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Trump on Tariff Impact: Maybe Kids will get Fewer Dolls; Trump on Recession Fears: "Anything can Happen"; Trump: Alcatraz Should House "America's Most Ruthless" Criminals; Where to Find $1.5 Trillion in Cuts. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired May 05, 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]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DANA BASH, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS: Today, on "Inside Politics", Trump in Toyland, the president is brushing off concerns his tariff plan could lead to a recession, claiming everything would still be OK in the long term, yet he is tripling down on this message to families, maybe children don't need so many dolls.

Plus, reviving the rock President Trump is pushing to reopen Alcatraz prison more than 60 years after it closed. Is his call related to a fascination with its most infamous former inmate? And how do you cut 1.5 trillion, trillion with the T dollars from the federal budget? Well, Republicans are racing to agree on an answer to that, with the president's entire agenda hanging in the balance.

I'll speak to a key member of the House Republican Conference. I'm Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines and "Inside Politics". First up, let them buy dolls. The U.S. economy is in a fragile state, and the president is admitting his tariffs could trigger higher prices and maybe a recession. So, his advice to Americans worried about affording everything from groceries to toys, is this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: All I'm saying is that you don't -- that a young lady, 10-year-old girl, a 9- year-old girl, a 15-year-old girl, doesn't need 37 dolls. She could be very happy with 2 or 3 or 4 or 5.

I'm just saying they don't need to have 30 dolls they can have 3. They don't need to have 250 pencils. They can have 5.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But you're basically saying there could be some supply to --

TRUMP: -- waste money on a trade deficit with China for things we don't need, for junk that we don't need.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: We know here on "Inside Politics", that sometimes when a politician says something, it really breaks through. This is the thing that seems to be breaking through. Look at SNL's take.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: If I wake up on Christmas morning and I run down stairs to find only two dolls under my tree, I will lose my effing mind. I've put up with a lot under Trump so far, he might be cutting Social Security. OK, they're old. Screw up. He's deporting innocent kids. They got to grow up some time. But if only 2 dolls show up when I've made T for 30, oh, hell no.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: I'm joined here by a terrific group of reporters, CNN's Kasie Hunt, the Host of "The Arena", Manu Raju, who has a lot of jobs, including the host of "Inside Politics" Sunday and Ayesha Rascoe of NPR. Hello, everybody. Happy Monday to you.

AYESHA RASCOE, NPR HOST OF "WEEKEND EDITION SUNDAY" AND "UP FIRST": Happy Monday.

BASH: Kasie, I'm going to start with you on the -- let them have fewer dollars.

KASIE HUNT, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Yeah. I mean, I think the thing that struck me about this comment. You know, we live in an information environment where so much comes at you, that it's hard to find comments that rise above the fray. There are other instances from campaigns past that we could probably all recite very quickly when Mitt Romney called corporations, people, for example, Donald Trump says a lot of things.

The fact that he keeps saying this one, it first of all illustrates that he doesn't -- isn't perhaps the person in his family who was charged with purchasing choice for his children.

BASH: Yes.

HUNT: Because this would be a difficult message to deliver, generally speaking. I'm surprised he has gone after it again and again and again and again, and some of the strategists that I was talking to over the weekend suggest that it would be better if he would just kind of stop it with, I mean, they don't want him to do anything.

They want him to walk back a lot of what he's doing with these tariffs, generally speaking, but this is so personal and makes people understand the pain so acutely that there are a lot of people who are confused --

BASH: And Manu, before you jump in, I just want people to understand why this is so much of a thing, and that is because 80 percent of the toys sold in America.

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah.

BASH: 80 percent are manufactured in China, where the biggest, biggest percentage of tariffs have been levied by the president. [12:05:00]

RAJU: Yeah, and look, I thought Republicans were about personal choice on deciding how many toys you may want to buy. Here's the state now saying, well, you go and buy a couple of toys perhaps --

BASH: -- can afford.

RAJU: Can afford it.

BASH: Yeah.

RAJU: Exactly. Look. I mean, the other thing that he said in that interview is that he would not go say what a lot of Republicans want him to say is that these are going to be temporary. He really would not say that these are going to be temporary. He said this, there was an undercut his negotiating.

He said it would not allow for some of these manufacturing jobs to go back to United States. But what we're seeing is just this message that has kind of been sort of all over the place, and now its people are going to feel it. And he's warning people are going to feel it. The question is, how long will voters take it?

Because the polls have just been absolutely brutal. One poll after the other just shows that this is perhaps his most unpopular policy that he's taken so far. It's one that's dominated the first 100 days.

RASCOE: Well and we should be clear like he's talking about people with 30 dolls. The truth is, if your kids have 30 dolls, they'll probably still be able to get plenty of dolls. But what about that kid who doesn't have a lot of dolls, whose parents are struggling just to make ends meet, and then they have a birthday coming up and they won't be able to buy a doll at all.

And like, that's what we're missing here. And it's not just dolls, its action figures, it's that toy, it's whatever. It's those kids who are -- who have, who don't always have a Happy Christmas, and now you're telling them you won't get anything. And I think that's why it's such an -- it's really an out of touch message.

BASH: Or the flip side of that is, he is trying to say, you got to be patient and in the long term, assuming that everything that he says about his policy works, which is, you know --

RASCOE: Yeah.

BASH: -- assuming a lot those, the 80 percent of Americans toys, which are manufactured in China, can somehow be manufactured here. The issue is a -- is that even doable? Are those manufacturing plants and jobs even -- will people even build them here? And most importantly, let's just say that's a yes that will take years and years and years to do.

RAJU: The price will be way higher too.

BASH: And the price will be higher. (CROSSTALK)

RASCOE: -- the toys won't be children anymore.

BASH: Right.

RASCOE: So -- yeah.

BASH: And so that is -- so listen, I mean, he is very confident in his own power of messaging and persuasion. He is also very confident in this as a policy, because he's believed it forever, and this is where the rub is.

HUNT: Right. Well, I can -- I just say the moms I know, even those who have enough, to buy their kids a lot of toys, probably too many at Christmas time, are getting hit really hard by all of this. It's not just toys. It's strollers and car seats and --

BASH: Which Christians brought up strollers with him, and he said, what about --

HUNT: Again, not understanding, I mean car seats in particular. I mean I was shopping for a car seat to fit in a specific car that price has gone up since I first -- I'm like, I'm kicking myself for not having purchased it in April. Now I'm going to have to purchase it now. It's going to cost me like 25, 40 bucks more. It's a significant percentage.

RASCOE: And it is, and kids are in car seats much longer, so you have to buy them long. Like kids are in their car seats today, like six and seven.

HUNT: Yeah.

RASCOE: And when you talk about pencils, I have three school age school children in my house. We cannot have enough pencils. OK. Like five pencils, like he has not been around school age children.

HUNT: And he's also not making the argument. He's not saying, look, the goal here is for you, you know, your family members, to have a better job in the long term.

BASH: Right.

HUNT: Right? You're not going to be able to buy those dolls right now, it might be tough, but in the future, it's going to be better. He's missing that second piece of what is usually --

(CROSSTALK)

RAJU: He's down for --

HUNT: -- political message.

RAJU: Just like you did on the strollers' point, he just downplayed it, saying it's not as bad as gasoline. Gasoline is going to be great. BASH: Let me go to another question, which is the R word recession. Kristen Welker, in her interview over the weekend, asked the president about it, and Jake Tapper asked Senator Ron Johnson that same question. Listen to both.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is it OK in the short term to have a recession?

TRUMP: -- Look, yes, everything's OK.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you think it could happen?

TRUMP: Anything can happen.

SEN. RON JOHNSON (R-WI): I'm old enough to remember when Ronald Reagan took office and inflation was completely out of control. He and Paul Volcker had taken some pretty bold and swift action to tame inflation, that included a pretty severe recession. It's not going to be easy, and sometimes results are going to have to be reevaluated, and we looked at some actions reversed, but you have to act boldly when you have that responsibility.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Manu, translate that.

RAJU: Yeah.

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: And also compare it to what other Republicans are saying.

RAJU: You know, I actually asked Ron Johnson about the recession fears, I think it was last week or the week before, and he's talking about the -- politics of this, and the impact of this would have on his party control of Congress and the like. He said it would be not good. He said essentially that the Republicans would have a difficult time holding on to power if they are in the -- if there's a recession going on.

[12:10:00]

And that's obviously a pretty apparent point, given that the economy is going to be such a driving and motivating factor. Look, Republicans are just trying, just hoping Trump knows what he's doing. This is going to be a lot short term thing, have to get some trade deals announced.

BASH: I think -- that he knows what he's doing?

HUNT: They think that he's not --

(CROSSTALK)

RAJU: I think it depends on the member -- RASCOE: -- things have just generally worked out with Trump, and so I think that might be the hope.

RAJU: Yeah.

BASH: Yeah.

RASCOE: But I do think -- I do think the thing is, Trump isn't going to be on the ballot. So, I think people are very forgiving of Trump, and like his base loves him, but we have to remember he's not going to be on the ballot in the mid --

BASH: -- let me point out, when you are all talking about the hope that he knows what he's doing, and the key here is making those trade deals. We don't -- we haven't seen one yet.

RAJU: Yeah.

BASH: He did talk again with Kristen over the weekend, saying that they are discussing things with China, even though the Chinese still say that they're not necessarily in deep negotiations. On April 25, the president said, I've made 200 deals. On April 30, he said, I could set those deals tomorrow and do away with negotiating, but we're negotiating with South Korea.

We're negotiating with Japan. India is very big. They want to make a deal so badly, and that on Sunday yesterday, he said there could very well be trade deals coming this week. And remember when he announced a 90 day pause on the reciprocal tariffs on April 9th, he said it would be excuse -- he said it would be a 90 day pause, and there are 64 days left.

RAJU: It's the moving of the goal post. I mean, look, he needs to announce something, right? This is just what I'm hearing from time and again. And talking to so many members about, are you comfortable with the direction the president is taking the economy right now? And every single one of them to a member says he needs to get some on the books, because they need to.

They need something to point to. But Trump continues to move the goal pause. It's going to be hard if he continues to do that.

RASCOE: And they need to do it, because I interview the CEO of the Port of Long Beach this weekend, and he says May is a critical month, because if you're by -- if you're getting ready for back-to-school season. You got to do that now, right? Like you do it like two months ahead.

And so, he this is why -- this is a critical time where shippers and stuff are saying, we need to know what's going to happen, because otherwise, you're going to come to back to school season and you're going to come to the holiday season and you're not going to have what you need.

BASH: All right, everybody standby. We're going to sneak in a quick break. And coming up, it is a prison so notorious it inspired this 1996 action bill.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Welcome to the rock.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: We'll tell you why President Trump now says he wants to reopen Alcatraz.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:15:00]

BASH: President Trump says he wants to reopen Alcatraz, the notorious prison turned tourist destination in the middle of the San Francisco Bay. It once housed some of the most dangerous criminals in America, including President Trump's favorite gangster, Al Capone.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Did anybody ever hear of the great Alphonse Capone, Al Capone, great, great head of the mafia, right of he had dinner with you, and if he didn't like the way you smile them at dinner, he would kill you. You'd be dead by the time you walked out of the nice restaurant.

Al Capone was so mean that if you went to dinner with him and he didn't like you, you'd be dead the next morning. The Alphonse Capone, the great Alphonse Capone, legendary Scarface, was attacked only a tiny fraction of what Trump was attacked.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: The rock, as it's sometimes called. Shut down 60 years ago because of maintenance and cost concerns, but President Trump calls it a symbol of Law and Order, and says he is ordering the Justice Department to open it back up. Quote, when we were a more serious nation, in times past, we did not hesitate to lock up the most dangerous criminals, and keep them far away from anyone they could harm.

He tied it to his immigration agenda, saying we will no longer be held hostage to criminals, thugs, and judges that are afraid to do their job and allow us to remove criminals, who came into our country illegally. My smart reporters are back. Alphonse Capone, any excuse to run some of those sound bites now?

Listen. I also, as we start this discussion, do want to say that the Bureau of Prisons just released a statement Sen that they are going to vigorously pursue all avenues to support and implement the president's agenda, and they're going to start assessing it. This is a prison that was closed because it was deemed too expensive to keep operating.

HUNT: Right.

BASH: That was back in 1963 it's nearly three times as expensive as other federal prisons. Only holds around 300 prisoners, and by the way, what is now a National Historic Landmark, has more than a million visitors each year, Kasie.

(CROSSTALK)

HUNT: Well, one of the things that we've learned about President Trump is that symbolism often Trumps sense, right? He is very sense, S-E-N- S-E --

RAJU: -- exactly --

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: -- There was some --

HUNT: But look, he likes how this looks.

[12:20:00]

He likes the message that it sends. He thinks, you know, it's clear. He seems to think that, you know, it underscores his own political brand, that he's going to be tough. He's going to find the kind of person that should be in Alcatraz, regardless of how much it costs or whether it would be easier to do it somewhere else.

We saw this with the building of the wall in his first term, right? I mean, how many members of Congress were willing to support the idea that there should be additional barriers on the border? But they all kind of universally agreed that his idea of the big, beautiful wall was actually the most expensive and least effective way to go about doing it. Didn't mean that's not what he wanted to do, though.

RAJU: I mean, if they go down this road, he is going to expect probably a fight from Democrats. Nancy Pelosi called it not a serious proposal. Of course, the San Francisco Democrat Gavin Newsom sort of laughed it off. It's going to be expensive. I mean, what happened to the time of DOGE and trying to figure out ways to cut back.

Now we're talking about getting Alcatraz back up and running, which requires significant amount of maintenance, let alone just running the prison, just rebuilding the prison so to actually house criminal --

BASH: Transportation to and from the prison --

RAJU: Yeah, exactly, they're doing talking about this or talking about military parades across tens of millions of dollars. So --

BASH: Yeah.

(CROSSTALK)

RAJU: It kind of undercuts the whole idea of budget cutting.

BASH: So then one question is, one of the sorts of hallmarks of Donald Trump and his media strategy is when there's something that's happening, maybe it's something that he said that he doesn't always want people to focus on. He does something else. Alcatraz, I mean, the Bureau of Prisons, they're looking at it.

This could happen, because it's the Trump years, but this is what he said to Kristen Welker yesterday about something really fundamental the constitution.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Don't you need to uphold the Constitution of the United States as president.

TRUMP: I don't know. I have to respond by saying, again, I have brilliant lawyers that work for me, and they are going to obviously follow what the Supreme Court said.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RASCOE: I mean, look, and that is much more serious than Alcatraz, right? Like, I think Alcatraz is one of those things. It's a headline catcher. People will talk about it.

BASH: Right.

(CROSSTALK)

RASCOE: It probably won't happen, or if it will happen, it will take years.

BASH: Right, which we're talking about --

RAJU: Yeah.

(CROSSTALK)

RASCOE: And then we're talking, yeah, but the thing with the constitution is the thing that people probably won't pay as much attention to, but it matters. I mean, he swore an oath to uphold the constitution. I mean, what is your job as President of the United States if it's not to uphold the constitution, whether you like every part of it or not, it's not only if it makes my policies expedient, it's regardless you uphold the constitution.

BASH: You know, it's so interesting. This is just the latest time. If you look at what he just said and what we played, I have brilliant lawyers that work for me. He still approaches the law as he did when he was a businessman, which is, I've got these great lawyers, and they're -- and they deal with it, but like he's the president now.

RAJU: Yeah.

BASH: And you said, when you're a business person, you don't uphold the constitution and take an oath when your president, you do.

RAJU: Yeah, and he repeatedly said in that interview, sort of put it on Pam Bondi, the Attorney General.

BASH: Right. RAJU: Rather than taking it on himself, even though she's essentially implementing the policy that he has laid out here. But I mean, I seem to recall on January 20th, that whole big event that happened when he raised his right hand and so raised his right hand and swore to defend the constitution.

It's a soft ball question. Will you uphold the constitution? He could have easily said yes, but I disagree with this, or make his policy argument here. It was a pretty striking moment.

HUNT: Yeah. I mean, there was nothing from preventing -- there was nothing preventing him from saying, well, of course, I swore I would uphold the oath. It doesn't prevent him from then making all the arguments and having the lawyers do all the things he's got his lawyers doing. He did seem to be clear.

Wanted to make sure that he was clear that they would follow Supreme Court precedent, which is just something I've been sort of paying pretty close attention to, as we have sort of been watching to see whether or not he would potentially spark a constitutional crisis by openly defying a court order.

He seems to have taken her question about the constitution and put it immediately into that framework. But you know, I don't -- I think even the most casual observer of our politics knows and can see that we are at a moment of testing --

RAJU: Yeah.

HUNT: -- of this document that --

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: Intentionally.

HUNT: Intentionally held this country together --

RAJU: And I think Trump has wanted to make this immigration fight about deporting and illegal immigration when he's talking about the legality of it and following the constitution, that's where you see him really struggle because of real serious questions about whether these are constitutional actions.

BASH: Everybody standby, when we come back, Republicans are promising to cut spending by $1.5 trillion. They're also pledging no cuts to Medicare or Medicaid. How can they keep both promises? Well, I'll talk to a key House Republican who is part of the negotiations, when we come back.

[12:25:00]

BASH: Failure is not an option. That's what one top House Republican said this weekend about passing President Trump's top priority in Congress. A massive bill that would include an extension of his 2017 tax cuts, massive new funding for deportations in the border and $1.5 trillion