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The Situation Room

Israel Strikes Yemen; Pete Hegseth Orders Pentagon Cut; Trump Slams Canada Before Meeting With Prime Minister. Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired May 06, 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]

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[11:31:56]

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: All right, there's more breaking news we're following right now.

The president of the United States is about to welcome the visiting prime minister of Canada over at the White House. Should begin any minute now.

But, just now, just now, and Kevin Liptak is joining us, the president posted on TRUTH Social a very critical statement about U.S.-Canada relations.

Tell us about that, Kevin.

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes.

And, in a lot of ways, he's echoing here some of his previous complaints about Canada, really kind of emphasizing what he says is his case for Canada to become the 51st state. But, of course, the timing here is what is so critical. We're just minutes away from Mark Carney's arrival here at the White House. The gates of the White House are open. The doors of the West Wing are open.

But in this tweet, the president writes: "I look forward to meeting the new prime minister of Canada, Mark Carney. I very much want to work with him, but cannot understand one simple truth. Why is America subsidizing Canada by $200 billion a year, in addition to giving them free military protection and many other things?"

The president goes on to say: "We don't need their cars. We don't need their energy. We don't need their lumber. We don't need anything they have other than their friendship, which hopefully we will always maintain. They, on the other hand, need everything from us. The prime minister will be arriving shortly. And that will be most likely my only question of confidence."

And so the president there using that $200 billion figure, which he has used previously. He seems to be suggesting that this is the trade surplus that Canada runs with the United States. In reality, the trade surplus between Canada and the U.S. is much lower. So this is a number that the president has used previously, but which has been fact- checked previously as well, but certainly the president there setting quite a contentious tone for this meeting that's about to begin.

The hope, I think, had been on the Canadian side to try and reset this relationship in some ways, for these two men to meet face-to-face, to try and sort of reorient what had been quite a souring of ties between Ottawa and Washington over the last several months, but the president here setting quite a different tone just in the moments before this meeting is set to begin.

BLITZER: It's amazing what's going on in this U.S.-Canadian relationship, Kevin.

The president of the United States just minutes before he welcomes the visiting prime minister of Canada says, we don't need anything, in all caps, anything they have. This is not a relationship between two adversaries. This is a relationship between, historically speaking, two of the United States' closest friend and ally, Canada, our neighbor to the north.

And he's making it sound like there's an adversarial relationship between the U.S. and Canada.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: And it's a fascinating dynamic, right, that you don't typically see.

And, Kevin, we worked together in the first -- Trump's first stint in the White House. And, as I recall, as he was on his way to, I believe it was the G7, he attacked Justin Trudeau and Canada just before that meeting then in the first term...

LIPTAK: Yes.

[11:35:00]

BROWN: ... as you will remember that.

So it's just -- it's -- there is a little bit of a pattern here, but it's still nonetheless shocking that the president is putting this out just before he meets there with the prime minister of Canada.

BLITZER: The fact that he's blasting Canada just before the start of this Oval Office meeting and this luncheon that he's invited to, we will see if he still has this luncheon, is really shocking, to put it mildly.

BROWN: Yes. And the big question is, how will the prime minister of Canada handle all of this? Presumably, he is seeing this before the meeting.

So we will be watching all of this closely.

Kevin, thank you.

BLITZER: Not exactly a warm welcome to the visiting prime minister of Canada.

BROWN: Yes.

BLITZER: Kevin Liptak, thanks very much.

We will take a quick break. Stand by for the live coverage. We will be right back.

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[11:40:09]

BROWN: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is swinging the axe at the Pentagon and he's ordering the number of four-star generals and admirals to be cut by at least 20 percent.

Hegseth also wants cuts to general officers in the National Guard and across the military.

So let's go straight to seeing as Natasha Bertrand at the Pentagon.

What's going on here? What is Secretary Hegseth saying about these cuts, Natasha?

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Pam, so in addition to the 20 percent of four-star generals that Secretary Hegseth wants to cut across the military, he also is trying to cut roughly 10 percent of all general and flag officers across the military.

That's people with the rank of one star or higher. And the reason he says that he wants to do this is essentially to make the military less top-heavy and to eliminate redundancies. He explained it a little bit in a video he posted last night on X.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETE HEGSETH, U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: We're back with more DOD reforms. This one is general and flag officer reductions. That's the official title. My title is less generals, more G.I.s. More generals and admirals does not equal more success.

Now, this is not a slash-and-burn exercise meant to punish high- ranking officers. Nothing could be further from the truth.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERTRAND: Now, this, of course, is part of a department-wide effort to try to cut costs, to eliminate redundancies, but there's also an important culture war element to this.

Secretary Hegseth has repeatedly railed against senior generals, saying they're responsible for politicizing the military. And, of course, earlier this year, he went ahead and he fired two very senior generals, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, C.Q. Brown, as well as the chief of naval operations, really ostensibly with no discernible purpose behind those firings, Pam.

BROWN: All right, Natasha Bertrand at the Pentagon, thank you -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Very disturbing developments, indeed.

We're also following breaking news out of the Middle East right now. Israel has launched more strikes on Yemen, targeting the capital city's airport and -- quote -- "several power plants." These strikes come after Yemen's Houthi rebels launched a missile Sunday that hit near Israel's main international airport, Ben-Gurion Airport, just outside of Tel Aviv.

Joining us now to discuss, the retired U.S. army General Wesley Clark. He served as NATO's supreme allied commander.

General Clark, thanks so much for joining us.

As you know, the IDF, the Israel Defense Forces, says the attacks fully disabled the Yemen airport. Do you foresee the Houthis retaliating? And how likely is it that this clash between Israel and Yemen could grow beyond the Houthis to eventually include Iran, the major supplier of arms and support for the Houthis?

WESLEY CLARK, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: I think it is likely the Houthis will try to retaliate. I'm not sure if they have the capacity to do that.

They declared an air embargo against Israel, so Israel is going to make sure that they are militarily dominant against the Houthis. So, if the Houthis respond, Israel will shut it down. The United States has got to decide what it wants to do in this region. Is it going to get successful talks with Iran?

And, if so, is that going to lead to suspension of assistance to the Houthis and eventually dampen the Houthis' ability to strike back? We don't know that. All that stuff is up in the air. But I do think the administration should be taking naval measures to shut down the seaborne resupply to the Houthis, which has been ongoing and has not been interrupted.

Will it be a larger war? It could be, but it has to really be focused by the United States on the nuclear capacity of Iran. That's what the key issue is in this region.

BLITZER: The U.S. and Israel, as you know, General, have been targeting the Houthis now for several weeks. So is it surprising that the Houthis are still able to strike Israel, as they did in recent days with this missile attack against Ben-Gurion Airport, and potentially other targets in the region as well?

CLARK: It's a little surprising, Wolf.

But -- and we have hit 800 targets, apparently, there. But on the other hand, this is a big country. There's 20 million people there. It's been under airborne attack for 10 years from the Saudis and the Emiratis first before we did it. And so they have got pretty good measures to conceal, to protect, and so forth.

If you really want to go after them, you're probably going to have to put some special forces in on the ground to finish up the targeting and really go after them.

BLITZER: Let me also ask you, General, about the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth's order now -- we just heard it -- to cut a number of senior generals and admirals by about 20 percent.

Senator Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, is warning the cuts could cripple the U.S. military. How do you see it?

CLARK: I think you have got to base the cuts on what the strategy is.

[11:45:00]

I'm a little bit concerned about command -- about combining the Northern Command and the Southern Command, because I can't imagine someone worrying about border defense at the same time worried about Chinese and Iranian penetration, let's say, in the tri-border area between Argentina and Brazil and Paraguay.

So, it's a real stretch to think that one command can handle that. If you're going to have unified commands, they have to be able to deal at the highest level. They need four-stars. The subordinate commands, they don't necessarily have to be four-star positions. We have elevated them to four-star positions. Maybe that's helpful, but that could be shed, let's say.

The Navy Fleet Command, the Army Command, the Space Command has three four-star generals. Do they need that? We can look at that. But it's not about the number of generals, Wolf. It's about the structure and the strategy of the United States of America, the military structure, and how it supports national strategy. That hasn't been revealed. We really don't know where it's going.

BLITZER: It's interesting because there are also proposed deep cuts to the U.S. National Guard that's included in Hegseth's memo that was just released.

The National Guard is often used domestically in the case of natural disasters, for example. What impact could these cuts have?

CLARK: These cuts, if they're real cuts to the National Guard substantively, the federal support to the Guard, could be a big impact in terms of providing emergency assistance for the states.

And we built the armed forces of the United States to rely on the National Guard, the Air Guard and the Army ground forces, if we have to do expeditionary operations. We can't do these without activating the Guard. And so, again, this -- you can't drive the Pentagon by budget numbers. You can't build a force by percentages.

You have to look at the strategy and what's required. Then, if you don't have the resources, you have to figure out where you take the risk. But just announcing these cuts for -- beforehand, it's political. Maybe it'll turn out that way. But, as Senator Reed said, what's the strategy behind it?

BLITZER: Also, I just want to get your thoughts. You're the former NATO supreme allied commander. President Trump has doubled down now in a recent interview on his suggestion he could use U.S. military force to seize control of Greenland, which is part of Denmark, a major NATO ally.

He cited U.S. security needs. What's your reaction to this suggestion? Did you ever think that an American president would threaten a NATO ally like Denmark, which is in charge of Greenland, with military force?

CLARK: I can't believe it's a serious threat, but, apparently, it is, Wolf, because anything we wanted to do in Greenland, we go to Denmark and they will do it for us or let us do it there.

We could do anything we want in Greenland. What we can't do is necessarily control the access to strategic minerals in Greenland. But we could, if we use the Development Finance Corporation in Washington. We just haven't put it together.

And so, when President Trump makes these big, bold announcements like this, you ask, isn't there a better way to do this? Can't we do this in a way that's more productive for the United States, that's less confrontational? The answer is, of course we could.

So there must be some public relations benefit for the president in doing this, because it doesn't make strategic sense. It's not the way we'd like to work with our allies. We're going to need these allies, Wolf, because Russia's arming up and planning for a continuation of the war in Ukraine by going after the Baltic states either this summer, next fall, next summer, at some point.

They're going to make a run for it. We can see the buildup of the forces. We know what the threats are. We know there's an exercise coming up in Belarus. The United States can't turn its back on Europe. These are our largest trading partners, our greatest foreign investors in the United States. So we have got to get real about this.

BLITZER: It's hard for me to believe, as a former Pentagon correspondent, that a U.S. president is actually threatening to use military force against key NATO allies like Denmark and Canada, for that matter.

General Wesley Clark, thanks so much for joining us.

CLARK: Thank you, Wolf.

BLITZER: And we will be right back.

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[11:54:17] BLITZER: All right, take a look at this, live pictures outside the West Wing of the White House. There's the U.S. flag and the Canadian flag. They're right next to each other.

We're waiting for the arrival of the visiting Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney. This will be an important meeting with the president of the United States.

Kevin Liptak, our senior White House reporter, is monitoring this, Pamela.

And, Kevin, we were just mentioning how, and it's really extraordinary, just in advance -- in advance, a few minutes before the scheduled arrival of the prime minister of Canada, Trump goes out and posts on social media, TRUTH Social, his social media site, this attack on Canada.

It's hard for me to believe this is going on in this relationship between the United States and arguably our closest friend and ally over so many decades and our neighbor, Canada.

[11:55:04]

LIPTAK: Yes.

And Carney almost certainly will have seen that message by now. He's staying over at Blair House just across the street, so it's not a very far drive for him here into the White House. He's pulling in right now behind me.

Let me see if we can see him in the window. Yes, he's sitting there in the car. So he will be there at the West Wing doors in just a moment. And, certainly, he will have seen this message from the president, putting a damper somewhat on these attempts, I think, that he had hoped to make to try and reset the relationship between the U.S. and Canada.

You see President Trump there now putting out a thumbs up just minutes after delivering this message going after Carney for what he says is this massive trade surplus with the United States and for essentially depending on the United States to bolster its economy.

Perhaps we should listen in and see if the president says anything as he greets the prime minister here at the West Wing.

QUESTION: Mr. President, are you close to a trade deal?

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: Your message to Canada as you meet the new prime minister, sir?

Do you think the Fed will cut interest rates tomorrow?

LIPTAK: So, no comments from the president there, but certainly that question of whether or not they will be able to negotiate a trade deal, I think, is at the top of the agenda for this meeting.

President Trump alludes to it somewhat in his tweet -- or in his TRUTH Social, saying that the only question that he has for the prime minister is why the United States is, in his words, subsidizing Canada to the tune of $200 billion a year. That's an inflated number for Canada's trade surplus, but it does just go to show how important this issue of trade is for the president as they get down to this meeting in the Oval Office -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Well, the meeting is supposed to begin in the Oval Office. And we will have coverage of that. And a press pool will be going inside.

We will see what these two leaders have to say. And they always wind up taking some questions from visiting reporters in the Oval Office. We will be able to carry that live, I suspect. We will watch what's going on.

Kevin Liptak at the White House for us.

It's pretty dramatic, Pamela, what's going on.

BROWN: It's interesting, though, despite the TRUTH Social post from Trump just before slamming Canada, that they had a nice welcome, smiles, fists in the air.

BLITZER: We will see how this meeting goes.

BROWN: We will see how the meeting goes, though.

BLITZER: We will see.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: After the meeting in the Oval Office, they're supposed to go to a White House luncheon...

BROWN: Yes.

BLITZER: ... in honor of the visiting prime minister of Canada. And we will see if that happens.

BROWN: We shall.

BLITZER: And, to our viewers, thanks very much for joining us.

We will, of course, be back here tomorrow morning 10:00 a.m. Eastern.

BROWN: "INSIDE POLITICS WITH DANA BASH" is next after a short break.