President Donald Trump has said that he “couldn’t care less” if foreign carmakers raise prices after his impending tariffs take effect and suggested that he has no plans to fire any officials linked to the Signal group chat scandal.
Speaking to NBC News on Saturday, Trump denied that he had warned foreign automaker CEOs not to raise prices after levies on imported automobiles come into effect early next month.
“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 said.
“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,” he added.
Trump has imposed sweeping tariffs since returning to the White House, largely targeting Canada, Mexico, and China, as well as the steel and aluminum industries.
But on Wednesday, the president turned his attention to the auto sector, announcing a new 25% tariff on all imported vehicles and certain automobile parts set to come into effect on April 3.
“This will continue to spur growth like you haven’t seen before,” Trump said in the Oval Office before signing the executive order, which said that cars and car parts were being imported into the US “in such quantities and under such circumstances as to threaten to impair the national security of the United States.”
The announcement has fueled warnings of retaliation from some US trading partners.
“We must consider steps to respond appropriately. We have all possible options on the table,” Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba told the country’s parliament this week.
Elsewhere in the interview, Trump addressed the Signal texting scandal that dominated headlines after The Atlantic’s editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg revealed that he had been mistakenly added to a group chat where senior US officials — including Defense secretary Pete Hegseth — discussed plans to carry out military strikes on Yemen’s Houthi rebels.
The incident sparked concern among both Republican and Democratic lawmakers, with some calling for Michael Waltz, the national security adviser who added Goldberg to the group, to be fired.
But Trump appears to have come down on Waltz’s side, telling NBC: “I don’t fire people because of fake news and because of witch hunts.”
Trump added that he still had confidence in Waltz and Hegseth and said the strikes were “tremendously successful.”
