong track, she was actually -- she was running into the wind much of this campaign. So this vote was perhaps a bit of a referendum on Joe Biden and inflation or their response to inflation more than anything else, and they could just never get out of their own way on that issue.

But we're going to spend a lot of time trying to analyze and diagnose what went wrong, but I'd have to say those are the major fault lines for the Harris campaign.

BOLDUAN: Well, and then let's start it now.

Christy, what Charlie is talking about there is during this initial kind of interview none of the campaign leaders that were on there called out Biden by name, but they did repeatedly refer to it -- I think it was headwinds. I don't think it was -- I think it was headwinds that they kept repeating to -- repeating over and over again.

What say you?

SETZER: I would say that Kamala Harris did a remarkable job in the short amount of time that she did have for her campaign. And to be perfectly honest, I'm not positive that her having had a longer amount of time would have ultimately been decisive but it could have helped.

Look, what she did in that short period of time was when she became the nominee her own favorables were incredibly underwater by about 15 points. She was able to bring that up to if not positive then at least even.

Also, perceptions of the economy. She was able to turn those around as well.

Again, Democrats were way underwater. President Biden was way underwater in terms of how people viewed Democrats and the economy and their perception of how we would do better on it. But she was able to get that back up also to about even if not slightly positive. That's incredibly difficult to do, especially in a short period of time.

Obviously, they raised bananas amounts of money.

So I'm really not here to say that she could have done more. But what we saw, and you see this primarily when you're looking at non- battleground states versus battleground states, is that those headwinds were incredibly high. You know, six, seven, eight points in non-battleground states.

The areas where we focused, the campaign was able to turn that around and get it incredibly close. Obviously, states like Wisconsin were decided by less than a point, right? So that's great work.

If ultimately the headwinds were too strong for her it probably would have been too strong regardless of whether Joe Biden had gotten out six months before that as well.

BOLDUAN: Yeah. Bananas amounts of money raised and bananas amounts of money spent.

It's good to see you both. Thank you very much. Happy Thanksgiving, guys.

SELZER: Yeah.

BOLDUAN: John.

BERMAN: All right. So what is the manosphere exactly, and do Democrats need to play a bigger role there?

And Iowa just pardoned its own two turkeys. You will never guess what they are named.

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[07:49:13]

BERMAN: All right. This morning, the latest chapter in Democrats trying to explain what happened in the election. Democratic strategist James Carville -- he went hard on the decision by Vice President Harris to skip the Joe Rogan podcast.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES CARVILLE, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: The vice president was thinking about going on Joe Rogan's show and a lot of the younger progressive staffers pitched a hissy fit.

If I were running a 2028 campaign and I had some little snot-nosed 23- year-old saying I'm going to resign if you don't do this, not only would I fire that (bleep) on the spot, I would find out who hired them and fire that person on the spot.

I'm really not interested in your uninformed, stupid (bleep) opinion as to whether you go on Joe Rogan or not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[07:50:00]

BERMAN: That was James Carville being tactful.

As the debate over whether to Rogan or not to Rogan rages on, CNN senior correspondent Donie O'Sullivan has a look at what the progressive answer to that podcast might be.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HASAN PIKER, PROGRESSIVE TWITCH STREAMER: Donie O'Sullivan.

DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT (voiceover): This is Hasan Piker.

PIKER: This is my dog, Kia (PH). I thought you legitimately were going to work out.

O'SULLIVAN: I could do some weights.

O'SULLIVAN (voiceover): He's a social media superstar with almost three million followers on the video streaming platform Twitch.

DONALD TRUMP, (R) THEN-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: They're eating -- they're eating the pets.

O'SULLIVAN: So this is that whole masculinity thing people are talking about, huh?

O'SULLIVAN (voiceover): And he's part of the growing group of streamers and podcasters reaching young men online -- a space Trump tapped into to reach young male voters.

PIKER: If you punch in then you won't be able to see that he's not doing any weights.

O'SULLIVAN (voiceover): But Hasan is not a Trump supporter. He's a progressive -- a fan of Bernie and AOC. The Democratic Party even invited him to the DNC in August.

O'SULLIVAN: One thing we've been hearing for weeks now is that the left needs a Joe Rogan.

PIKER: Yeah. I don't think that the Democratic Party can podcast itself out of this issue. Joe Rogan -- he endorsed Bernie Sanders in 2020. Maybe they should do an autopsy on why he left the party.

O'SULLIVAN: Yeah, I've heard you say when it comes to stuff that guys like you seek that stuff out online, whether it's watching a streamer, whether it's watching guys talk about working out and fitness, you say that the right wing just dominates that space.

PIKER: Yeah.

O'SULLIVAN: Why?

PIKER: Well, I think that's why I started on Twitch, right?

O'SULLIVAN: Hmm.

PIKER: I know for a fact that the video game space is, like, people who consume this culture -- people who are a part of the culture are not all right-wing. I wanted to showcase the people that, like, no, you can be a progressive person. You can be a leftist and, like, have fun at the same time.

O'SULLIVAN: How many people were watching your live stream on election night?

PIKER: The total unique number of 7.5 million.

O'SULLIVAN: There's a general sense that when it comes to the world of podcasts, alternative media -- I don't even know what you want to call it -- that Trump did a much better job with that than Democrats and Harris.

PIKER: Absolutely, I think that's true. When I saw the Adin Ross collab I thought this is not -- this doesn't have motion. It was awkward. It was weird.

But then I saw Trump on Theo Von and he started talking about cocaine. And I was like uh-oh, this humanizes him.

TRUMP: And so usually you're way up with cocaine more than anything else you can think of?

THEO VON, PODCASTER: Cocaine will turn you into a damn owl, homey. You know what I'm saying?

TRUMP: Yeah.

O'SULLIVAN: Harris did consider going on Joe Rogan --

PIKER: Yeah.

O'SULLIVAN: -- but she didn't.

What is this that the Democrat Party has to do differently?

PIKER: Well, um, I think that they need to change their policies.

O'SULLIVAN: It's a policy thing for you?

PIKER: Yes, it's 100 percent a policy thing --

O'SULLIVAN: Because outside --

PIKER: -- which is a boring answer.

Although it would be very self-serving for me to say I'm the left's Joe Rogan and the Democratic Party should give me millions of dollars, that's not going to solve this problem.

What will solve this problem is if the Democratic Party actually adopts real left-wing economic populist messaging instead of purposefully avoiding that stuff because they're terrified of upsetting their corporate donors.

I think Trump speaks to male insecurities better and I think Trump speaks to the anger that people have, whereas the other side of the political spectrum does not speak to that anger at all.

O'SULLIVAN: There's been a lot of controversy around you.

PIKER: Yes.

O'SULLIVAN: The way you talk about Israel is viewed by some as antisemitic.

PIKER: Yeah.

O'SULLIVAN: Are you antisemitic?

PIKER: Of course, not. The real problem here is that I'm an anti- Zionist. The real problem is that I'm extremely critical of Israel. And all of the information that's readily available, especially on

social media, for so many people that don't necessarily rely on mainstream media any longer to get their information. And that's why you see this generational gap. If you're over the age of 35 you're still operating on the old boundaries. You're like no, Israel is the most moral democracy in the Middle East -- maybe in the world, right?

Like, and I think that the major generational divide that is I think in a very damaging way feeding into the mistrust overall that people have with mainstream news in general is coming from that.

O'SULLIVAN (voiceover): Donie O'Sullivan, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BOLDUAN: Fascinating. Donie, thank you so much.

An Arizona man now under arrest accused of threatening to kill Donald Trump. Manuel Tamayo-Torres is facing a felony charge after a series of Facebook videos show him allegedly threatening to kill the president-elect as well as some of his family members.

In one of the videos, court documents say he was waving what appeared to be an AR-15-style rifle. He also charged -- he's also charged with several counts of making false statements on federal forms while trying to purchase a gun last year in Phoenix.

[07:55:05]

A massive shipment of Gibson guitars has been seized because they are all fake. Customs and Border Patrol in California seized more than 3,000 of the rip-offs posing as these iconic instruments. The value of this seizure had they been genuine Gibsons, more than $18 million.

Officials intercepted the suspected cargo arriving in ocean containers from Asia. Gibson confirmed the guitars intercepted were, in fact, counterfeit. Authentic Gibson guitars are made only in the United States.

This now is the largest counterfeit musical instrument seizure on record. So there you have it. Be careful what you're buying.

Peaches and Blossom -- those are the two turkeys that received presidential pardons at the White House this week, but they are not the only lucky turkeys out there right now, guys. Meet Caitlin and Clark, two Iowa turkeys named after the basketball superstar and two Iowa turkeys that also received pardons this week by Iowa's Gov. Kim Reynolds.

Local affiliate KCCI reports the family that raised Caitlin and Clark have been raising turkeys for 100 years in Iowa. After being granted their freedom, if you can consider it that, the birds will live out the rest of their days at a non-commercial farm -- Jonathan Berman.

BERMAN: I'm just shocked that turkeys in Iowa named Caitlin Clark needed to be pardoned at all. You would think they would already be like --

BOLDUAN: It's like across-the-board pardons.

BERMAN: Yeah.

BOLDUAN: Everyone's naming -- I like that very much. But they -- you know, they're going to live out -- I wonder what they're, like, vertical is?

BERMAN: They're going to -- exactly, and they're going to hit a lot of threes in retirement. OK.

While many people are getting ready for a feast tomorrow, others are worried about putting food on the table not just for Thanksgiving but every day. There are more than 47 million Americans who are food insecure right now and the problem of hunger affects every single county in the U.S.

With us now is Claire Babineaux-Fontenot. She is the leader of the hunger relief organization Feeding America, which is a wonderful organization.

Forty-seven million Americans are food insecure. That is just such a high number.

CLAIRE BABINEAUX-FONTENOT, CEO, FEEDING AMERICA (via Webex by Cisco): It is. And, in fact, it's 47,400,000, nearly 14 million of whom are children. That's a very high number. And I hope for everyone who will hear me it's unconscionable and unacceptable.

BERMAN: And I -- and I know this is what you think about every hour of every day, but what can we all do to fight this?

BABINEAUX-FONTENOT: Well, that's actually part of what makes me optimistic about this challenge is that there are things that we can do to right this. We often tell people to go to feedingamerica.org where you can learn how to donate, how to volunteer, and how to advocate. When we show people -- policymakers and leaders -- that this matters to us they act on it. We know that it should matter.

It impacts every country, as you said before. Thriving communities do not happen when members don't have enough food. So everything that we want is made better for ourselves and for our society when people have the food that they need.

BERMAN: When we talk about the food insecure, when we talk about people who are hungry, it's not necessarily who you think. It's a much broader spectrum, correct?

BABINEAUX-FONTENOT: Oh, that's absolutely right. In fact, the fastest-growing segment of people turning to the charitable food system are people who don't qualify for federal nutrition programs -- working-class people. And, in fact, the people who are on federal nutrition programs, when you take away the elderly, people with special needs, and children, the vast majority of them have at least one job. So these are people who are out there working hard and simply cannot make ends meet because of other things that are happening to them.

BERMAN: You --

BABINEAUX-FONTENOT: We often characterize food insecurity as a symptom of poverty, really.

BERMAN: You just visited recently all of the Feeding America food banks. What was your major takeaway?

BABINEAUX-FONTENOT: Both that the situation is difficult and it's so inspirational to me. I've been to all 50 states, as you said, over 200 food banks. That includes Alaska and Puerto Rico. And every single place that I went I saw people, even in the middle of a global health pandemic, rolling their sleeves up and helping their neighbors.

It gives me hope, it gives me optimism, and I'm also cautious in that optimism because I know that there are some big challenges that we're going to need to confront as a society.

BERMAN: Claire Babineaux-Fontenot from Feeding America, I really mean it -- you have a wonderful organization and it's a type of group that we should all be looking to help however we can.