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Inside Politics

Trump: Team is "Actively" Talking with China to get a "Fair Deal"; Trump Signals Potential U-Turn on China Trade War; Sources: Retail Execs Warn Trump of "Empty" Shelves from Tariffs; Prominent Role of Hegseth's Wife Draws Scrutiny; FDA Says it will Phase Out Petroleum-Based Food Dyes. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired April 23, 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 in "Inside Politics", investors think President Trump may be backing down on his trade war with China, so does Beijing. You won't believe what is trending on Chinese social media today. Plus, chaos at the Pentagon, how much longer will Republicans stand by and battle Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth?

I'll speak with the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee. And Robert Kennedy Jr., blames synthetic dyes in the food supply for a host of chronic childhood illnesses. Now the FDA says it will work with food companies to -- phase out those ingredients. The New FDA Commissioner and a leader in the so-called MAHA movement will join me later in the hour.

I'm Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines and "Inside Politics". A big question this morning here in Washington and on Wall Street is whether the president has been convinced to ease up on his trade war with China, and how long that could last? The markets think that the answer, at least in the short term, is yes, because look at the DOW, it's up about 600 points.

That is after the president said yesterday, he's likely to roll back some of the tariffs on China. And then his treasury secretary said this morning that he sees, quote, an opportunity for a big deal. CNN's Kevin Liptak is at the White House, where, moments ago, we did hear from President Trump himself.

Talk about that, but also about your excellent reporting that tells us how we got to the point where the president basically blinked.

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yeah, and you're really seeing on two fronts here, the president starting to ease up, at least in his rhetoric on some of those harsh line comments that had been causing so much turmoil in the markets, and it all seems to be a result of this internal campaign to talk to the president about some of the real-world effects that his rhetoric had been having. On the first front, this question of whether or not he would fire the Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell, the president saying yesterday that he has no plans to remove him from the post. Well, that came after some warnings from some of his top advisers about not only the market ramifications, potentially, which could be worse than the trade war that he has now waging.

But also, some of the legal battles that would be ahead that no one in the White House was necessarily confident that they would prevail on. And so yesterday, you see the president really easing up on that front. And then, when it comes to China, you heard the president say that he would potentially be willing to lower substantially that tariff rate, which currently sits at 145 percent.

Well, that came after a meeting with top retail CEOs here at the White House on Monday, people like the CEO of Walmart, of lows of Home Depot, who all warned about significant disruptions to their supply chain, if this trade war with Beijing is allowed to go on for quite a long time.

And so, all of this kind of coming together and resulting in some of softening tones that we've been hearing from the president. Now, we did see him here at the White House earlier this morning. He was out on the North Lawn. He was actually surveying a position to build 100 feet flag pole.

But we talked to him on his way back into the building, and he sort of updated us on the state of these trade talks. Listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Tariff negotiations are going very well. We're dealing with many, many countries. They all want to be involved with America. We are going to have a fair deal with China. It's going to be fair.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you talking to them actively --

TRUMP: Actively. Everything is active. Everybody wants to be a part of what we're doing. They know that they can't get away with it any longer, but they're still going to do fine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIPTAK: So, you hear him there saying that he's having active conversations with China. It's not entirely clear just how active those conversations are. We have reported that he is having some trouble getting the President Xi Jinping on the phone. And in fact, we just heard from the Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who said that the situation would need to seriously de-escalate between Washington and Beijing before active talks can proceed, Dana.

BASH: Kevin, thank you so much. I appreciate that, and I'm joined here by a group of amazing reporters, CNN's Kayla Tausche, Franklin Foer of "The Atlantic" and Ayesha Rascoe of NPR. Hello everybody.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hello.

BASH: I just too sort of pick up where Kevin left off a couple things. First of all, on the big picture of where we are right now, because it felt like the markets opened this morning. There was clearly a lot of excitement about the shift in tone again, from the president yesterday with regard to China.

[12:05:00]

Then he spoke like Kevin was talking about, and he played a clip of it, and the markets are still up, but they're not up as high as they were before the president spoke. What does that tell us about just how volatile and uncertain the world economy is with regard to the whims and the decisions of this president.

KAYLA TAUSCHE, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: I mean, there's no certainty. There's no clarity. And one of the reasons that the market pulled back a little bit was those comments that Kevin was just mentioning, that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent made about the fact that there are no active discussions going on between the U.S. and China, that Trump has been waiting for President Xi to pick up the phone and call and he simply hasn't.

Trump can say that he wants a big and fair-trade deal with China, but the reality is, in his first term, he reached one of those. China has not held up its end of the bargain. That deal took three years to reach, and it began with President Xi and his wife visiting Mar-a-Lago in the first 100 days of his, of Trump's term.

And even then, was extremely thorny, was extremely contentious, and we're so far from those relations back then that I think it's notable what Treasury Secretary Bessent is saying that we need a cool down before this can actually de-escalate.

BASH: And before I bring the others in. You have some new reporting on the other countries.

TAUSCHE: Yes.

BASH: Scores of countries --

TAUSCHE: Yes. So, on April 9th, when the president pressed pause on those very steep country specific tariffs, he said that everybody is picking up the phone and trying to reach a deal. One of the reasons why the market has been down is because those deals have not materialized. There was a flurry of shuttle diplomacy. The White House said 75 countries had reached out, but as of now, just 18 countries have actually submitted proposals.

And I'm told by some sources who have been briefed on these discussions that there are some nations that are extremely hesitant to give away the game or barter with any very specific proposal, while there are mounting legal challenges, companies, native tribes, the State of California trying to sue the Trump Administration, saying the president overstepped his authority.

And there's a potential that a judge could pause these tariffs. And so, if you're a country trying to figure out how to negotiate.

BASH: Yeah, why would you do that?

TAUSCHE: Why would you do that?

FRANKLIN FOER, STAFF WRITER OF THE ATLANTIC: -- not to mention that Trump is negotiating with himself right now.

BASH: Yeah.

FOER: That he's already said there's going to be substantial reduction without any concession from China. China believes that it holds the whip hand, that it has the leverage in all of these negotiations, which is part of the reason why it's been -- it's not rushing to the telephone to engage in negotiations with Trump.

They look at the global order. They look at the way in which all these nations around the world are recoiling at the United States. They're rushing into the picture as the defender of a rules based global order in international free trade. And they're just -- they're able to rack up wins here rather effortlessly.

BASH: Yeah. And as you come in, I just want to say that we mentioned that China is definitely noticing what is trending. The hashtag that is trending on social media inside China is Trump chickened out over 110 million views there.

AYESHA RASCOE, NPR HOST OF "WEEKEND EDITION SUNDAY" AND "UP FIRST": Well, I mean, the thing of it is, is that, you know, the idea of China, that Trump has made China into the rules based international icon, is really wild. But also, all of these countries have to look at the fact that, OK, you had a USMCA deal between Canada, Mexico and the U.S., and what happened with that right like Trump during, you know, I covered all of the last administration.

And he went back so many times between things would be OK with China, then they weren't that he would be mad. I think that at this point, you just don't have the certainty with Trump, that even if you put forward a deal, that he will stick to it, and that two months down the line, he won't get mad at something else. And hold this over your head again.

BASH: And so, this, let me just play a little bit of what the president said yesterday, to give us the sense of the of the switch of him blinking on China.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I'm not going to say, oh, I'm going to play hard ball with China. I'm going to play hard ball with you, President Xi, no, no, we're going to be very nice. 145 percent is very high, and it won't be that high, not going to be that high.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOER: Right. Well, I mean, as far as the markets are concerned, they're reacting to any shred of good news because they're desperate to rally. But when Trump is still talking about reducing tariffs substantially. The tariffs that are going to be left in place are still going to be substantial. When the CEOs came in yesterday and they said they're going to be empty shelves in their stores.

BASH: Yeah.

FOER: Because of all this, there still could be severe supply chain disruptions.

BASH: And that's really, we shouldn't lose sight of why we got here. The markets are one thing, but it's also that reporting that I believe "AXIOS" had first.

FOER: Yeah.

BASH: We have confirmed here that the Big-box CEOs of Home Depot, I believe it was.

FOER: Yeah.

BASH: And Walmart went in and told the president we knew that they had a meeting, and said, our shelves are going to be empty.

[12:10:00]

And that's the kind of thing that understandably scared him. I want to look at another dynamic that has been really rattling the markets this week. And that is the threat against Jay Powell, the Federal Reserve Chair. Listen to what the president said yesterday on the notion of potentially firing him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Not whatsoever. Never did the press runs away with things. No, I have no intention of firing him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: What we ran with was a post from you, Mr. President, and I'll show what that was. It was actually a series of posts, one last week, on Thursday, where he said, Powell's termination cannot come fast enough. And then on Monday, which is probably one of the big things that caused the sell off that began the week, was the post that you're seeing on the right of your screen.

Mr. Too Late, a major loser, and Mr. Too Late, we suspect was Jerome Powell. That obviously is now clear to President Trump was not a good thing for the markets.

TAUSCHE: Right. Well, one of the things that --

BASH: Never mind the independence of the fed.

TAUSCHE: Correct. And Jay Powell, for his part, has said over and over again that he would not step down if fired. So that would potentially set up a battle royal between the president and his Fed Chair, and the Fed Chair would likely win on legal grounds. But even beyond that, what the president is doing here, and has done forever, is trying to job own the market, trying to say something and put something out there publicly that he believes will move the market in the direction that he wants.

And here I talking about interest rates and the bond market. Interest rates have been stubbornly high, which not only means that Americans will pay more for houses and cars, but also means that the U.S. will face exorbitantly more expensive bills for its own programs. Trump has been saying, lower interest rates, lower interest rates, lower interest rates.

And then I think he thought that if he says, I'm going to fire Jay Powell, that the market would move down, just on the idea the market to the opposite.

BASH: Yeah, opposite.

TAUSCHE: And so that was the warning that I think his team took away from that.

RASCOE: Yeah, I think the fear about the bond market and people not rushing into U.S. bonds. I think that has really scared this administration, because people don't seem to have as much confidence in the full faith and credit of the United States. And I do think that there have been questions about whether Trump will respond to the markets.

He has not responded as much as he did in the first term, but he is responding like there are -- there do seem to be limits.

BASH: OK, standby. Up next, we will talk about the defense secretary. He may be miles away from Washington today, but the questions about his future are following him well beyond the beltway. Stay with us.

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BASH: Listen to how Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth described his first weeks in office.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETE HEGSETH, U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: It's a lot of change, very quickly. Now, as you may have noticed, the media likes to call it chaos. We call it overdue. How are the men and women responding to this, to this call? Well, I can tell you, personally, it's going better than we could have ever expected.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: That's one take. The reality is that some of the most biting criticism is coming from the Secretary's own, now former top aides, as for the White House, they are digging in behind Hegseth as CNN's Natasha Bertrand has new reporting about Hegseth's shrinking inner circle, and you see. Natasha joins me now. What are you learning?

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Dana, so I would note that it's not the media describing it as chaotic here at the Pentagon, it's actually Secretary Hegseth's own former top spokesperson, John Ullyot who wrote a pretty scathing op-ed in POLITICO earlier this week saying that Secretary Hegseth was fomenting this kind of chaos at the Pentagon, which has created a quote, full blown meltdown in the front office here of the Secretary of Defense.

And so, you kind of get a sense from that how his own former senior advisers and officials are starting to question his judgment here. And we're told that this has all started over the last month or so, in the middle of last month, when he started becoming extremely paranoid about leaks that he was seeing in the media.

He then launched a leak investigation, which he ultimately determined had singled out three of his former senior officials last week who were then fired. But he's only become more defiant since last weekend when news came out that he had shared classified information and sensitive information about military operations against the Houthis on a second group chat on Signal that included his wife, his lawyer, and his brother.

Now Secretary Hegseth has tried to kind of shift the conversation back to the question of leakers, saying that there are people inside the Pentagon who are trying to undermine him, but the fact remains that he has not disputed the existence of this second group chat on Signal. And it remains unclear why he needed to disclose that information on the commercial messaging app instead of through a secure system, Dana.

BASH: And Natasha, you are also learning more about Jennifer Hegseth's role at the Pentagon.

BERTRAND: Exactly right. So, Jennifer Hegseth, Pete Hegseth's wife, she was in that group chat on Signal where he shared that information about the military operations.

[12:20:00]

And that really underscored kind of the outsized role that she has played writ large, through Secretary Hegseth's tenure as Secretary of Defense so far. And also, even before that, during his confirmation process, she sat in on virtually every meeting he had with senators, and she has even during his time as Secretary of Defense, sat in on at least one meeting he's had with his foreign counterpart, which was Defense Secretary John Healey.

British Defense Secretary John Healey here earlier this year at the Pentagon. And so, she has very much been a very trusted advisor to Secretary Hegseth, someone that he continues to rely on very, very closely, especially as his inner circle has dramatically shrunk in recent weeks, Dana.

BASH: Natasha, thank you so much for that. Appreciate it. And big changes may be coming to the ingredient list of food you buy at the grocery store. The New FDA Commissioner will be here to discuss what it means for what you eat.

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BASH: If you buy a popular breakfast cereal here in the U.S., it might look very different than the version of the same product that you would get overseas. Take a look at this image on the left of your screen in highlighter. Those colors are very bright. That is the cereal, like ones sold here in the United States.

On the right side, more subdued tones. Those are cereals sold in Europe. All of that could soon change. The FDA says it is phasing out 8 artificial food dyes due to health concerns. Joining me now from the White House to talk more about this is FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary and Vani Hari, a leading voice in the Make America Healthy Again Movement and the Creator of FoodBabe.com.

Thank you so much to both of you for being here. Dr. Makary, why are these petroleum-based dyes in our food and in our medication in the first place?

DR. MARTY MAKARY, FDA COMMISSIONER: Well, good question, Dana. I don't think we appreciated the potential risks to human health and child health when they were first introduced, yellow dye number 5, for example, was noted to be a bright, vibrant yellow color as the byproduct of coal tar in the coal ash.

And then people decided to put it in fabric. And then they thought, well, we can put it in food. The studies have caught up with the introduction of these petroleum based chemical food dyes, and the data doesn't look good. Studies have shown, in association with ADHD, it also makes ultra processed food look more attractive for young kids messing with their minds, where they feel full and they want more of the food.

And we've got an epidemic of childhood chronic diseases, so we are airing on the safe side and moving to remove these from the U.S. food supply.

BASH: And as you have said, I've heard you say you mentioned ADHD. We don't know for sure, because we don't want to do these tests on children, which is understandable. So, you're just the whole idea here is to err on the side of caution.

The FDA, my question is, there's been a little bit of sort of mixed messaging, or maybe interpretation is probably a better way to say it on whether this is an outright ban from you on these artificial dyes, or is it more of a negotiation with the companies to stop using them?

So, can you sort of clear that up? And also, what is the realistic timeline for removing these chemicals from the food supply?

MAKARY: Sure. Sure, Dana. We'd like to see them out of the U.S. food supply, ideally by the end of next year, many companies have said they can do that, and we're hoping many more companies will join that. And on the point about the studies, there is a randomized control, placebo control, blinded study on food diets in children, and it concluded, published in "The Lancet" in 2007 that the dyes were associated with an increase in ADHD.

And you're right. They're not perfect studies. We're not going to get 10-year randomized trials on each day, but nobody thinks it's reasonable to inject kids with crude oil and then see what happens. So, we're airing on the side of safety.

BASH: And on that note, Vani, you are a food safety advocate. You are a leader in what's known as the MAHA movement, and that movement helped elect Donald Trump with the hope that RFK Jr. would focus on things like this, like artificial dyes. Do you think this action goes far enough from your perspective?

VANI HARI, CREATOR OF FOODBABE.COM: For over a decade, I have said the FDA is asleep at the wheel, and now I can finally stop saying that we have intellectual honesty coming out of our regulatory agencies. And I'm so excited about this change for every American mom. American companies have already reformulated their products for so many other countries. It's time they do the same here in America.

BASH: And just maybe both, or one of you can clear up is this a ban, or is it, as sort of I mentioned, more of a negotiation with the companies that produce these dyes?

MAKARY: Yeah, it's both, Dana. We are removing -- we have plans to remove in the coming weeks, two of the petroleum based chemical dyes from the market. And we also are talking with companies about them doing this on a voluntary basis within the time frame, because if they can do it, as they say, within about 18 months, we don't need to go down the road of statutory and regulatory.