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Mexico Warns Trump's Tariffs Will Kill Some U.S, Jobs; Elon Musk Singles Out Federal Employees He Wants to Cut; Trump Names Jamieson Greer For U.S. Trade Representative; Just Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired November 27, 2024 - 14:00   ET

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

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[14:01:05]

RAHEL SOLOMON, CNN HOST: Mexico warns that Trump's tariffs could kill nearly half a million U.S. jobs as companies sound the alarm that tariffs may pass on higher prices to the consumer.

And federal employees tell CNN that they are terrified of being doxed after Elon Musk singles out government positions that he believes are a waste of taxpayer dollars, going so far as to share the names of employees that he wants to cut with his hundreds of millions of followers.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Plus, we're tracking last minute holiday travel as millions are hitting the road or the skies. What to expect if you're among those leaving today. We're following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here at CNN News Central.

Thank you so much for joining us this afternoon on CNN News Central. I'm Boris Sanchez alongside Rahel Solomon here in the Nation's Capital.

And if you are flying for Thanksgiving this year, expected to be quite busy at the airport. The TSA is forecasting that it's going to screen more than 18 million people for the holiday week with the longest lines anticipated on Sunday.

SOLOMON: So you know what that means. We should check in with CNN Aviation Correspondent Pete Muntean, who is live at Reagan National Airport in Washington. Pete, you know there's concern that a shortage of air traffic controllers at even one key airport could gnarled things for millions of people. How are things looking?

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: It's gnarling things right now. There is a ground delay program meaning flights held on the ground en route to Newark Liberty International Airport just outside of New York. That has been a particular pain point for the FAA, really a microcosm of the staffing issues that they are having. And the FAA Administrator warned going into this travel rush that the FAA may have to do that to keep things safe.

The good news is things are moving relatively smoothly here on the ground at airports. The line here to get through standard screening and pre-check here at the Terminal 2 North checkpoint at Reagan National Airport under five minutes. Right now, the TSA says today is going to be even bigger than yesterday.

They saw about 2.7 million people at airports nationwide yesterday, but a 2% increase from the same day a year ago. Today they're anticipating about 2.9 million people at airports nationwide. The number just keeps getting bigger. Today is the biggest day leading up to the Thanksgiving rush. We will wait to see though, because the rush could be even bigger coming back. That could set an all-time air travel record on Sunday.

Since we are on the subject of lines, I want to show you this new technology that American Airlines has rolled out at gates across the country. This is to tackle a problem that is called Gate Lice. The people who rush the gate and try to board out of their boarding group. It's a particular concern on American because they have nine, count them, nine different boarding groups. So it's a little bit easy to get confused.

Now, what happens when you scan your boarding pass if you're not in the proper group? an alarm goes off and you have to do the walk of shame essentially back to board with your group. We got to see it in action here at Reagan National Airport. Watch this.

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WOMAN #1: Okay, you're in group five --

WOMAN #2: I'm sorry.

WOMAN #1 You're all set.

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MUNTEAN: Was a small test that American was using this technology at. Now, this is rolled out to 120 airports nationwide. So Thanksgiving travel line cutters, consider this your last and final warning.

The good news here is that American Airlines says it's operating nearly all of its flights without being canceled. They said they didn't cancel one mainline flight yesterday. Only three regional flights canceled in Burbank and Aspen due to bad weather there. Americans operating about 6,400 flights in total today. They say that means to take off about once every 15 seconds. Really, really busy today.

SOLOMON: On the one hand, you cannot blame those who try to cut the line because when you see you are in zone nine, it is the worst feeling on the other hand.

SANCHEZ: I am in shock that Pete Muntean would publicly shame that lovely person who is simply trying to board a flight.

SOLOMON: We're sorry, we're sorry. SANCHEZ: You got her on camera. Hey, Pete, the producers are going to yell at me. They say we don't have enough time. But I do wonder if you've packed your patience and how you're doing out there?

MUNTEAN: Oh, you know what? You know, Boris, I'm chilling. It's good. I have my full setup here. Sometimes just step into my office. Sometimes folks ask me, do I have a cot here or anything? No, I have my chair here that I use. This is my little temporary office.

Kelty chairs. Get at me. I love my little camp chair here. I got my Dunkin from the Terminal 1 Dunkin Donuts, where they're very kind enough to give me the airport employee discount, even though technically I'm not an airport employee. And even in my little laptop here to hammer away on my memoir and the downtime between live shots. So it's not so bad.

You know, I love it when people come and visit me here at the Terminal 2 North checkpoint. I see pilots, flight attendants, air traffic controllers, TSA. It's like a little -- it's like being in a Little Richard, Scarry storybook here. I love the little city of the airport.

SANCHEZ: Look forward to his memoir coming in 2027. It's called he's got that dog in him. Pete Muntean, live from D.C. --

MUNTEAN: That's right.

SANCHEZ: thanks so much, buddy.

SOLOMON: Or Dunkin Donuts. Get at me --

SANCHEZ: Yeah, he wants a sponsorship, clearly.

SOLOMON: Pete Muntean, thank you.

All right. It is clearly also a busy Thanksgiving week in the halls of Mar-a-Lago, as President Elect Donald Trump quickly fills more key roles in his incoming administration. Just last hour, he announced that he has chosen Retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg as special envoy for Ukraine and Russia.

Kellogg previously served as National Security Adviser to former Vice President Mike Pence. Now, Trump has now named 19 cabinet members. This is a huge difference from where we were at this point in 2016, when he had only made four cabinet picks.

Joining me now to discuss is CNN Senior Political Analyst Ron Brownstein. Ron, always good to see you. I mean, it sounds like -- I mean, his Cabinet has pretty much filled out nominations and confirmations rather aside. What are your thoughts about what his selections tell you about Trump's vision for his second term?

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yeah, well, first of all, I hope I am onboarding here for the right segment after that. No alarms are going to go off while I'm talking.

But look, you know, I think, you know, you have to look at Trump's Cabinet and other appointees really in two big categories. I mean, you have a number of them that probably would have been appointed by any Republican president, just kind of, you know, the standard conservative, in many case, business oriented appointees. Doug Burgum at Interior, Lee Zeldin at EPA.

But then you have the group that Trump chose, I think, very explicitly to kind of rattle the foundations of Washington, where he picked Matt Gaetz as AG, Tulsi Gabbard to run the Nation's Intelligence agencies, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. At HHS, Pete Hegseth at the Defense Department, all of whom I think are very much put down as a gauntlet for Senate Republicans by traditional metrics.

It's hard to imagine another Republican president nominating any of these for the jobs they hold. It's not really so much that they are necessarily unqualified. They're kind of anti-qualified in the sense that they challenge the traditional ideas of what those jobs should be.

Matt Gaetz withdrew without a vote. That may leave more room for Republican senators to cast a public vote against one or more of these. And I think that's where the controversy and the focus is going to be in the weeks ahead.

SOLOMON: Ron, to that point, I mean, that these picks come from, I mean, across the political spectrum, do you think that's more reflective of Trump himself, who's not necessarily particularly ideological, or is this more about building a coalition of loyalists? How do you see it?

BROWNSTEIN: Yeah, I think -- I think your second point really kind of -- the thread that runs through all of this is personal loyalty to Trump, you know, and people are kind of imputing onto, for example, some of the economic choices. Maybe Trump will not go as far as he said during the campaign on things like imposing tariffs, you know, but there he is on social media, you know, threatening 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada and big tariffs on China, the three largest trading partners, you know, right out of the box.

I mean, they -- I think the expectation that, you know, there's a broad expectation certainly in the stock market that Trump will not try to do some of the most extreme things that he said he would do as a candidate, I think that's wrong.

I mean, forget about Trump. If you just look through history, presidential candidates who get elected overwhelmingly try to do what they said. Sometimes they get stopped by the courts, sometimes they get stopped by Congress.

Both of those may be less of a threat to Trump given the Republican dominance, you know, the Supreme Court and both chambers of Congress. And I think that it is wrong for anyone to assume that when he says he's not going to -- he's going to impose sweeping tariffs or mass deportation or talking about unilateral military action against the cartels in Mexico, that all of that was just bluster. He's going to go further down those roads than many people expect. SOLOMON: Yeah. I mean, the market reaction is an interesting point, Ron, because on the one hand, you look at that muted reaction to the tariffs and you wonder, is that perhaps because he has folks like Scott Bessent in his cabinet, folks who are considered more moderate, folks who are considered a steady hand who truly understand capital markets? Or is it because we've been here before, we've obviously lived through a term before, so investors have an idea of whether he's using this as a negotiating tactic?

BROWNSTEIN: Right -- and right. That is the question, right? Is Trump two the same as Trump one? Certainly in the campaign, I think Rahel, his proposals across a wide range of issues were more explicit and more militant than what he ran on in 2016 or even in 2020. I mean, he has talked explicitly about sending Special Forces into Mexico, for example, with or without the permission of the Mexican government.

He's talked explicitly about ending the Education Department and obviously mass deportation and the use of the National Guard for that. And so I think, you know, there is a sense, and perhaps even among many voters, I think, you know, voters who are dissatisfied with the economy wanted to vote for Trump because they thought he would be better for their immediate economic situation.

I was told by one person who was doing focus groups and public opinion research that voters who decided that Trump was better for their bottom line were actively resisting information that would cause them cognitive dissonance about what else he might do, what else might come with the package. Well, that's going to be harder to do once he is actually in office.

You know, against the backdrop of dissatisfaction with Biden, I think voters looked at Trump primarily through the lens of he's going to bring down costs, he's going to get the border under control. But there is a lot else that goes with electing Trump. And I think you're going to see inevitably more of that come to the fore already with these, you know, with these threats to Mexico and Canada and certainly once he takes office.

SOLOMON: Yeah, really interesting, fascinating points. Ron Brownstein, good to see you. And if we don't see you before, have a happy Thanksgiving.

BROWNSTEIN: No alarm bells went off. Thanks.

SOLOMON: Good to see you.

All right. And among Trump's recent picks is Jamieson Greer for U.S. trade representative. Greer's appointment comes just a day after Trump announced new tariffs that some economists warn will almost certainly cost Americans more money.

SANCHEZ: And now, the Mexican economic secretary says it would also cost American jobs, some 400,000 jobs in the auto industry. Specifically, Trump's proposed tariffs include 25% on all imports from Mexico as well as Canada, and an additional 10% on imports from China. Let's discuss the implications with Justin Wolfers, Professor of Economics at the University of Michigan, and Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Chief Economist on President George W. Bush's Council of Economic Advisers. Thank you all for being with us. Doug, first to you. The Biden administration kept in place many of the tariffs that we saw from Trump's first term. I wonder what your reaction is to this proposal and how these policies differ from what you saw during the first Trump administration.

DOUGLAS HOLTZ-EAKIN, CHIEF ECONOMIST, WH COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC ADVISERS UNDER GEORGE W. BUSH: Well, these are very big proposals. 25% on Mexico and Canada is about $100 billion in tariffs a year. That translates into $800 or $900 per American household. So that would be a significant hit to the American consumer. So they're not to be taken lightly.

The question with Mr. Trump is always, is this something he wants to do or is this a negotiating tactic and something he wants to drop when he gets what he wants? Well, what he said the terms were is -- they stay in place until we get no more border crossing by migrants, no more drugs, especially fentanyl, coming into the United States, those are sort of non-economic objectives. Those are typical of when he wants to cut a deal.

And indeed, these are both signatories to the North American Trade Agreement, the USMCA. And this really sounds like him kicking off negotiations on the new version of the USMCA that was scheduled to happen next year. He's just starting it this year. So I think this looks like a negotiating tactic. That doesn't mean he won't go ahead and attempt to do this.

Now, I do want to say this is different than 2017 in one very important way. The world has seen him do this already. They have seen him be in office. He has levied tariffs. They stayed in place. And there was sort of shock and amazement when he made proposals in 2017.

You sense none of that now. The world has been watching him campaign. They've been getting ready to retaliate. It took the Mexicans about 38 seconds to say, fine, we'll do 25% too, and we'll keep going up until the U.S. auto industry screams, so this is not the same as the last time around. And the economic damage will be greater if both sides go ahead and do the tariff and the retaliation.

SOLOMON: Justin, to that point, if in fact these tariffs do come to pass, who would be the biggest losers? But also, who might stand to benefit from this? Who might be the biggest winner?

JUSTIN WOLFERS, UNIV. OF MICHIGAN ECONOMICS PROFESSOR: Well, the biggest losers are you and me and the folks who are watching TV at home right now.

Between these three countries, Canada, Mexico and China, they account for almost half of all American trade. So think about your fruit and vegetables. Huge amounts. Nearly half of our fruit and vegetables come across the border from these countries. We're going to see a 25% tariff on those. So going to the grocery store is going to become a whole lot more uncomfortable.

I'm coming to you from just outside Detroit. We have a vibrant auto industry here which actually straddles the Canadian border. Our supply chains are very tightly linked, where something as simple as a car seat might go back and forth across the border to and from different factories up to half a dozen times.

And that's going to become very uneconomic. And you saw, actually the stock prices of the big three automakers plummeted on this announcement. It's also worth noting that one auto company has a very different business model, that being Tesla. The president's very good mate, Elon Musk, and it's much less of a threat to that company.

SANCHEZ: Justin, I do wonder, given that the USMCA was set to improve upon NAFTA in the eyes of Donald Trump and the fact that he touted it after it was negotiated, that he would now seek to essentially undo a great part of it by pursuing these tariffs. I mean, what does that tell you?

WOLFERS: Mate, it just tells you that if that was -- if you just saw me sigh, that's the sigh of an economics teacher who says, we actually understand how tariffs work. We understand the people that they hurt. Trump went to rip up NAFTA and in some sense was convinced that what he should do is just rebrand it as NAFTA Perrin-Trump approved. That's what the USMCA really is. And now, despite the fact that it's his trade agreement that he passed with two countries, he's now ripping it up with sharp tariffs on both of those.

Look, disentangling American business from Mexico and from Canada would be very bad for Mexico, very bad for Canada, and very bad for American business.

SOLOMON: Doug, I want to give you the last word here. You were the Chief Economist, as we said, on the Council of Economic Advisers under President George W. Bush, if you were serving in this Trump administration, what advice would you share with the president on their tariff proposals and his tariff proposals?

HOLTZ-EAKIN: Well, I'm not going to be serving in this administration because I was in an administration that believed in lowering barriers to trade, that American workers benefited from selling our goods around the world, that we fostered allies by having trade agreements with them. And that world is gone. There is now a protectionist tilt to trade policy everywhere, not just in the United States.

Mr. Trump has left that world behind and believes, evidently quite sincerely, that we should simply get rid of all imports and make everything here, which is completely economically irrational and undoable. So I would be at a loss as to how to convince him to simply recognize that there are smart workers and smart consumers and smart businessmen all across this country who are relying on trade flows because that's the best way to do things that are good for America. And that's what we want in the end.

SANCHEZ: Doug Holtz-Eakin, Justin Wolfers, thank you both.

Wolfers: Pleasure.

SANCHEZ: And happy Thanksgiving, by the way.

HOLTZ-EAKIN: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Still ahead this hour on CNN News Central, we're live in New York at the site where Macy's inflates all of its balloons for the big parade tomorrow. We're going to take you behind the scenes with Harry Enten, who's promised to be wearing a turkey outfit.

Plus, we have an inside look at how a methane leak hunting satellite could help combat climate change. That story's next.

SOLOMON: But first, it's a story you will only see here. CNN speaks exclusively with Ukrainian soldiers anxious about dwindling resources and Donald Trump's looming presidency.

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MAN #1: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

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SANCHEZ: As the war in Ukraine approaches the three year mark, the fighting grinds on. And short on manpower troops, there are now increasingly relying on drones to fight off Russian advances.

SOLOMON: Yeah. And in exclusive interviews, CNN's Nick Paton Walsh spoke with several Ukrainian soldiers who say that they're anxious about dwindling resources. And a warning that some of the video in this report is graphic.

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NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: They're running out of time, space and people. Night is killing time for drones. They've switched on the anti-drone device because of the threat around here. This Ukrainian drone unit of just two hunting but also hunted. I think I hear a drone - inside, inside. Is it a Russian drone? Is it one of theirs? They don't know, but they have to carry on.

Dogs are not friends. Their heat signals can give their launch spot away to Russia's thermal cameras. They close in on the target. A house jamming hits the signal, but they fire anyway.

Russia advancing too fast here south of Pokrovsk in the east to miss any chances. The skyline speaks of how Pokrovsk is in Russia's crosshairs. Ukraine is short of manpower, but it is so bad here, they say they must rely on drones, not infantry, to slow a brazen Russian daylight assault like this one.

MAN #2: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE) WALSH: Watch how the first Russian tank here is relentless. A Trump presidency and possible peace talks loom. Do they even have time for that here?

MAN #3: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

WALSH: Talk here is abnormally negative, with weeks of costly and chaotic retreat on film, like these Ukrainians hit when they're mistakenly told this building didn't have any Russians in it.

This house has an encircled Ukrainian drone unit without any infantry to help fight advancing Russians. So they send a drone to fly just 30 meters across the street.

MAN #1: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

WALSH: Russian troops savage in the assault. This footage shows a local in orange who has shown Russians where Ukrainians were hiding. They are led out and shot while face down, part of a pattern of surrendering Ukrainians executed, say prosecutors investigating this incident a fortnight ago.

Pokrovsk's key sites bombed but so far spared Russia's trademark devastation. It is possible, some say Moscow is moving so fast it thinks it will spend the winter here. Nick Paton Walsh, CNN, outside Pokrovsk, Ukraine.

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SANCHEZ: Our thanks to Nick Paton Walsh for that report.

Next, imagine the richest man in the world publicly calling your job a waste of time. That's what's happening to some federal employees right now as Elon Musk is singling them out by name to his hundreds of millions of social media followers. We'll discuss in just moments.

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