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Trump Meets With Canadian Prime Minister In Oval Office; AG Bondi Testifying Before Senate Judiciary Committee. Aired 12:30-1p ET
Aired October 07, 2025 - 12:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[12:30:00]
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: -- 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, as a chance to bring peace to the Middle East.
In addition to that, I made seven other deals and there were, you know, great. And we're -- you know, things are happening with respect to Russia, Ukraine. That's one that last week mark 7,812 people were killed. Soldiers, mostly soldiers.
MARK CARNEY, CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER: Yes.
TRUMP: But 7,000, more than 7,000 -- almost 8,000 soldiers were killed. It's a crazy thing. I thought that would have been one of the easy ones. I get along very well with Putin and I thought that would have been a very disappointed at him because I thought this would have been an easy one to settle but it's turned out to be maybe tougher than the Middle East.
We'll see what happens with the Middle East --
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: Go ahead. Behind, yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) over within the Canadian border?
TRUMP: Is what?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The fentanyl crisis.
TRUMP: No, it's never. It's never -- I think it's never going to be over frankly. But they've done -- Canada's worked hard and they've done a much better job than in the past.
CARNEY: Yes.
TRUMP: We have very few people coming in through our southern border too. We've worked with Canada and we've worked with Mexico. So we've made it a lot better.
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: Wait.
CARNEY: Just on fentanyl, any amount is too much. So we've gotten it down. It's down substantially. It's less than 1 percent but it's -- look, it's still too much. It's too much at home in Canada.
TRUMP: A lot of people.
CARNEY: Yes, we got to stamp it out.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On USMCA, are the two of you both committed to seeing it through in the renegotiation of that deal that you made?
TRUMP: Well, we can renegotiate it and that would be good or we could just do different deals. We're allowed to do different deals if we want. We might make deals that are better for the individuals, countries.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What's your practice (ph)?
TRUMP: I don't care. I want to make whatever the best deal is for this country and also very much with Canada in mind.
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: Yes, go ahead, please. Go ahead, sir.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sir, on China, what more can the United States and Canada do together to counter China?
TRUMP: Well, you have to be able to compete. They're a great competitor. And Mark and I both know that -- and you have to be able to compete. We have big advantages over China for lots of different reasons. And I think we're doing very well with China.
I get along -- we're very well with President Xi. I'm going to be meeting him in a few weeks as you know. I'll be meeting him in South Korea. But we've had a very good relationship for a long time. But you have to be able to compete.
To do well with China, if you can't compete, you're not going to do well with China. And Canada is very competitive. I can tell you that. Canada is a very competitive country. And I think Canada has done very well over the years with China.
CARNEY: Yes. Yes, we have. But we'll do better together on that.
TRUMP: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President --
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) Middle East, what guarantees are you giving your Arab partners that Israel will not resume its offensive after the hostages are released?
TRUMP: Well, the primary guarantee is once this deal happens, if it does happen, look, they're in negotiations right now. We are going to do everything possible -- we have a lot of power, and we're going to do everything possible to make sure everybody adheres to the deal, OK?
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you concern about the delays at the airports? And how do you see the shutdown (INAUDIBLE)?
TRUMP: Oh sure, I mean it said -- they're all Democrat delays. There are delays at the airport that standard. And again, this is something that we've -- every day, we put forth the bill. It's just a continuation. It's a very simple thing to sign and very simple to do.
And I really think that these are people that I think they have nothing to lose. They have a party that's out of control. They have no leader. Nobody knows who the leader is. I look at people with very low IQs like a Crockett, this woman Crockett. I never met her but she's a low IQ individual.
I look at AOC talking about how. If they want to negotiate, they can come to my office. She's not in that position to do that. And who the hell is she to say that.
And then I watch Nancy Pelosi not knowing what to do. I watch their leadership. Look, Schumer is petrified of primary because he's not going to win probably against anybody in a primary.
You know, Schumer did the right thing but he handled it badly. Originally, a year ago, he did probably the right thing, but he handled it badly. I think Schumer is incapable of making a deal.
They are a mess. They're a party that has no leadership. They have -- and they have no policy, you know? We have great -- I think we have great leadership, but we also have great policy.
We have strong borders, we have no men and women's sports, we -- I mean basic things. We're not going to take your child away and change the sex of your child. We're not going to do things like that.
[12:35:08]
What they're doing to the country is so incredible and they got away with it with all their woke crap and now it's stopped. And we have a country that's based on common sense and strength and intelligence.
I mean we have -- the United States of America -- and I say it, I say it all the time, other leaders have told me this. Mark hasn't yet, but I think he would. A year ago, we were a dead country and now we are the hottest country anywhere in the world.
Maybe Canada, I'll give Canada, but I like -- because I do like Canada. But, you know, we're the hottest country in the world right now. There's never been a country that has the kind of money coming into.
There's never been anything like this. There has never been a country that if you get -- if you take $1 trillion, that would be unbelievable. We're going to have over $20 trillion invested in this country. There's never been anything like what you're seeing and it's based on good policy and common sense and leadership. Yes.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, what is Canada giving you in return? If you say Mr. Carney is going to be leaving Washington happy, what's Canada giving you in return?
TRUMP: Well, you'll find out, but I think the people of Canada, they will love us again. Most of them still do. If you say only 25 percent --
(CROSSTALK)
CARNEY: (INAUDIBLE)
TRUMP: I assume a lot of them. I think they love us.
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: And you know what? I'm not the biggest hockey fan, but I like it a lot. And I watched some of the greatest hockey games I've ever -- how good were those games, right?
CARNEY: Yes, yes, very good. We're coming down for the World Series, Mr. President.
TRUMP: Oh good.
(LAUGHTER)
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: Yes, go ahead.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, will you sign a trade deal with Canada that doesn't include supply managed goods like dairy, for example? The federal government --
TRUMP: Well, the deal would include dairy. I mean, it's going to include everything. We'll do a comprehensive --
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President. Thank you, Mr. President. Have you identified programs to eliminate under this shutdown?
TRUMP: Oh sure. Sure.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Which ones? TRUMP: We have a lot -- I'm not going to tell you but we'll be announcing it pretty soon. But we have a lot of things that we're going to eliminate and permanently eliminate.
You know, one of the things that we have is some advantage you could say but because of the shutdown, which I think they made a big mistake, we're able to take out billions and billions of dollars of waste fraud and abuse. And they've handed it, you know, to order silver platter.
And, you know Russell Vought, he's a serious person, very serious person. He's sitting there and he's getting ready to cut things. And this is something that was handed to us by I assume Schumer.
I don't -- I just don't know if Schumer has any power anymore. I look at your leadership. I don't know who to speak to. I'll tell you what, I'm getting calls from Democrats wanting to meet.
I never even heard their names before and they're claiming to be -- the Democrats have no leader. They remind me of Somalia, OK? You know? And I met the president of Somalia. I told him about the problem he's got.
I said you have somebody from Somalia who's telling us how to run our country, from Somalia. He said, would you like to take her back? He said, no, I don't want her. OK, you know who I'm talking about?
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: Say that again.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How many permanent jobs are you talking about? Can you --
TRUMP: Well, I can tell you -- I'll be able to tell you that in four or five days if this keeps going on. If this keeps going on, it'll be substantial. And a lot of those jobs will never come back. But you're going to have a lot closer to a balanced budget actually.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is there anything the Prime Minister has done that's making it more difficult to reach a deal?
TRUMP: Say it?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is there anything the Prime Minister has done that's making it more difficult or easier to reach a deal?
TRUMP: No, this -- I think he's a great Prime Minister. I mean he could represent me anytime. I will tell you, and I'm not saying that because he's -- no, he is a very strong, very good leader. He's a nice man, but he could be nasty. He could be very nasty. Maybe as nasty as anybody.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How? TRUMP: I think Canada -- let me put it this way. I can tell you this because I deal with lots of leaders all over the world. He is -- he's a world-class leader. He's a man that knows what he wants. And I'm not surprised to see that he won the election and won it substantially and I would think he's more popular now.
He's a good man. He does a great job, but he's a tough negotiator.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So then, what's holding things up? If he's a great man and you want to do a deal with Canada, why aren't you?
TRUMP: Because I want to be a great man, too.
(LAUGHTER)
TRUMP: Thank you very much. Thank you, everybody.
(CROSSTALK)
CARNEY: I think you got that one.
TRUMP: That could have been (INAUDIBLE).
TRUMP: Thank you very much.
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: Thank you.
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: Thank you very much.
(CROSSTALK)
[12:40:27]
MANU RAJU, CNN ANCHOR: All right. You've been watching for about 40 minutes or so, President Trump meeting with Mark Carney, the Prime Minister of Canada. It's their second meeting since Carney was elected as Prime Minister back in April.
This was a meeting that they're about this ongoing trade war between Canada and the United States. Questions about whether or not they can actually reach any sort of trade deal. But Trump of course answering a whole range of questions beyond the fact that Canada is the second largest trading part of the United States.
So there's very significant economically what they decide to agree on, what they don't agree on here. But other issues also coming up as part of this question about whether Trump would invoke the Insurrection Act amid this fight with blue cities and this crime crackdown.
Trump didn't say explicitly whether he would but said that they would move in if governors there did not agree. He also talked about this -- these ongoing negotiations between Israel and Hamas over a potential ceasefire agreement there.
He said that they're, quote, "very close to a deal." He said that -- he also said that they would do everything they can to enforce any possible agreement that is reached between the two sides. He repeatedly attacked Democrats amid this government shutdown.
He's -- he called them insurrectionists. He also said this effort was a like kamikaze attack, this fight over the government shutdown. He repeated attacks against Democratic leaders.
And the big question too is, what happens to all these workers? Look, there's 750,000 furloughed federal workers as the government is shut down. He was asked if they would be paid. Of course, there's a law requiring they get paid and he knows that later.
He said, it depends on who we are talking about. And they said they want to, quote, "permanently eliminate" programs that are -- he didn't say which ones but amid this shutdown, this is the threat and he's ratcheting it up.
KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Now there's a twofold threat, right? The first threat was we're going to eliminate these programs, which means mass layoffs. We know that OMB Director Russell Vought had presented him with a list of various agencies and programs that weren't, quote unquote, "aligned" with this administration. That's where the layoffs would come from.
We've been hearing this threat from the White House, from Karoline Leavitt, at the podium as well as from President Trump now for days. Now they've escalated to a new threat. The new threat is that these federal workers might not get their back pay if they -- he chooses not to give it to them.
Now, how that would even work seems completely suspect, right? You're looking at a huge pool of federal workers. He wouldn't give any ideas of who might get back pay and who wouldn't. How you would parse out exactly giving money back to certain areas and not to certain areas, that seems like a very complicated thing.
RAJU: Yes.
HOLMES: But it certainly is a threat now that they're making as they continue to try and needle these Democrats.
AYESHA RASCOE, NPR HOST, "WEEKEND EDITION SUNDAY" AND "UP FIRST": Well, you know, Trump kept saying that the Democrats don't have anything to lose and it seems like he keeps like giving them reasons to feel that way. Like number one, he was already letting a lot of people go. And now he's saying he's going to do more of that.
He already wasn't adhering to the funding, you know, bills that had already been passed because he's cutting programs left and right without Congress's input. So the question is, well, what do we have to lose? You're going to keep doing this anyway. And also Democrats right now, they are on the winning side of the shutdown, right? Like the -- if you -- there no one wins in a shutdown. But right now, people are looking at the White House. And Republicans and are blaming them, and I don't think it helps when you have Trump and the White House kind of saying now, oh, we're not going to give them back pay.
People have lived through a lot of shutdowns, you know, in recent years. They know this doesn't have to happen. And so it seems like the White House is making this choice and you're saying you're going to hurt the Democrats, but I think people at home can see you're just hurting regular people just going to work.
RAJU: Yes. I mean, Trump has been threatening -- the strategy here has been to use the power of the government to go after things that Democrats like, go after federal employees, get Democrats to cave. But so far, that strategy is not working and it's -- there's a sign here that from what Trump is saying that this is going to go on for a while, the shutdown.
EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Certainly. And look, last week at the beginning of the shutdown, we had announcements from Russell Vought that they was canceling green energy projects in blue states, states that had voted for Kamala Harris --
RAJU: And Trump just said they're going to, quote, "permanently eliminate" --
DOVERE: Right.
RAJU: -- programs.
DOVERE: He canceled funding for projects in New York to try to put pressure on Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries both from New York. There have been no further announcements of other things like that.
But what Trump -- he also said when he was talking about which workers might not get their pace and the ones who deserve it might not get it, right?
RAJU: Yes.
[12:45:01]
DOVERE: So, look, this is a selective enforcement of the cuts and a selective look at where they're going to be taking money from. It is very clearly politicized and very clearly targeted at Democrats.
But as much as I think -- your point is right, we can talk about this as part of the big battle, but these are people who are now out of jobs, projects that are not happening, and --
RAJU: Yes.
DOVERE: -- the effects will start to be felt. HOLMES: And I do want to just make one point here. I mean, we've been talking about these mass layoffs now for over a week. They haven't happened.
DOVERE: Right.
RAJU: Yes.
HOLMES: Instead of them actually happening --
RAJU: They have warned that it would happen within the first week.
DOVERE: That's right.
HOLMES: And that was last week we were talking, it's going to happen as soon as today.
DOVERE: Right.
HOLMES: They haven't happened. And not only have they not happened, now we're talking about a whole different threat. So it's not even that they're executing on one, there's another.
And I think that goes to show you that this isn't exactly playing out the way that the White House thought it would. Now, some preliminary polling has shown that people blame both sides equally. That also is not something that the White House anticipated.
RAJU: Yes. One other thing is that the -- you talk about the Insurrection Act. The President did not say if he would invoke that. He threatened that yesterday. This has not been done since 1992. That was the L.A. riots, and that was a totally different situation. If he goes that route, what are the implications of that?
RASCOE: Well, I mean, the implications are the road that we are already going down, right? Like, it would be another kind of excess thing that we're seeing, and a change in the way that the U.S. functions.
In the U.S., the military was not used to police its citizens, but that is changing. And I mean, I think we just have to accept that that is where this administration is going. And they are changing the face of America and the face of what policing looks like in America.
RAJU: Yes.
DOVERE: It's -- yesterday on CNN, Steve Miller was on, and he talked about what's going on in Portland. He said, ICE officers have to street battle against Antifa, hand-to-hand combat every night to come and go from their building in Portland.
We've got Shimon Prokupecz from CNN on the ground in Portland. He -- that's not what's happening. The White House is inventing a version of reality and then reacting to that invented reality.
RAJU: And the courts have stopped it so far. We'll see how they decide to ultimately respond.
I do want to bring in CNN Senior Reporter Daniel Dale. So Daniel, there is a lot from President Trump to impact there. What stood out to you?
DANIEL DALE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Manu, I counted at least five false claims in those remarks. It was probably more. The President repeated this imaginary figure. He keeps using -- saying that he secured more than $17 trillion worth of investment in the U.S. in just eight months.
The White House itself on its website uses the figure $8.8 trillion. So just over half of the one the President keeps citing. And even that $8.8 trillion is a wild exaggeration. It includes a bunch of vague promises, a bunch of vague statements from foreign countries and companies that I wouldn't say even rise to the level of promises, accounts hundreds of billions in promised trade expansion as investment. So even the much smaller figure is not right.
The President also said that under his leadership with his guard deployment and takeover of D.C. law enforcement, nobody is being shot now in Washington, D.C. It is true that crime is down in D.C., but it hasn't vanished as he keeps claiming.
In fact, just this morning, the Washington Post ran a headline that said, three people found fatally shot in D.C. in three days. Some shootings do continue. The President also made just an absurd claim that he saved at least 100,000 lives with a smattering of military strikes on alleged drug boats off Venezuela in the Caribbean.
Aside from the fact that we don't have firm evidence of what was on these boats, aside from the fact that fentanyl, the most deadly of these synthetic opioids that is killing Americans, is generally brought over the border by Americans, the land border, rather than on boats from Venezuela.
It is just absurd to say 100,000 lives because there were well under 100,000 total overdose deaths in the U.S. last year. So the notion that 100,000 lives were saved by striking four or five boats is simply not credible.
And the President also, talking about his trade deal with the European Union, repeated his claim that before this trade deal, the U.S. couldn't sell any agriculture to the E.U. (technical difficulty) more than $12 billion worth of farm products to the E.U. last year before the trade deal. The E.U. was the fourth biggest buyer in the world of these products.
RAJU: All right. Daniel Dale with the very quick fact check there. Thank you so much for bringing us all that.
And we have a lot more news. We'll be right back after a very quick break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[12:54:13]
RAJU: And you're watching live pictures of the Attorney General of the United States Pam Bondi in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. It's been a lively hearing combative going back and forth all day now.
I'm joined by a terrific group of reporters to break this all down. This has been really a tale of two hearings. You've seen Republicans really going after the Biden FBI after they had learned that some of their records had been obtained in the aftermath of January 6 as part of the January 6th investigation that Jack Smith and then the special counsel had launched.
Some have been calling for a special counsel, some have been calling for prosecution and the like. And then you've heard Democrats. Democrats have been going after Pam Bondi and a wide range of issues whether it's been about the Epstein files or about the National Guard, whether it's been about Tom Homan, the border czar, in the investigation that went into him and was never actually materialized into any potential charges.
[12:55:07]
Just -- and Bondi has fired back almost every single time under direct questioning from Democrats.
(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)
PAM BONDI, ATTORNEY GENERAL: The National Guard is on the way right now as we speak. Oh, by the way, so is Director Patel and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. You're sitting here grilling me and they're on their way to Chicago to keep your state safe.
SEN. DICK DURBIN (D), ILLINOIS: Madam Attorney General, it's my job to grill you.
BONDI: Yes, you're grilling me on President Trump and some photograph with Epstein? Come on.
SEN. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE (D), RHODE ISLAND: Did Homan keep the $50,000?
BONDI: As Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche recently stated, the investigation --
WHITEHOUSE: OK, never mind.
BONDI: -- that Mr. Homan --
WHITEHOUSE: Never mind. I can see I'm not going to get a straight answer from you.
SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D), MINNESOTA: How does firing a 20-year national security prosecutor enhance public safety?
BONDI: Senator Klobuchar, I'm not going to discuss personnel decisions, but the personnel issue that I'm having right now is that all of my agents, all of my lawyers are working. My agents are on the street working without a paycheck because your party voted to shut down the federal government.
(END VIDEOCLIP)
RAJU: Wow. Right out of the Trump playbook, right? You don't need to answer the question, deflect, attack, change the subject.
HOLMES: Yes, and she also has a little bit more protection than some of these other officials because a lot of what they were asking her about it's open cases. So she has the ability to say she can't talk about an ongoing case.
I will say there were some inside of the administration who are a little bit concerned about how this was going to go. And we've talked to White House officials who have said that they've been watching. They think she's handling herself.
Well, she's certainly pushing back on the Trump talking points in a way that they would hoped, they had hoped that she would. But keep in mind, this is the first time we've seen her in this kind of setting since she came into office. And there have been so many questions about the Department of Justice. So it's not surprising that she's getting this kind of grilling here.
And generally, Pam Bondi is someone who only takes questions from favorable allies, going on conservative news networks to do interviews, that kind of thing. So that's why there were concerns, but we're hearing from the White House that they like the way that she's been handling this.
RAJU: Yes. Go ahead.
RASCOE: Well, I mean, look, there may not be, you know, hand-to-hand combat in Portland but there was some hand-to-hand combat going on. They would go and add it.
RAJU: Typically, I mean look, we get to see fiery hearings all the time on Capitol Hill. What's different is how personal --
RASCOE: Personal.
RAJU: -- a lot of these attacks are against the senators. You typically don't see a cabinet secretary --
RASCOE: No.
RAJU: -- doing that.
RASCOE: It's deeply personal. But, I mean, I think that's the way the Trump administration wants to roll. So I think that she's doing this in a way that they will be happy, the administration will be happy. And those who support Trump will feel like she's pushing back.
I think the question is it's like, well, what justice system do we have? You have Republicans who are very mad that sitting senators were, you know, being -- or their phone records were looked at. And then you have an administration right now that's saying anybody is fair game.
And if the President can direct the Justice Department to say go after Adam Schiff, go after, you know, James Comey, that's totally fine. And so I think the question for this country is, well, what type of justice system do we have --
RAJU: Yes.
RASCOE: -- and do we want?
RAJU: Before you jump in, Isaac, I do want to show exchange that Dick Durbin, the top Democrat in the committee, had with Bondi about how she has handled the Epstein files. Of course that has been such a issue that controversy that she has been dogged with over the past several weeks.
(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)
DURBIN: Who gave the order to flag records related to President Trump?
BONDI: To flag records for President Trump?
DURBIN: To flag any records which included his name.
BONDI: I'm not going to discuss anything about that with you, Senator.
WHITEHOUSE: There's been public reporting that Jeffrey Epstein showed people photos of President Trump with half-naked young women. Do you know if the FBI found those photographs in their search of Jeffrey Epstein safe or premises or otherwise? Have you seen any such thing?
BONDI: You know, Senator Whitehouse, you sit here and make salacious remarks once again trying to slander President Trump left and right.
(END VIDEOCLIP)
RAJU: Now Dick Durbin had said that he received -- sent a letter to DOJ in July saying information his office received said that (technical difficulty).
DOVERE: -- as a performance from Pam Bondi that is theatrical in its contempt that she is showing for every Democratic senator as her. And in the sort of chumminess that she's showing in the question she gets from Republican senators. John Kennedy is senator from Louisiana was trying to push her on some things about the senator's investigations, and she was engaging in a hypothetical where she was actually answering the question that she said --
RAJU: Yes.
DOVERE: -- she couldn't answer.
RAJU: I mean, these often are a tale of two hearings, but how much new was learned that's another question all together. All right, thank you for joining Inside Politics. CNN News Central starts right now.
