Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Supreme Court Strikes Down Trump's Sweeping Tariffs; Andrew Yang on Consumer Sentiment and Political Divisiveness; Trump on Possibility of Tariff Refunds: I Guess It has to be Litigated; Americans Who Believe in Aliens. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired February 20, 2026 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

ANDREW YANG, FORMER DEMOCRATIC 2020 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: These tariffs from the get-go as terrible policy, they raised prices for American consumers, crushed manufacturing jobs, and they were illegal. This is a devastating blow to the Trump administration. If you think about his signature policies, tariffs might be one or two on the list.

And the fact that he even acknowledged, well, we're going to have to litigate whether we're going to return the $130 billion of revenue. People should be furious at this mismanagement of the economy on the part of the president.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: I wonder what you make of his rhetoric toward the Supreme Court.

YANG: Oh, he appointed some of these people, you know, ordinarily be like, oh, Democrats, da, da, da. I mean, you can't use that when you literally appointed half of these Justices that ruled against you. By the way, this ruling was 100 percent correct.

The legal justification of this was that our trade policy is a national emergency. And so I'm going to have to use emergency powers. It never made a whit of sense.

SANCHEZ: He did mention AI during some of his remarks, saying how his administration has invested in AI considerably. You've been speaking about it going back to 2020. I just noted a moment ago when we were off camera that you were one of the first public figures, certainly the first one that ran for office that talked about the ramifications this is going to have on the economy.

And you actually discuss it in the book, some product placement here, Andrew Yang's new book. You say it's going to break the economy, that it needs a redesign. You go full Yangstradamus in one chapter and you argue that for some people there are going to be breakthroughs.

And for a lot of people, it's going to suck. What do we do to mitigate the suck?

YANG: The only way we can help people manage this process, Boris, in my opinion, is to distribute the economic gains of AI quickly and broadly through something like a universal basic income. And you know who made a similar suggestion is the CEO of Anthropic, Dario Amodei, raised his hand recently and said, we are going to automate away 50 percent of entry level white collar jobs. Totally true.

And you know what his remedy was? Tax us. An AI company said, tax us.

And we should take him up on his suggestion because these AI companies are producing hundreds of billions of dollars of economic value. But the average American is not going to see a dime of that the way things are set up right now.

SANCHEZ: It taxed us a rarity, that message --

YANG: Yes.

SANCHEZ: -- a rarity when it comes to these companies --

YANG: How is it that legislators are not falling all over themselves trying to take him up on this suggestion? Because by the way, 80 percent of Americans agree with that, too.

SANCHEZ: It's not politically popular when it comes to members of Congress in terms of their fundraising, in terms of how they get elected for them to raise taxes.

YANG: It's because everyone is running scared of the AI executives because they have unlimited money and control the social media platforms. But 80 percent of Americans want more regulation on AI. You see this backlash building that is completely distinct from the way office holders are responding to AI.

The average American is not happy about what's coming down the pike. And they should not be. They should be furious and very, very disheartened.

SANCHEZ: A lot of people are terrified.

YANG: And terrified.

SANCHEZ: Oh, yes.

YANG: I was going to say terrified, but I didn't want to be that scary.

SANCHEZ: But it is scary. I mean, I'm thinking of buying a house soon. And do you really want to incur that amount of debt when you don't know what the future looks like, what the economy looks like? I also, just generally on UBI, on universal basic income, I've always wanted to ask you, you posit this as a generous idea for people, something that will help people in really uncertain times.

I do wonder, though, individuals get a lot of identity and purpose and drive from the work that they do.

YANG: Completely.

SANCHEZ: But if there's no jobs anymore and you're just getting a check, what is going to motivate competition? What is going to drive our system?

YANG: Boris, I'm Asian, so, you know, I love work. People going to job gives them structure, purpose, fulfillment, community.

You get valued and we need more of that, not less. You get money into people's hands. You can participate in the marketplace and local businesses will then say, oh, wait a minute, maybe I should open up the bakery.

Maybe I should expand and even hire a person. That's the only way out of this mess. But I completely agree with you that we'd love having places to go to every day and contribute.

SANCHEZ: Absolutely. Immigrant. So I get it, totally. The work thing.

There was a chapter that I especially --

YANG: I knew I (INAUDIBLE).

SANCHEZ: -- there was a chapter I especially enjoyed. How to make Americans totally happy.

YANG: Math. The new math.

SANCHEZ: The new math. Yes. And you cite consumer confidence data that shows how Americans feel about the economy is pretty much directly tied to whoever's in office.

YANG: Yes.

SANCHEZ: So if it's a Democrat, Democrats are thrilled with the economy and Republicans hate it. And the inverse is true. So your pitch is to give the losing presidential candidate a four year TV contract.

YANG: Yes.

SANCHEZ: With lodging, servants, and fake Secret Service.

YANG: Replica of the White House. 400K salary, the same as the real president gets. And then America could tune in to see their president sign bills, do official things.

And then everyone would be happy. We'd all spend and things would be a lot better.

[15:35:00]

SANCHEZ: Aside from more competition for us TV people and getting these contracts, you chance to come by --

YANG: My gosh, no, you could have parallel White House reporter pools. It's like twice as many jobs. It's job creation.

SANCHEZ: It does tell you something about where Americans are when it comes to reality and facts and hearing things that may disappoint them.

YANG: Yes, we don't handle disappointment very well.

SANCHEZ: It's kind of dystopian.

YANG: I wish I had better news on that side, Boris. I mean, Ford exists to try and bring us back together and bridge the divide because the blue versus red is not solving problems. Certainly it's not addressing AI coming down the pike and eviscerating white collar jobs. So we need to think much, much more proactively and act the same.

SANCHEZ: Andrew Yang, it's a pleasure to chat with you again. The book is "Andrew Yang. Where's My Thousand Bucks?" And other true stories of staggering depth. Where is my thousand bucks, Andrew Yang?

YANG: You know, let's talk after this interview is over. I've got it right here.

SANCHEZ: Thanks so much for being with us, man. Appreciate it.

YANG: Thanks, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Still ahead, more on the landmark Supreme Court ruling that declared President Trump sweeping global tariffs illegal and what it could mean for small businesses -- next.

[15:40:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: The Supreme Court's decision to strike down President Trump's emergency tariffs is leading to a lot of questions, especially for business owners. And we're joined now by Sarah Wells, the founder and CEO of Sarah Wells Bags. And I should say, it's also leading to reaction.

I'm just curious, as you watch the Supreme Court decision come down, how you reacted?

SARAH WELLS, FOUNDER AND CEO, SARAH WELLS BAGS: I was amazed and thrilled. It feels like a win for small businesses. We have been out there telling our story of the real impact of this for a year.

It's been absolutely devastating. I've had to lay people off in my small business. And we've been out of inventory, not having our best sellers.

It's cost us probably half a million dollars in losses this last year. So today, to hear that the tariffs were ruled illegal and far- reaching, it was an awesome success.

KEILAR: Half a million dollars, you would estimate, on all of the tariffs. What about specifically on these tariffs, the reciprocal tariffs that used this particular authority, IEEPA, that's the acronym, as the basis for it? WELLS: Yes, so we paid just under $50,000 in IEEPA tariff. But the reason that we have nearly half a million in losses is that we had a period of time we just couldn't order anything. We couldn't pay 145 percent tariff.

So we stopped ordering. Then we sold out of our top-selling products going into the holiday season. And we had huge losses that contributed to that.

So we're still really trying to dig out of a hole.

KEILAR: So it's a compounding problem. And there's also losses that you can't quite estimate just based on what you paid because of the tariffs, right? So or really, it's sort of like the secondary concerns of it.

Do you expect to get any of that back? I mean, you heard discussion today about refunds and it getting tied up in court, possibly for years. What are you thinking?

WELLS: First of all, small businesses can't do that. We can't hire lawyers and wait three years. We're already, you know, in the hole on this money and we need this back quickly, efficiently.

There are already systems in place, processes to refund tariffs. I've had tariffs refunded in the past on clerical error. We have systems in the government to do this.

So I think Congress should step in. I think the administration needs to help here. We need to get these tariffs refunded, especially for small business quickly.

KEILAR: So you think in a way there should almost be like a snapback of this. Someone just sort of put something in a spreadsheet and pushes a button and off it goes.

WELLS: Well, there's online systems that are tracking all of the tariffs. This is very closely monitored. Everything that we have paid, I actually have already filed the paperwork within those systems to get my tariff back.

So let's go.

KEILAR: In reaction, the president immediately imposed another global 10 percent tariff using this other authority, Section 122. There is this expiration date, though. He only has the authority to do this for about five months unless Congress approves it.

Hard to see how Congress is going to do that. How are you looking at that decision of his?

WELLS: Right. So, I mean, the thing about these other mechanisms, no doubt they're going to be really hard tariffs still on small business. I mean, it's still a big burden on us, but it's more predictable. It's capped. It's not endless. And it's not this illegal overstep of authority that, you know, this roller coaster we've been riding for the last year, 10 percent, 20 percent, 145 percent, never ending tariffs.

Those days are done. You know, we learned today in the Supreme Court decision, the president just can't tariff anyone he wants whenever he wants. Those days are done.

KEILAR: It's still as you say, it's less. But in the absence of having been looking at tariffs, the size of which you have had to deal with 10 or 15 percent tariffs would normally seem huge. Right.

I mean, when you think about the margins that you're operating under, what is this going to mean for you long term? You said you've laid off people. What's this going to mean?

WELLS: Yes, without refunds. I mean, I think reestablishing American jobs is going to be really hard. So we do need those refunds.

And even 10 or 15 percent. Absolutely. Again, we're in the hole.

We have, you know, cut our operating costs as far back as we possibly can. So 10 and 15 percent really do hurt small businesses. I think Congress should step in here and say it's time for a different strategy.

KEILAR: And how do you -- I mean, I hear you calling on Congress to do that. Do you think they are going to do that?

WELLS: I think they're fully capable. And I think it's not only small businesses that are suffering in this. But, you know, my products are purchased by new families and they're telling me we can't afford these prices anymore. So it's time to fully use that democratic process and get in and have a say in that.

KEILAR: And how do small businesses, you think, get that message out broadly and put pressure on Congress to do something?

WELLS: Well, I think we've done an amazing job this last year. We have shown up and told our stories in every possible forum as small businesses. And I think we've been really empowered to do that.

[15:45:00]

We just keep on sharing the real impact on American businesses and American consumers. And hopefully our elected officials will hear us.

KEILAR: Can I just add that since we last spoke, you were incredibly emotional in the interview we had months ago. Because it was clear how much stress you were under and that there were a lot of people relying on you for their livelihoods. How much stress have you and your employees weathered?

WELLS: A tremendous amount. The mental health impact on small business owners and their teams and everyone involved has been really -- it's been quite devastating. Today, we are going to take the win.

We really have worked hard to get to this point. But again, without those refunds, we're really not any better off than yesterday in terms of the money that we've already outlaid. I would love to get those refunds and hire back people I had to lay off.

KEILAR: Sarah Wells, great to speak with you. Thank you so much for just showing us how this is really impacting you as a small business owner and so many others. We appreciate it.

WELLS: Thanks for having me.

KEILAR: And next, did E.T. phone home? We might find out soon, people.

President Trump says he's ordering government agencies to release files related to extraterrestrial life. They're out there. Are they out there?

Maybe. Hopefully we'll find out. Stay with us.

[15:50:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: To quote the X-Files, the truth is out there and perhaps we will soon know a little bit more. Now that President Trump says he's going to direct the Pentagon and other government agencies to release government records related to aliens.

Let's talk about this with our resident alien, CNN Chief Data Analyst, Harry Enten. Harry, a lot of Americans believe that we are not alone.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN CHIEF DATA ANALYST: Do you believe we're alone?

SANCHEZ: I don't know. I got other things.

ENTEN: Fair enough. It's a Friday. There's been a lot of news that are out there.

I'll put it that way. But just take a look at this. Americans who believe in aliens.

In 1997, it was 49 percent. Look at this. Look at this.

By 2021, it was up to two-thirds of Americans who now believe in aliens. So despite the fact that Boris is unsure, Americans are increasingly sure that there is, in fact, something out there.

SANCHEZ: I mean, there might be. There might not. It gets complicated.

We don't have enough time for that. Do Americans think, though, that we'll someday have contact with creatures from other galaxies?

ENTEN: So, OK, so you know what? They believe that their aliens are out there. But will we ever actually have contact with them?

Have humans had contact with aliens? 7 percent say we already have. I don't know if they look like that.

Maybe in someone's dream. You might have seen that guy. Maybe on the big screen.

We will, 39 percent, and then won't ever, 49 percent. So despite the fact that the clear majority of Americans believe that there's something out there, you see the plurality think that, in fact, we won't. We won't ever actually have contact with them.

SANCHEZ: I'm from Florida. You see this guy. He's on every corner.

ENTEN: Oh, that's true. That's a Florida man.

SANCHEZ: What about UFOs, though? Are they really unidentifiable?

ENTEN: Yes. OK. Are UFOs truly unidentifiable?

So, OK, UFO sightings that go unexplained by the U.S. government, about 2 percent to 5 percent are truly unexplained. The vast, vast majority of these supposed UFO sightings are actually explainable. But hey, there's a small percentage that the government says, you know what?

We don't know exactly what's cooking.

SANCHEZ: That's what they want you to think.

ENTEN: That's true.

SANCHEZ: They tell you it's identifiable within their level of knowledge.

ENTEN: Yes.

SANCHEZ: What's the chance the government will actually confirm that there is extraterrestrial life, at least according to prediction markets?

ENTEN: OK. So, you know, you see the 66 percent who believe that aliens are real. But are we actually going to get the government, the U.S. executive branch, to admit that the aliens are real?

Well, just 21 percent chance, just a 21 percent chance by the end of this year that the U.S. government, U.S. executive branch will actually say that, in fact, aliens are truly out there and they are real. That's what they're saying. That's where the people are putting their money and where their mouth is on Cauchy at 21 percent.

But I don't believe in the 21 percent. I do say they are real. They are real, Boris.

They are real. How else do you explain me?

SANCHEZ: Sounds like a confession to me. Harry Enten, thank you so much. We'll be right back. Stay with us.

[15:55:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: Now to some of the other headlines that we're watching this hour. The state of West Virginia is suing Apple, alleging the company is allowing users to store child sex abuse materials on its iCloud service. The lawsuit says federal law requires that companies must report illegal content they detect.

And then in 2023, Google filed nearly one and a half million reports compared to just 267 for Apple. Apple says protecting children is central to what the company does and pointed to multiple safety features that blur illicit images and give warnings.

Also, President Trump's vision for that huge arch here in Washington, D.C., is facing a legal challenge. Three Vietnam War veterans and an architectural historian are suing to block the construction of the proposed Independence Arch. They say the planned location would obstruct the symbolic and inspiring view between Arlington National Cemetery and the Lincoln Memorial and dishonor veterans, military and foreign service. The White House defended the plans in a statement to CNN, saying in part the arch will enhance the visitor experience at Arlington.

SANCHEZ: And the Mexican Navy intercepting a submarine carrying up to four tons of cocaine. It happened along the Pacific Ocean on Thursday off the country's west coast, according to a Mexico security chief. Officials say three people were arrested during the operation.

They say these maritime missions made it possible to seize nearly 10 tons of cocaine in just the last week.

So this is the story that we've been waiting to get to since our morning meeting this morning. And it is going to tug your heartstrings and maybe make you go bananas.

After being abandoned by his mother at birth in Ichikawa City Zoo in Japan, a six-month-old macaque monkey named Punch found comfort in a stuffed orangutan plushie.

KEILAR: Boris, he pitched this story, by the way.

SANCHEZ: You know I did.

KEILAR: Yes, and it's a good one. Oh my gosh. I have to read, but I just want to look at him.

He's so cute. OK, so video of that young monkey just dragging that IKEA toy around instantly went viral. It has captured the hearts of thousands and the two of us.

And zookeepers say they've noticed Punch slowly start to blend in with other monkeys in the troop, but he never forgets to bring along his best pal.

SANCHEZ: I have to do a quick fact check. Some of the other monkeys have been hostile to Punch.

KEILAR: Oh, correct.

SANCHEZ: And have rolled him around, pushed him away. And he always goes back to the plush monkey. So anyone out there that's ever been alienated or ostracized or felt left out, Punch is there.

And slowly but surely, he'll make friends. He'll adapt. Or some of us may go over there and show those mean monkeys how to be nice.

[16:00:00]

KEILAR: That's right. Because if Punch is there for us, we kind of have to be there for Punch, right?

SANCHEZ: Yes. We also have to eat up some like 10 seconds.

KEILAR: More monkey. No, "THE ARENA" with Kasie Hunt starts right now. Thanks for joining us.

END