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CNN This Morning
Tariffs Rising as Stocks Fall; Trump Administration Looking to Privatize Federal Lands. Aired 6-6:30a ET
Aired March 13, 2025 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[06:00:20]
AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: It's Thursday, March 13. Here's what's happening right now on CNN THIS MORNING.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Talking to CEOs throughout the economy, I hear the economy is weakening as we speak.
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CORNISH: Tariffs, trade spats, and big cuts. The president says it will make the economy soar. But a new CNN poll says most Americans aren't buying that.
Plus --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY (R-LA): Every time I see Mr. Musk, I think that we're saving money. And usually, we are.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: It's deadline day for federal agencies to tell DOGE what to cut. Ahead, how this will impact veterans, the IRS, and maybe even Social Security.
Also, the search for witnesses. Who else could have been on the beach when an American student went missing in the Dominican Republic?
And a summer bummer. Why some public campgrounds, parks and trails could look dramatically different in the months ahead.
It is 6 a.m. here on the East Coast. A live look at the U.S. Capitol. Good morning, everybody. I'm Audie Cornish. I want to thank you for waking up with me.
We're going to start today with politics, with President Trump's political brand, because it was built on being a businessman, a deal maker who always comes out on top. Many people voted for him to take that approach to the economy. Is it working? How do they feel about it now? Well, just 28 percent
say his policies are making the economy better. That's from a new CNN poll released this morning.
In fact, half say it's actually making the economy worse.
There's also a pretty even split on what people think the economy will be like in a year. About half of those polled say it will be good. Another half say it will be poor.
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DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: Financially, we'll be stronger than ever before. I think the markets are going to soar when they see what's happening.
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CORNISH: Canada now rolling out tariffs of its own on $20 billion worth of U.S. goods.
Joining me to talk about this: Stephen Collinson, CNN Politics senior reporter; Nia-Malika Henderson, CNN senior political analyst and political and policy columnist at Bloomberg; and Kevin Frey, Washington correspondent for Spectrum News, New York One.
Thank you, guys, for joining the group chat. I want to start with you, business gal from Bloomberg, because here's what Alabama Senator Tuberville -- was asked about Trump's tariffs. And here's what he said.
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SEN. TOMMY TUBERVILLE (R-AL): No pain, no gain. That's what we used to tell our football players. There's going to be some pain with tariffs.
But tariffs got us back as the strongest economy in the world when President Trump was in the first time. He knows what he's doing.
Democrats get out of the way. Shut up. You have no answers.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: OK. No pain, no gain.
NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes. I mean, it's quite a slogan and certainly wasn't the slogan that Donald Trump ran on. He, of course, promised.
CORNISH: Maybe Biden should have run on that.
HENDERSON: Yes, I mean, he promised immediate relief. But you do see this shifting rhetoric now.
I've actually got a piece up on Bloomberg about this, this idea that even if there is a recession, it's worth it, because there is wealth and riches on the other side.
You know, Senator Tuberville talked about the last time there were tariffs. There was a lot of loss in terms of status and stature among farmers. And the soybean, you know.
CORNISH: Yes. So, there was some appeasing of them through, I think, some subsidies at one point.
HENDERSON: I think that's right. And now I think Donald Trump's message to them --
CORNISH: Stephen, I heard you nodding.
HENDERSON: -- is sit back and have fun (ph).
STEPHEN COLLINSON, CNN POLITICS SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: It's fine to say no pain, no gain if you're in a cabinet of millionaires and billionaires. And if the economy turns against the administration, I think that's going to be a real political liability.
It's interesting to me that -- how often a new president gets elected and then takes their eye off the thing that probably got them elected.
CORNISH: Interesting. The economy.
COLLINSON: Right. The economy in this case.
People were telling President Biden for months they were worried about high prices. Now, through our poll, they're telling the Trump administration that hasn't been the primary focus.
They say, well, we're going to drill, baby, drill. Tariffs are going to make us all rich.
But if you're telling people the economy is good and getting better --
CORNISH: Right.
COLLINSON: -- when most people think it's getting worse. Something's -- something's not going to work.
CORNISH: But I do remember during the campaign -- does anyone else remember this? -- Trump campaigning in front of, like, cereal boxes.
[06:05:05]
HENDERSON: Yes.
CORNISH: And now, it's a Cybertruck. And I'm like, this is -- feels different.
Here's a soybean farmer -- to your point about farmers -- saying nobody's going to win a tariff war.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DOUG FULLER, SOYBEAN FARMER: You know, they aren't good for the other countries. They aren't good for me. And who could blame -- who could blame them putting reciprocal tariffs on us? You know, it's just a -- it's just a (EXPLETIVE DELETED) match, you know, and nobody's going to win.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: OK. Real talk from Polk County, Iowa. Kevin.
KEVIN FREY, WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, SPECTRUM NEWS, NEW YORK ONE: I was talking to a farmer yesterday, as well, from upstate New York who's a dairy farmer. And he -- obviously, Trump is threatening within the last week, and he's played with this before.
But putting tariffs on Canadian dairy as part of an ongoing feud between the two. And this is a long-standing issue that dates back pre-USMCA and so forth.
But even if the tariffs go into place that Trump is kind of toying with, one economist I spoke to said, basically, Canada will just put up theirs; and then they'll cut off any market access that they were even hoping to gain by -- through some sort of leverage with Canada.
But on top of that, in the meantime, in the short term, this farmer was telling me that they could see an up to 10 percent reduction in their own bottom line, because milk prices are down because of the ongoing tit-for-tat. And on top of that, some of the stuff they get from Canada, like their feed, has gone up in price because of the tariff.
CORNISH: Now, what's interesting is you got all that. We just got a deep dive into commodities from you.
FREY: Sorry.
CORNISH: Which, you know, I like it. You're bringing some good energy this morning.
But the farmer gave us a very, like -- people understand what tariffs are now.
HENDERSON: Yes.
COLLINSON: Yes.
CORNISH: Right? Like, he was giving me the explanation I used to hear from economists.
COLLINSON: The White House is trying to tell us that tariffs are a tax cut this week, which they're not, because they put prices up for everybody.
CORNISH: But it's one thing for you to say it.
COLLINSON: Right.
CORNISH: It's another thing for the soybean farmer to say it.
COLLINSON: Sure. But those farmers, they're -- you know, pardon the pun, right on the ground. If you're an arable farmer, you need certainty about how much feed, how much seeds you're going to buy this time of year.
And you're going to take out a loan that's going to be paid off when you get the profit in the fall.
So, these are, like, you know, small businesses like farmers are particularly affected by tariffs, even more so than some of the bigger businesses that can bear the costs.
CORNISH: Yes, I like that were starting there, because we're going to hear more about the business community. There's some cracks beginning to show there.
Please stick around.
And you stick around. Because coming up on CNN THIS MORNING, the Kremlin says it's kicking Ukrainians out of the one piece of Russian territory they control. So how will that impact the ceasefire proposal?
And then streets afire with green flames. A St. Patrick's Day stunt or something more dangerous?
Plus, are your public lands on the road to privatization? For this week's assignment, I spoke with a former wilderness -- wilderness firefighter about what's next for the national parks and forests.
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RIVA DUNCAN, FORMER WILDLAND FIREFIGHTERS: They could close all these public lands to the public, with an emphasis more on extraction.
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[06:12:37]
CORNISH: Time check. It is 12 minutes past the hour. I want to give you your morning round-up: some of the stories you need to know to get your day going.
The Kremlin claims the Russian military is in the final stages of ousting Ukrainian forces from Russia's Kursk region. That's been the focus in this war.
And this is, according to Reuters, Russian president Vladimir Putin visited the area yesterday. It was the first time he's been there since Ukraine seized parts of it last year. Migrant apprehensions are down at the Southern border. According to
Customs and Border Protection, officers apprehended more than 8,000 undocumented migrants in February. That's down 71 percent compared to January, and it's down 94 percent from February of last year.
New video shows the moment a cargo ship crashed into a U.S.-flagged tanker off England's coast. Both ships caught fire. One person is presumed dead.
British police opened a criminal investigation, and the cargo ship's captain was arrested.
And an explosion on the campus of Texas tech. Authorities responded to a possible gas leak and found multiple manholes with fire and green smoke coming out of them.
Good news for students: classes are canceled for the rest of the week ahead of spring break.
And you've got to see this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's an alligator right under your car.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my God!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get in the house.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Where's my pizza?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'll take it to the back door.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Holy (EXPLETIVE DELETED).
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: OK. This video coming to us, naturally, from Florida. A Florida-based writer did that.
A woman ordered a pizza. But when the delivery driver arrived, there was an eight-foot alligator in the driveway. That was a police officer you heard actually talking to a woman in the house.
He ended up actually bringing her the pizza. The alligator was safely relocated.
Take that, New York pizza subway rat.
Still coming up on CNN THIS MORNING, the next presidential election is more than three days away, but one Democrat may be getting an early start. Ahead, why Rahm Emanuel might be preparing a bid for the White House.
Plus, as the Trump administration cuts the federal workforce, could public lands in the U.S. soon be not so public? And good morning, New Orleans. Fourteen minutes past the hour, and it
is a cool 63 degrees.
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[06:19:23]
CORNISH: Welcome back. Today's assignment: taking a deeper look at what's happening in the federal government with the letting go of all these workers.
Because I get up at early o'clock to host a show with the team. And even we sometimes feel like we're playing catch-up with the firing and rehiring and appeals and basically all the uncertainty.
So, this week, on a new episode of "The Assignment," I actually sat down with a former wildland firefighter, Riva Duncan. She's got decades of federal agency experience.
And an interesting thing came up in our conversation about the future of public lands. And she says, this is actually what's been blowing up her group chats.
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[06:20:02]
CORNISH: Could we reach a breaking point where access to these lands is no longer guaranteed?
DUNCAN: I do think so. And I think that there's also talk and speculation that this is a way to show the agencies -- set them up to fail, to then say, look, you're terrible at managing these lands, because that's been an argument for decades about who could manage these lands better. Right? State or private?
CORNISH: Usually, people talk about this in the context of the V.A., but you're telling me workers in your world are also thinking about this? Can you say more?
DUNCAN: There are some states that have expressed interest in managing federal lands. They think they can do a better job, and they want the funding that that would come with that, right?
But then also, true privatization, where these federal lands would just be sold off to corporations, billionaires, businesses, and they wouldn't have to make these lands public anymore. They could close all these public lands to the public with an emphasis more on extraction, like timber, oil, and gas.
CORNISH: But we're not saying they're going to sell Yosemite. We're just saying that on this path to, let's say, a public-private partnership to maintain these lands --
DUNCAN: Right.
CORNISH: -- there is concern in your world about where it ends.
DUNCAN: Correct.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CORNISH: OK. Bringing in the group chat, because a day after I had this conversation with her, Politico was reporting yesterday that Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told a group of energy executives that U.S. public lands are, quote, "national assets" that could be used to help pay down the national debt.
What are we looking at?
HENDERSON: Yes, I mean, listen, I mean, if you think about what Donald Trump was saying in his speech to Congress, he talked about rare earth minerals, right? Where are they going to go to find these rare earth minerals? To the extent --
CORNISH: And drill, aby, drill.
HENDERSON: Drill, baby, drill. All of this. So, the idea that -- you know what she's talking about, it certainly could happen.
And there is this privatization push. You think about the conversations around the United States Post Office, even with schools. And --
CORNISH: Stephen, have you been hearing this, as well, or is this --
COLLINSON: Well, you know, when you have a president who is a real- estate mogul, and he's basically not giving any doubt that he sees many disputes in the world -- Gaza, for example -- as a real-estate issue. That's the frame of reference of the administration.
And I think there's a lot of people who believe that this could be creeping privatization.
The issue here, though, is that when you start talking about federal land, you're touching a really sensitive issue that's definitional to many people. That's existential, almost spiritual.
CORNISH: Yes, I was about to say.
COLLINSON: The land is so important.
CORNISH: National parks welcomed 333 million visitors last year. I was among them. But I had planned to be this year.
And I recall that, in 2017, the former Republican Congressman Jason Chaffetz tried to introduce a bill that would, along these lines, to sell off certain federal lands. Major backlash.
FREY: Well, and I'm also thinking with the -- beyond the spiritual, also the economics of this, which is that these public entities have around them towns and communities that build up, based on people coming to these public lands. CORNISH: Yes. Very true.
FREY: And so, there could be ripple effects if they start shutting off access or restricting --
CORNISH: Yes.
FREY: -- how many people can get on the land.
CORNISH: Which is just the short-term stuff. When you're in line, when you're waiting for your camping permit, when there's no bathroom open for miles after you decide to go for a hike that day.
FREY: I mean, this also plays into, I think, one of the potential building vulnerabilities for the Trump administration, which is the idea of DOGE and constant cutbacks on what government is.
And people, as we saw with the farmer earlier, kind of waking up to what government does, and what role it currently plays in our lives, and what it could evolve to if we start going this privatization route.
CORNISH: All right, you guys. Thanks so much for talking about this.
And you might be wanting to hear more from Riva, more about this issue. Check out the latest assignment of "The Assignment." Latest episode of "The Assignment." New ones drop every Thursday.
Still ahead on CNN THIS MORNING, we're going to bring you the latest on the student who has gone missing while on spring break. Police now looking for more people who were on the beach where she was last seen.
Plus, as Elon Musk revs up his chainsaw to cut jobs, what's happening at his own companies?
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[06:29:00]
DOMINIC LEBLANC, CANADIAN FINANCE MINISTER: Canadians expect their government to respond to what we think are unjustified tariffs in the context of a free trade agreement between Canada, the United States, and Mexico. So, what we did is we matched, dollar for dollar, the American tariffs at the same percentage.
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CORNISH: I'll use my political translator here and say that Canada's prime minister [SIC] -- finance minister was basically saying, Hold my beer.
Good morning, everyone. I'm Audie Cornish. It's 28 minutes past the hour on the East Coast. I want to thank you for joining us. And let's talk about what's happening right now. Commerce Secretary
Howard Lutnick and Ontario Premier Doug Ford meeting today to renegotiate the free trade treaty between the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
In response, Ontario agreed to suspend its 25 percent surcharge on electricity exports.
President Trump has criticized that treaty, a treaty that he actually signed during his first term.
Today, the president is meeting with NATO's secretary-general. The White House press secretary says he will use the meeting to push for NATO countries to pay their fair share for their defense.
