Return to Transcripts main page

The Situation Room

President Trump Reshaping World Order?; U.S. Pauses Intelligence Sharing With Ukraine; Interview With Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY). Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired March 05, 2025 - 11:30   ET

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

[11:30:02]

ADM. JAMES STAVRIDIS (RET.), FORMER NATO SUPREME ALLIED COMMANDER: We have a global standard of, whenever we know a terrorist attack is coming, even if it is in a country with whom we are not aligned, we provide that information.

I think that is of a piece with this, and I certainly hope the CIA -- and it would be worth pressing Director Ratcliffe on that point -- would in that particular instance absolutely provide that kind of intelligence.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: It was interesting, because the CIA director, Ratcliffe, also seemed, seemed to indicate this pause could be short- lived following a letter that President Trump says he received from President Zelenskyy.

Here is the president describing that letter, revealing the letter during his address to Congress last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The letter reads: "Ukraine is ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible to bring lasting peace closer. Nobody wants peace more than the Ukrainians," he said.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Do you think this pause was a strategy to get Ukraine to the negotiating table?

STAVRIDIS: Certainly, that is what the president has said. That is what the vice president has said. I take them at the word on that.

We are going to know in a matter of days because, as President Trump just said, the letter from President Zelenskyy also said the incident in the White House was regrettable. I think that is pretty close to an apology. I think, secondly, he committed to peace, which is exactly what President Trump, Vice President Vance and Director Ratcliffe have all talked about.

So, I took that as a positive that it was mentioned in that light during the president's speech, and I think over the next couple of days we will discover whether it is sufficient to kind of get this deal back on track, which I believe at this point is a good deal for the Ukrainians.

Sign the mineral deal, keep the weapons flowing, get to a negotiating table, that is a pretty good approach.

BLITZER: Retired Admiral James Stavridis, thanks so much for joining us.

STAVRIDIS: Thanks, Wolf. Congrats on the new show.

BLITZER: Thank you.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: Thank you.

And just ahead: The president's speech also included something that marked an unprecedented break from tradition, a member of Congress being removed.

Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand weighs in.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:36:59]

BROWN: President Trump is digging in on his controversial agenda, attacking Democrats during a defiant speech to Congress last night.

Let's get some reaction from someone who was in the chamber, Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York. She sits on the Intelligence, Appropriations and Armed Services Committee.

Senator, thank you so much for coming on.

It sure sounded like President Trump is welcoming a fight with Democrats over his agenda. Last night, though, the Democrats showed some disunity, different signs, disruptions, different coordinated clothing. The messaging was unclear. Your colleague Senator Durbin said there's a better way to do it.

How is your party going to fight back in a unified way?

SEN. KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND (D-NY): So I thought the speech last night was really divisive. And these types of speeches are meant to bring the country together. You're supposed to be the president for the whole country. So I thought his choices were harmful, because it was intended to continue to divide the country.

I think different members of Congress decided to articulate or show their concern with the direction the president is taking this country. He didn't mention -- he didn't mention the middle class once. He didn't talk about the price of food or fuel or housing. He didn't talk about what he was going to do to bring inflation down and the cost of things down.

In fact, he even said that his tariffs would be disruptive and would create higher prices. So he didn't address what New Yorkers, I think, really wanted him to address. And so we all have to not only articulate how these policies hurt the people we represent and what we can do to stop it, whether it's through advocacy or litigation or through some legislative maneuvers when we have bills on the floor.

BROWN: And he did say that he wants to make America more affordable. That's a top priority. But there is still certainly a question of how he's going to do that. And he did note that it was going to be disruptive.

And you mentioned some of the ways of what you can do, but I think there's still a question of the Democratic messaging and whether there should be more unity. Do you think there should be more unity among the Democrats of how to fight back?

GILLIBRAND: Democrats are unified in caring about our constituents and how much it costs to feed their families, how much it costs to get kids to school or to get to work, how much it costs to rent a home or buy a home.

These everyday costs are literally crippling families and their ability to function and thrive. And so we are unified on that. And when we go home to our districts and our states, we are having town halls. We are talking to people about ways we can bring costs down, and how President Trump is refusing to do the thing he said he would do, which is bring costs down.

And just because he mentioned a bumper sticker during his speech, it was an hour-and-a-half-long speech. He didn't detail any policies or talk about his vision for how he was getting food prices down. And when you do have these tariffs on Canada, an ally, on Mexico, and on China, pretty much everything you buy is going to go up in cost. We get lumber from Canada.

[11:40:00]

That means it's going to be more expensive to build housing, to have affordable housing. We get a lot of food from Mexico and from Canada, so our food prices will go up. And China, they produce everything you buy at Walmart. So, anything you need to go to the store for on a given day will be more expensive, from a computer to a dust mop.

Like, it's literally everything that you do for your home or your family is going to be more expensive.

BROWN: I want to talk about something else. There's certainly the concern over prices and what's going to happen there. You did have Best Buy and Target say prices will go up as a result.

There's also the way in which this administration is handling the war, the illegal invasion of Russia and Ukraine. CIA Director John Ratcliffe just revealed that President Trump has curtailed intelligence support to Ukraine, on top of the military aid that he's already cut off.

You sit on the Intelligence Committee. What does that mean for Ukraine's war effort?

GILLIBRAND: Well, it's devastating.

What President Trump has continued to do is to bring adversaries closer and to push allies away. And what that does is make us less safe. When he is being weak against a dictator like Putin, it's inviting other dictators to invade countries, to take territory, to destroy the world order.

He's sending a signal to Xi that he's not going to do anything if they want to take territory. He's telling NATO allies we're not going to stand with our allies of the last 75 years. He's literally inviting the type of behavior we see out of Putin and other dictators around the globe. And it's dangerous.

And so what was announced today is very dangerous for Ukraine. It'll be harder for them to win this war. And it isolates the United States further in trying to create a more peaceful country, a more peaceful world.

BROWN: If this helps bring the pressure to get the deal back on track, with ultimately peace as the end goal, would you support this tactic?

GILLIBRAND: So you're asking if cozying up to Putin is going to end the war sooner?

Well, it might end the war through capitulation and giving Putin the territory that he actually invaded. That is not a great outcome. That is a terrible outcome for peace, security, and the world order that has kept our country safe.

BROWN: President Zelenskyy has been reaching out to President Trump, trying to repair their relationship, apparently, which President Trump seems to be pleased with.

Are you optimistic that these two leaders can put their fiery Oval Office clash behind them?

GILLIBRAND: I'm hopeful.

I thought the letter that Zelenskyy sent was thoughtful and was gracious. And so, hopefully, this is something that President Trump will receive positively, hopefully do a minerals deal, hopefully protect Ukraine and not give territory away to Putin. We will see.

We -- President Trump is unknowable. He changes his mind. He's mercurial. He bases the decisions on things that are not the norm. And, as a consequence, we don't know which direction he's going to go in. And that's also creating enormous instability among our allies, among peace-loving countries and people around the globe.

BROWN: Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, thank you so much for your time. We do appreciate it.

GILLIBRAND: Thank you. BLITZER: And coming up: President Trump is slapping tariffs on

America's allies while building closer ties with adversaries. Is this new administration reshaping the world order?

Fareed Zakaria is standing by live. He will weigh in. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:48:16]

BLITZER: President Trump's sweeping tariffs on Mexico and Canada are raising enormous concerns over how America is treating two of its biggest trading partners.

And it comes as the White House further aligns itself with U.S. adversaries like Russia and its authoritarian leader, Vladimir Putin, all while shifting away from Ukraine and clashing with President Zelenskyy.

BROWN: Joining us now with CNN's Fareed Zakaria.

Fareed, thank you so much for being here with us.

I want to begin with these tariffs. What impact will they have on Americans?

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN WORLD AFFAIRS ANALYST: Oh, they're very significant. They're very substantial.

So if you take American cars, the way over the last 25 years that the car industry has made American cars is to create an integrated supply chain with Canada and Mexico. What that means is, some parts are made in Canada, some parts are made in Mexico, a lot is made in the U.S. The parts move back and forth.

Because of the tariffs, every time an auto part moves, it gets tariffed. That's why there are estimates by Anderson, a consulting firm, that the price will go up maybe $8,000 to $9,000 for an SUV. So what you have is the North American car industry is now going to be discriminated against.

And who's going to benefit? The German car industry, the Korean car industry, the Japanese car industry, because those cars were coming to America tariff-free. It's a very strange, self-defeating set of tariffs, because the U.S. has built over the last 30 years a really remarkable integrated economy with Canada and Mexico. It's in many ways more dynamic than the European Union.

[11:50:02]

And now we're shooting ourselves in the foot.

BLITZER: President Trump, Fareed, has repeatedly accused other countries, including U.S. allies, of taking advantage of the United States. Why does he think this is the case? ZAKARIA: Trump is a protectionist to his bone. His first political

statement as a real estate developer in the 1980s was a full-page ad he took out in "The New York Times," where he talked about how Japan was ripping the United States off, taking advantage of the free trade system, how Japan was going to clean our clock, dominate the world.

It is worth noting none of that turned out to be true. In fact, Japan went into a 20-year -- 25-year stagnation. The U.S., by staying open and innovative, actually was able to leap ahead. The numbers tell you the story. In 1995, average Japanese citizen was 50 percent richer than the average American citizen.

Today, the average American citizen is 140 percent richer than the average Japanese. In other words, we have done way better than countries like Japan that protected their markets. But he believes this stuff. And so he finds any excuse. The excuse he's using with Canada is ludicrous. It's fentanyl. Canada represents 2 percent of the fentanyl that comes into the U.S., but it has provided Trump with what I assume as a pretext in order to slap tariffs on them.

BROWN: Right, and you heard Justin Trudeau say that. He said it's a false pretext to blame Canada for fentanyl.

So I want to go to another big topic, of course, in how Donald Trump is handling the war in Ukraine. European nations have been rallying around Ukraine since Trump and Zelenskyy clashed in the Oval Office. And, meanwhile, the Trump administration has been aligning more and more with Russia. There's ample evidence for that.

Is Trump's foreign policy essentially reshaping the world order with the U.S. no longer at the forefront?

ZAKARIA: I think this is going to have seismic long-term implications, because, as you say, what Trump has now done is, he's withheld military aid to Ukraine. He's withheld intelligence sharing, which actually is an extraordinary thing. It costs us very little. And it was crucial.

It was the eyes and ears for Ukraine to fight its war, defending itself and its territory against Russian aggression. But what it really does is, it will ask people, can the United States be trusted? This is a country, Ukraine, that we have been supporting. Really, we have been supporting Ukraine's independence since 1991. We supported Ukraine when it gave up its nuclear weapons, the third largest arsenal in the world.

It gave it to Russia in return for Russian security guarantees that the Russians have now been violating for 10 years. So everyone is going to be asking, can we trust the Americans or will they promise us one thing and then flip on us?

BLITZER: Fareed, take a listen to this clip of Senator Elissa Slotkin's official Democratic response to Trump's address last night, listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. ELISSA SLOTKIN (D-MI): President Trump loves to say peace through strength. That's actually a line he stole from Ronald Reagan. But let me tell you, after the spectacle that just took place in the Oval Office last week, Reagan must be rolling in his grave.

Donald Trump's actions suggest that, in his heart, he doesn't believe we're an exceptional nation. He clearly doesn't think we should lead the world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Fareed, is she right?

ZAKARIA: The way I put it is this. Trump believes in transactions. He's always looking for transactions. He's always looking for, how can he squeeze somebody?

And the people you have leverage with tend to be your friends, right? I mean, we have an integrated economy with the Canadians, so you have leverage with them. We provide protection to Europeans. We have leverage with them. We provide so much military assistance to Ukraine. We have lots of leverage with them.

Trump doesn't have a lot of leverage with Putin. He doesn't have a lot of leverage with Xi Jinping. So the strange result of it is that Trump is basically at war with America's allies and cozying up to America's enemies.

And that transactional nature means that what he is missing is, the United States has built a world order since 1945 not on the basis of individual transactions, where we always squeeze the other side, but by building enduring relationships with like-minded liberal democracies that have now endured for eight decades.

And by casting a shadow on that, by maybe undermining it all, yes, he is in some sense furthering the cause of the autocratic aggressive powers like Russia and China. Whether it's his intention or not, that is the effect.

[11:55:01]

BROWN: Fareed Zakaria, always great to have you on and hear your analysis. Thank you so much.

And make sure to tune in every Sunday to "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS." That's at 10:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. Eastern on Sundays.

BLITZER: I'm a usual, regular viewer.

And, to our viewers, thanks very much for joining us this morning. You can keep up with us on social media @WolfBlitzer and @PamelaBrownCNN.

We will see you back here tomorrow and every weekday morning for our expanded two-hour SITUATION ROOM at 10:00 a.m. Eastern.

BROWN: "INSIDE POLITICS" with our friend Dana Bash is next, right after a short break.