Mark Kelly Issues Dire Prediction About Effect Of Trump's Tariffs After Liberation Day

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00:00Hi, everybody. I'm Brittany Lewis, a breaking news reporter here at Forbes. Joining me now

00:07is Senator Mark Kelly. Senator, thank you so much for joining me.

00:11Good to be on, Brittany.

00:13It is April 2nd. And as President Trump touted, today is Liberation Day, where he will unveil

00:19his sweeping tariff policy. We have seen his tariff policy in the past couple of months

00:24in his second term. So knowing what you've seen before, what's your reaction here?

00:29Well, I don't think we know exactly what to expect. And I'm trying to figure out what

00:34are American taxpayers and families going to be liberated from exactly. My view of what

00:43is likely to happen is I think this is probably going to be one of the biggest tax increases

00:48in American history, especially for working class and middle class folks. This is what

00:55Donald Trump sort of has. On one side, he talks about tax cuts, but those are tax cuts

01:03for the wealthy. This is going to hurt families in the opposite direction. And I really don't

01:08think he really cares all that much about it. Throughout history, we've been a country

01:14that sticks with our partners. In this case, he seems to be just sticking it to the American

01:20people. And my expectation are the things that families rely on, groceries and housing

01:29and fuel. These things are just going to go up in cost and it's going to hurt our economy.

01:34Do you think these tariffs this time are going to stick? Because for the past few months,

01:39what can only be described as tariff whiplash has been happening where President Trump has

01:44started, paused, threatened tariffs and trade wars with our allies and adversaries alike.

01:50So do you think that this will be implemented for the long term?

01:54I don't think anybody knows. I mean, the past is prologue. What we would expect is more

01:59of the same, which is the whiplash that you talked about. But, you know, maybe this time

02:05he's going to stick with it. And I think it's going to be a really big drag on the economy

02:10and it's going to hurt families. It's going to hurt them a lot. I I meet these folks every

02:15day, especially when I'm in Arizona, folks that are just struggling to get by that there's

02:19no margin in their budget. Rents too high. Grocery prices are too high. They're trying

02:25to pay for their kids to be in a soccer league or baseball league. And there's no extra room

02:32in the budget. And when he puts tariffs on all these countries, those tariffs are going

02:39to be paid here in the United States. And most of those costs are going to be passed

02:45on, passed on to consumers. It's pretty simple.

02:50The autoworkers union applauded President Trump's tariffs on auto related things. But

02:56the response to your point has been largely negative. Mark Zandi, who's the chief economist

03:01at Moody's, told me that we are headed to a recession essentially by President Trump's

03:06making. And no economist likes tariffs. The market has indicated time and time again

03:11they do not like tariffs. Is there any indication that the White House is listening to this

03:15criticism?

03:16Well, I think they hear it. I don't know. They're actually actively listening to it

03:22and will respond to it. I think it's going to take the American people ultimately to

03:26say, hey, we're fed up. Donald Trump ran on reducing costs for American families, especially

03:34families. He's done absolutely nothing to try to address that issue. And you mentioned

03:39cars, cars that are manufactured here in the United States, get parts from overseas and

03:45also those cars before they're complete, often go back and forth across the border, maybe

03:51more than once. And these tariffs are going to be applied. So the price of autos are going

03:58to go up. We know that. You know, I guess I get what Donald Trump was trying to do,

04:05but he really needs to speak to economists about what his the results of what his his

04:12actions are going to be.

04:14In my conversations with economists, with Democrats and Republicans, no one has been

04:20supportive of tariffs writ large in your private conversations, even with your Republican colleagues.

04:26Is anyone supportive of these tariffs? I haven't found anybody, not a single person.

04:33I think publicly you might see some folks try to be supportive of the president. Some

04:39of my Republican colleagues, but in private, everybody thinks this is a bad idea.

04:45Is there anything going to be done then? Because if everyone's saying, hey, it's a bad idea,

04:49this is bad for the American consumer, this is bad for the everyday American, what's going

04:53to be done for them?

04:54Well, like a lot of issues with regards to this president and this administration, we

05:01need our Republican colleagues to get off of the sideline and say things publicly. So

05:08he knows they oppose this and he should be able to understand that if they oppose this,

05:16it's because their constituents are going to be hurt by these policies and their constituents

05:24understand that this is bad policy. So I think the best path forward for us, I mean, I can

05:32continue to talk about how bad this is publicly and I can advocate to my Republican colleagues

05:37to get off the sidelines. Ultimately, what's going to happen is folks are going to need

05:41to everybody is going to need to be vocal about this and tell the president that you

05:47are hurting the American people with these tariffs. You're not helping anybody.

05:52Do you think Republicans who are privately saying one thing publicly, not saying anything

05:57at all, do you think they're not saying anything right now because they're scared that President

06:01Trump is going to call them out by name?

06:05Probably many of them. Sure. Yeah, I think that's the case.

06:09I do not want to switch gears just a little bit to another story. It's been a little over

06:13a week since the story dubbed Signal Gate has broken. And just to recap, the editor

06:19and chief of The Atlantic says he was inadvertently added to a group chat with the nation's top

06:23security leaders that detailed U.S. plans to conduct an airstrike against the Houthis

06:29in Yemen. As I said, it's been a little over a week since this story broke. What questions

06:34do you still have?

06:36Well, Brittany, we had the DNI, so the director of national intelligence, the head of the

06:42FBI, the head of the CIA, the head of the National Security Agency and the Defense Intelligence

06:47Agency in front of the intelligence committee on which I serve about a day or two after

06:54this information broke that they were sharing information on the unsecured commercial platform

07:01Signal. It's very dangerous. And what the secretary of defense did, putting highly sensitive

07:10classified information on this platform was reckless, and it could have put pilots in

07:17serious jeopardy. There's a lot of information that we still don't have. I'd say at the top

07:25of the list is how many other times have they shared information on other Signal chains?

07:34Who were on those? Were there anybody else that was inadvertently added,

07:39like a journalist or maybe even worse than that, maybe a foreign national,

07:43somebody in another country? And for our adversaries to see what kind of deliberations

07:51that our national security leaders take before deciding to strike another country,

07:59seeing that deliberation online as they all did, that puts us at additional risk.

08:05So I want to know what other Signal chains are out there, who was on them,

08:08what information was shared, and then what are the steps we need to take to make sure that they

08:13stop doing this? Nobody has given me any indication that they're going to knock this off and start

08:19doing this the way they're supposed to, which is in a secure facility on secure communications

08:26equipment. How do you want to see the administration rectify this? Because you said you've

08:31called for the resignation of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Do you think anyone else has to go?

08:37I mean, what does that look like? Well, I think there's a big difference

08:41between somebody being careless. And when this Signal chain was set up, it was pretty obvious

08:47that the person who set it up did not intend to have a bunch of classified information shared.

08:52That was done by the Secretary of Defense. So there's a difference between carelessness

08:57and recklessness. And I believe that the Secretary of Defense was the reckless party here.

09:03And if he doesn't resign, the president should just fire him. He's putting our service members

09:09at risk. He did that once. I'm concerned he's going to do that again. He was unqualified for

09:15this job. That's why I didn't vote for him. And I called out my Republican colleagues

09:20about the risks of putting this unqualified individual who spent the last nine years,

09:26no offense, Brittany, to your profession. Journalism is so important to our country.

09:32But it does not prepare you to manage the U.S. Department of Defense. And this is month two,

09:40or maybe month three of this administration now. We've got a long way to go. And I'm concerned

09:45that Pete Hegseth is going to make other mistakes that aren't going to, you know,

09:51put people at risk, but they're actually going to get hurt.

09:55Senator, you are not offending me. I mean, I am a journalist and I would not be qualified for

10:01to serve as defense secretary. However, I am related to a few veterans. And I want to know

10:05from your perspective as a veteran, you see what exactly Pete Hegseth as defense secretary

10:11texted out over signal. There's arguments of semantics. Was it a war plan? Was it an attack

10:16plan? You see that. What are you thinking? Well, Brittany, I'll give him that. This was not a war

10:21plan. A war plan would include joint forces and maybe our allies. And how are you going to

10:27resupply? And it would be much more comprehensive than what he put on signal. What he put on this

10:36unsecured commercial app that our allies can access. Well, our allies, our adversaries can

10:45get access to. What they put there were critical details of a strike plan. You have pilots that

10:52are planning these missions on the aircraft carriers. They're going to fly them. They're

10:55going to go into harm's way. The most critical information is where are the aircraft coming from?

11:01What time are they launching? What time are they going to be over the target? What kind of

11:04airplanes are they? Maybe on top of that, what kind of weapon systems or certainly maybe something

11:10else that actually wasn't there is what's going to be the plan for the suppression of enemy air

11:14defenses. But the first five things were shared and that's the most critical information. You know

11:22as any kind of operator in the military, whether you're a pilot or you're an infantry guy, special

11:28forces, some of the most critical information that you possess often just in your head is what's

11:35going to happen in the next few hours with regards to any conflict or tomorrow or the next day.

11:41After that, most people don't have a lot of information. But the time of launch,

11:47down to the minute by the way, Brittany, this wasn't like around 3 p.m. It said something like

11:5315, 26. I mean down to the very minute and the time on target down to the minute.

12:00What this means to the Houthis, if they had this information and to be fair, all indications are

12:07they did not. But if they had the information, they really don't need to have their early

12:13warning system, radar system working as well as it would otherwise need to work. They know where

12:19to look. They know what's coming. They could get everybody alert to the fact that there's an

12:24impending strike and it makes it much, much easier to shoot those airplanes down. And I'm speaking

12:31from, I'm a guy who's almost been shot down a bunch of times. I've had an SA-6 on my first

12:37of 39 combat missions blow up next to my airplane. Yemen has SA-6s and SA-3s in the country that

12:44would have been targeting those F-18 airplanes. This was a reckless move by our Secretary of

12:50Defense. And Brittany, if he would have shared that information like a day later or hours after

12:58the airplanes got back to the aircraft carrier, it would not have been that big of a deal.

13:03But beforehand, it is reckless.

13:05Some Republicans have said, hey, this is a mistake, sure, but no one died. And this is

13:11rich coming from Democrats because as they noted, Signal Gate is not as bad as the chaotic withdrawal

13:17from Afghanistan where 13 service members lost their lives. And after that, no one was fired.

13:22What do you make of that argument from Republicans?

13:24Well, I mean, it's the whataboutism we often see. And the withdrawal from Afghanistan did not go

13:32well at all. The plan to withdraw was Donald Trump's plan. It was executed during the Biden

13:39administration. And yeah, it did not go well. And the intelligence community especially got that

13:46wrong. I was there in the room when they were saying that this was going to take possibly months

13:53and months, I think upwards of nine months. And it took less than nine days before Kabul was,

14:03the Taliban took over Kabul and this whole thing collapsed and the loss of 13 service members.

14:11I mean, it was a horrible, horrible situation. And folks should be held accountable.

14:16I am the first one to say that. I mean, I as a service member for 25 years,

14:22when things are screwed up, there should be an investigation and people should be held

14:26accountable. And in this case, the Signal Gate, people screwed up and the inspector general of

14:34the Pentagon should investigate this and there should be accountability.

14:38Senator, I'm curious. Yeah, I know you have a lot of questions and Democratic senators are holding

14:43the administration's feet to the fire here. What's next when it comes to any type of investigation?

14:49Well, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Mississippi Senator Roger Wicker

14:54and the ranking member, Jack Reed of Rhode Island, they've called on the Department of Defense to

15:01investigate this. Now, Donald Trump fired the inspector general. So there's an acting inspector

15:07general. I've got confidence in him. He should be able to handle this investigation. It should be

15:15pretty straightforward. He needs to interview everybody who was on that signal chain,

15:21find out how far and deep this misuse of signal has gone and what other information is possibly

15:32out there. It's possible that our adversaries have access to other discussions about our national

15:42security. And Brittany, this just doesn't affect pilots flying off of an aircraft carrier in the

15:49Red Sea. When it affects our national security, ultimately it affects all of us. Senator, I

15:56really appreciate the conversation today. You are welcome back anytime. Thank you so much for

16:00joining me. Thank you, Brittany. Appreciate you having me on.

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