'Gasping when they heard that': Ex-Trump aide says president's new remark shocked his team

President Donald Trump is not sending the message he should be on tariffs, according to Former Trump White House Communications Director Alyssa Farah Griffin. Her comments came on CNN News Central Thursday morning in an interview with John Berman.

“I can picture the White House press shop gasping when they heard that line," Farah Griffin said, referring to Trump saying "maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30."

"Listen, that certainly isn't the message that the White House wants to be conveying. There's tremendous market uncertainty over these tariffs; businesses aren't able to be hiring, investing, planning for years ahead because they just simply don't know what Donald Trump is going to do next," she added.

She believes Trump should be asking people to give him more time.

Berman then asked if “there is a disconnect with the real pain, or what kind of disconnect might there be with the real pain and sacrifice people have to make?"

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“I'm skeptical that the white house is prepared for how much hardship Americans could feel in a matter of weeks because of these tariffs,” Farah Griffin said. “We certainly are not yet feeling the full effects of them but Donald Trump, as CNN reported just last week, met with CEOs of Target, Walmart, some of these major retailers who, by the way, can absorb some of these costs because they're huge. But the impacts that could come to small businesses, the impacts that are going to hit the auto industry, the agriculture industry, [are real.]"

She added, "You heard it on with Dana Bash this week. [The] Secretary of Agriculture [is] basically saying, we're almost gearing up to bail out farmers. That's not like a winning first hundred-day message. you don't want to put yourself in a position that you then need to bail out farmers. As a republican, that's kind of remarkable that we're just advertising we're going to bail someone out. So I think that there is there is a policy problem on the tariffs that the president does seem to be responding to, pulling some of these back, making them a little bit more targeted. But the messaging is also a disaster."

The pair went on to speak more on tariffs and those in the GOP who are supporting Trump's message.

Watch the full interaction below or click here.

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