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Trump Vows 25 Percent Tariff on All Cars and Parts Imported into the U.S.; White House to Withdraw Stefanik's Nomination as U.N. Ambassador; Hearing on Lawsuit Over Trump Administration's Use of Signal App Soon. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired March 27, 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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[14:01:10]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Trade war escalation. President Trump announcing new tariffs on cars and car parts to take effect next week, and prices are expected to jump. How much more you'll have to pay and when? Plus, concerns about defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's judgment at the Pentagon. Beyond that Signal texting scandal, a hearing on that controversy and whether officials broke government records laws is set for this afternoon.

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": And a tourist submarine sinks off the coast of Egypt, six people are confirmed dead. We're going to tell you what we're learning about who was on board and who made it out alive. We're following these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to "CNN News Central."

Well, world leaders are lashing out and experts are warning of serious sticker shock after President Trump vowed a 25 percent tariff on all imported vehicles. It is significant escalation of his global trade war, and it means you could be paying thousands of dollars more for a car in the coming weeks. Now, the new policy is set to take effect next Thursday, with levies on auto parts to hit, Trump says, no later than May 3rd.

KEILAR: The White House insists the move is meant to steer manufacturing back to the U.S., but it's getting big pushback from some of America's strongest trade partners, including Canada and the E.U. Today, Trump threatened additional large-scale tariffs on both of them if, he says, they team up to "do economic harm to the U.S." Let's turn now to CNN's Vanessa Yurkevich. So Vanessa, break this down for us. How much is this going to cost Americans?

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT Yeah, this is going to impact every single car maker and every single American who is looking to buy a car in the near future. Prices are going to go up. The cost to produce a vehicle, if these tariffs take effect, which they are looking like they're going to on April 3rd, it could cost producers $3,500 to $1,200 more per vehicle.

And then that gets translated down to the consumer. Some estimates say that these tariffs could cost anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000 more per vehicle, but look at the White House's information right there. They're putting this out. They're saying a car manufactured in the United States, but that uses foreign parts will cost about $5,000 more. And that's problematic because there were 10.2 million cars produced in the United States last year. Those cars, 50 percent of them were made with foreign parts. And so, those cars are going to be taxed.

Now, let's look at the car companies that are going to be impacted. There's just so many. It's practically all of them. You have General Motors, Fords, Stellantis, those are the U.S. companies, and then other companies like Honda and Hyundai. These are companies that have plants here in the U.S. but that doesn't mean they're going to be exempt because all of those companies on your screen get parts from Canada and Mexico, and those are going to be taxed under this new tariff plan.

JIMENEZ: The United Auto Workers Union is actually supporting the tariffs. Do we know why?

YURKEVICH: Yeah. This is really interesting because the United Auto Workers Union was at odds with President Trump during the election, but now they're really in lockstep with his plan for tariffs. Here's what they're saying. This is what Shawn Fain, the president of the UAW is saying.

He says, we applaud the Trump administration for stepping up to end the free trade disaster that has devastated working-class communities for decades. Ending the race to the bottom in the auto industry starts with fixing our broken trade deals, and the Trump administration has made history with today's actions.

Ultimately, the UAW wants more members and to get more members, you need more jobs in the auto industry. The big question guys though, is whether or not companies are really going to increase production here in the U.S.

[14:05:00]

The question really remains if these tariffs are going to go into effect for a couple weeks, a couple days, a couple months. These auto manufacturers want to know that these tariffs are going to be around for a while, so that they can plan for an investment in the future. Otherwise, they may just say, forget it, we'll wait and see what happens. Because it's a very big financial investment and time to stand these plants up in order to meet the demands that the Trump administration is asking for.

KEILAR: All right, Vanessa, thank you so much for that. Canada's cabinet on U.S. relations is meeting today to consider its trade options as the fallout grows over President Trump's newly announced tariffs and the Premier of Ontario is vowing to fight back.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DOUG FORD, ONTARIO PREMIER: That $65 billion of tariffs that we have on the table that we can launch towards the U.S., we have to run through every tariff and minimize the pain for Canadians, maximize the pain for Americans. And I feel terrible for the Americans, but it's one person, that's President Trump that's creating this chaos.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Joining us now is Yvan Baker, a member of the Canadian Parliament. Sir, thank you so much for being with us. How do you do that, maximizing pain for Americans, and not Canadians? I mean, part of the design of all of this is that it's sort of mutually unbeneficial.

YVAN BAKER, CANADIAN MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT: That's right. So, the tariff, the countermeasures that we've put in place in response to Donald Trump's unprovoked tariffs are meant to affect American industries, American businesses in a way that imposes a cost. And we don't like to do this. We don't want to do this. Americans are our friends. We want them to be our partners. We trade in a way that's been beneficial to both countries for decades. But we have to do this to defend our sovereignty and to defend our economy.

And the way you do that is we've imposed tariffs on a range of goods, orange juice, certain types of other food, and a number of other goods that come, liquor, other products that come from the United States that Canadians buy a whole lot of. And that's how you do it, because American businesses now won't get that. Canadian business still will get a lot less. And that'll ultimately hurt American businesses. We hope that American businesses and those American workers who are affected by that contact Donald Trump, tell Donald Trump to stop this because it's hurting Americans and it's hurting Canadians at the same time.

KEILAR: Do you think economically Canadians are willing to weather more than Americans are?

BAKER: Well, look, I'll say this, Canada is a smaller country by population and economically than the United States. But Canadians are just as proud of our country as your American viewers are of yours, and we're just as prepared to do what it takes to protect it. Brianna, I'm in the middle of an election campaign as we speak here in Canada, where we'll elect a new national government. And I'm knocking on doors every day and every single door I knock on, the first subject is Donald Trump and his tariffs and his threats to annex Canada, and to a person, every single Canadian I've spoken to has said, we're going to do whatever it takes.

We're strong, we're united, we're going to stick together, and we're willing to suffer if necessary certain economic consequences to defend our country and defend our economy. We don't want to do that. And I think we want this to stop because let's be frank, Brianna, this is hurting Canadians, but it's also hurting Americans, as you explained in your introductory piece. The only way this is going to stop is if the American people demand that Donald Trump stop this.

So, our counter tariffs are only in response. They're designed to make sure that the Americans know that it's hurting us as well. And I would ask your American viewers, contact your Congressmen and Congresswomen, your Senator and Donald Trump, and tell them, this is hurting everybody. Let's go back to the wonderful trading and security partnership that we used to have between Canada and the United States.

KEILAR: What will the immediate impact of 25 percent auto tariffs be in Canada, especially Ontario where you are?

BAKER: Well, it'll be devastating. It'll be devastating for Canadian industry, for Canadian workers. We will -- what will ultimately happen is this will raise the cost of a car in the United States, which means I suspect that Americans will buy fewer cars or defer those purchases, and that'll mean less business for both our countries. But it's really, really important to remember that this will affect American workers as well, because a typical car that's sold in the United States has Canadian parts or Mexican parts, but in the case of those cars, there's a lot of American workers who are making components to that car, just like there are Canadians.

So if the Canadian parts become more expensive because of Donald Trump's tariff, that's something that's going to make American cars, cars sold in the United States less competitive and that's going to hurt American workers too. So I think we have to remember, this is not just going to be additional cost for American consumers because everything's going to go up, this is basically -- this is basically -- Donald Trump's tariffs are basically the largest tax hike on Americans in a generation.

It is literally economic suicide for the United States to be doing this. But ultimately, what it's also going to affect not only consumers, but American workers whose businesses are going to suffer.

[14:10:00]

And I would urge your American viewers to check out your 401(k)s because it's not doing good for the stock market either. So it's hurting Americans, it's hurting Canadians, and it's got to stop. But Americans need to tell Donald Trump that they want it to stop.

KEILAR: He's threatening higher tariffs for Canada and E.U. if they team up to do economic harm on the U.S. How are you seeing that threat? And what do you think of this early test of how your new prime minister is doing?

BAKER: Well, I think our new Prime Minister, Mark Carney has done an excellent job. He's a former central banker here in Canada, and he was also governor of the Bank of England, the central bank there, and led both countries through economic crises. So he's the right person for the job, particularly at this time, given his economic background and his leadership skills. But I think he has done very well.

What he has basically said is, look, we're going to defend our country. We're never going to become the 51st state, and we're going to do what it takes to defend our country and our sovereignty. We're also going to impose countermeasures that, again, are going to maximize the impact on Americans and minimize the impact on Canadians. And what he said is, look, we're going to have to become less dependent on the United States because we need to trade with people, with countries rather that we can trust.

And so, we're reaching out to the Europeans, we're reaching out to other allies for both economic partnerships and other partnerships because we need to protect our economy and our welfare. And the only reason we're reaching out to the Europeans to build closer alliances is because Donald Trump has decided to threaten annexation of Canada and to impose this economic hardship on Canadians.

So I think if Donald Trump stops, we can keep trading together and find the trading relationship that works for Americans and for Canadians. But if he's going to continue to attack our sovereignty and our economy, then we're going to look for -- to make friendships and partnerships with other countries to protect our country.

KEILAR: MP Yvan Baker, thank you for taking the time to be with us this afternoon. We appreciate it.

BAKER: Thank you, Brianna.

KEILAR: And let's talk now about how this is all playing out for Americans. We have CNN Chief Data Analyst, Harry Enten here to break down the numbers for us.

JIMENEZ: Harry, good to see you. Can you just give us a sense of how -- how are people feeling about these tariffs?

HARRY ENTEN, CNN CHIEF DATA ANALYST: Boris, you've really changed. Let me just -- Oh, wait a minute. It's Omar. My bad, my bad.

(LAUGH)

JIMENEZ: I got -- I got a little more hair on top of my head, a little less facial here. So very -- it's completely switched up.

ENTEN: It's completely switched up. A little confusing to me, but I'll get through it. Look, let's take a look here. Americans are really interested in this topic, and we can see this through the Google searches this month. Look at this. Compared to last year, Google searches for tariffs up 3,233 percent. That is a record high for Google searches for tariffs going all the way back since Google started tracking this back in 2004.

And more than that, Google searches for tariffs this month are higher than searches for J.D. Vance, who of course is the Vice President of the United States of America. Now, why? Why are Americans so interested in tariffs? Are they for them or against them? Well, let's take a look here.

Opposition, Americans oppose tariffs on Canada. Look at this, 64 percent of Americans oppose tariffs on Canada. How about Mexico? 59 percent. So Americans are really interested in this topic, which I'm not quite sure I ever could believe that Americans could be interested in tariffs, and they are really opposed to them.

KEILAR: And what about how Trump is handling all of this? ENTEN: Yeah, OK. So you see it here, opposition to tariffs. But here's where I think it is really interesting. Trump and tariffs, he is prioritizing -- 68 percent of Americans believe he is prioritizing tariffs. But look, he should prioritize, just 30 percent of Americans believe he should prioritize tariffs. They want him prioritizing the economy. They want him prioritizing inflation. They don't want him prioritizing tariffs. Yet, that is exactly what he is doing.

So on this particular issue, Donald Trump is, simply put, not with the American public. They oppose the tariffs and yet they believe Donald Trump is going ahead with them. And that is a big reason why we've seen Donald Trump's overall approval rating take a pretty big dip over the last two months and change.

JIMENEZ: So Americans clearly concerned about being directly hit by these tariffs. Do you have any numbers on that front? What have you seen?

ENTEN: Yeah, this again, one of the big arguments for tariffs is that they help the American worker, right? So this was a question that got asked. U.S. workers come out ahead with tariffs. Look at the low percentage who agree with that, just 31 percent of Americans agree with that. Among independents, it's just 33 percent. Disagree with it, that American workers come out ahead with tariffs, 49 percent, a near majority and very clearly, what is that? That's 18 points, doing the quick math in my head, more who disagree than agree with the idea that tariffs allow the U.S. worker to come out ahead.

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So on all the different angles that we could possibly cover, I just don't see how this is a political winner for Donald Trump.

JIMENEZ: Harry Enten, your time is valuable. Thanks for spending it with us. Good to see you, man.

ENTEN: Thank you, Omar, Boris, or whatever you're called now.

(LAUGH)

JIMENEZ: One of the two, it doesn't matter.

ENTEN: One of the --

JIMENEZ: Whatever -- for you, you could just -- whatever you need, Harry.

ENTEN: Thank you, my friend.

JIMENEZ: See you later.

ENTEN: See you.

JIMENEZ: All right, still to come. New CNN reporting, growing doubts inside the Pentagon about Defense Secretary Pete Seth's judgment and leadership after his role in the Signal group chat scandal. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:20:13]

JIMENEZ: We want to bring you back with some breaking news. Senate Foreign Relations Chairman, Jim Risch says he's been notified that Congresswoman Elise Stefanik's nomination to be the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations will be withdrawn by the White House.

KEILAR: CNN's Manu Raju is with us now. This is big news, Manu. Do we know why Elise Stefanik's nomination is being withdrawn?

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, in fact, Donald Trump just confirmed this, putting out a post on social media, citing the very tight Republican majority. And this is the reason why her nomination for this critical position has really languished for months, is because of the razor-thin Republican majority. Remember, the majority right now is at 218 to 213. There are two vacant Democratic seats right now. We assume the Democrats could fill those seats.

If she were to step aside, that would make it 217 to 215. That means in a special election, if it were to go the Democrat's way, perhaps we could have a deadlock House Republican majority, essentially making -- giving them absolutely no margin for error. And even though Elise Stefanik's district is heavily Republican, Donald Trump carried that pretty easily in his past election, this is an electorate that is very uneasy. There's a lot of unrest among voters.

What does that mean for a race? A special election that could determine the next majority in the House that could narrow the Republican majority potentially, which is one big reason why this nomination is now being pulled, no doubt a blow to Elise Stefanik. She gave up a leadership position in the House, GOP, in order to get this position. She was one of the first people nominated out of the gates for a senior-level -- Trump-level (ph) position. But now, she'll stay in the House because of the concerns about the tightness of the Republican majority and that a vacancy could create headaches to advancing the Republican agenda. Guys?

KEILAR: All right. Manu Raja, we know that you'll stay on this, really interesting. Less than two hours from now, the Trump administration's use of a Signal group chat to talk about detailed attack plans in Yemen is going to face scrutiny in federal court. That is the expectation here. The administration being accused of violating Federal Recordkeeping Laws by using that texting app that can be set up to automatically delete messages and that we understand was set to delete after one week at least one point in the conversation.

JIMENEZ: Yeah. And meanwhile, we also have new CNN reporting on how Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is facing growing concerns about his leadership from within the Pentagon and in wider national security circles. I want to bring in CNN National Security Correspondent Natasha Bertrand and CNN Crime and Justice Correspondent Katelyn Polantz as well.

So Natasha, let's start with that latest point there. What more are you learning about the doubts concerning Hegseth's job performance?

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, well, current and former officials that we spoke to, and we should note that many of these are career officials. They are not necessarily political kind of holdovers from the previous administration. They said that this latest Signal chat fiasco really just underscores Hegseth's inexperience and overall carelessness when it comes to handling this kind of information.

And in fact, they really emphasized the point here that the most egregious behavior that we saw in this Signal group chat, according to these officials, did come from Pete Hegseth because he was sharing such detailed information about an impending military operation that could have really put service members at risk here. So while Mike Waltz did set up this group chat to try to get information from other principals here about points of contact, for example, it was really Pete Hegseth that went that one step further and actually shared information about timing of air strikes, about the kinds of aircraft that was going to be used, the weapons platforms.

And that really underscores a lot of concerns that officials at the department have about his leadership writ large. He has really had a rocky couple of months here starting out as SecDef. I mean, a number of his initiatives have been scaled back or rescinded altogether, including that massive purge of DEI from across the Department of Defense websites. That is now being reviewed because they went way too far with that. And of course, the military operation at the southern border and the military deportations, I mean Guantanamo Bay, where Pete Hegseth said would be the perfect place to have as many as 30,000 migrants held at any one time, now stands basically empty. Because DHS is saying, look, we don't need all of these military flights. We don't need all of these beds at Gitmo to hold these people.

KEILAR: And the records part of this that, you're supposed to preserve records in an administration, Katelyn. And I mean, even if you wanted to preserve these, it would be taking a screen grab which would actually be less secure. How would you even preserve this? Tell us more about this upcoming emergency hearing because I know you just got an update.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. Well, at least one agency, the Treasury Department, they say they are getting screen grabs of this Signal chat as of today and they are making sure that they are preserving them.

[14:25:00]

But Natasha has been so focused on the classified aspect of this, the attack plans. In court, the thing that matters is the use of Signal. That's the problem, at least for American Oversight, which is the group that brought this lawsuit. They want the judge today to -- in an emergency ruling, they want the judge to step in and tell the government to stop the destruction of any messages using Signal. It's private, it's encrypted, it's auto deleting. All of those, this group alleges, is a problem under the Federal Records Preservation Laws. We're supposed to keep federal records around in agencies from the top down because you need them, not just for the public, but for potential investigations if they would be had later. And then of course, for history, for the archives.

So this hearing at four o'clock, Judge Jeb Boasberg is going to hold this hearing. And the Justice Department just sent in two sworn declarations from the lawyers at Treasury and from the lawyers at the Defense Department. The Defense Department says, well, we are requesting copies from the secretary's Comms Department of that Signal chat, so we're trying to get them. The Treasury says we have them, we have them from Secretary Scott Bessent, and they are all existing messages starting with that one from Mike Waltz around 4:00 p.m. So that's where things stand going into this hearing.

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: That they have not deleted? That's really interesting. And then just tell us a little bit about Boasberg, you mentioned. People will recognize that name.

POLANTZ: They will. He has been in the news because Donald Trump has been attacking him, Elon Musk has been attacking him. He's the trial level judge that is the Chief of the D.C. District Court who was overseeing this case about Venezuelan migrants. He was the one that told the administration, turn the planes around. And he keeps asking questions about what happened the day that two planes took migrants out of the country while he was holding a hearing.

Now Boasberg, he's a very even-keeled guy, so it's unclear if this is going to be a fiery hearing at 4:00 p.m. But, he is someone that has a lot of experience in intelligence matters. He previously presided over the Foreign Intelligence Court. So what he wants here could be facts, just like he's been asking for in the Venezuelan migrants' case. And so that puts the court right in the middle of this discussion over the Signal chat.

JIMENEZ: Katelyn Polantz, Natasha Bertrand, really appreciate you being here. Thanks for the reporting. I want to keep the conversation going and bring in CNN Contributor John Dean because he served as White House Counsel for President Richard Nixon. John, you know very well how key it is to keep track of government communications as you helped in the investigation against then President Nixon.

How serious is it that these messages in the Signal chat were set to auto-delete? And why is it important to adhere to records laws? We know at least one person had set the deletion to happen in a week.

JOHN DEAN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR AND FORMER NIXON WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL: Well, of course, I was in a pre-digital administration.

JIMENEZ: Signal wasn't around back then?

DEAN: But there was still discipline for top secret. (LAUGH)

DEAN: No. But anyway, the Records Law came in post-Watergate, and Nixon was the last president to get all of his own papers. Actually, Carter was because it was Reagan who the new law first applied to. So, the Records Act is very, very serious. It was Donald Trump's refusal to turn over records that got him in trouble with the secret documents that he had taken from the White House. So this is a serious law.

And what this court, or what American Oversight is asking for from this judge is a temporary restraining order, even before they get to the question of a preliminary injunction to stop the use of Signal and to preserve the records. Now, it appears that the records are being preserved. I don't know how widespread Signal is used in the government. I suspect not widespread because most legitimate operations understand these are disappearing records and they defy the Records Act. So I think that's the issue at the front of this case.

KEILAR: And John, you've heard some of these attacks of Judge Boasberg. It's kind of amazing. He also just happened to get this case as well. Trump calling it disgraceful, he was assigned to this records case. What do you make of these targeted attacks against him?

DEAN: Well, I think it's a shame. He is a good judge. He was first appointed to the bench by George Bush. So he's not a Democratic activist by any stretch of the imagination. He was, to me, ironically, he was Kavanaugh -- Justice Kavanaugh's roommate in law school at Yale. So, he' is well respected in Washington. He is the Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia. So he's a very senior judge and he's very -- he's well versed in intelligence matters. He's well versed in operations of government. So he's a good judge on this question, and he will play it right down the middle, not withstanding Trump's constant beating --