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Trump Halts Military Aid to Ukraine; Anti-Elon Musk Protests; Interview With Canadian Parliament Member Jagmeet Singh; Trump Launches Trade War. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired March 04, 2025 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:54]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Trump's tactics, tariffs for the United States' biggest trading partners and a freeze on military aid for Ukraine, controversial moves with immediate consequences. The president will try to sell this to the American people in a prime-time address just hours from now.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Plus: loud and proud, fired federal workers making their voices heard. We will take you live to a protest kicking off just moments from now. Notably, several of those who lost their jobs to Elon Musk's DOGE are going to be at the president's speech tonight. We will discuss.

And a YouTube crackdown, the social media site targeting gambling videos that push users to unauthorized betting sites.

We're following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

KEILAR: Today, the world is watching as the president lays out his vision for the country when he addresses a joint session of Congress in the coming hours, this speech happening against the backdrop of growing rifts in Europe and an escalating trade war.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JUSTIN TRUDEAU, CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER: The United States launched a trade war against Canada, their closest partner and ally, their closest friend. At the same time, they're talking about working positively with Russia, appeasing Vladimir Putin, a lying, murderous dictator.

Make that make sense.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: That's Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaking a short time ago, just hours after Trump imposed sweeping tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China, the United States' top trading partners, the move tanking U.S. markets and major retailers now warning the price of everyday goods will soon go up. In the meantime, Russia has launched fresh attacks on Ukraine after

Trump paused U.S. military aid to Ukraine following Trump's heated Oval Office blowup last week with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

This is happening as Trump and his government efficiency team chain saw their way through the federal government with big cuts to its work force.

CNN's Kevin Liptak live for us now at the White House.

Kevin, what are we expecting tonight?

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Well, certainly, when the president returns to the House chamber tonight for the first time in four years, it will be that economic turmoil that will be the backdrop against which he's speaking.

And I think certainly the president wants to take a victory lap here, talk about all of these efforts he's taken to reshape the federal government. But it is these persistent challenges on the economy that I think a lot of his allies want to hear more from him, particularly on the challenge of higher prices, of inflation.

And when you talk about these tariffs that the president is announcing today, those are inflationary. So I think it will fall on the president to sort of explain to the American people exactly what his strategy is here.

Now, I do want to note we did just hear from the president responding to Justin Trudeau, who himself put on retaliatory tariffs today, responding to the president's tariffs.

The president writing on social media: "Please explain to Governor Trudeau of Canada that when he puts on a retaliatory tariff on the U.S., our reciprocal tariffs will immediately increase by a like amount."

So, the president essentially saying that he will continue to escalate this trade war, this tit-for-tat tariff war that you see between the U.S. and Canada. And I think that will be something that the president will want to talk about tonight.

I think, when you hear from Republicans, they are hoping that the president can sort of make a cogent case for his tariffs plan here, but also for his efforts to slash through the federal government, particularly those Republicans who are facing heat from their own constituents back home. They do want him to kind of pull together for the American people what exactly he is trying to do here.

Of course, the other audience for the president here will be lawmakers in the House chamber. You have seen them start to move on the president's agenda, whether it's slashing federal spending, rewriting tax policy. There is a disconnect between House and Senate Republicans that the president may want to address when he speaks to them tonight.

[13:05:14]

And then, of course, there's the situation in Ukraine. Obviously, these speeches always are more domestic-focused than foreign policy. That will be the same tonight. But the president, I think, will want to talk about this growing rift between himself and the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, after that blowup in the Oval Office last week, after this announcement that he plans to pause U.S. shipments of arms to Ukraine.

It was only a year ago that the Biden administration tried to get Zelenskyy's wife here for Biden's final State of the Union. I don't think anything illustrates better the complete 180 that Trump has orchestrated on this key geopolitical issue. And, certainly, we will hear from him tonight on that very topic.

KEILAR: Yes, and that Governor Trudeau no doubt a reference to his stated desire to make Canada the 51st state, although difficult to see how that would happen."

Kevin Liptak, thank you so much -- Boris.

SANCHEZ: As President Trump prepares for his speech tonight, Mexico says it will soon announce retaliatory measures while China and Canada have already vowed tariffs of their own.

Here's Canada's prime minister, Justin Trudeau.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUDEAU: I want to speak first directly to the American people. We don't want this. We want to work with you as a friend and ally. And we don't want to see you hurt either. But your government has chosen to do this to you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: CNN's Vanessa Yurkevich joins us now live to break this down.

Vanessa, to Kevin Liptak's point, these tariffs are inflationary, and Americans are already dealing with high prices. How soon can they see these new tariffs have a reflection on their day-to-day spending?

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, well, if you look at the stock market, anyone who holds money in the stock market, you're feeling the effects right now, I mean, the Dow tumbling north of 800 points today as some of these retaliatory tariffs were announced.

But for the everyday consumer, you're going to feel it in the next couple of days. And that is according to Target CEO Brian Cornell, who said that fruits and vegetables, in particular, something they get from Canada and Mexico regularly, are going to see price increases in the next couple of days. Also, Best Buy saying that they're going to have to increase prices. And Walmart, which is really the bellwether for the U.S. economy, saying that they're expecting slower consumer growth over the next year. They said that a few weeks ago, and they will likely be coming out with some information about what prices will look like there at Walmart.

But these tariffs, really 25 percent on Canada and Mexico and 20 percent you see right there on China, that's going to have impacts on everyday items, things like footwear, apparel, electronics, food. And then big purchases like cars, those are going to be impacted by tariffs.

Now we have retaliatory tariffs. These are the tariffs that Canada and China have announced. We're waiting on Mexico. But in terms of what Canada has announced, they have announced tariffs of 25 percent on key items like meat, vegetable, dairy, alcohol, and also China announcing retaliatory tariffs on livestock, on soy, on grain.

And this is particularly important because, as you can see there, those are targeted at U.S. farmers. Those retaliatory tariffs are targeted at U.S. farmers in particular. So they are going to be feeling the brunt on both sides, having to pay higher prices, but also, because of the high price now of their produce and their grain, there's going to be less of a demand on their product and they're not going to be able to get as much for their commodities as they regularly would.

So, a lot of factors here coming into play. It's a ping-pong of tariffs right now, waiting to see what Mexico does, and waiting really to see if this is just the beginning. And it sounds like, according to some of the officials in Trump's administration, it is only the beginning.

SANCHEZ: Yes, especially given Trump's response, saying that he's planning reciprocatory tariffs on these retaliatory tariffs from Canada. So it seems like we are on the precipice, if not already in a trade war.

Vanessa, talk to us about the long-term implications of that.

YURKEVICH: Well, we heard from the Atlanta Fed that they are projecting a decline in GDP for this quarter, a decline of 2.8 percent.

Now, this can kind of change every single day. This is a model that they have where they make projections. Just last week, they were showing an increase in GDP, but, today, they're projecting a decline in GDP. And this is really because of what they're expecting, the pullback in consumer spending because of prices.

Consumer spending makes up two-thirds of GDP. So with a pullback in spending, that is why they're now projecting this decline in GDP for the first quarter. That's when President Trump is first in the White House -- Boris.

[13:10:10] SANCHEZ: Important to keep an eye on those projections.

Vanessa Yurkevich, thank you so much -- Brianna.

KEILAR: Joining us now to talk more about these new tariffs on Canada and the retaliatory response is Jagmeet Singh. He's a member of the Canadian Parliament. He's the leader of the New Democratic Party and is also running for prime minister.

Thank you so much for being with us.

You heard Prime Minister Trudeau saying Canada's responding with their own 25 percent tariffs on $155 billion of American goods. Your reaction to Trudeau's response, which has already triggered a reaction from President Trump, promising even more retaliatory tariffs.

JAGMEET SINGH, CANADIAN PARLIAMENT MEMBER: Well, one of the things that the prime minister said and I want to echo is, this is something that Canadians did not want. This is not a trade war that we started. Trump started this trade war, but we're going to fight back.

And we want to fight back not because we have a concern about the Americans, but it's because we have got to stand up to Donald Trump. We have got to stand up to his attacks on us. And so we're going to defend ourselves.

We are proud to be good neighbors, but we're also proud of our country, and we're going to defend our country. And so this is going to ask us to reimagine the way we do things. We were very tightly connected as economic partners. Now we're going to start building more in Canada, being more resilient, being less reliant.

And that's something that we didn't want to do, but now we are forced to do, and we will do it.

KEILAR: Where do you see this going, though, in the near term? Because that's a solution, obviously, that takes time.

If you're talking about tariffs that are now going back and forth, this is the definition of a trade war. And you see it ping-ponging. How do you see that ending?

SINGH: Well, mostly, this is going to hurt people. And that's what we said from the beginning, and the prime minister laid that out.

To Americans listening, sadly, what Donald is doing is attacking you. It's going to mean -- as you have outlined, it's going to mean higher costs for the things that you need, food, for your daily necessities, clothing, for vehicles.

The steel and aluminum that we produce in Canada is mostly used by American companies. So the tariff that Donald Trump is imposed is going to mean that those businesses have to pay more, obviously. And that means that people, American people, are going to pay more.

And then it's going to -- same thing is going to happen on the Canadian side. It's going to impact people on the Canadian side. And that's going to hurt. It's also going to hurt workers. Lots of workers might lose their job. This is not something we ever wanted, but we have to fight back. We have to defend ourselves, and we will do that.

KEILAR: The premier of Ontario, which is Canada's largest province, wants to cut off energy supply to the U.S. in response to Trump's tariffs. More than a million Americans get their electricity from Ontario. Do you support cutting that off?

SINGH: Again, this is a decision that we wouldn't take lightly, but, yes, we should put everything on the table to be able to negotiate and fight back.

Ultimately, this tariff war, this trade war is unwarranted, unwanted, and, frankly, illegal. It contravenes existing laws. It's wrong. But we have to show that we are ready to fight back.

KEILAR: So, then what happens when, undoubtedly, Trump may respond by cutting off energy and electricity exports to Canada?

SINGH: Well, we don't really import as much as we export. We have a pretty robust electrical grid.

But maybe that calls for more decisions around how we invest in strengthening our grid in our own country. Again, what this is doing is decades and decades of strong neighbor relationships that we have had are being eroded by the first days of this president. It is a wrong thing to do. It is a bad thing to do. It's going to hurt both economies, both people on both sides of the border.

I don't know why Donald is doing this, why he wants to pick a fight that's going to hurt his own people. But we are going to be prepared to defend ourselves. And that means making decisions around energy. We should be prepared to do that.

KEILAR: You're running for prime minister, as I mentioned. You are proposing uninviting Trump, so uninviting America from the G7 summit hosted by Canada this summer.

I have heard your reason for why you personally find him to be a detestable individual. But why do you think that this is a strategically sound idea when it comes to geopolitics?

SINGH: What I have learned from seeing Donald Trump and the way that he comports himself, the way he acts is that he is acting much like a bully. And bullies only understand strength.

It doesn't make sense. The premise of G7 is to have a summit with seven nations. The premise of that is, the starting point is that we all believe that we're all nations that are working towards some common goals. Well, as a starting point, we are the host of this. And we have Donald Trump, who does not believe that we should be a country.

[13:15:03] That is a prerequisite to having meetings where we talk about what we want to do together. And then we have to send a strong message that is something that we reject. And, instead, we use this summit as an opportunity for the other nations to talk about how we resist some of the very dangerous things that Donald Trump is proposing, the fact that, in his topsy-turvy world, someone who is an actual dictator, who is threatening the lives of people who is an aggressor of Vladimir Putin, is Donald Trump's friend.

And the resistor, the hero of the story, President Zelenskyy, is being painted as a villain by Donald Trump. That is completely the opposite of the truth and the opposite of reality. Given all that context, I think, more than ever, the G7 summit should be about how we resist the dangerous things that Donald Trump is proposing.

KEILAR: But just real quickly, because you have been criticized internally for this proposal, and you mentioned Trump saying you shouldn't be a country.

He has talked about Canada being the 51st state. I wonder if you think he's serious, or if you think that he's just trying to strategically tick you off and have you fall into a trap?

SINGH: I think that we have got to take the threats seriously.

And he said he wants to use economic pressure to achieve that outcome, and now he's imposed tariffs. Our goal should be to be very strong in saying, listen, we wanted to be good neighbors. We wanted to be working together. You have rejected that. Now we're going to fight back. And we're going to do that by working with other countries, developing relationships and allies that do believe in our democracy and our ability to work together as nations.

And so we are going to turn away from the United States. That is not a choice that we wanted to make. We -- I grew up on a border town, which people lived on one side of the border, worked on the other, flowed back and forth. We were good neighbors. And Donald Trump has picked a fight with us that we did not want.

So now we are forced to be in this position where we have got to defend ourselves. We have got to look for a different way to build our economy. And we're going to do that.

KEILAR: Minister Jagmeet Singh, thank you so much for your time.

SINGH: Thank you.

KEILAR: Boris.

SANCHEZ: We're also following protests in the nation's capital.

Right now, federal employees, along with members of Congress and labor leaders, are rallying to -- quote -- "evict Elon Musk." This is part of the growing backlash to steps taken by his Department of Government Efficiency.

CNN's Brian Todd is there live for us.

Brian, what are you seeing?

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Boris, this is basically a counterprotest of the president's speech tonight before Congress. You mentioned the chants of "Evict Elon."

This is in front of the Office of Personnel Management here in the district. This is where a lot of these government employees have been fired, but also where Elon Musk and some of his DOGE colleagues are actually undertaking some of this work.

These people saying they're just tired of the treatment they have been getting. They -- some of them are actually planning to go to the speech tonight. I asked them if they're going to actually do any protesting or take any action in front of the cameras. They said they don't really plan on it, but they're going to see kind of what happens when they see what the scene is and what the mood is there.

I presented their arguments -- the argument to them, actually, that President Trump and Elon Musk have made that they have actually caught a lot of fraud and waste in the U.S. government. And two employees who were fired from their jobs say that's basically not true. One of them was a top person in the procurement office here at OPM taking care of some very important government contracts.

And both of them really told horror stories about how they were fired. One was abruptly fired on February 13. The other was abruptly terminated on the 21st, basically getting the word via e-mail. And then a couple of hours later, they were shut out of the system. So those are the kinds of things that they're protesting.

They are worried about more of these layoffs coming, and they say they're going to continue to protest and look for some of them to show up at the president's speech tonight -- Boris.

SANCHEZ: Brian Todd, thank you so much for bringing us those details.

Still to come: President Zelenskyy tries for a reset after the U.S. cuts off aid to Ukraine -- the deal he says he's now ready to sign.

Plus, party leaders telling Republican lawmakers to stop holding in- person town halls after multiple of those events erupt in protests. We're going to ask a Republican congressman about that guidance and whether he plans to follow it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:23:13]

SANCHEZ: Fewer than 24 hours after Donald Trump abruptly paused all U.S. military aid to Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is calling his Oval Office spat with the president regrettable.

In a new post on X, he reiterates Ukraine's commitment to peace, writing -- quote -- "None of us wants an endless war." He adds that Ukraine is ready to come to the negotiating table.

And although Zelenskyy doesn't use the post to directly apologize to Trump, as some White House officials have argued he should do, he did express his gratitude for U.S. support, something he has done frequently, including during an address to Congress the first time he visited the United States as president of Ukraine after Russia invaded the country.

White House officials say the pause in aid will stand until President Trump determines Zelenskyy is serious about working out a peace plan and a path to end the war with Russia. Losing assistance from the United States, especially its Patriot missile defense system, could have dire consequences for Ukraine.

The prime minister of Ukraine says it's the only tool the country has to protect itself from Russian ballistic missiles.

Joining us now to discuss is retired U.S. Army Major Mike Lyons.

Sir, thank you so much for being with us.

Right off the bat, what is the effect of this pause in U.S. aid to Ukraine on the battlefield?

MAJ. MIKE LYONS (RET.), U.S. ARMY: Well, Boris, I don't see any positive outcomes from this change here.

I think, tactically, I always look through the eyes of the soldier and how they view this, and I think if they get this news at the front lines, they're going to be disappointed in the United States. I think, right now, the front lines are focused on drone warfare, as well as artillery fire and artillery ammunition.

So, if you're a cannoneer on the front lines, you're looking at that pallet of ammunition behind you, wondering if it's going to be replaced. So I think, in some ways, the tactical implications are somewhat limited, and they might not be impactful for, let's say, the next few weeks.

[13:25:05]

But, over time, as air defense platforms degrade, and they don't -- and they don't shoot missiles down, and they're shooting things down that they're not being reinforced there, I think there's going to be real, I think, problems with the Ukraine military trying to keep up to what's going on.

SANCHEZ: To your point about seeking that next pallet of ammunition, how much longer do you think Ukraine has to sustain that artillery and ballistic missile defense without U.S. help?

LYONS: Well, they likely have months, not necessarily weeks, and as, again, they have built some defenses up themselves.

But what'll happen is, Russia will look to go on the offensive and try to break through in certain areas and weaken Ukraine defenses and force them to play economy of force missions and to reinforce areas where they might not want to. It'll clearly keep them on the defense.

We just also know specifically what this means, the fact that we're not giving military support. You have got European soldier commands training soldiers, Ukrainian soldiers in Vilseck and Grafenwoehr and places. Does that mean that training stops for them as well? What about intel? What about other things that the United States has been providing?

So, again, there's a short-term impact what'll happen tactically on the ground. Obviously, we know the strategic impacts over the long run. Ukraine wouldn't be able to sustain any kind of defenses against Russia if this lasts very much longer.

SANCHEZ: How far do you think European backing, the E.U.'s backing can go without that backstop of the United States?

LYONS: Unfortunately, the European industrial base, it won't crank up fast enough to help Ukraine. It's going to take a year or so in order for some of the more advanced European defense contractors to provide any kind of material that will help Ukraine.

The United States has the war footing right now with the amount of artillery ammunition that we're supplying with them. It's increased over the past few years, and Europe won't be able to backstop that. So that's where there's a race against time right now. The United States needs to continue to support Ukraine, at least right now for these negotiations.

Look, Donald Trump doesn't know whether Russia wants to stop. He knows he wants Ukraine to stop. He knows he wants the war to stop. But we don't know whether he knows Russia wants to stop. And I think this mineral deal will help put in implied security assurances for Ukraine.

But the question is going to be, what are Russian demands in order for Ukraine to stop? They might be too much. And perhaps this will cause this administration to turn around and send more military aid to Ukraine as the Russians still have a voice as to whether or not this conflict will end as well.

SANCHEZ: Major Mike Lyons, appreciate your point of view. Thanks for joining us.

LYONS: Thanks.

SANCHEZ: Up next: Inflation helped President Trump get back in office, but as he launches his new trade war, can he sell his economic vision and potentially inflationary tariffs?

CNN's Harry Enten has some new polling.

Hey, Harry.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: Hey, Boris.

I got to tell you, I think the American people are going to be quite skeptical of Trump's plans. But, of course, we will see you around the break to tell you more.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)