coming out to maintenance anything. okay, so it's very scary for me because i have everything i love in this home. >> so we've now implemented drone technology. >> how is that safe? for me. >> it enhances the inspection. so it allows us to see things faster. your safety is the most important. and if you're feeling unsafe, that's not okay. >> it doesn't feel like that in our hearts. i mean, it's worrisome. >> we are 100% committed, focused and determined to get our clients the best result possible. justice takes more than a fighter. you need a champion. wake up. personal injury law. call 866. walk up. >> announcer: "this week" with george stephanopoulos starts right now. >> george: trade war. >> these are promises made and promises kept. >> george: president trump slaps new tariffs on canada, mexico,

and china. america's biggest trading partners vow retaliation. >> this is a choice that yes, will harm canadians, but beyond that, it will have real consequences for you, the american people. >> george: what could it mean for your wallet? canada's ambassador to the u.s., kirsten hillman responds. cleaning house. >> if they fired some people over there, that's a good thing. >> george: the justice department and fbi target scores of agent who is investigated the january 6th attack. pierre thomas on the unprecedented move, plus chris christie and rahm emanuel on the impact. midair disaster. >> crash, crash, crash. >> george: days after the deadliest u.s. air crash in 24 years, authorities search for answers as trump baselessly blames diversity program. >> are you saying this crash was somehow caused and the result of diversity hiring? >> it just could have been. >> george: gio benitez is live on the scene and donna brazile and reince priebus break down trump's attacks. confirmation clashes.

>> i'm offended by the question. >> show me a single statement i've made about science that is erroneous. >> george: trump's cabinet picks grilled on capitol hill. will his most controversial picks make it through? good morning, and welcome to "this week." the trump team promised shock and awe to start his second term. two weeks in, the shocks keep coming. dozens of actions to purge the federal work force, moves to freeze foreign aid and domestic spending. this weekend alone, a late friday firing of prosecutors involved in the january 6th investigations. saturday, the website for the agency for international development went dark as health initiatives and medical research projects around the world shut down, and late yesterday, sweeping tariffs imposed on america's three largest trading partners, canada, mexico, and

china sparking the prospect of a trade war that could hurt american consumers and shake the global economy. senior white house correspondent selina wang starts us off. good morning, selina. >> reporter: good morning, george. president trump is taking extraordinary steps this weekend. he's sitting america's biggest trading partners with steep tariffs that are set to take effect this tuesday. now mexico and canada have already vowed to retaliate with tariffs of their own. all of this could upend global trade and hurt american consumers too. this morning, america on the cusp of a trade war with its biggest trading partners. >> they've treated us very unfairly. >> reporter: after president donald trump signed three executive orders imposing 25% tariffs on all exports from mexico and canada with the lower 10% tariff on canadian energy exports and 10% tariffs on goods from china. trump justifying the tariffs by blaming those countries for illegal drugs and undocumented migrants entering the u.s. prime minister justin trudeau

slamming trump's move late last night. >> tariffs against canada will put your jobs at risk, potentially shutting down american auto assembly plants and other manufacturing facilities. >> reporter: and saying canada will hit back, imposing a 25% tariff on more than $100 billion worth of american goods. trudeau also blasting the very premise of trump's decision to impose tariffs saying the canadian border is safe and secure, and that canada is taking further steps. >> less than 1% of fentanyl, less than 1% of illegal crossings into the united states come from canada. >> reporter: mexico's president, claudia sheinbaum also vowing retaliation and slamming the trump administration for accusing the mexican government of working with drug traffickers, but trump's executive order says if the countries retaliate, they can further increase its tariffs too. china also defending its record

on fentanyl. president trump campaigned on lowering prices for americans, but this could have the opposite effect. >> there could be some temporary short-term disruption, and people will understand that. >> reporter: experts say these tariffs could cause american families to pay $830 more on average this year with higher prices for fresh produce, alcohol, electronic cars, and more. prices at the pump could rise by as much as 70 cents per gallon. and george, it's not just higher prices for u.s. consumers. this could also have a huge impact on u.s. jobs and companies. i spokes to the head of a canadian trade group that represents canadian automakers and he says these tariffs could even shut down north american car production putting jobs at risk. george? >> george: selina wang, thanks. let's go to matt rivers in mexico city.

matt, the response from the mexican government already pretty fierce. >> reporter: absolutely, george, and the potential for disruption between the u.s. and mexico is enormous. not only is mexico the u.s.'s single largest bilateral trading partner ahead of china, but drug enforcement and migration also key. all of that, george, on much shakier ground this morning. as expected, mexican president claudia sheinbaum responding to trump's tariffs saying mexico will respond with boast tariff and non-tariff retaliatory measures of their own, but she seemed to take the most exception with why the trump administration said they're putting these tariffs in place. she said mexican drug trafficking organizations have an intolerable ige alliance with the government of mexico. sheinbaum saying we categorically reject the white house's slander of the government of mexico for having alliances with criminal organizations. if there is any such alliance, it is in the gun shops of the united states that sell high-powered weapons to these

criminal groups. now look. the trump administration is correct when they say that corruption has allowed drug cartels here to flourish. we just saw it for ourselves when we spent time last week with drug and gun smugglers working for the cartel. it is systemic here in mexico, and it has been for decades, but it's one thing to say organized crime and corruption is a problem. it's another to say the mexican government has officially allied itself with these cartels. now that claim has made officials here in mexico city livid. it really even takes this just beyond tariffs. they offered to set up a working group between both sides to solve some of these issues, but how this plays out, anyone's guess. >> george: threats to retaliate so far, but no specifics? >> reporter: no. nothing specific in terms of how mexico is going to retaliate. they had a couple of options on the table, george. they say they're going to go with the second option, but exactly what they're going to target in terms of u.s. products, we're not sure yet. >> george: matt rivers, thanks

very much. let's bring in the canadian ambassador to the united states, kirsten hillman. thank you for joining us this morning. your reaction to the trump moves? >> well, i mean, we're disappointed obviously. this is a disrupting and incredibly successful trading relationship, the trading relationship that was just renewed by president trump in his last term when we renegotiated the nafta and brought our trade between our two countries to 99% tariff-free. so we're really disappointed and we're hopeful that they don't come into effect on tuesday. we're ready to continue to talk to the trump administration about that, and in particular about all the work that we're doing with them, and on our own with respect to the border and the issues that the president has said are at the core of this -- this move. >> george: what could happen between now and tuesday that would prevent the tariffs from being implemented? >> well, i mean, i think that is really something that is in the president's hands. we have been meeting nonstop with his border officials. we've invested a billion dollars

in furthering some of our equipment on the border, ensuring that we have the boots on the ground, working with the u.s. police service on joint training, joint exercises, going to china with them to deal with the precursor problem, so we are leaning in hard on this, and we feel that we've made incredible progress, you know, illegal crossings between canada and the united states as said in your opener are less than 1% of the crossings in the united states, but they're down in recent months. >> george: but -- >> sorry. go ahead. >> george: based on conversations you all have had so far, do you have a clear idea what the united states is looking for to prevent the implementation of the tariffs? >> well, the focus has been on the border. fentanyl and illegal migration, and as i say, we've invested in a lot of equipment. we've invested in additional infrastructure, and we have put together a plan that we are implementing with the border czar, tom homan. we met with him on friday.

we walked through it. we have joint exercises. we have joint training, and we're going with officials from the white house, our police agency, to china in the coming days to try and grapple with the precursor issue. it's hard to know what more we can do, but we're open to suggestions that come our way. >> george: you have had these lower level conversations, be you nothing between the prime minister and the president? >> so the prime minister and the president have discussed this a few times, not in recent days, but they have discussed it and we've discussed it with senior members of the white house as well, and we've laid out our plan, and my understanding is that the plan in some of the actual outcomes results of what we have done, have been presented to the president. >> george: president trump seems to be banking on the prospect that canada's going to back down. >> yeah. i -- look. i think the canadian people are

going to expect that our government stands firm and stands up for itself. i don't say we're not at all interested in escalating, but there will be a strong demand on our government to make sure that we stand up for the deal that we have struck with the united states, which as i say, is at a 99% tariff-free trade between our two countries. >> george: so if these negotiations do not bear fruit before tuesday, what exactly is going to happen on tuesday? >> so on our side, we will be implementing 25% tariffs on u.s. products. we will go up to $100 billion u.s. worth of products. we will start with about $30 billion, and then we will give notice of the remainder of the products, probably for about 20, 21 days, and then implement those if need be, if we haven't

found a way out of this situation. >> george: and what will be the message to canadians? would it be to stop using products from the united states, to boycott? >> well, i'll be honest. we as a government aren't necessarily needing to send that message. canadians are perplexed, i think disappointed. we view ourselves as your neighbor, your closest friend, your ally, you know, a country whose citizens have fought and died with you around the world in defense of values that we share, who come to the aid of the los angeles fires most recently, and i think are really perplexed by this move. so i don't think anybody will need to tell canadians what to do. i think that they will make their decisions on their own. >> george: you say perplexed. you canadians feel betrayed? >> i think they're confused. i don't think they understand where this is coming from. i think they know the degree to which we have made every effort to address the president's concerns, and so they just don't understand where this is coming from, and probably there's a little bit of hurt, right? we have 400,000 to 500,000 people that move back and forth

between our two countries every day. businesses, tourists, students, workers, and there's a sense of partnership, of family, of -- of being each other's best -- as i say, best customer, best friend. so i think that this is something that we really don't -- the canadians don't understand. >> george: do you think -- do you understand what's going on here? do you think president trump values the relationship and the alliance with canada? >> well, i mean, i hope so. i hope so, and i think that in some respects he most certainly does. i think that we're going to have to see where this takes us, and i think that we are -- we are eager to help the president achieve his goals, you know, he's interested in energy dominance for the united states. a third of what we sell to the united states are energy products and they're affordable and they're reliable, and for the most part, if you didn't get them from us, you would probably have to get them from venezuela or other non-allied countries. so we're eager to, you know, build on that. we provide critical minerals that you don't have here in the united states that are used for high technology and we're keen to continue to sell those into

the united states and to work to even do more, but it's hard to maintain that sense of common purpose in moving forward if we get into this kind of a dynamic on tariffs. so -- >> george: is that -- is that energy cooperation on the table? could you extend that as well? >> for us it is. we would like nothing more than to talk about how we can build on the strength that we already have on -- on both, you know, oil and gas, but nuclear and hydro. we provide the united states with almost all of the hydro and about a third of the oil that you import and use. or 80% of the oil that you import and use and almost all of the electricity. so let's do more, right? this is our view, a third of your uranium comes from canada. what you don't get from canada, some of it you get from russia. why? why not get it all from canada?

these are our perspectives on this. we would like to double down on everything that we are doing rather than getting into a dynamic that takes us down a road of ripping apart some of these excellent aspects of our relationship. >> george: finally what should american consumers expect going forward and what's your message to american consumers? >> well, i mean, again, our message is this is not something that canada wants to do. this is not a path that we are interested in going down. we are actually interested in being and continuing to be your best customer. we buy more from you than any other country on the planet, and we love our american products. so we support 8 million jobs in the united states through the exports that you send to us. let's keep that going, and let's build on that. let's not -- let's not diminish

it. >> george: thanks for your time this morning. >> thanks for having me. >> george: coming up, president trump's campaign of retribution against the justice department continued on friday. chris christie and rahm emanuel will join us. [ car engine revving ] hank used to suffer from what felt like a cold & flu medicine hangover in the morning. ha ha. haha! then he switched to mucinex nightshift.

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the real honey you love, plus the powerful cough relief you need. mind if i root through your trash? robitussin, the only brand with true source certified honey. will you commit that you will not tolerate the firing of the fbi agents who worked with the special counsel's office on these investigations? >> senator, every fbi employee will be held to the absolute same standard and no one will be terminated for case assignments. all fbi employees will be protected against political retribution. >> they deserve -- >> george: donald trump's push for retribution against the

officials who investigated the january 6th riots ramped up on friday with thousands more fbi agents under scrutiny. pierre thomas has the details and we heard kash patel say there that agents would be protected against retribution, but exactly the opposite seems to be happening right now. >> reporter: george, the fbi is in perhaps its most stressful moment as an agency since the terrible days of 9/11 when it faced an overhaul in its mission after a series of signals that contributed to the attack. the trump administration believes fbi leadership was complicit and participated in politically motivated investigations targeting president trump, and they're hell-bent on rooting those people out of the fbi flatly stating that those senior agents cannot be trusted to implement trump administration agendas. at least eight senior fbi officials who were part of former fbi director's chris wray's brain trust were told to resign, retire, or will be fired in the near future. others may soon be forced out as well, and more sweeping changes within the fbi could be coming. on friday, fbi staff were told that any personnel who were involved in the january 6th investigations and another lesser known case out of new york where going to have their status reviewed by the justice department which asked the fbi for a list of names.

george, this potentially involves thousands of fbi agents and other personnel. it certainly has sent shock waves throughout the bureau. the acting director of the fbi, brian driscoll appears resistant to a large-scale purge telling the fbi staff overnight he's working to understand the purpose of the list and vowed that we're going to, quote, follow the law, follow fbi policy, and do what's in the best interest of the work force and the american people always. he noted the request for the list came as fbi personnel continue to do their jobs across the board including helping with a gruesome crash on the scene of the potomac. the work force is up in arms on friday. the fbi agents' association fiercely pushed back calling any such potential plans outrageous and warning that such a broad purge would severely weaken the bureau's ability to protect the

country from national security and criminal threats, george. >> george: and pierre, just as foreign prosecutors are being targeted as well. >> reporter: many were forced out during the first week of the trump administration, and on friday, the new acting u.s. attorney for washington, d.c. fired dozens of attorneys who worked on january 6th cases. so there's a lot of upheaval, george. we'll have to see how this all plays out. as my sources continue to warn that we are in a particularly dangerous threat environment in every sector, george. >> george: pierre thomas, thanks. let's get more on this now from former new jersey governor chris christie and former white house chief of staff rahm emanuel, back from his tour as u.s. ambassador to japan and chris, let me start with you. you're also a former prosecutor. you're close with chris wray, the former director of the fbi. you have a lot of sources in and around the community. what are you hearing about all this? >> you know, george, i wouldn't use a word like panic when it relates to the men and women of the fbi because they work under really stressful situations, but i will tell you that they are stunned by what's happening. when you talk about the list

that they were asked for -- let's remember something. none of these agents who worked on the january 6th cases volunteered. that's not the way it works. in fact, at the fbi, they do the opposite. they don't want you volunteering and self-selecting because that may mean you bring bias to it. you select these people. they were instructed by their bosses to work on the january 6th cases, and what happened as a result of that? hundreds of convictions in front of juries, in front of judges that were appointed by both republican and democratic administrations. so they're saying to themselves, what exactly was infirmed about the investigations and about their work? their work resulted in convictions that were brought by juries or guilty pleas, and that were accepted by republican and democratic judges, and so if the president wants to pardon those people, that's his right to do, but it's not then his right to fire these folks, and let me tell you they're all civil service protected, george. none of them are political appointees. so what's going to happen for these folks who don't go

voluntarily is they're going to file grievances and lawsuits and they're ultimately going to win them, and the last piece i would say is this. understand how long it takes to get a new fbi agent on board. if you fire hundreds, if not thousands, and it would be thousands on this list, of fbi agents, it takes 12 to 18 months to get them on board. by the time you go through the interviewing process, the vetting process and they two to quantico for their training, and in the threat assessment across the world to lose that many agents and take a year to a year and a half to replace them is incredibly dangerous for our national security and for what? because they did their jobs, and if the president wants to do his by pardoning people, i disagree with pardoning people who violently attacked police officers on capitol hill. it's his right under the constitution to do it, but this is overboard, and it's not going to work. >> george: rahm, we've never seen a move like this before

from a president. what's the likely impact? >> well, it's going to be dramatic. i mean, george, a couple of points. on tuesday, the president's going to host prime minister bb netanyahu. he did exactly this, attacking the justice department inside israel. it turned the country inside out. the defense forces warned him, your deterrence is going to be degraded and you had october 7th, the worst killing of jews since the holocaust. the bureaucracy of the justice department as well as the fbi, they can be running a campaign of internal vengeance or external vigilance, and it's one or the other. they can't do both, and we've seen this movie before, and it ended in october 7th. the chinese are hacking us and cyberattacking and the north koreans constantly. that is also true about terrorist actions. when i was chief of staff, a young man in the intelligence agencies found a word he said did not make sense on a communication. a lot of people said, oh, it's nothing. forget about it. we encouraged him to pursue it. we all did, and he pursued it

and it ended up being the young man in denver that bought 12 backpacks, a lot of chemicals and he was driving east to new york. we arrested him eventually. you have the fbi agents who are confronting china, north korea, russia, our enemies, iran, who are cyberattacking the united states constantly, lawyers who are also just as recently prosecuting a case against a treasury official handing over secrets to the chinese on economic data. you can either be focused on internal vengeance and the campaign we're doing or external vigilance. our guard is down. we know how this movie ends, and it ends like october 7th. that was a mistake for israel. we need not make that mistake. this is dangerous, and i totally agree with chris on this very point. these officers did not volunteer. they took the assignment to do their job, and they prosecuted. there was juries. these people on january 6th, they committed crimes and most dangerously, killed officers or

harmed them. police officers. >> george: chris, we're seeing this -- >> there's no time for that. >> george: you mentioned a lot of these agents are likely to bring legal action to protect their jobs. we've seen this kind of testing of the legal limits with a lot of these executive orders and the firing of the inspector generals as well. i guess my question is does the president care whether or not this faces legal challenges or does he want to make the point? >> he wants to make the point and, in fact, he kind of likes the legal challenges because then it takes it off his plate. he gets to make the statement, the aggressive statement of doing -- firing inspectors general or in this case, what he's doing at the justice department of the fbi, and then it gets handed over to the courts and if the courts overturn him, he blames it on the courts and says these are awful judges even though many of the ones that have reversed some of his actions are appointed by him, and that's what he'll do.

no, he has no problem with doing this. look. i warned about this for a year before this election that this was going to be much different than the first term. donald trump knows what it's like to be president now. he knows what the ramifications for actions are and are not, and his view is, i'm going to do everything i want to do, and if the courts want to reverse it later, that's fine. george, it's like when i was governor. he called me in the early part of my administration when i had a $10 billion deficit and he said to me, look. this is what you do. declare bankruptcy, and i said, donald, i can't. i'm a state. i'm not allowed to declare bankruptcy. he said, do it anyway. it'll go to the courts and it'll land there for two years. they'll forget about all this, and you'll look better. that's the way he approaches those things. that was 2010, george.

it's no different 15 years later. >> george: rahm, you know, you of course, served in the white house. you helped draft executive orders and helped draft executive actions, but we've never seen the kind of scope that we're seeing right now, and democrats seem a little flummoxed about how to respond. >> look. i have a general rule given -- look. the democrats are in the minority, george. they don't have a bucket to spit in and a window to throw it on. so you have to have kind of a guiding north star. litigation, communication, mobilization. and you got to decide which ones go into which category. example a, this recent decision on foreign aid, while i don't agree with it, i'm not going to die on that hill. as that executive order that dealt with dei at schools. we just had a report that showed that at the worst time in 30 years, our eighth graders can't read, a third of them, and there was no kind of discussion of that, but there was an executive order here. that to me is about communication, and that to me is about where democrats can stand up and say, let's deal with the reading crisis, not the -- it's about reading, writing, and math, not about d, e, and i, and take that battle on because that's about defined where we want to focus where the american people are. the oval office, george, comes with a duo called the bully pulpit and 100% bully and 0% pulpit and that will come back

and the democrats have to decide which areas they want to fight on. the inspector generals is clearly against the law. i would take that case and do litigation for one other simple reason. you spend $3 billion a year nationally on inspector generals and they save you close to $100 billion a year. that's a good return on your investment. chris and i, governor and mayor, we hate inspector generals. they are a pain, but they're a good pain, and they're worth all the stress you get from them because just like in april of 2023, the inspector general of the faa said, we don't have enough trainers for all the air traffic controllers. that's the type of work they do. take that fight on because that's a fight worth fighting for and that's a hill worth dying on me and to me, you have to decide. some are litigation. some are communication, and some

are going to be mobilization, and you got to decide which ones go into which category. >> george: finally, chris, the president seems to be banking on the fact that republicans in congress are not going to press him on this. >> well, so far, it looks like they're not. chuck grassley said some things and wrote a letter. the question is are they going to hold him to it or not? look. congress has to decide are they an independent branch of government or are they just going to be republicans in majority -- are we just going to be rubber stamps? i think these votes on cabinet members coming up, whether it's rfk jr. or kash patel, below cabinet, but a very important job at the fbi, but are these people they're going to confirm? they're going to say, okay. we're going to turn over the national security -- i thought the patel hearing was very interesting. he's saying all this is going to be protected once he's there. well, what they're doing is doing all the dirty work before he gets there. i mean, let's -- we're not

stupid. we see what's happening here. they're having other people do it for him, and then having him come in and not have to take responsibility for it. the idea there's not communication going on, george, between the guy you've designated to be the head of the fbi for the next ten years and the people doing this operation as acting members of leadership and justice, is ridiculous. of course, they are. the president is the one orchestrating this. i thought the most interesting answer in the hearing as you when cory booker asked kash patel, have you had any conversation with the president about people to investigate our not to investigate? his answer was not to the best of my recollection. >> george: not credible? >> i mean, i kind of remember every conversation i've ever had with a president. how many are kash patel having that he doesn't remember? come on. >> george: chris christie and rahm emanuel, thank you. donna brazile and reince priebus are coming up, and we'll have the latest on the investigation into the deadly plane crash outside washington. stay with us.

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and it could wake at any time. think you're not at risk for shingles? it's time to wake up. because shingles could wake up in you. if you're over 50, talk to your doctor or pharmacist about shingles prevention. the team that is working on this crash at dca collectively has over 350 years of time with the ntsb. we will find out what happened, and we will do everything we can to prevent it. i don't want anyone to think because we are working two accidents -- this is not -- this is what we do. week in and week out, just today a lot more people are paying attention to it. >> george: that's the ntsb providing an update on the investigation to the deadly midair collision in washington, d.c. as more concerns emerge about aviation safety after another small plane crash in philadelphia friday. transportation correspondent gio benitez has the latest. good morning, gio.

>> gio: hey, george. good morning. the ntsb saying overnight that the air traffic controller gave the crew of that helicopter multiple warnings about the plane coming in for a landing. the biggest question is why was that helicopter allowed above the 200 feet, and why? working to pull the wreckage from that devastating plane crash in washington, d.c., the deadliest in nearly 24 years in the u.s. salvage teams using a crane to pull debris from the icy potomac river. divers searching for the remaining 24 victims, believed to be trapped in the jet's fuselage. many saying it's higher than the 200 feet the black hawk was supposed to be flying at. the ntsb saying the tower radar that air traffic control was looking at showed 200. >> initial data indicates that he may have seen 200 feet. that needs to be verified. our atc group is working it. >> reporter: some of that

information coming from the black boxes aboard both the plane and black hawk, now in the ntsb's hands. video obtained exclusively by cnn shows the horrific moment when is that black hawk on the left side of the screen collided with the passenger jet wednesday night. you can see the plane and its bright headlights as it makes its approach to the runway before the fiery impact acceptability them both plummeting to the river. with questions swirling about aviation safety, a second catastrophe friday night. >> oh. >> reporter: a fireball caught on surveillance video showing a

medical transport jet plunging into a residential neighborhood in northeast philly. the terrifying incident leaving all six aboard the plane including a child, dead. another person on the ground killed. 19 others injured. >> the city is working around the clock to keep people safe, to understand what happened, and to be there for those who are impacted. >> reporter: president trump insisting on thursday that flying remains incredibly safe in the united states. >> i would not hesitate to fly. this is something that's been -- it's been many years that something like this has happened, and the collision is just something that redon't expect ever to happen again. >> reporter: but with the investigation still in its early stages, the president suggesting without evidence that diversity hiring may have led to the deadly crash, and accusing his predecessors of lowering the standards for air traffic controllers. >> are you saying this crash was somehow caused by diversity hiefring and what evidence are you seeing to support these claims. >> it just could have been. we have a higher standard, we have a much higher standard than anybody else, and there are things you have to go by brain power. >> reporter: and these investigations are incredibly complicated and they take time nailing down exactly what caused this tragedy. that's absolutely critical so that it never happens again. george? >> george: gio benitez, thanks. let's get more on this now from former dnc chair donna brazile, and former rnc chair and trump chief of staff, reince priebus. donna, let me begin with you.

that call from president trump blaming the diversity initiatives, was echoed by other members of his cabinet. what do you think of that? >> politics has no place in this tragedy. at a time like this, we want a president to help us mourn and grieve, so show compassion, to comfort those who are right now just trying to figure things out. when i heard the president after just a few words where he talked about unity, and then he started to pivot to politics, to land this on president obama, president biden, and then of course, the real appalling insult on dei, diversity, which includes every american, women, minorities, people with disabilities, veterans. it was just a low moment, again, for president trump, but we need to remember right now that a

full investigation is under way. they're still recovering bodies and our gratitude goes to the men and women who are out there on that icy potomac still trying to recover so we can get all the facts together. >> george: reince, was it a mistake for the president to jump the gun on the investigation like that? >> well, i don't think so. i mean, he didn't really jump the gun. i think we're kind of taking this a little too far. first of all, there is a real investigation going on. you can see the good work of the d.o.t. and the ntsb. it's completely professional, but there are disturbing reports that are coming out of, you know, why were there 19 people in the tower? and the other thing i would say is i think we have to be a little careful just assuming all of this stuff is just baseless information.

i mean, the president is getting the most detailed updates and investigative information every single hour of the day, and sometimes he shares that information with the american people. the one thing i know on this dei issue, and it's front and center in his brain, is that, you know, he put together -- this was all -- this was the 50-day -- the 50 executive order promises that the trump administration had been campaigning on for months and months. the dei initiatives are in the top ten of things that president trump was going to undo, and i think that, in fact, people do support equal treatment and not preferential treatment, and this is something whether it be crt, whether it be dei, or whatever alphabet soup is out there, this is something that donald trump was crystal clear about, and he's executing on today after being elected by a majority of americans. >> george: well, i mean, there's no question that was a promise

he made, but do you have any evidence linking the dei initiatives to the crash? >> well, there has been a -- first of all, there was a biographical questionnaire put out when we went in the first term that we undid, and then the biden administration came in and they put in all these dei initiatives through all the agencies. there is right now, it's been going on for a long time, a class action lawsuit against the faa where it is alleged that a thousand hires have been made as part of a dei initiative that compromise safety standards and put -- gave people preferential hiring through a point system, preferential hiring and overlooked others that may have been more qualified. that case hasn't been dismissed.

it's been going on for three or four years now, and it hasn't been dismissed. it could be out there, but i'm just saying before you just assume this is just a bunch of nonsense, it may not be, and i think people need to look at this stuff. >> george, what i know about dei and what i think i understand about equity -- equal justice under the law is that over the last 50, 60 years, the american people have really worked hard to ensure that no american is ever left behind, that we enlarge the pool of qualified individuals to work in and out of the government in the private sector. dei is a tool -- a tool that enables government corporations to open the door, to remove barriers, to bring in the best and the brightest. this is not an attack. this is an opportunity for every american to participate in the greatness of our great, wonderful nation. it is not about discrimination,

but when you target people, when you say that people simply because of the way they look or how they walk or who they love are not qualified to do the jobs, it is not true, and look. this is black history month, but black history month cannot be celebrated without talking about american history because it's history we've all made and that once again, we see an administration that is saying we're not going to have these celebrations anymore. we're not going to acknowledge the pain and suffering, the holocaust. this is not who we are as americans. we are bigger than this. we want a country as good as it's promised. >> i believe that -- i agree with some of what donna just said. i mean -- >> well, thank you. >> or a lot of it. i mean, yes. we need to give people opportunities that wouldn't have had opportunities, but we can't give people favoritism, and there's a big difference between giving, you know, a lawyer an opportunity because people can pick and choose whoever lawyer they want to hire. there are standards for, you know, taking the bar exam, accreditation, and you go

interview the lawyer and you hire a lawyer. it's another thing if you are on an airplane and you have dei initiatives that may have given preference to someone sitting in a control tower. >> that's not how it works. that's not how it work. >> there's a difference between opportunity which i agree with, and favoritism. that's all we're saying. >> i just want to reassure the american people that flying is safe. i have been on airplanes all my adult life. >> it is safe. >> and i have seen -- i have been on a plane with two female pilots and said, wow. i am -- this is going to go fast. i mean, this is about opportunity. this is who we are as americans. you know james brown, one of my favorite, favorite artists of all-time said, i don't want nobody to give me nothing. just open the door. i'll get it myself. that's what people have said for centuries in america. open the door. give me the opportunity. give my father the opportunity. someone who had a college scholarship.

he fought for this nation. are you going to tell me he was a dei? no. he was a brave and patriotic american. that's what this is about. it's not about dividing the american people. it's about bringing us together because we're stronger together. >> george: thank you both for your time this morning. coming up, three of donald trump's most controversial cabinet nominees faced tough questions this week. we'll break down the latest from capitol hill. gh questions this week. we'll break down the latest from capitol hill.

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jr. and tulsi gabbard both making their case. >> those reports that in the hearing yesterday have claimed that i am anti-vaccine and anti-industry. well, i'm neither. i'm pro-safety. >> what truly unsettles my political opponents is i refuse to be their puppet. >> reporter: kennedy, trump's pick to run the department of health and human services pressed on everything from embracing medical conspiracy theories to pushing falsehoods about vaccines. republican senator bill cassidy, a doctor and potential hurdle for his confirmation chances saying he's struggling with the nomination. >> will you reassure mothers, without qualification that the measles and hepatitis b vaccines do not cause autism? >> i'm not going into the agency with any -- >> that's kind of a yes or no question. >> if the data is there, i will absolutely do that.

>> reporter: and some republicans about gabbard tapped to lead national intelligence. >> i have no love for assad or gaddafi or any dictator. >> reporter: now under scrutiny for mimicking russian talking points on issues like ukraine and praying whistle-blower edward snowden. >> is edward snowden a traitor to the united states of america? that is not a hard question to answer when the stakes are this high. >> senator, as someone who has served in -- >> it's a yes or no. >> reporter: despite some republicans rallying to their defense. >> are you not concerned about bobby kennedy's views on vaccines? >> i think he put that issue to bed. >> reporter: both still yet to lock down the key holdout votes they'll need. >> the jury's out? >> that's correct. >> george: let's get to julie pace, susan page. we saw pete hegseth get through on a close vote. are these two candidates going

to make it? >> i think these are two of the most controversial nominees and two on the bubble. gabbard may be a little more imperiled than kennedy at this point. watch what the maga movement does though. they really rallied around hegseth and were instrumental in ensuring that he got over that finish line, narrowly there, and you're starting to see the same thing happen right now, and they will put pressure on those senators you just saw right there and say, look. we're going to make your lives pretty miserable for the next couple of years if you don't let these nominees go through. >> even though they're both former democrats? >> that's right, and interestingly they had these hearings this year. they both made their situation worse, not better, and it wasn't in response to kind of gotcha questions by democrats. it was in response to softball questions by republicans who were trying to help them deal with the fundamental issue that is the most troublesome. the causes of autism in the case of robert f. kennedy jr. and the case of edward snowden in tulsi gabbard. i don't think the maga movement will decide, but it's donald trump who will decide how much capital he wants to spend and how much pressure he wants to

put on republican senators to get tulsi gabbard over the finish line. >> george: have we seen any sense yet that republicans on the committee don't want to go along? how overt does the president have to be? >> he'll have to be pretty overt. you mentioned hegseth. in that case, thom tillis indicated he was troubled -- he was a possible no vote. donald trump got on the phone with him for two hours and he relented and that's the kind of pressure that trump alone can bring, and we'll see if he does that in these cases. >> george: you believe gabbard is in more trouble? >> i think she's in trouble because of questions like that snowden question. a fairly straight forward question that is shared bipartisan -- views are that snowden has been a traitor. she had another moment when she said she wouldn't seek to pardon -- from president trump and that seemed to assuage susan

collins, but the inability to answer that question is one that's going to hang over her head in addition to things like lack of experience, the sort of mysterious trip to syria to see assad. there's a lot of open questions around her right now. >> george: how do you see interplay between the nominations and the amount of political capital president trump would have to spend to get them through and the big fights coming down the road on the tax and spending plans? >> well, it is a sign of will republicans hang together even if they're uncomfortable with some aspects of trump's agenda? the safe bet is when push comes to shove, republicans will hang with trump even if they don't want to. >> i think that's right because look. republicans over and over and over again have fallen in line, and i think one of the unique aspects of president trump in these confirmation hearings is you see one cabinet fall because the white house decides i'm not going to spend my political capital there. >> george: you had that matt gaetz happen with the beginning. >> we cleared that already. there's really no incentive for trump right now watching the

ways republicans have fallen in line on so many matters. there's really no incentive for him to back away from either of these nominees at this point, and we'll see what happens in the next couple of days. i'm not sure there's a link between putting political capital on the line in these confirmation hearings and doing it again. >> george: the other argument is victories beget victories. >> and they do, but trump could also make a decision that this is one he might well lose, especially, i think on tulsi gabbard. i think that's why we see vice president vance making calls to the hill with his former colleagues in the senate to figure out if they can get this nomination -- this confirmation done or is it really in peril? >> george: susan page and julie pace, thank you very much. we'll be right back. peril? >> george: susan page and julie pace, thank you very much. we'll be right back.

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>> george: that is all for us today. thanks for sharing part of your sunday with us. check out "world news tonight" and i'll see you tomorrow on "gma." omorrow on "gma."

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