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White House Whiplash: Growing Uncertainty After Trump's Dramatic Policy Pivots; Trump Threatens New Tariffs on Canada, Including 250 Percent Dairy Tax; Judge Denies Bid To Block DOGE From Treasury System; SC Death Row Inmate To Be Executed Tonight By Firing Squad. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired March 07, 2025 - 15:00   ET

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

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[15:00:22]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: More tariff news today that could make or break businesses. President Donald Trump threatening new retaliatory tariffs against Canada on lumber used to build U.S. homes and a 250 percent tax on dairy. That's eating - adding even more turmoil and uncertainty driven by the President's flip-flops on key issues. Remember 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 stocks lower, sparking fears of a growing trade war with America's largest trading partners.

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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.

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SANCHEZ: One day later, after a phone call with the big three American automakers, Trump made his first big tariff reversal on concerns those taxes could devastate America's auto manufacturing.

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

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SANCHEZ: Twenty-four hours after that, with stock markets in sharp decline and both Canada and Mexico refusing to back down, Trump hit pause on most of his tariffs against those countries for nearly a month in another major walk back.

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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They came back to me yesterday. They said, could we have some help? I said, look, I'm going to do it, but that's it. Don't come back to me after the second - April 2nd.

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BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: President Trump also changing course on DOGE. He appears to be reining in Elon Musk's indiscriminate approach to downsizing the federal government. Remember this cabinet meeting from last week?

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TRUMP: Is anybody unhappy with Elon? If you are, we'll throw him out of here.

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KEILAR: Well, after weeks where Republican lawmakers have been confronted by angry crowds at town halls like this.

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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 chainsaw approach.

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

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fraud and abuse that has been discovered already.

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KEILAR: Following a private meeting between Musk and some of those lawmakers this week, and 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.

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TRUMP: I said I want the Cabinet member 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.

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SANCHEZ: As for foreign policy, a lot of major changes after the contentious Oval Office meeting with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy.

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TRUMP: You don't know that. Don't - you got to ...

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, PRESIDENT OF UKRAINE: God bless you. God bless you. You do not have a war.

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.

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SANCHEZ: Zelenskyy exited the White House without key U.S. security guarantees. And in the days that followed, the U.S. paused military aid to the Ukrainian front lines and partially halted intelligence sharing. Since those decisions, Europe has rallied around Ukraine. Leaders embracing Zelenskyy at a special summit this week in Brussels, while Trump took to the stage on Capitol Hill lambasting U.S. support.

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

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SANCHEZ: Point of fact, that number isn't even close. The U.S. has only appropriated about $183 billion for the Ukraine response, according to the government inspector general overseeing the Ukraine response. And just yesterday, Trump questioned U.S. support for NATO.

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TRUMP: If the United States was in trouble and we called them, we said, we've got a problem. Do you think they're going to come and protect us? They're supposed to. I'm not so sure.

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SANCHEZ: NATO allies did come and help the United States after it responded to the September 11th attacks with attacks against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. Nevertheless, 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, there was another new twist. President Trump announcing possible large-scale sanctions on Russia if a peace deal is not reached soon. Brianna?

[15:05:01]

KEILAR: A whole lot to break down. Let's start with the latest on the tariffs. CNN's Jeff Zeleny joining us now from the White House.

Jeff, bring us up to speed on Trump's new tariff threats against Canada and where things stand there.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Brianna, another day, another threat of tariffs. But that, of course, does not mean tariffs will be imposed, as we have seen virtually every day this week as the financial markets have tried to follow along to this. But the President, a couple hours or so ago in the Oval Office, talked about the potential of new tariffs on lumber and dairy products for Canada. This was a day after most Mexican and Canadian products were given a one-month extension from the tariffs, of course, all reciprocal tariffs, which means what companies are charging the U.S., the U.S. will charge them. Those still go into effect April 2nd.

But seemingly out of the blue, the President just saying that he may impose new tariffs on lumber and on dairy. But this clearly has become just one of the negotiating tactics, one of the talking points that he has made, even as the markets have been wondering exactly where the consistency here is. So, Brianna, we do not have any more specifics than that on this specific set of tariffs. But the President mentioned it, so, of course, people are left to wonder why the market certainly has done that once again today.

KEILAR: Yes, we shall continue to wonder. Jeff Zeleny, thank you. Boris?

SANCHEZ: We want to dig deeper on how the constantly changing headlines on tariffs could affect business and the economy. We're joined by Douglas Holtz-Eakin. He was the chief economist on the White House Council of Economic Advisers under President George W. Bush. He's also the President of the American Action Forum.

Douglas, great to see you, as always.

I wonder not only how this back-and-forth impacts the market short- term, which we've already sort of seen, but also long-term how trading partners view the United States.

DOUGLAS HOLTZ-EAKIN, CHIEF ECONOMIST, WH COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC ADVISERS UNDER PRESIDENT G. W. BUSH: Well, I think there are a number of things that are worth noting here. First of all is that all of these tariffs, the ones on Canada, Mexico, China, steel, aluminum and the ones promised in the reciprocal tariffs and the pharmaceuticals, chips, autos, I mean, the list is quite long. All of those in the end are tax increases that will make things more expensive in the United States and or be headwinds to hiring and investing and fostering economic growth, both of which are bad things for the American public.

So, any such announcement carries with it directionally some bad news for the United States. And the question then is what do we get for it? And there so far I think the results have been pretty thin. The President's been quite unclear as to what he wants from Canada. Is it fewer border crossings, less fentanyl? Is it moving auto production lines into the United States? Is it a lot of revenue to replace tax cuts? It's really unclear. And so, the announcements themselves carry some real negative implications.

Second thing is the timing is completely unclear. We're going to do it now, maybe we'll do it later. How can you make a plan for this bad news when you don't know when it's going to hit? And the third is just uncertainty itself is bad for decision-making. Financial markets really don't like this kind of uncertainty.

The Federal Reserve, for example, spends a lot of time trying to clear up what their plans might be. This generates uncertainty. Businesses are thinking is now the time to hire or not? Is now the time to build a new plant? I don't know. And it tends to freeze economic activity and slow down the progress in the economy. So, for the U.S. economy by itself, these are not good announcements. There's no doubt about it. And our trading partners are comparably baffled, quite angry in many cases, and as a matter - of course have been planning to retaliate because they've seen this movie before and they're not going to put up with it.

And so, that's more bad news for the global economy. And the combination could be quite impactful if both go through.

SANCHEZ: The Wall Street Journal editorial board seems to be inviting someone to sue the administration. They say that Trump is using a law to justify the tariffs. That doesn't hold up. You laugh, but they write, quote, "Someone should sue." I mean, is that actionable? Could somebody actually do that?

HOLTZ-EAKIN: Actually, maybe I should. Their point is that the Congress has the power to levy tariffs. That's constitutional. They have delegated to the President that power under certain circumstances, typically emergencies.

And so, the President has announced a whole series of emergencies. We're in an energy emergency, a national economic emergency or a fentanyl emergency as the gateway to undertaking these tariffs. I think what the Wall Street Journal is saying is an American citizen could raise their hand, go into court and say, I contest whether we are in such an emergency. Are we really in a national economic emergency?

The unemployment rate is 4.1 percent.

[15:10:00]

Inflation is under 3 percent. We've been growing at rates of 2.5- and 3 percent. How can that be an emergency? And if they were to win that case, the power to do this unilaterally would go away.

SANCHEZ: It's fascinating, especially on the suggestion that there's a fentanyl emergency at the northern border with Canada when I think all of last year it was roughly 10 pounds of fentanyl that were seized, significantly less than compared to the southern border with Mexico, I think in January to February was 0.03 pounds.

So, I do wonder, in the big picture, as Trump talks about bringing manufacturing back to the United States, as he tells farmers that there may be a period of difficulty, an adjustment period as he describes it, could tariffs be used to reshape the U.S. economy in a way that better benefits the American people or is that seemingly too far down the road and causing too much disruption to actually be a benefit?

HOLTZ-EAKIN: So taken in the extreme, Mr. Trump has talked a lot about not wanting to import things. We should just make them here. If you take that at face value and you try to figure out how many workers we would need to do that, it's implausible. We're not going to have overnight 20-odd million workers to produce everything that we're importing, so that's not possible. We often don't have the materials necessary to do it. Indeed, there's this observation that's pretty common now that there is no single country on the globe that can make an iPhone. No one has all the things necessary in their boundaries.

So trade is how you solve those problems. You have a global network of labor, and they do the things they do best, and we do the things we do best. And if you try to undo that, you're essentially saying, let's do something that we gave up because it wasn't worth it and do it again. That usually means you're less good at it. It costs more to do it in the United States. It's more expensive for us to buy it and we give up doing what we do well.

So, the reason there is trade is that it's advantageous for consumers. Only when it's abused do you want to step in. And the President likes to talk about how we've been taken advantage of, but these are not cases that he is bringing because he's found damage to American industry by unfair trade practices. These are tariffs he's just putting up because he's saying, I don't like what's going on.

SANCHEZ: Douglas Holtz-Eakin, appreciate the analysis. Thank you so much for joining us.

HOLTZ-EAKIN: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Brianna?

KEILAR: Today in Washington, a federal judge ruled that she will not block DOGE from accessing sensitive baking information at the Treasury Department, saying that federal workers' unions had not proved they would face irreparable harm. CNN Senior Crime and Justice Correspondent Katelyn Polantz is with us now.

Katelyn, what was the judge's reasoning here?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna, the judge said, you know, there's a really high bar to convince a court to step in and put an indefinite block on an agency like this to tell an agency you can't let some of your own staffers have access to data. And that bar wasn't cleared by the people who brought this lawsuit and asked for the judge to intervene in an emergency way.

Now, this is an important judge. Her name is Judge Colleen Kollar- Kotelly. She's in the district court in D.C. And last week she had one of the most gripping hearings that I've listened to so far where she just asked the point-blank questions. What is DOGE? What are they doing? Where is Elon Musk on this? And who is giving direction at an agency like the Treasury Department that has DOGE staffers there? Who's telling them what to do?

In this case, though, it's about privacy concerns, about what these staffers may be doing with very sensitive payment data, personal information, banking information that is held by the Treasury Department and used to cut checks that the federal government disperses. And those Privacy Act claims, they had to show somehow to Judge Kollar-Kotelly that this data was at risk of getting out and she said the evidence isn't there yet.

She wrote: "If Plaintiffs could show that Defendants imminently planned to make their private information public or to share that information with individuals outside the federal government with no obligation to maintain its confidentiality, the Court would not hesitate to find a likelihood of irreparable harm." That's the standard here. But on the present record, plaintiffs have not shown the defendants have such a plan.

So, Brianna, this is the type of case around privacy challenging DOGE and their work at agencies that's falling flat not just before this judge, but before others. But, of course, fear not, there are so many lawsuits in court right now and there are other cases challenging Elon Musk, the DOGE, and other Trump administration actions. We're going to see how those play out. They could go a lot of different ways with a lot of different judges at a lot of different stages in these lawsuits.

[15:15:04]

KEILAR: There's a group of Democratic attorneys general who are suing the Trump administration over its mass layoffs and they're arguing that the firings are inflicting economic harm on their states, particularly when it comes to tax revenues. Tell us about this one.

POLANTZ: Yes. So, Brianna, this is sort of the example of how these cases morph into different types of claims as different groups are trying to challenge what the Trump administration is doing. And in this one, it is Democratic-led state governments and they are suing the federal government saying, we are hurt here because we have taxpayers and because it hurts our tax base if you're firing people, firing probationary workers.

There are other workers' suits that have already gone through the pipeline that have had less success, partly because they're bringing them in federal court and there's ways that those workers and the unions that represent them can challenge being fired, not in federal court, before labor boards. And so, we're going to keep seeing lawsuits like this trying different tactics, but every judge is going to be different. They're going to be looking at the facts specifically for each of these cases going forward.

KEILAR: All right. Katelyn, thank you for the latest there. Boris?

SANCHEZ: Let's discuss the war in Ukraine now. We're joined by CNN Anchor and Chief National Security Analyst, Jim Sciutto.

Jim, a series of mixed messages today from the administration. You had Trump this morning on social media saying that he might levy harsh sanctions on Russia to get them to the negotiating table, but then during his press availability in the Oval Office, he said effectively that it's more difficult to deal with Ukraine than it is with Russia to get peace.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Listen, I always think with him, particularly as it relates to a place like Ukraine, look at what he has said consistently and done consistently. And though for the first time in a long time he's said something critical about Russia, he hasn't done anything, right? He hasn't imposed those costs yet while he is imposing quite severe costs on Ukraine, including pulling back military assistance and intelligence sharing that's having immediate impacts on the battlefield as Ukraine is still being relentlessly attacked.

So, you know, the consistent moves, statements and actions are ones that indicate that he is pulling back support from Ukraine, and that is absolutely the way U.S. allies are taking it. And that's why when you see in this emergency meeting yesterday of E.U. nations, including NATO allies, that they are saying publicly, we cannot rely on the U.S. to support Ukraine anymore, so we have to fill in the gap. But also even more broadly, and this is more significant, they can't rely on the U.S. to defend Europe. So they're taking that as a genuine move from Trump, not just bluster.

SANCHEZ: To that point, we saw Macron recently saying that France is considering expanding its responsibility over nuclear defense in Europe. How far do you think Europe is willing to go?

SCIUTTO: They're willing to go, and I've been speaking to diplomats in Europe this week, far enough to defend themselves because their perception is, again, they can't rely on the U.S. to defend them, and this is in the public record. I mean, you had Trump say again yesterday, I'm not sure I would go to defend, you know, despite the fact that we are required by treaty to defend each other mutually.

So, their attitude is, okay, we've got to figure out a way that we can do it without the U.S., and because they can't fill the military gap quickly, our military is just bigger, and by the way, NATO was designed to be led by the U.S. and to fill a lot of these roles. The quickest way to replace is by expanding your nuclear arsenal, and right now that's just the U.K. and France, but France talking about extending and even perhaps sharing with a country like Germany, and this is something that goes more broadly because allies in Asia, South Korea and Japan, are hearing similar signals and making their own calculations as to whether they need to go nuclear.

I mean, this is among the many questions you and I are talking about as we look at the effects of Trump's foreign policy, the possibility of further nuclear proliferation is one of them.

SANCHEZ: Wow. It is a really serious subject. Jim Sciutto, thanks so much for doing this. Appreciate it.

SCIUTTO: Thank you so much. It's always uplifting to talk to me before the weekend, right? Yes.

SANCHEZ: Yes, it's great. Thanks. Thanks, Jim.

Still to come this hour, a death row inmate will be executed by firing squad tonight by his own volition, by his choice. What we know about his controversial execution and his final hours.

Plus, we're talking with a top Canadian official who at his region pull American liquor from store shelves. Those stories and much more coming up this hour.

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[15:24:04]

KEILAR: Less than three hours from now, the state of South Carolina is set to execute a death row inmate by firing squad for the first time in the state's history. The inmate, Brad Sigmon, chose to die this way. He was convicted of beating his ex-girlfriend's parents to death. Sigmon's attorney says the 67-year-old opted for the firing squad over concerns about the state's lethal injection process. He also rejected death by electric chair, which his attorney said would, quote, burn and cook him alive.

The Reverend Hillary Taylor is the executive director for South Carolinians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty and Sigmon's longtime spiritual advisor.

Reverend, thank you for being with us.

And I just wonder, as the clock is ticking at this point in time, what is on your mind?

REV. HILLARY TAYLOR, EXEC. DIR., SOUTH CAROLINIANS FOR ALTERNATIVES TO DEATH PENALTY: What is on our mind this afternoon certainly holding Brad and his family and also the people that are all involved in his case, his legal team and also the people that he has harmed.

[15:25:04]

Holding them all in prayer, making sure that everybody feels as supported and connected as possible to our movement. People who are far away and also people who are local. And also making sure that when we hold vigil and protest outside of the prison, that we are able to do so in a way that is safe and in a way that is also honoring Brad.

KEILAR: So, he's getting attention, a lot of attention, because of this choice to die by firing squad. Tell us what he's told you about this decision.

TAYLOR: Yes, so Brad was faced with an impossible decision of whether he wanted to be pumped with poisons that we are not legally allowed to know anything about, and that basically took, you know, more than 20 minutes for the last three people to be executed with which, or to be cooked alive with the electric chair, or to have his heart blown out of his chest by the firing squad.

And when faced with this impossible decision, he chose the method that he knew would be the most effective and also would be the most efficient and would not be like lethal injection.

KEILAR: And you are, to be clear, an advocate against the death penalty, which South Carolina hasn't seen an execution for quite some time. But what do you say to people who - and it's a divisive issue, right? It always has been. What do you say to people who say, this is someone who committed a heinous crime, and his victims didn't even have this choice?

TAYLOR: Yes, what I would tell you is that the death penalty is awful and is reflection of the violence that, you know, we are not willing to deal with in our society. What I will also say is that victims of violence deserve to be seen and heard, and SCADP is not here to tell anybody how to deal with violence.

They also deserve all the resources and the services available to them so that they can heal from their trauma. They deserve to know that what happened to them will never happen to them again. And the death penalty is the poorest way to ensure any of those things happen. So, that is what we say, and we want to help solve the problem of violence. Our mission is to abolish the death penalty and catalyze criminal justice reform because we know that people who often experience violence go on to commit violence. Violence that is not transformed is transferred. And Brad is somebody who experienced violence in his early life and was not able to have the right interventions so that he did not perpetuate violence.

We want to make sure that violence is interrupted and prevented, and we ask that people join with us in order to do that. But we can't do that unless we end the death penalty.

KEILAR: How is he reflecting on his crimes and on the punishment that he is expected to endure here shortly?

TAYLOR: Brad is hopeful and prayerful that he will receive clemency from Governor McMaster. Brad is somebody who recognizes the harm that he caused. He does not shy away from it. He recognizes that in some ways he deserves to die, but he also believes that he should live because he wants to help solve the problem of violence. He wants to be somebody who can be in general population to share his story, to share how faith in Jesus Christ changed him and allowed him to be a different person for these last 20 plus years on death row. And he wants to make sure that people don't do the same things and don't harm people in the same way that he has.

And we believe that he would be a fantastic person. He's operated as an informal chaplain for all of the time that he has been on death row. He knows the Bible better than most Southern Baptist pastors. And he is somebody who is a great source of spiritual and emotional support to people all across the world.

KEILAR: Reverend Hillary Taylor, thank you so much for joining us as many people are watching South Carolina this afternoon and evening.

TAYLOR: Thank you for having me.

KEILAR: Still to come, we will ask a Canadian leader about his push for people to keep their dollars local as the back and rth on tariffs riles consumers on both sides of the U.S. Canadian border.

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