Trump to hit Canada, Mexico and China with tariffs beginning Saturday | The Excerpt
On Saturday’s episode of The Excerpt podcast: Paste BN White House Correspondent Joey Garrison breaks down President Donald Trump's announcement of new tariffs. A Medevac jet crashed into a residential Philadelphia neighborhood Friday evening, with six people on board. Officials recover the helicopter's black box after this week's collision. Remember the victims here. Mexico’s president explains why Google shouldn't rename the Gulf of Mexico. Paste BN White House and Congress Editor Darren Samuelsohn gives us a look at some of the editorial decisions during a tragic week for the country in our Editor's Note segment.
Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.
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Taylor Wilson:
Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson. Today is Saturday, February 1st, 2025. This is The Excerpt. Today Trump announces new tariffs, plus we have the latest on a residential plane crash in Philadelphia, and we talked with an editor about what it was like covering this challenging week for America.
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President Donald Trump said yesterday he will impose new tariffs beginning today on Canada, Mexico and China. I caught up with Paste BN White House correspondent Joey Garrison to learn more. Joey, thanks as always for making some time today.
Joey Garrison:
Yeah, thanks for having me on.
Taylor Wilson:
So Joey, what exactly did President Trump announce here with these tariffs and what led up to this point? I know you and I have spoken previously about this.
Joey Garrison:
Yeah, the White House confirmed and then President Trump himself said that he, on Saturday, today, will be imposing 25% tariffs on imports both from Canada and Mexico, as well as a 10% tariff on goods from China. Now, he's talked about these for a long time. He says that they're aimed at each country essentially for allowing fentanyl to come over the border. He's accused China of producing the fentanyl that then goes to the United States both through Mexico and Canada. It's also, of course, aimed at what he's said for a long time, migrants unlawfully coming through the U.S.-Mexico border. He talked about these tariffs initially after he was elected, and so he's finally planning to go through with them on Saturday.
Taylor Wilson:
And Joey, have we heard any response from either Canadian, Mexican or Chinese leaders after this move?
Joey Garrison:
Prime Minister Trudeau of Canada said there's going to be a forceful response from Canada. He didn't exactly specify what that means, but I think we can assume it probably means tariffs on U.S exports, imports for Canada. And Canada is a huge trading partner with the United States. We get a number of goods from there, particularly crude oil, things like wood, lumber, various appliances, and usually these types of tariffs that adds money for the companies that they have to pay this tax, and so that then gets pushed down, often with higher cost of goods, it gets pushed down to consumers. So there's an inflationary concern with these types of moves. Now, Trump was asked on Friday whether he has any concerns with inflation and he downplayed it, said tariffs are a big success. He did acknowledge that there could be disruption for a little bit, he said, but the American people will understand that.
Taylor Wilson:
Well, Joey, things have been moving really quickly over these first few days, now into a couple of weeks of this Trump administration. Is there any sense on kind of how permanent this move is or could we see any shift even beyond this going forward?
Joey Garrison:
First of all, with these particular tariffs, he said for the oil imports from Canada, that he's looking more at a lower 10% tariff for that. We will see when this is all in written paper here later today, on Saturday. But yeah, he's also talked about sweeping tariffs on individual goods, so steel, aluminum, copper. He's also talked about pharmaceuticals. He's talked about semiconductors, computer chips, so individual tariffs on those. He even was asked about the European Union and imports coming from Europe and said absolutely he will put tariffs on those goods as well. So we knew he was a big fan of tariffs, he did this during the first term a lot, but not really to this degree. He's often talked about it historically. He's compared himself to President William McKinley of the late 19th century who was known for big tariffs then and says we need to get to that sort of success back to this country. And so he's really making a statement on this.
He used it as for leverage, whether it's talking about foreign policy type things or in the case of trying to accomplish his domestic agenda on migrants, using that as retaliation against Mexico. So really it's just a major staple of his approach to the White House.
Taylor Wilson:
Joey Garrison, Paste BN, White House correspondent. Joey, the news never stops. Thanks for hopping on.
Joey Garrison:
No, it doesn't. Thank you very much.
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Taylor Wilson:
A medevac jet crashed in a residential area of Philadelphia yesterday evening causing an explosion that briefly lit up the sky as horrified residents took cover. Jet Rescue Air ambulance confirmed its aircraft had crashed in Philadelphia with four crew members, a pediatric patient and the child's escort. Shriners Children's Hospital in Philadelphia said the child was with her mother. The hospital said the patient was being transported back to her home country of Mexico on a contracted air ambulance when the crash happened. Officials stressed overnight that the death toll was unconfirmed and there were worries it might rise after some homes and vehicles in the area of the crash were set on fire.
Search crews recovered 41 bodies from the Potomac River after the collision of a passenger plane and a U.S army helicopter killed 67 people in the deadliest aviation disaster in over two decades in the country, officials said. National Transportation Safety Board member, Todd Inman, said in a news briefing yesterday evening that the helicopter's black box had been recovered and appears to be in good condition. NTSB officials had previously confirmed Thursday that the two black boxes from the airplane were also secured. All of the recorders are at NTSB sites for evaluation. Meanwhile, the army has identified two of the soldiers aboard the Black Hawk helicopter as 28-year-old Staff Sergeant Ryan Austin O'Hara of Lilburn, Georgia, and 39-year-old Chief Warrant Officer Two Andrew Lloyd Eaves of Great Mills, Maryland. The name of the third soldier is being withheld at the request of the family, the Army said.
In addition to the soldiers, the victims of Wednesday's collision include a pilot who was planning to be married in the fall, a student heading back to college after a funeral, an attorney returning home on her birthday, a Philippine police colonel, a group of teenage figure skaters, as well as their parents and coaches and two Chinese citizens. Melissa Gregory, a former Olympic skater and friend of victims, said the skating community has been devastated.
Melissa Gregory:
Everybody across the globe is feeling the effects of this loss whether or not they knew anybody personally that was on the flight or not.
Taylor Wilson:
You can read more about the victims and their stories with a link in today's show notes.
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Mexico's president Claudia Sheinbaum says she sent a letter to Google asking the company not to comply with President Donald Trump's order to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America on its maps app. Sheinbaum showed the letter to reporters during a news conference this week. She said that her letter to Google argues that the United States cannot unilaterally rename the body of water since it shares it with Cuba and Mexico. The Mexican government says the United Nations Convention on the law of the sea dictates that an individual country's sovereign territory only extends up to 12 nautical miles out from the coastline, she said. Google, though, said on Social Media Monday it will apply the name change when it has been updated in official government sources.
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The second week of President Donald Trump's new era in office is coming to a close and it was, of course, overshadowed by a devastating plane and helicopter crash. For a look at how our editors and reporters approached these challenging last few days, I spoke with Paste BN White House and Congress editor Darren Samuelsohn in this week's edition of our segment called Editor's Note. Darren, it's a pleasure having you on Editor's Note this week. Thanks for hopping on.
Darren Samuelsohn:
Thanks for having me.
Taylor Wilson:
So let's just start. I mean it's been obviously a tragic week, a tragic last few days for America. What new complications, Darren, did this plane crash tragedy bring this week? I know Trump himself was quick to talk about DEI and that was tricky to cover in the wake of it. What was it like covering this tragedy, especially in kind of a political and Washington context?
Darren Samuelsohn:
It's always hard when there's a tragedy. This is when the nation looks to the president of the United States to speak and console and first comfort Americans. And so at a moment like this, there hasn't been a plane crash in more than a decade of this size and substance, quickly, the attention turns to what does the president of the United States have to say? That night, I mean, he was tweeting or truth socialing within a couple of hours asking the same questions that he would then bring up when he was in the White House briefing room the next day. So it was a little bit jarring for, I think, at least half of America, the part that did not vote for Donald Trump, to hear Donald Trump speaking like that as opposed to maybe a previous president, a George W. Bush or a Barack Obama or Joe Biden.
Certainly if you covered or were paying attention to Donald Trump in his first presidency, you'd be familiar with sort of the way that he might sometimes handle something like this where yes, he will console, yes, he will say a prayer like he did at the start of the briefing in the White House, but then he did see a political opportunity there to try and push his agenda and that's what happened. And so it was a very challenging story to cover, a very challenging story to report, but then the political aspect, when politics gets pulled into it as something like it as it did there, it definitely makes it a bigger challenge.
Taylor Wilson:
Darren, just stepping back more broadly. My daily conversations with politics reporters really now, for what, two weeks of this administration, I get the sense that we're all kind of playing catch-up with this new administration. One thing happens early in the day only to be completely reversed or then altered later in some significant way. I mean, just how do you manage that? How do you provide meaningful coverage with the stories when they have such a short shelf life like that?
Darren Samuelsohn:
It is hard. It is the world that we live in today that the news cycle moves as fast as it does and that we move on to the next thing and the next thing and the next thing. And it's whiplash as well because I don't think we were moving at this speed and pace during the Biden four years. We were moving at this pace during the Trump four years, and I think people probably were a little bit lulled into a sense of, okay, what is normal? And so we are now at that pace again. And it was the same dramatic pace, I'll point out, between Obama and Trump as well. There was sort of this period of, I don't call it normalcy, but there was just sort of the way Washington has always kind of hummed, even going back to the Bush years, going back even further, and Trump is definitely an accelerant on the news cycle. It's how he operates. That's Donald Trump's mission. And as a president, he's really good at that. He's really good at controlling the narrative. He's been a part of the media ecosystem for decades.
This administration in particular in these first two weeks has really taken it to another level. They said that this was going to happen. I mean, there's no surprise here that there would be a shock and awe experience. It's hard for journalists to keep up with. I'm sure it's hard for news consumers to keep up with.
Taylor Wilson:
Darren, how do you think about accountability with an administration that is really unprecedented in how it's executing on some of the president's priorities?
Darren Samuelsohn:
Accountability is really important. I mean, it's what journalism is all about and what our mission is is to share with readers how the elected officials that they've sent to Washington are doing their jobs. And obviously as a political editor, a longtime political reporter, I know that politics never stops. We are in an odd numbered year right now when it's more of a policy year, but the elections are only so many months away and we'll be back in an election mode. So in a sense, you are trying to provide for readers a sense of, when they sent people to Washington, are they doing the jobs that they promised? Are they following the laws that they're supposed to follow? And providing readers with a sense that they're either doing what they said or they're not doing what they said and letting readers make those decisions when they go to the ballot box [inaudible 00:11:50].
So there's constantly politics playing out. There's a symphony going on in our newsroom and there's a symphony going on in American governance as we watch this democracy play out.
Taylor Wilson:
Darren, some of our first episodes here on the show since the Trump administration took office have, by definition, been very Trump-heavy. I mean, how do you navigate Trump fatigue with our audience in this moment?
Darren Samuelsohn:
Absolutely, Trump fatigue is an element of it. For us, counter-programming is helpful and being the nation's newspaper, we do cover sports, we cover business, we cover entertainment. So I think that in some respects, you got to look to the other sections of the newspaper sometimes to provide some of that counter-programming. I think that as long as Donald Trump is president, he's going to get the coverage that a president gets. And then, certainly, we pay attention to what our audience wants to read about. And if our audience is asking for something else, I think we will look for it too, but it's also just using our journalistic principles as well along the way to see what's news, and if something is new, we're going to certainly put attention on it. And that does mean the up and coming faces, the policies that are changing and there's just dramatic changes happening in Washington right now happening in the world, and as long as those are happening, we're going to be covering them.
Taylor Wilson:
All right. Darren Samuelsohn, Paste BN White House and Congress editor. Darren, thank you so much for giving me some time. And I know it's been a tough week, so kudos to you and your team on some great coverage. Appreciate you.
Darren Samuelsohn:
Thanks for having me.
Taylor Wilson:
If there's anything you're curious about hearing from a Paste BN editor, shoot us a note at podcasts at usatoday.com and we may feature your question on next week's episode.
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Orbiting approximately 250 miles above Earth is the International Space Station, a marvel of human creativity and engineering. Commander Suni Williams would love if more people could see things from her current view.
Suni Williams:
I just really wish everybody could take just one lap around the planet, and I think it would change everybody and everybody's perspective, and I just wish everybody had that opportunity.
Taylor Wilson:
My colleague, Dana Taylor, spoke with NASA astronauts, Suni, Butch Wilmore, Nick Hague, and Don Pettit as they floated in microgravity on the ISS. You can hear or watch their full conversation on this feed tomorrow, beginning at Five A.M. Eastern Time.
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And thanks for listening to The Excerpt. You can get the podcast wherever you get your audio, and if you're on a smart speaker, just ask for The Excerpt. I'm Taylor Wilson, and I'll be back Monday with more of The Excerpt from Paste BN.