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Trump on Zelenskyy: "This Guy Doesn't Want There to be Peace"; Top Trump Aides Suggest Zelenskyy Needs to Step Down; New Tariffs on Canada, Mexico Could Go into Effect Tomorrow; How Democrats Plan to Handle Trump's Speech to Congress. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired March 03, 2025 - 12:00   ET

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

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DANA BASH, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS: Today on "Inside Politics" it's Trump versus Europe. We're following a global community still trying to process the ramifications of the Oval Office rumble that's put both the future of ravaged -- war-ravaged Ukraine and America's role as leader of the free world in serious question.

Plus, the tariff tight rope. The president says he will punish America's largest trading partners in fewer than 12 hours. Will he follow through on his plan, even though it would almost surely mean higher prices for the already struggling American consumer?

And if I can make it there, I'll make it anywhere. Andrew Cuomo may be humming some Sinatra as he tries to pull off a political comeback in the Big Apple four years after resigning from the Governor's Mansion in disgrace. I'm Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines and "Inside Politics".

We start with some new developments. President Trump just took another shot at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, that happened just moments ago, the Commander-in-Chief posted the following on social media. Quote, this guy doesn't want there to be peace, as long as he has America's backing and Europe in the meeting, they have with Zelenskyy stated flatly that they cannot do the job without the U.S.

Probably not a great statement to have been made in terms of a show of strength against Russia. What are they thinking? Now the president was responding to Zelenskyy's comments that the end of the war between Ukraine and Russia is still, quote, very far, very, very far away, two very there. He also wrote; America will not be put. America will not put up with this much longer.

CNN is covering this from all angles. Chief Global Affairs Correspondent, Matthew Chance is in Moscow, but we are going to start at the White House with Jeff Zeleny. Jeff, can you explain a little bit more about this escalation that is on top of, of course, all of the escalations that we've seen, starting with Friday?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Dana, it's the latest sign that temperatures have not cooled at all since Friday afternoon during your show, when that meeting went entirely off the rails in the Oval Office, with the biggest diplomatic breakdown that anyone certainly has seen in the television era.

And the president posting just a short time ago, America not -- will not put up with this for much longer. That is a bit of an ultimatum, signaling the fact that it raises a lot of questions. One question is, will the U.S. withdraw its military assistance? Officials say that that and everything else is on the table. The president actually was asked that by reporters as we saw him leave the White House on Friday night. He says, I will not answer that, but made clear it was on the table.

So now, as we begin a new week here, after a weekend of European Leaders rallying around Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the White House is not backing down at all. They are still ramping up their criticism of his conduct, of his behavior. And the president here was reacting to really the events of the weekend, as well as what he believes is Zelenskyy's, insistence that he does not want this war to end.

That, of course, is not the full picture. The full picture is how it would end? How peace talks would begin? A security agreement is still not been something that this White House is willing to discuss. So never mind the fact that Friday began as the idea of opening the door to signing a deal with Ukraine that is not even being discussed now.

It's about a continuing U.S. involvement in protecting Ukraine. And Dana this was intended to be, this deal was intended to be one of the center pieces of the president's joint address to a joint session of Congress tomorrow evening.

That, of course, is out the window, but clearly, he is keeping up this pressure and criticism, trying to put all the blame on Zelenskyy and the Ukraine side, as opposed to sort of answering any of the criticism that was at the U.S. side, at least partially to blame for this, the White House is giving no inch on that, Dana.

BASH: All right, Jeff, thank you to you. And now over to you Matthew in Moscow. I can't imagine the way that they are feeling right now. They probably can't believe their luck.

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CHIEF GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, yeah, I think that certainly privately, that's what -- that's what must be being considered in the corridors of power here. But, you know, look, one -- Russian official called it historic at the time. And I think that's a sort of sign of -- you know, the ow they saw this, this furious exchange in the Oval Office, as sort of illustration of a much broader shift that President Trump has taken, shifting away from Ukraine.

[12:05:00]

But also shifting away from the Western Allies and towards Russia. And that's something that the Russians are sort of very anxious to sort of encourage as much as possible. In terms of the specifics about the incident or the Kremlin was very slow to comment, actually, I suppose it didn't really need to. He just sorts of sat back and watched it all unfold. But you know,

within the past sort of day, there's been a first reaction from the spokesperson for Putin. Putin himself doesn't say anything, and he basically agreed entirely with those talking points coming from the Trump White House, saying that Zelenskyy doesn't want peace. That's exactly, of course, what Trump just said.

Zelenskyy showed a complete lack of diplomatic ability, at the very least, other Russian officials, of course, reflected that idea that it was Zelenskyy alone who was disrespectful in that meeting in the Oval Office. And Peskov, the spokesperson agreeing with Trump that Russia is the one that's ready for negotiations, and the Kyiv regime, as they call the Ukrainian authorities, are the ones that are not.

I think that behind the scenes, what the Russians are hoping for is that while President Trump and Zelenskyy are at odds with each other, that very difficult negotiation to try and bring an end to the conflict in Ukraine is going to be put on the back burner, and the two countries can focus on a whole raft of economic deals that are being discussed behind closed doors.

In talks that began in Riyadh, what was it last month now, and which will continue to be discussed between various Russian officials in the weeks and possibly even the days ahead, Dana.

BASH: All right. Thank you so much, Matthew, and thank you to you, Jeff as well. I want to turn now to a very talented group of reporters with me here at the table today. CNN's Manu Raju, Carl Hulse of "The New York Times" and Jasmine Wright of "NOTUS" it is your birthday. Happy birthday.

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Happy Birthday.

CARL HULSE, CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Happy Birthday.

JASMINE WRIGHT, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, NOTUS: Thank you.

BASH: -- spending it with us on this bright and cheery Monday. Just to go back to what President Trump said in that post that just came out right before our program started saying that he doesn't believe that Volodymyr Zelenskyy wants peace. And I want to pull up what the Kremlin spokesman said about Volodymyr Zelenskyy, because it's very similar the Kyiv regime and Zelenskyy do not want peace. They want the war to continue.

RAJU: It's pretty remarkable. I mean, I think we're starting to see this amp up of pressure from the Trump world that they want Zelenskyy out, or at least, they certainly don't support him staying in. And I was actually struck by even what the National Security Advisor Mike Waltz told you just yesterday about that, suggesting that you know, Church Hill, compared to how Church Hill stepped aside as they tried to negotiate peace post-World War II.

BASH: Talking points that I want to get to that in a second. But what do you make of the talking points continue to run sort of in mirror image of one another, from the Kremlin and the leader of the free world.

RAJU: It is pretty remarkable, and it's one that's going to cause a lot of concern among key elements of his own party. We saw some one member speaking out this weekend, Senator Lisa Murkowski, saying it makes her sick to her stomach that it appears that Donald Trump is aligning himself more and more with Putin.

The question for me too is that, how much does this impact the leverage and the ultimate negotiations to end this war, in the sense that Russia does not have to give up a whole lot now they may actually be -- this may actually prolong the war.

Why would they need to actually cut a deal here, if U.S. is not going to stand behind Ukraine at this key moment? So, for Russia this is great news for them, because they could ultimately get a lot more than what they would ultimately get if the U.S. was standing firmly with Ukraine.

BASH: And you did see both the president's advisers and members of his administration, and also his top allies on Capitol Hill this weekend, trying to thread a needle that I'm not so sure is threadable -

HULSE: Yeah -

BASH: -- which is saying, on the one hand that this is all about Ukraine, and we -- it's all in Ukraine's balls, in new court, Ukraine's court, they don't hold the cards. And on the other hand, you had the house speaker tell me and my question to him was, basically, what do you think of Vladimir Putin? Listen to his response.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): Putin is the aggressor. It is an unjust war. We have been crystal clear about that, but now is the time to bring it to an end. I think Vladimir Putin is an old school communist, a former KGB agent, and he's not to be trusted, and he is dangerous.

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The way I view this is that China, Russia, Iran and North Korea are engaged in a new access -- axis powers, and they are not on America's side. Let's be crystal clear about that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: So, you can almost see him trying to keep the train on track on the most fundamental question, which is, who is the U.S. aligned with right now? Is it the good guys or is it the bad guys? To put it in really elementary terms, he's trying to say, no, he's still a bad guy. But that doesn't seem to be where the policy is headed right now in these really difficult negotiations,

HULSE: Super hard for people on the Hill, after years and years of being anti-Russian, anti-Putin. Now they're having to make this shift. Johnson himself was kind of interesting. We had this story over the weekend. You know, it's like he had supported this, put his job on the line, and now it's like, --

BASH: Asking about that -

HULSE: -- yeah. I only did that because, of course, I wanted to get to this point. Well, I don't remember that being a big part of the discussion at that time. I think that -- you know for people like Mitch McConnell, this is just an Etham up, but there's a lot of people who share that view.

I don't think that they're going to be out there pushing it, but how they deal with this Putin question and that you start to see Marco Rubio people like, wait, wait, this is what we voted for, Marco Rubio for. He was, we thought he was going to be the sort of common-sense person in the administration.

This is our position, you know. And everything with Trump is a negotiation, so it's hard to tell kind of what he's doing here, but he has not. I don't normally say that Trump is a unifying figure, but he has unified Europe against us, and that's interesting to watch.

RAJU: But by the way -- by the way, when Johnson says you've been crystal clear that Putin has been the aggressor, the United States voted against the United Nations resolution saying that -

BASH: Five days ago. Just stay and voted now.

RAJU: Yes.

BASH: Yeah. I want to go back to what you were referring to, which is just back on the global stage, and what the manoeuvring really is behind the scenes and in public, inside the Trump Administration, vis a vis trying to potentially just push Zelenskyy out.

WRIGHT: Yeah.

BASH: Listen to the exchange I had with the President's National Security Advisor.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Are you suggesting that President Trump wants Zelenskyy to resign?

MIKE WALTZ, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: We need a leader that can deal with us, eventually deal with the Russians and end this war. And if it becomes apparent that President Zelenskyy is either personal motivations or political motivations are divergent from ending the fighting in his country. Then I think we have a real issue on our hands.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WRIGHT: Yeah, I was in the South Lawn on Friday when President Trump was asked, as by reporters. Just a reporter to my shoulder said, do you want Zelenskyy to step down? Do you basically want a regime change? And the president seems kind of hesitant to go that far. He said, I want somebody who can make peace. If that is Zelenskyy, fine. If that's not, then, you know, maybe we have to go somewhere else.

But he didn't want to go that far. But I think that his answer really answered the flood gates for the rest of the Trump Administration to double down and start pushing further and further on to the fact that maybe Zelenskyy should not be the person that is leading in Ukraine.

I think one thing that is very, very evident is that any of the Republicans who are more globally minded, more defense hawks, this idea that the temperature would be taken down over the weekend, that has basically gone by the wayside.

What the reality is, is that the energy inside the White House is shifting. They are doubling down on this position. They are doubling down on basically being against Zelenskyy, and I think even more importantly, the MAGA base is doubling down on it. They were already people who were kind of moving against foreign aid, not kind of really moving against -

BASH: They were there.

WRIGHT: Yeah, they were there, moving against funding wars in different parts of the globe. And they kind of just kind of were sucking it up, because this is a deal that Trump wanted to make. Now that it seems that this deal is not going to happen, you're going to see -- you're seeing MAGA people kind of revel in the fact that we don't want to be a part of this, and Donald Trump shouldn't be part of it either.

RAJU: The anti-Ukraine wing of the GOP used to be so small, right? Remember when Zelenskyy came and addressed a Joint Session of Congress not too long ago, staring and cheering both sides of the aisle, and it was the Matt Gaetz says, Marjorie Taylor Greene of the rose. And that contingent is much bigger now, and as exemplified by Lindsey Graham being at the White House out against Zelenskyy Just on Friday.

BASH: No question. As we go to break, I just want to emphasize and underscore where we started this program, which is that, as you said the president is doubling down, tripling down on the tense relationship and on the notion that they are kind of done with Zelenskyy saying America will not put up with it much longer, really big development in a series of monumental developments.

Coming up, President Trump is threatening to impose new tariffs on two American allies as soon as tomorrow, will he follow through this time we'll discuss after a break.

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BASH: New tariffs are coming. Maybe tonight, President Trump may slap tariffs on all imports from Canada and Mexico, two of America's closest friends and trading partners. He also wants to double the tariff on Chinese goods. If the Canada and Mexico threat sounds familiar, it's because President Trump did the same thing in the early days of his second term, only to call it off. [12:20:00]

But this new tariff talk is coming as there are blaring warning signs for the U.S. economy with lower consumer confidence, less consumer spending, higher layoffs. The economy may actually be shrinking this quarter, according to one forecast from the Federal Reserve.

There's still a lot of uncertainty of what these tariffs would look like, and the President's Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick didn't do much to clear up what is going to happen and what it would even be when it comes to those tariffs on Mexico and Canada.

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HOWARD LUTNICK, COMMRCE SECRETARY: We are around telling them all the details, but then he's going to decide this afternoon and tomorrow we're going to put out those tariffs. He's going to decide today we're going to put it out tomorrow. There's not a lot of uncertainty tomorrow, but he knows they've done a good job on the border.

They haven't done enough on fentanyl. Let's see how the president weighs that today. We're going to talk about it all day today, and then he'll let everybody know tomorrow what the plan is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: My panel is back. They got him right where they want him Jack -

WRIGHT: Yeah, they're going to talk about all day today, as well as doing speech prep, as well as figuring out Ukraine. They have a lot of things on their plate -

RAJU: Or just to wait to see what Trump -

WRIGHT: Let's wait and see. You know, I think it's interesting, because we've been here before. Obviously, there was so much to do about tariffs in the first five or so days, they went down on they went back on it. They said, OK, let's actually give them a month.

We know that there are people very close to Donald Trump, the Treasury Secretary, some of the deputy chiefs of staff who want more narrow tariffs, who feel like it would have a more harmful impact than what Trump wants to do. Obviously, he says it's, you know, maybe his third, fourth favorite word of all time.

Trump does the word tariff, but it really is, wait and see. I don't think that there's a clear idea of whether or not these are going to come or how impactful they are? But the reality is, is that Trump is itching to get these in place. He talks about it constantly. He talks about how good it will be for the country. He talks about how misunderstood tariffs are.

And so, I think that it really is, in some ways, Donald Trump trying to bring his administration to the point where they can put tariffs in place. We'll see if it actually happens now. But certainly, Trump wants to do this, we just don't know how far, how wide, and if it actually happens.

BASH: And there is no one who does not believe that the concept of tariffs, which he has talked about since, like he came out of the womb, I think he has always been consistent on tariffs.

WRIGHT: He loves tariffs.

BASH: How that clashes with the reality of his economy right now, and it's just in a place where consumers are really struggling. Let's look at a couple of new polls. This is just broadly CNN poll that came out this morning Trump policies will move the U.S. in the wrong direction. 45 percent right direction 39 percent that's not so great.

NPR's question was specifically about the economy, the total question that he's moving it for the better, 42 percent worse, 46 percent so that's a bit more split, but this is the ball that we have to keep our eye on.

RAJU: Yeah. I mean, that same CNN poll said that a majority of voters did not believe that Trump had his eye on the ball, on the right priority, the main pressing problem for the country, and Trump got elected to lower prices. So, this starts to increase prices, which pretty much every economist believes that I would will trump back off.

Which is why, perhaps he, Howard Lutnick was little cage about what exactly Trump will do -

BASH: Because - doesn't know.

RAJU: -- Maybe, generally doesn't know. Maybe Trump will delay it. I will be interested to see tomorrow, at the speech, how Republicans will react if Trump starts boasting about tariffs. One person who has not said a lot about is John Thune the Senate Majority Leader, who State of South Dakota could get hit hard.

HULSE: Tariffs are hard. I am glad that they have such a well-planned and thought-out-long-term strategy. They sound like us. Well, we got to decide this at the last minute, right? Republicans are nervous about this because this was always going to be a problem for them. They're talking down Biden's economy. Biden's economy was actually good, right?

This was the problem that Biden was having getting across the point that, you know, things weren't that bad. The markets were good.

BASH: But people weren't feeling.

HULSE: -- but people did not feel it. If they're also -- they want, but they wanted Trump to make them feel better, right? This was the whole idea. We're going to lower gas prices. We're going to get eggs, you know, which would become the big new economic barometer. We're going to get the price down.

And it's not happening. And this is what makes Republicans nervous, because they're already getting blow back at these town halls. They can say it's planned or what not, but they're starting to feel it, and that's over these job cuts, and they're going to hear it about the economy.

Things were supposed to get better with Trump, and they're not. He keeps pulling back on these tariffs. I think the China one is interesting to watch, because China hasn't been as coming to Trump, as much as Canada and Mexico, so maybe they're going to take a whack.

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BASH: Let's talk about the sort of theatrics and the scene that everybody is going to be covering tomorrow night on Capitol Hill when Trump comes back. It's not a "State of the Union", it's a joint address to Congress. Some Democrats are already saying, I'm out. I'm not going. Chris Murphy of Connecticut is one of them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT): I think that State of the Union speech is going to be a farce. I think it's going to be a MAGA pep rally, not a serious talk to the nation. I think Donald Trump is going to spew a series of lies. A lot of Democrats think maybe you should fight every third day. You should reserve your power and jump out of the bushes at the right moment. I just think that we have to be on the offensive 24/7.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: and on this speech specifically Nancy Pelosi, the Former Speaker, said, any demonstration of disagreement, whether it's visual or whatever, just let him stew in his own juice. Don't be any grist for the mill to say that was inappropriate. Well, she is definitely speaking from experience.

RAJU: Tearing up the -

(CROSSTALK)

HULSE: -- risky you could get she did.

BASH: Yeah.

HULSE: I think Democrats are going to do all sorts of things, right? We're already hearing a lot of them are bringing fired federal workers in, right? So, they're going to showcase those. Some people will boycott. Some people will stay -- will sit on their hands. I think, you know, this is the classic, every man for himself, in a way, how they're going to respond.

I think people will go though, because I don't think they want to give him a free pass. You know, as he gives this speech.

RAJU: Yeah, and this is the Democratic leadership is going to be counselling what Nancy Pelosi said, not to create any outbursts that changes the whole narrative, that gives them something to talk about. Can they do that? Can Democrats restrain themselves? That's going to be a big question. I do think Chris Murphy is very interesting too here, because he is

becoming, really the outspoken leader of the left and the resistance, wanting to fight tooth and nail on pretty much everything. That's just not where the Democratic leaders are right now. They are in the pick and choose moment, and in some ways, they're getting criticized from the left for not being as aggressive in fighting the Trump agenda.

WRIGHT: Yeah, I was going to say that, you know, I think where Democratic leadership is not where the rest of the voters are, particularly the democratic voter party. I think the Democrats from when I'm talking to people, they want to see a more forceful Democratic Party. They want to see them more engaged.

They want to see them going more of the Chris Murphy route versus what Nancy Pelosi is saying. And so, I think that if you do not see Democrats being more forceful, more vocal tomorrow, I think that they're going to have a lot of upset constituents around the country who frankly feel that Democrats are out of step, out of step, out of touch, and aren't talking about the issues that people really want to talk about.

BASH: All right, everybody stand-by. Don't go anywhere. When we come back, Alexander Vindman, he was fired after testifying on Trump's quote perfect call with the Volodymyr Zelenskyy, way back in 2019 he's going to be here after the break.

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