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Trump, Defense Secretary Speak from Oval Office; Musk Visits Pentagon as it Considers Major Cuts to Top of Military; Trump on Musk Visit to Pentagon: There for DOGE, Not China; Families of Deported Migrants on Desperate Hunt for Answers. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired March 21, 2025 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: For at least $4 trillion $4 trillion is coming in car companies. Very importantly, a lot of the car companies that we're going to build in Mexico or Canada, and now building here. I don't want cars from Canada. I don't want cars from Mexico. They want to do it. It's fine.

But I want the car companies to build here, not -- you know they were building in Mexico, three plants, big plants, really big plants, and they're going to sell the cars right across the border. We wouldn't have the jobs, we wouldn't have the profits, we wouldn't get the taxes. We get nothing. All we get is unemployment and empty factories.

Those days are over. So now those three places are going to build here. But many more than that. We have a big one. Honda is building. Just announced, a really big plant in Indiana, great state, smart place to build. And we have many car companies coming here.

The steel -- the steel mills are going to be booming, going to be booming. And many other things -- you know many other things come with that. But we need that for defense. You know, yes, there are certain things you have to have. You have to have steel we would have had, if I didn't do in my first term, tariffs to stop the onslaught, because they were dumping steel in order to destroy our steel plants.

If I didn't do 50 percent and even 100 percent in certain cases, tariffs on steel, you wouldn't have a steel plant in the United States. And Biden was unable to get rid of those tariffs, because they threw off so much money that his numbers, which didn't work anyway, because his numbers were terrible.

What he did, the way he spent money, was so horrible, and what he allowed to happen to energy, that's the other thing. Energy is going to be like it's never been before, Mr. Vice President, is here you have it. Do you have anything to say while you're here? Very good Vice President.

J.D. VANCE, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: I'm just here to watch the show, sir. I think airplanes are pretty cool, so I want to go check this out.

TRUMP: It is true.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Inaudible).

TRUMP: Well, I'll be speaking to President Xi. I have a great relationship with him. We're going to have a very good relationship, but we have a trillion-dollar deficit because of Biden with President Xi. More than that. I mean, I've heard $1.2 trillion we have a deficit, and I've explained that to President Xi.

We also have a problem where he's allowing fentanyl to be sent into Mexico and they cross the border and -- you know killing I think the number is much higher than the 125, 115 that you -- I think it's closer to 300,000 people a year. And so that's a problem. But they have -- they have a tremendous surplus against the United States, and we don't want that.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President -- Industries have come to you asking for exemptions on tariffs, is that something that is under consideration by you?

TRUMP: Well, people are coming to me and talking about tariffs, and a lot of people are asking me if they could have exceptions. And once you do that for one, you have to do that for all. So, I mean, generally, I did something interestingly during two weeks ago. I gave the American car companies a break, because it would have been unfair if I didn't.

And everybody said, oh, he changed his mind on tariffs. I didn't change my mind. I helped our sort of big three, big four. I helped some of the American companies. And instead of taking it properly, they said, oh, he changed it. I don't change but the word flexibility is an important word.

Sometimes this flexibility so there will be flexibility, but basically, it's reciprocal, so that if China's charging us 50 percent or 30 percent or 20 percent and I don't mean China, I mean anybody, any country, Canada, nobody knows that Canada is charging our dairy farmers, they have 270 percent tariffs. Nobody knows that. Nobody knows that.

They have up to 400 percent. They have a couple of tariffs at 400 percent. Nobody knows that. Nobody talks about that. And remember, with Canada, we don't need their cars. We don't need their lumber. We don't need their energy. We don't need anything from Canada, and yet it costs us $200 billion a year in subsidy to keep Canada afloat.

So, when I say they should be a state, I mean that. I really mean that because we can't be expected to carry a country that is right next to us on our border. It would be a great state. It would be a cherished state. The taxes for Canadian citizens would go down in less than half. They don't spend money on military because they think we're going to protect them.

There are many things that they do, like ice breakers. They want us to provide ice breakers for them. That's wonderful. So, the candidate -- they're very tough traders too. I want to just tell you all the people, they're tough traders. They trade very tough. And you know, the expression I use is some people don't have the card. DANA BASH, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS: OK, we're going to continue to monitor President Trump speaking in the Oval Office. As he does, we're going to begin "Inside Politics". Thank you so much for joining me. I'm Dana Bash.

[12:05:00]

The president is in the Oval Office for an event with the Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, who was by his side. They talked about a number of things, in particular during the Q&A with reporters. I want to drill down on what he said about "The New York Times" and a report that they had that Elon Musk, when he went to the Pentagon today, was due to get a briefing on the Pentagon's plan for handling a war in China.

What you just heard was the president adamantly denying that story. Now those remarks come shortly after, the billionaire who was helping President Trump in a very, very real, very aggressive way, do away with a lot of the programs and personnel in the federal government. You see there, he met with the senior Pentagon leadership.

I want to go to CNN's Jeff Zeleny at the White House. And again, we're going to continue to monitor President Trump. He was talking as we moved away, there a lot about tariffs and Canada, which we've heard a lot of before. Jeff, I do want to just start with the notion of this "New York Times" report on two levels.

Number one, it just is important to underscore that the President of the United States sitting at the resolute desk in the Oval Office calling a newspaper the enemy of the people is not new, but it doesn't mean it's not wrong, and it doesn't mean it's not dangerous, not just for the people who work at "The New York Times", or even CNN and elsewhere.

But also, for the institution and the notion of the objective journalism that we are all genuinely striving to do. This is separate from the report that he denies. And I just think that's important to lay out, as we just heard, that remarkable term that he's resurrecting from his first time around in the White House.

But on the substance of the report Jeff that Elon Musk perhaps was going to get briefed on some war plans in China, that is the thing that the president vehemently, adamantly denied that was going to happen or it did happen inside the Pentagon.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: He did Dana. And the president there, perhaps saying the least surprising thing, going after the media, as you know, as we've been watching this same script for nearly a decade now.

But as you said, have him -- having him say those words in the Oval Office, it does sort of amplify them. But let's go right to the specific point. He was talking about the whole aspect of this "The New York Times" story, as well as "The Wall Street Journal's" reporting that Elon Musk, who has emerged as one of the president's top advisers. He, of course, is leading the Department of Government Efficiency, but

his reach and influence has extended too much more than that. We've already learned that in the first two months of this new administration. So, Elon Musk was going to the Pentagon, as we saw, to meet with Defense Secretary Hegseth then others about the Pentagon.

He, of course, is considering which efficiencies, if you will, which layoffs and cuts to be made at the Department of Defense. But the times in "The Journal" also reported that he was going to be read in on in a classified or unclassified manner. That was unclear about potential war plans with China.

The president pushed back on that specifically, and said he would not want to share any type of war plans with China, should they exist with anyone? And he said that he believes that Elon Musk would not want to be read into this because of his business interest in China.

Boy, that unpacks a lot there, because that sort of just underscores the conflicts of interest that do exist with this new arrangement that the president has made with Elon Musk. So never mind the insults and the dangerous attack on the First Amendment and the press, the actual substance of that story, the president said that Elon Musk was not read in on any war plans, and the whole reason the Defense Secretary was in the Oval Office right there.

It was a very interesting announcement, also announcing a next generation of war fighter that Boeing is doing. It's called the F47. F47 is intended to highlight and celebrate the presidency of this administration, the 47th President of the United States. The president has been very angry at Boeing for some delays over a new Air Force One and other matters.

So, this is Boeing coming forward with an F47 which the president clearly wanted to talk about. And of course, he's taking questions on a variety of other subjects Dana.

BASH: Yeah, thank you. I'm so glad that you picked up on that, and I do want to continue the conversation with what you mentioned about him even putting out there the reality and that this is the truth that Elon Musk does have significant business interest in China.

[12:10:00]

And that being a reason why he claims that Elon Musk wouldn't want to be briefed on the war plan. So, we're going to dig into some of that. Thank you so much, Jeff. Please let us know if the president says anything else that we should know about as he continues to talk to reporters in the Oval Office.

ZELENY: Sure.

BASH: And I'm joined by some other terrific reporters, Peter Hamby of "PUCK" and Host of Snapchat Good Luck America, Laura Barron-Lopez of PBS NewsHour, and Zolan Kanno-Youngs of "The New York Times".

Zolan, I want to start with you just picking up on Jeff's point about the sort of the way in which the president denied, emphatically denied, and said he even checked with the Defense Secretary and his Chief of Staff to make sure that Elon Musk was not getting briefed on war plans in China.

Because it does really first of all the idea that he was so outraged that we would not really think that Elon Musk would want to do anything that would be a conflict of interest. I mean, has he seen what has happened in the first several weeks and month plus of his administration?

There's not a big amount of transparency. It's very opaque, and there are a lot of potential conflicts of interest, but we don't know what we don't know. So, we don't know how much of a how much information he has -- and how much access he has to those programs that are a direct conflict with his own business practices?

ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Which points to the issue right? Which the fact that we don't know enough about this and there's a void of information, points to the issue of transparency with this relationship between the world's richest man and the President of the United States at this point.

Look as you -- as Jeff noted, you know the president does have a familiar playbook going back now, nearly a decade, where there's a story that he doesn't like, attacking the media and attacking media organizations. My colleagues did report that this was a planned meeting, and after they did report it, that it was called off.

But all of this speaks to, more broadly, these concerns around a conflict of interest. Yes, Elon Musk has business ties in China, but also, he has -- his companies have contracts with the Pentagon as well. And now you have seen him, just in recent weeks, really upending the federal bureaucracy, impacting agencies that, by the way, had had some responsibility over oversight of some of that work of his companies as well.

So, there have been questions from the public, questions from oversight mechanisms, about this dynamic, and to this point, we have had a transparency issue now moving forward.

BASH: I don't want to sort of blow past what you just said, because you do work for "The New York Times", and this is the -- you're the publication. I know this was not you're reporting. They were your colleagues, but can you just repeat, or, you know, sort of expand on what you just said about the fact that the reporting was that this was planned and perhaps scrapped after "The New York Times" reported it.

KANNO-YOUNGS: Yes, yes. So, my colleagues did report that this was a scheduled meeting with Elon Musk. It was supposed to be in the tank of the Pentagon where some of these more sensitive conversations are happening. And then after that, reporting is when we saw these posts and the denials come from the administration, which, again, is something that we've seen in the past with other big stories that President of the United States has not liked at that point.

We're going to continue reporting this story out. But again, that we -- the reporting was that this was a scheduled meeting and that it was then called off after that story -- the story was published.

BASH: Really, really interesting. Peter, go ahead.

PETER HAMBY, FOUNDING PARTNER, PUCK: Real quick to stand up for Zolan. He won't say, I don't want to sound like a "New York Times" earnings call here. That's not the failing "New York Times", like the media business, is not doing well. New York Times has 11 million subscribers. They are going to hit a billion dollars in revenue next few years. Donald Trump needs a new target "The New York Times" to say, failing.

BASH: We're also doing OK.

HAMBY: Yeah, of course. I mean, the thing I want to point out too is Donald Trump's never going to be appointed the Head of the English Department at Vassar. He's not -- you know good with language. But the thing that jumped out at me from those Elon Musk comments was him saying, Elon Musk should not have access to these things.

BASH: Yeah.

HAMBY: That, to me, was one of the first times. I mean, we've seen Elon on the Oval Office. We've seen them do a Tesla Spring Sales Event in front of the White House. That was the first time I at least have seen Donald Trump say Elon should not be doing this thing.

And look, Elon Musk is an unpopular figure. He's less popular than Joe Biden. He's one of the most unpopular figures in America at this point. Approval ratings around 40 percent way less than Donald Trump, who's not high either.

[12:15:00]

He's like 49 percent. I think that Elon Musk has kind of been the heat shield has become the beltway term for Donald Trump since coming in like he is the target of a lot of attacks, and maybe it's protecting Donald Trump a little bit from some public disapproval, but that was a little bit of a break with Elon Musk.

The other one thing to keep in mind, though, and Zolan mentioned this, the Pentagon had tons of contracts with SpaceX and Starlink in the Biden Administration...

BASH: Yeah.

HAMBY: -- before he came into office. "The Wall Street Journal" reported that Elon Musk had phone calls with Vladimir Putin last year to talk about China and Taiwan and Starlink. I mean, these people, Tim Cook, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, news flash, they talk to world leaders all the time. They have interest all over the world.

BASH: That's right.

HAMBY: And that's also troubling I mean, even before coming in.

BASH: And let me just pick up on the SpaceX. Laura, I'm going to bring you in on this. Contracts as of October 2024 the U.S. Space Force awarded $733 million in launch contracts to Musk's SpaceX. I just want to so that's to Peter's point.

And then just more broadly, just looking at one of his companies, the most famous, Tesla, and Tesla's ties to China. The largest car factory is located in Shanghai, $200 million battery plant in Shanghai. China is the second largest market for Tesla, after the U.S. In 2023 nearly a quarter of the total revenue came from China, and it's the only foreign owned car on Chinese government purchase list, Laura.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yeah. I mean, the conflicts of interest are pretty just all out in the open Dana. But if I could just backtrack a bit, because Elon Musk, our reporting shows that was at the Pentagon this morning. Did have a meeting with at least Pete Hegseth.

And a defense official told my colleague Nick Schifrin that the topics will include China. So, there is some kind of -- you know conversation going on today at the Pentagon with Elon Musk. And again, speaking to Zolan's point earlier. There's not a lot of transparency about what exactly he's -- what information he's getting at the moment? And what he got this morning? And whether or not the parameters of that meeting changed?

But on the conflicts of interest -- you know look across the board, whether it's Tesla, whether it's Starlink or SpaceX, all of these companies have contracts with the federal government. Elon Musk's companies receive billions from the federal government, and at the same time, we're seeing -- you know Tesla's being trotted out on the South Lawn of the White House, which is essentially a commercial for Teslas.

And you know, that kind of thing, according to the ethics experts and lawyers I've talked to, is technically a violation for a government employee like Elon Musk to be getting that kind of boost in benefit from the federal government, and because he was out there promoting his own company on White House property, that's an ethics rule violation.

Now, is it a criminal violation, no? But there's also the question of whether or not Elon Musk, as he's getting access to all these systems across agencies that his businesses have contracts with, whether or not he's potentially in violation of the critical conflicts of interest law. And we may never have the answer to that, because a lot of the watchdogs have been fired by the president.

BASH: Yeah. I mean a couple of things. One is, of course, he had that, as Peter said, the spring sale event for Tesla, largely because of the problem that Tesla is having, because the attacks on Donald Trump are going through Elon Musk and his -- and his company, in many cases, in a pretty untoward way when it comes to really to vandalization.

But also, let's just take them at their word for a second. Let's just pretend like he's or believe that he's only going to go and look at what needs to be cut from the Pentagon. Therein lies the question of whether or not he's going to carve out the money that he and his company get from the Pentagon as part of the doge cuts. So those are all so many unanswered questions.

Thank you all. Don't go anywhere. Stand by because coming up, part of what the president just said in the Oval Office was a renewed attack on the federal judge handling the El Salvador deportation case. Just hours before the Justice Department is due to face that judge in a new hearing in the case we'll discuss after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:20:00]

BASH: Today in Federal Court, the Trump Administration is set to face off with the judge who blocked the president's deportation flights over concerns that migrants weren't receiving due process. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg drew Trump's hire and fire after he lambasted the Justice Department yesterday, he once again attacked the judge in the Oval Office just a short while ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We can't let a judge say that he wants to get -- he didn't run for president. We just can't let that happen. It'd be so bad for our country. I won on the basis of getting criminals out of our country. You can't stop that with a judge sitting behind a bench that has no idea what goes on to have to be a radical left lunatic.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[12:25:00]

BASH: I want to go straight to CNN's Priscilla Alvarez. So, what we heard again from the president today, Priscilla, was that it's the worst of the worst gang members who have been taken and deported. You are talking to the families of some of those who were deported. What are you learning?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right Dana. CNN has spoken to multiple family members, and they all say that some of those who were sent to El Salvador had no criminal record. They just had tattoos, and they fear that that is exactly what put them on the path to El Salvador.

Court declarations also indicating that some -- many of them, did not have criminal records in the United States. I went to Dallas, Texas yesterday to speak with a woman. Her name is Yuli. Her brother was sent to El Salvador, and we learned in that moment with her that that was indeed the case. CNN only has permission to play Yuli side of the conversation. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALVAREZ: So, the 15th he was deported to El Salvador. Is that correct?

(FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

ALVAREZ: Can she communicate with her brother? (FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

ALVAREZ: She wants to just confirm one more time that she was I'm sorry that her brother, who's a number we have provided, was deported to El Salvador on March 15th.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALVAREZ: So, you can see there, she had received the confirmation that she most feared that her brother, who she says has no criminal records, was sent to El Salvador is a Venezuelan National. Right after that moment, she walked over to her couch and collapsed alongside her husband and her three-year-old daughter, screaming that he is not a criminal.

I will say that El Salvador part of the conversation too, was how she could communicate with him. The official said she could use channels in El Salvador, that is the black hole that these families are now dealing with as their relatives are in this notorious mega prison with no way to know what happens next with them.

Of course, they are not in their country of origin. Since they are from Venezuela, they are not in U.S. custody anymore, according to U.S. officials I've spoken with, it is all up to El Salvador on what happens next, and these families just have no answers on what to expect moving forward.

BASH: And again, just to reiterate, this woman's brother was on the flight that was involved in the judge's order not to send the flight, and then the flight went, and that's part of what the hearing is about later today.

Laura, I want to bring you in and just show our viewers what the public opinion generally is about the deportation of those undocumented immigrants living illegally in the United States. 63 percent according to the latest Fox News Poll, say that they favor deporting those immigrants. So, that's a pretty high number. Can you square that with what we just heard from Priscilla's reporting?

BARRON-LOPEZ: Yeah, I think that obviously the president has kind of blanketed the airwaves as he was saying that all of these people deported are criminals. And given the fact that we reporters like Priscilla and I we have very limited information to who exactly has been deported. The government has not handed over names.

I know CBS got a hold of a list of names, but that hasn't been provided to those who are asking for who was actually deported. And there is a difference between someone who came into the country illegally versus someone who overstay their visa, that's not a crime, versus someone who has no criminal record, no criminal history.

And based on my reporting, based on clearly Priscilla's reporting, there are some Venezuelan nationals whose family members, whose lawyers say that they were deported, who have no criminal record, who have no criminal history, that they legally applied for asylum or were trying to gain status, where some of them were in the middle of proceedings and then they were deported to El Salvador.

And now their lawyers, their family members, can't reach them. So, sometimes I think it's also the way we ask those questions in polls, which is, are we framing it as they are illegal immigrants?

BASH: Yeah.

BARRON-LOPEZ: Or are we deciding splitting it up and saying some of these people overstayed visas, that's not illegal...

BASH: Yeah.

BARRON-LOPEZ: -- some were in the process of claiming asylum. Are Americans opposed to all those different types of immigrants that have been living in this country, in some cases, for decades?

BASH: Yeah, that's a very fair point, and Peter to that point, it is why transparency is important. We're clearly not getting it.