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Interview With Santa Clarita, California, Mayor Bill Miranda; Fire Explodes North of Los Angeles; Birthright Citizenship Order Faces First Legal Test; President Trump Promises to Impose Tariffs. Aired 1- 1:30p ET
Aired January 23, 2025 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[13:00:29]
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Back on the world stage, President Donald Trump speaking in Davos and shedding light on his defiantly America- first agenda, while, back home, one of his most controversial Cabinet picks faces a critical test vote.
Plus, tens of thousands of people are forced to evacuate their homes as two fast-moving wildfires erupt near Los Angeles. Why fire officials are calling these latest fires a completely different beast.
ERICA HILL, CNN HOST: And if you are one of the many users who found themselves following President Trump on Instagram and Facebook, despite not signing up to do so, Meta wants you to know it's not forcing those accounts on you. So what is going on here?
We're following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.
SANCHEZ: This morning, President Donald Trump gave his first speech to global and business leaders since taking office, addressing them remotely at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland.
Trump vowed to pressure OPEC to cut oil prices, falsely claimed that he could single-handedly force interest rates to go down, and he offered this pitch, come do business and build your products in the United States or pay the price. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: My message to every business in the world is very simple. Come make your product in America, and we will give you among the lowest taxes of any nation on Earth.
But if you don't make your product in America, which is your prerogative, then, very simply, you will have to pay a tariff, differing amounts, but a tariff, which will direct hundreds of billions of dollars and even trillions of dollars into our Treasury to strengthen our economy and pay down debt.
(END VIDEO CLIP) SANCHEZ: CNN chief national affairs correspondent Jeff Zeleny joins us now live at the White House.
Jeff, as always, a lot to unpack here from President Trump. I wonder what your takeaways were.
JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Boris, there was a lot to unpack there, but I think that was the central message. America is open for business.
However, he had a few caveats onto that. And it was reminiscent to me of the first speech that President Trump gave to Davos, when he went all the way back in 2018. However, there was a sense of confidence and assurance there and really knowing exactly what he wanted to be asking for and talking specifically to the business leaders in the room and, of course, the global audience.
But the reality is, on the lowering of the corporate taxes, that's something he cannot do with executive order. That's something he cannot do on his own. He must do with the House and the Senate. So that is still the central question of all of this, what is he able to do from a legislative standpoint?
But in terms of giving a speech to the world leaders and indeed the business leaders in the room, he was very clear. I mean, he was talking again about how he believes the NATO nations don't pay enough of their GDP to defense. This is something we also saw in the first term when they did increase their spending.
The question of doing a 5 percent spending, that is not likely to happen, but also was saying some things that simply are outside of the purview. You see some of the lists there, wants interest rates cut. Every president would like interest rates to be cut. But, again, that is not something that you can just will into being from the White House.
But I think, overall, just seeing the president's message talking about the specific business-related things, it's again a reminder that he said America is open for business, but there are some strings attached to that. So he wants global leaders to do business with the U.S. Otherwise, he was threatening the tariffs, but, again, no specifics, or few specifics, we should say, on the exact tariffs he's talking about.
Not much talk about China either. That, of course, is one of the biggest challenges facing any U.S. president, of course, and certainly this one, but no question that he seemed to revel in the audience and the questions he was asked from the business leaders, Boris.
SANCHEZ: Yes, important to point out we're still waiting on specifics for his tariffs on China. We will see when those come.
ZELENY: Right.
SANCHEZ: Jeff Zeleny live from the White House, thank you so much.
We want to take you now to Davos with CNN business editor at large Richard Quest.
Richard, thanks so much for being with us.
Something Trump said that struck me was that he would directly urge Saudi Arabia and OPEC to lower oil prices. He said that he believed that that would lead to a peaceful conclusion to the war in Ukraine. It's not quite that simple, though, is it, Richard?
[13:05:00]
RICHARD QUEST, CNN BUSINESS EDITOR AT LARGE: Well, first of all, he can't direct OPEC. That's the most important thing.
But, secondly, it's much more complicated, as you rightly point out. So he wants OPEC to lower prices. And he said he wished they'd done it before the election. He wants OPEC to lower prices. But, if they lower prices, then Saudi Arabia will get less oil revenue.
And the price of oil currently is already causing Saudi great pain. Saudi has a huge budget deficit, huge expenditures on vast infrastructure projects. The last thing Saudi Arabia wants to do is cut the oil price, because it will reduce their revenues. And this ties in to what the president also said.
He was talking about the crown prince, MBS, who he said is a good man. And he said MBS has promised to invest for $600 billion into the United States. Well, he said, Donald Trump said, make it a trillion. Make it a round trillion. Oh, yes, very nice.
But if you are asking to increase spending, but lower revenues on oil price, it's a nonstarter. Look, Boris, I think you and I and Jeff and everybody else, we can spend the next 10 hours parsing what he said, analyzing it, discussing it. That misses the point.
The point is here, the president has put these previously unthinkable things on the table. He's got them into the arena. We're discussing them. Many of them will never happen. Many of them can't happen, as Jeff Zeleny said. Doesn't matter. We are discussing them. The unthinkable is now being discussed. And that is classic Donald Trump.
Get everybody talking about your plan and then you stand a chance of some of it happening.
SANCHEZ: To that point, Richard, I want to play a clip of Trump talking about how he plans to lower interest rates here in the United States. Let's listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: With oil prices going down, I will demand that interest rates drop immediately. And, likewise, they should be dropping all over the world. Interest rates should follow us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: Obviously Richard the Federal Reserve is supposed to be independent of the executive. That's part of why it was established to begin with.
Do you think he's just putting this on the table, or do you think he's intent on having greater control over what the Fed does?
QUEST: Forgive me being blunt and I say this with respect to the president. He's talking economic nonsense.
And let's play this through. First of all, he can't direct the Fed to do anything. So that's out the way. And, anyway, the Fed only controls interest rates at the very short end, at the short end of the curve. Long-term rates are set by the market in terms of general economic conditions.
But play with me on this and you will see where I'm going. If you -- if oil prices come down, yes, prices come down. If prices, people spend more. Inflation goes up. You see? It's a very finely balanced act in terms of this. The Fed is going to be watching inflation and unemployment.
And, at the moment, the Fed is very, very worried that the president's policies will stoke so much growth that there will be inflation. It's not easy, any of this, but the global economy is complicated, and Donald Trump is trying to drive a bulldozer through it.
SANCHEZ: Richard Quest, always appreciate the analysis live for us from Davos. Thanks so much -- Erica.
HILL: Well, the Justice Department with a clear message to a federal judge in Seattle: Do not block President Trump's executive order to end birthright citizenship.
This hour, that judge is set to hear from four of the nearly two dozen states now suing over the president's signature piece of immigration policy. It's just one of several lawsuits actually filed in the days since Trump signed the order, saying that it violates the 14th Amendment, which, of course, gives a constitutional right to citizenship to anyone born in the U.S.
The challenge comes as the Trump administration escalates its crackdown at the southern border U.S. officials say they are aggressively bolstering security there, with some 1,500 troops set to deploy by the end of the week.
CNN's Joan Biskupic joins me now.
So, Joan, in terms of what we're going to hear, the key arguments that we can expect here from both sides, what are they?
JOAN BISKUPIC, CNN SENIOR SUPREME COURT ANALYST: Sure.
Richard Quest is used the phrase previously unthinkable. This whole case now falls into that category. We have seen a torrent of executive orders and mass pardons, but this is really different, Donald Trump's challenge to birthright citizenship. And we're about to hear those arguments playing out today in Seattle. But let's just give our viewers a baseline of what the 14th Amendment actually says, because there's a key phrase in there that's going subject to dispute. It says: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside."
[13:10:16]
So that's the baseline the court's going to start with, this 1868 ratified thing. The other point, and this is a century-old precedent that this court is now picking up from, is an 1898 case involving a Chinese national -- pardon me -- son born of Chinese nationals here, where the Supreme Court said, the amendment, the 14th Amendment, is clear in words and manifest intent that it includes children born within the territory of the United States of all persons, whatever their race or color, domiciled within the United States.
Now, what Donald Trump has done with his executive order is to say essentially that case should be reversed and that the 14th Amendment's phrase, "subject to the jurisdiction thereof," would not include undocumented immigrants, anyone who's not a citizen or permanent legal resident who had a child here.
And that would withdraw citizenship from hundreds and thousands of people who now are entitled to it.
HILL: So it seems the goal in many ways is not just to overturn, right, that ruling from 1898, but to make sure that any of this litigation that we're following in this moment ends up before the Supreme Court, so that that can happen.
BISKUPIC: That's exactly right.
And it's interesting because the Supreme Court -- all the justices on the court, including the three new conservatives from Donald Trump, never were they asked about this part of the 14th Amendment or this 1898 precedent. It just wasn't -- to pick up previously unthinkable, the line from Richard, but it will eventually get up there.
And it would really fly in the face of Supreme Court precedent from liberals and conservatives if the justices were to bite on this.
HILL: We will see. A lot of other things previously unthinkable that we have been witnessing, and I guess we buckle up for more.
BISKUPIC: That's right.
HILL: Joan, good to see you.
BISKUPIC: That's right.
HILL: Well, still to come here: two new infernos breaking out in Southern California leading to tens of thousands of new evacuations. We are following the very latest there.
Plus, investigators searching for a motive in yesterday's shooting at a Nashville high school say they have now uncovered alarming writings connected to the teenage suspect.
And, later, are you suddenly following President Trump and Vice President Vance on social media, but don't remember clicking follow? Meta now responding to claims of forced follows on Instagram and Facebook.
That and much more ahead on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.
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[13:17:05]
HILL: Just as L.A. area firefighters are finally getting the upper hand on the deadly Palisades and Eaton fires, more infernos are now breaking out, threatening homes, iconic landmarks. They're forcing new evacuations and also reigniting widespread panic.
The latest fire that we're following is the Hughes Fire. We started to tell you about this yesterday. It's burning about 50 miles north of Los Angeles. It first began Wednesday morning. As of now, it's burned more than 10,000 acres. It's just 14 percent contained at this point. There's also a second blaze, the Sepulveda Fire, which erupted late last night near Bel Air along L.A.'s infamous 405 Freeway.
It hasn't spread. There is still concern, though, of course. And the Greater L.A. Basin remains under red flag alerts.
CNN national correspondent Natasha Chen is at the edge of that Hughes Fire in Castaic.
So how are the wind conditions, importantly, right now?
NATASHA CHEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Erica, the winds are pretty strong right now, and that's what you're seeing behind me here.
That is the concern today, that winds could pick back up, even though they seem to have gotten some management of this overnight. Now, as strong as the winds are now, this is nothing compared to the force of the winds that first day of the Palisades Fire, which really wreaked so much havoc in that area on the West Side of Los Angeles.
So, the reason that the Hughes Fire did not become a bigger problem than it is, is really because the winds have not been as dramatic as we have seen in the last couple of weeks. It is extremely dry, but we are expecting some rain coming up this weekend, which presents a whole other problem.
Here's a battalion chief talking about it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRENT PASCUA, CAL FIRE BATTALION CHIEF: We're transitioning into a different weather pattern, which could bring more hazards, more incidents from the rain. So we have surged resources down. Cal Fire has brought another team down to deal just with the landslide potential, the erosion control on both the Eaton and the Palisades burn scar.
That is their only job is to make sure they protect the communities from that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHEN: So that's the next problem that they're looking out for here.
In the meantime, the Hughes Fire, we are very lucky, in that it did not so far encroach upon any structures, no injuries thus far, even though there are tens of thousands of people under evacuation warnings or orders right now, and they are working very hard to try and see if some of those people can start coming back to their homes.
But, right now, they need to get these hot spots under control, and we occasionally see a spot here and there where there is still smoke rising. But, otherwise, in general, they were able to aggressively attack this one, Erica, because they already had so many resources from other states and even Canada here from those other fires that they were able to divert to this one.
HILL: Thankfully, that was able to happen.
Natasha, really appreciate it. Thank you -- Boris.
[13:20:01]
SANCHEZ: Crews battling the Hughes Fire are getting some much-needed help from the California Air National Guard. Take a look at this video from inside the cockpit of a specialty air tanker called the Super Hercules dropping thousands of gallons of fire retardant over the Castaic yesterday.
It's one of eight of these aircraft fighting the fires across Southern California.
For the latest, let's get to CNN aviation correspondent Pete Muntean.
Pete, take us through what a difference this kind of aircraft can make.
PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: This is so critical, because this fire was spreading so fast, about the size of a football field every two to three seconds at its peak bloom yesterday.
Now, the edges are near the 5 Freeway in Castaic, but the good news is, the winds are not as high as when the Palisades Fire erupted, meaning that the aerial firefighting has been able to swoop in much more quickly. Air tankers are really the first step in fighting a wildfire. They drop that red retardant or water on the edges of a fire.
Then firefighters on the ground can move in and do their work. This is the view from a California Air National Guard C-130J Super Hercules. The left seat there is Major John-Mark Koetitz. And he says his crew is about to make a drop on the Hughes Fire. Normally, a normal military cargo plane aided them helping out in Cal
Fire right now, but, in the back, they're carrying this special system. It's called MAFFS. He's got that dog in him and it's an acronym today. It stands for the Modular Airborne Fire Fighting System.
And it could be slid into the cargo hold of a Herc, drop 3,000 gallons of retardant all in less than five seconds. And this is what it sounds like when they make that drop.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COMPUTER VOICE: Altitude, altitude, altitude.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MUNTEAN: Again, a normal cargo plan used by the military here, and you can hear some of the oral alerts going off in the cockpit there saying "Altitude, altitude" because they're so low.
The retardant that they drop creates a path about 100-feet-long and a quarter-mile-wide. So now the crew goes back to base. Refill takes only about 12 minutes. This is a really huge help, because these fires are growing so fast, crews not only from California, but also Wyoming and Colorado and Nevada.
So this help is coming from the U.S. military, not just Cal Fire and local fire departments there in California.
SANCHEZ: And it's not just the Super Hercules we saw a moment ago. There's a handful of other aircraft that are helping out. What are they doing?
MUNTEAN: The good news is, because the winds have been relatively low, helicopters have been able to swoop in overnight. And so they have been able to use this new system from the Los Angeles County Fire Department.
This is what they call their quick response aircraft. It's a Chinook helicopter and Has these retractable snorkels that can go down into the body of water that they're over there, means they can make more drops without refueling. They can fly more runs much more quicker.
A lot of aerial assets in the air right now, notably the now infamous Super Scooper, the Canadair CL-415 from Quebec and British Columbia. Remember, one of them hit a drone operating illegally near the Palisades Fire about 10 days ago, put the plane known as Quebec 1 out of commission. But, thankfully, they have made the fixes, the necessary repairs.
It was much more deep than just surface, skin deep.
SANCHEZ: Yes.
MUNTEAN: And now that airplanes flying again. It's actually up right now. SANCHEZ: It is a huge help.
Pete Muntean, thanks so much for the latest on that angle.
MUNTEAN: Any time.
SANCHEZ: People across Los Angeles and Ventura counties are enduring another day of fire weather danger.
Joining us now to discuss is Bill Miranda, the mayor of Santa Clarita, which is just south of the Hughes Fire.
Mayor, thank you so much for being with us.
I know, last night, you said local officials were cautiously optimistic. As today rolls on, what's the latest on efforts to contain the Hughes Fire? How are you feeling?
BILL MIRANDA, MAYOR OF SANTA CLARITA, CALIFORNIA: I'm feeling great.
And, first of all, thank you for having me on. And, most importantly, thank you for the great coverage that CNN has given our fires. It's very important to our community that people get the news and get it accurately. So we thank you for that.
We're feeling very positive. We're feeling cautiously optimistic, as I like to say. We are prepared. We have been blessed to have avoided most of the fires throughout the last three weeks. We're -- finally, yesterday, we lost a little bit of that blessing, in the sense that we do now have a fire in the greater Santa Clarita area.
But we're also blessed that the winds have been good to us. The firefighters, I can't thank them enough. All the first responders, the sheriff's deputies, the Forest Service, the CHP, they have all been extremely, extremely heroic in our -- in the efforts to help us.
I have to say, some of these firefighters have been working 10 days straight, some of them 24/7. It's incredible, the work that they do. Most of us normal human beings could do it for a while, but not anywhere near this long. These are truly heroic people, and our city thanks them.
[13:25:12]
SANCHEZ: Yes, we're undoubtedly grateful for their efforts.
As we're watching live images in Los Angeles County, we just saw that cameras zoom in to what were a group of firefighters face-to-face with those flames.
You touched on this, but I was hoping you would expand on how the weather forecasted for today and tomorrow might affect efforts at containment.
MIRANDA: OK, so, first of all, the winds are what they are. We're in a valley. Winds can kick up in an instant almost. They can swirl. Because we're in the valley, winds don't necessarily go in one direction. So we have to remain vigilant.
We're hoping that the winds stay favorable for us, but, if they don't, we have to be vigilant. We have lifted the evacuation order, so there are no more evacuations going on. But we have to be, as I say, vigilant in case that should turn around.
Embers have a way of traveling. And they can travel a mile, they can travel two miles. And, within Santa Clarita, that's a large populated area.
SANCHEZ: Yes, glad to hear that.
MIRANDA: We're hoping the weather, as I say, the winds stay favorable.
And when the rains come, that will be helpful for us, at least in terms of the fires. Mudslides are going to be an issue for everybody throughout L.A. County. But we're as prepared as we can be for this type of thing. We're very experienced with fires here in Santa Clarita.
SANCHEZ: Yes, glad to hear that things are apparently moving in the right direction.
Mayor Bill Miranda, we have to leave the conversation there. Thanks so much for the time.
MIRANDA: Thank you very much.
SANCHEZ: So, he has a big agenda and one of the smallest majorities in House history. So, can President Trump get his plans through Congress?
We're actually going to be speaking to a moderate Republican from a key swing district who met with President Trump yesterday to discuss.
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