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The Situation Room

Meta Facing Antitrust Case; Trump Trade War Escalates; Ukraine- Russia Peace Talks Stalled?. Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired April 15, 2025 - 11:30   ET

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

[11:30:18]

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: Happening today: Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov saying -- quote -- "It's not easy" to forge a peace deal over Ukraine, even telling a Russian newspaper, there is no agreement at this point with the U.S. on key parts of a future deal.

The comments coming just days after White House envoy Steve Witkoff met with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: CNN contributor Jill Dougherty is with us here in THE SITUATION ROOM right now.

She's the author of a truly wonderful book just being released right now called "My Russia: What I Saw Inside the Kremlin."

Jill, you really have done an amazing job talking about what's going on.

JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN CONTRIBUTOR ON RUSSIAN AFFAIRS: Thank you, Wolf.

BLITZER: And it's so timely. Every -- almost every page, you learn something in this book.

BROWN: Yes.

BLITZER: Tell us a little bit. Do you agree with Lavrov, first of all, in his assessment?

DOUGHERTY: You know, I waited for the punchline, actually, when I was looking at that, because he's undoubtedly going to say, it's Ukraine's fault. They don't want an end to the war.

This is what Russia continues to say. And I think Putin, I truly believe, at this point does not want an end to the war. I think he feels that he can play it out, that things are going in his favor, which is really pretty horrible when you think of all the deaths just the other day on Palm Sunday.

BROWN: Yes.

DOUGHERTY: But I think he thinks he can play it out, divide the West. Maybe he will get a better deal from President Trump. And, you know, that's what he's doing. BROWN: Yes, you mentioned the Palm Sunday attack. That was the

deadliest attack in Ukraine this year. And it came...

BLITZER: And little kids were killed too.

BROWN: Little kids were killed.

DOUGHERTY: Oh, yes, yes.

BROWN: It was horrible, all these civilians.

And it's notable that it came days after the White House envoy Steve Witkoff met with Russian President Vladimir Putin. What message do you think Putin was sending with this?

DOUGHERTY: You know, I think, at this point, it's a campaign of terror, essentially, to make it feel inevitable to, unfortunately, Ukrainian civilians that nothing is going to -- that it will end really with the capitulation of their country, that they can't get out of this.

It's really psychological warfare. And then I think, for the United States and for the West, it's a message that, look, we're going to continue this. He excused it by saying that there were military -- Putin excused it by saying there were military there.

But, essentially, they're just going to drive it, which works with that narrative that, as President Trump says, there's so much destruction, we have to end this immediately.

But Putin continues to insist on his original demands, which are going to be very, very difficult for Ukraine.

BLITZER: And the book "My Russia: What I Saw Inside the Kremlin," you and I were both White House correspondents.

DOUGHERTY: Right.

BLITZER: We worked together during the Bill Clinton administration.

DOUGHERTY: Exactly.

BLITZER: And then you went off to Moscow to become our Moscow bureau chief.

BROWN: Right.

BLITZER: And the stories that you tell in this book are really amazing. What stands out to you? How relevant is everything you saw in those years to what's going on right now?

DOUGHERTY: You know, oddly enough, it begins with my fascination with Russia actually in high school.

BLITZER: And you speak Russian?

DOUGHERTY: I speak Russian, yes, quite well. I have got -- with an accent.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: I remember, when we were in our little booth in the West Wing of the White House, I would hear Jill getting on the phone speaking Russian.

BROWN: Wow. Wow.

(CROSSTALK)

DOUGHERTY: But I think, what I learned -- and I just told my students at Georgetown yesterday, what I learned being in the Soviet Union as an exchange student and early times in Russia, it was the Soviet experience.

And I would argue that right now Russia is becoming more and more Soviet. So I look at a lot of these events, what Putin's saying, the maneuvering, the manipulation, I would say, it reminds me very much of the Soviet Union. And that's the template that I'm using, sadly.

BLITZER: Very sadly, indeed.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: And when Trump seems to be siding with Putin, what's the impact of that?

DOUGHERTY: Oh, I think it's bad for the United States, because it is not a correct read of what actually is happening.

And it gives Putin the idea that he can just kind of play the United States, really. It's not good. I don't think it's good for the United States, certainly not good for Ukraine. And, ultimately, this war is bad for Russia.

But the price will be paid by young people, the next generation, that's really being destroyed.

BROWN: Innocent civilians, children.

BLITZER: Thanks so much, Jill, for writing this really, really wonderful book.

BROWN: Yes.

DOUGHERTY: Thank you very much.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: I learned a lot, and I'm sure everybody who reads it will learn a lot and get a little bit smarter.

BROWN: Absolutely. It's so relevant. It's so relevant.

BLITZER: Yes, it's so, so timely. BROWN: Thank you.

DOUGHERTY: Thank you.

BROWN: All right.

BLITZER: And just ahead: Small businesses are caught up in President Trump's escalating trade war. The steps one company is now taking to try to survive the tariffs.

[11:35:00]

That and a lot more coming up right here in THE SITUATION ROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: This week, President Trump hinted that the U.S. would soon impose new tariffs on electronic parts and pharmaceuticals, claiming it will encourage companies to move their factories stateside.

Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: All I have to do is impose a tariff. The more, the faster they move in. The higher the tariff, it's very -- it's inversely proportional. The higher the tariff, the faster they come.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: CNN's Tom Foreman is joining us right now over at the Magic Wall.

Tom, many economists have concerns about this correlation, but let's talk about the feasibility of bringing factories back to the United States. Let's start with how manufacturing jobs currently exist in the United States.

[11:40:09]

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That feasibility is tied, Wolf, directly to the correlation.

Manufacturing jobs in the United States, in 1970, 25 percent of them were manufacturing jobs, the jobs in this country. Today, it's 8 percent. That might make you think, as Trump apparently does, that there's this ocean of people out there in all those towns that were decimated by factories being shut down -- and that is real, they were impacted -- but there's this base of people out there dying to come in and take the new factory jobs.

But take a look at these numbers from this year, 4.2 percent unemployment rate in the manufacturing section -- sector. That's not a big deal. But this, this is a whopping thing. There are 482,000 manufacturing jobs that are open right now that they can't find workers for.

People do not necessarily line up for these jobs, or they may not have the skills for these jobs. One of the other issues here is A.I. and automation. This has been moving on so rapidly that the World Economic Forum survey says that 41 percent of businesses plan to downsize their work force across all industries because of automation.

What does that mean about the workers who are involved? They're going to have to be more advanced in their knowledge. These aren't people sewing shoes or blue jeans. They have to be able to repair robots. They need to work at higher levels of engineering and design.

So the real focus here might be on education for people to take the existing manufacturing jobs or the future ones, as opposed to trying to bring back the old ones. The leading countries in manufacturing output, the United States is actually kind of in the game, 12 percent of the national output, but 18 percent of global manufacturing is in the United States right now.

That's just behind China, where it represents 27 percent of their national output. And here's a really key part that you have to look at in all of this. This has already been improved. The CHIPS Act, which came along in 2020, was signed in by President Biden a couple years later, 90 new semiconductor ecosystem projects launched out of that, 58,000 new direct jobs, $450 billion in private investments across 28 states.

Donald Trump has called the CHIPS Act horrible, horrible, but he hasn't been able to get rid of it. In fact, he just recently rebranded it with a new title office that will oversee it in his administration, sort of laying claim to it.

The bottom line is, there are ways to bring back more jobs like this, Wolf. The indication is, tariffs may not be it. It's a bit like saying we will bring back romance by putting in more malt shops and porch swings. That's an old vision that may not work, and it may push America aside from a new vision that could work -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Tom Foreman, Pamela has a quick question for you.

FOREMAN: Sure.

BROWN: Yes, just one quick question for you. That was really informative.

How does this impact other jobs in other sectors? So by imposing these tariffs to bring back manufacturing jobs, could that potentially hurt other sectors in the U.S.?

FOREMAN: It certainly can, because the economy is so interconnected in many ways. Every job that's out there, every factory that's out there, their support related to it.

I look at some of the car companies that set up here over the past decades, Hyundai and Kia and Mercedes. Those communities, if you go and visit the place where those were put in, you will see ancillary businesses all over the place that often represent small manufacturing.

But, again, these are manufacturing efforts that look ahead and require special skills, not that look backward and simply say, oh, there are a bunch of people out there who might be handy with a sewing kit. That's not the way this works at all. So, yes, there is absolutely a link here.

The idea that you can bring back some kind of manufacturing is something that many people might get behind. But the idea that tariffs, cutting off goods that Americans have shown they don't really want to make here, not at those wages and not at the prices that would bring here, that may not work.

BLITZER: Tom Foreman, thank you very, very much -- Pamela.

BROWN: Thank you so much, Tom.

And small business owners, they are caught in the middle of President Trump's escalating trade war.

Price Johnson is the chief operating officer at Cephalofair Games. That's a small board game design and publishing company.

So, Price, you just heard what Tom laid out. How are these tariffs impacting your business?

PRICE JOHNSON, COO, CEPHALOFAIR GAMES: Good morning, Pamela. Thank you for this opportunity to talk about what our business and our -- frankly, our industry as a whole is going through.

Our company, our situation right now, the fact is, is, we went into manufacturing on our latest product line at zero percent tariffs, before we had any wind of what even a potential tariff percentage was we were looking at.

Currently, we have completed that production run, and I have got about just under $1.2 million worth of product that has been produced. This is about 60,000 total units of product, about 25 40-foot containers that would need to be coming over to the U.S. right now, which we're being told, unless we pay the U.S. government a 145 percent tariff tax bill, we're not getting that product, it's staying over there.

[11:45:24]

And we're going to need to pivot essentially all of our U.S. sales operations and figure out how to make our retail products viable again.

BROWN: So, you can't afford that, essentially, is what you're saying?

JOHNSON: No, that's impossible. We have essentially been told to cease our U.S. sales indefinitely, at least until things settle and we have confidence again in the market, which has just honestly been shook.

And that's been one of the hardest things is the daily volatility, the reasoning as to why we're in this trade war to begin with. Is it fentanyl? Is it to bring back U.S. manufacturing? Is it just purely negotiations and we should be holding on? The story keeps changing.

So we can't plan around that. Right now, I couldn't tell you what our pricing would even need to be in the United States to make our products viable because it changes every other day. So we can't plan our business around that. Right now, we're being put into a position where we have to actively look at how to expand our business outside of the U.S., because domestic options for the products we make don't exist.

BROWN: So -- wow, so you're saying, because of all of this, now you can't even sell your products in the U.S. You're having to move everything overseas.

Have you looked at domestic manufacturing options, rather than relying on China and other countries?

JOHNSON: Thank you for that question. I think it's a really important one and I think it's one that a lot of Americans right now -- I can understand and I can respect the desire to see more domestic manufacturing. I think we all want more American jobs, right? We want every American employed.

And I would be the first in line to support programs and policies that promote a long road map to getting us those options. But, right now, those options don't exist. I can't stand them up overnight. We don't own our factories overseas. We partner with manufacturers that have grown to know our product over 10 years that have entirely custom machinery and materials and raw materials that they use in our products.

It's a 100 percent custom product. And if I were to take that, even something as simple as a book -- I have quoted a book, just a hardcover book in the last week here domestically. My cost goes to three or four times before I even have that product in hand. We're talking just a simple hard -- hardback book.

We produce immensely more complex products in entirely higher -- higher quantities. Our last major project was about 100 40-foot ocean containers out of China, not just capability-wise. I can't approach anything close to that volume here domestically either. Yet I have got a dozen manufacturers on my Rolodex that I could go with and have a bid back within the week over in China.

BROWN: So I want to ask you this, because I was listening to the President Trump recently in the Oval Office, and he signaled that he is open to negotiations with top CEOs for opt-outs from his tariffs. Notably, he hasn't said anything about the smaller business owners. It seems more targeted toward the CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, and so forth.

And I wonder, how does that make you feel? Do you feel like you have a road into the White House to plead your case and get an opt-out of the tariffs, or do you not? Do you feel left behind?

JOHNSON: As a small business owner, what this feels like is entirely a kingmaking-type situation, right, is we have entire industries like the board game publishing industry that has been brought to a complete standstill.

I'm in a group of about 60 publishers, all of whom are having to cease production. We're all collaborating to find creative options, domestic options. We're vetting them. And there's no solutions right now. So to turn off entire industries and then one by one kind of play kingmaker and say, yes, you get to do business again, like cell phones, or you get to do business again, like I hear apparently we may be pausing automotive, toys -- toys and games are one of the largest exports from China to the U.S.

So, it -- we're already in the sort of danger zone this holiday season and what that's going to look like. And where we're at right now is, it means significantly fewer choices, higher prices. Our products are no longer retail-viable. So all the brick-and-mortar mom-and-pop shops, of which we work with over 600 mom-and-pop independently owned toy stores, comic book stores, game stores, they're not getting our product.

Their shelves are going to be empty. They're all facing foreclosures, bankruptcies.

BROWN: Yes, the ripple effect.

JOHNSON: Our whole industry is -- and it's a ripple effect.

[11:50:00]

BROWN: OK.

JOHNSON: And so this is taxation without representation. I can't get ahold of my congressman, Kevin Kiley, here in California. No one's answering our calls. We don't feel represented.

And it just feels like we're being made to suffer until who knows when.

BROWN: Well, we will certainly follow up. That's a big claim about the congressman, not being able to reach them. So we will follow up on that for sure.

Price Johnson, thank you so much.

We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Right now, Mark Zuckerberg is back in court.

[11:55:00]

BLITZER: His company Meta faces a blockbuster antitrust case. The U.S. government alleges Facebook's parent company illegally built a social networking monopoly.

BROWN: All right, let's go to CNN business writer Clare Duffy in New York.

Clare, a somewhat unexpected appearance, right, from Zuckerberg yesterday. What has he said so far?

CLARE DUFFY, CNN BUSINESS WRITER: Yes, it was an unexpected appearance.

Big first two days in this trial, with Zuckerberg taking the stand immediately after opening statements yesterday. He, of course, is there to defend two of his company's most important acquisitions, Instagram and WhatsApp. And, to that end, much of the FTC questioning of Zuckerberg so far has focused on his thinking and his internal communications ahead of the 2012 acquisition of Instagram and the 2014 acquisition of WhatsApp.

For example, the FTC's lawyer presented one e-mail from November 2012, just months after the Instagram acquisition. This is from Mark Zuckerberg to then-COO Sheryl Sandberg talking about Meta's technology teams.

And Zuckerberg says: "They are executing well technically, but their results this year are only OK so far. Messenger isn't beating WhatsApp. Instagram was growing so much faster than us that we had to buy them for $1 billion. That's not exactly killing it."

And these kinds of questions could play into the FTC's argument that Meta acquired these platforms in order to squash competition. We are expecting to see Meta's lawyers question Zuckerberg next, and we will get a better sense of their argument once they start with that questioning.

BROWN: All right, Clare Duffy, thank you so much.

BLITZER: And to our viewers, thanks very much for joining us this morning.

"INSIDE POLITICS WITH DANA BASH" is coming up next, right after a short break.