Return to Transcripts main page
Inside Politics
Canadians In Crosshairs Call Trump's Tariffs A "Bad Dream"; Trump Takes Reporter Questions In Oval Office. Aired 12:30-1p ET
Aired March 07, 2025 - 12:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
[12:30:00]
KARIM WALJI, CANADIAN RESIDENT: I can bully you around, and this is how I'm going to do it.
JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR & CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Trump paused the tariffs Thursday, just two days after imposing them. Another about-face.
Yes, Walji prefers no tariffs, but he says weeks of threats and contradictions from Trump make it impossible to plan, and are already hurting both economies.
WALJI: Even with the threat of tariffs, prices have gone through the roof, and they've gone higher. So we're seeing right now, when we're bidding a job today versus we're bidding it three months ago, our cost has gone up almost 15 percent.
KING (voice-over): British Columbia is a living postcard. Scenic mountains and gorgeous waters. The importance of trade is everywhere you look. Canadian lumber waiting at river's edge. Rail cars to carry Canadian crude oil, crops, and more. The bustling Pacific Rim port of Vancouver.
PETE XOTTA, CEO, VANCOUVER FRASER PORT AUTHORITY: You'll watch it for eight hours, you'll see on average we've got 10 ships arriving and ten ships leaving. We did about 160 million tons of cargo last year, 75 percent of that is those bulk commodities.
KING: Right.
XOTTA: Grain, coal, potash, sulfur, and other agricultural products outbound.
KING (voice-over): Peter Xotta is the port CEO. He says shippers who normally plan six or nine months out are now taking things a few weeks at a time because Trump is so unpredictable. And he says Trump's threats and his tone leave Canada no choice but to find new markets, new partners.
XOTTA: It's been a wake-up call, right? It's been a wake-up call for Canadians that we need to figure out a way to not be as dependent. This rift goes beyond what Canadians see as Trump's bad math. They are furious at his bad manners, his constant insults, calling Canada the 51st state and its prime minister, governor.
DARRYL LAMB, CANADIAN RESIDENT: We've been in this together for a long time. We fought wars together. We went to Afghanistan. We did all this stuff together. Why -- what are you doing here?
KING (voice-over): Darryl Lamb is the brand manager at Legacy Liquors. Yes, this too is a front in the new trade war.
LAMB: There's Yellow Rose right there from Texas right there.
KING: Yellow Rose. So, is it popular?
LAMB: It is.
KING: And if this goes into effect, you can't sell this?
LAMB: It'll be off the shelf.
KING: It's gone.
KING (voice-over): Tito's vodka too, also from Texas.
KING: Diagram of a trade war.
KING (voice-over): The premier of British Columbia says if Trump imposes tariffs, he will ban sales of alcohol from states that Trump won that also have a Republican governor.
LAMB: We've gone through this before with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. We were asked to remove all Russian products from our shelves.
KING (voice-over): Lamb says some customers rushed to stockpile American favorites, but others want all American products off the shelves.
KING: So mad at Trump for what he's saying about Canada, that they're saying, get it out of here.
LAMB: No, 100 percent. Absolutely. I'm just worried about this eternal relationship that we've had for 200 years plus being soured for four.
KING (voice-over): Vikram Vinayak is a short haul truck driver, carrying berries destined for the United States on this run.
KING: What are other loads that are pretty typical?
VIKRAM VINAYAK, CANADIAN RESIDENT: Nursery, trees, auto parts, and produce. Sometimes we take frozen fish.
KING: How much of your work or products that you know are going to end up in the United States?
VINAYAK: More than 80, 90 percent of our loads are going to U.S.
KING (voice-over): As many as five runs a day, 40 to 50 hours a week. But tariffs will cut shipments to the United States and cut Vinayak's hours.
KING: You have a wife and two daughters?
VINAYAK: Yes.
KING: And so what does that mean about planning, thinking maybe we won't make a vacation or maybe we won't buy something? What is it?
VINAYAK: No, no, just planning is nothing. The main thing is how to get out of this situation by finding another job.
KING: Does that make you mad, you might have to find another job? Do you like this job?
VINAYAK: Yes, I love this job.
KING (voice-over): One of many jobs now at risk because of a U.S.- Canada relationship Trump just shifted into reverse.
John King, CNN, Surrey, British Columbia.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
JESSICA DEAN, CNN ANCHOR: And my panel is back with me now. That story really underscores just what kind of impact this back and forth on the tariffs is having on, you know, on our allies, people in America and people in Canada.
MJ LEE, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL ENTERPRISE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and that, you know, you can have all the policy discussions you want about tariffs, but at the end of the day, I think the uncertainty is what has been so challenging as we have been talking about the on and off, on again, off again. You know, this person telling John, basically it's been impossible to plan our business when you don't know are these tariffs actually on or not.
I'm also just so struck by these Canadians talking with such a tone of disbelief --
DEAN: Yes.
LEE: -- about what's going on. Is Trump trying to bully us? We've been friends for so many years. We are one of their most important economic partners and you want to treat us this way. That's just really fascinating.
LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: The effect that the uncertainty alone is already having ramifications, whether or not these have been in effect for very long or whether or not they may not be in effect for very long. It's having an impact. And also the impact that's going to be felt by American consumers, right? Talking about the fact that American liquor may not be sold across key parts of Canada?
DEAN: Right.
BARRON-LOPEZ: That's going to have a big impact on businesses.
[12:35:03]
DEAN: Yes. All right, stay with us. We're going to be right back.
Coming up, sparking up work. California Governor Gavin Newsom making waves with his comments about trans athletes. We're going to talk about that.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DEAN: And welcome back. We are waiting -- we should have in just a few moments President Trump speaking from the Oval Office. We're going to bring that to you as soon as we have it.
In the meantime, my panel is back here with us and we are getting a readout. Again, just to take people through the sausage making here. This was live to tape --
HANS NICHOLS, POLITICAL REPORTER, AXIOS: Yes.
DEAN: -- and then they play it back for us so we don't get it live.
[12:40:08]
But we are hearing readouts from the Oval Office that really are centered around the economy, tariffs, potentially putting more tariffs on Canadian dairy products, and then also to Russia. So those kind of seem to be the big things.
NICHOLS: But he didn't double down, at least as we've heard from the initial readouts, on potential new tariffs on Russia, which was really the most interesting development I think in the past 24 hours, where it's the first time President Trump, at least in the context of this presidency and the Ukraine war, is really talking tough and raising the specter of real action against Russia.
He has a little bit more head space because oil prices are down, gas prices are under 3 bucks a gallon in a lot of the country, and that was always a challenge and a question for Biden is, what do you do on Russia that doesn't really crater gas prices? So -- but he didn't say a lot, as we know, and he didn't really double down on those criticisms. So that's, to me, interesting.
DEAN: Yes. Yes. And you see what he posted. We talked about it earlier, but what he had posted on Truth Social, which was pretty strong, and again, the indications coming out is like it wasn't quite that forceful when they were talking to him today.
BARRON-LOPEZ: Yes, based on what Jeff was saying coming out of that --
DEAN: Yes.
BARRON-LOPEZ: -- was that the president was actually talking tougher on Ukraine again --
DEAN: Yes.
BARRON-LOPEZ: -- instead of talking tough about Russia. So we'll see if he's going to follow through on anything that he posts on Truth Social. I mean, when it comes to tariffs, in addition to the dairy, there was also the potential tariffs levied against lumber.
DEAN: Yes.
BARRON-LOPEZ: America gets a lot of its lumber from Canada, again. So when we're talking about the impacts here on consumers, I think that that's something that is really raising a lot of fear and concern across the country right now.
DEAN: Yes. And obviously this coming to you on the day of this jobs report. And MJ, I know you've been doing a lot of reporting specifically on DOGE, on how that's affecting people. They really can't plan a lot of these workers, and there is kind of a question mark, we don't know yet, but long-term, what these cuts might mean when it comes to some of these economic indicators.
LEE: Yes. I'm curious whether the president said anything really explicit about the work that Elon Musk and DOGE have been doing, you know, given the recent comments about, well, it might be better to use a scalpel instead of a hatchet. I mean, the issue there is that the hatchet damage is already done, right? I mean, you can use so many metaphors. You can't put the toothpaste back into the tube.
I think the USAID reporting has been one of the best examples of how -- when you make those kinds of sweeping cuts, you really can't reverse them overnight. I mean, it's not like turning on a switch. It's an entire ecosystem where if one piece is broken, even turning that back on doesn't fix the rest of it.
I think it's like the old, like, Christmas lights, they probably don't make them anymore, but where if one light --
DEAN: Yes.
LEE: -- bulb goes out, the entire team --
(CROSSTALK)
NICHOLS: But we still have some of those (INAUDIBLE).
LEE (?): OK.
NICHOLS: We'll have them for eternity.
LEE (?): Yes.
DEAN: Yes, but that's tricky. I mean, do you think, Hans, do you get any sense from when you're talking to people that the administration, that the president is kind of starting to get some of this feedback and adjust or no?
NICHOLS: No, he, of course, corrects, right? DEAN: Yes.
NICHOLS: I mean, he does. I mean, it's just a question kind of for the table, even for the day. We started off this show talking about to the extent that Trump gives us whiplash and he's, you know, we always have this backtracking.
In his view, he's wrong-footing his opponents, and he's a pitcher who's got a good off-speed pitch, right? He's always keeping his opponents guessing where he's going. Sometimes it doesn't seem like that.
From the outside, it just looks chaotic, and it looks like he's pitting staff members against each other, letting them fight it out, and making decisions on the fly and making snap decisions sometimes and then reversing them. But we're early. I mean, we are six weeks into this presidency.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
NICHOLS: We are very early.
BARRON-LOPEZ: And you're not really seeing Republicans necessarily break from him or break from Elon Musk or break from DOGE. Have they voiced their concerns with Musk in private, saying, hey, we think you've cut some things that you should not have cut? Can we have a direct line to you?
Yes, that's happening. But in public, you hear House Speaker Mike Johnson, you hear V.A. Secretary Doug Collins, who was just on our air, essentially saying, no, these cuts are not impacting Americans very directly. The firing of workers across these agencies, that's not having an impact on veteran benefits. That's not true.
I mean, you talk to veterans who have been fired, and the people that were being treated at these different facilities are having an impact on their benefits and on their care. But the administration and Republicans are essentially telling the fired workers, as well as reporters, don't believe that this is having an impact yet.
I think it eventually is going to potentially bite them with voters, because I've talked to a veteran who was a Trump voter who said that he could not believe that he was fired. He did not vote for this. He said that he voted for, yes, reducing waste in government. But he's like, that's -- this is not what I signed up for.
DEAN: It is fascinating. All right, we're going to take a quick break.
Again, we are waiting for this question and answer with President Trump from the Oval Office. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[12:45:43]
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: -- the large-scale fentanyl.
DEAN: All right, let's listen in to President Trump from the Oval Office.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- weaken the labor market.
TRUMP: No, I think the labor market's going to be fantastic, but it's going to have high-paying manufacturing jobs as opposed to government jobs. We had too many people in government. You can't just do that. We had many, many, too many.
This is for 40 years, you know. This isn't just now. This built up and got worse and worse, and they just hire more and more people.
You look at Department of Education, it seems like so many buildings. I ride by, it says Department of Education. They're all over the place. And we don't even want it. We want the education to be given by the states. It'll be much better.
It'll be -- it'll move us to the top of the list from the bottom of the list and actually save us money. But it's too important to even talk about the money. It'll save us a lot of money, but we don't want that.
We want education to be given. So you go to Iowa and Indiana and Idaho and all these places, they're so well run. They're going to be producing education that will be the equivalent of, like, Denmark is one, Norway, Sweden.
Actually, China is one of the better in terms of education, and so we can't blame size anymore. You know, China has 1.4 billion people, but they're very high on their list. The one thing we're doing well on, we're number one on the list, is cost per pupil.
We spend more money than any other country in the world by far. So I jokingly say the one thing we do well on is the cost. We spend more money, and yet we're toward the bottom of the list.
Yes?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, I want to ask you the joint address, millions of Americans watched your joint address earlier this week. Were you warned that there could be a little disturbance Americans could feel as a function of these taxes, these tariffs? How much disturbance are you willing to accept in the near term as a function of that? ?And to set expectations, how long should Americans expect things to cost a bit more?
TRUMP: Well, so far, Peter, there hasn't been very much because these numbers are coming out. We're here for just a little over four weeks. And these are fantastic numbers. I was watching some of the reports this morning. They were surprised.
There could be some disturbance, a little bit of a disturbance. I solved a little bit of that because I have respect for our auto companies, and I gave them a little bit of a one month reprieve because it was unfair, although I'm sure they'll take advantage of it. I see they're driving a lot of cars into the U.S. to try and avoid the tariffs and, you know, taking advantage of it a little bit.
But they were -- they called me. They asked me, they said, could they have a little bit of help? And I decided, you know, they're American companies, USMCA. And I let them have that. But this really kicks in the reciprocals, you know, kicks in on -- let's see, I guess the second, and I wanted it to be the first so badly.
It just didn't want to be on April Fool's Day, so I made it the second. That's going to cost a lot of money. That one day is going to cost a lot of money, but that's OK. But I don't see it, I don't see anything. I see good reports. I think we're going to have good numbers from the beginning.
Now, globalists won't love this because this brings jobs back to America. So if they're coming back to America, maybe you'll lose some in other parts of the world. But the other parts of the world have done very well and they'll continue to do very well. But I think the United States is going to be doing record business.
We'll bring a lot of those 90,000 factories that have been lost over the last number of years. It's been -- it's hard to believe. 90,000 -- think of what 90,000 is. 90,000 plants and factories are gone. We're going to bring back many of those plants and factories.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One day the tariffs are on, the next day they're off. Right now the markets, as you know well, prefer stability. Are you done going forward with the pauses and the carve outs? Is that it for those?
TRUMP: There'll always be changes and adjustments. And, you know, you can't just -- I could have, for instance, told the American car companies, no, I'm not going to give you anything. And then you wouldn't have had to say, well, they're getting a little extra. It's just a little bit of a one month reprieve.
They're very happy about what's happening. They won't have to go across borders and you see the zigzag and you have a fender made in Canada. You have something else made in Mexico. We don't want that. We want it made here.
[12:50:01]
But there'll always be some modifications. I mean, if you have a wall in front of you, sometimes you have to go around the wall instead of through it. But I think very little. I think very little. On occasion, if we can do something -- we want to help companies. We want to help companies create jobs.
So I could have left that, and you wouldn't have had a minor change. Instead, I was asked by the major -- the real majors, the big majors, if they could do this. And I said, yes, I'll do it. I want you to produce a lot of jobs.
And numerous of the people -- actually, all of the people I spoke to have already been -- they're very much on the way to already doing it. And that's why you have auto jobs increase.
And the man -- I don't know him, Shawn Fain, I don't know him. But -- and I did great, as you know, with the autoworkers, with the Teamsters, with unions. I did fantastically well. Best numbers ever by a Republican. But -- and I have a lot of respect for those people.
But Shawn Fain, who I don't know, but wasn't a supporter, although the autoworkers were big supporters, I watched him last night, and he said, Donald Trump is absolutely right on tariffs. He said what he's doing on tariffs is an incredible thing. And it's about time somebody had the guts to do it, because we're going to save auto manufacturing.
And I said to people when I was campaigning, you're going to have so many auto jobs, you're not going to believe what's going to happen. We're going to load up Michigan. I won the state of Michigan, as you know. And part of the reason I won it was I got a lot of autoworkers that voted for me. Detroit, et cetera. But I think people are going to be very surprised.
Yes?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, Mr. President. You mentioned in your remarks chips manufacturing how a significant percentage is now in Taiwan. You also mentioned it in your address to Congress. And you called on Congress to overturn the CHIPS Act, which had bipartisan support in the last Congress. Why would you like to see this particular law overturned, Mr. President?
TRUMP: Because it's hundreds of billions of dollars, and it's just a waste of money. Now, some people have already taken the money and used it. Actually, it's very hard to qualify, because they go by race, they go by gender, they go by all sorts of things.
Nobody's ever seen anything like it. You won't be able to find those people. So I don't even think anybody can qualify. They have so many different categories in order to qualify. You have to have so many of a certain race, a certain gender, a certain this, a certain -- and it's -- I don't think they can qualify, but if they take the money, they're better qualified because they'll be watching them.
But it's a tremendous waste of money. I didn't give the great -- the greatest chip company in the world, one of the greatest companies, I didn't give them 10 cents. They came here because of tariffs, because they didn't want to pay the tariffs.
And they also came here because they like the results of the election, because they know that I'm very pro-business and pro-jobs. I mean, I'm pro-business, not for business sake. I'm pro-business because of jobs, because business is producing the jobs. OK?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) on Russia, if I may. President Putin is bombing Ukraine.
TRUMP: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you still believe him when he tells you that he wants peace?
TRUMP: Yes, no, I believe him. I believe him. I think we're doing very well with Russia. But right now, they're bombing the hell out of Ukraine. And Ukraine -- I'm finding it more difficult, frankly, to deal with Ukraine. And they don't have the cards. They don't have the cards.
As you know, we're meeting in Saudi Arabia on -- sometime next week, early. And we're talking -- I find that in terms of getting a final settlement, it may be easier dealing with Russia, which is surprising, because they have all the cards.
I mean -- and they're bombing the hell out of them right now. And I put a statement in -- a very strong statement, you can't do that. You can't do that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President --
TRUMP: Trying to -- we're trying to help them. And Ukraine has to get on the ball and get a job done.
Michael, could you come up here? I see Michael back there.
Good, I'm glad -- he's traveling all over the world. I just saw him come in the door.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
TRUMP: Could you give a little definition of what's going on, please?
MICHAEL WALTZ, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER OF THE UNITED STATES: Sure. Well, the president has been crystal clear, and he's been clear to all sides. The fighting has to stop. Both sides need to get to the table. We had a good engagement. Both leaders have said only President Trump could do so, and only he has been able to do so.
We had an initial engagement with the Russians. The Ukrainians had a great opportunity to bind our economies together through that mineral deal. Unfortunately, that didn't go so well. But we think we're going to get things back on track.
Secretary Rubio, myself, and the Ukrainian delegation will be meeting in Saudi Arabia next week to get these talks back on track, get a ceasefire in place, and drive peace home under President Trump's leadership.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, you put out --
TRUMP: I think both parties want to settle. I think if I wasn't president, this war would have had no chance of settlement, zero chance.
[12:55:06]
But I think we're going to get it settled and stopped. We got to stop. They're losing, on average, 2,000 soldiers a week. That's a lot of soldiers. Do you agree, Peter?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a lot of soldiers on both sides, I agree. Do you, Mr. President, think that Vladimir Putin is taking advantage of the U.S. pause right now on intelligence and military aid to Ukraine?
TRUMP: I actually think he's doing what anybody else would do. I think he's -- I think he wants to get it stopped and settled, and I think he's hitting them harder than he's been hitting them. And I think probably anybody in that position would be doing that right now.
He wants to get it ended, and I think Ukraine wants to get it ended, but I don't see it. It's crazy. They're taking tremendous punishment. I don't quite get it, but I suspect, Michael, he probably wants to get it ended.
WALTZ: He does, Mr. President. The Russians are taking incredible losses on the front. As the president has said, this is a meat grinder of people, of material, of national treasure, and no one else has any solutions except to let this war continue forever.
But I'll add, the president has had multiple conversations and a visit from President Macron of France, Prime Minister Starmer of the United Kingdom. We have the NATO Secretary General coming next week. We have this meeting with the Ukrainians.
We've had it with the Russians. All of this in the president's first month in his leadership. We will engage in the shuttle diplomacy, and we will continue to use his leadership and what leverage we have to get both sides of the peace table. It's not going to be easy, but President Trump --
TRUMP: This war should have never happened. It would have never happened if I were president, but it did happen. So a lot of other things shouldn't have happened too. We shouldn't have 21 million people pouring into our country through open borders, many of whom are criminals, very bad criminals, including murderers, thousands of murderers.
Many killed far more than one person, and they're roaming our streets. But Tom Homan and Kristi Noem are doing an incredible job, and we're getting them out of here, and we'll get them out. We'll get them all out. But all these things shouldn't have happened.
We shouldn't have inflation. We shouldn't have had this horrible inflation where the prices have gone up. Look at eggs. So we're doing a good job. We're doing a good job.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, in regards to the pause on military assistance to Ukraine, ?you put out on your social media post today that Russia is pounding Ukraine.
TRUMP: That's right.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why not provide Ukraine with air defenses? And what happens, Mr. President, when Ukraine runs out of air defenses (ph)? TRUMP: Well, because -- yes, yes, good question. Because I have to know that they want to settle. I don't know that they want to settle. If they don't want to settle, we're out of there. Because we want them to settle. And I'm doing it to stop death. More important than anything else.
Secondarily, way down the line is the money. So we're in for $350 billion and Europe is in for $100 billion. They should be in for the same or more than us. And, you know, I watched over the last week or so what's going on in Europe.
This thing could end up in World War III if we don't get it settled. This could really end up in a World War III. We got to get it settled.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ?So on Iran, how confident are you that the Iranians will never ship (ph) with you? And is Israel involved with this outrage?
TRUMP: Yes, I saw the hostages the other day. They came in -- people that were -- not young, some young and some older, much older. And they gave -- it was hard for them to do it, actually. They gave statements as to what happened.
I was asking, what happened? How was it? I said, did you see anybody in there that was kind to, like, out of the hundreds of people that you were seeing in Hamas? Did some of them wink at you and say, don't worry, you're going to be OK, or give you a piece of bread, or no.
I said, were there any people that were, like, kind? I was shocked. The answer was, nobody. There was nobody. Just the opposite. They'd be slapped and punched.
One man broke his ribs. He couldn't breathe for a month. It was brutal. I was so surprised. Did you think there'd be a couple of people that would be kind that would say, you're going to be OK? But they had none of that. It's pretty amazing.
Brian?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, Mr. President.
TRUMP: He's a kind person.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, according to --
TRUMP: Although not to Zelenskyy, he wasn't.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, that's the --
TRUMP: But to Trump, he's been good.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
TRUMP: Go ahead, Brian.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nice tie, by the way, we coordinated. TRUMP: I like your too.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Two questions. One on peace. Why don't you think any other European countries are offering a peace deal? It seems like no one's come to the table for peace except for you.
TRUMP: Yes. It's a very good question. Sometimes questions aren't answerable. They're in a very unusual position. They don't know how to end the war. I think I do know how to end the war.
