Good morning. Welcome to your new day. Its thursday, march 8, 8 00 in the east. President trump is touting a meeting he will hold with steel and aluminum workers in the white house this afternoon. There is still confusion as to whether the president will unveil today the details of that controversial plan to impose the new tariffs. The white house is fighting back reports that the president s personal lawyer is trying to silence a porn star alleged an affair with the president a decade ago. This, as cnn is learning that President Trump is upset with his press secretary. Why . Lets begin with Cnns Abby Phillip with breaking details. What did Sarah Sanders do . Reporter good morning, chris. It seems the president is not very happy with her explanation of his involvement in this case involving Stormy Daniels. Sarah sanders acknowledged for the first time that there was a nondisclosure agreement that President Trump was a part of when she talked about this issue of arbitration. Now a source close to the white house has told Cnns Jim Acosta that hes upset she went there in the briefing yesterday. In fact, this source says potus is very unhappy, sarah gave Stormy Daniels that story line steroids yesterday. Listen to what she said about an ash traks case that would have happened in the last week involving the president s personal lawyer Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels. The president addressed these directly and made very well clear that none of these allegations are true. This case has already been won in arbitration, and anything beyond that i would refer you to the president s outside counsel. You said theres arbitration thats already been won . By whom and when . By the president s personal details. For details on that, i would refer you to them. Youre aware of them. What more can you share with us . I can share arbitration was won in the president s favor. I would prefer you to the president s outside counsel on any details beyond that. Reporter the key point here being in the president s favor. That is an acknowledgment by the white house for the first time that the president is directly involved in this saga, on going saga with Stormy Daniels over an alleged affair. This situation is now expanding beyond what we thought we knew. Up until this point the white house seemed to deny that the president knew anything about this whatsoever. On the issue of tariffs that you mentioned earlier in this intro, that is still brewing here at the white house. President trump getting a little bit ahead of his own staff this morning, sending out a tweet a few minutes ago announcing there will be a 3 30 p. M. Meeting on steel and aluminum tariffs. It is really not clear what this meeting is going to involve, whether its going to involve the actual signing of a legal document authorizing these tariffs to go into place. We know there will be a meeting, but as of last night, late last night, white house officials were telling cnn that plans for an actual signing had been scuttled despite the fact that steel and aluminum workers were being flown into washington for some kind of event. We dont know if the deal will be done in time for the president to say its a done deal by this afternoon. Abby, stay with us. We want to bring in cnn political director david chalian. I admit, im confused how Sarah Sanders could have run afoul of the president and the president be angry about what she said. What she said is that arbitration was won in the president s favor. That didnt roll off her tongue. Thats not an extemporaneous remark. These are prepared remarks that she comes to the podium with. And there are only two people that could have given her that information or maybe three. Michael cohen, the president of the United States or Michael Cohens attorney. Clearly she got that piece of information to share. You and abby are both right to underscore that. In the president s favor, by saying that expression, and i dont know if that was part of the written remarks or if she was supposed to just stick to arbitration was won, i have to agree with the president s analysis according to jim sack costas reporting, that this is putting steroids into this story. We hear from the podium for the very first time that the president is party to there dispute with someone accusing him of having an affair and being paid off to be silent about the affair. The president is at the center of this. If Sarah Sanders job was to put the story to bed, i think she did just the opposite. Lets test that theory. In fact, abby, the president is not at the center of the legal dispute. Its in my hand. The arbitration case lists as the claim mat ecllc which is Michael Cohens consulting, llc. The president is not mentioned. He was mentioned in a pseudonym in the nda which he didnt sign. This is not about trump. Its about the political implications in the court of public opinion. Not about the actual legalities. Fair point . I think to some extent it is fair. Thats exactly why what sarah said yesterday was so problematic. What she suggested is that the president really is at the center of it, despite what Michael Cohen has been saying. Hes a lawyer who has been saying his client was not directly aware he was doing all these things on his behalf because his job for trump has been to be the fixer of problems. So for Sarah Sanders to now connell out and say it was won in the president s favor, it suggests that the president is the person who is at the center of this case, that its a case between the president and Stormy Daniels. Thats what stormy has been saying all along. For sarah to acknowledge that i think is problematic at the very least in the court of public opinion. It might go towards stormys case that at the end of the day Michael Cohen was acting on behalf of donald trump. The bigger issue, david, you can address as well, if this violates Campaign Finance laws. If the president was aware of this, if he instructed the 130,000 payment, then it seems to more likely be a case of violation of Campaign Finance laws because it happened right before the election in order to perhaps keep the president from losing the election. Right. It would be sort of an illegal contribution to the campaign in some way. That seems to be a second step here. The Campaign Finance law issue is not part of the actual dispute. But i would just add, guys, when Michael Cohen admitted to paying 130,000 to Stormy Daniels, he admitted to doing so to protect donald trump and the political argument that Sarah Sanders helped bolster is indeed he did do this to protect donald trump because they got a ruling thats in the president s favor. She basically linked arms with Michael Cohen on this matter yesterday as opposed to trying to distance the president from it. So whats the so what on this . If youre a trump voter, weve seen in the polls, people believe his personal choices are such as what they seem, obviously, and they dont care. They voted for him anyway. Even evangelicals. So who cares unless donald trump winds up sitting across from an fbi member and doesnt tell the truth about this and youre right back where clinton was many years ago. David. I agree with you. I dont think this is going to affect his support overall. I totally agree with that, chris, although i will say it does beg the question, if you look at what some of his most ardent supporters, white evangelical leaders said back in the 90s about bill clinton and they seemed to be willing to give him a mulligan on this, i think they need to sort of explain that discrepancy there. I agree, im not even sure, by the way, chris, if indeed Stormy Daniels told her story before the election it would have upended the result of the election. Im not convinced of that either. We have two different versions of events. Theres Stormy Danielss stories and the president s story. One of them is lying. He is the president of the United States. I think its worth finding out if hes lying to the American People. Its important to find out if the president is telling the truth. It would be one thing if the white house werent making a statement one way or the other about the truthfulness of the allegations. The white house is saying the president denies this happened, the president denies the allegations against him. If that turns out to be untrue, thats very important. Its important now and it might be important going down the road as republicans are trying to hold on to congress and there is this constant stream of what seems to be scandal coming from this white house. Look, Stormy Daniels stephanie clifford, her credibility is already in trouble, right, for several reasons . One, she told different stories of this. In the pleading xi says i did have an intimate affair. She also took the money and cut the deal. Now she wants a better deal. That is not recognized well the court of law. Lets talk about policy. Abby, the confusion is we know the president favors these tariffs. The confusion is that there was you, i believe, heard there was going to be an announcement at 3 30 this afternoon. There might be something signed. There is going to be certainly the policy position laid out about it. Now, has that changed to just being a meeting with some steel and aluminum workers . Alisyn, i think its still very unclear what exactly is going to happen this afternoon. At the very least because the president is in charge here, he says there will be a meeting. There will be some kind of meeting happening this afternoon. Its a real issue whether or not theres a Legal Foundation for what the president is going to sign today. One of the big open question marks here is who and what is going to be exempted from these tariffs. The white house still has to work out how and if they are going to exempt mexico and canada, for example. The president mentioned trying to be good to our friends in that tweet this morning. They have to work that out from a legal perspective. Last night there was real confusion. They thought they were going to be able to do this by this afternoon. And then later in the afternoon it seemed like they didnt think they could get it done in time if what the president wanted to do was actually sign a document and hold it up as he often does and sap this is what i promise. Its not clear theyll be able to get that done this afternoon. Perhaps they could get it done by friday. What he wants to be able to do is go to pennsylvania over the weekend and say i have put in place the tariffs that i promised. In this critical republican district, a republican race where it could be beneficial to that candidate to have a president who is fulfilling promises bringing back the steel and aluminum industries. Theres no question that the president has a problem with tariff idea in his own party. More than a hundred members of the gop blasting this idea. Up nexti, republican senator ro johnson is going to tell us why hes against it. Hes going to tell us what hes going to do about it next. We bought our first home together in 2010. His family had used another insurance product but i was like well ive had usaa for a while, why dont we call and check the rates . It was an instant savings and i shouldve changed a long time ago. Theres no point in looking elsewhere really. Were the tenneys and were usaa members for life. Usaa. Get your insurance quote today. But through goodt times and bad at t. Rowe price weve helped our investors stay confident for over 80 years. Call us or your advisor. T. 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With tmobile taxes and fees are already included, so you get four unlimited lines for just 35 bucks each. More than 100 House Republicans supporting the tariff on steel and aluminum. The white house announcing that mexico and canada might be exempt. Joining us is republican senator ron johnson of wisconsin who opposes the tariffs. Good to see you, senator. Good morning, chris. How are you doing . Doing well, thank you. First lets deal with the politics. You wrote a letter. He doesnt care. How does that make you feel as a gop sflat tore . I dont think everyone to agree with me 100 of the time. Theres a wide divide in this country and between individuals. President trump las had this position pour decades. I come from a manufacturing background, exported product to 20, 25 countries around the world. If its targeted toward china, depending on how its tailored, i may not have a problem with it. Thats where the root cause of the problem is, the gross oversupply within china and their trade abuses. A generalized tariff that would harm allies, harm American Consumers, by the way, harm American Workers that use steel in production, hurting their competitive nature in Global Markets as well, im opposed to that. There are two obstacles here. The first one is whom is he helping. The promise is attractive to his base and workers in general. Youre going to make it better for us. Were going to have more jobs. But is that true when you have so many more workers, literally exponentially more affected because of their use of these materials than the workers involved in the manufacture of the materials . One study after president bush tried to do this in 2002 said there are about 2,000 jobs lost in steel using industries. 6. 5 million workers utilizing steel probably under 150,000 in steel mills. So youre left to wonder what would the increased prices do even for those workers in the steel mills . Maybe a couple mills might open up, maybe a few more jobs might be created. Youre literally risking hundreds of thousands of jobs in other industries that utilize steel. Their cost will increase, their product will be less competitive in Global Markets. By the way, American Consumers will pay higher prices because of the Raw Materials increased. If its that obvious on an economic level, you have to ask why is he doing it anyway . Do you think he might be loading the deck for a trip to pennsylvania for a special election in one Congressional District . I cant answer that. You must. Its actually very disappointing that free and fair trade is not politically popular. I dont understand it myself, again, having been in manufacturing, participated in global marks. A fair amount of demagoguery on all sides of the aisle. The American Public in general does not support free and fair trade. I think thats unfortunate, an incorrect position to trade. The second obstacle, this is not power derived from his seat. This is power given to him by congress back in the 60s. There is a threshold that the president has to make the case that it is a matter of National Security interest. Do you believe that threshold is met . I dont believe so. The figures ive seen, the Defense Department uses about 3 of americanproduced steel. Largest foreign supply of steel is canada. Im pretty confident that canada is a solid ally, a friend of america. I dont believe it meets the National Security threshold at all. Their latest move might work against them. First pete navarro said he was a nondescript character in this white house until the issue came up and gary cohn got squeezed out over it, he said no exemptions, cant make exemptions, sends the wrong signal when you have exemptions. Now theyre saying there will be exemptions, probably canada and mexico. Thats because of forcing the hand on nafta. But if its about nafta, then how is it about National Security . Being the senator from wisconsin, what i do know about nafta is wisconsin has a trade surplus with canada and mexico. One thing thats lost in this whole conversation when we talk about trade deficits, i would much rather export 2. 3 trillion and have a trade deficit than have a trade surplus and only export 1 trillion. Suppliers treat customers really well. America is the worlds biggest customer, so our suppliers, other countries that import into our country ought to treat us well, and they do. Our trade posture can really be an effective Foreign Policy tool, do an awful lot of good. We can wield an awful lot of influence because of that. If we start engaging in trade wars, i dont believe anybody wins a trade war. There may be people that are harmed less, maybe america is in a better position, but i think theres so much collateral damage, its a risky and dangerous strategy. Senator, youre often identified as somebody to look for on issues of progress, not just in the proving yours