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Interview With Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL); Worrying Signs For Trump Economy?. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired March 07, 2025 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:00]

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Sometimes, questions aren't answerable.

They're in a very unusual position. They don't know how to end the war. I think I do know how to end the war. Despite the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax, I have always had a good relationship with Putin. And he wants to end the war. He wants to end it.

And I think he's going to be more generous than he has to be. And that's pretty good. That means a lot of good things, because, frankly, you could have made a great deal if you -- if this war never started, you could have made a great deal.

I don't know that anything would have had to be given up. This was not a war that was going to start, Brian. And it didn't start for four years. Somebody said, well, how do we know that? Well, for four years, it didn't start. I used to speak to Vladimir about it. I used to speak to him about it at length.

It was the apple of his eye, but there was no way he was going in. And he knew that there were going to be consequences. But it did start. I mean, think of what happened, inflation. You have the war with Ukraine and Russia, that wouldn't have happened. October 7 would have never happened, Israel. They had no money. Iran had no money.

Iran was stone-cold broke. And now they have a lot of money. But that's going to be the next thing you will be talking about, is Iran, what's going to happen with Iran. And there will be some interesting days ahead. That's all I can tell you.

We're down to final strokes with Iran. That's going to be an interesting time. And we will see what happens. But we're down to the final moments. We're at final moments. Can't let them have a nuclear weapon.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: We have been monitoring President Trump speaking in the Oval Office on the last day of this workweek.

And what a topsy-turvy year this week has been, days of turmoil and uncertainty driven by President Trump's flip-flops on key issues.

So let's start with the economy. On Tuesday, Trump hit goods from Canada and Mexico with 25 percent tariffs, saying there was no room for those countries to negotiate. That drove the stock market lower by kicking off an escalating trade war with America's largest trading partners.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JUSTIN TRUDEAU, CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER: But, Donald, they point out that, even though you're a very smart guy, this is a very dumb thing to do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Just one day later, after a phone call with the Big Three American automakers, Trump made his first big reversal amid fears the stiff taxes could devastate U.S. auto manufacturing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We are going to give a one-month exemption any autos coming through USMCA.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Twenty-four hours after that, with stock markets in sharp decline and both Canada and Mexico refusing to back down, Trump delayed most of his tariffs for nearly a month in another major walk- back.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: They came back to me yesterday. They said, could we have some help? I said, look, I'm going to do it. But, that said, don't come back to me after the 2nd, April 2.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: President Trump also did some flip-flopping on DOGE. He appears to be reining in Elon Musk's scattershot slash- and-burn approach to downsizing the federal government.

Remember this Cabinet meeting from last week?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Is anybody unhappy with Elon?

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: If you are, we will throw them out of here.

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: All laughs, but after Republican lawmakers were confronted by angry crowds at town halls: (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What the government is doing right now as far as cutting out those jobs, that is a damn shame.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What's not reasonable is taking this chain saw approach.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I feel bad that people have been laid off.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The fraud and abuse that has been discovered already...

(SHOUTING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: And following a behind-closed-doors meeting between Musk and some of those lawmakers this week, after multiple federal agencies were forced to rehire fired employees after realizing the critical nature of their roles, President Trump now says his administration will start using -- quote -- "the scalpel, rather than a hatchet."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I said I want the Cabinet members go first, keep all the people you want. If they can cut it's better. And if they don't cut, then Elon will do the cutting.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: There was also foreign policy freneticism after Trump's contentious Oval Office meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: You don't know that. You don't know that.

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT: God bless you do not have a war.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Don't tell us what we're going to feel. We're trying to solve a problem. Don't tell us what we're going to feel.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Trump kicked Zelenskyy out of the White House without signing a minerals deal, without holding a press conference, without any guarantees the U.S. would back Ukraine up against Russian aggression.

And in the days that followed, the U.S. paused military aid to the Ukrainian front lines and partially halted U.S. intelligence sharing. Europe has since rallied around Ukraine, leaders embracing Zelenskyy at a special summit in Brussels, while Trump took the stage on Capitol Hill lambasting American support.

[13:05:16]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We've spent perhaps $350 billion, like taking candy from a baby. That's what happened.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: To be clear, that math ain't mathing. The U.S. actually appropriated about $183 billion for the Ukraine war, according to the government inspector general.

Trump also questioning U.S. support for NATO yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: if the United States was in trouble and we called them, we said, we got a problem, France, we got a problem, a couple of others I won't mention, do you think they're going to come and protect us? They're supposed to. I'm not so sure.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Despite all of that, U.S. officials are now preparing to meet next week with Zelenskyy in Saudi Arabia, discussing a framework for peace.

And, today, another new twist. Despite Trump insisting for weeks now that Russia wants peace, in admission they don't seem to want it that much, President Trump announcing possible large-scale sanctions on Russia because it is -- quote -- absolutely pounding Ukraine on the battlefield right now."

And we should note, Russia is also absolutely pounding innocent Ukrainians as well, bombarding civilian targets, killing close to 100 civilians since Trump held what he called a highly productive phone call with Vladimir Putin less than three weeks ago.

We are covering all of this with our team of correspondents.

Let's begin with a new jobs report from the first full month of Trump's second term.

Matt Egan is with us now.

Matt, what's the takeaway here?

MATT EGAN, CNN REPORTER: Well, Brianna, this could end up being the calm before the storm, because we were all on higher alert for some potentially troubling news. And, thankfully, we did not get it. Today's report showed that the economy added 151,000 jobs last month.

Now, that's a touch below expectations, but that's a solid number and it's actually an improvement from January, which was revised lower to 125,000. Now, the unemployment rate did tick higher to 4.1 percent. That's still historically low, but it moved in the wrong direction and for the wrong reasons, right, because there's more people who are unemployed and there's fewer people who are looking for work.

Digging into the industries, we saw that manufacturing returned to job growth. That's good to see. However, the federal government lost 10,000 jobs. That's the most that we have seen since mid-2022. And that does not even really capture the full impact from the mass layoffs that have been led by Elon Musk and DOGE.

Big picture, solid month of job growth. It's actually the 50th consecutive month where the United States is adding jobs. That is the second longest streak on history, but I think the big question, of course, is how long is that going to last, given all of the uncertainty that you just covered in the intro there?

We did just hear from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. He's speaking here in New York. He acknowledged a lot of the uncertainty here. He said that even the Fed doesn't know where tariffs are going to be and how high they're going to go and on what countries and for how long. He said, for now, the Fed doesn't feel a need to do anything with interest rates.

They're just going to wait for more clarity ahead. And we see the market has been bouncing around, sharply lower earlier today, the stock market moving into the green in the last few moments. I talked to market veteran Michael Block, and he told me, look, investors are having trouble digesting this multidimensional chess that Trump and his team are playing.

He said there might be a method to the madness, but the market is saying, stop confusing us. We don't like it -- Brianna.

KEILAR: All right, Matt Egan, thank you for that -- Boris.

SANCHEZ: Let's dig deeper on this wild week of tariff flip-flops, the new jobs report and the economy with Roben Farzad. He's a business journalist and the host of "Full Disclosure."

Roben, thank you so much for being with us.

Let's start with the jobs report, 151,000 created, a lower number than expected. Put that into context for us.

ROBEN FARZAD, HOST, "FULL DISCLOSURE": Jobs are still being created.

And you have to go back well into the Biden administration. We are on the five-year anniversary, I would say plus or minus a week, of that feeling of weightlessness, that awful sinking feeling, when schools were shut down, various professional obligations, concerts. We didn't know what was coming across the pond.

And you saw unemployment spike into the mid-teens. You guys, CNN, all the other channels were covering these long lines of cars queuing up for food, restaurants not knowing what to do, people not having business interruption insurance. Pretty much since all of that bottomed out later on in 2020, you have had jobs created consistently ever since.

Even with all the uncertainty of tariffs and inflation and the ongoing eggflation, the fact that we're still creating jobs, albeit maybe at 10,000 or 20,000 jobs lower than the official estimate, is still, on margin, I think, of victory.

[13:10:10]

Having said that, it has not had time to fully interpret, I think, the effects of the Washington slowdown, maybe the effects at the border, like the chilling effect on maybe labor coming through, and then inflation and hourly wages going up. So I would hold my breath for next month and the month after.

SANCHEZ: How do you think those changes, the immigration crackdown, cuts to the federal work force, et cetera, how do you think that will ultimately impact the broader labor market?

FARZAD: The immigration crackdown is certainly inflationary. I would say that there's a policy, as I -- the Chamber of Commerce wing of the Republican Party, whatever is left of it, has always treated, I think, immigration, illegal, undocumented and documented, with salutary neglect, I mean, kind of looked the other way, because how can you run a city like Atlanta, a city like New York, a city like San Fran, Nashville without restaurant workers, without hotel workers?

Everybody has always looked the other way because it's such an important part of the economy. And when you have a shortage of workers, the perennial for hire sign outside the diner or outside the hotel, you need all the help you can get. So if there's suddenly a plunge, where South Americans and Mexicans and Central Americans correctly are saying that the Trump administration is looking to crack down, it's not the time to risk it, you're going to see that ripple across the border immediately with potentially higher wage prices.

SANCHEZ: I wonder if you could see a scenario in which the market stabilizes and regains most of what it's lost this week, irrespective of Trump sort of zigzagging on tariffs. How directly are markets tied to what the president says in relation to tariffs on Canada and Mexico and China?

Because even just now, in the Oval Office, he seemed to zag again, promising additional tariffs on Canadian goods.

FARZAD: Well, I compare it to trying to fill your water bottle at this gigantic hydrant on the street. I mean, it's very hard to put in. It's very hard to take in. It's very hard to interpret all these things.

And the market has given back its losses -- its gains, its sugar high since Trump was elected, because of deregulation and lower taxes and everything that was expected there. But, as I have said, the more this goes on, the more that you kind of look at it as kind of, oh, he's bluffing, he's zigzagging, whatever you want to call it, the less they're willing to kind of believe that bark. And I know I just mixed a million metaphors there, but I'm trying to

get my head around it. I'm trying to get my head around it as well. But perversely, Boris, I would say that, if the risks of recession are higher -- and you quoted Jerome Powell there -- suddenly, we're doing damage to ourselves if we're shooting ourselves in the foot, another metaphor, then yes, maybe we can celebrate recession.

Maybe, just maybe, the markets would celebrate because the Fed has a better hand in cutting interest rates. But that's a -- a real self- goal would have to happen for that.

SANCHEZ: Listen, a lot of metaphors, a lot of merited metaphors, given the amount of confusion we're trying to parse through.

Roben Farzad, always appreciate the perspective. Thanks for being with us.

FARZAD: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Brianna.

KEILAR: Always love a metaphor.

And now for more on President Trump announcing that he is limiting the role of DOGE, we have CNN's Jeff Zeleny joining us live now from the White House.

And, Jeff, it appears the president really wants to be clear that it is the agency leaders who are in charge here, not Musk. Is that a matter of messaging or is this a legal issue or is it both?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: I think it could be both.

And we won't know the answer until we see how this plays out. I'm very hesitant to say that suddenly DOGE has a new mandate, because that is not what the president was saying yesterday. But it was pretty extraordinary, Brianna. The fact that there was a Cabinet meeting, several members of the Cabinet were actually out of town, but it was a hastily called meeting on Thursday.

No cameras were present. And we are told it was actually quite confrontational. But the president said he was sending a clear message to Elon Musk that it is the Cabinet secretaries who will make the exact decisions about their agencies, whether they should respond to e-mails about what their employees did, who they should hire, who they should fire.

So that certainly marked a turnaround from that Cabinet meeting just a week ago, where we all saw Elon Musk holding court in the Cabinet Room. So this comes after a lot of blowback from Republicans on Capitol Hill. The White House has been hearing that, has been listening to that.

And, of course, these Republican lawmakers are largely supportive of Elon Musk and what he's doing writ large, but are hearing specific examples from their home districts, from specific frozen programs or people who have been dismissed.

So, really, for a series of days, Elon Musk has been meeting with Republican senators. They have been asking him give us a heads-up and bring the Cabinet secretaries in. So, yesterday's meeting was a bit of a reset, if you will, to remind the government that it is the Senate- confirmed Cabinet agencies who are in charge.

[13:15:05]

But I think we shall see. We will have to wait and see how this plays out to see if it's actually a hatchet or the scalpel, as the president called for, Brianna.

KEILAR: Or a chain saw.

ZELENY: Indeed.

KEILAR: Jeff Zeleny, thank you so much -- Boris.

SANCHEZ: We want to pivot now to something else that Trump brought up during his press availability, the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

We will take you live to CNN's Nick Paton Walsh, who's in Kyiv for us.

Nick, President Trump saying that he could potentially impose harsh sanctions on Russia to bring them to the negotiating table. How is that news being received where you are in Kyiv?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: I mean, I'm sure there's an element of optimism that this is a possibility, but, at the same time, Ukraine has had, not sanctions, but certainly problems imposed upon it by the pause in U.S. military aid and intelligence sharing that's been enacted now for three or four days.

So I'm sure Ukrainians are heartened at the possibility of moves taken against them, but they haven't actually occurred. What we heard, though, in that statement was a suggestion that indeed he finds Ukraine harder to deal with than Russia and that Russia wants to make a deal.

He also said again that they're bombing the hell out of Ukraine, that's the Russians, but also saying that Vladimir Putin is doing what anybody else would do. I'm not entirely sure if that's reference to his negotiating strategy or if indeed it's something to do with the bombardment that we have been seeing, but clearly an emphasis on the talks on Tuesday in Saudi Arabia, which will be key, of course.

We understand that Secretary -- sorry -- National Security Adviser Walz and Secretary of State Marco Rubio will be going there for that. But there is, I think, an element of anxiety potentially as to what the ask will be. You heard National Security Adviser Walz there talking about how they want to get the relationship back on track.

Now, clearly, there is an optimism potentially that the rare earth minerals deal can be signed. But I think there's also some concern and that the peace plan that appears to be taking some kind of shape, that there's multiple variations. There's the U.S.-Russia discussions occurring. There's the European peace plan that seems to take some kind of shape.

And there is potentially something else which we may not be entirely privy to. The details of that may eventually percolate through in this Riyadh meeting.

So, a lot, I think, that leaves Ukrainians deeply anxious here, and I think also, too, within a matter of an hour we heard a TRUTH Social post from the president saying that he was strongly considering trenchant sanctions against Russia to push them to the peace table, but then in the same hour almost this Oval Office appearance in which he talked about how Russia was easier to deal with than Ukraine.

So, the whiplash here, frankly, the discombobulation, the lack of clarity about where the United States stands leaves many concerns. But if you look at the practical moves of the United States, they have limited aid and intelligence sharing to their former ally Ukraine. And I say former because many here are entirely unclear where the United States sits in all of this.

They appear to feel an affinity towards Vladimir Putin. At least that was expressed by President Trump during that press conference. And so the notion that they are the intermediary between two sides, well, we will see what happens in Riyadh on Tuesday. But I think some Ukrainians doubt that right now.

SANCHEZ: Nick Paton Walsh live for us in Kyiv, thank you so much for the update.

Coming up: Newly released text messages reveal total panic on the night that four Idaho college students were murdered. What they reveal about the timeline of these killings.

Plus, President Trump expected to order the dismantling of the Department of Education. What does that mean for the future of more than a trillion dollars in student loans?

And SpaceX's Starship exploding mid-flight, raining down debris and causing flight delays. What we're learning about this latest test when we come back.

Stay with CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:23:01]

KEILAR: As Democrats try to find a way to unite in opposition to President Trump, this week exposed some big divisions within the party.

Just yesterday, 10 Democrats sided with Republicans to censure their colleague, Congressman Al Green, who was booted from President Trump's address to Congress this week for protesting the president's remarks. But in a protest of their own, some Democrats started singing "We Shall Overcome" on the chamber floor after Green's censure vote.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(SINGING)

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): The House will come to order. The House will come to order.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Several other Democrats staged protests during Trump's address by holding signs, some by walking out, despite guidance from party leadership to remain restrained, in the meantime as criticism from Democrats toward the Trump administration grows.

A new CBS poll shows most Americans agree Trump is changing the way government works, but they are split on whether that is for better or worse. The numbers also found a small majority back Elon Musk's influence in spending and operations of the federal work force.

We're joined now by Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida.

Congresswoman, thank you for being with us.

REP. DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ (D-FL): Thanks, Brianna.

KEILAR: And, as I noted, Democrats have a variety of approaches to opposing Trump right now. We saw that on display at the joint address, everybody kind of doing their own thing, from attending to skipping to interrupting.

And you even saw that with 10 Democrats censuring, along with Republicans, Congressman Al Green. Why haven't Democrats settled on a cohesive opposition to Trump?

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Well, Brianna, we most definitely have settled on a cohesive way of opposing Donald Trump's grievously harmful policies, job cuts, devastating cuts that are unlawful and unconstitutional to vital programs that help Americans, through Congress, the community, and the courts.

[13:25:01]

In Congress, we had a hearing this week, and we will have weekly hearings that Democrats will put on to highlight and put a human face on the really harmful impact of the devastating Medicaid cuts that are coming after the Republican budget resolution passed.

Next week, we will be focusing on the impact of cuts to SNAP, which will slash funding to really make sure that they can take care of millionaires, billionaires, and the wealthy corporations with massive tax cuts and cut people's nutrition benefits that make sure that they can keep their children and families healthy and well. We're supporting court -- lawsuits in courts, and we're in our

communities making sure that we communicate with our constituents. And Republicans' constituents across the country are holding their feet to the fire, which is now why Republicans are back on their heels, very clearly trying to find a way to stop their polling numbers from falling, and recognizing that, when you do something like cut 83,000 jobs, which they're planning to cut from the VA, that you're hurting veterans and you're hurting the folks' families who are losing their jobs.

And that's not what Americans signed up for. So we're on this.

KEILAR: OK, so let me ask you, then, do you think because -- I mean, we see a poll; 73 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents polled by CNN say that Democrats and Congress are doing too little to oppose Trump.

I wonder -- you feel that there is a cohesive opposition. Do you think that when you see numbers like that it's kind of a bum rap that Democrats are getting?

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: I'm not going to quibble with how people are feeling right now. They're feeling anxious and scared.

And what we really need to make sure we do is continue to keep the pressure on Republicans. We have a budget vote coming up next week, an appropriations vote next Wednesday, that we should be staying at the table to make sure we pass our full-year appropriations bills, so we can fully fund the needs that people have in our government.

But, instead, the Republicans are going to try to jam through a C.R., a continuing resolution, that gives more control to Donald Trump. And we need to put pressure on the Republicans. We need three Republicans. They have a three-vote margin. We need three Republicans to vote with us to make sure that we can stop that and go back to the negotiating table.

Otherwise, DOGE and Musk -- and his DOGE bags are going to have more control over which programs are cut, who's getting fired. Donald Trump has actually presided over the most cuts to veterans -- firings of veterans in history. He's cut -- he has an economy that is all over the place, on-again/of- again, tariffs, the stock market dropping.

People are really starting to feel the pain. Employers are cutting more jobs than were grown last month. It is really going to build up on Republicans, and we're keeping the pressure on as Democrats.

KEILAR: It does seem Democrats are trying to figure out where they stand on some issues that are divisive.

I want to talk to you about something California Governor Gavin Newsom said. He had Charlie Kirk on his podcast this week and here's a sampling of their conversation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHARLIE KIRK, FOUNDER, TURNING POINT USA: Would you say no men in female sports?

GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM (D-CA): Well, I think it's an issue of fairness. I completely agree with you on that. It is an issue of fairness. There's also a humility and grace that these poor people are more likely to commit suicide, have anxiety and depression.

And the way that people talk down to vulnerable communities is an issue that I have a hard time with as well. So, both things, I can hold in my hand.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: What do you think about the way he's talking about that issue, which is something that we have seen a lot of Democrats in different places on, some of them struggling to figure out how to talk about?

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Brianna, making sure that everyone is treated fairly and equally is a bedrock principle in the United States of America.

And we shouldn't be shying away from that. But, on the other hand, what we really need to focus on is affordability and how the economy is impacting and prices are impacting people at their kitchen table.

So, Donald Trump promised...

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: Congresswoman, I'm not going to let you off the hook on this one. I'm not going to let you off the hook on this one.

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: I understand. But I also -- one of your colleagues, Steve Cohen, said in this really interesting Politico article today, which was sort of about the ins and outs of Congress, he believes that it's not just the eggs that lost Democrats the election.

He said: "Actually, I think people have eggs for brains if they think that's the case." He said, it's not just an issue of the economy, meaning it's the culture war issues. It's the issues like this one that Gavin Newsom is talking about.

So, is -- how do you think -- genuinely, how do you think Democrats need to be approaching these issues that I think a lot of Americans look at how they are approaching, and they don't agree with them on it?

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Brianna, I don't shrink back from this issue to anyone. I'm a vice chair of the Equality Caucus in Congress and on the board of the Equality PAC.