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The Situation Room

NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament Begins; Healthiest Cooking Oil?; Trump Tariff Impact on Lumber Industry?; Interview With Rep. Tom Emmer (R-MN). Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired March 19, 2025 - 11:30   ET

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

[11:30:00]

REP. TOM EMMER (R-MN): You rely on the CBO that has absolutely been unreliable in the last seven, eight years or more.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: You can say that. It's nonpartisan. That's fine.

EMMER: So, while they're necessary and we have got to work with them, you can't -- you can say it's nonpartisan, but what did they say about the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act when it was enacted into law in 2017?

BROWN: But...

EMMER: They said it wasn't going to generate any revenue like it has. It's been exponential compared to what they predicted.

BROWN: Sure. They have been wrong.

EMMER: They're like weatherpeople. They don't have to be right, and they put these out.

BROWN: And that's fine. And you can criticize them.

But what I'm getting at, are Republicans going to make cuts through waste, fraud and abuse to Medicaid, as you said? I'm not putting words in your mouth. I'm just asking a question.

EMMER: I think cleaning up programs, getting rid of the waste, the fraud, the abuse, so that these programs can actually be funded for the people who they were created for, I think that is a Republican, Democrat and American goal.

And I think the president's doing it right and we're going to.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: What specifically does that look like when it comes to cutting waste, fraud and abuse with Medicaid? How do you do that? What are you looking at? What are the metrics?

EMMER: Yes, well, we will get into the details as we go forward. I'm going based on the GAO that says there's $50 billion a year that they can point to. So let's figure out where that $50 billion is, and let's clean it up.

BROWN: Whip Emmer, thank you so much for your time. We appreciate it.

EMMER: Thank you, Pamela.

BROWN: Look forward to having you back on the show.

We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:36:06]

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Welcome back to our SITUATION ROOM special report.

Every day this week, we have been looking at different industries, and whether President Trump's tariffs will bring American jobs back, as he claims.

BROWN: Well, today, CNN business and politics correspondent Vanessa Yurkevich joins us to look at the lumber industry.

Vanessa, bottom line, just how much are these tariffs going to increase home prices?

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, lumber is critical to the economy, to the U.S. economy, and to consumers.

Let's just remind viewers what we use lumber for here in the U.S., so, manufacturing, a big one. Think of all the furniture you have at home. How much is made with lumber or wood? Look at this home improvement project. Decking, if you want to put a deck on your home, that needs lumber.

And then residential housing and commercial construction, that is so important. Let's break that down for you. Look at the average home price in January, about $396,000. That's actually more than it was a year ago. If you add a 25 percent tariff onto lumber imports into this country, by one estimate, that will raise home prices by $9,200.

And why is that? Look at this breakdown. Here in the U.S., we produce about 70 percent of all lumber needed, but that's not enough to meet demand. That's why we turn to Canada and we import about 25 percent of all lumber into the U.S., about 4 percent from other countries.

That's why a tariff on Canadian lumber into the U.S. would have such an impact. But let's fact-check this. The president says, we don't need Canadian lumber. Can we do it here at home? Well, yes, the U.S. does have the natural resources, the trees needed to produce lumber.

However, most of it is on private land, and we don't have access to all of that private land. That's why the lumber industry says that we need more access to trees on federal land in order to meet that demand. The president has proposed an executive order that would open more harvesting of trees on federal land.

But let's say that that happened. The U.S. would need more sawmills, more production, and each sawmill would be about a two- to three-year project and cost about $400 million in investment each. Businesses are not going to do that if they think that these tariffs can be on- again/off-again. If they are on for the foreseeable future, maybe they will make that investment.

But let's say, Pam and Wolf, that number one happens and number two happens. Probably the biggest thing working against the lumber industry is an aging work force. Just logging alone, we're expecting a 4 percent decline in jobs in about the next eight years. So even if number one and number two happen, number three is going to be tough. There needs to be investment in training in order to get the bodies, the labor in order to make this happen.

BROWN: Really educational, frankly.

BLITZER: Learned a lot about lumber.

BROWN: Vanessa Yurkevich, thank you so much. Learned a lot.

BLITZER: And just ahead, Pamela: Seed oils, butter, tallow, depending on who you ask, you will probably get very different answers on what you should and shouldn't cook with.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta will join us to answer some of your questions. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:44:59]

BROWN: One of the hottest debates in America is happening right now in your kitchen. When it comes to the healthiest oil to cook with, should you turn to olive oil, avocado oil? Which oils should you try and avoid altogether?

[11:45:11]

BLITZER: CNN's chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, is joining us right now to answer your burning questions.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

BLITZER: And let's start with Will from Passaic, New Jersey, who asked this, Sanjay.

Listen: "Which cooking oil contributes to increasing one's cholesterol levels? Which cooking oil helps lowering your bad cholesterol?"

GUPTA: Yes, this is the most common question that we got. As a general rule, cooking oils that are high in saturated fats are going to be the ones that are going to raise your cholesterol.

We have known about this sort of since the middle of the last century. And I want to take a look at this chart here. It gives you an idea of which cooking oils are going to have the highest saturated fats. Keep in mind that, as you look at this, that saturated fat oils tend to be solid at room temperature.

So just think about your own cooking oils. If it's solid at room temperature, higher in saturated fats. The tropical oils such as coconut and palm tree oils, very top of the list, but, then shortly after that, butter, beef tallow, those are the things that are most concerning for raising cholesterol levels.

As far as potentially lowering the bad cholesterol levels, something known as the LDL, things like olive oil, avocado oil, are going to be your best bet there.

BROWN: All right, so let's go to Sandra from Wisconsin, who is asking, what kind of oil should you use when cooking at high temperatures?

GUPTA: Yes, so the burn point of oils.

And one of the concerns is, as you start to cook with these oils, might they degrade or decompose into something that could be potentially harmful? So take a look at the list of oils that have good burn points, that they're not going to decompose or degrade. You're talking about olive oil, extra virgin olive oil.

Coconut oil, which you just saw as high in saturated fat, but pretty stable when it comes to being heated, and then peanut oil and avocado oil. So, for a long time, people thought that olive oil, for example, would degrade into other potentially harmful components. There have been some recent studies showing that's not the case.

So that's a good bet in terms of lowering your overall cholesterol and still being able to cook even at high temperatures.

BLITZER: And Dorothy wants to know this, Sanjay. Is coconut oil bad to use for cooking?

GUPTA: Yes, so it depends on what your goals are, and I don't know if we can put up that earlier chart again, but coconut oil is going to be one of the highest in saturated fats. It's also one of the highest in overall calories. So you're getting a lot of calories and a lot of saturated fats at the same time.

It does seem to have a lot of what are known as MCTs. People who follow this in the wellness world know medium-chain triglycerides. And those can be potentially helpful for various things. So, coconut oil potentially good if you're looking for those medium-chain triglycerides, but use it sparingly, because you're getting a lot of calories there and a lot of saturated fat.

BLITZER: All right, good advice from Dr. Sanjay Gupta, as he always gives us.

Thank you very, very much.

And we will have much more when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:52:58]

BLITZER: All right, first, we have the breaking news. We're just learning right now that the call between President Trump and President Zelenskyy of Ukraine have now ended. The phone call has ended.

BROWN: And here's what President Trump posted on social media: "Just completed a very good telephone call with President Zelenskyy of Ukraine. It lasted approximately one hour. Much of the discussion was based on the call made yesterday with President Putin in order to align both Russia and Ukraine in terms of their requests and needs."

BLITZER: And we will, of course, continue to monitor this and bring you all the latest developments. We're watching it very, very closely.

But there's other news we're following.

BROWN: Other news, important news.

The march to the Final Four in Tampa begins today. The NCAA women's basketball tournament tips off with 68 schools vying for the championship.

For the latest, we are joined by CNN sports analysts and sports columnists for "USA Today" Christine Brennan.

All right, Christine, I have been waiting for days to share my bracket with you. My Final Four is UCLA, USC, South Carolina, and TCU, with South Carolina winning the whole thing. And I also have to thank my colleague Brian Tetzler for helping me.

CHRISTINE BRENNAN, CNN SPORTS ANALYST: Well, that's great.

Picking South Carolina, Pamela, to win the whole thing is a very, very, very smart move. They won two of the last three. And Dawn Staley at this time of year is just money in the bank. So I think South Carolina is a great choice, comes from obviously a strong conference, the Southeastern Conference, that we talked about the men the other day.

Same thing, just an absolute -- the gold standard in March and, of course, in early April, Dawn Staley and South Carolina.

BLITZER: I'm anxious to get your thoughts about my Final Four for the women's bracket.

BRENNAN: OK.

BLITZER: I have UCLA, University of Connecticut, Michigan and Duke, with Michigan winning all of it.

BRENNAN: Ah.

BLITZER: What do you think of my bracket?

BRENNAN: I'm a Big Ten person, as you know, Northwestern, and so Michigan doing and the Big Ten doing that, I love that. I don't think that's going to happen.

I mean, it would be great from the Big Ten perspective. That would require a lot of upsets. But I like that you have done that. And, of course, what that shows, Wolf, is that the women's game has advanced so much more than where it was in the old days, when it was always UConn and Tennessee, and you could always -- I think one of the one of the criticisms of the women's game was, well, everyone knows who's going to win.

[11:55:14]

Well, no one knows who's going to win anymore now, which, of course, shows how Title IX has worked its way up and, of course, the incredible parity now and all the great women athletes.

BLITZER: The women players are amazing.

BRENNAN: They are. So...

BLITZER: And they're so much fun to watch.

BRENNAN: So you're picking an upset, which is fun. I like that.

BLITZER: That's what I like to do.

BROWN: So, then, on that note, what players are you most excited about?

BRENNAN: I am really intrigued by UCLA and USC. Of course, they used to be in the Pac-12. And now they're in the Big Ten.

And I think that, when you look at these two great schools, UCLA is the overall number one seed. USC, of course, has JuJu Watkins. And she is seen as kind of the heir apparent to Caitlin Clark, right? And -- but USC lost to UCLA in the Big Ten Championship.

So I also think it's going to be fascinating, because USC absolutely is in a bracket of -- in its region that includes UConn. So Connecticut and USC may well have to face each other, very likely, in the Elite Eight. They won't even get to the Final Four.

I think that's a big mistake, a big swing and a miss by the NCAA to put Paige Bueckers and UConn and JuJu Watkins and South Carolina in the same region, which means you're going to knock one of those two teams out before they reach the Final Four.

BROWN: One of them out.

BLITZER: Yes.

BROWN: Right.

BLITZER: And if they would have reached the Final Four, it would have been huge.

All right, thanks very much, Christine Brennan. Appreciate it very, very much.

BROWN: We appreciate it.

BLITZER: And to our viewers, thanks very much for joining us. 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 10:00 a.m. Eastern.

BROWN: "INSIDE POLITICS" with Manu Raju is next right after a short break.