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Carney Pledges to Build A Stronger Canada for Everyone; Trump Won't Rule out Recession, Warns of "Period of Transition"; Workers Fear Future as Trump Casts Shadow Over Wind Industry; Rubio Heads to Talks With Ukraine After Trump-Zelenskyy Blowup; New York Declares State of Emergency Over Long Island Brush Fires. Aired 7:30-8 am ET

Aired March 10, 2025 - 07:30   ET

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

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[07:31:27]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Canada's next Prime Minister, Mark Carney, says tariffs on U.S. goods will stay in place until, and I'm quoting here, "Americans show us respect."

Canada's Liberal Party elected Carney to replace Justin Trudeau as its new leader yesterday. Carney, a former economist, immediately challenged President Trump, promising Canada would find new, reliable trading partners.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARK CARNEY, CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER-DESIGNATE: America is not Canada. And Canada never, ever will be part of America in any way, shape or form. We didn't ask for this fight. But Canadians are always ready when someone else drops the gloves. So the Americans, they should make no mistake. In trade, as in hockey, Canada will win.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: CNN Paula Newton is joining us now from Ottawa. Girl, they are really mad at the United States. I mean, we're seeing this as unprecedented. This is an ally to the United States, saying these things.

PAULA NEWTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Sara. Sara, this is truly historic. And yes, Canada and Canadians are leaning in. The Liberal Party, I have to say, Sara, reborn, given the threats coming directly from the Oval Office.

Mark Carney there. This is a man, Sara, who's never run for anything practically. And within a matter of days, he will be Prime Minister of Canada. Justin Trudeau will officially resign probably before the week is out. And then here's what happens next. Mark Carney will be in an election very soon and face Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre. Again, a historic transition made possible from this trade war with the United States.

Who is Mark Carney? Certainly an accomplished economist. He was the head of the Bank of Canada, but also the Bank of England, and helped transition really the globe financially after that financial crisis in 2008, but also helped hold Britain's hand through Brexit. But he is untested politically. And really, it was Justin Trudeau on his way out that set the tone for the existential threat that faces Canada.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JUSTIN TRUDEAU, CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER: Listen. And make no mistake. This is a nation-defining moment. Democracy is not a given. Freedom is not a given. Even Canada is not a given.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NEWTON: Think about that. They've done a good job here in Canada, all politicians have, of getting Canadians ready for the fight to come. Something that's probably not evident right now in the United States. And that's an issue. They think that will be the winning challenge to the United States, that Canadians are ready to fight.

Sara, I want to tell you, all the hockey references, Mark Carney comes by it honestly. He was a goalie in his days at Harvard. It is elbows up. I'm not going to explain that. Mike Myers did it best on Saturday Night Live. Anybody who wants to know what that means, you can head to Mike Myers.

SIDNER: Paula Newton, really appreciate all of the Canadian sayings. We will go look them up. Appreciate you.

Kate?

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: And the viewpoint from Capitol Hill, let's get reaction from there. Joining us right now is Republican Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis of New York, a member of House Republican leadership.

It's good to see you, Congresswoman. Thank you for being here. Hearing that from now, the new incoming leader of Canada, what's your response to the new leader?

[07:35:02]

REP. NICOLE MALLIOTAKIS (R-NY): Well, you know, it seems they're doing a little switcheroo like we saw happening in the United States. They're taking out the prime minister, replacing him, and we'll see what happens in the upcoming election. Obviously, there's a reason why they're doing this switch. It seems that Justin Trudeau is pulling way behind the conservative candidate, and more or less, we will have an election. They will have an election in October or before, and we'll see what happens.

But I think probably the Canadians are not very thrilled right now with their leadership. And look, I think the relationship between the United States and Canada is incredibly important, particularly when it comes from a border security perspective and an energy perspective. It's important that whoever the next leader is, it's somebody that President Trump can and will work with. And I think that this change is probably welcome for us and for Canadians as well.

BOLDUAN: Given the uncertainty that President Trump's tariff approach is creating and given that tariffs often prove inflationary, Donald Trump was asked over the weekend about a possible recession happening this year. He was not 100% confident that he could stave off a recession in 2025. If that is the risk that he is running with this kind of whiplash and environment of business uncertainty while prices go up, is that a risk you think is worth it?

MALLIOTAKIS: Well, there's been talk about a recession for well over the past year. This is something that has been a threat going back to the Biden administration. We were anticipating some type of recession and slow -- slow growth. Why? Because of a lot of the inflationary spending, a lot of the dismantling of energy policy in this country that really drove up the costs of doing business.

I think there's -- and also the regulations that the Biden administration have put in place. So I think that we have a real opportunity here to stop the recession that was supposed to be coming for the past year. And I think the most important thing right now is that we look at the economy.

BOLDUAN: Right, but Congressman, the recession they're talking about now would be one induced by the actions of this president, not the past.

MALLIOTAKIS: Yeah, I know. But you can't -- you can't disregard the damage of the by the ministration did to our economy with their regulations, with their inflationary spending, with the interest rates that have skyrocketed because of his policies. You can't negate that.

What we're trying to do right now is right-size government bureaucracy. We're trying to extend the tax cut in JOBS Act, which is the reason probably why we never had the recession that was being predicted. But now those provisions are expiring. Some have already. We have to make sure that we extend that. I think all those things could prevent any type of slow slowness in our economy. And you got to remember, President Trump has already brought in two trillion dollars in private investment.

Every other week, he's only been in office for a month. Every other week, we're hearing about a new company that is repatriating, manufacturing or expanding operations here in the United States, whether it's a foreign entity or a domestic company like Apple. And so I think that there's -- we can certainly prevent this and we should.

And we should keep an eye on those tariffs to make sure that doesn't have a negative effect. But there are a lot of other pieces to this. Oil prices are coming down. Inflation is coming down. And those are very important indicators as well.

BOLDUAN: Target and Best Buy said last week that prices are going up in direct relation to the tariffs. Is that a good thing for your constituents on Staten Island and beyond?

MALLIOTAKIS: I know, but the tariffs -- the tariffs haven't even gone into effect. They've been postponed. So --

BOLDUAN: Tariffs have gone into effect for China and others.

MALLIOTAKIS: That aren't even in effect.

BOLDUAN: No, some of the tariffs have gone into effect. Yes.

MALLIOTAKIS: Well, but not the ones in Mexico and Canada and the tariffs in China. They were in effect over the last four years.

BOLDUAN: Donald Trump is increasing tariffs on China.

MALLIOTAKIS: President Biden actually kept an increased tariffs on China. OK, but Trump came in, a slight change increase there. But these are tariffs that have been in place all through the Biden administration. It was a 50% tariff that Joe Biden kept in place. Plus an additional 20, I think, 25% on particular sectors, particularly energy that he had put in place.

So, I mean, you want to blame President Trump for he's been there for one month. He never imposed those tariffs that he said he would on Mexico and Canada. In fact, he's getting very good outcomes and responses. So much so that the Prime Minister of Canada is being driven out by his own party.

But what I would say is that we're getting the border secure. We're getting the fentanyl under control. We're seeing troops from other countries being put at the border to help with security.

Canada implemented and pointed the drug cartels as state sponsors of terrorism. This is all very important to the future of this country. Our young people who are being poisoned by fentanyl, we need them to be productive and contribute to our economy, not -- not stoned and perhaps killed because of fentanyl that's coming in over our border.

[07:40:17]

BOLDUAN: Yeah. Very immediately this week, the government is facing a deadline for a government shutdown. Just on Saturday, the House Speaker unveiled a stopgap measure in order to keep the government funded through the rest of the fiscal year. Your assistant whip, you're on the vote counting team, which means you've got the tough job of trying to wrangle up the votes. Do you have the votes to pass this with only Republicans?

MALLIOTAKIS: I think we will have the votes. And let me be clear, this is a continuing resolution, which means that we're basically extending the funding that everyone voted for back in December. So there's no reason why the Democrats should not join us and make this bipartisan.

There's no additional partisan policy that has been put in this bill. As a matter of fact, there's only positive increases in spending. We're talking about our veterans health programs, increasing military pay for our young men and women who put their lives on the line.

Increasing spending for the WIC program, Women and Children Nutritional and Food Program. Those are things that everyone should be able to support. So I imagine that this bill will be able to pass with bipartisan support. That would be my prediction at this moment.

And let's not forget the additional defense money that's going in --

BOLDUAN: What are you going to need? Bipartisan support. That's the question.

MALLIOTAKIS: -- for building American naval ships. I don't know -- well, we'll need bipartisan support in the Senate for sure, because you need seven Democrat votes. It has to pass with 60 votes in the Senate. So it will have to pass with bipartisan support. And if it doesn't, then the Democrats, quite frankly, own this shutdown.

But if you voted for it in December, there's no reason why you should not vote for it today. It is basically -- it is -- what they voted for under Joe Biden with minor -- minor changes. And some of those I've explained to you, the shipbuilding that is incredibly important for America. We are so behind China when it comes to our naval ships and submarines. That is a must. And all those other programs for veterans and women and children. Why would anybody vote against it?

BOLDUAN: Huge week when it comes to this. Let us see. You've got a big job ahead of you this week. Congresswoman, thank you very much for coming in. Appreciate your time.

Sara?

SIDNER: All right. In just hours, Secretary of State Marco Rubio will arrive in Saudi Arabia to begin peace talks with Ukraine. The last time the two were in the same room, things went off the rails.

And as unusual sight in the aftermath of a tropical cyclone in Australia, what a family spotted in those floodwaters there.

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[07:48:02]

BOLDUAN: So this morning, wind energy workers are on edge after President Trump took action to pull back on the once booming industry. The President signed an executive order on his first day in office this term, bringing federal wind projects to a halt. And with that, spurring and sparking a fear of what could come next.

CNN's Matt Egan has new reporting on this and he's joining us now. Matt, what are you hearing?

MATT EGAN, CNN REPORTER: Well, Kate, look, it's a gloomy time in the wind business. It was kind of slumping before the election, but it's been effectively paralyzed by actions taken by the Trump administration. Remember that day one blitz of executive actions?

BOLDUAN: Yeah.

EGAN: It included one that was basically a crackdown on the wind industry. Among other things, one of these executive orders temporarily halted offshore wind lease sales in federal waters. It paused approvals, permits and loans. And it also ordered this comprehensive review of existing leases.

Plus, there's just a lot of uncertainty right now over the fate of key tax credits in President Biden's signature climate law. And so when you put that together, the industry has just been slammed. We've seen a number of developers take massive write downs. Projects have been delayed. Workers have been laid off.

And some people in the industry that I'm talking to, they're really worried about what's going to happen next. I talked to one employee who said, it just feels like at any moment the rug can be pulled out from beneath them. He said, the president has a vendetta against wind.

The industry is being singled out. And this was a sentiment that was really echoed by a number of different people that I talked to in the industry, including one executive who's got two little kids. And he said he feels like he's going to have to change careers because of all of the pressure on wind right now.

We've reached out to the White House, have not heard back, but President Trump has not been shy about what he feels about wind. Take a listen to what he said in January about this industry.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), U.S. PRESIDENT: You can talk about windmills. They litter our country. They're littered all over our country, like dropping paper, like dropping garbage in a field. And that's what happens to them because in a period of time, they turn to garbage. Most expensive energy ever. They only work if you get subsidy.

[07:50:16]

The only people that want them are the people that are getting rich off windmills, getting massive subsidies from the U.S. government.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

EGAN: Now, supporters of the wind industry, they say, look, it's not perfect, but it has created a lot of jobs. It's generated a lot of tax revenue. And that at the end of the day, it could actually help President Trump achieve his ambitions of American energy dominance.

BOLDUAN: What kind of a jobs impact, let's say like this industry folds. I mean, like what kind of jobs impact are we looking at here?

EGAN: Huge, Kate, this is a major employer. When you look across all of electric power generation, it's second only behind solar in terms of the number of people who work there, just over 131,000 people. That's more than coal and nuclear combined.

And some of these jobs have been growing rapidly. Just last summer, "Axios" said that America's hottest job was wind turbine service technician. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has said that the number of jobs in terms of wind turbine technicians is going to skyrocket by 60% through 2033.

These are good paying jobs too. But now there's a lot of question over how much growth this is actually going to happen, because I think more than perhaps any other industry, wind has emerged as the biggest loser from this election.

BOLDUAN: So stand by to stand by and see how it continues.

Matt, thank you so much. Super interesting look at this.

EGAN: Thank you, Kate.

BOLDUAN: Sara?

SIDNER: All right, right now, Secretary of State, Marco Rubio is on his way to Saudi Arabia to meet with Ukrainian officials and try to hash out a way to end the war with Russia.

This critical meeting comes less than two weeks after the Oval Office blow up between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

And joining us now, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for European and NATO Policy, Jim Townsend. Also with us this morning, CNN Global Affairs Analyst, Kim Dozier. Thank you both for being here.

Look, Jim, to you first. After this nasty public dressing down that Zelenskyy got from Trump and Vance in the Oval Office, with Marco Rubio sort of sitting there watching it like a tennis match, what do you expect from the talks today in Saudi Arabia?

JIM TOWNSEND, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR EUROPEAN & NATO POLICY: Well, I think the talks today, it's going to be a big arm-twisting time for the Ukraine delegation. Yermak is going to be there, you know, Rubio's counterpart. And this is the time for maximum pressure on Ukraine saying, look, if you want to -- if you want to get rid of this pause on assistance, you're going to have to do some things that are painful and they're going to go through a list of what those things are.

SIDNER: The U.S. has already taken away intelligence sharing, it's taken away some funding from Ukraine. I mean, I guess the question is what, Kimberly, will Zelenskyy be asked to do for those things to be restored that he already -- that he already had? It's not like he's asking for more, he's trying to get back what was already in place.

KIM DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, Trump administration officials have said the purpose of this meeting, which will start in Jeddah, is to find out what Ukraine is willing to concede, what are Ukraine's terms for reaching a ceasefire and then going on to a peace deal. The Russians are not expected to attend this week and President Vladimir Zelenskyy also isn't going to attend. He's going to have meetings with the Saudis in Riyadh and then his team is flying on to Jeddah to hopefully convince Secretary Rubio, National Security Advisor Waltz and others that they're willing to sign the minerals deal and also willing to make some concessions to stop the fighting. SIDNER: Jim, I'm just curious when you look at this as a whole with Europe trying to step in in ways that it has not done before, they're kind of congealing in ways and looking at the United States and saying, we don't know if we can trust them to have our backs. Is the U.S. making itself irrelevant in some ways here?

TOWNSEND: Well, in some ways, yes. And in Europe right now, they are certainly looking on the United States as someone that can't be trusted. And if they can't be trusted, then they're irrelevant in terms of European security.

So what we're seeing the European nations doing now is they're trying to organize themselves to stand on their own feet and might not be linked so closely with the United States as has been the case in the past. So increasingly, we're taking ourselves out of that equation for the Europeans as they're looking to do it all themselves and into the future.

SIDNER: We were hearing about Elon Musk's Starlink, that that may be something that they were no longer going to be sharing the satellite space with Ukraine. Kim, what kind of damage does this do? We're also hearing from Poland that they may be looking for alternatives, again, sort of pushing aside the United States with this threat.

[07:55:12]

DOZIER: Well, we're already seeing the damage on the ground from the stoppage of U.S. intelligence sharing, especially the tactical intelligence that told them where the Russian troops were on the ground and how they were moving. We're seeing Russian troops surround Ukrainian troops in the Kursk area of Russia, trying to drive them out so that the Ukrainians have nothing to trade with.

Starlink, now Elon Musk did later tweet that while he disagreed with the Ukrainian position, he wasn't going to be turning the services off. But across Europe, they are, as Jim said, losing confidence in the U.S. as a guarantor of their security, but they need time to turn on weapons manufacturing lines and also to come up with an alternative to Starlink. I mean, Starlink works because of the small satellites in orbit. It's going to take a while to have some sort of matching service with new satellites in orbit that would compete with Musk's system.

SIDNER: Jim, as Russia is watching all this, and giddy, frankly, we've heard from the foreign ministry watching this and they can't believe their ears in a good way for them, what's Russia's incentive to do anything to stop this war?

TOWNSEND: Well, that's exactly the right question. And that's the problem that Trump has right now is he can twist Zelenskyy's arm, he can pause the assistance. And of course, the Russians are using this pause, as you point out, as Kim discussed, they're using this pause to make advances on the battlefield.

So for Putin, he feels everything is going in his way, one way or another, he's going to get an agreement that's probably going to be in his favor, or if that doesn't work out, he's going to win on the battlefield. So for Putin, there's not a lot of motivation for him to do anything more than what he's already doing, which is continuing to grind away at Ukraine.

SIDNER: And the insane thing is that it was Putin that started this war in the first place. Jim Townsend and Kim Dozier, thank you both so much. I really appreciate your expertise on this.

All right, New York's governor has declared a state of emergency and issued an immediate burn ban for Long Island and New York City as fire crews battle brush fires that broke out over the weekend. Those pictures are insane. Gusty winds of over 40 miles per hour cause the fires to spread rapidly across Suffolk County. Arson investigators are still working to determine the cause of the fire.

CNN's Derek Van Dam is following this from the weather center with his new nifty graphics package there. Give us some sense of what the wind means to all this, because these pictures from the weekend were really remarkable. It looked like California, not Long Island.

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yeah, undoubtedly, Sara. In fact, the memories of the L.A. wildfires are still ingrained front and center in our brains right now. So this is certainly alarming to see in Suffolk County, Long Island, when this wall of smoke engulfed entire neighborhoods.

It was imperative that the governor and residents here and the firefighting crews, over 80 agencies responding to these brush fires, were proactive. So that fire ban, the state of emergency, was so incredibly important to get ahead of this, considering what's happened in Los Angeles just two months ago.

The good news here is that the winds have died down. The storm system responsible for picking up the winds, exiting off the East Coast. There's no rain right now. We would love rain, but of course, the fires there have now been largely extinguished.

The rain is really located across the Southeast. That's a low-pressure system moving across Georgia. These storms could become strong to severe across Central Florida, so something we're keeping a very close eye on. Sara, there's a storm, but we're also monitoring another one on the West Coast now.

SIDNER: All right, so the West Coast, right, supposed to get some rain this week. What can you tell us about the situation there? As you're saying, there's a possibility of fire as well there.

VAN DAM: Right, they're so desperate for rain right now across much of the Southwest, across the Great Basin. You can see extreme drought conditions over this region. Good news, big storm system that's going to come through this entire week, bring snow to the mountains, rain to the valleys and the coastal areas.

It's all thanks to this little swirl in the cloud cover you see, but this is going to combine with a secondary storm system and potentially bring us a multi-day severe weather setup that will break out across the nation's midsection Thursday, Friday, and into Saturday. So these are the two locations we are monitoring for the potential of severe storms. That includes tornadoes, strong winds, and large hail again towards Friday and Saturday.

Sara.

SIDNER: Derek Van Dam, thank you so much. Appreciate you.

A new hour of CNN News Central starts right now.

[08:00:05]

BOLDUAN: Who knows, President Trump, in new comments overnight, not ruling out --