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Inside Politics

Trump Announces New Tariffs Today, Upending World Economy; Johnson Fails in Bid to Block Proxy Voting for New Parents; Judge Permanently Dismisses NYC Mayor Eric Adams' Corruption Charges. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired April 02, 2025 - 12:30   ET

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

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[12:31:35]

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT AND ANCHOR OF 'INSIDE POLITICS': Now, if you're confused about the coming tariffs, what it means for you, I'm with you. Luckily, we have somebody who can explain or at least begin to explain what it could mean for you. Bring a little clarity into your life and that, of course, is our own Phil Mattingly. Thank you so much for being here to break it all down. The first question is the what, we all know by now that the expectation is that these tariffs go into effect and prices go up.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT AND ANCHOR: Right.

BASH: What do we expect the prices to go up on first?

MATTINGLY: Yeah, look, it's got to be the most important question in everybody's minds right now. Maybe other than what is a tariff, which by the way, it is a tax on imports, imported goods. And by the way, it's paid by the importer, which is an American company, just kind of throwing that part out there. But to the prices themselves, look, it's almost impossible. It is impossible to tell people what is going to happen at 4:00 p.m. today because we don't know. Last night, the Trump administration still going through it at the highest levels.

But what we do know is there have been significant tariffs already put into place. 25 percent on some countries, 25 percent on steel, kind of across the board tariffs that we hadn't seen before at a scale that's much bigger than the first term. And we know from those tariffs, things like food, crude oil, cars and autos, computers, electronics, clothing are all target or will get hit by that.

We'll see how the market kind of plays out going forward, a lot of reticence to make any moves as we wait for more tariffs to come in. And I think that's the critical point here, because when you look at the tariffs that have already been put into place, you're talking of course about 25 percent on Mexico, 25 percent on Canada, 20 percent on China. Then you have steel and aluminum tariffs, that hits the E.U. You also have automotive tariffs, parts tariffs as well that are coming into play today.

It's been fascinating to watch India, which has major agriculture barriers. They've been targeted, they've been trying to get out of it, what happens there? So we have a sense of the scale right now, which is bigger than we've ever seen before, and yet today is going to be so much bigger.

BASH: OK. So explain the different kinds of tariffs that could impact Americans.

MATTINGLY: Yeah. Look, if you're an economist who loves modeling tariffs, like God bless you, but also this is your heaven and this is your moment, because all we're operating in right now is the theoretical. What Donald Trump has proposed is reciprocal tariffs. He says this is an issue of fairness. There are countries with barriers that are significantly higher than the U.S., particularly when you include non-tariff barriers. We're just trying to equalize right now.

That's really hard to do, going country by country, product by product. How do you define non-tariff barriers? However, the Yale Budget Lab has been doing some great work trying to figure this out. They put the cost to the American price increases at $2,700 to $3,400 for their version of the reciprocal tariffs plan. Now, what about a universal tariff? Every country kind of hits a minimum of payment, 20 percent was a topic that had gotten back on the table after being off for several months, $3,400 to $4,200. So the scale could be enormous if it's as big as proposed right now.

BASH: So, these numbers are, it says (ph) the cost of tariffs to consumers.

MATTINGLY: Right.

BASH: This is for each consumer?

MATTINGLY: For a middle-class family, yes.

BASH: I see.

MATTINGLY: Yes. If they're put into place, that's the scale right now, right? It is enormous based on how they've talked about it. The details are absolutely critical. But again, you talk about details here, and I think this is important. Think about automobiles, right? Automobiles and the parts. The Trump administration has already signed off on 25 percent tariffs on all autos. They have also signed off on 25 percent tariffs on all auto parts.

[12:35:00]

Trump has said, look, you don't want to take the tariffs, make the cars in the United States. This is where it gets complicated. Say, the car we're talking about hypothetically is $48,000. It is a U.S. origin car. Well, the average car has about 30,000 parts, Dana. About 40 percent of those parts, even for U.S.-made cars come from elsewhere.

BASH: (Inaudible). Yes.

MATTINGLY: So if you are trying to buy that car, well, something's coming from Mexico, something's coming in from Canada, perhaps something's coming in from Europe as well. The projection is, according to some of the industry analysts, between $4,000 and $12,000, all of a sudden that $48,000 car becomes a $60,000 car.

BASH: Wow. That is so important for people to understand. We're already in a global economy.

MATTINGLY: Right.

BASH: We have been for decades and decades. And so, if you want to put tariffs on other countries, you have to do it not just for the overall product, but all of the parts, particularly when you're coming (inaudible).

MATTINGLY: Yeah. And it is interesting, when President Trump was asked about prices going up on automobiles --

BASH: Yeah.

MATTINGLY: He said, I couldn't care less if they're not made in the United States.

BASH: Right.

MATTINGLY: And this is where it kind of comes underneath that. However, I do think it's important to point out, the Trump administration, when I talk to officials that are working on this, they make clear they don't believe these projections are right. That's obviously the case. So they wouldn't be moving forward with them. They also believe that it's not taking into account the fact they're going to have --

BASH: Yeah.

MATTINGLY: -- massive incentives to be able to bring companies back into the United States. And they believe the U.S. consumer, which is a $3 trillion import market, will force companies to eat some of the tariffs themselves.

BASH: Yeah.

MATTINGLY: We'll see how it plays out.

BASH: That's definitely what the president is banking on.

MATTINGLY: Yep.

BASH: We're talking about cars. So let's look specifically at the car industry and we have somebody to help us explain that. CNN's Danny Freeman is at a car dealership in a very important place politically in America, a suburb of Philadelphia. So Danny, what are you hearing from the owner of that dealership? How concerned are they?

DANNY FREEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Dana, here in this dealership, there's a lot of concern and a lot of bracing for impact at this point. But I'm glad Phil just went through that because I want to ground basically what he was saying. This is a dealership that mostly has American-made cars, Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep. Take this car for example, right here. This is a Jeep Grand Cherokee. This car was put together, finally assembled in Detroit. So this would not be subject necessarily to the 25 percent tariff that's going into place tonight.

But as he noted, about 25 percent of the parts in this car are imported. So it eventually would be subject to some of these tariffs. This car right here, this is a Dodge Hornet. You can see it right here. The assembly in this vehicle was actually in Italy. So any cars like this coming in new would also be subject to these tariffs. This is a Dodge Charger as American of a car as you can get. This car was assembled you can tell in Ontario, Canada. This is the challenge here.

And this dealer explained, it's not just for him as a dealer, but also for consumers. Take a listen to how he's dealing with one consumer who paid for a car that's been delayed a little bit.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVE KELLEHER, OWNER, DAVE'S AUTO DEALERSHIP: I have a customer that ordered an $86,000 2500 Ram. That's -- we are trying as hard as we can to get that thing off the line today. If that can get on a train today, it'll be without tariff. If it gets on the train tomorrow, it's going to have a 25 percent tariff. That $86,000 car becomes $103,000 car overnight. And that customer, he's going to turn to me. I'm most likely going to eat that. That's a $20,000 hit that I'm going to take.

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FREEMAN: So again, Dana, these are real numbers impacting real businesses and real consumers. We just met a customer earlier who drove a car off the lot she bought today because she was worried if she waited any longer it would get too expensive for her to buy. Dana?

BASH: Wow. So interesting. That car dealer really did help -- hit -- help us understand how it hits home for so many people. Danny, thanks. Good to see you.

Coming up back here in Washington, the House Speaker is going up against some very vocal parents, those he serves with. We're going to tell you why Republicans are joining Democrats. Some of the Republicans are joining these Democrats to push back against Mike Johnson on a very personal issue. Stay with us.

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[12:43:55]

BASH: The House went home early this week. Why? Because of a dispute over whether members of Congress with newborns should be allowed to vote by proxy. House Speaker Mike Johnson wants to kill the effort, which is being led on his side of the aisle by Anna Paulina Luna. And she's about as conservative when it comes to her politics, as it gets. Yesterday, eight Republicans joined with Luna and the Democrats also did. They blocked Johnson from bringing the proposal to the floor. Now, Johnson responded by adjourning the House. I sat down with Luna last month, along with her Democratic colleague in this, Brittany Pettersen, who were trying to push this and make Congress more mom and new dad friendly. She had some pretty harsh words for her leadership.

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REP. ANNA PAULINA LUNA, (R-FL): I mean, everything that we've campaigned on being pro-family, pro-life, all of that and then you have the ideal piece of legislation or a rules change. It's not even a piece of legislation that would go on the floor typically, but to work against it and then come up with an argument that has been proven wrong, knowing all the while, your entire Republican conference, over 50 percent is voted by proxy, and then not understanding the implications that this has to female representation in districts across the country.

[12:45:18]

Yeah, it's a massive slap on the face.

BASH: You said when you were getting mic-ed up, that it's dumb.

PAULINA LUNA: It's a completely dumb argument.

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BASH: Now, what happened yesterday is that despite the fact that there are roughly 30 Republican women in the House Caucus, the only people who voted with Luna were men. There were nine people all together. Luna was joined by eight of her fellow Republicans, all male. Now, we should say that this -- what they're trying to do is say that people who have a baby, women who give birth and men whose wives or partners give birth, that they should have 12 weeks where they can vote by proxy.

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yeah. And the objections to it are very, very dumb.

(LAUGH)

HENDERSON: -- and surprising. This just seems like a losing battle for Johnson. It's not clear why he is opposing this. Again, this is a party that is encouraging childbirth, that is supposed to be family friendly. And here are these women and men, right, who are parents too and should be involved in their children's early days.

BASH: So part of the rub for Mike Johnson is that back when they had proxy voting during COVID, he was one of those who said it was unconstitutional to do so.

HANS NICHOLS, CO-AUTHOR, AXIOS HILL LEADERS: Yeah.

BASH: Even though I'm not sure if he actually did end up voting by proxy a bit, but he ultimately said, this is not the wrong thing -- not the right thing to do. And he filed a brief to that. And here's what he said yesterday about this fight.

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REP. MIKE JOHNSON, (R) HOUSE SPEAKER: 96 percent of House Republicans voted against proxy voting because they believe it's unconstitutional. And they agree that it would open a Pandora's Box. And so that's what we just saw. Let me just make this clear. That rule being brought down means that we can't have any further action on the floor this week.

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NICHOLS: Republicans really hate, at least Republican leaders really hate proxy voting. And that's really the only way that I can explain this because I think, I could get in trouble here, but it seems as though the zeitgeist on this is changing on sort of what we do as a society to make sure that women can leave the workforce, they can come back, what new fathers can do. It's all kind of changing.

I mean, my brother and I have a joke and I don't think he'll mind me telling this. My dad was undefeated on diapers. That was not the case for my brother and me, right?

(LAUGH)

NICHOLS: We, and so sometimes, it's just a general, which just means he never changed one, right?

(LAUGH)

HENDERSON: We get it (ph).

HENDERSON: This seems a little, but look --

NICHOLS: Mike Johnson has dug in well, right?

BASH: Well, on that --

NICHOLS: And he has a constitutional argument that he's standing by.

HENDERSON: Women of course not included and thought about in the Constitution in terms of being and serving in the House. I mean, this just -- I feel like just make a phone call to Donald Trump. It feels like this is a -- is something that Donald Trump would easily --

NICHOLS: Or Ivanka.

HENDERSON: Or Ivanka.

BASH: Well, they're trying to bring him in.

HENDERSON: Or Melania (ph).

BASH: Well, they're trying to bring him in. Let me just say, because you mentioned on the men, Wesley Hunt, Republican of Texas. He did not vote. He voted with his party leadership, not with Anna Paulina Luna yesterday, but on that particular procedural vote. But you see there a picture of him. He's holding his young son. He had to come back during crucial votes. That young son was in the NICU and he told our colleague Sarah Ferris yesterday, that he has expressed to the leadership of his party that that was his biggest regret in life, having to walk out of the NICU when his son was in trouble, newborn son.

CATHERINE LUCEY, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, BLOOMBERG NEWS: One of the things we've seen is a big effort to get more women on both sides of the aisle in elected office and things like this can have a chilling effect on -- and I think that's what you hear from groups and advocates about more participation for women.

BASH: Yeah.

LUCEY: Is that it makes it harder for them if they think and -- but for also for men as well and for new dads as well. And I think that's a debate that Mike Johnson is going to be stuck with for a while.

BASH: I didn't mean to leave out the person who has probably the most kids at this table --

(LAUGH)

BASH: But I do want to get your perspective after this. Coming up, case closed for Eric Adams. We have new details on why a federal judge is permanently dropping criminal charges against the New York City Mayor, stay with us.

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[12:53:40]

BASH: This morning, a federal judge permanently dismissed corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. He had this to say moments ago.

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MAYOR ERIC ADAMS, (D-NY): New Yorkers stopped me all the time in trying to find the rationale behind this, and I found it in this book. I'm going to encourage every New Yorker to read it, read it and understand how we can never allow this to happen to another innocent American.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: In case you couldn't see, that book is written by Kash Patel, the FBI Director. CNN Chief Legal Affairs Correspondent, Paula Reid is here now. Paula, walk us through the judge's decision.

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: So Dana, when the Justice Department first announced that it wanted to drop this case, there were a lot of questions. The first one was about its intention. Why were they dropping this case? And they said that dropping this case would allow Adams to devote more time to immigration enforcement, of course, a priority for President Trump. But the judge today saying that smacks of a bargain so that he could focus on the administration's priority. But the judge also said he can't force them to prosecute Adams. There's not a lot he can do there. But the other big question is about why the Justice Department was pushing to dismiss this case without prejudice. That just means that it would still be hanging over his head. It could be brought at any time.

[12:55:00]

That the judge said he would not approve because he said, "Dismissing the case without prejudice would create the unavoidable perception that the mayor's freedom depends on his ability to carry out the immigration enforcement priorities of the administration. So, this is largely a win for the Justice Department.

But Dana, I've got to say, on reporting on this in the past several months, the most confusing thing is there are some very legitimate arguments for dropping a case like this. Public corruption cases are very difficult to prove. They require a lot of resources. The Attorney General's Chief of Staff has made some of those arguments on Twitter, but those are not the arguments that they have made in court. They have continued to lay out something that looks like a quid pro quo.

So while the Attorney General insists, that they are going to end the politicization of the Justice Department, this messaging, this incident has been one of the biggest disasters they've had so far.

BASH: Really, really interesting. Thank you so much for explaining all that, Paula. And thank you for joining "Inside Politics." "CNN News Central" starts after the break.

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