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Early Start with Rahel Solomon

Mark Carney Wins Liberal Party Vote to Replace Trudeau As Canada's New Prime Minister; Trump Touts Renewed Peace Talks with Ukraine; King Charles III Releases a Playlist of Artists on Apple Music to Celebrate Commonwealth Day in March 2025. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired March 10, 2025 - 05:00   ET

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

[05:00:00]

RAHEL SOLOMON, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, tunes for Monday morning to get you started off right, hello and a warm welcome to our viewers joining us from the U.S. and all around the world, I'm Rahel Solomon, it is Monday, March 10th, 5:00 a.m., exactly here in New York, also 5:00 a.m. in Ottawa.

That's where the man set to become Canada's next Prime Minister is striking a defiant tone in the face of threats from the U.S. President. Former central banker Mark Carney has been elected as the Liberal Party's leader and successor to Justin Trudeau. Now, among the biggest issues that he will face, growing tensions between Canada and the U.S.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARK CARNEY, PRIME MINISTER-ELECT OF CANADA: He's attacking Canadian families, workers and businesses, and we cannot let him succeed.

(CHEERS)

(APPLAUSE)

CARNEY: And we won't. We won't. And to respond, my government will put into action our plan to build a stronger economy, to create new trading relationships with reliable trading partners.

(CHEERS)

CARNEY: And to secure our borders. And my government will keep our tariffs on until the Americans show us respect.

(CHEERS)

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SOLOMON: Now, those comments come as President Donald Trump ramps up his trade war, suggesting that upcoming tariffs on some goods from Canada could go higher. President Trump, defending his use of tariffs, saying that they will benefit the country.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, I think the tariffs are going to be the greatest thing we've ever done as a country. It's going to make our country rich again. We have many companies, as you know, auto companies that are opening up plants now, we've had 4 or 5 announced already, but many more are coming.

And we're basically going to take back the money, and a lot of the money that we've given away over many decades.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SOLOMON: Now, there's been a lot of back and forth in Trump's tariff moves over the past week. On Tuesday, you might remember that he imposed tariffs on goods from Canada, Mexico and China. But on Wednesday, he temporarily paused tariffs on some automakers. Then on Thursday, he reversed course, pausing some tariffs on Mexico and Canada for a month.

But just one day later, he threatened tariffs on Canadian dairy and lumber products. On Sunday, meantime, the U.S. Commerce Secretary said that some of the delayed tariffs will now start on April 2nd. And President Trump's chaotic tariff fight isn't one sided, though some trade partners also pushing back. Amy Kiley has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CARNEY: In trade, as in hockey, Canada will win.

AMY KILEY, CNN NEWSOURCE (voice-over): Some American trade partners are cracking down on U.S. exports. Starting today, American farmers face new retaliatory tariffs on many products they send to China. The measures include an extra 15 percent duty on chicken, wheat, corn and cotton, and a 10 percent one on items such as beef and soybeans.

Some American farmers say they're worried escalating trade tensions could make it harder to sell their products abroad.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everything we've produced far exceeds what the domestic market could handle.

KILEY: Meanwhile, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's newly- elected successor is standing by Canada's retaliation against the U.S.

CARNEY: And my government will keep our tariffs on until the Americans show us respect.

KILEY: President Donald Trump is doubling down. He says some tariffs on Canadian and Mexican goods scheduled for April 2nd, quote, "could go up". Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick says duties on steel and aluminum imports are set to start Wednesday. Most mainstream economists say tariffs can be inflationary. Lutnick acknowledges some prices might rise in the U.S., but Trump says any pain would be short term.

[05:05:00]

MARIA BARTIROMO, FOX BUSINESS NETWORK: Are you expecting a recession this year?

TRUMP: I hate to predict things like that. There is a period of transition because what we're doing is very big. We're bringing wealth back to America.

KILEY: I'm Amy Kiley reporting.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SOLOMON: Now, the Friday deadline to avoid a government shutdown is fast approaching. The U.S. President Donald Trump is warning that a shutdown could happen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is there going to be a government shutdown at the end of this week?

TRUMP: It could happen. I mean, the Democrats want that. They want to destroy the country. So, I can't tell you, but it could happen. It shouldn't have happened and it probably won't. I think the CR is going to get passed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SOLOMON: Republican-led House is expected to vote Tuesday on a funding package that Trump supports, and that would keep the U.S. government running until September 30th. But lawmakers on both sides expressing their concerns.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. BRIAN FITZPATRICK (R-PA): The construct in this country is if you get 218 votes, you get everything, and if you get 217 votes, you get nothing. And that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. So, the reason that we do what we do is we want two party solutions, including on the CR. So, it remains to be seen whether the votes are there or not.

But I think we're really going to be learning over the next 24 hours what's in it and what's not in it.

REP. TOM SUOZZI (D-NY): In the case of the CR, there's been offers to negotiate and there's been very little negotiation. It's kind of been my way or the highway type of thing. And I think that's going to go on for a while. I think that the leadership is going to try and do my way or the highway for a while, and then at some point, they're going to need Democratic votes, and then people will start negotiating.

(END VIDEO CLIP) SOLOMON: All right, let's get to Stephen Neukam; a congressional

reporter with "Axios". He joins me now from Washington. Stephen, great to have you this morning. We'll get to the action on Capitol Hill in just a moment. But first, let's actually stick with the tariffs in this upcoming-incoming talk --

STEPHEN NEUKAM, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, AXIOS: Yes --

SOLOMON: From the leader on trade from Canada. Talk to me a little bit, Stephen, about what seems to now be this acknowledgment from the administration that, at least in the short term, prices for some goods will go up. We also just heard Trump there in that interview with Fox Business, suggesting that, you know, he doesn't want to get into predicting whether there will be a recession or not.

Obviously, he was voted-in on these issues, on the economy, on prices going down, on a strong economy. What are you hearing from Republican lawmakers in terms of these economic concerns so early into his -- into his term and what it means for them back home?

NEUKAM: Yes, look, I think that Republicans are trying to keep up with everything that the President is doing. I heard a number of them on Capitol Hill last week, quip that it was hard to sort of keep up with the changes of the tariff policy that the President seems to be shifting around on an almost daily basis at this point.

But, look, I think a number of them acknowledge that, yes, there could be a short term sort of rise in prices and hardship to folks' pocketbooks. And I know that they hope that it is short term, because November 2026 is right around the corner when a number of Senate Republicans and every single House Republican faces voters.

So, they do acknowledge it, and I think they will give the President a little bit of leeway to enact his platform. This is what he was elected to do. But they hope that the inflation -- inflationary pressures of the tariffs come down at some point.

SOLOMON: On the spending bill that House Speaker Mike Johnson put forward over the weekend, what are you hearing on that? Does he have the votes to get it across? What are you expecting?

NEUKAM: Well, we don't know if he has the votes. We should see early this week. He presumably already has one know, and then Representative Thomas Massie, which means he -- if everybody is present, he can't lose another vote. He has pulled things like this off before, very slim margins. If he does get it through the House without Democratic help, then it gets shipped over to the Senate where no matter what, it's going to need at least seven Democratic votes, probably more to get it through the Senate and signed into law to avoid a shutdown at the end of this week.

So, all eyes on Johnson first. But if he can get this lift done through the House, and it puts an enormous amount of pressure on Senate Democrats to join with Republicans to avert a shutdown.

SOLOMON: Yes, and to that point, I mean, Senator Andy Kim was on State of the Union yesterday, and my colleague Jake Tapper asked him several times how he was prepared to vote. Take a listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. ANDY KIM (D-NJ): It's not simple yet because we don't know what the House is going to do. So, again, I'm going to see what happens with the House going first, and then we'll see what comes over to the Senate, if anything. But I still do think that there's an opportunity here to try to push.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SOLOMON: Yes, so, what do you think there? I mean, are Democrats willing to perhaps vote for shutdown in this scenario? I mean, what are you hearing?

[05:10:00]

NEUKAM: Well, they've been keeping their cards very close to their chests. Andy Kim actually is a Democrat who went on television earlier last month and actually sort of got ahead of a sche(ph), suggested that he would withhold his vote from government funding. Senate Democrats since that moment have sort of been a lot more conservative in talking about how they'll deal with the situation.

Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer has told them privately to do that, to give leadership as much cover as possible. But the reality for Democrats is they're facing a lot of pressure from their voters, from the grassroots to do more, to stop Trump and Republicans.

And the reality is that they don't have much leverage except for this government shutdown that's coming up at the end of this week. And what they're weighing is the political viability of shutting the government down to stand in the way of the DOGE cuts, and what they say is the destruction of the first, you know, two months of the Trump administration.

SOLOMON: Yes, I mean, it's really shaping up to be an eventful week for both Washington and Wall Street. I mean, Washington with the spending deal and spending bill and Wall Street with the big inflation report on Wednesday and all of the volatility that we've seen. Stephen Neukam, we appreciate you getting up early to be with us. Thank you.

NEUKAM: Thank you.

SOLOMON: For the first time since last month's disastrous Oval Office meeting, the U.S. will hold face-to-face talks with Ukraine. Coming up, what President Trump is saying about it. Plus, New York launching an investigation into the Brush Fires burning on Long Island. Still to come, the latest on the state's firefighting efforts over the weekend.

And Canada's oldest brewery is giving fellow Canadians a reason to say cheers in the face of Trump's tariffs. We'll have all that and more straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:15:00]

SOLOMON: Welcome back. And right now, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is on his way to Saudi Arabia, where he will meet with Ukrainian officials. It will be the first face-to-face talks between the U.S. and Ukraine since the Oval Office shouting match between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. And Mr. Trump is predicting that very big things will come from this week's talks with Kyiv.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: The big meeting's coming up, as you know in Saudi Arabia, and that's going to include Russia, it will be Ukraine, we'll see if we can get something done. I'd like to get something done. A lot of people died this week, as you know, in Ukraine, not only Ukrainians but Russians. So, I think everybody wants to see it get done. We're going to make a lot of progress I believe this week.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SOLOMON: Let's go to CNN's Clare Sebastian, she joins us live from London. Clare, good morning. But what can we expect from this visit?

CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Rahel, this is clearly a really critical week of talks. The main event will be on Tuesday when, as you say, this will be the first face-to-face meeting between U.S. and Ukrainian officials since that Oval Office spat. And I think there are a number of key questions that we may get more answers to this week.

Number one, can the U.S. and Ukraine move beyond that Oval Office spat and sort of rebuild a working relationship there? What does Ukraine have to do? I think is another key question to unlock the now suspended U.S. aid and Intelligence sharing. Will it be enough to sign that mineral deal that was, of course, supposed to be signed on that Friday, a week and a half ago in the Oval Office? Take a listen to a little bit more from President Trump last night speaking to reporters on Air Force One.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Well, I think they will sign the minerals deal, but we want them to -- I want them to want peace. Right now --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How do they show that? How do they show it?

TRUMP: Well, right now, they haven't shown it to the extent that they should. I think right now they haven't. But I think they will be. And I think it's going to become evident over the next 2 or 3 days.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SEBASTIAN: So, it's not, I think clear at this point what exactly Ukraine has to do to unlock that aid, to show that it cares about the pursuit of peace, which I think is a concept that is, that is alien to many in Ukraine who are desperate for the violence to end. And I think another key question that obviously will be looked at is the core question of what could a peace plan look like?

President Zelenskyy seems to have endorsed a plan originally proposed by French President Emmanuel Macron to cease fire, initially in the air and sea, and stop long-range attacks on energy infrastructure as sort of a first phase, a confidence building measure. It remains to be seen whether the U.S. will get behind that.

And then I think moving forward, clearly how Russia reacts is going to be critical. Russia has come out and sort of rejected a lot of the ideas put forward so far. We know that it does not want a minerals deal to happen between the U.S. and Ukraine. We know that it rejects the idea of European peacekeepers on the ground as part of a peace settlement.

We know that it's against freezing the line in place. The Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov made that pretty clear a week or so ago where he said that Russia wants to move beyond and occupy the four regions that it's illegally annexed. And we know that they're against -- this came from the Foreign Ministry spokeswoman last week, against any sort of interim ceasefire.

At this point, they want a final settlement to avoid the prospect of Ukraine being able to regroup and re-arm. So, that's what we know from Russia at the moment. CNN had reported, I should say that U.S. and Russian officials could be speaking -- this came from a source familiar with the matter this week in Saudi Arabia.

We heard today via Russian state media from the Foreign Ministry spokeswoman in Moscow, saying that they had no plans for that as of now. So, the Russian position not really clear at this point, but what is clear is that they are taking full advantage of this moment of weakness for Ukraine, now devoid of U.S. or most U.S. Intelligence sharing and facing possible imminent shortages of U.S. equipment.

[05:20:00]

Aerial attacks have been stepping up, another more than 170 drones fired overnight on top of a major missile and drone attack that we saw on Friday. And take a look at this video here, Rahel. This is something that CNN has geolocated to a town in the Kursk region. Russian and we think Chechen flags flying there. This is a town some 10 kilometers away from the critical town of Sudzha in the Kursk region.

Military bloggers on both sides talking about a serious risk of Ukrainian supply lines being cut off and the Kursk occupation by Ukraine was supposed to be a critical bargaining chip as they head towards peace talks. It's clear Russia is now trying to deny them that leverage.

SOLOMON: Clare Sebastian reporting for us there in London. Clare, thank you. We'll check back with you throughout the week. There is a new report that Hamas does not oppose releasing Edan Alexander; the only living American hostage believed to be remaining in Gaza according to Hamas affiliate TV reports. It's part of the negotiations to end the war with Israel. U.S. President Donald Trump's special envoy for hostages told CNN that he's optimistic that a truce is within reach.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ADAM BOEHLER, U.S. ENVOY FOR HOSTAGES: I think something could come together within weeks. I will say that I believe there is enough there to make a deal between what Hamas wants and what they've accepted and what Israel wants, and it's accepted. And I think it -- I think there is a deal where they can get all of the prisoners out, not just the Americans.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SOLOMON: And Israel says that it has cut off electricity to Gaza as it puts pressure on Hamas to accept a deal. The move will mainly affect a waste-water treatment facility, the last place in the enclave that was still receiving power from Israel. A prominent Palestinian activist has been arrested by U.S. immigration officials.

Mahmoud Khalil, who helped lead Columbia University's student encampment protest against the war in Gaza was taken into custody at his university-owned apartment late Saturday. Now, according to his attorney, one of the agents said that they were executing a State Department order to revoke his student visa.

When the attorney told them that he had graduated and was in the U.S. as a permanent resident with a green card, they said that they were revoking that, too. This comes as President Trump has vowed to deport foreign students and imprison so-called agitators involved in, quote, "illegal protests". A 29-year-old man has been charged with trespassing and will appear in a London court today after police arrested him Saturday night for scaling the world famous tower that houses the Big Ben.

The barefoot protester climbing up the side of the Elizabeth Tower and perched on a ledge for hours clutching a Palestinian flag. The protester also posted this dramatic video online before firefighters lowered him to safety. South Korea says that North Korea test fired multiple ballistic missiles on Monday.

This comes as South Korea and the U.S. kick off their annual joint military drills. South Korea's joint chiefs of staff say that the missiles were close-range ballistic missiles which have a range of about 320 kilometers or less than 200 miles. They were fired toward the Yellow Sea between North and China, Korea -- North Korea and China.

These are the first North Korean ballistic missile tests since U.S. President Donald Trump took office in his second term. And still ahead, President Trump promising to bring down the price of groceries. We'll find out this week how that's going. That story and the rest of this week's top business stories straight ahead. Plus, a small plane crashing into the parking lot of a retirement community. We'll have details on this incident when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:25:00]

SOLOMON: All right, an update now on where U.S. futures stand ahead of Monday's opening bell. And it is a new week, but same pressures affecting the markets. It seemed like with all of the futures looking open to -- looking set to open solidly lower. I will tell you that Wednesday we get that major inflation report for the month of February.

The consumer price index, now that could be the next catalyst, perhaps to the upside or to the downside. But again this morning, it is still early. But futures look set to open solidly lower. So watch that space. And Anna Stewart has been watching that space and has a look ahead at this week's biggest business stories.

ANNA STEWART, CNN REPORTER: Rahel, let me run you through the key things the business world is following this week. President Trump called on the U.S. to drill, baby drill on the campaign trail. This week, we'll get a chance to hear if top oil and gas CEOs are on board. They'll be gathering in Houston all week for the CERAWeek Energy Conference.

Inflation is going to be the other big talking point in the U.S. On Wednesday, we get the crucial consumer price index numbers. Inflation has been creeping back up in the U.S., even as Trump promises to bring those prices down. Those numbers out at 8:38 Eastern Time, just after your show comes off air.

And the economic data keeps coming for the U.S., we will get another idea of just how the average person is feeling about the U.S. economy on Friday. That's when we get consumer sentiment data from the University of Michigan. And remember, all of this economic information is being closely watched by the U.S. Federal Reserve. They're set to decide on U.S. Interest rates on March 19th. But that is something you and I can talk about next week. Back to you Rahel.

SOLOMON: All right, thank you Anna Stewart. President Trump meantime downplaying the destructive impact that his tariffs could have on the U.S. economy, markets reacting poorly to the whiplash. They've been up, they've been down. They've been everywhere in-between. But the Trump administration meantime is painting a sunny picture.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARTIROMO: Are you expecting a recession this year?

TRUMP: I hate to predict things like that. There is a period of transition, because what we're doing is very big. We're bringing wealth back to America.