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Waltz Ousted as National Security Adviser; Markets Open after Jobs Report; Mac Harman is Interviewed About Tariffs; Prince Harry Loses Appeal. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired May 02, 2025 - 09:30   ET

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

[09:30:00]

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: His job, not because of the Signal scandal, but because the White House wanted to promote him?

JOHN BOLTON, FORMER TRUMP NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: Of course not. I mean I think it really just shows how little about national security J.D. Vance knows.

I don't think there's any question about it. I loved being U.N. ambassador, don't get me wrong.

COOPER: Yes.

BOLTON: But - but - but it just - it doesn't compare.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Bolton, of course, having held both of the posts, national security adviser and U.N. ambassador.

Brett, what do you see here?

BRETT MCGURK, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, Kate, you know, a month ago Waltz's hand-picked staff on the National Security Council was basically fired from under him, and he was unable to protect his own people. That was a sign about a month ago that this was really - this time was coming.

I think what we saw yesterday was a bit of a face saving switcheroo. But, you know, in a Democratic administration, the U.N. ambassador is actually a cabinet position. In a Republican administration, particularly a Trump administration, it's really a bit of an outpost.

So, clearly they wanted to make a change. They waited for 100 days, and they made this switcheroo.

I would just say one thing. You would not make this change now to give someone a promotion without a clear replacement because the national security issues that are piling up and President Bush is heading - I'm sorry, President Trump is heading out for his first multi-day foreign trip to the Middle East in about ten days. The national security advisor is the key guy to help organize that. So, no, clearly, look, everybody serves at the pleasure of the

president. The president clearly has lost confidence in Mike Waltz. Waltz has served his country. He's a decorated veteran. But clearly Trump wanted to make this change, and he made it.

BOLDUAN: The timing is quite something, as you note, because you talk about just the foreign trip that the president's about to be going on. But, I mean, broad strokes from Gaza to Iran to Yemen. I mean, and that's just a few - I mean not even getting into the - how many real issues a national security advisor has to keep their eye on in real time.

I mean you understand this better than anybody. How would you describe how many things are piling up right now that demand the real focus of a national security advisor today?

MCGURK: Yes, Kate, let me say a few things. First, the job of the national security adviser is like the most important job in Washington. There's a reason there's a corner office in the West Wing, just down the hall from the Oval Office. It is where every national security issue basically comes from the situation room all around the world into the White House. It is totally different than a secretary of state job. Rubio really cannot do both these jobs.

So, right now, unless Rubio decides to delegate to his deputy, Chris Landau, at state, we really don't have a national security advisor. This is a full-time, full-time job. And the issue is piling up. I mean I'll just go through them. The Yemen bombing campaign, which, of course, was - we all saw the internal debate in that Signal chat, where 50 days into that military campaign, where is that heading, who's coordinating the sanctions elements, the political outcome we're trying to seek? That is very complex.

Iran negotiations. We're now about a month into Iran negotiations. If those negotiations fail, and it's actually right now very stalled. The Iranians had a very sharp statement today rejecting Trump - Trump's threats of new sanctions that came out yesterday. On the back end of those talks, if they fail, is a potential military strike against Iran, which we have to be preparing for that outcome.

You, of course, have the Ukraine-Russia negotiations, which are also stalled. And, of course, you have the Gaza crisis. You have hostages still in Gaza. And those talks have been stalled.

Plus, the global economic situation. This is what makes the national security adviser job so different than secretary of state. International economic affairs come into that office. It's all kind of comes into that job. That is why it is so critical. And I would really, I hope, you have someone full time in that job very, very soon.

And by the way, Kate, that's what we know. The thing about these jobs, I know from being there -

BOLDUAN: Exactly. MCGURK: There's a lot we don't know. There's a lot we don't know.

Probably 60 percent of what is in that office right now are things we don't know, the threats coming, what's emerging.

And one thing that also I should have mentioned, we have a military standoff between two nuclear armed powers right now, India and Pakistan. Rubio was on the phone with the Pakistan prime minister and the foreign minister of India just the other day. It's extremely, extremely serious.

So, yes, it's an important job. You need somebody there full-time. It's a job that you have to be in the White House, in the situation room almost full time. And right now, it seems to be pretty vacant.

BOLDUAN: I think people underappreciate that just because how it seems that the - especially President Trump can just move pieces around on the chessboard in terms of his cabinet, as we saw in the first term, and the way you put it is really important, just showing, this is a very serious role and a very serious moment to have effectively a vacancy there. And not many people would know it but you do better than anybody.

Brett, thanks for coming in. It's good to see you.

MCGURK: Thanks, Kate. Great to be here.

BOLDUAN: Omar.

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN ANCHOR: All right, well, breaking moments ago, the opening bell ringing on Wall Street as new data shows the American labor market is still strong.

[09:35:06]

A lot of green behind me over there.

CNN's Zain Asher is back with us.

Let's look at the markets. Also, some green here on my screen. And theme -

ZAIN ASHER, CNN ANCHOR AND BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Because I can see the future.

JIMENEZ: Yes, of course.

ASHER: I knew what color to wear because I knew what the markets were going to be doing today.

JIMENEZ: Clearly. Clearly. Clearly.

All right, a lot of green here. How should we interpret what we're seeing?

ASHER: Listen, what you're seeing here is investors essentially breathing a sigh of relief, essentially saying, look, for the first time, good news does mean good news. Anytime you have the labor market growing, anytime you have jobs being added, that is absolutely good news.

What this shows is that even in the midst of all of this uncertainty, Omar, even in the midst of a global trade war with the U.S., essentially going to war with the entire world at once in terms of tariffs -

JIMENEZ: Yes.

ASHER: The labor market is strong and it is resilient, and it is in the middle of a historic expansion. We're talking about, on average, about 150,000 jobs added per month on average. Obviously, today's jobs number came in a lot better than expected with 177,000 jobs added.

I think that it's really important to note, though, the markets are going to be cautiously optimistic.

JIMENEZ: Yes.

ASHER: Because, just because we dodged a bullet this time around, it doesn't necessarily mean that there's good news to come further down the line. When you think about what could happen in May and in the June jobs report, we shall see. I mean, obviously, uncertainty is a tax on business. You have to remember that. And this is a very sort of uncertain environment.

JIMENEZ: And we could, as we typically see sometimes, numbers do get revised down after the fact.

ASHER: Absolutely. And we saw that this time around, exactly.

JIMENEZ: So, some of the scale of this growth might not be as big as - as some might look at just from these numbers.

ASHER: Right.

JIMENEZ: Look, the president also posted on Truth Social saying that, look, there is no inflation, as part of his celebration, I think, of some of these numbers. That's obviously not true. But what is the inflation situation right now?

ASHER: Right, so the inflation rate has been coming down right?

JIMENEZ: Yes.

ASHER: Roughly around 2.4 percent. It is moving in the right direction. Is it at the 2 percent target that the Fed wants to see? No, not quite just yet. But it is moving in the right direction.

I think that in terms of him putting pressure, as we've seen multiple times, putting pressure on Jerome Powell to cut interest rates, the Fed is really going to be in wait and see mode. And especially with this jobs report because what this jobs report does, which shows that obviously the employment situation in this country is resilient, it allows Jerome Powell to have a little bit of time to evaluate what is happening in this country.

JIMENEZ: Yes.

ASHER: And so, in terms of him cutting inflation, or rather cutting interest rates or making changes to monetary policy, FOMC is meeting next week. They're also meeting in June. I don't anticipate any changes just yet.

JIMENEZ: All right. Zain Asher, really appreciate you being here.

ASHER: Of course. Good to see you, my friend.

JIMENEZ: Good to see you.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Kind of wrapped up in all of this, Christmas could cost a lot more this year. How there is real fear that President Trump's tariffs will force a dramatic increase in the price of everything from artificial trees to ornaments and lights if something doesn't give.

And breaking news from the U.K. A decision has been made in Prince Harry's appeal to the British government and the decision to downgrade his security. We're live outside of court.

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[09:42:47]

JIMENEZ: All right, welcome back.

We've talked about - we've talked for months, I should say, about all the things tariffs will directly impact, cars, appliances, clothing. Looking ahead, those same tariffs could make the most wonderful time of year a whole lot more expensive as so much of what is bought for the Christmas season is actually made in China, from kids toys, to artificial trees.

Mac Harmon, the founder and CEO of Balsam Brands, has been at the White House fighting for these tariffs to be lowered, or at the very least phased out in the coming years. He says a 145 percent increase in artificial trees would be devastating ahead of the Christmas season. Mac joins me now.

OK, we still got a little bit of a ways to go before the Christmas season, but, you know, who's counting? Always counting down to Christmas.

As I understand, you're not - you're not against tariffs overall, but you've been at the White House sort of lobbying for what I just mentioned, tariff negotiations with China. What specifically have you been asking for and why?

MAC HARMON, FOUNDER AND CEO, BALSAM BRANDS: Well, I think the big challenge we have is 87 percent of Christmas decorations come from China. And so, with 145 percent tariff, which is basically a trade embargo, as it's been said by the Treasury secretary, that just doesn't allow us to bring anything in. And so we're - it's almost - it's not even the pricing that's the issue. We're just not going to have things because we, as small companies in the Christmas space, can't afford to bring things in.

JIMENEZ: And, you know, we're seeing signs, at least at this point, that maybe there are the starts of evaluations of potential proposals, very early stages. Are you optimistic at all? I mean I just wonder how you're feeling right now.

HARMON: Well, you know, being in the White House and - and some of these departments this week talking, it's complicated to get these trade deals done. And I think the business community, we're expecting that these are going to get done soon at the speed of business. And we're not taking into account that having two governments talk to each other across all these countries is complicated and going to take longer. And so my concern with Christmas timelines, we have like weeks left to finish producing goods and to ship them. And I don't know that those deals are going to happen soon enough to get those goods from Asia over to us in the United States.

JIMENEZ: And, you know, I think - I think - and I've heard this from other business owners as well, but I'm curious for your take, what do you find more difficult here, trying - trying to manage a potential hike or a potential change in how you do business, or is it more the uncertainty of, OK, it's - one thing this week, it might be another thing the next week?

[09:45:08]

HARMON: Yes, I mean, the uncertainty is really paralyzing so many businesses. I think for us, like even - if - if certainty comes out and those rates are too high -

JIMENEZ: Yes.

HARMON: We can't move our supply chain quickly. We've been working for five years. Christmas lights got tariffs five, six years ago at 33 percent. And they're about halfway out of China. And those are pretty easy to move. Christmas trees. We have machines the size of football fields. Those are not easy to move. It's expensive investment. So, it's going to take years to fully move that out of China. So, for us, we want certainty, but we also need the rates to be low enough that we can stay in business in the near term.

JIMENEZ: And, obviously, there's a crunch time, I guess, for you all to get these supplies in and be able to do what you need to do by what seems like far away, but I know for you all it is very close.

Would a - would a pause help? I just wonder how you look at different possibilities here.

HARMON: Yes, we've thought through a number of things, and we really think that a 90 day pause on China tariffs would be the best solution for all sorts of reasons. Three big ones. The first thing is, President Trump has done a really great job of making it clear, I think to everyone around the world, how big a deal these 145 percent tariffs are. So, I think it sent a strong message. And now that we all know what it is, having a pause so some things can reset and there's a little bit of time to work things out, it still sends a strong message because if we go back to that in 90 days, everyone knows how serious that is.

JIMENEZ: Yes.

HARMON: The second reason I think it's valuable is there are many American firms that have hundreds of millions of dollars in China that we can effectively repatriate in the next 90 days, because if you think of a - if you think of a business like ours, we place orders in China. And for those factories to start making the inventory, we need to put 30 percent, sometimes 50 percent of the cost over there. They take that deposit from us, they produce the goods, then they charge us the rest later. So, right now, we didn't know these were all coming.

So, if you take a small company, maybe they've ordered $2 million of Christmas goods, they've sent $700,000, $1 million there.

JIMENEZ: Yes.

HARMON: And those goods are probably finished now, but they can't access that. So, not only do we not have the inventory, we have all this cash tied up. So, we could repatriate that.

JIMENEZ: Yes.

HARMON: And then, of course, the last reason I think a 90 day pause would be great is, it would help us save Christmas, because for so many of us, we might have like ten, 20 percent of our Christmas goods in stock so far this year. Some people have nothing in stock yet. In 90 days we might be able to ship 50 percent, 60 percent, 70 percent over. And that would go a long way to helping bring joy to households this year at Christmas because we'd actually have things to sell.

JIMENEZ: So a little bit more of a stockpile to combat some of that uncertainty.

Mac, really appreciate you being here. Thanks for taking the time.

HARMON: My pleasure.

JIMENEZ: All right. And come back around Christmas. I'll talk - we'll talk then.

Still ahead, breaking news, Prince Harry loses his appeal against the British government after his security detail was downgraded. We're in London next. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:52:21]

BOLDUAN: Some more headlines we're watching. An aid ship headed for Gaza caught fire early this morning off the coast of Malta. A human rights group on the ship blamed the incident on a drone attack. CNN has not been able to independently confirm how many people were on board. The armed forces of Malta confirmed there was a fire on a ship, and that it was later extinguished. Malta's armed forces says no one was injured.

The measles outbreak in west Texas has now grown to nearly 800 confirmed cases. And now Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is asking the CDC to look for new treatments for measles. Even though decades of science has confirmed the best course of treatment is to get vaccinated. RFK Jr. now wants CDC to look into things like alternative therapies like vitamins. The CDC currently recommends the vaccine as the safest and most effective way to prevent the disease. But Kennedy, a known vaccine cynic, says that he wants to find other ways for people to get protection if they don't get vaccinated.

And preparations for the conclave to select a new pope are ramping up at the Vatican. New video shows workers atop the Sistine Chapel this morning installing the ceremonial chimney. That will be the signal to the world when the new pope has been chosen, releasing white smoke, of course, when a majority decision has been reached. The conclave to choose Pope Francis' successor is set to begin next Wednesday.

Omar.

JIMENEZ: All right, we will see.

This just in, Britain's high court has ruled against Prince Harry in his case against the British government's decision to downgrade his security arrangements while he's in the U.S.

I want to get straight to CNN's Nada Bashir, who is live outside the courthouse in London.

Nada, can you just tell us more about the court's ruling here?

NADA BASHIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, this has just come in, in the last hour, Omar. The court of appeal rejecting Prince Harry, the duke of Sussex's appeal over a decision taken to downgrade the level of security he and his family are provided when traveling within the United Kingdom. Now, of course, that decision was taken by the authority in the country which governs the level of security provided to members of the royal family and, of course, notable figures as well.

And many will remember, of course, that Prince Harry and his wife Meghan, the duchess of Sussex, took the decision back in 2020 to step down as working members of the royal family and to relocate to the United States following that decision, of course, and a further decision was taken by the home office to downgrade that security detail that their security while in the country would be treated on a case by case basis.

Now, this is something that has drawn fierce criticism from the duke of Sussex, who has expressed concern over the safety and security of his family. [09:55:03]

He has noted, of course, that he wants his children, Archie and Lilibet, to hold on to that close tie with the United Kingdom. But again, that decision has been issued by the court denying his appeal, noting - the judges noting in the court just in the last hour that, of course, the duke and duchess of Sussex do have a private security detail while in the United States and that it would not be unreasonable to treat their security while in the United Kingdom on a case by case basis.

Omar.

JIMENEZ: Nada Bashir, really appreciate the reporting. Thanks for joining us.

And, Kate -

BOLDUAN: Hello.

JIMENEZ: It was good to be here.

Hi.

BOLDUAN: I know.

JIMENEZ: I don't even get to see you. This is actually, for those at home, this is like the most we've been able to talk to each other the entire show.

BOLDUAN: It's - it's very busy.

JIMENEZ: I know. I know.

BOLDUAN: It was a very busy day. And when there's two of us, it is like ships passing in the night.

JIMENEZ: I know it's like - yes, exactly. Exactly.

BOLDUAN: But, really, thank you for being here, Omar. It's always good to see you.

JIMENEZ: Of course. Of course. Good to be here.

BOLDUAN: And thank you all so much for joining us today. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL and this is Friday, I have confirmed. "THE SITUATION ROOM" is up next.

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