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With ServiceNow, you can do the parts of your job you're best at and delegate the rest. To put AI to work for people, visit ServiceNow.com this Sunday, Tariff turmoil. President Trump reverses himself, pulling back some steep tariffs on America's largest trading partners. As markets plunge and fears grow, a trade war will raise prices, cost jobs, and slow the economy.
A little disturbance, but we're okay with that. This is a very dumb thing to do. Is the White House rethinking its tariff policy? I'll talk to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Steve Bernanke will show us how the economy is reacting.
Plus, the opposition Democrats navigate their role as the party out of power. America wants change, but there's a responsible way to make change in a reckless way. And we can make that change without forgetting who we are as a country and as a democracy. Is the party divided over how to push back against President Trump?
I'll talk to Democratic Senator Alyssa Slutkin of Michigan and shifting alliances. After suspending military aid to Ukraine, President Trump considers backing away from NATO. If they don't pay, I'm not going to defend them. As some US Allies consider scaling back the intelligence they share with Washington.
Joining me for insight and analysis are NBC News senior national security correspondent Courtney Kuby, Jonathan Martin of Politico, Simone Sanders Townsend, former chief spokeswoman for Vice President Kamala Harris, and Mark Short, former director of legislative affairs for President Trump. Welcome to Sunday. It's Meet the Press from NBC News in Washington, the longest running show in television history. This is Meet the Press with Kristen Welker.
Good Sunday morning. A battle is brewing on Capitol Hill with a government set to run out of money in just six days. It comes on the heels of a volatile week from Wall street to Main street with confusion over President Trump's shifting tariff policy, more spending cuts, and uncertainty about the economy. The president and his allies have now begun to warn that some economic pain could be ahead for Americans.
Tariffs are about making America rich again and making America great again. And it's happening, and it will happen rather quickly. There'll be a little disturbance, but we're okay with that. It won't be much.
On Thursday, the president announced he was delaying 25% tariffs on many imports from Mexico and some from Canada for a month, with Concerns mounting about the potential economic impacts of a wider trade war. This after Target CEO warned consumers would likely see price increases over the next couple of days. And Best Buys chief called price increases highly likely across the board. Tariffs on two of America's three largest trading partners have been on and then off and then on and then off again with a whiplash effect for businesses and consumers.
One day the tariffs are on, the next day they're off. Right now, the markets, as you know well, prefer stability. Are you done going forward with the pauses and the car bought, is that it? For those, there'll always be changes and adjustments.
CEOs want to see predictability. They say, look, I have to speak with shareholders. I've got to make plans for Capex spending. I can't.
If it's 20% one day and then it's all for a month, it's 25%. So can you give us a sense of whether or not we are going to get clarity for the business community? Well, I think so, but, you know, the tariffs could go up as time goes by and they may go up. And, you know, I don't know if it's predictability.
I think that's not fair. Top administration officials have started to hint some economic pain may be ahead. There's going to be a short period of time where there'll be some high prices on certain products. It's not inflation.
That's nonsense. Could we be seeing that this economy that we inherited starting to roll a bit? Sure. And look, there's going to be a natural adjustment as we move away from public spending to private spending.
Meanwhile at the White House, frustrations growing behind the scenes amid reports of a contentious Cabinet meeting where secretaries, including Secretaries Rubio and Duffy, clashed with billionaire Elon Musk. NBC News has confirmed the account, first reported by the New York Times, that some of the president's Cabinet secretaries challenged Musk over his approach to cuts in their departments. I was there. You're just a troublemaker and you're not supposed to be asking that question because we're talking about the World Cup.
Elon gets along great with Marco, and they're both doing a fantastic job. There is no clash. The economy and concerns about high prices help propel President Trump to the oval office. With Mr.
Trump promising change from the day I take the oath of office, we will rapidly drive prices down and make America affordable again. We're going to get your energy prices down by 50% starting on day one. We will end inflation and make America affordable again. A vote for Trump means your Groceries will be cheaper and we're going to have prices down.
I think you're going to see some pretty drastic price reductions. The dizzying policy shifts on tariffs and concerns about the health of the economy produced one of the worst weeks on Wall street in months. Steve Kornacki is here to take us through all the numbers. Steve, what are you seeing in the morning?
Good morning, Kristen. I mean, uneasy, volatile, unsettling. You can pick whatever adjective you want, but here's what the numbers look like this past week. Looking at the Dow average here with all of the news, you start last Monday and look, you can see how the averages plummeted late Monday.
That is when Trump made the announcement that the tariffs were coming and continued on Tuesday as the tariffs were imposed. Of course, then you had the reprie. Automakers deferring. A lot of the other tariffs in the market did start to make a little bit of upward movement.
And actually on Friday, when you added in that new jobs report, you know, some folks on Wall street theory might be worse than it was. The market actually did close up a bit on Friday, but down significantly for the week. And if we broaden this out, zoom out and take a broader look at the trajectory of the market here, two things to highlight here in terms of Trump and his policies. Take a look at this again.
This is the Dow average between Election Day and Inauguration Day, it was up basically 4%. There was optimism on Wall street about what Trump would do as president. But since Inauguration Day, when Donald Trump began enacting policies like we saw this week with tariffs, it's been a very different reaction from Wall street, down more than a point and a half since Trump was inaugurated. Now, to put that in further perspective, we can compare that number down 1.6% from inauguration to other modern presidents the first couple months of their presidency.
Again, look at this. It was up 6% in Trump's first term. Look, President Clinton, you know, both of his terms, Bush, it was up in all of these list even continues here. You can go all the way back to 1989 with George Bush.
She popped that one up. It actually went up with him. So here it is Trump going down 1.6% in these first few months here. The only other negative number we've seen in modern times, I mean, this is Nowhere near the Saint ballpark, but 20% when Obama took over no.
9 or that was in the middle of the meltdown on Wall Street. So that's the question of investors and their reaction. Of course, there is the question of consumers as well. So important to the economy.
Are they going to be tightening their wallets? Are they going to be spending? We also got this indicator this week, the Consumer Confidence Index, a monthly report gauging the sentiment of consumers. You see these numbers.
It clocked in at 98.3 this month. The higher the number is, the more consumers are expressing optimism about the economy. So it fell. You see the number fell seven points in the last month.
That decline. Seven points in one month. That is the biggest single month decline we've seen in this Ind 4 years. Now there's debate about the exact relationship between consumer attitude and actual consumer spending.
But again, you add this into the mix with the other indicators, Kristen, you can understand why folks on Wall street and elsewhere are getting a little bit jittery these days perhaps. Absolutely. All right. Steve Kornacki starting us off this morning.
Steve, thank you so much. Thank you. And joining me now is Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Secretary Lutnick, welcome to MEET THE press.
Great to be here. It is great to have you here. Mr. Secretary, let's start with this past week.
As you know, for the second time in two months, President Trump announced in the walk back tariffs on Canada and Mexico, the whiplash causing confusion on Wall street and Main street as well. Does the president have a responsibility to businesses and consumers to spell out his plan and then stick to it? You have to remember this is a drug related issue. You got fentanyl pouring into this country, killing 75,000Americans.
Autopsy. And the president, you know, thinks it's many, many more because multiples more. So it's important for the president to talk to the leaders of both Canada and Mexico, get them to shut the border, shut the fennel coming into the country. And of course he's going to be on the phone with them and of course he's going to talk to them.
And he is a deal maker, the greatest dealmaker in the world. So he makes better deals. He's gotten the border closed. He's gotten fentanyl to be shut down.
He put tariffs on China. Who makes the precursors? This is the way you run the country. You shut the border.
You get our neighbors to do their job. It's not only us who has to do their job. Why are our neighbors who live and breathe off our economy not taking care of America? Mr.
Secretary, one death from fentanyl is too many. I think everyone agrees with that one Scintilla Sentinel coming across any bor is unacceptable on any level. It is worth noting that less than 1% comes over the Canadian border 97% come over the border from Mexico. If this is the crisis that you just laid out, why is President Trump hitting the pause button?
Why not go full bore with this? Well, we did, remember we did was we have a deal with Canada, Mexico, it's called US Mexico Counter Agreement, usmca. And that says if there's a certain amount of American product in those products and it's done a certain way, they can trade with America tariff free. So by meeting in the middle with these leaders who said they're going to do much more on the border, they're going to do everything they possibly can to end fentanyl, the President said, okay, I'll tell you what, if they're in the deal that we made, I'll keep it tire free.
But for everybody who was outside that deal, who took the risk, who didn't pay attention to respect the agreements that President Trump made his first term, they're going to pay a 25% tariff. And that's sort of like meeting in the middle. So he gave the automakers relief, he gave computer makers relief, the major industries got relief. But everybody who's outside that agreement, they're going to pay.
And Canada and Mexico promised they're going to crush the border and they're going to crush fentanyl. And that's what our President is here to do, to stop fentanyl killing America. Mr. Secretary, let me ask you about what the Fed chair, Jerome Powell had to say on Friday.
He said, quote, we're still very uncertain about what will be terrorists, for how long and at what level. So can you provide some clarity, Mr. Secretary? Are these tariffs going to be temporary or permanent?
So the tariffs that we started with Mexico, Canada and China, that was the month of March, these are fentanyl related, border related. So China makes the ingredients for fentanyl. It's got to stop. President Xi offered President Trump in 2019, and he put the death penalty on anybody who made the ingredients for fennel.
And instead, you know, we've got, in 2025, China is subsidizing the production of fennel, maximum subsidy available in China to make ingredients to kill Americans. I mean, this is President Trump is on it and he is powerful on it. And he's not going to step off the gas. So if you're talking about the drug war, let's focus on the drug war.
And then we want to talk about April 2nd. That's going to be reciprocal tariffs. And how do you talk about that? But let's try to keep those two different.
Okay, Understood. But you say he's not gonna take his foot off the gas. Does that mean these are permanent tariffs? Mr.
Secretary, can you provide clarity, yes or no? If fentanyl ends, I think these will come off. But if fentanyl does not end, or he's uncertain about it, they will stay this way until he is comfortable. This is black and white.
You got to save American lives. So with respect, respective, fentanyl, this is about the border and fentanyl, and that's an agreement between the President and the two leaders of Canada. Of course, Justin Trudeau has got a lot to say. Of course, he's leaving in, like, days.
So it's not really that fun to listen to some guy who's trying to create sort of a mess for Canada, which he's trying to do. President Chandra did a much more calm, thoughtful conversation with President Trump, and that's why this is the result. She was able to negotiate it because she said, a thousand more people on the border stopping fentanyl from coming into this country. Mr.
Secretary, I want to whip through this next section if we can. It's a little bit of a to do list. President Trump previously announced 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. Are those still going to take effect Wednesday, yes or no?
Yes. Yes. Okay. Are the 250% tariffs against Canada on dairy and lumber coming this week, and if so, when?
No, I think that those reactions, the changes to USMCA and beyond, they start on April 2nd. So on April 2nd, we are going to revisit again the fentanyl issues, and we're going to revisit again the trade, the general trade issues of reciprocality. Remember, Canada passes a free trade agreement with US250 of dairy products. It's outrageous.
And you know the President's gonna respond to it, but he's agreed not to respond until April 2nd. Okay, so no tariffs this week in that regard. We'll wait till April 2nd to see those. As it relates to dairy and Lumber, the CEOs of Target and Best Buy this week warned that they will have to increase prices as a result of tariffs.
Do you acknowledge that prices will go up for consumers because of these tariffs? I think it's important for people to realize that we run 2 trillion dollar deficits. And Donald Trump is going to try to balance the budget. United States of America.
When you bounce the budget of the United States of America, you drive interest rates down 150 basis points, one and a half percent. You've got mortgages come smashing down. The cost of your home will come Smashing down. We're going to drill, baby, drill.
And drive down the price of energy that's coming down. So these two massive moves are going to happen. And who's gonna pay for that? Tariffs and outside countries who just leech off of us, lean on us, earn money off of us, they've got to start to pay.
I want President Trump wants the American people to start to understand the External Revenue Service should start to pay. Yes, some products that are made foreign might be more expensive, but American products will get cheaper. And that's the point. Buy American made by great Americans.
We're bringing manufacturing back. That's where we' where this president is going bring it back. So will there be distortions? Of course, foreign goods make it a little more expensive, but American goods are going to get cheaper.
And you're going to be helping Americans by buying America. All right, let me take you right to my next question. I want to play you something that President Trump said to me back in December. Take a listen.
I went on groceries, very simple word, groceries, like almost, you know, who uses the word. I started using the word, the groceries. When you buy apples, when you buy bacon, when you buy eggs, they would double and triple the price over a short period of time. And I won an election based on that.
We're bring those prices way down. Mr. Secretary, can you be specific? When exactly can Americans expect to see those prices come way down?
Egg prices up 200% under Biden. Biden just killing chickens, trying to worry about things. It's crazy the way eggs have gone up 200%. Donald Trump's gonna bring price eggs down.
Now Donald Trump's tariffs are. Here's the idea. All these other countries, like India for instance, when Modi was in town, right? 1.4 billion people and they won't buy a bushel of our corn.
Europe always blocking our farmers as our farmers can sell more and more overseas. You're gonna see the price of food in America come down. Well, I think deal starts. The deal starts April 2.
The deal starts April 2 of reciprocal tariffs. The President's gonna negotiate country by country. He's gonna drive down other countries barriers, unleashing our farmers, our ranchers and our fishermen. They're going to explode in value.
And the prices of American producers grow crops, produce and fish are going to come down because our American industries are going to win around the world. Because finally, finally Donald Trump is buying them, protecting them. He's got their back and he's going to make them winners and that all America's going to be Winners because these prices are coming down. And the process starts April 2nd.
All right, Mr. Secretary, consumer sentiment is dropping. Inflation has ticked up. Major banks like JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs now say a recession in the next 12 months is becoming more likely.
Should Americans brace for a recession? Absolutely not. Anybody who bets against Donald Trump, it's like the same people who thought Donald Trump wasn't a winner a year ago. Donald Trump is a winner.
He's going to win for the American people. That's just the way it's going to be. There's going to be no recession in America. What there's going to be is global tariffs are going to come down because President Trump has said, you want to charge us 100%, we're going to charge you.
You know what they say? They say, no, no, no, no. Don't charge us 100%. We'll bring ours down.
We'll unleash America out to the world, grow our economy in a way we've never grown before. You're going to see over the next two years the greatest set of growth coming from America as Americans. You saw 1.3 trillion of new investment coming in America. That think of all those jobs and remember, each trillion investment in America is 1% of growth GDP.
So Donald Trump is bringing growth to America. I would never bet on recession. No chance. All right.
That's about as definitive that you can be. No recession in America. You heard it here first. Let me ask you about this meeting you attended, the White House this week where Elon Musk and a group of cabinet members clashed reportedly over the approach that Elon Musk is taking to slashing government.
Can you tell me, Mr. Secretary, what was the President's message to you and other secretaries at the conclusion of that meeting? Was it that you are in charge, other secretaries are in charge of making that final decision about who and what will be cut and not Elon Musk? Well, what the President made clear both to the count Secretary and Elon, and we all agree with him.
So he agreed with them before the meeting, after the meeting and during the meeting was, let's make sure we're cutting. We're keeping the great people who work for the government. There are amazing people. I mean, the Congress Department, I've met some amazing people.
These people are extraordinary and they're giving of themselves for America. So we've got to cut the size of government. I mean, government has grown insanely. We've got to cut the size of this government.
But let's. The President's advice and guidance was let's be super sharp, let's make sure we cut the scalpel. Let's be sharp, let's be clear, and let's make sure we do it right. And we all agreed the cabinet is one on the top.
He's got the greatest technologist in the world. Yeah. The greatest technologist in the world comes to the meeting wearing a T shirt, said that says, I'm tech support. Imagine the business secretary knowledge in the world.
I'm going to help you. How great is that? Just to put a fine point on it, who did the President say was in charge? You and the other cabinet secretaries or Elon Musk?
He is in charge. Let's be crystal clear. He did not tell me I'm in charge. But of your agency.
Who's in charge of your agency? I understand that, but who is in charge of your agency? You or Elon Musk? Elon Musk is your partner.
He's your partner in technology, he's your partner in thought, he's your partner in doing it. President Trump made clear that Elon is your partner. And that is what we'd like. You have the greatest businessman and greatest technologist in the world as my partner.
You gotta ask me, what do I think? Thank God. I would have Elon Musk come and help me. There's no one watching this TV right now.
Come over their house and help them. Wouldn't like cheer. You're the best technology that the richest man wants to help you. Come on, we want his help.
All right, Secretary Lnick, thank you so much. Really appreciate your insights, your information this morning. Thank you for joining us. My pleasure.
Thanks for being here. All right, and when we come back, Democratic Senator Alyssa Slotkin of Michigan joins me next. Welcome back. And joining me now is Democratic Senator Alyssa Slotkin of Michigan.
Senator Slotkin, welcome back to Meet the Press. Thanks for having me. Thank you so much for being here. You, of course, delivered the response to President Trump's joint address.
It's a big week for you, so we appreciate you making time to the USS this morning. I do want to start on terrorists. President Trump has said that one of the goals of the tariffs is to bring back manufacturing to the US which is, of course, incredibly critical to a state like yours of Michigan. You have been critical of President Trump's approach by wonder Senator.
Would you support import tariffs and using them to bring back manufacturing to your state? Yeah, you know, I think. I mean, most of us aren't against terrorists, full stop. Right.
I think tariffs are an important tool in the toolkit I think it just. The way he's handling Paris is the way he's handling everything else right now, which is, you know, we want change, but there's reckless change and then there's responsible change. And the way that he's on again, off again, you know, pounding Canada as if they're the exact same thing as China, it just creates this chaotic feeling. And Michigan is probably going to be one of the most affected states in the entire country between our manufacturing sector and our farmers.
So I'm not against it in principle, especially against China, but Canadians, I mean, as a state that, you know, our farmers, that's our number one market is Canada. So I just want to scalpel and not a sledgehammer for these things. Just to be clear, you oppose the tariffs against Canada, and what about Mexico? So I think, look, you know, especially the way Secretary Lennon was talking about fentanyl, I just want to be clear.
We're a couple miles from the U.S. canada border right now. The fentanyl coming over the Canadian border last year totaled 43 pounds total. That's a whole different thing than what's going on the southern border.
We know how to manage our border. We know how to provide security for our border. We've been doing it, you know, seamlessly for years. So I just think this is what I mean.
Like Mexico, we have fentanyl problem with fentanyl coming in from China through Mexico with Canada, that, to me, is a completely different story. So just be specific and thoughtful about these things. President Trump, who did win your state of Michigan, is making sweeping cuts to the federal government, as you well know. You just heard me talk about that with Secretary Lutnick.
I want to play part of your response to the president's joint address this week. Take at a look. You want to cut waste, I'll help you do it. But change doesn't need to be chaotic or make us less safe.
Where are you willing to work with this administration, Senator, to find those cuts to make the government more efficient? Yeah, I mean, I worked in Pentagon. I worked in CIA. I did a rotation over the State Department.
And I think if you ask anyone in a, you know, sort of without the cameras on, like, okay, in each department, is there fat? Yeah. Right. We know there is.
Are there missions that are pretty outdated that we could cut? Right. That were maybe like Cold War missions that have just endured? Yeah.
So I think that people who know these organizations would be happy to show you where that fat is. If you said to a department or agency, you know, you have to cut 10%, 15%, whatever. And then you actually do it so that you're not making Americans less safe. I think what we have right now is this kind of reckless approach, which is kind of putting all the information from these agencies into some artificial intelligence empowered software, figuring out keywords, cutting and pasting people.
And it's not reflective of the missions of who they're supposed to be serving and who they're keeping safe. I think about the va, right, Cutting the VA and some of the proposals I've seen are going to hurt service to veterans. So let's agree that that's a bad idea, bipartisan, it's a bad idea to do that. So I think there are ways to do it.
And again, I would be helped. I mean, I certainly, when I was at the Pentagon, could tell you places in that place that I would have cut if I had the power to do it. But this kind of willy nilly approach makes us less safe. You know, Senator, Democrats were in charge for four years.
You were in Congress at the time. Why didn't Democrats do more to cut government spending when they were in charge? Yeah, I think what we have right now, I mean, I think if I can just be blunt about it, is, you know, we have a situation where the politics are so broken between Democrats and Republicans that what seems logical, right? People getting a room and saying, look, we gotta live within our means.
That means we can't spend as much and we can't cut, you know, the money coming in to the household, to the federal budget by millions and millions and millions. We have to make the balance work. Neither party trust the other one. Right?
So Democrats are saying, I'm not gonna cut spending until you deal something. You know, don't give those tax breaks to those very, very wealthy people. The Republicans say the same thing. We're not gonna change until you change.
And you have a situation where debt is out of control. So to me, I think you're right that both parties need to do better and act like bills and get in a room and shut out Twitter and the media and actually deal with our deficit, our debt. Well, let's talk about how your party reacted to President Trump's joint address this week. The House has now cens Congressman Al Green, because he interrupted, was jeering at the president.
You served in the House, Senator Slotin, would you have voted to censure Congressman Green for his behavior? You know, look, I think to me there's, there's so much frustration with the Trump administration. There's so much concern that what you saw was sort of the emotion and wanting to be visible. It's not personally the way I reacted.
You saw my speech. I have a different, a different approach. I think what I try to focus on is like, we can't just be against something. We have to be for something.
What do we want to do, Democrats want to do that's different? And how do we hear the fact that the country wants change? We want something different and do and offer an alternative vision. So, look, I, I know Congressman Green, and it was clearly something he felt very passionately.
It's just not my number one go to approach. In his first episode of his new podcast, another big figure in your California Governor Gavin Newsom brought on Republican strategist Charlie Kirk, who then asked Newsom about the debate over transgender athletes. Let's take a listen to a little of that conversation. Would you say no?
Men, female, sports? I think it's an issue of fairness. I completely agree with you on that. It is an issue, fairness.
So it's deeply. I revere sports. And so the issue of fairness is completely legit. Senator, do you agree with Governor Newsom?
Well, look, I think, you know, you'll have to talk to Mr. Newsom, his podcast, and we're all talking about it now because it's, you know, good controversy for me. I mean, I grew up playing three seasons of sports in Michigan. Sports is like our religion.
Right. I wouldn't be here, I think, without the leadership training that I got in women's sports. And but for me, it's like, let the local community figure this out, Right. In Michigan, we have a process in place where if someone who's born a boy wants to play in women's sports, you have to get a waiver.
We've had it happen two times in our entire state. So let the local community, communities, just like everything with schools, handle that issue. For me, though, I think, you know, this issue is being sort of brought up in order to make sparks and see sparks fly. Two quick questions that we're almost out of time since you delivered the Democratic response this week.
A lot of eyes on you, Senator, who would you say is the leader of the Democratic Party right now? Look, I mean, people know me. I'm pretty straightforward. I don't think it's a secret that Democrats have been on their heels since Trump won the election.
Right. I don't think that's a, you know, something hidden. And I think it's on us to be clear about not only leadership, and there's lots of leaders in both parties, but also a strategy. Right.
And I think that's something that, as Trump has been successful in flooding the zone and just like every day, 15 things happening, we are still finding our footing. And I think you can't get better until you admit you have a, have a problem. And for me, that, that's one of the things I think some of the new voices in the party have really been agitating about. Right.
New senators, new representatives, new folks are like, hey, we need to do more. And we need to be showing that we're actually having a plan to stand up on really important moments of inflection. So that's what I'm trying to do from within. Well, finally, as you well know, the government is poised to run out of money.
On Friday, the House did release the text of their bill to keep the government open. Will you vote yes to keep the government open. Senator, do you support this bill? Well, we just got the bill yesterday, so we're still looking through it.
And it has to go through the House. And they have very tight margins in the House. We'll see if it can get through. But I think the fundamental point, at least as I approach this, is, look, the president has been deciding how to spend the money any way he wants, even when we have a budget that both Democrats and Republicans voted on.
That's a constitutional issue. Right. Everyone knows Congress has the power of the purse. So I just, until I see some assurances that whatever we pass next week is going to ensure that the money is spent the way Congress intends, I'm gonna, I'll hold my vote until I see that.
All right, we'll follow up with you. Senator Slotkin, thank you so much for joining us after a big week. Appreciate all of your insights, all of your answers and conversation this morning. Great to see you.
And when we come back, is President Trump's cabinet reaching a breaking point with Elon Musk? The panel is next. Let's kick start your wellness journey with the doctor workouts meal plans. It's your fast track to what healthier you.
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Download the NBC News app now and subscribe for more. More. Welcome back. The panel is here, NBC News senior national security and Pentagon correspondent Courtney Cuby Jonathan Martin, politics bureau chief and senior political columnist for Politico Simone Sanders H, former chief spokesperson for Vice President Harris and Mark Shore, former Trump director of legislative affairs.
Thanks all of you for being here. Jonathan, let me kick it off with you. After this week of whiplash over President Trump's tariffs. You heard his secretary of commerce, Howard Lutnick, basically defend the strategy.
What do you make of where we are right now? And did the commerce secretary say anything that will calm markets tomorrow? Look to Wall street, get used to it. It's going to be week to week, in some cases day to day, even hour to hour, this terror regime.
Some are on, some are off. I think this was the week Wall street woke up. Wall street snapped out of its denialism. There was a sense, I think, among a lot of investors in the aftermath of the election, when they arrived at Trump, that we are back.
We have a dere regulatory conservative, pro market, pro business president. That was fantasy. That is not Donald Trump. He is not from the Wall Street Journal.
He is somebody who does deeply believe in tariffs, not just on fentanyl or drug inflow. He believes fundamentally in the tariffs. He said it's the best word in the English language. And so I think this was a seminal week on Wall street and it's not going to change.
And by the way, it isn't just tariffs. It's also the uncertainty about Elon and the role of the federal government because that involves contracts with the private sector. So business is paralyzed on hiring, on investing. They don't know what to do going forward.
Mark, you know, it's so interesting, Jonathan, I think it's such an important point. President Trump has loved tariffs long before he was President, this is a part of his first term, but it looks different in this first term, right? Very different. Kristen.
I think the reality is that this tariff agenda is a huge white blanket on the economy. I think to J Mart's point, the reality is that I think markets assume that Trump 2.0 B like Trump 1.0. And, and I think it's very different. The reality is that after I think the Biden administration's overregulation of the economy, markets initially works out, they think of deregulatory agenda and this administration would continue and extend tax relief.
The concern was if Democrats take any change of Congress, that would happen. So there's excitement. But this tariff agenda is really one that he has surrounded himself now in his second administration with true acolytes and disciples who believe strongly in tariff policy. And you even heard Secretary Lightning say the president said this specifically and say Union April 2nd to date.
It's not just reciprocity tariffs. It's copper, it's steel, it's aluminum, it's on the EU and so he's setting the predicate for I think a very significant protection straight agenda. I just want to pick up on that point. And you heard Senator Slotkin say I'm not opposed to all tariffs.
Right. Because there's some tariffs are good. Right. I mean just to be clear from the tariffs from the Russia administration, President Biden Pentacon slowly specifically chairs on China earlier today I did the duty so I did my show earlier today and we had a business owner on who they manufacture camping.
They sell camping gear and they're based in San Francisco but they have their products they manufacture in China and they're in rei. I mean this scandic thing. And the gentleman said he's going out to raise his prices. And I said well, well why?
He said because the Cherokee said we've to raise our prices to absorb the cost of the Cherokee said it's going to cost him $20,000 more to make what he's making because of the cost it's going to take to get into the country. That is the reality of the situation. So America's gonna start feeling this a lot more. And I just, it's, it's people always talk about stock market whatnot.
Yes, I said the president stock market. I heard secretary let Nick talk about GDP and how add GDP folks in Kenosha, Wisconsin and I'm going to limit the GDP of the stock market. They are wondering they're looking at their pocketbooks and the prices and that's what will affect the most in court. All of this comes against the backdrop of these tensions between Elon Musk, who's charged with slashing the federal government, and the Cabinet secretaries.
I asked Secretary Lutnick about that. He wouldn't kind of go so far as to say, look, bottom line, the president said, we're all in charge of our own agencies. But what are you hearing about what came out of that? Yeah, that's right.
I mean, this is the first time that we heard that some frustrations that frankly have been in place for several weeks now are actually boiling over. What I was really struck by was they boiled over in front of President Trump. So in this case, there were several secretaries who confronted Elon Musk on Thursday about the way that Doge is doing these firings. So it's not just the firings in general, but how they are doing it, cutting thousands of employees, in some cases, having to bring some of them back because they are not taking into account employees performance, performance or some of the critical nature of the jobs that they're doing that was really at issue here.
Now, this is something Republicans have been concerned about. That's why Elon Musk met with them Wednesday night on the Hill. They met for two hours. But at the end of the day, Elon Musk still has a lot of authority.
What we did see out of this Cabinet meeting was President Trump said, look, the secretaries have the authority to make their own firings here, but if you don't do enough, Doge will step in. Remember, most of these secretaries will do enough. I will say the president also walked out of this thing. Elon Musk is an amazing job.
I think his role as, his role as first buddy is probably still pretty safe. I think that's the problem. If there's one more aviation accident, guess who gets blamed for that? Sean W.T.
it's also politics for these cat secretaries, too, because they have skin in the game here. Because if there's a crisis or an action on their watch to their agencies, you want to take the hit. They do politically. Yeah.
I think for Republicans, realities, we're $36 trillion in debt. I think a lot of Americans for Donald Trump because they wanted businessmen to come and clean up governments. I think in a lot of ways this is good. But, Kristen, the big question I have is that, you know, Thursday, Friday, we have a vote on continued resolution.
There'll be funding government at current levels. You're basically refunding the things that Elon Musk and Doge has been cutting. And so I think Congress actually needs to codify these cuts if you want them to be permanent, more than just the show. Well, if you look at the test of that, what was cut out last night, there are a lot of things that are zeroed out.
The cops program for police, the toxic waste program that was for veterans who were affected by burn pits and whatnot. Zeroed out. Many programs, about 0.2 line items were zeroed out. Look, I just think the situation on the cuts, what Elon Musk has cut though, has not yet been identified.
If it was waste or abuse or fraud. He's firing people indiscriminately. I mean, just today, RK Jr. How did they actually save any money is my point, which is not what Americans vote for.
Okay, we will continue this conversation. Guys, stick around. We have more of the panel when we come back. President Reagan was the first to call for abolishing the Department of Education.
Why he changed his mind. Army the president is next. Welcome back. President Trump is considering an executive order which would abolish the Department of Education, though as a federal department, it cannot be eliminated without congressional approval.
But Mr. Trump is not the first president to push for its removal. Ronald Reagan also tried to scrap the Education Department, but he later backed down, citing lack of support in Congress. Reagan's education secretary, William Bennett joined me the press to explain, as I've said to conservatives in the past six months, if we're elected, we are governing.
We are governing aggressively. The president, you know, nine months ago said he changed his mind about the department. He said he didn't think he needed to get rid of any. He said it wasn't bothering anybody anymore.
I would say now it's bothering the right people. You have said though, that sometimes Republicans seem to think that you just don't need to spend money on education. What did you mean by that? Well, we are as a nation going to spend more money.
Americans like to spend more money on education. And when we put forward our budget proposals, admittedly on some occasions we asked for reductions. Congress just rejected that a hand. American people want to spend more, but what we know is it's not the spending more, it's what you spend it on.
And if we spend it on the right things in those inner cities and those poor schools will get results if we spend it on the wrong things. But the special interest wants to do. We're not going to get to work. When we come back, President Trump floated the idea of backing out of NATO.
How serious is he? More with the panel next. Stay with us. Are you making changes to NATO where NATO country gets attacked but they're not paying enough Jews so the United States doesn't defend them.
Well, I said that to them. I said, if you're not gonna pay, we're not gonna defend. I said that seven years ago. And because of that they paid hundreds of billions of dollars.
I said, if you're not gonna pay your bills, we're not going to defend you. Welcome back, panel. Still here. Courtney, that was an extraordinary moment in the Oval Office because the President was basically confirming your exclusive reporting that if NATO countries don't pay their percentage of GDP that the United States will not defend them.
That's one of the things the President's considering that overnight you report that the President wants to see more than just a minerals deal in order to reinstate military aid and intelligence sharing. What do you know? Yeah, that's right. So on NATO, it's not just about Article 5 that the president is considering.
There's a consideration by the administration for a full change in how the US supports NATO going forward. So bas potentially calibrate their support going forward to the countries that pay enough in their defense spending. So NATO fast takers so has said 2% of countries GDP should go to defense. The Trump administration came in and they said we want that to be 5%.
For the record, the US pays about 0.9%. The US is not at that level. But. But some countries are stepping up with the wing.
He has already pledged to make 5%. But if these countries do not meet this new threshold, the Trump administration may pull troops out of their countries. They may not participate in exercises with them. It comes as we also learned that some of these close US allies, the closest US Allies intelligence string, are considering scaling back some of their sharing.
And the issue is they are very concerned about what they see as a more conciliatory tone towards Russia and they are worried that that could expose some of their foreign assets and that that's sacrosanct. Of course, in the Apollo article, 5 was invoked where someone had 11. In the clip you play after that, he says, I don't know if they come to artif have. And so I do think that's why some people are so distressed, if you will, in the national security community that we're hearing from the President's administration, my colleagues at Flip to Europe about the possibility of Europeans creating their own intelligence sharing instead of five eyes calling Euroz to because they can't rely, I think they're realizing Europe, they can't rely on the US as a steady partner.
As they have for the last 80 years because Donald Trump is not committed to the transatlantic alliance. Donald Trump is more invested in a great powers tied geopolitical structure in which big countries like the U.S. russia and China are effectively the sovereign. Well, I think that the first administration, President Trump was actually very effective for getting NATO partners to actually pay up.
I think he deserves a lot of credit for that. Where we are today though is I think a lot of advisors around the president who do no longer believe Russia the same threat and do want to walk away from NATO, but they make arguments because China is our number one adversary, need to focus on China. The person candidly, I'm concerned also that so far, so far, other than the terrorists on China, our posture has actually been weak. Basically the president has defied the law on TikTok and he's basically sent signals that we're not going to defend Taiwan.
And so if the strategy was to say we need to focus here in the Pacific, charitably some may agree with that. But what's the evidence we're actually doing that? A lot of opposition to everything that we're discussing here from Democrats. I thought it was notable Senator Slack and acknowledged Democrats are on their heels didn't name who she thought was the leader of the Democratic Party.
Where are Democrats right now, particularly in the wake of what we saw at the twin address. Well, I would, I would agree. I think if I heals on, I think it would be a lie to say that Democrats are on solid footing here, but maybe on their heels are a good place to be because they're in a fight position. I reject this idea that you got to name leader the people the last time Donald Trump's in office and all the groundswell, it wasn't led by Democratic elected officials.
It was led by the people in the streets of saying people sing coming to town halls, Democrats and Republicans. I think the Democrats have to be responsive to the people though and know they want to be the thermostat, but they actually need to happen to be the thermometer and the temperature of where their constituents are. The best will for President Trump, I mean the reality is that, listen, they get the coverage. It's the angry old man out green shaking a king and they play right in what Trump wants.
Jeffries told his House Democrats don't do that because he knew the image would be a gift to Trump and they did it anyways. One thing about Alyssa Speaks that really stuck out to me frankly has given her background, CIA analyst, Pentagon official was when she talked about Ronald Reagan ruling over his grave because of that meeting with Russell office. She knows what she's talking about. And that that stuck out to me because she knows the importance of complicated allies and that the alternative is even worse than dealing with a complicated.
All right, fantastic conversation, everyone. Thank you so much for being here. That is all for today. Thank you for watching.
We will be back next week because if it's Sunday, it's the press. He was a young Marine. She didn't care about convention. They made a life together.
Then one night, the Marine died. And then the death investigation took a wild, unexpected, expected and utterly bizarre turn. I'm Josh Magewitz, and this is Trace of Suspicion, an all new podcast from Dayline. Listen to all episodes of Trace of Suspicion.
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