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Trump & Canadian PM Carney Meet To Discuss Tariffs; Trump On Trade: "The U.S. Gave Everything To Canada"; Trump On Insurrection Act: "If The Governor Can't Do The Job, We'll Do The Job"; Trump: "We Are The King Of Being Screwed By Tariffs"; Trump: "We Are Going To Especially Treat Canada Fairly". Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired October 07, 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)

MANU RAJU, CNN ANCHOR, INSIDE POLITICS: Welcome to Inside Politics. I'm Manu Raju, in for Dana Bash. We're following breaking news on two major events in our nation's capital today. Right now, President Trump is meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney at the White House. Their talks are expected to focus on the president's crippling tariffs that have been straining ties between North America's closest allies.

While at the same time, Attorney General Pam Bondi is getting hammered with questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee. She's been asked about countless Justice Department controversies, including the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey, the so-called Epstein files, and the decision to send National Guard troops to American cities.

Let's go back and listen to hearing live.

PAM BONDI, ATTORNEY GENERAL OF UNITED STATES: Well for subpoena duces tecum, Jack Smith probably took it straight to the judge.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now, the phone companies, particularly their general counsel. If they're worried about civil liability, even with a subpoena to get the phone records of a sitting United States Senator. Did I mention it was a sitting United States Senator?

BONDI: Yes, Senator.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The general counsel for that phone company, I'd say AT&T. They have the right to seek to quash that subpoena, don't they?

BONDI: Phone companies frequently do that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah. And a smart general counsel for that phone company is going to call the sitting United States Senator, and say, would you like to weigh in on this? Would you like me to quash the subpoena? We're talking about invading someone's privacy here by a sitting United States Senator. Could the general counsel for the phone company do that? BONDI: Well, Senator, if they believe that a crime could have been committed, they could not tip off the person who committed the crime. Again, I can't comment on details of this particular case.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm just asking you, theoretically.

BONDI: I've never seen you commit a crime.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But let's suppose, OK, they couldn't. They didn't want to tip off the sitting United States Senator, but the phone company and the general counsel for the phone company, our companies, if there were more than one involved. Could say, you know, this is -- this is serious as an aneurysm. This is serious as four heart attacks and a stroke. This is a united -- sitting United States Senator.

So, general counsel would likely advise the CEO, you need to file a motion to quash. The telephone companies could have contested those subpoenas. Could they not?

BONDI: Hypothetically, yes. I can't talk about the facts, for this particular case.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're talking hypothetical.

BONDI: Senator, subpoenas are issued all the time through phone companies working with the general counsel--

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But they can file a motion to quash.

BONDI: They could, yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah.

BONDI: In any case.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And if they should have filed a motion to quash, and a reasonable person would have filed a motion to quash, because this is a sitting United States Senator. And they didn't file a motion to quash, they would incur civil liability, wouldn't they?

BONDI: Senator, typically, phone companies follow a subpoena from a United States.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I know, they do, but they don't have to.

BONDI: They could challenge it, Senator.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah. And if they don't challenge it, they better have a damn good reason, right? Right?

BONDI: Senator. I can't talk about the facts of this particular case.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is just a hypothetical.

BONDI: In general, hypothetically, Senator, maybe they didn't recognize any of the names of the eight sitting United States senators.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hypothetically.

BONDI: That was a joke.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Or maybe they should have gone to Amazon and buy some testicles online, instead of just saying, sure, I'll just show you the phone records of a sitting United States senator on the basis of an administrative subpoena. Now, do you have -- do you have copies of the subpoena applications for these eight senators?

BONDI: Senator, I can't discuss anything regarding this--

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can't even tell me if you have copies.

[12:05:00]

BONDI: I can't discuss any of this.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When are you going to -- general, when are you going to be able to discuss it?

BONDI: I can't discuss whether there is or is not a pending investigation.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I understand.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If there is a pending investigation, I don't want this to get swept under the rug, OK, because I think you're going to get pushed back from all quarters. I think the telecommunication companies are going to be all over you like a bad rash, because they've got liability here for just turning over these records.

When they knew what was going on. I think some FBI agents may have some liability here. I think a special counsel might have some liability here. If I were your special counsel, and you had appointed me, and I wanted to get the records of the sitting United States Senator. Is that something you would expect me to tell you as attorney general of the United States?

BONDI: They better have.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah. Do we know in this instance of the eight sitting United States senators, if they told Attorney General Garland.

BONDI: Senator, I just learned about this very recently, as did director Patel, and we cannot discuss the details. I don't know any of the details.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, maybe we ought to give Attorney General Garland here. Do you know if the special counsel told FBI Director Wray. Is that something -- let me put it another way. If I were your special counsel, and you are the director of the FBI, and I'm trying to get the phone records of a sitting United States Senator. Did I mention it was a sitting United States Senator? Is that something that you would expect me to tell you as director of the FBI?

BONDI: In general, I would believe the FBI would help execute the subpoenas.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah.

RAJU: You've been watching this lively hearing, combative at times, the Senate Judiciary Committee that's with the Attorney General Pam Bondi, an oversight hearing before this committee. Republicans raising some serious concerns about what was -- what they revealed yesterday, making an announcement that during the Jack Smith investigation, eight Republican senators, their phone records had been obtained as part of that investigation.

It was the content. It wasn't the details of who they called or what exactly was Trent would discuss in those phone calls, but that's what they've been hammering all morning long. Democrats have had a whole, whole different issues. They've been going after Bondi over the Epstein files, over the Tom Homan investigation, over the National Guard being sent to various blue cities. There's been a lot of push back from Bondi, very combative approach, from Bondi, deflecting a lot on all those questions.

We're going to talk more about that in a second. But right now, let's go live to the White House, where President Trump is meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in the Oval Office. Let's listen.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Depending on the way you count 3000 years, you could say 500 years, you could say, but that it's been raging for a long time. And I think there's a possibility that we could have peace in the Middle East, that's something even beyond the Gaza situation. We want a release of the hostages immediately, et cetera.

And so, our team is over there now, another team just left and other countries. Literally, every country in the world has supported the plan.

MARK CARNEY, CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER: Yeah.

TRUMP: I don't think there's anybody that hasn't, actually not that I've seen, but there's a real chance that we could do something. So, you may have some questions on that later. But in the meantime, we'll spend some time, and we'll make some deals, and we'll do some things that are good for both of our countries and markets. An honor to have you. Thank you very much.

CARNEY: Yes. Thank you very much, Mr. President. If I may, you kindly hosted me and some my colleagues a few months ago. And I said at the time, you were -- are a transformative president. And since then, the transformation in the economy, unprecedented commitments of NATO partners to defense spending, peace from India, Pakistan through to Azerbaijan or Armenia, disabling Iran as a force of terror. And now, and I'm running out of time, but this is, many respects, the most important.

TRUMP: Merger of Canada and the United States. I'm only kidding.

(CROSSTALK)

CARNEY: That wasn't where I was going, no. You know on this -- on this solemn day of commemoration of the terrific attacks of October 7. For the first time in decades, hundreds of years, thousands of years, this prospect of peace that you've made possible, Canada stands Foursquare behind those efforts, and we'll do whatever we can to support the United States.

TRUMP: Thank you very much.

CARNEY: Thank you.

TRUMP: Any questions?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What would it take for you to draw or lower your tariffs on Canadian sectors, including aluminum?

[12:10:00]

TRUMP: Well, we're going to be talking about that with the prime minister and we'll be talking about tariffs. We'll be talking about a lot of that. But that's for a little bit later on.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: I want to just acknowledge our great ambassador. Is he doing a good job?

CARNEY: He's doing a good job.

TRUMP: Otherwise, I'll get him out of this -- no, we haven't.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, is it the White House's position that former workers should be paying for their back pay?

TRUMP: I would say it depends on who we're talking about. I can tell you this, the Democrats have put a lot of people in great risk and jeopardy, but it really depends on who you're talking about. But for the most part, we're going to take care of our people. There are some people that really don't deserve to be taken care of, and we'll take care of them in a different way. OK, thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, in your opinion, why has Canada and United States failed to reach an agreement up until now?

TRUMP: Well, it's a complicated agreement, more complicated maybe than any other agreement we have on trade. Because, you know, we have natural conflict. We also have mutual love. You know, we have great love for each other. I love this. I love Canada and the people of Canada, and Mark feels the same way about here.

The problem we have is that they want a car company, and I want a car company, meaning the U.S. wants a car company. And they want steel, and we want steel, you know, so in other countries, they're very far away and there's no problem. You can compete and you can do -- we don't like to compete, because we sort of hurt each other when we compete.

And so, we have a natural conflict. It's a natural business conflict. Nothing wrong with it. And I think we've come a long way over the last few months, actually, in terms of that relationship. So, when it comes to trade, the United States was always giving everything they would -- they gave everything to Canada. They would -- they would, you know, let car companies leave here and go to Canada. But that hurts the United States.

And, you know, other presidents didn't see that. They weren't business oriented. They might have been good politicians in some cases, not in all cases, they were bad at both. But it's a very natural conflict and it's something that we're working on.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- a lot of compromise this summer. Are you willing today to offer some compromise to Canada, maybe on steel and aluminum?

TRUMP: Well, we've made compromise, and we -- we've made some compromise, even on steel. But, you know, we have the same basic authority and the same basic -- this could be also a little bit of a conflict with other countries all over the world on steel, because we want to make our own steel.

We don't want to bring steel in for the most part, but we will bring it in, and we do bring it in and we continue to bring it in from Canada, but there is a tariff to pay. And I think that would be a normal thing to say, but we've come a long way. I think Howard, we can truly say, do you want to make a comment on that?

HOWARD LUTNICK, SECRETARY OF COMMERCE OF UNITED STATES: Well, I think the opportunity to work together, but as you've said, there's conflict. Why do we make cars in Canada? You called that out and you've addressed that. So, there are places we should work together. There are places that we have natural comfort.

TRUMP: It's a tough situation because we want to make our cars here. At the same time, we want Canada to do well in making cars. So, we're working on formulas and I think we'll get there.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, your allies (Ph) are refusing to go to the U.S. The numbers are down, like 23 percent, in the first seven months of the year. What do you say to Canadians that don't want to go to the U.S. now because of your 50-foot state talk, because of the trade war, the tariffs.

TRUMP: Yeah. Well, I understand that. Look, I understand that. And Americans don't want to buy cars that are made in Canada, you know? I mean, we have the same conflict. So, there isn't -- it's something that will get worked out. There's still great love between the two countries. But, you know, American people want product here. They want to make it here. Detroit was emptied out and moved to Canada, moved to Mexico, moved to other places, not just Canada. And now they're all moving back, you know, they're moving back.

We have -- right now I was just telling Mark, we have 17 trillion, but it's going to -- it's really much higher. That was as of a couple of months ago. We have over $17 trillion being invested now in the United States. As an example, Biden in -- he was the worst president we've ever had, but they had less than 1 trillion in four years. We have more than 17 trillion in eight months, eight months. And I think that number is going to be $21, $22 trillion.

There's never been anything like that in the history of the world, for any country, not even close. You know, if you did 1 trillion in a year, that's pretty good. We're going to do over 20. And it's coming in with AI, it's coming in with auto plants. You know, we're building auto plants, a lot of auto plants in the U.S. It's coming in for a lot of reasons. It's coming in because of the fact, I think the November 5 election was a big factor, and I think the tariffs are a big factor.

[12:15:00]

And again, we want Canada to do great. But, you know, there's a point at which we also want the same business. We're competing for the same business. That's the problem. That's why I keep mentioning one way to solve that problem is a very easy way, but we're competing for the same business. He wants to make cars, we want to make cars, and we're in competition. And the advantage we have is we have this massive market, so it's a -- you know, it's quite an advantage.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, can we talk about Portland for a second? Are you planning to invoke the Insurrection Act? And that would be, you know, a very long-standing war of law that's been invoked.

TRUMP: Yeah. Well, it's been invoked before, as you know, if you look at Chicago, Chicago is a great city where there's a lot of crime. And if the governor can't do the job, we'll do the job. It's all very simple. They loose -- they probably had 50 murders in Chicago over the last 5, 6, 7, months. Many people were shot. And then the governor gets up and he says, well, we can handle it. They can't handle it. They don't know what they're doing.

The mayor is grossly incompetent. He's at a 4 percent approval rating in Chicago. He's at a 4 percent lowest approval rating, lower than even de Blasio had, which is hard to believe in New York. I thought de Blasio would always maintain that record, but the Chicago guy is even lower.

So, I think that we want safe cities. If you look at D.C., you would right now, Mark, you could go out, take your family out to dinner. You could walk right down the middle of the street. There is no crime in D.C. When I got here, this place was a raging hell hole where people would come from Canada, people would come from other places and end up getting shot. Nobody is being shot. The National Guard's been unbelievable.

I mean, they are strong, tough guys. You know, we won something at the Supreme Court, which is a big deal. Merit. Everything now in this country is merit based. I didn't think I'd ever see it again. And we have our soldiers in merit based too and they're central casting. And they walk through that town, and I'll tell you what this place is safe. It's beautiful.

Now we're in Memphis, and the same thing is happening. You're getting the reports the bad guys are saying, we don't want anything to do with this. And we're removing many people. In D.C., we took out 17 -- 1700 career criminals and sent them back to the countries from which they came, mostly led out by Biden and his people that had open border and open border policy.

And you know, Canada, you suffered because of that too, because they'd come here and they'd go into Canada also. So, we're like a buffer for that in terms of--

CARNEY: Yeha, yeah.

TRUMP: Canada suffered greatly by Biden and the open border, the policy of open border. Totally unchecked, totally unvetted, and these people were, you know, if you got 5 percent, 2 percent, now you were getting a lot of bad people. And we now have a closed border--

CARNEY: Tightening the border, yeah.

TRUMP: Yeah. You've done well. We have a closed border, and it's a really closed border, in fact, for four months. I don't even know if this is possible, but they -- this is -- the figures were released. Zero people were able to come into the United States from the southern border, zero.

And as you know, we've taken a very hard stand on drugs. This is also benefiting you. We've a lot of the -- we call them the water drugs, the drugs that come in through water. They're not coming. There are no boats anymore there. Frankly, there are no fishing boats. There's no boats out there in period.

If you want to know the truth, we're saying, does anybody go fishing anymore? The fact is, we knocked out, probably saved at least 100,000 lives, American lives, Canadian lives, by taking out all those boats coming in. So, it's -- and now they don't come in that way anymore. Now they'll come in other ways, and we're not going to allow that either. So, we've done -- we've done a great job on that.

But on crime, Chicago is a great city, but you can't be a great city if you have murders, and if you have a lot of problems, and they do. And they have an incompetent policy, just like they had open border policy, anybody could come in. They came in from prisons. They came in from mental institutions, drug dealers. They came in from all over the place. And we don't have that anymore. This country is becoming very -- we're very strong country.

Look, financially speaking, I would say that because of the tariffs, because of the election, because of the policy, because of the great, big, beautiful deal. It's what I added the word great, because I was -- it really is. It's the biggest, it's the biggest bill ever passed in the history of our country. We don't need another bill. It's the biggest tax cuts, the bigger -- I mean when you think no tax on tips, no tax on social security, no tax on overtime for the people.

[12:20:00]

But far beyond that, what it does is incentivizes auto plants and AI and all of the things that nobody's ever passed a bill like, we don't need another bill. We don't need any more bills. I said, let's get it all at once. I was greatly helped by our speaker, Mike Johnson, and by the Senate.

I'll tell you what John Thune has been -- both of those guys have been incredible. And we got a bill passed that we really -- I said, let's see if we can get it all done. Because these Democrats are like insurrectionists, OK. They're so bad for our country. So their policy is so bad for our country.

I said, let's see if we can get it all done in the bay. And everybody said, it's not doable, because it's the biggest bill ever passed in the history of our country. And we got it all done. We don't need anything else. We got everything we want. And now, because of that, that's a big reason why the companies are coming in.

You know, one year depreciation, one year write-off, one year expensing. Nobody's ever seen anything like it. So, they're -- so they're coming in from all over the world. But to have a great country, you can't have crime. And we don't have crime, but we have cities where there's tremendous crime, and Chicago is one of them. And if the governor can't straighten it out, we'll straighten it out.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Question, a question, a question for the prime minister.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You're making -- are you--

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Prime Minister, I like to know, how come the U.K. and the European Union succeeded to sign deals and bring the tax down, and Canada still hasn't been able to do the same.

TRUMP: Yeah, because they're not located right next to each other. You know, it makes it -- in many cases, it's much better and easier.

CARNEY: Yeah. If I may. Let's be clear about the relationship as it stands right now. We are the second largest trading partner of the United States. We do a lot of trade going across the border, where we're cooperating. First thing. Secondly, we are the largest foreign investor in the United States, half a trillion dollars in the last five years alone, probably $8 trillion in the next five years, if we get the agreement that we expect to get. Thirdly, there are areas, as the president just said, where we -- I wouldn't conflict, maybe not so much conflict. We compete. There are areas where we compete, and it's in those areas where we have to come to an agreement that works, but there are more areas where we are stronger together and that's where we're focused on. And we're going to get the right deal, right deal for America, right deal, obviously, from my perspective, for Canada.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Including one thing that -- wait a minute. Easy. Wait, wait a minute. So, one thing where we are working very closely is the golden dome. That's the protective mechanism. And you see how that works. It's unbelievable. You know, Ronald Reagan wanted to have it, and at that time, they didn't have the technology and even close to the technology. But he was -- he was advanced, and we'll be working together on a golden dome for the two countries.

And something that I think is going to be very important, especially when you look at the world, you look at what's happening. We want to have -- we want to have that protection. It's really amazing. The technology is unbelievable.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, why you're saying some federal workers should not get their back pay? Why do you say, stuff--

TRUMP: Well, you're going to have to figure that out, OK. Ask the Democrats that question.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, just to follow up there. I mean, the law says that when the government is reopened that workers will receive their back case where they're going to fight. Why they are--

TRUMP: Yeah. I follow the law, and I -- what the law says is correct, and I follow the law.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, will Canada be leaving empty handed, or will Canada be leave or will Mr. Carney be leaving Washington with a deal on tariff?

TRUMP: I think they're going to be very happy. We have a lot of things that we're working on that people don't talk about. They talk about, you know, competitiveness. He's a very competitive person. And they talk about things that we don't necessarily agree on. But I think they're going to walk away very happy. I think so.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, there are lot of trade you've signed, there's been a minimum tariff that countries have got. When USMCA gets renegotiated. Do you want a minimum tariff on goods between Canada and U.S.?

TRUMP: Well, we're going to have tariffs between Canada, and you know, they have them with us. I will say, with our farmers, as you know, they went up to as much as 400 percent, 250, 300 and even one at 401. We found one having to do with a very small product. But it was -- it was high.

[12:25:00]

So, we've had -- so, you know, we've always had tariffs between the two of us. And actually, in Canada it was charging us very high tariffs on our agricultural things, a lot of our agricultural product. And that's one of the things that we talk about for bringing that down. So, you know, this is a mutual thing, but we've been charged tariffs.

Look, we're the king of being screwed by tariffs. Just so you understand. And I'm not talking about with Canada. I'm talking about with countries all over the world. When you look at Europe, when you look at China, when you look at all of the -- almost every country charged the U.S. We didn't charge them because we were led by stupid people in many cases. Stupid people. They took advantage of our country. They're not taking advantage of us anymore.

You know, if you looked at European Union, they're all my friends. I don't blame them. I blame our presidents. I blame our past presidents and, you know, business leaders. But we are the king of countries that have been taken advantage of. For many, many years, we've been paying trillions and trillions of dollars and receiving nothing, nothing at all.

As an example, prior to the deal with Europe, where they pay a lot of money, but they're happy, and I'm happy. The deal was good. It's a fair deal, but it wasn't fair. You couldn't put a car into Europe. You couldn't sell your agriculture into Europe. You couldn't do anything. And now we have it so that it's open. We charge them tariffs. We didn't charge them tariffs a car. They charge us tremendous.

I said to Angela Merkel once, I said, how many cars have gone to Germany from the United States? And she said, well, I don't believe any. And I said, you're right, you're right. Well, that doesn't happen anymore. And they're paying a fair amount. It's just a fair amount. It's not. I could ask for much more. It's a fair amount.

But the United States now is using the same thing that they've used on us, and I just can't believe it's taken president so long to do this. And again, we're going to treat people fairly. We're going to especially treat Canada fairly. But I can't believe it's taken so long where we get charged and don't charge them.

Japan was a good example. We made a deal with Japan. You saw that Mark, a deal with Japan. It's a much different deal than we've had in the past. But they would send us millions of cars. No charge. We weren't allowed to send them cars. We sent there no cars. I doubt you had one car go into gym because we were restricted. They didn't want our cars. Same thing with Europe, same thing with other places.

So now, all we do now, is fairness, but fairness leads us to the most successful country there's ever been. You know, we have some advantages over other countries, and we do have a great market. We have an amazing market. But you know what, if I let this go, if we didn't win this election, if we had these people that were running, that were ruining our country, destroying our country with their open borders and men playing in women's sports and transgender from everybody and windmills all over the place. If we allowed that to go on for another couple of years, we would be -- I don't -- I'm not sure that we'd even have a country.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: By the way, I'm not sure we would have even had a country, and now we have the most successful country in the world. Brian?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, sir. What is your message to Democrats ahead of a next vote to open up the government? The American people are saying, open the damn government. What's your message to them right now?

TRUMP: Well, they're the ones that started it. They're the ones that have it, and it's almost like a kamikaze attack by them. You want to know the truth. This is like a kamikaze attack. They almost, you know, they have nothing to lose. They've lost the elections. They've lost the presidential election in a landslide.

I saw the other day where Kamala said, this was a very close election. This was one of the biggest sweeps that anybody's ever had. Won the popular vote by millions, won the electoral college by a massive amount. They said, If I got 270 that would be great. But I got -- I think, 312 or 315, and they got 220. So, you know, we won that. But we won counties.

The big thing is counties. So out of all of the counties, thousands and thousands, we got 2500, they got 525. It was a landslide. And we listened, oh yes, it was close. It was one of the greatest victories ever. And it was a mandate to do what we're doing. And I hope, and Mark wants this as much as I do. We are very close to making a deal on the Middle East. That will bring peace to the Middle East.

After all of these years of millions and millions, tens of millions of people being killed. There's a chance to bring peace to the Middle East. In addition to that, I made seven other deals, and they were, you know, great. And we're, you know, things are happening with respect to Russia, Ukraine.

[12:30:00]