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Ontario Announces 25 percent Tariff on Electricity to Three U.S. States; Trump Lifts Most Mexico Tariffs Until April 2; Trump's Tariff Drama Rattles Businesses, Americans, Markets; U.S. Job Cuts Soar 245 percent in a Month as Trump & Musk Slash Government; Trump Preparing to Sign Order to Dismantle Department of Education. Aired 2- 2:30p ET

Aired March 06, 2025 - 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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[14:01:55]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": On again, off again. Just two days after President Trump put in place tariffs against the biggest trading partners for the U.S., he postpones them for Mexico, and anxious American businesses and consumers wonder what's next?

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": You are fired. Actually, nevermind. The CDC is asking 180 employees to come back just days after letting them go. The latest snafu that's calling into question just what Elon Musk and his DOGE team are up to. And could the former police officer who killed George Floyd receive a presidential pardon? At least one conservative commentator thinks so. Minnesota's top law enforcement official calls the idea blatant disrespect. We're following these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to "CNN News Central."

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KEILAR: New details now as the battle between the U.S. and its top trade partners ping pongs back and forth, as ping pongs do, ping pong balls. We're learning Canada hitting back with even more retaliatory measures. The Ontario Premier saying he's going to add a 25 percent tariff on electricity to the more than 1 million homes and businesses in Minnesota, Michigan, and New York as soon as next week. The announcement is coming after a week of chaos and confusion as President Trump waffles between implementing his sweeping tariff policy and reversing it.

Today, Trump said he will hit the pause button for about a month on tariffs for some products from Mexico, just a day after he delayed auto tariffs. CNN's Jeff Zeleny is live for us now at the White House. Jeff, what's happening? Where do things stand now? It's hard to keep track.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: It is. You can say a ping pong or a seesaw or a yo-yo, pick your description. But there definitely was a reversal here today with the president suddenly saying, after a phone call with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, that he was going to suspend all tariffs or most of the tariffs to Mexico for at least a month. And the phone call was described by both sides as respectful, and the president did not really elaborate from there.

So, left hanging is what about those tariffs for Canada? The President has not said specifically yet, but his Commerce Secretary and Top Economic Adviser, Howard Lutnick, trying to calm the jittery market saying earlier today that the tariffs for both countries would likely be suspended. So we shall see how that progresses as the day goes forward. But Brianna, the bottom line is, as you can see, the market there can continuing to react to this real whiplash here at the White House.

The dollar also has been weakened in the scope of all of this. So the question is, what is this Trump Administration's trade policy? It is very clear the president has long loved the idea of tariffs, both used as a negotiating tool and a threat, and also as a policy. But just this week alone, going forward with them, pulling back on them. So at this hour, no tariffs on Mexico, Canada is still up in the air, but as you said, that has not stopped Canada from retaliating already.

[14:05:00]

We're talking syrup, we're talking liquor pulled off the shelves, other real-world effects. So we will monitor it here, but as of now, certainly a ping pong or a seesaw or whichever game you'd prefer to play, but it's very real in terms of those financial markets, Brianna.

KEILAR: It is no way to ride a horse. Jeff Zeleny, thank you so much for that report. Boris?

SANCHEZ: Let's get some analysis now with CNN Global Economic Affairs Analyst, Rana Foroohar. She's the Global Business Columnist and Associate Editor for the Financial Times. Rana, thank you so much for sharing part of your afternoon with us. What does all this back and forth mean for the economy?

RANA FOROOHAR, CNN GLOBAL ECONOMIC AFFAIRS ANALYST: Oh, gosh, nothing good, Boris. I mean, the market, as we've just heard, really doesn't like this sense of uncertainty and it's almost like the boy who cried wolf. The markets come back up after they hear no tariffs for now. But what I'm hearing from money managers, from asset managers, and even from individual investors, is there's a loss of trust. Where is the good faith and credit of the U.S. here? Are things changing in some profound way that is really going to shift the way we think about our economy in general?

It would be one thing if Trump had inherited a difficult economy, but he actually inherited a good economy. Until a few weeks ago, the S&P was up, there was a sense that rate cuts were going to start again. Consumer spending was robust. Now, we're seeing companies starting to trim jobs. We're seeing consumer expending being pulled back, and markets are just incredibly volatile. So, I am worried at this point that we could be headed into, I hate to use the R word, but a slowdown, a recession. I think the next couple of quarters are going to be very, very telling as to whether or not, well, we're headed for the next recession.

SANCHEZ: I do want to ask you about the retaliatory tariffs by Ontario, that 25 percent levied on key states that receive energy imports, I should say -- Michigan, Minnesota and New York. I mean, the consumers are going to wind up paying that, right?

FOROOHAR: Oh, a hundred percent. I mean, and this is the sorts of unforeseen things that this kind of tariff war brings. You begin to see how intricately connected our economy is to those of our neighbors. This is just the beginning. We don't know what else is to come. One thing I will tell you, just in terms of what Canada could do, aside from raising electrical prices, I spoke to a builder recently who said I'm slowing down production of new homes because I don't know what my lumber costs might be if tariffs are slapped onto Canada eventually, because we get a lot of lumber from Canada.

Again, it's just, I could pull 12 more examples out of the hat here and tell you that many things that we have not thought about in decades could start to be happening. Inflation could be going up, spending may be going down. It's just a very, very uncertain period right now, Boris.

SANCHEZ: It also comes as there are these dramatic cuts to the federal government. I want to get your thoughts on the news that U.S. based employers are planning to cut some 172,000 jobs. Most of that is in the public sector, but I wonder what that does to the broader job market.

FOROOHAR: Well, it's a great question. There's a big private equity firm, Apollo, that recently came out with a kind of a question mark around this and said, look, there's 10 million federal jobs out there. So if enough of those are cut, could it actually trigger a recession? I personally don't think that DOGE alone would drive the economy into recession, but it's just one more thing at a time when there are a lot of negative implications. You just -- you want to steady the ship.

One other thing I would say, Boris, is even if Trump wasn't in the White House, even if Elon Musk wasn't cutting back on agencies and federal jobs, we're actually historically due for a slowdown. If you discount the V-shaped downturn and upturn we saw during COVID, which I would since it was a pandemic, we're six years over for a recession. So this is a time to be really steadying the ship. It's not a time to be rocking it because it's quite possible that if we do, we could see a sharper downturn than we might have ordinarily.

SANCHEZ: Rana Foroohar, thank you so much for sharing your expertise.

FOROOHAR: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Brianna?

KEILAR: President Trump poised to make a big move in trying to eliminate the Department of Education. Sources say White House officials have finalized an executive order that directs Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon, to dismantle the agency and it's just waiting for the president's signature. [14:10:00]

We should note federal law states only Congress has the power to completely abolish federal agencies. With us now to discuss is Andrew Spar. He's the President of the Florida Education Association. So when you look at this, we should note federal funding constitutes about 14 percent of public school budgets nationwide, that includes colleges and universities. What are your concerns? What are you hearing from your teacher members about what this could mean for students in Florida, if the Department of Education is essentially wound down?

ANDREW SPAR, PRESIDENT, FLORIDA EDUCATION ASSOCIATION: Well, first, Brianna, thanks for having me here today. We have to remember that the Department of Education is responsible for executing laws that protect our kids, that ensure a level playing field, and that close the opportunity gap. So here in Florida, there are literally over a million kids who benefit from the programs that come through the U.S. Department of Education, students with special needs, students who live in poverty, students in career in tech program, and of course, students at our colleges and universities who receive Pell grants and other funding sources through the federal government.

And so, it's really important to us that the Department of Education stay in place and continue to be that watchdog, if you will, for so many students who often are at risk.

KEILAR: Could that authority be subsumed by some other entity? When you're talking about laws protecting students with disabilities, that predates the Department of Education, so what are your concerns there?

SPAR: Look, again, we are talking about -- it's nationwide, 26 million students who live in poverty benefit from the U.S. Department of Education. They're enforcing those education laws that ensure the individuals with Disabilities Education Act, making sure that those students are getting the support they need. And that is a function of the Department of Education and I think an important one. And so, losing that function would be problem, losing the seven-point-million students who are students with special needs, the 26 million students in poverty. I think we really want to make sure that those kids are looked out for and we need the Department of Education to do that. And they've done that work, really, for several decades now.

KEILAR: I think that's -- yeah, that's the unknown, is what would it mean, right? What would it mean for IEPs and for those kids? There's just so many questions this raises. Speaker Johnson said today, "The more we push control of education down to parents and local school boards and authorities, the better off we are." Now, we should note, and you've seen it, there are a lot of parents who would agree with that. The pandemic really brought it into relief. What do you say to them?

SPAR: Well, we all know that the best place for decisions around education to be made are with the teachers, staff and administrators working with parents in the local schools, and that is a challenge we have here in Florida and in a lot of other states. But the reality of it is you need some barriers, you need some guardrails. I myself am -- I grew up with dyslexia. I still have dyslexia. I benefited from an Individual Education Plan and those rules that govern the supports that I needed as a student were governed by the U.S. Department of Education.

And I think that's really important that we can't lose sight of that. Parents want the support. I, as a parent myself, want to make sure that my child is getting everything they need. And sometimes it's really hard to navigate and having the U.S. Department of Education help us with that and making sure those barriers are in place is just vitally important to families and to students.

KEILAR: When you don't have that central emphasis coming from someone who is prominently in Washington and it is so dispersed, when you talk about that balance people do want, they know that locally, a lot of those decisions, it's important they're made there. But when you do not have the emphasis on the education system, which I think we can all agree, we want it to be better across the board, what does that do?

SPAR: Yeah. Look, when I was in the classroom, and I'm a music teacher by trade, I was involved in our School Improvement Committee at our school. I was chair for that for a while, and the school I taught at was a Title 1 school. It was a school where 98 percent of the students live in poverty. My wife still teaches at that school in Daytona Beach. And I'm just going to say that those Title 1 dollars that come directly down to that school really helped us make a difference. We had training for parents on how to help their kids in school be successful because that's what every parent wants, right?

We had programs -- afterschool programs. They still have afterschool programs at that school to allow those students to participate in programs, such as the music, arts, and sports that they may not otherwise be able to. Parents in poverty don't often have the resources or the time to be able to support their kids in some of those extracurricular and co-curricular activities that parents in neighborhoods where there are resources or they do have resources to do so. And that's where Title 1 becomes really important, for example, in those schools.

[14:15:00]

KEILAR: Andrew Spar, thank you so much. We really appreciate having you.

SPAR: Thanks for having me, Brianna.

KEILAR: And still to come, President Trump giving Hamas an ultimatum as the U.S. holds direct talks with the terrorist group. Plus, DOGE under growing pressure, Republican lawmakers say they want control over Elon Musk's decisions. And then later, is Musk's role in the White House hurting Tesla's bottom line? The automaker's stock has plunged since Trump took office. Well, that and much more coming up on "CNN News Central."

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[14:20:10]

KEILAR: President Trump is again trumpeting the success of DOGE while more lawmakers are expressing reservations about Elon Musk's efficiency team. In a new post on Truth Social, Trump writing "DOGE has been an incredible success. And now that we have my cabinet in place, I have instructed the secretaries and leadership to work with DOGE on cost-cutting measures and staffing."

SANCHEZ: Notably, Trump also says he now plans to convene cabinet members on a biweekly basis to confer with Elon Musk about these cuts. We're covering both angles with CNN's Lauren Fox and CNN's Katelyn Polantz. First to you on Capitol Hill, Lauren. Lawmakers have suggested holding votes on these cuts, but that can also prove risky.

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, that's exactly right, Boris. Republican lawmakers are making the point that they do want to assert themselves more in having control over the power of the purse. And what they are arguing to Elon Musk behind closed doors is you've seen in court decision after court decision that some of what you are doing is just not holding up in court. And the way around that is to send us a package that would allow us by a simple majority in the House and Senate to basically enshrine these cuts in law.

And that argument is one that I'm told from many Senators who met with Elon Musk yesterday, was met with a lot of openness that he did not realize that that was an option on Capitol Hill. Now, this is risky because then you have lawmakers having to attach their names to all of these cuts. And we should note that back in 2018, Trump did send them a rescissions package and it failed in the Senate because there was not enough Republican support.

And just to give you a sense of what they might be up against, Senator Lisa Murkowski tweeted earlier today that she had met with some USAID officials who were from Alaska and she noted, they not only informed me of the confusing and callous handling of personnel matters by OPM and DOGE, but they also painted an incredibly troubling picture of what the world looks like without humanitarian assistance from the United States.

So you can imagine a world in which Donald Trump could send up these USAID cuts in some kind of rescissions package, and there may not be enough support on Capitol Hill. Now, the margins in the Senate are slightly bigger than they were back in 2018 for Republicans, but that just gives you some insight into the fact that it is not as easy for Republican Senators to vote for some of these cuts as maybe DOGE has a time of making those cuts themselves.

KEILAR: Yeah, that's a very important point. Lauren Fox, thank you. Let's bring in CNN Crime and Justice Correspondent, Katelyn Polantz, who has new reporting on the DOGE actions at USAID. What are you learning?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, today in court -- today in court, every day, there's something new in court.

(LAUGH) POLANTZ: There is an ongoing dispute still over what to do with all that money that the State Department and USAID wanted to shut off that was going to non-profits and contractors who were implementing foreign aid projects around the world. So the supreme court took a quick look at this and yesterday said, district court figure it out, we are not going to get involved right now. It's right now before the judge in the district court in Washington, D.C. That judge so far has said USAID, Trump Administration, DOGE, if you're turning things off in a blanket way, that sure seems arbitrary and capricious. So, you can't do it like that. You got to turn that money back on. That's why we had that fight over the government needing to pay out $2 billion that was owed to these contractors that went up to the supreme court.

So now, they're figuring out exactly what will stay in place or what will not stay in place for the administration on having to pay out these contracts. At a court hearing today, the government is saying, well, we're getting some of the money paid out to the contractors. They've dispersed about $180 million since the last major hearing on turning the money back on. But now, that's far short of the $2 billion owed. And so, we're waiting to see today if the judge does something there. But the groups that are suing -- in court, a lot of this is about how much the government is complying with court orders, how much the government is doing that might be more than what the Executive Branch is allowed because of Congress, these much bigger pictures about the separation of powers.

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SANCHEZ: To that point about potential overreach by the Executive Branch, you also have new reporting about federal watchdog Hampton Dellinger. He had been fired by the Trump Administration. There were some questions about whether Trump could actually fire him. What's the result?

POLANTZ: Yeah. This guy, Hampton Dellinger, he was in a position called Special Counsel, not Robert Mueller, totally different thing, fighting for workers in the federal government and his case, it is the crux of all of these court cases about who can Donald Trump fire in the federal government.

[14:25:00]

Can he fire Dellinger himself from this role that is supposed to have some independence that Congress set up? And today, he said he was trying to keep his job after being fired by Trump. An appeals court yesterday said, sit on the sidelines while we figure this out in court. And so, Dellinger today said I'm dropping my lawsuit. I'm not going to continue pushing this because there's a possibility that I have long odds at the supreme court. They could want to expand the power of the President to allow someone else that Trump wants in that job instead of him.

He would not have his job while this goes through the courts. So he's stepping aside. There's going to continue to be fights over this, over the firing of people in positions like Hampton Dellinger. He's also really important because what he had been working on in the last couple weeks was getting probationary workers reinstated at agencies. That office will continue working on that, but it's a long road ahead with a lot of court in store.

KEILAR: Today in court with Katelyn Polantz.

SANCHEZ: With Katelyn Polantz.

KEILAR: That's our new segment.

SANCHEZ: I think we'll get a new franchise. Yeah.

KEILAR: Here we go.

POLANTZ: Love it.

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SANCHEZ: Katelyn, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Still to come, President Trump issuing a "last warning" to Hamas to release all hostages in Gaza or else. And he says that he's sending Israel everything it would need to finish the job. Details in just a few minutes.

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