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New Worries For Economy As WH Celebrates Trump's Time In Office; CNN Poll: 59 Percent Say Trump Has Made The Economy Worse; Sources: Trump Spoke To Auto CEOs Before Deciding To Ease Tariffs; CNN Poll: Most Say Congressional Doing Too Little To Check Trump's Power. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired April 29, 2025 - 13:00   ET

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

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[13:00:57]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Add to cart, a battle with Amazon. Why the White House just clashed with the retail giant.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: And on day 100, a milestone for this White House. President Trump's poll numbers are making history for all the wrong reasons. Across America, the numbers show that voters are increasingly angry and on one of his top issues, the economy, a growing majority say that Trump has made things worse.

Also, an alarming new study, an epidemic of heart disease linked to something you probably have in your kitchen right now. We're following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

KEILAR: On President Trump's 100th day in office, a celebration of the economy by the White House, but there's a problem. For American voters and for the president, new signs the economy is in trouble. The stock market on pace for its worst run in a president's first 100 days in 50 years.

Consumer confidence is plummeting, something that on its own could push the economy into a recession. Later today, the President will sign an executive order easing auto tariffs, tariffs that he put in place. And the day began with a distraction, an attack on an Amazon plan to possibly break out tariff costs for customers to see what the trade war is costing them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: This is a hostile and political act by Amazon. Why didn't Amazon do this when the Biden administration hiked inflation to the highest level in 40 years? And I would also add that it's not a surprise because as "Reuters" recently wrote, Amazon has partnered with a Chinese propaganda arm. I will not speak to the president's relationships with Jeff Bezos, but I will tell you that this is certainly a hostile and political action by Amazon.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Now, that plan was never ruled out by Amazon, but we're learning about a reported phone call to founder Jeff Bezos from the president. CNN's Alayna Treene is with us now live from the White House. Alayna, you have some new reporting on this call between Trump and Bezos. What are you learning?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: That's right. We were able to break the news that the President called Amazon founder Jeff Bezos this morning shortly after he was informed by a senior White House official, someone I spoke with, about the plan. So essentially, this story was first reported by Punchbowl News that Amazon was going to be soon displaying the cost of tariffs on its website next to the prices of certain products that they sell.

And this is something I was told that the President was very frustrated by, and so he called up Bezos himself, someone he's grown increasingly close with in recent months, to complain about it. And then later we saw -- well, one, we saw what you just played, which was White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt calling it a hostile political act.

But then also we saw Amazon put out a statement saying that they were just considering it for certain products, something called the Amazon haul site. It wasn't going to be on its main website. And then they sent another statement. I reached out and they sent me a newer statement saying, quote, "This was never approved and not going to happen." So clearly Amazon backing away from any plans or consideration of that.

Now, I do want to read to you as well what one of the senior officials told me about how the president was feeling about this potential move. They said, quote, "Of course he was pissed. Why should a multibillion- dollar company pass off costs to consumers?" So that was their, you know, vision of how the president was taking it. All of this, of course, coming as we're learning about new CNN polling, about how Americans are viewing the economy right now.

The Trump administration is well aware that a lot of people are concerned about the state of the economy and how tariffs are going to be impacting that. And so when Amazon had put out that they were potentially going to be putting on these tariff costs next to the prices of their products, not really sitting well with the president himself.

[13:05:03]

Brianna?

KEILAR: All right, Alayna Treene, thank you so much.

Let's go now to CNN's Vanessa Yurkevich. And Vanessa, we're learning more about the president potentially easing auto tariffs. What are you hearing?

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS & POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so I've been speaking to auto officials and sources for many, many weeks now. And of all the tariffs that they were concerned about, it was the tariffs on foreign car part imports. And we are learning from senior commerce officials that in the executive order that the president is expected to sign later, there may be some reimbursement for any company that's bringing in foreign car parts. The reimbursement would be small compared to the price of the tariff.

The tariff is still going into effect this Saturday on foreign car parts at 25%. But the reimbursement for any car that is produced here in the United States using foreign car parts would be about 3.75% in the first year. And then that would drop down to 2.5% the second year. And obviously that is to incentivize more production of cars here in the United States.

Also, if a car is made with 85% domestic car parts, so U.S. parts, that car would be exempt from these foreign car part tariffs. However, Brianna, the majority of cars that are made here in the USA are made with about 75% at a maximum domestic car parts. So that will likely not have a big impact.

Also worth noting in this executive order that we're expecting the president to sign is that a 25% tariff on foreign car part imports would not then be stacked with a 25% tariff on steel and aluminum and other additional tariffs. So it would just be that straight 25% tariff.

Now, we heard from General Motors and Ford and Stellantis, the big three U.S. automakers, who said that they are appreciative of the president's moves to sort of, in a way, finesse this situation around car parts. However, there's still a 25% tariff on foreign car parts coming into the country right now, and we know that that is going to have a sizable impact on car prices. And, of course, for consumers just wondering when this is all going to hit, we know that manufacturers have about enough inventory until June, Brianna.

But after that, that is when these tariffs are going to start affecting manufactured cars here in the United States, Brianna.

KEILAR: All right. Good to know that. Vanessa Yurkevich, thank you so much.

Boris?

SANCHEZ: Let's get some perspective from the former CEO and Chairman of TD Ameritrade, Joe Maglia. He's currently the Executive Advisor to the President and Chairman Emeritus of Athletics at Coastal Carolina University. Joe, thanks for being with us.

I want to ask you about Amazon and about these auto tariffs --

JOE MOGLIA, FORMER CEO & CHAIRMAN, TD AMERITRADE: Nice to see you, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Of course, but overall, 100 days in, how would you grade President Trump's handling of the economy? MOGLIA: Well, I don't think he's handled the economy very, very well. And I think all of us have a pretty good understanding that if the tariffs continue as is, there's a good chance we're going to have a recession. And there's a good chance we're going to have some more serious problems, assuming they continue as is.

I don't believe that's going to happen, though. I think the president -- I think the president's a narcissist, and he's a guy that wants to win, and he wants to be able to show that he's on top of everything that he's actually doing.

He also makes a big deal since 2016 that the success of the stock market has a lot to do with his own performance. He also brags about the fact that he's a deal guy. So my own personal perspective on this, there's certainly some strategy behind what he's trying to do with the tariffs. But I think for the most part, 80% of it I think is negotiating tools on his part.

So if he's able to get some of the things that he wants, he's going to claim, even if it's a little bit of a concession, he's going to claim each of those as wins. I don't see it -- he's a guy that wants to be in the spotlight, doing well, and winning.

So with that -- with that if that's the case, then I think when you look out a little longer term, I think you've got the productivity of AI, you've got potential deregulation, lower taxes, you've got accommodative Fed, and you've got an administration that is very business-oriented. So I think long term, we're OK, as long as he doesn't go crazy for too long a period of time. Near term, I think we need to be pretty cautious.

SANCHEZ: Sure. To your point about claiming victory over even modest concessions, the Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick, confirmed this deal with automakers to ease tariffs. He called it a major victory. I wonder how much domestic investment needs to be part of this deal for it to be actually considered a success.

MOGLIA: I think you would agree that the president and the administration in general, if they're parroting what the president wants them to say, the use of hyperbole is very, very real.

[13:10:01]

So this extraordinary opportunity for the automobile company a couple of minutes ago, you talked about they still have 25% tariffs. Now, is it a bit of a concession? Yes. Is it something that's going to totally satisfy the automobile makers? I don't think so.

So what kind of impact is that going to have over a long period of time? We will see. But as long as you have 25% tariffs on automobiles parts coming into our country, that's going to be higher prices for people in our country that are buying cars.

SANCHEZ: You mentioned automation and A.I. and some of what's in store the next 5, 10, 20 years. I do wonder how hard it might be to revive American manufacturing, given not only the disruption by A.I. and technology, but also what appears to be a cultural shift that this country has been through over the last 40 years. There's a new CNN poll that finds that 73% of Americans prefer office jobs over manufacturing work. So if the goal is to bring manufacturing work back, how challenging is that going to be?

MOGLIA: Well, number one, I think I'm agreeing with you totally on this. It's going to be very, very challenging. Number two, there are certain things we don't want to come to the United States because we can do them more cheaply and more efficiently someplace else. And that keeps our costs lower. So therefore, we're providing a better product and service at a more reasonable cost to our consumers. That's kind of what you want to be able to do.

Again, I go back to what I said before. I think these are the president has a valid argument when he talks about our being our intellectual property being taken advantage of and other countries having tariffs on us all along. I think he wants to make that more of an even playing field.

I think that's great, as long as these are negotiating tools to get everybody to the table so we have more of an equal playing field a little bit later on. But tariffs are only going to increase the prices to our consumers in this country. That's going to slow down the demand, slow down demand is going to have an impact on labor. That potentially leads to a recession. That's why I think he's got to pull a rabbit out of his hat sooner than later on this.

SANCHEZ: Do you think that pulling the rabbit out of the hat might be expedited if we saw more companies do what Amazon Hall apparently considered doing by showing shoppers how much they would be paying in tariffs on certain purchases? Would other companies consider it? Would you advise them to?

MOGLIA: Yeah, you know what, I would. So, for example, when I first heard this this morning, so I was aware what was going on all day and I heard the first part of your show. They -- here's my perspective on this. Bezos bought the Washington Post to talk about freedom of speech and personal rights and greater transparency. Every time we buy a product, you buy a car, you buy medicine, you buy a candy bar. It tells you all the ingredients inside. It tells you what your taxes are. It tells you everything. You have pretty good transparency.

And our government has encouraged, has wanted that to take place. Now, all of a sudden, prices are going up because of tariffs. But we're not supposed to explain that to the consumer that's actually buying the product. So if I'm buying a product and my price has gone up X percentage, whatever it might be, and a certain percent of that is taxes and a certain percent of something else, a certain percent of that is tariffs, I think I'd like to know that.

As a citizen of the United States, I think that's being transparent with us. That doesn't quite fit what the president wants to be able to demonstrate to society. But what he's missing is prices will go up if the tariffs are in. And I think the prices go up. I think we have a right to be able to know that as a consumer. I think that's a great idea from a consumer's perspective. I can appreciate why that pisses the president off. But I think for the rest of the country, I think it's positive.

SANCHEZ: Joe Moglia, very much appreciate you sharing your point of view. Thanks for joining us.

MOGLIA: Thanks for having me, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Of course. So we got some insights from a financial expert. Let's get insight from a communications and political expert. Joining us now is CNN Political Commentator, Alyssa Farah Griffin. She served as President Trump's White House Communications Director during his first term.

Alyssa, great to see you, as always. When you hear these poll numbers come out, the first hundred days of the presidency and President Trump is underwater, even on the economy. I mean, voters elected him in large part because they believe that he would bring down some of the high prices that we saw go up during the four years of Joe Biden's presidency. Do these numbers at all impact President Trump's decision making?

ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think they certainly will. And I think the fact that they're echoed not just by "CNN," by "Reuters," but by "Fox News," which we know that he watches and pays attention to.

But listen, a hundred days in the Trump presidency is inarguably enormously consequential. He's done a record number of CEOs at this point. He's working at this breakneck pace. His base is still largely happy with him on a lot of what he's doing.

But I think the Wall Street Journal pointed it out very well to say that he was elected on addressing the cost of living and the immigration crisis. And those are the two things he'll be judged on. And according to CNN's own polling, he's now underwater on both of those issues.

[13:15:03]

And the number one reason on the economy is that the public is not with him on tariffs. 65% of Americans don't agree with him on it. And in fact, they blame him for the costs that are coming that are associated with it. And to your previous guest's point, we haven't even felt the real pain of these tariffs if they do stay in place where they are.

On immigration, if I could say, he's done something remarkable. He's effectively ended the border crisis that's been going on for years in a matter of months. But he's not talking about that. Instead, it's a conversation about people being deported without due process, mistakes being made and U.S. citizens being deported. So there are some real policy things that the White House has to get their arms around if they want to turn these numbers around. But there are success stories that they can point to.

KEILAR: And I wonder what you think about the messaging on the economy, because we see all this back and forth on the tariffs. You'll hear from those close to him, this is strategic uncertainty. This was the plan all along. Discomfort is in the design. And implicit in that is, you know, that Americans who are having anxiety, of course they are right, Alyssa, that, you know, they're not killers who are comfortable on the razor's edge. But I wonder what you think about whether this is the proper way to explain this to them and if it's even true.

GRIFFIN: From what we know right now, I would say both the policy and the messaging is bad. Now, if he was purely using these tariffs as leverage to get better deals, I think that would be a good thing. In the first term, the USMCA was a great deal. It also took about a year and a half to negotiate between the countries and to get through Congress. But that was good and that created wealth for our nation.

The messaging is almost even more inconsistent because are we -- it's unclear at this point. Is this about truly bringing manufacturing back, basically closing our economy to international trade? Or is it about creating better deals and just trying to bring down trade deficits? So there's I think the president would be well served to give a follow up to his Liberation Day speech.

You know, he's going to be speaking in Michigan. Talk about what his actual vision is, because right now it's making it impossible for businesses to plan. It's making people not want to invest here, not want to hire. And that's just counter to everything that he ran on.

But what I will say is Donald Trump's biggest successes in my mind in the first term mostly came through Congress. And we really haven't gotten to his congressional agenda yet. So whether it was Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the USMCA, he does have a pretty bold vision on Capitol Hill of what he wants to get through.

But I mean, when the economy's in the tank, you have predictions of a recession. That even loses you goodwill on Capitol Hill and makes getting things through even worse. So I think he's got to get ahead of both what his policy is around the economy and then improve the messaging.

KEILAR: Yeah, we'll see what happens today in Michigan. It'll be certainly interesting to see. Alyssa Farah Griffin, great to have you. Thank you so much.

GRIFFIN: Thank you.

KEILAR: Still to come this hour, 100 days into President Trump's second term. New CNN polling shows more than half of Americans think lawmakers and the courts aren't doing enough to uphold checks and balances.

Plus, after the FBI raids the wrong house, can the people living there sue the federal government? That is the argument the Supreme Court is hearing today.

SANCHEZ: And later, some incredible video out of Florida of officers chasing down a runaway boat with no one on board. You're watching CNN NEWS CENTRAL. We'll be right back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:22:54]

KEILAR: President Trump's first 100 days in office have been marked by seismic shifts in Washington from tariffs to mass layoffs and deportations. The president has relied more heavily on executive actions in his first 100 days than any previous administration. A new CNN poll shows Americans are growing increasingly frustrated with the unchecked moves that President Trump is making. 56 percent of respondents saying Congress is doing too little to check his power.

With us now from Capitol Hill is Republican Congressman Dan Meuser of Pennsylvania. Congressman, thank you so much for being with us this afternoon. I do wonder what your reaction is to that poll. What do you say to some of your constituents who think that Congress should be more involved in decisions that cost them money?

REP. DAN MEUSER (R-PA): Hi, Brianna. Well, I'm in Congress, and we have a separation of powers, and we're all equal portions of our government. And we are assuring that the President's actions are within the Constitution. The Supreme Court does the same.

We are looking to codify many of the executive orders that have been done, and there's been many, as you brought out, since January 20th. And that's being done so as to continue those into the next presidency because we believe in the plan of the president, and that is to strengthen our national security, strengthen our economy, and sometimes being a disruptor causes some short-term fallbacks, some short-term setbacks.

But nevertheless, that is not an indicator of long-term prosperity. And we believe in the end, you know, it's not about how you start, it's how you finish. And we think the markets are coming back, and the results in the end are going to be very strong.

KEILAR: Still a lot of worries about the possibility of a recession, and we have so many tariffs that are still in place, of course, even though some of those so-called reciprocal ones have been reduced. I do want to ask you about what was a big story today, the White House calling what was initially reported as Amazon tariff, like up charges on some products, they call that hostile.

[13:25:11]

Amazon has since said it was an idea discussed and never approved for Amazon Hall, which is its Shein and Temu competitor. But what do you think about that bigger issue of letting consumers know what a president's policy is costing them?

MEUSER: Listen, Brianna, you know, free trade for the last 35 years has really meant unfair trade. The president has come in, and look, none of us are necessarily happy about some of the market conditions at all. As we've seen, though, the markets have largely come back. They're still down about 4% or 5%, but they've come back. We needed this correction. We needed it desperately for the short-term and the long-term. You saw some of the numbers. Those weren't fictitious. 60, 70% tariffs in India versus 4% here in the United States. So --

KEILAR: What about this idea of an upcharge, like breaking down the transparency in pricing?

MEUSER: Right. Well, listen, you know, Amazon didn't put 20% inflation cost increase due to the Biden administration policies. In this case --

KEILAR: But a lot of restaurants did.

MEUSER: Well, maybe so. But in this case, I just wonder if Amazon is also going to put, when they start selling a lot more in India, hey, thanks, President Trump, we're now selling much more in India.

And by the way, there's been no inflationary issues surrounding products at this point. So anything they would do would be premature and would be speculative. We haven't seen inflation kick up. As a matter of fact, a report just came in. Inflation is at its lowest. It's been since 2021 at 2.4%.

KEILAR: Well, I think this is about the actual cost of the product on the tariff. I understand what you're saying because there are concerns that the tariffs may be inflationary overall. And inflation is certainly a very real thing under the Biden administration, which is why we saw a minority but a significant number of restaurants, for instance, putting inflation charges on their bills.

I mean, I assume an inflation charge on a bill is something that you could get behind. So if you have a product on Amazon coming from a particular country, especially something like China, and the cost has dramatically increased, what's the matter with showing that so that people have that transparency in pricing?

MEUSER: Amazon is entitled to do anything it likes to do. I mean, it's a public company, but following public rules, they can do that. Now, at the same time, when they start placing 50% or 60% increases, people should know Amazon's telling everyone this product is made in China. This product has nothing to do with being obviously made in the United States. And by the way, it could be being made by slave labor. So as you might want to think twice about getting that lower discount.

Look, China's not our enemy, as I put it. They are an adversary. They are a competitor. But we need a reckoning with them. They've taken great advantage of us. We are their number one customer by far. And they need to appreciate that their economy is very dependent upon having a good relationship with us.

And President Trump is aware of that. And China's going to blink first on this and allow more of our products to be sold within China. And frankly, many of our allies have already come to terms with that because they realize they need us more than we need them.

KEILAR: You are considering a run for governor of Pennsylvania in January before Trump took office. You said that your vision for Pennsylvania was, quote, "very similar to what Trump is going to do in the USA. I think it could be done in Pennsylvania." Since then, we've seen a new CNN poll and other ones that have echoed similar findings. 59 percent of Americans think he has worsened economic conditions with his economic policies, up eight points just since last month. 63 percent of independents think this. Do you still mean that, what you said about wanting to do what you thought Trump was going to do to Pennsylvania?

MEUSER: Well, I appreciate the question. Well, first off, again, the results of perceived and prospective tariffs have not gone into effect yet. But the regulations that have been reduced under this administration already, the energy policy, the fact that we secured the border, the fact that fentanyl is now no longer coming in. It was coming in in droves, tons during the Biden administration. They did nothing about it.

KEILAR: Why are you saying tariffs are not in effect?

MEUSER: There's a couple of it because we did a 90-day pause on them. And of course, with China, there is. But we're managing the situation. The President --

[13:30:02]

KEILAR: They're still at 10%. They're still at 10%, there's still a --

MEUSER: Most of them are at 10 percent during the course of the Biden administration.