SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
On this Super Bowl Sunday, we had a return to a political pregame tradition. President Trump sat down with Fox News channel's Bret Baier for an interview ahead of the game, and it was pretaped and aired as Trump was flying from Florida to New Orleans. And on that flight, he made more news. NPR White House correspondent Asma Khalid was watching and joins us now. Hey, Asma.
ASMA KHALID, BYLINE: Hey there, Scott.
DETROW: So let's start with that flight. President Trump spoke to reporters on the plane. What did he say?
KHALID: Well, he said a lot. He called journalists up to the front of his cabin and held an impromptu 30-minute press conference on the plane. He did this as his plane was flying over the Gulf of Mexico, which I'm sure you recall he has now renamed the Gulf of America. He said that today is the national Gulf of America Day and then went on to take a lot of reporter questions. And Scott, he specifically made, I would say, rather important news on tariffs. He said that tomorrow he will be issuing 25% tariffs on any steel and aluminum coming into the country. He also foreshadowed more tariffs on other goods that he plans to detail at a news conference this week. Take a listen.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: They are charging us 130%, and we're charging them nothing. It's not going to stay that way.
UNIDENTIFIED JOURNALIST: This is on every country?
TRUMP: Every country will be reciprocal.
KHALID: His basic point there, Scott, is if they charge us - another country - we, the United States, will retaliate and charge them a reciprocal amount.
DETROW: And I just want to clarify because the audio was a little hard to hear. He said this is on every country. This isn't targeted to one specific country (inaudible).
KHALID: That is indeed what it sounds like. Yep.
DETROW: So let's shift. Let's talk about the Super Bowl. And it's just worth mentioning 'cause they didn't happen for a few years that these pregame interviews with the sitting president are kind of a quirky tradition.
KHALID: Yeah, that's right. I mean, they date back to 2009, but in recent years, they had fallen out of fashion. Former President Biden decided to skip out the last two years of his presidency. I will say, Scott, today was not necessarily a hard-hitting interview, at least what we have seen thus far that's been released, but it's a chance for the president to reach a huge audience on game day.
DETROW: Did you hear any news?
KHALID: There were a couple of things that Trump said that caught my ear. He was asked about a judge's order that came down on Saturday that tries to stop Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency entity employees from accessing the Treasury Department's payment systems. This was in response to a lawsuit filed by 19 states' attorneys general, and Trump said in his Fox News interview that he defended this effort by Elon Musk. He said he ran on this idea of efficiency, that Trump said people want him to find fraud, and he wants Elon Musk to do more.
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TRUMP: I'm going to tell him very soon, like, maybe in 24 hours, to go check the Department of Education. He's going to find the same thing. Then I'm going to go to the military. Let's check the military. We're going to find millions, hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud and abuse.
KHALID: And you know, I think it's really noteworthy there, Scott, to hear him talk about the military. Republicans have long insisted that it is important to protect the defense budget. And thus far, we have seen Republican lawmakers acquiesce to Donald Trump, what he wants to do here in terms of going through government, and really not necessarily, I would say, fulfill their duties in terms of Congress controlling the purse strings in our separation of power system here in the United States. So we'll see if there is any Republican pushback here.
DETROW: And of course, Musk is somebody who, himself, his companies have massive federal contracts. One more thing on the Super Bowl - we talked about the interview as a tradition. There's an interesting cultural moment happening here as well. Donald Trump is the first sitting president to attend the Super Bowl.
KHALID: That's right. And I think, Scott, it's a sign of how much the public response and culture around Trump's second term has changed. When, in his first term, he was in office, he criticized NFL players for kneeling during the national anthem to protest racial injustice...
DETROW: Right.
KHALID: ...Said they ought to be fired. A lot has changed this year (ph).
DETROW: Very different - Asma Khalid, thanks so much.
KHALID: Good to speak with you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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