Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Newsroom
Trump Rolls Back Environmental Regulations; Federal Reserve Chair on Capitol Hill; Will Trump Ignore Court Rulings?; Interview With Senior White House Office Trade and Manufacturing Adviser Peter Navarro. Aired 11:30a-12p ET
Aired February 11, 2025 - 11:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[11:30:01]
PETER NAVARRO, SENIOR WHITE HOUSE OFFICE TRADE AND MANUFACTURING ADVISER: You have the currency adjustments that take place as part of the market adjustment, but also through currency manipulation by the governments.
You have supply chain adjustments. And the best thing that happens, and President Trump loves this, is investment comes into our country that raises the productivity of workers. And productivity is the quickest way to real wage gains that offset any inflation.
And then, over time, as President Trump says, you don't want tariffs, then build it here. So that adjustment process -- and, look, it's fun coming out and defending these attacks on inflation when I can just point to what happened the last time there was no inflation.
(CROSSTALK)
PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: Yes, it was very minor inflation. That is true.
NAVARRO: Thank you.
BROWN: That is true.
But I will say, at the same time, what is...
NAVARRO: I don't need even know it was minor.
BROWN: It was very little. It was very little.
NAVARRO: Remember, we had place stability.
BROWN: I went back and looked.
But, listen, I just want to follow up with you.
NAVARRO: Sure.
BROWN: Because automakers, for example -- and, actually, before I get to that, I do want to follow up on the J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs. They were using data. They were basing what they said on data from the government. I know you say you don't want to choose to believe that.
NAVARRO: Yes. Look, these people have no credibility.
BROWN: You were saying you're going to make these reciprocal tariff judgments based on data. So I'm just pointing that out.
But automakers are saying if you follow...
NAVARRO: Our data, good data.
BROWN: Oh, OK. OK.
So, automakers are saying...
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: Mark Twain, lies, damn lies and statistics. I mean, you know....
(LAUGHTER)
BROWN: Excuse me. I'm recovering from a cold.
NAVARRO: Sorry. Yes.
BROWN: But automakers say that they're concerned that this could lead to layoffs and so forth. Now, several studies did show in the first term that tariffs did help create some jobs, but even more jobs were lost during the first term.
So does the White House have any plans to support businesses impacted by potential retaliatory tariffs? As you know, there are some businesses that are worried right now about that.
NAVARRO: Those studies, you can't believe any of those studies because all of those studies predicted the apocalypse, the inflationary, recessionary apocalypse.
They had "The Wall Street Journal" and two lead editorials calling the Navarro recession coming. And it's like, all we had under Donald Trump was prosperity, price stability, and, by the way, no foreign wars and a secure border, and things were good.
BROWN: OK.
But, really quick, he's already -- sounds like you're back on the campaign trail there. He's already back in the White House there.
NAVARRO: No, no.
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: But let me just follow up, because Elon Musk, what role does he have with you right now? Is he playing a role with you, or no?
NAVARRO: No, no. BROWN: He's not? OK.
NAVARRO: But in terms of the inflation question, I think it's important to point out that we have a very broad-based way to get inflation significantly down very quickly.
And it's drill, baby, drill that's going to have a tremendous lowering effect. It's deregulation. And when you add DOGE on with all of the cost-cutting, that's a beautiful thing. And then when you have all the investment come in because of the tariffs and productivity rises, I think, Pamela, one of the statistics I'm most proud about -- and this is a real statistic, and you will agree with me on this.
During the Trump years, real wages for American workers went significantly up. During the Biden years, real wages went significantly down. And the difference is the kind of policies that we had, strategic oil, energy oil dominance. We had the deregulation. We had tax cuts. We had fair trade, instead of seeing our factories go offshore.
And this is how you fight inflation. And DOGE, that's like -- that's a -- that's just an added layer that's going to have a tremendous impact on helping us lower -- but as far as DOGE and trade manufacturing, parallel tracks.
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: OK. There's a lot of questions.
NAVARRO: Heading towards prosperity, I hope.
BROWN: Well, we will see. I mean, look, you made a lot of predictions.
NAVARRO: Yes.
BROWN: Economists, as you know, there's varying viewpoints. Some of them disagree with that. We shall see if your predictions come true. And we will have you back on the show to discuss that.
Peter Navarro, thank you.
NAVARRO: Great to talk to you, Pamela. You take care.
BROWN: We will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[11:38:42]
BROWN: In an unprecedented test of the rule of law, the Trump administration is questioning the authority of federal judges.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Judges should be ruling. They shouldn't be dictating what you're supposed to be doing.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
BROWN: And just last hour, Trump's biggest ally in the House, Speaker Mike Johnson, weighed in.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): They're uncovering things that we have known intuitively have been there, but we couldn't prove it. Now the proof is being provided and no one can argue the counter to that. So stay tuned. There's a lot more to come. And I think the courts should take a step back and allow these processes to play out.
What we're doing is good and right for the American people. Everyone needs to take a deep sigh of relief and understand that we're not going to harm any Americans with this. What we're doing is the right thing by the people, and we're excited to be a part of that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Joining us now to discuss, constitutional law professor at Yale Akhil Reed Amar.
Thank you.
So I think we're trying to wrap our heads right now around what's going on here. Are we in a constitutional crisis? What do you say?
AKHIL REED AMAR, YALE LAW SCHOOL PROFESSOR: No, and we're not yet in part because great folks like you and other journalists are covering the story, so the American people can watch. And I agree with Speaker Johnson. Yes, we need to stay tuned and we need to stay vigilant.
[11:40:04]
And if we aren't vigilant and we don't stand behind the rule of law and courts, then we could be in a constitutional crisis down the line. The way we avert that is by sticking with the Constitution, which has made America great, following what great American presidents have done over the years, which is obey Supreme Court orders even when they didn't like them.
That's how you get on Mount Rushmore. That's how you make America great. And American greatness is in part about journalists covering the story and citizens reading the Constitution and judges doing what they do, which is hear case under law. And if you think a judge has made a mistake at trial, well, you can bring the case up to appeals and eventually the United States Supreme Court.
Three of the justices on this court was appointed by Donald Trump himself. His party has a majority of the Supreme Court. And if and when these cases go up to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court rules, then actually presidents must obey. That's actually a deep part of what the Constitution actually provides for. And Trump himself, the very first thing he was obliged to do was to swear an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution, as every president is obliged to do. And it's in the Constitution itself. It says that.
BROWN: Yes, and in the Constitution, Article III about the judiciary, co-equal branch of government.
I want to highlight something J.D. Vance said back in 2021. This, of course, was years before he was even considered to be Trump's vice president.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think that what Trump should do, like if I was giving him one piece of advice, fire every single mid-level bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people.
And when the courts -- because you will get taken to court. And then when the courts stop you, stand before the country like Andrew Jackson did and say, the chief justice is made as ruling, now let him enforce it, because this is, I think, a constitutional-level crisis.
If we continue to let bureaucrats control the entire country, even when Republicans win elections, then we have lost. We have just permanently lost. We have permanently given up. And so that's sort of how I think about this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: What do you say to that? Is that what we're seeing play out? What would the recourse be in that hypothetical? And, again, it is a hypothetical. We don't want to be alarmist here, but you have to ask the question, given some of the rhetoric and what we're seeing, if the executive branch just flatly disobeys a judge order like from the Supreme Court.
AMAR: Well, what J.D. Vance said is not true. It's fake news about Andrew Jackson. He never said that. That was apocryphal.
Now, let's look at what he did and not just what he said. He never refused to comply with a Supreme Court order. That quote is from a case called Worcester v. Georgia.
BROWN: The Cherokee -- yes.
AMAR: Yes, Cherokee case.
Didn't involve actually the executive branch at all. The Supreme Court never issued a directive to the president. The president never defied that. When the Supreme Court in Donald Trump's lifetime told Harry Truman, you can't seize the steel mills unilaterally, even if you had good motives, Harry Truman complied with that.
And this was a Supreme Court dominated by people of Harry Truman's party. When, in the Nixon tapes case, the court with four Nixon appointees, three of whom were on the court and one of whom recused, told him he had to hand over the tapes, he obeyed that. That's what presidents have done in years past.
And I fully expect that this president will do that if he really wants to make America great and have a good reputation going forward, because our best presidents actually have been law-abiding presidents. The greatest of them all was Abraham Lincoln. He did not disobey a Supreme Court order, as some people have sometimes said. It's just not true. It's fake news.
Abraham Lincoln revered the Constitution. He was a great constitutional lawyer. And we all, we Americans, should actually hold fast to the Constitution.
BROWN: I mean, yes. And that's what our elected leaders swore an oath to. It's simple as that.
Bringing me back to law school with the Youngstown case. That was one of the first cases I studied when I went.
Akhil Reed Amar, thank you so much.
AMAR: Thanks.
Happening now: Fed Chair Jay Powell is testifying on Capitol Hill. What he's saying about the Central Bank's independence -- after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[11:48:55]
BROWN: Right now, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is on Capitol Hill before the Senate Banking Committee.
CNN's Matt Egan joins us.
What is he saying, Matt?
MATT EGAN, CNN REPORTER: Well, Pamela, no major fireworks between Jerome Powell and lawmakers to this point, but Powell did make some headlines here.
He made clear that the Fed is in no rush to cut interest rates. He says the economy is strong and he believes that there's time to wait for more progress on inflation before the Fed can make it cheaper to borrow. Powell, he wouldn't comment directly on Trump's trade policy, but he did make some comments about free trade.
He said that the wisdom around free trade, the logic is still there. But he did note that free trade didn't work that well when there was a very large country that doesn't really play by the rules. Powell was also asked about what would happen if the president tried to fire a Federal Reserve official. He said it's pretty clear that that is not allowed under the law. There was also an interesting exchange between Powell and Senator
Elizabeth Warren about efforts to sideline the CFPB. Of course, that's the consumer watchdog that has gone after big banks, student lenders, payday lenders, and others that have been accused of ripping off consumers.
[11:50:10]
Take a listen to that exchange between Powell and Warren.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA): If the CFPB is not there examining these giant banks to make sure they are following the laws on not cheating consumers, who is doing that job?
JEROME POWELL, FEDERAL RESERVE CHAIRMAN: I can say no other federal regulator.
WARREN: No one, in other words. By forcing the CFPB not to do its job, President Trump, Elon Musk, and the author of Project 2025, Russ Vought, are giving Wall Street banks an unlimited get-out-of-jail-free card.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
EGAN: Now, the White House has argued that the CFPB has become a weaponized arm of the government.
And President Trump, last night, he said that his goal is to eliminate the CFPB, but Democrats again and again today, Pamela, are arguing that would be a terrible idea -- back to you.
BROWN: Matt Egan, thanks so much.
We will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[11:55:44]
BROWN: The president is rolling out new changes at the Environmental Protection Agency. He has ordered his new EPA chief to roll back regulations from the Biden presidency.
CNN's Bill Weir joins us now.
So, Bill, how much of this has to do with water standards?
BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: Well, it came on TRUTH Social today, Pam, that he said because he's unable to take a shower with the proper pressure to maintain his beautiful hair -- this is what he's complained about going back to the first administration -- he wants to basically torpedo all energy efficiency regulations for showerheads, dishwashers, appliances. One problem, that is not the EPA's job. The EPA is in charge of
protecting the water and our streams and our lakes and in our pipes that we drink. The Department of Energy is responsible for energy efficiency. And for about 30 years, the limit on a showerhead was 2.5 gallons a minute.
Obama specified that should include showerheads that include lots of different nozzles. Trump then said, no, it should be 2.5 gallons per nozzle, so you basically have a fire hose in your shower. Biden then tried to roll that back. It all got gummed up in the courts.
But really the top -- bottom line here is that the only people who profit by Americans wasting energy are companies, natural gas providers, utilities who were promised by the president carte blanche. Deregulation is a big part of that promise.
BROWN: All right, Bill Weir, thank you so much.
And thank you for joining us. I'm Pamela Brown. Follow me on Instagram, TikTok and X @PamelaBrownCNN.
Stay with us. "INSIDE POLITICS WITH DANA BASH" starts after a short break.
[12:00:00]
