President Donald Trump told NBC News in an interview Saturday that he would not fire anyone involved in the Signal group chat in which military attack plans were inadvertently divulged to a journalist and added later that he “couldn’t care less” if automakers raised prices because of new tariffs.
In a phone interview that lasted more than 10 minutes, Trump also discussed his commitment to annexing Greenland and reiterated that a military option was not off the table.
Following a week of headlines about Signal, tariffs and Greenland, the president waved off concerns that his agenda is causing volatility on Wall Street or decreasing consumer confidence, pointing to polling that shows that the share of Americans who believe the country is on the right track is at record highs.
“What I see is right track, wrong track. And the right track was the first time in like 40 years where it was right track,” the president said, at one point putting Alexander Stubb, the president of Finland, on the phone as well. The two men were golfing in Florida on Saturday.
More from Trump’s interview with NBC News:
No concern if automakers raise their prices
The president said he “couldn’t care less” if automakers raised prices after he announced he would impose 25% tariffs on all foreign-made automobiles.
Asked what his recent message was to motor industry CEOs and whether he had warned them against raising prices, Trump said, “The message is congratulations, if you make your car in the United States, you’re going to make a lot of money. If you don’t, you’re going to have to probably come to the United States, because if you make your car in the United States, there is no tariff.”
When pressed if he told CEOs not to raise prices, as reported in the The Wall Street Journal, Trump added, “No, I never said that. I couldn’t care less if they raise prices, because people are going to start buying American-made cars.”
Trump continued, “I couldn’t care less. I hope they raise their prices because if they do, people are gonna buy American-made cars. We have plenty.”
Asked if he was concerned about car prices going up, Trump said, “No, I couldn’t care less, because if the prices on foreign cars go up, they’re going to buy American cars.”
After the interview, an aide followed up with NBC News to say Trump was referring specifically to foreign car prices.
NBC News reported this week that foreign auto parts would also be taxed at 25%, even if the vehicles they go into are assembled domestically. Companies that import vehicles under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) will get special consideration until the government establishes a process for levying the 25% duties, according to the White House.
Until that time, USMCA-compliant auto parts will remain tariff-free.
The president also said the tariffs would be permanent.
“Absolutely, they’re permanent, sure. The world has been ripping off the United States for the last 40 years and more. And all we’re doing is being fair, and frankly, I’m being very generous,” Trump said.
Trump’s tariff announcement on Wednesday came just weeks before his planned April 2 “Liberation Day,” when tariffs on a variety of consumer goods are set to take effect. They drew swift condemnation from international leaders like Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.
In remarks on Thursday, Carney told reporters the tariffs were “unjustified” and that “the old relationship we had with the United States based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military cooperation is over.”
Trump on Saturday maintained that he does not plan to further delay the imposition of the April 2 tariffs, and he would consider negotiating on that point “only if people are willing to give us something of great value. Because countries have things of great value; otherwise, there’s no room for negotiation.”
Signal incident
Trump said he has no plans to fire anyone following news that national security adviser Michael Waltz added a journalist to a Signal app group chat with senior members of the Trump administration who were discussing plans to strike Houthi militants in Yemen earlier this month.
“I don’t fire people because of fake news and because of witch hunts,” Trump said, calling the story “fake news” throughout the interview.
“I do,” the president said when asked whether he still has confidence in Waltz and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who was also in the Signal chat and sent a detailed timeline of the planned strikes before they happened.
“I think it’s just a witch hunt, and the fake news, like you, talk about it all the time, but it’s just a witch hunt, and it shouldn’t be talked [about],” Trump added. “We had a tremendously successful strike. We struck very hard and very lethal. And nobody wants to talk about that. All they want to talk about is nonsense. It’s fake news.”
Trump’s comments come as he has faced calls — including from his allies — to fire Waltz after The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg wrote on Monday that he had been added to a chat group on a private messaging app with senior administration officials.
In the chat, the officials appeared to discuss their plans to strike Houthi rebels, which the Trump administration has since repeatedly claimed were not classified.
“I have no idea what Signal is. I don’t care what Signal is,” Trump said on Saturday. “All I can tell you is it’s just a witch hunt, and it’s the only thing the press wants to talk about, because you have nothing else to talk about. Because it’s been the greatest 100-day presidency in the history of our country.”
Everything is on the table to obtain Greenland
The president on Saturday also said he has “absolutely” had real conversations about annexing Greenland, which is currently a semiautonomous Danish territory.
“We’ll get Greenland. Yeah, 100%,” Trump said.
He added that there’s a “good possibility that we could do it without military force” but that “I don’t take anything off the table.”
This comes one day after Vice President JD Vance visited Greenland with his wife, Usha, and spoke to service members at Pituffik Space Base, a U.S. Space Force base on the northwestern coast of Greenland.
While there, Vance said, “Our message to Denmark is very simple — you have not done a good job by the people of Greenland.”
Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen pushed back against Trump’s plan to annex the nation, writing Sunday on Facebook: “President Trump says the United States is ‘getting Greenland.’ Let me make this clear: The U.S. is not getting that. We don’t belong to anyone else. We decide our own future.”
“We must not act out of fear. We must respond with peace, dignity and unity. And it is through these values that we must clearly, clearly and calmly show the American president that Greenland is ours. It was like that yesterday. That’s how it is today. And that’s how it will be in the future,” he added.
Asked what message acquiring Greenland would send to Russia and the rest of the world, Trump said, “I don’t really think about that. I don’t really care. Greenland’s a very separate subject, very different. It’s international peace. It’s international security and strength.”
“You have ships sailing outside Greenland from Russia, from China and from many other places. And we’re not going to allow things to happen that are going to be — that are going to hurt the world or the United States,” he added.
Source: NBC NEWS
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