‘Why Should Anyone Believe Trump?’ CNN Anchor Confronts Trump Adviser Over Week Of Backing Off Threats

CNN anchor Kate Bolduan confronted White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett over President Donald Trump’s week of backing off his tariff threats, asking “Why should anyone believe” Trump at this point.

The stock market tanked after Trump’s tariffs took effect this week, leading to some whiplash-inducing shifts that the White House insists were not a reaction to the markets. Trump paused some tariffs, but an April 2 deadline for a new round of import taxes looms, this time on a “reciprocal” basis.

On Friday’s edition of CNN News Central, Bolduan challenged Hassett on the White House’s claims, and asked why Trump’s threats should be believed “given what we’ve seen in the last week”:

BOLDUAN: As part of the conversation, and you’ve expressed very clearly to me that this — when it comes to especially Mexico and Canada, that this is about being a drug war. But at the same time, the president has also insisted that it is other things, that it’s about trade deficit. It’s about — as happened from the was said from the podium in the White House briefing room, that it was to bring auto manufacturing back to the United States.

So, it also comes with — he calls himself, you know, the tariff — a tariff president. If he believes in tariffs so much, why would he remove them? Why would he not just keep them in place?

HASSETT: There are two phases to what we’re doing right now. The first phase is to go after the border and fentanyl. And there’s been a huge amount of progress on the border and quite a bit of progress on fentanyl. That phase ends on April 1st. On April 2nd, then we begin the reciprocal trade phase. And at the reciprocal trade phase, then we’re going to look at things like, you know, what’s going on with the trade deficit and adjust parameters accordingly.

If Canada and Mexico make a heck of a lot of progress between now and then, then whatever happens with reciprocal actions will be what happens to Canada and Mexico. But if we think that the progress on fentanyl hasn’t been that impressive, then what’s going on right now will be in addition to what happens in April. And that’s something that the president’s been very clear about from the beginning.

BOLDUAN: One of the things that we have seen is market reaction to the uncertainty of the whiplash or the back and forth, whatever you want to call it in terms of tariffs on tariffs off one day. The president had said, you know, was said from the White House, there were going to be no exemptions with these tariffs as they were put on, and now we’ve seen how this has gone back and forth in the just recent days.

When it comes to April 2nd, when he says the big one when the reciprocal tariffs are going to be coming into place, why should anyone believe that April 2nd is actually going to happen given what we’ve seen in the last week?

HASSETT: Well, all we’ve seen is tariffs put on everything and then tariffs put on the things that have a lot of U.S. content. That’s what the USMCA products are. And so if you’ve got a whole bunch of car parts that are in the U.S. and they’re assembled in Mexico and then shipped back into the U.S., then we’re not putting a tariff on the U.S. part. So, that’s the thing that was changed in part because, or mostly because, all because of the progress we’ve made on fentanyl.

The Reciprocal Trade Act will be something where the president pushes a policy that says, whatever your tariffs are on us, then that’s what we’re going to put on you. And that’s what Americans believe is fair.

Watch above via CNN News Central.