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Markets Down After Tariffs; Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY) is Interviewed about Tariffs; Trump Releases Water in California. Aired 9:30-10a ET
Aired February 03, 2025 - 09:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[09:30:00]
ABBEY ONN, FIVE FAMILY MEMBERS ABDUCTED BY HAMAS: In the room and make people laugh. And from the moment that he got off the helicopter, he was making the military laugh, and his bike (ph) crew laugh, and his children and his brother. And the amount of resilience and strength to come out of that horrific situation and immediately be able to make people feel joy and laughter was everything.
KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: We're showing the video of the moment that Ofer and his wife saw each other and were able to embrace at the hospital.
I mean you and I have spoken so many times about how the family was holding up and hold - even capable of holding on to hope. Having Ofer - and hoping that even Ofer was still alive and would some day be released.
ONN: Right.
BOLDUAN: I mean, how does it feel - how does it feel for you?
ONN: It feels so emotional. It - it's - you go between crying and joy and relief and also the deep understanding that he endured and survived those 484 days, and that we have to do everything possible to make sure that the 79 that are still there come home because what he went through was awful. He's, you know, he's now still in the hospital. He's weak. His sense of humor is strong, but it really underscores exactly how horrible the situation there is and how much we need to keep the pressure on to make sure the next phase of the deal continues.
BOLDUAN: I actually was looking back at one of our previous conversations when we were talking about Erez and Sahar, after they had been released, and you were telling me that - I asked how they were doing on the anniversary, and you had said that they're in one piece physically but nothing gets better until their father is home. And now he is. What is the road like ahead for your entire family?
ONN: You know, before Sahar was released she saw Ofer in the tunnels and he said, fight for me. I don't - I don't want to die here. I need you to fight for me. And Sahar fought for him. What she's saying to him in those videos is, I did it. I fought, and you're back. And now what we know is, you know, Ofer still has a physical journey
to - to work on, but now they, as a family, have closed this circle and they can begin the emotional and psychological journey that they will need to take as a family. But for us, for us as a - an extended family, our chapter is full circle and we feel even more motivation to keep fighting to make sure that other families have this moment and other families have this closure.
BOLDUAN: The prime minister, as I mentioned, is in Washington to focus on this next phase, going to be meeting with - with President Trump. And it was very evident during President Trump's inaugural events that hostage families were front and center many times in those events.
What do you hope is the message that is conveyed? What do you hope the focus is? What would you say to these two men, if you could if, as they prepare to sit down tomorrow?
ONN: First, I mean, I'm grateful to this administration, to all the administrations that have worked to make this happen. And I would say to keep the pressure on, that it is a human value and a Jewish value to save a life. And there are 79 Israeli citizens still in Gaza, 36 of whom we believe are not alive. But every single one of them is a world, and they need to be returned to their family. And there - there is no rebuilding, not from an emotional or physical or a strategic point of view for Israel until those people are home. And I would just urge them to stay in this lane and to keep pushing and to make sure they do whatever it takes to bring these people home. It's been too long. It is too hard and too awful for the people that are being kept against their will. And this takes political courage. And I believe that if - if the two of them can come together, they can continue to show that.
BOLDUAN: Abbey, thank you so much for coming on. It is wonderful to see your smile. Thank you.
ONN: Happy to be here.
BOLDUAN: Thank you so much.
ONN: Thank you. Thanks for having.
BOLDUAN: John.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, we do have breaking news. Moments ago, the stock markets opened. And you can see a lot of red there. Not happy at all. Reacting to the new tariffs from President Donald Trump. What one Republican senator called a tax on U.S. consumers. Investigators not happy about that tax.
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[09:39:08]
BOLDUAN: We are following breaking news. Opening bell on Wall Street just happened and markets are down now. Investors in industries that span the spectrum are bracing for impact after President Trump signed that order this weekend to hit America's three largest trading partners with a round of steep tariffs. And in response, Mexico, Canada, China say they're being forced to respond and retaliate.
CNN business editor at large the one and only Richard Quest is here to help us through it.
This doesn't look good. What's today going to bring?
RICHARD QUEST, CNN BUSINESS EDITOR AT LARGE: Well, this is where we start. And as I've said many times, where we start isn't where we finish.
The problem with these numbers, the problem is that they haven't fully priced in all the tariffs. They haven't priced in the retaliation by Canada.
BOLDUAN: Right.
QUEST: They haven't factored in the post retaliation retaliation. In other words, this is the initial salvo.
[09:40:02]
This isn't the tit for tat as it gets worse.
And, you know, it's tempting to say, oh, look at this, blah, blah, blah. But this makes perfect sense. If you think of the sheer vast swathes, hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of goods being on both sides that are going to be hit, this makes perfect sense because what is a stock price? The stock price is a barometer of a company's current and future earnings. They will go down. It's about economic growth. I don't know how many times we can say it. And bear in mind, if we just think about the countries that were now involved, Canada, Mexico, China. He's threatened the EU. He's threatened Panama. He said the U.K. possibly. And on it goes.
BOLDUAN: Yes. So, I had someone who represents the distilled spirits industry on.
QUEST: Yes.
BOLDUAN: They were talking about how bad they're going to get hit. But the auto industry seems to be particularly fragile in this moment. What's going on?
QUEST: Right. Right. Imagine you're Canada.
BOLDUAN: Hello.
QUEST: And imagine I'm the United States. And I'm a car that's being made. Now, as the -- because of both decades of the North American Free Trade Agreement and USMCA now these cars between Detroit and Windsor and right the way along here, they go backwards and forwards and they go backwards and forwards with - it's estimated roughly eight times the different part -- exactly, exactly. You are talking about the ultimate, the absolute epitome of integrated - BOLDUAN: And it's going to be hit every time?
QUEST: Of course. You're going to start hitting, you know, it might be the lights from - it might be the lights from the U.S., it might be the ignition from Canada. It might be the combustion (INAUDIBLE). It might be the thrust reverse titillator (ph) from your side. Well, I don't know what it is.
BOLDUAN: Right.
QUEST: All I know is that as that car goes backwards and forwards, those tariffs get put back on again, again and again.
Justin Trudeau said this in Canada. Everybody's saying it. The president admits there will be pain.
BOLDUAN: For the first time he's admitting the reality that you have said, and everyone has said all along.
QUEST: Well -
BOLDUAN: But we - here's my question.
QUEST: Go on. Please. Oh, look, there we are.
BOLDUAN: There we go.
"Wall Street Journal" calls this the dumbest trade war in history.
QUEST: Yes.
BOLDUAN: But here's the thing I don't get. How - there is no measure or metric that has been stated yet of what is progress enough to claw this back, end this, and say all is well. Now we no longer are - we're going to remove these tariffs. How does this end if that is not stated?
QUEST: Well, I think - I mean the president has said that when they see evidence of fentanyl being reduced from Canada and Mexico - by the way, all 48 pounds of it in the last -
BOLDUAN: Right. I mean there's like none coming from Canada.
QUEST: Right. So, then you talk about immigration and then you - now you're talking about a trade imbalance, which could take months if not years to sort of rebalance.
I think it's going to be a pyrrhic victory. It is when Canada and or Mexico prostrate themselves and say, yes, we will do whatever it takes. Very similar to the Colombia incident. When you see enough that will satisfy the president's view of success, we don't know what that barometer is, but I'm guessing it involves an element of groveling. I suspect it involves an element of you were right, we were wrong. And there's going to have to be some form of concessions. Then they'll change. But in the meantime, oh, look at that. Down 513 points. This makes, by
the way, to anybody who covers business and economics, and I've done it for 35, 40 years, this makes perfect sense because all the Dow -
BOLDUAN: Anything else you would be freaking out. Like this makes sense, yes.
QUEST: All the Dow stocks. Everything from 3M, to the techs, to the industrials, to the financials, they're all going to be hit. I would suspect we're going to just see, this could go on for days.
BOLDUAN: Bloodbath. Thank you, Richard.
QUEST: A pleasure. Well, not pleasure, but you know what I mean.
BOLDUAN: Always a pleasure to see your face at least.
John.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, that was a pleasure.
Connected to all of this today, the U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth goes to the southern border, his first visit there since he was confirmed. He will meet with military members in El Paso working to support the president's border crackdown.
With us now, Democratic Congressman Adriano Espaillat. He chairs the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and is the first formerly undocumented member of Congress.
And as we said, Congressman, I mean this is all connected right now. Donald Trump is imposing these tariffs because he says he wants to see some, as to now, unspecified action from Canada and Mexico on fentanyl and the border. Do you know what he wants?
REP. ADRIANO ESPAILLAT (D-NY): Well, as we all see that the markets are taking a beating, right? And the militarization of the border and the criminalization of - of migrants, I think, is a wrong step. I think we could manage the border. We all agree that the border needs to be safer. There has to be a delicate balance. We believe very strongly in dreamers, farm workers and families. Those are our three main issues at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, dreamers that have been here for some time, they're nurses, teachers, homeowners, business owners, farmers, because they put food on our table, and the food, by the way, at our cash register may be more expensive if they don't go to work.
[09:45:06]
And finally, keeping families together. So, yes, a stronger border, but let's also have a delicate balance.
BERMAN: So, you say a stronger border. That raises a question that's been raised in some of the papers this morning. What is the Democratic position? If you had to state and say, hi, I'm here, I'm chair of the Congressional Democratic Caucus. I'm a senior Democratic member of the U.S. House. I'm asking you, what's the Democratic position on illegal immigration? What would you say?
ESPAILLAT: I'd say we make the border safer and stronger. But there are issues that I think are so important to our nation that really are front and center with our values. And those are dreamers, farm workers and keeping families together.
BERMAN: And then what Republicans say is, we're going after the criminals.
ESPAILLAT: Well, we are going after the criminals right now. There's 170 laws in our penal code that will guarantee that if you committed a violent crime, you will be arrested, convicted and deported. But they're casting out a wider net to catch and deport those people that maybe jumped the turnstile or have committed a non-violent offense. That's a little bit too much.
BERMAN: What do you feel or how do you feel about opening up this space on Guantanamo Bay for migrants?
ESPAILLAT: Those folks are not enemy combatants. You know, Guantanamo Bay traditionally has been a place where enemy combatants and, in fact, terrorists have been kept. They were waterboarded and other types of tactics were used that we're not totally in agreement with. But then a mom and her kids are not necessarily enemy combatants.
BERMAN: It has been used before for a flow - for the flow of migrants, you know, in and out. I mean, it's not just for terrorists.
ESPAILLAT: Not - not a good place. I think we could handle it locally in a humane - and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus will keep this administration accountable. And we will ask for humane treatment of a mom and her children that are perhaps fleeing violence or a violent gang.
BERMAN: Well, to that point, the administration is revoking the temporary protected status for Venezuelans. How do you feel about that?
ESPAILLAT: Well, Venezuela is a rough place, right? A rough neighborhood. And sending them back there, people that perhaps are now working because they got work permits is a bad decision for America, a bad decision for the hemisphere.
BERMAN: One question on January 6th, CNN and others are reporting that members of the FBI, pretty much all of them, received a questionnaire asking them questions about what they did in the January 6th investigation for those who attacked the Capitol. How do you feel about that?
ESPAILLAT: We all know what happened January 6th, because many of the police officers, both the Capitol Police and the Metropolitan Washington, D.C. Police Department have testified. I know Sergeant Gonell, Aquilino Gonell, a national hero, by the way. Not only did he protect democracy, but he protected members of Congress, both Democrats and Republicans. I went to the Ways and Means Committee room, and I saw the Republicans huddle up in a corner, afraid of their own supporters. And Sergeant Gonell and others were there to protect all of us.
BERMAN: Congressman Espaillat, thank you so much for being with us this morning. Appreciate your time.
ESPAILLAT: Thank you. Thank you so much.
BERMAN: All right, so, Trump administration officials began releasing billions of gallons of water across California. But the question is, was this the right water going to the right place? Is this doing what they said it would and should do?
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[09:53:03]
BERMAN: All right, this morning, the president is touting the release of water from dams in central California. He ordered it this weekend. And this was said to be in response to the fires. But what water are we talking about exactly? And where is it going exactly? Because local officials say something very different.
Let's get right to CNN chief climate correspondent Bill Weir.
Good morning.
BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, guys.
As if the water problems in California weren't bad enough, we now have the Army Corps of Engineers following the orders of a commander in chief who seems to have a toddlers grasp of how water works in California. He keeps talking about some giant faucet that Gavin Newsom could just open and bring all the water from Canada. That - none of that exists in reality.
So, what happened over the weekend was water managers in Tulare County got an hours notice that the Army Corps was opening these dams with such force they would create basically full capacity of these rivers, the kind that comes in flash floods, that ruins homes and potentially drowns people who don't know this is coming.
Local lawmakers pushed back. They have - they closed the dam almost shut and then they opened it again. Sort of a middle ground right now. And they put out these statements that continue to prop up just abject lies about the way the state works with water. This water will end up hundreds of miles from southern California, mountain ranges away from L.A. And the fires there are fully contained. And it had nothing to do with water shortage battling those flames. It was 100 mile an hour winds. It was dozens of trucks trying to tap the same municipal systems, which is a problem in cities around the world as wildfires get more intense.
But here again, President Trump refuses. And what's most disturbing is, in the first term, he talked about water in this way, and there were probably people who could hold him back and talk him out of these decisions. But this could have potentially devastating effects for farmers in the spring or in the summer when they need that water. BOLDUAN: Right. So, is it clear what happens now?
WEIR: No, it's not. Nobody's getting any answers.
Senator Padilla sent a letter to Pete Hegseth trying to get answers. Who ordered this? What are you doing? All my constituents, private landowners, everybody is - it's completely -
[09:55:02]
BOLDUAN: Yes, like, where is the person who steps in and says, hold on, people?
WEIR: I know. Well, that's - we're seeing that in all levels of government. But here it is in the Army Corps of Engineers. And it seems the only motivation is for him to post something on social media, say, see, I opened the water. Look at it. Look at it flowing beautifully. There will be billions of gallons down there. They should have listened to me. That water will go nowhere near the fire zone.
BERMAN: What happens to the water?
WEIR: It evaporates. It evaporates. You remember Tulare Lake came back from the dead a few years ago when there was atmospheric rivers and these farmlands turned to water.
BOLDUAN: Yes.
WEIR: It's going in low lying areas like that. And there are no pumps. There are no aqueducts to get that stuff anywhere usable. And all of those - every drop of that is accounted for by farmers who are doing the math. They're thinking, if we have another dry summer, man, we need that. And the snowpack is low enough that it will only fill their lakes about half capacity right now. So, it's a delicate balance. There are water concerns, but not the ones that the president is talking about right now.
BERMAN: All right, something that bears watching for sure.
BOLDUAN: I mean -
BERMAN: You know the farmers are.
WEIR: Yes.
BERMAN: Bill, thank you very much.
WEIR: Exactly.
BOLDUAN: Yes, thanks, Bill. Seriously, thank you so much.
And thank you all so much for joining us today. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL. "CNN NEWSROOM" up next.
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