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WSJ Reports Waltz is Losing Support Inside the White House After Signal Group Chat Fallout; NASA Astronauts, Butch and Suni, to Speak After Nine-month Stay in Space; Kremlin Says Working on Implementing Ideas on Ukrainian Settlement; Trump's Sweeping New Tariffs to Take Effect This Week. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired March 31, 2025 - 14:00   ET

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

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[14:01:14]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Wall Street appears fed up with Trump's trade turmoil, U.S. stocks in their worst first quarter slump in years and the big tariff day is not even here. It's on Wednesday. How the White House is trying to sell its plan.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": And more fallout from the Signal scandal. The Wall Street Journal reporting that National Security Advisor Michael Waltz is keeping his job, but he's on shaky ground for putting a journalist on that Houthi group chat. Plus this hour, we'll hear from NASA astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who are finally home on earth, had a little time now to decompress after spending that unexpected nine months in space. We're following these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to "CNN News Central."

SANCHEZ: Happening now, world leaders fretting, global market sweating, and recession odds jumping in a big way according to one major investment bank, all this ahead of President Trump's sweeping new tariffs set for Wednesday. For weeks, global economies have been rattled by the date, April 2nd. That's when Trump's dollar-for-dollar tariffs are set to take effect as tensions over his trade war reach new heights.

KEILAR: And there are huge questions right now about what all of this could mean for Americans, especially in checkout lines across the nation. You have Goldman Sachs now putting the chances of a recession here in the U.S. in the next year at 35 percent, which is up from 20 percent. Let's bring in CNN Business Editor at Large, Richard Quest.

Richard, with the countdown to these tariffs ticking down very quickly now, what are you watching closest, right now?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN BUSINESS EDITOR AT LARGE: I'm watching really all economic barometers, particularly things like consumer confidence and consumer sentiment, because that's going to be a good indication that's forward looking in terms of how the consumer is worried about what's going to happen. Are they going to stop spending? Are they going to stop trying to save more if that were possible? And then you're looking at inflation, all inflation data because that's going to give an indication as to whether Jerome Powell and the Fed believes, the FOMC, they can continue to cut rates bearing in mind that tariffs do have an inflationary effect because the price does feed through. Now, we don't know how much it will be, but it certainly will be there.

Look, I can sum this up in a sentence. The United States and thereby the global trading economy, if you will, is about to undergo a massive, massive experiment on Wednesday, the like of which we've not seen, if not for a century or beyond. And it's -- so, it's not surprising that there is such nervousness, we simply don't know how the underlying economies are going to react and effect once these full-scale reciprocal, in some cases, secondary tariffs come in

SANCHEZ: And what exactly are consumers going to feel first?

QUEST: Right.

SANCHEZ: When they head to the checkout counter, what products immediately are going to spike?

QUEST: You're going to see two things. It'll take about, I don't know, maybe up to a month for cars to start seeing the effects because whatever is in the pipeline at the moment is going to move forward. But think of how this works. Just remember, how this actually works. Take my pen, my simple little humble pen. Let's say this pen is imported and there is a tariff of 20 percent. Who is going to pay that? Well, initially it might be the exporter or it might be the importer.

[14:05:00]

So that has now been paid. This pen is now 20 percent more expensive. And so it could it goes on into the chain. Now, at any given point, somebody can eat that 20 percent. Somebody can say, I will take it out of my profit margin. I will eat 3 percent of it. You take 4 percent of it, you take -- but if they don't, if something's left over, this little humble pen eventually gets into the shop and it may be 5 percent, 10 percent, 15 percent more expensive than it was. That is how tariffs work. There's nothing magical about them. There is nothing unusual, mysterious. It is a tax put on the import that eventually gets paid by someone.

KEILAR: And then, eventually Richard has to use a pen like mine. It becomes more humble. That's how --

SANCHEZ: I like that pen better, Brianna. No offense.

KEILAR: That's how -- that's how it works. That looks like a nice pen, Richard, but you have Peter Navarro, who is the top trade advisor to the president, and he said yesterday that he expects these tariffs to bring in $6 trillion in revenue here in the next decade. How do economists look at that? Because he's insisting that these are tax cuts, effectively it becomes a tax hike when you're looking at it generating revenue like that. QUEST: This sophistry of a tax cut because it's going to pay for the tax cuts elsewhere is just nonsense and needs to be called out for the rubbish that it is. And the reality is, if he's talking about $6 trillion over however long it is, that means he's expecting those tariffs to stay, which is a big difference. Remember that the tariffs are designed to help shift global production. Either you'll get your overseas trading partners to reduce their tariffs, in which case the whole -- the rising or the falling tide brings everybody down. Or you get shifts in global production, car makers build here, factories come over here, everything starts to come back to the United States.

But, that will only happen when Americans are prepared to pay more because at the end of the day, higher -- there's a reason why shoes are made in other parts of the world because they have lower cost production. So if you bring it back to the United States in a higher cost environment, somebody again is going to have to pay. It's quite worrying in a sense, because one thing we know about tariffs, and this is true, and you can look at the China tariffs of the last Trump administration, it's very easy to put tariffs on. It's very difficult to take them off.

They are almost permanent, which is why Biden administration did not remove the China tariffs of the last Trump admin. Oh no, once these tariffs are on, getting your sandwiches out, this is going to be a while.

KEILAR: My goodness. All right, Richard, thank you as always. Bottom line, enormous risk in all of this for President Trump, also for voters though, who may be seeing the effects of this. Let's talk about this with CNN's Senior Political Analyst, Mark Preston. This reminds me, what Richard was saying here, of something -- my humble pen, that the Treasury Secretary had said a while ago, which was access to cheap goods is not the essence of the American dream. And I wonder that gamble, how big of a gamble is that for Trump?

MARK PRESTON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: I mean, it's a huge gamble. Right now, we're actually even seeing it in the numbers. I've said from the beginning of his administration that he had two years to get things done. The reality is he had one year to get things done because if things don't go well, then he will lose support of Republicans in Congress. But he's still incredibly powerful with his own party. But where we are starting to see some slippage though is with some of these groups that he was able to win over that were traditionally Democratic groups, they're not very happy with where the economy is now.

SANCHEZ: These special elections tomorrow, Florida, Wisconsin, to you, are they barometers of how Trump is doing?

PRESTON: They are for the moment, but to look at what happens tomorrow night and say, this is exactly what's going to happen 12 months from now in the midterm elections, that's not the case. However, down in Florida, what's interesting about Florida is that it is two Republican districts, OK? This is incredibly conservative. If Democrats can at least show like a big bump, if they could cut what Republicans have usually won these districts by, which is about 30, 31 points. You cut that to 15, does that show enthusiasm among Democrats perhaps?

And then in Wisconsin, you see how much money's being poured into that race. What's most interesting about that is, we're also concerned and interested in why Donald Trump decides to make decisions or how he comes to conclusions. I think we all know that now.

[14:10:00]

The interesting thing right now for me anyway is Elon Musk, the wealthiest man in the world who has the most power it seems right now in the country.

KEILAR: He has a lot. So take us through, because as we look to see how voters are feeling about Trump and what may or may not be a referendum on what he's doing, take us through how they feel about tariffs, some of which I think they don't fully have, they don't have the effects of it yet fully, right?

Some of them, some of them have kicked in, but the big stuff is coming here in a couple days and then take us through the DOGE cuts and how voters are viewing that.

PRESTON: OK. Well, let's just like start right now. Let's just talk about the overall government right now. All the cuts that we're seeing with DOGE, let's start off there because that is where we're seeing like all the action, all the headlines right now. If you look at these polls right now, 55 percent of Americans believe that these cuts are hurting the U.S. economy, 55 percent. If you look right now, 52 percent believe that these cuts are going to hurt your community. Go down one, half of America believes it's going to hurt their own family. OK? That's where we are now, when these cuts take place.

Let's talk in October, November and see if those numbers increase. If you flip over now, right? And as we were talking, if you want to talk about spending, we're talking about recession, and Richard was talking about his indicators. Look at these numbers right here. People are cutting back already. 67 percent of people are not spending money on non-essential items. What's interesting about this number is, every age group up to 65 is cutting back on their spending.

SANCHEZ: Wow.

PRESTON: What does that say to you? People 65 and older, they weren't spending money anyway, non-essential income. You're retired at that point. So Donald Trump, if things don't turn around, if these tariffs really hurt the economy, it's going to hurt his ability to get things done in Washington.

SANCHEZ: We are anticipating a big announcement, potentially in the Rose Garden on Wednesday. We'll see what voters think when he has Liberation Day. Mark Preston, thank you so much.

PRESTON: Thanks, guys.

SANCHEZ: There is new reporting from The Wall Street Journal suggesting that the fate of Donald Trump's National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz, could be in doubt following the revelation that a journalist was accidentally added to a Signal group chat that Waltz started involving military strikes in Yemen.

KEILAR: The journal reports that senior U.S. officials say Trump has decided not to fire Waltz, but they add "The damage to Waltz's reputation has put him on shaky ground in the White House." Last hour, White House Press Secretary, Karoline Leavitt was asked about Waltz's future and the status of the internal investigation into the scandal and here's what she had to say.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- Advisor, Mike Waltz.

KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: As the president has made it very clear, Mike Waltz continues to be an important part of his national security team. And this case has been closed here at the White House, as far as we are concerned. There have been steps made to ensure that if something like that can obviously never happen again, and we're moving forward. And the president and Mike Waltz and his entire national security team have been working together very well, if you look at how much safer the United States of America is, because of the leadership of this team.

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KEILAR: We're joined now by Josh Dawsey, a Political Investigations Reporter for The Wall Street Journal, and one of the reporters who wrote that article on Waltz. And Josh, you report that Trump has decided not to fire him. He's on shaky ground. Take us through what you found as you talk to folks.

JOSH DAWSEY, POLITICAL INVESTIGATIONS REPORTER, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: Yeah. So over the last week or so, President Trump had asked a number of his top advisors, his chief of staff, others in the White House, whether he should fire Mike Waltz as his National Security Advisor, and decided on Thursday night that he would give him a reprieve for now. He called Mike Waltz into the Oval Office and basically delivered the news that you're going to stay for now.

But what we learned in the course of our reporting is that there are lots of people in the White House who want Trump to potentially make a change here. He's not a particularly popular figure and it already begun to frustrate folks even before the Signal group chat leak. So I think what you're seeing is a president who has decided not to make a move for now partially because he says he doesn't want to give them media "a scalp." But it's quite frustrated with his national security advisor.

SANCHEZ: Josh, it's so interesting to see the echo of Trump's first administration and him accepting the resignation of his first national security advisor back in 2017. I wonder if you think Michael Flynn's firing played a role in the way that he is approaching this situation with his current national security advisor. DAWSEY: I think a hundred percent. I think it has a lot to do with it. I think he does not want to see the first year of his presidency, as you remember in 2017, was besmirched by firings and personnel drama, and infighting. And frankly, this time, he's running a more efficient operation. His team has had fewer leaks, fewer knife fights that have emerged in the public.

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And I think really until the Signal leak happened, last week, Trump was being pretty confident and pretty assured about how the White House was being run this time. And there was a much, much stronger morale among the staff. I still think there might be stronger morale among the staff than there were in 2017, but it was not the same environment. And I think what was so frustrating to Trump in the last week has been this sort of return to the constant kind of coverage of scandal and drama and chaos, and that sort of was what his first year in office, frankly, frequently suffered.

SANCHEZ: You also report that this Signal chat regarding the Houthi strikes that leaked, that included the Editor-in-Chief of the Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, it wasn't the first time that Waltz had actually created a chat like this. What did you learn?

DAWSEY: So, you got to give credit to my colleague Alex Ward, who got those details. And Alex reported that he found that there were multiple other times where Signal was being used to discuss sensitive national security affairs. It's unclear whether there was any classified documents shared in those chats on other occasions. But this was not the first time that Signal, which is a commercial app as you know, had been used to highlight national security matters -- to discuss national security matters according to Alex's great reporting.

KEILAR: Do you get the sense, Josh, that maybe the attitude towards Waltz being what it was in the White House before this scandal has informed the reaction of some within the White House who would like to see him go?

DAWSEY: I think very much so. I don't think he was the most popular figure before this happened. I mean, as you saw, Pete Hegseth, for example, there's no -- Hegseth shared the plans of what would happen that day, which was potentially the most sensitive material in that chat. And President Trump has certainly not expressed any frustration with Peter Hegseth. I think he still has sort of full confidence in his defense secretary and you're not hearing the other recriminations towards the secretary of defense either. So, you're seeing a lot of this blame going towards Mike Waltz.

SANCHEZ: Josh, before we go, I did want to ask, was there anything in your reporting that would indicate exactly why Mike Waltz had Jeffrey Goldberg's phone number saved in his phone? He seems to claim that that number got sucked into his phone. I've never had that happen.

KEILAR: No, I've never had that happen.

SANCHEZ: Was there -- was there any -- anything in your reporting that gave you an indication?

DAWSEY: I have heard a lot of theories on that, from folks in the White House, some of them defensive or deferential to the national security advisor. None of them have struck me as particularly consistent with how my contacts have worked over the years. But, I don't know the answer to that.

SANCHEZ: Josh Dawsey, appreciate the reporting. Thanks so much for joining us.

DAWSEY: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Still to come, the Kremlin responding to President Trump after he says he's "pissed off at Vladimir Putin." Plus, the immigration crackdown on students expanding after the University of Minnesota confirms one of its grad students was detained by ICE.

KEILAR: And Houston, they had a problem, it went on for much longer than expected. But now, it is over. Butch and Suni, minutes away from taking questions about a space trip that may have felt like it would never end. We have that and much more coming up on "CNN News Central."

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KEILAR: The Kremlin has responded to President Trump's remarks about being very angry with Russian President Vladimir Putin. In an interview this weekend with NBC News' Kristen Welker, Trump threatened to impose secondary tariffs on Russian oil if Putin doesn't cooperate in working toward a peace deal with Ukraine.

SANCHEZ: And the way that Kremlin is responding is interesting. You have Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov addressing the comments, saying that some of the wording from the interview was paraphrased rather than a direct quote. CNN's Natasha Bertrand is live force at the Pentagon. Natasha, what else did the Kremlin say?

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, President Trump apparently told NBC over the weekend that he was very angry with Vladimir Putin because of Putin's suggestion that President Zelenskyy of Ukraine is not a legitimate leader and that perhaps "a temporary administration should take over Ukraine" while Russia and the U.S. negotiate some kind of ceasefire deal.

Well, in response to that, the Kremlin is now saying that the Russians continue to work on this issue with the Americans. They said, first of all, on building our bilateral relations, which suffered enormous damage during the previous administration. We are also working on implementing some ideas related to the Ukrainian settlement. But Dmitry Peskov, the Russian Spokesperson, he said that work is underway and so far there are no specifics that we would have to inform you about.

Now, this does mark a shift in President Trump's rhetoric towards the Russians. He had previously been much more willing to criticize President Zelenskyy, who he himself actually said in recent weeks and months, was a dictator because President Zelenskyy had not held elections during wartime which is actually prohibited, of course, by Ukraine's constitution.

And so, the fact now that he is turning this around on Vladimir Putin and actually threatening to implement new tariffs on Russian oil, he also told NBC that he could implement any moment now, 25 percent to 50 percent tariffs on Russian oil, as well as secondary tariffs on countries that buy Russian oil, suggests that perhaps President Trump is getting a little bit frustrated with the Russians because just last week, we saw, of course, the White House announced that there was going to be some kind of ceasefire deal in the Black Sea, something that they believed the Russians had agreed to.

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But of course, just hours later, the Russians came out and said that they were going to be implementing conditions of their own on such a Black Sea ceasefire deal. They want sanctions lifted first, for example, whereas the Ukrainians are agreeing, they say right now to a full ceasefire deal. So it is the Russians at this point who are being more difficult to work with on this, something that the president appears now to be frustrated by.

But he did say that there is going to be, potentially, a call with Vladimir Putin this week, though the Kremlin did not say that that has been scheduled yet.

SANCHEZ: Natasha Bertrand live at the Pentagon for us, thank you so much. So at any moment will come the chance to listen directly to Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, NASA astronauts who were definitely not stranded or stuck --

KEILAR: Absolutely not.

SANCHEZ: -- on the International Space Station for something like 10 months after their original trip, which was supposed to only last a week, ran into some snafus. We'll be right back. Stay with us.