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White House To Impose At Least A 10 Percent Tariff On China On Wednesday; South Korea Acting President: We Will Cooperate With The U.S.; Some Republican Lawmakers Raise Concerns Over Tariffs; Market Swings Cause Concern For People Nearing Retirement; Top Trump Advisers Feuding Publicly Over Tariffs; U.S. Supreme Court Allows Trump White House To Use Aliens Enemies Act to Quickly Deport. Aired 4-4:45p ET

Aired April 08, 2025 - 16:00   ET

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

[16:00:08]

RICHARD QUEST, CNN INTERNATIONAL HOST, "QUEST MEANS BUSINESS": Closing bell ringing on Wall Street. Dong-dong-dong-dong-dong. The markets are lower.

They started higher. And just after -- they're off the lows of the day, they were near over 1.5 percent down or whatever for the Dow, but I will

show you the other things later. Whoa. Behind you. There we go. It's all over. Misery over for the moment.

The main events in your second hour of QUEST MEANS BUSINESS. At midnight, the White House will raise tariffs on China to 104 percent.

There is mudslinging between Peter Navarro and Elon Musk.

And navigating your investments, Ken Fisher is going to be with me from Fisher Investments.

Put it together, we are live in New York on Tuesday, April the 8th. I am Richard Quest. Second hour -- double dose of QUEST MEANS BUSINESS.

Good evening.

Tonight we begin with the market rally. Look, I mean, it sort of started as a rally, and it then just evaporated as the day went on. The trade war with

Beijing is escalating. The White House Press Secretary has confirmed the U.S. will go ahead with escalatory 50 percent tariffs on Chinese goods. Its

104 percent in total. It happens in midnight, eight hours from now.

And of course, it is tit-for-tat essentially, the U.S. did their reciprocal. The Chinese did their retaliatory. Now the U.S. is doing the

escalatory. The tensions helped to raise the market's gains. The Dow had been up as much as 1,300, but as you see at the close, we are off 320, off

the lows of the day, but still sharply down.

These are live pictures from the White House. President Trump is speaking at the signing of an executive order relating to U.S. energy and coal. But

we will keep you updated. He is going to be taking questions, we believe at some point. When he does, then we will have a listen in.

Kevin is with me. Kevin is at the White House. Do we have any idea? I mean, he is going to be asked about -- I can't imagine he won't be asked about

this 104 percent tariff.

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes. And we will see if he takes questions. That room is not particularly conducive to questioning the

President. He can come and go sort of as he pleases. But you know, if he wants to talk about these tariffs, which he has certainly wanted to for the

last several days, it is possible that he comes out and answers questions.

And I think this question of China and the question of the 104 percent tariff that he is now preparing to put on the world's second largest

economy is certainly front of mind and he did say this morning that he believes China does want to come to a deal. But in his words, they don't

know where to start. He has described himself as essentially sitting by the phone and waiting for Xi Jinping to call him, to say that he is ready to

negotiate. And, you know, this has been a long standing sort of concern of the President's. He doesn't feel like the trade deals that he made with

China during his first administration were necessarily successful.

China reneged on a lot of the things they committed on, and he has been brooding about it for the last four years, and he is ready to get a new

deal on the table, and he is ready to apply this extraordinary pressure of these extraordinary tariffs on Beijing to try and get them to negotiate.

But so far, it is not really having an effect, and in part, that's due to the domestic pressures that Xi is facing in China, in part it is due to

some of the -- you know, the specifics of what China is looking for and what Trump is looking for in a trade deal.

But certainly, even as the White House touts all of these countries rushing to try and get in front of Trump, rushing to try and secure their own trade

deals, China is the biggest holdout, but it is also the biggest danger for the global economy as these tariffs are set to take effect.

QUEST: But it is just hard to know what -- I mean, what the modus operandi now is. You've got the administration arguing amongst themselves. You've

got no clear direction on whether this is, a negotiating strategy and even if it is Kevin, even if it is, the tariffs are coming into effect. The

damage is done. I feel like I am in "Alice in Wonderland" here.

Well, and I think part of the strategy is actually coming into clear focus today, but the question is whether it is too late. You know, you cannot

negotiate trade deals with 70 countries in 24 hours, that leaves the midnight deadline very much operable today, and even though, as Trump says,

delegations are coming in from Japan and they're coming in from South Korea and Giorgia Meloni from Italy will be here next week as well. You know, as

you said, it is too late.

[16:05:10]

These tariffs will already have been in effect at midnight tonight, and I think in part that's because it took the White House this amount of time to

sort of settle on this idea of the tariffs as a negotiating tactic. You know, they've been floundering from rationale to rationale and objective to

objective over the last week or so and it was really only in the last 24 hours that the administration led in part by the Treasury Secretary, Scott

Bessent, really sort of narrowed in on this idea that countries can now try coming to the White House to negotiate better terms.

But when you listen to advisers and you listen to the U.S. Trade Representative on Capitol Hill today, they made clear that, yes, this

deadline, this midnight deadline is very much operable.

QUEST: Good to see you. We will talk more as this goes on. Thank you, Kevin.

Now, the clock is ticking as Kevin was saying, reciprocal tariffs come into effect under eight hours. There are dozens of countries that will be hit.

It leaves little time for the companies to get their goods into the U.S. and for countries to negotiate the deal.

And even frankly, if you do negotiate a deal, what are you going to negotiate it down to? Because it is not going to help anybody in such a

short period of time.

The President says the U.S. and South Korea are nearing a deal on trade. Let's ignore the fact there was already a free trade agreement between the

two countries.

Mr. Trump said a top delegation is on its way to the U.S. It won't be in time for tonight, of course. South Korea's acting President spoke to Mike

Valerio in an exclusive interview. He said negotiating is better than fighting.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HAN DUCK-SOO, SOUTH KOREAN ACTING PRESIDENT: If some of the mutually satisfactory agreements can be made, I think U.S. can adjust their already

imposed tariff depending on the negotiations between the two countries, then clearly, the final outcome, I think will be much better than one side

impose something and the other side is actually retaliates and things like that.

So we will take a very cooperative position on this and we will promote the dialogue and we have a lot of experience with that kind of, you know,

finding out the mutual benefit --

MIKE VALERIO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: But to be clear --

HAN: -- between the two countries.

VALERIO: If I may, to be clear, you do anticipate that this 25 percent tariff level will not stay. That's your anticipation.

HAN: Depending on the negotiations.

VALERIO: That's certainly your hope.

HAN: Yes.

VALERIO: Are you optimistic? How do you feel on a gut level these negotiations are going to go?

HAN: Well, now about 57 countries are actually are subject to that kind of tariff. So --

VALERIO: Twenty-five percent though. that's pretty steep for friends for generations.

HAN: Well, it is a pity because we are evaluated in that way.

VALERIO: Yes.

HAN: But I think that that kind of different assessment can always happen in this kind of situations.

VALERIO: You think it can always happen even though South Korea and the United States have been friends for generations? I guess my point is,

should friends really be treating friends like this?

HAN: Well, friendship should be compensated by sometimes the mutual economic, financial, and other dimensional aspects. You can never say that

relations between the United States and Korea, because we are friends, so everything should be condoned and we don't care what happens to that --

VALERIO: I understand that.

HAN: Thank kind of situations cannot sustain.

VALERIO: Right. I understand that, you know, friends can't be happy with each other all the time, but I guess Acting President Han, when you have

President Trump calling out South Korea about a month ago at the Joint Session to Congress making space in the joint session to call out South

Korea and then slapping a 25 percent tariff. What was your reaction to that?

HAN: Well, for the tough negotiator, you don't have to be -- you don't have to have some kind of a permanent and prior perception on what the other

party is doing. I think we should, you know, very -- you know, in a very cool way assess what this kind of 25 percent means for us. And we should in

a very cool way, should negotiate with them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

QUEST: Now, the U.S. Trade Representative has told lawmakers it is time to move on from the status quo.

Jamieson Greer was grilled in the Senate on President Trump's plans.

[16:10:10]

Even some Republican senators were skeptical. The USTR said he was more concerned with Main Street than Wall Street, and also said it is time for

the U.S. to fix its trade imbalances.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMIESON GREER, U.S. TRADE REPRESENTATIVE: Our large and persistent trade deficit has been over 30 years in the making, and it will not be resolved

overnight.

We must move away from an economy that's based solely on government spending in the financial sector, and we must become an economy based on

producing real goods and services that provide jobs for working class and middle class Americans in their communities.

This adjustment may be challenging at times, and in a moment of drastic, overdue change, I am confident, I am certain that the American people can

rise to the challenge as they've done before.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

QUEST: Manu Raju is with me on Capitol Hill, he joins me now. We've got -- you heard the USTR, but we've got these various bills coming forward, some

with Republican support.

But my you tell me, you're the expert, do any of them stand any chance of getting any further than just being hot air and noise?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Not right now, because of the fact that a lot of Republicans are on the President's side. Some are

skeptical and some are totally opposed to what the President is doing.

So you have a divided Republican Party and certainly not enough support among the leadership, which is in line with Donald Trump on this issue and

the leadership that sets the agenda, decides what bills to put on the floor, and the Speaker of the House says that this bill, one of them in

particular, to give Congress the power to oversee, essentially check the President's power on tariffs. That bill is essentially going nowhere

because of the opposition from the Speaker, the opposition from the White House and the Senate Majority Leader, John Thune, does not plan to advance

this either.

But I am talking to a number of Republican senators, and I am asking them the question. I am saying, look, these prices may rise back home. The

prices may be, in fact, impact your constituents. And when I asked them if they're concerned about the impacts on their constituents, some of them are

brushing it off. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOSH HAWLEY (R-MO): These other countries may have to suffer through our tariffs. We will see if they lead to higher prices or not. I mean,

President Trump imposed a bunch of tariffs in his first term and they don't --

RAJU: You don't think they're going to raise prices back here at home?

HAWLEY: I think it depends on how competitive it is. I mean, maybe American companies will get to lower prices. Your question is, are people at home,

are they willing to ride with the President on this? I think they are.

RAJU: What about higher prices? Are your constituents willing to stomach that?

SEN. JOHN CORNYN (R-TX): Well, I think anytime you're going to have a change in the status quo, there is going to be some disruption by

definition and -- but I think how this story ends is the most important thing and hopefully it ends quickly.

RAJU: Do you think your voters will be okay with paying more?

REP. RYAN ZINKE (R-MO): Well, again, if it is short term and it results in a better position of the U.S., I think they are willing to do it. But long

term has an effect. So I am hoping the short term and I am hoping they are effective.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: So that's the big question here, Richard. What does short term mean? And will the voters actually do what these members are saying, that they

will be okay with paying more at the grocery store or paying more for any number of goods, whether it is buying a car or anything else, and that's

going to be the one thing that could change the calculus on Capitol Hill.

More voters raise concerns, if constituents are alarmed at how much they are paying, and they raise their concerns directly with their members of

Congress, will that lead to changes here in Washington? All questions at the moment.

QUEST: I am grateful for you, sir. Thank you. Manu Raju on Capitol Hill.

Ukraine says it captured two Chinese nationals fighting for the Russian Army. President Zelenskyy says there are many more Chinese citizens

fighting for Moscow, in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:16:15]

QUEST: Ukraine says it has captured two Chinese nationals who are fighting for the Russian Army. President Zelenskyy says they were caught by

Ukrainian Forces in the Donetsk Region, and the President believes there are many more Chinese citizens fighting for Russia.

Mr. Zelenskyy calls it a clear signal and sign that Russia has no interest in ending the war.

Fred Pleitgen is in berlin.

How much of a bombshell, pardon the pun, is this? In a sense, we knew about the North Koreans. China has provided weapons and support, but this would

be different. So put it into the calculus, please.

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the Ukrainians certainly are saying that it is different because you were just

talking about those North Koreans that, of course, have been fighting on the side of Russia for several months now. But the Ukrainians are saying

that this is something very different, because in the case of the North Koreans, they are actually fighting on Russian territory. They were

fighting against Ukrainian Forces in the Kursk Region of Russia. About ten to fourteen-thousand of these North Koreans.

However, in this case, these Chinese individuals, the Ukrainians say, were apparently captured on Ukrainian territory in the Donetsk Oblast. And there

are several reasons why the Ukrainians are saying that gives all of this a different quality, that they say that they were involved in offensive

operations against the Ukrainian military on Ukrainian territory and that is one of the reasons why the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy,

came out and said, look, the U.S. needs to understand that Russian President Vladimir Putin does not seek a real ceasefire or an immediate

ceasefire with the Ukrainians, because otherwise, why would he have foreign fighters involved in offensive operations on Ukrainian territory?

It is also the Ukrainians essentially telling the United States, Richard, that they believe that a lot of America's adversaries are actually ganging

up on Ukraine right now and in that themselves, of course, becoming very important players in the war itself and in the security of Europe.

The Chinese, as you mentioned, have been accused by the Ukrainians and the U.S. of providing material support to the Russians, the North Koreans, not

just soldiers, but apparently north of a million artillery shells as well. And then, of course, you also have the Iranians, who the Ukrainians and the

U.S. say have been providing drones and missiles, even though the Iranians continue to deny that. So that's why the Ukrainians are saying this could

have a different quality.

One of the things that a source has told CNN is that right now, there is no indication that there is state sponsorship behind all of this. Of course,

we do know, Richard, that on both sides, the Ukrainian side and the Russian side, there are foreign fighters fighting for either of those two sides,

and so far also, we've not heard from directly from Moscow either -- Richard.

QUEST: I am grateful. Fred Pleitgen is in Berlin and we need to talk more in the next day or so about Friedrich Merz and his tariff policy now that

20 percent comes in tonight and I am sure the German auto and the 25 percent on autos, we will talk more about that.

Good to see you, sir, as always. Have a good evening.

Now, turning to other matters. CNN, we are the first U.S. broadcaster to gain access to the notorious prison in El Salvador, where the Supreme Court

has temporarily paused an order that a U.S. man wrongly deported there should be returned home.

CNN's David Culver has been inside the prison, and a short while ago sent us this report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID CULVER, CNN SENIOR US NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We were hoping to get a bit closer to those deportees from the United States. Candidly, they told

us multiple times as we were there, you can't go near the sector. Think of an airplane like hangar that has those deportees, but rather they took us

into another sector to show us what is continuing to go on and what's different, I will say, is an increased prison population.

Let me just show you some of these images. It is going to be rough, but this is an edit we are working to put together right now, and guys just

back in the control room, so, you know, I am hearing myself a little bit of mixed minus there. But I want to give you a sense. I won't change it too

much --

[16:20:10]

Because there is glare as we give this look to you in the back of the truck. But you can see some of what we saw inside this one sector. And

these are prisoners who are part of what they call an extrication from the cell. This is what they label it as, and they bring them out and they line

them up, and then they eventually will go in and inspect the cell. And they do this at random times so as to make sure there is no contraband.

It is tough to see how anything but through maybe guards who are also searched heavily before going into this facility could actually get inside

the prison. But nonetheless, they continue with these type of searches.

So that gives you an idea of -- and we've seen some of these images before. I mean, if you've seen anything on CECOT, including our past coverage, you

see some of these images of just how disciplined and controlled it is. And the word that even officials at the prison will use is harsh and they

accept that. But they say that the reason these individuals are treated this way, with this level of control is because, as they see it, it matches

the brutality that existed in this country for so many years.

And it is something that as we step outside the prison walls, you have people who will tell you, we look at that prison and we see freedom. We

feel as though it has restored our security. So it is interesting to take that into your mind as you're kind of conceptualizing how this is in

existence and why it is to the levels it is.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

QUEST: David -- extraordinary reporting from David Culver. I am grateful. Thank you.

Now, some sad news. At least 44 people are now known to have died after a nightclub roof collapsed in the Dominican Republic. The rescue continues

and apparently there are around a hundred people still trapped under the rubble.

A popular merengue artist was performing at the time when, for reasons unknown, the ceiling gave way in the early hours of Tuesday morning. As you

can see, the heavy machinery is now well and truly in position. Jessica Hasburn is in Santo Domingo and brings us up to date.

Two questions, firstly how many people are still believed trapped? And secondly, do they have any idea why the ceiling collapsed?

JESSICA HASBURN, CNN EN ESPANOL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the first question, authorities believes, they estimate that about 300 people were inside at

the moment of the roof collapse. Now, at this time, we know that 146 people have been transported to local hospitals. So about another 150 could be

inside, under the rubble.

So the count as of right now, according to authorities, 44 people have lost their lives after that roof collapsed here at the popular Dominican

nightclub, Jet Set here in the Dominican Capital of Santo Domingo.

Emergency crews like you said, are working nonstop to try to find those who are trapped beneath the rubble. The director of the Emergency Operations

Center said that they will not stop until they get everybody out.

As you can see, there is a lot of people here. There are tents that officials have put up to assist family members that are awaiting

information about their loved ones.

Emergency crews continue even after we are talking about approximately 14 hours later, after the collapse, they are still finding people under the

rubble and they are transporting them to nearby hospitals. And that search and rescue, like I said, continues.

And if we can get a little bit closer, I can give you a better perspective of how this is going. And if you can see, we've got a part here set up by

authorities, this is where they are transporting those bodies of the deceased while these ambulances to my right are transporting these

survivors to local hospitals.

It has been a very fluid situation. Images are heartbreaking to see these families awaiting information about their loved ones. In a couple of

minutes, authorities told us they are going to have a press conference updating numbers and letting us know what happened here. There is a lot of

questions and little answers at this time.

Back to you.

QUEST: I am grateful, Jessica. Thank you very much. We will come back to you when there is more to report.

As we continue tonight, market volatility and the anxiety. It is not only on Wall Street, it is on Main Street.

Ken Fisher is with me after the break about what you should do. I mean, essentially you do nothing unless you really need the money, but now how do

you adapt a trading policy? QUEST MEANS BUSINESS.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:28:11]

QUEST: The top story: Now just look at the way the market ended the day, a plunge for U.S. markets added to the string of losses and all of those

markets, by the way, all of those indices were much higher at the open and they were all closed off -- I mean, the Dow is off the lows of the day, but

the NASDAQ I believe is at the bottom of the session.

The volatility is just frightening, and the now research from JPMorgan helps explain why. It found that market returns in the first year of

retirement have a large impact on the value of the portfolio. Here is why. If stocks fall 20 percent the year you stop working, then you ran out

significant money significantly faster than if it rises early on because the compounding event takes place, even if the returns average throughout

the year.

Ken Fisher is the founder and executive chairman of Fisher Investment. Ken, I suspect that that fact that I have just given out, I suspect you've known

this for a very long time, that if you lose at the beginning, it actually has a disproportionate amount of effect over the course of a retirement. Is

that correct?

KEN FISHER, FOUNDER AND EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN, FISHER INVESTMENT: Well, yes, that's true, Richard and thanks for having me. It is always good to hear

your voice, but "A" it is also in parallel true that a 20 percent drop followed by a 20 percent gain because of the simple math leaves you still

behind where you started and that's part of the problem.

But on the other side of the coin, in the very longer term, the stock market rises more than it falls both in time and magnitude. And so if

you've got a long time while you had a bad mistake in the beginning, you still can make it up eventually.

QUEST: Right. So, what do you do at the moment? Now, obviously, unless you absolutely need the money, you don't sell into this market and take a loss

or whatever. But what strategy do you think, not Wall Street investors, I am talking about anybody, anybody who has got a 401 (k). What do you do in

this environment?

[16:30:21]

FISHER: So as I've said from the end of the year, this is a year, and I've said this in my columns all over the world, in Daily Telegraph in Britain

and what have you. This is a year for Europe to lead, not America. And so you use a period like this to transition as best as you can to underweight

America, overweight Europe, particularly the continent, more so than Britain but also Britain, and then parts of the non-U.S. world, because the

fact of the matter is, and people don't get this, we have a multi-hundred year history of tariffs all around the world and in diverse economies,

broad economies, not narrow thin little ones.

The country that imposes the tariffs always end up doing worse than the countries they impose it upon. And this is -- everything that is happening

with these tariffs is worse for America than it is for the non-U.S. world.

QUEST: If you've already got a portfolio set up that is U.S. biased, do you shift, which of course obviously means actually taking losses or at least

giving back gains, or is it -- are you really talking about just adding new?

FISHER: Remember when you would do this at a point in time like this, you're selling one thing, but you're buying another. And what's really

important to you always, whether you're taking a loss or not, is what will do well ahead. What will do well ahead is always the operative. You're

always looking forward. You can't think backward.

QUEST: Talk to me more about that. Talk to me, because that is the psychology that most investors I have read over the years. We are more

upset about gains that we have given back than if the stock falls the moment you buy it. If the stock falls the moment you buy it, you couldn't

have helped that. That's just the way it goes. But if you've given back gains or you've lost money that you already had because you didn't sell,

that really rankles.

FISHER: Yes. So it's been long proven and first proven in America by behavioralist Kahneman and TVersky that people hate losses more than they

love gains. The average American hates loss two and a half times as much as gains on average. Statman and I used their methodology again 20 years ago

to show that British hate losses four times as much as gain on average. Continental Europeans, primarily Germans, six times as much.

People hate losses more than they love gains. And so something like this, where they actually lose money from what they previously had as a gain,

makes them feel worse than if they did nothing at all. That's been true for a really long time. But the fact of the matter is, instead of driving your

car like you're looking at the rear view mirror, you need to keep driving your car, looking out at what's ahead of you. And that's true for what you

do with your retirement money always.

QUEST: So to somebody who is about to retire is saying a 15 percent, 10 percent, 15 percent, 20 percent loss on the portfolio, you're saying you'll

be OK?

FISHER: The reality is stock might go lower from here. Probably will. Panicky. And when there's a bounce back, bounce backs are almost always

challenged in the process. But if you look a little longer term out, the drop is actually an opportunity.

QUEST: Ken, I'm so grateful. We'll talk more. You know, it was just always so glad that you make time for us and I'm grateful. Thank you, sir.

FISHER: Always my pleasure. Richard, thank you so much. You're the best.

QUEST: Thank you, thank you.

The White House press secretary is brushing off a public feud over tariffs between Musk and Navarro. Karoline Leavitt says, in her words, boys will be

boys and that the sparring will be allowed to continue. Musk escalated the feud on X, calling Navarro a total moron, saying he's dumber than a sack of

bricks. Navarro had previously lashed out at Musk for criticizing the tariffs, accusing him of looking out for his own interests.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETER NAVARRO, ASSISTANT TO THE U.S. PRESIDENT: Look, Elon, when he's in his DOGE lane is great, but we understand what's going on here. We just

have to understand. Elon sells cars and he's in Texas assembling cars that have big parts of that car from Mexico, China. The batteries come from

Japan or China. The electronics come from Taiwan. And he's simply protecting his own interests, as any business person would do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

QUEST: Clare Duffy is in New York.

Even allowing for legitimate differences of opinion. Elon Musk calling him a dumber than bricks and a moron isn't somewhat of a league of its own.

[16:35:01]

CLARE DUFFY, CNN BUSINESS WRITER: Yes, Richard, I mean, we're sort of shouting into the void here, and Karoline Leavitt can try to write this off

as boys will be boys, but these are, in fact, two of the most powerful men in the country having this public feud at a time when millions of Americans

are really fearful about what this economic uncertainty means for their livelihoods. And so I think that is worth saying.

But what is interesting about this situation is that you have Musk, who has been one of the most fervent supporters of Trump, he's one of his closest

advisers, and yet he is now breaking with the White House when it comes to this tariff policy. And you hear Navarro trying to sort of explain that

away as saying, Musk assembles cars in the U.S. Musk then pushing back on that, calling Navarro, as you said there, a moron, and saying his comments

are demonstrably false, and that Tesla actually manufactures a lot of its cars and a lot of its parts in the United States.

And indeed, Tesla really has dominated cars.com American made index for the past few years. That takes into account things like assembly, location

where the parts are made, engine origin. But Musk has said that Tesla is not immune to tariffs and that the impact could be significant. And I think

what is really at the core of all of this, what's really interesting about this is that even a company like Tesla, which has proudly proclaimed that

it has American production, is not going to be immune to these tariffs.

And so you have someone like Musk who has been so close to Trump on so many policy issues now is having to break with him because his company and many

companies are at risk from this.

QUEST: And Elon Musk is getting close, if I'm not mistaken, to the 130 days or whatever it is that he's allowed to be a special government employee,

and it's not entirely clear how that plays out afterwards, is it?

DUFFY: It is not entirely clear. We've heard JD Vance say that Musk will depart, but that they will remain friends. So it's possible, I imagine,

that he could still continue to sort of quietly advise and make his opinions known or not so quietly. He'll do it on X, but it's not clear

exactly how his exit is going to happen and what DOGE's work, how that is going to continue as he begins to exit this role.

But I do think that he may be really trying to make his opinions known on something so important as tariffs before he is kind of pushed out of this

position.

QUEST: I do wonder, thinking back to the inauguration and all the tech CEOs standing there in the rotunda, prime position, just behind the family, what

they're all thinking now. I mean, they are all tarred with this mess.

DUFFY: It is a good question. I've actually been looking at that today.

QUEST: Right.

DUFFY: Some of these CEOs have lost tens of billions of dollars of their own personal net worth because their companies have lost, in some cases,

hundreds of billions of dollars in their valuation, because these tariffs are taking such a hit. And it is interesting to think, what did these CEOs

hope would come out of that relationship with Trump? It seems like whatever it was, they're certainly not getting it because these tariffs are really

damaging to the broader markets and to the tech companies in particular.

QUEST: Clare Duffy, I'm grateful. Thank you very much.

The U.S. Supreme Court has given President Trump two wins in his deportation push. First of all, it allows the Trump administration to use

this Alien Enemies Act, which is a 19th century law typically only used in times of war, but now is being used to quickly deport alleged gang members.

The justices found that those set to be removed must be given advance notice, and the opportunity to challenge that deportation.

And separately, the Supreme Court temporarily paused a Monday deadline to bring back the Maryland father, deported to that prison in El Salvador,

where we just saw David Culver reporting from outside. It means that Kilmar Abrego Garcia will remain at the prison for the moment.

CNN's Priscilla Alvarez has more on these cases.

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the Supreme Court delivered a win for the Trump administration on Monday by allowing them to use the

Alien Enemies Act of 1798. That is a sweeping wartime authority that has only been used three times in history, most recently in World War II.

Now, this is an authority that the administration has been keen on because it allows them to speed up deportation by wiping away the other immigration

processes that they would otherwise have to follow, or that immigrants would have available to them to fight their deportation. But the Supreme

Court said they still have to give them some level of due process by giving them adequate notice that they are going to be subject to this measure, and

then also time to challenge that deportation.

So while the Trump administration is celebrating this and calling it a victory for them, similarly, the American Civil Liberties Union who brought

the case is saying that this is good because it adds another level, another hurdle for the administration as they execute on this authority that didn't

exist last March when there were three flights that were sent to El Salvador and two in particular under this Alien Enemies Act that landed

Venezuelan nationals in that notorious mega prison in El Salvador.

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Now, since that order has come down, there has now been a lawsuit filed in New York for two Venezuelan asylum seekers that groups say could be subject

to this Alien Enemies Act. And they are in this lawsuit, which was filed only moments ago, blocking their removal under this authority and also

blocking they hope the relocation of their clients to another state.

Of course, this is going to kick off another legal proceeding, but it is telling as to what we may start to see crop up across the country as people

who may be subject to this authority file these suits so as to block their removal under, again, this sweeping wartime authority. But all the same,

the Trump administration taking this as a win for now as they try to continue again the use of the sweeping wartime authority to speed up

deportations.

Back to you.

QUEST: I'm grateful. That's a look at the way things are standing on that front.

The markets. I've got just the time. The early rally ran out of steam, and now we're waiting for the full market effect. The White House press

secretary says the U.S. will go ahead with the additional 50 percent tariffs on Chinese goods tonight. It takes it to 104 percent.

Look at the S&P 500 and you'll see how that has been performing. It's pretty miserable overall over the last week and it's not likely to get much

better. And the triple stack tells its own story once again. The Nasdaq the sharpest loss of the day.

And that's our report tonight. QUEST MEANS BUSINESS. I'm Richard Quest. Whatever you're up to in the hours ahead, I hope it's profitable.

"CONNECTING AFRICA" is with you in a moment.

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