Return to Transcripts main page

The Lead with Jake Tapper

Trump Rebrands Department Of Defense As Department Of War; U.S. Markets Close In Red After Brutal August Jobs Report; ICE Raids Apprehend 450 In Georgia, Dozens In New York; U.S. To Send F-35 Fighter Jets To Puerto Rico Amid Venezuela Tensions. Trump Admin. Dumping Rules To Compensate Fliers; America's Weak Jobs Report Flashes Warning Signs About The Economy; New And Innovative Ways To Treat Pain. Aired 5-6p ET

Aired September 05, 2025 - 17:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[17:00:00]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Aim for him. I think that's why you see Democrats being nervous, though. And I do still think from a policy perspective, he's a great foe for Republicans.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. I mean, at the end of the day, he's talking about costs and that's what people want to hear. And that's why it resonates with.

KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST: Yes. And as you were pointing out earlier, if these job cuts were coming and cost of living was going down, people might be able tolerate it, but that's not what's happening.

All right, guys, thank you very much for being with me today. I really appreciate it. Thanks to all of you for joining us as well. Don't go anywhere. The Lead with Jake Tapper starts right now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN Breaking News.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Welcome to The Lead. I'm Jake Tapper and we are kicking off with the politics lead today and President Trump's remarks just moments ago. Let's get right to CNN's Kristen Holmes who's at the White House. Kristen, a lot just unfolded.

Let's start with this nuanced language over President Trump changing the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. He said that he believed that this was a symbol of strength for the United States. He also said that the United States had become too, quote, unquote wokey, that we didn't win wars anymore. The last war we won was in World War I, and that this was time to show our strength. He was obviously asked questions about whether or not he believed that Congress is going to approve this. They need to approve the rebranding of the Pentagon.

He said he believed that he didn't have to, but he was going to put it in front of Congress. They do have you for an official name change. But also he was asked about the cost of this rebrand. Obviously, President Trump has been talking about cost cutting measures. Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: We know how to rebrand without having to go crazy. We don't have to recarve a mountain or anything. We're going to be doing it not in the most expensive. We're going to start changing the stationary as it comes due and lots of things like that. We're not going to be doing things like have been done in the past.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: It was clear from President Trump talking. We also heard from the Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth said that they believe that this shows some kind of strength, some kind of fortitude for the United States. And they've been talking about this and previewing it for months now.

Of course, this is the first time they're actually doing it, signing this executive order, again, this will have to be brought to Congress. I noted this yesterday, but I'll just note it again. This is actually the original name of the Department of Defense as started by George Washington was the Department of War, but it was changed later.

TAPPER: Yes, changed after World War II during the reorganization of the military. We just saw some signage there. Pete Hegseth, former secretary of Defense then, now the placard outside his office as secretary of War. Kristen Holmes at the White House, thanks so much.

This does bring us to the Money Lead. The Trump administration finger pointing begins after the latest jobs report today painted a rather bleak picture of the economy under Trump as of now. Last hour, markets closed slightly down after the brutal August jobs report. In the labor market, just 22,000 jobs were added in August. That's far lower than economists' expectations for more than 76,000 new roles.

The unemployment rate has now ticked up to 4.3 percent from 4.2 percent. This report also included a downward revision to jobs in June. This all means that for the very first time since the COVID pandemic towards the end of 2021, the American economy lost jobs with a decline of 13,000 positions.

You will recall that last month's jobs report was also bad and that resulted in President Trump firing the Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner Erica McIntarfer, Trump claiming with no evidence that the poor jobs numbers had been rigged.

So now Trump's new pick in charge is acting commissioner. Are these bad numbers fake? Are they his fault? No. This time President Trump says it's the fault of the Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell for not lowering interest rates. That's what the president wrote on Truth Social.

Anyway, Jerome "Too Late" Powell should have lowered rates long ago. As usual, he's too late. Trump administration officials are not all on the same page as to whom they should blame, although they all agree none of it is President Trump's fault. Trump's Labor Secretary, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, also blamed Powell and

she denied that tariffs had anything to do with weak jobs numbers, despite so many economists saying that they are the primary reason. National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett conceded that the numbers were not good, but he said the economy is sound due to a capital spending boom industrial production at a high level.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEVIN HASSETT, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL: It's a little bit of a disappointing job number, but I pretty much expect it's going to revise up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Joining us now to discuss, Diane Swonk, the chief economist at KPMG. Diane, so let's start with this question. Trump last month cast doubt on the reliability of the jobs numbers. So why should Americans trust that these jobs numbers are accurate?

DIANE SWONK, CHIEF ECONOMIST, KPMG: Well, they actually were collected in exactly the same way they were last month. And I think that's important. It really takes hundreds of people to put this data together.

[17:05:00]

And the person that's in charge of that also was working under the former head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. So I think those things are important to remember. And it's also very consistent with what we've seen in other job numbers in the private sector.

Everything from ADP payrolls to reveal your labs, all of them showing a major slowdown in job creation and the number of jobs that we're generating out there. And this is consistent with that. What's more important is sort of what's under the hood and what we saw under the hood of this, particularly in terms of unemployment.

Although the unemployment rate only ticked up to 4.3 percent, the stress measure of unemployment, which it captures all those marginalized workers, people having to take a part time instead of a full time job because they couldn't find a full time job. That went up to 8.1 percent, its highest level since 2021.

We also saw the ranks of the long term unemployed. Those over 27 weeks, a lot of people move from 26 weeks into 27 weeks. Between July and August, those balloon to their highest levels since 2021. So that really speaks to the underlying weakness that we're seeing of a job market that's chilling, where those people who have a job are frozen in place and unable to job hop anymore. Unlike what we saw several years ago coming out in the frenzy of the pandemic. And the flip side of it is those people who want a job and need a job are frozen out.

TAPPER: Is this because of the tariffs, do you think? SWONK: The uncertainty regarding tariffs, I think is one of the

largest issues here. We know that uncertainty weighs on the economy and it acts as a tax on the economy. And there's just no question that uncertainty measures of uncertainty, we measure it because it's part of human behavior. And economists are really just studying collective human behavior.

Measures of uncertainty skyrocketed as the tariffs were announced. And the sequential nature of the tariffs and uncertainty that is kept is those measures very elevated at record highs. And I think that's very important to remember because that's its own tax on the economy. That's before we actually get to the actual costs of tariffs themselves, which are starting to work their way through the economy.

And next week we're going to get important inflation data which I fear will show inflation accelerating even as the labor market is stalling.

TAPPER: The unemployment rate for black Americans has risen to 7.5 percent. That's the highest level since October 2021. A rise in the black unemployment rate is often considered the canary in the coal mine, foreshadowing a larger scale economic slowdown. Why is that?

SWONK: Well, what we're seeing is that the most vulnerable people tend to get laid off first. And unfortunately that tends to be black Americans. And that's something that is very disturbing in and of itself. But the most vulnerable tend to be the first ones that we see and they're getting laid off.

We also know those who have remote work and hybrid more jobs than others, and those are kind of perks. That means they're losing their ability to stay in those kinds of positions as companies call people back to work, even though we still have a lot of hybrid out there. So those kinds of things are things we really watch for.

The other thing that's really interesting is there's something that usually only happens after we're in a recession and that's the share of people on long term unemployed as a share of the total labor force rises. It's at this elevated level that we've only seen actually in recessions, not before recessions.

Now that may because we've had some slowdown in the civilian labor force, although it did bounce back in the month of August. But those ranks of those long term unemployed, that is something another thing that's a major sign that the economy is in a very weak position in the labor market.

TAPPER: So moments ago in the Oval Office, President Trump referred to tariffs as vital to the United States. And yesterday the White House tweeted this image. Can't stop, won't stop. August tariff revenue breaks record again bringing in $31 billion, which has a flying money emoji. So $31 billion in tariff revenue, where is that money coming from exactly?

SWONK: It's coming from importers paying the price of tariffs and it's people, it's firms in the U.S. paying those taxes. And that's what they are and that's important. And so there, you know, there are reasons to have tariffs for national security reasons. And we can all debate on what the right tariff levels should be.

As economists, this is something that we just don't tend to like. Adam Smith is one of the first in the wealth of nations that said, listen, you could make wine in Scotland, but it would cost 30 times as much to get the same amount as if we imported it to be able to do it in Scotland. And that's what the concern is when you stop trade, what kinds of costs do you have to pay to get what you want.

TAPPER: So just yes or no, $31 billion that the White House is bragging about taking in that' basically bragging that they raised taxes on American businesses by $31 billion.

[17:10:00]

SWONK: Those are taxes on the U.S. economy, on U.S. businesses. Absolutely.

TAPPER: Diane Swonk, thanks so much. Reelection signs are up at an event expected to start soon for New York City Mayor Eric Adams. What we're learning about his political future as we hear that the Trump administration is talking about tapping him for an administration job if he drops out of the race to make it easier to beat the Democrat.

But first, recent raids targeting illegal immigrants, rounding up more than 500 people. We're going to go live to Georgia where one ICE operation targeted a Hyundai auto plant.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Our National Lead now, the Trump administration is escalating its crackdown on undocumented immigrants in the United States. They arrested more than 500 people in two massive raids just yesterday. In upstate New York, dozens of employees of the Nutrition Bar Confectioners plant were taken into custody. The owner of Nutrition Bar Confectioners told the New York Times that all of his workers had legal documents. And at a Hyundai Mega plant in southeast Georgia, Federal agents arrested 475 people, most of them Korean nationals.

CNN's Gustavo Valdes has more from Georgia on how that raid went down.

[17:15:03]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have a search warrant for the whole site. We need construction to cease immediately.

GUSTAVO VALDES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Nearly 500 people rounded up at this Georgia manufacturing plant Thursday in the largest single site operation in history of Homeland Security Investigations.

STEVEN SCHRANK, SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE OF HIS ATLANTA: 475 were illegally present in the United States or in violation of their presence in the United States, working unlawfully.

VALDES (voice-over): The majority of those detainees were Korean nationals, according to Homeland Security. DHS officials say the multiagency raid was a result of a months long investigation into labor practices at the sprawling 2,900 acre Hyundai mega plant site.

SCHRANK: This was not a immigration operation where agents went into the premises, rounded up folks and put them on buses. This has been a multi month criminal investigation.

VALDES (voice-over): Hyundai says it is cooperating with law enforcement and it is committed to abiding by all labor and immigration regulations. Several people attempted to flee during the raid, according to the Department of Justice. Some run into a nearby sewage pond and were fished out of the water and taken into custody.

DHS says there was no substantial use of force and no injuries as a result of the operation.

SCHRANK: Each individual was questioned on their status. Those that were found to be illegally present were then detained and turned over to ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations custody.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VALDES: The South Korean government says they've been in contact with the U.S. government to make sure their citizens are afforded all the rights under U.S. law. And the attorney for a couple of the people detained says that his clients arrived in the United States a couple of weeks ago under a visa waiver program that allows them to visit and work in the United States for a limited time. But he wouldn't say what kind of work they were doing in this plant.

Now a little nuance here perhaps is that these are not migrants in the sense that we usually refers to the people working in construction. These might be people who traveled from Korea recently with intent to work in this plant. All of this is part of the investigation. Jake.

TAPPER: Gustavo Valdes in Georgia, thanks so much. How the Trump administration is responding to an apparent act of intimidation by the Venezuelan military. Is this all a sign of escalation in that region? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:21:50]

TAPPER: In our world lead, the White House says that the U.S. is sending 10 F-35 fighter jets to Puerto Rico as part of an effort to combat drug cartels. This comes after The Pentagon says two Venezuelan military aircraft flew near a U.S. navy vessel in the Caribbean yesterday.

The U.S. calling it a quote, highly provocative move. This three days after a deadly U.S. strike on an alleged Venezuelan narco terrorist drug boat, a strike that killed 11 people.

CNN national security correspondent Kylie Atwood is here with me. Kylie, you just got back from traveling with Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Latin America where he addressed the strike on that boat and let's be honest, rising tensions.

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: He said the strike on that boat is effectively not going to be an isolated incident. At one point on the trip he was speaking to us and he said incidents like this could be happening right now. There wasn't an incident like that was happening Tuesday was the only incident of this lethal situation that we actually saw this week. But he indicated that the movements of these military assets to the region are going there for a reason.

Now, one of the other things that he said, Jake, is that they're going to be going after these drug traffickers wherever they are. So that opened a whole host of questions, because there's a number of questions -- a number of U.S. allies, partners in the region, that were a little bit concerned about the U.S. potentially taking unilateral military action inside their borders against the drug smugglers.

TAPPER: I mean, we're going to. We're going to kill Mexican drug cartels in Mexico without the Mexican government participating.

ATWOOD: Exactly right. And so Rubio was actually asked about that. And he effectively said that it is his understanding that these countries are going to be working with the United States on this goal to eliminate these drug smugglers. Listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARCO RUBIO, SECRETARY OF STATE: For cooperative governments, there's no need, because those governments are going to help us identify him. We don't. They're going to help us identify. Now, they're going to help us find these people and blow them up. If that's what it takes, they're going to help us with it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ATWOOD: Now, whether or not these countries that I visited with the Secretary this week, Mexico and Ecuador, actually made commitments to lethally strike these drug smugglers within their own borders, I don't know that those commitments were made, but he does believe that they're really working with the United States on this goal.

The other thing, of course, to watch is the effect that this could have on Nicolas Maduro, the leader of Venezuela. The administration continues to say that this is an overall goal to eliminate the drugs coming into the United States.

But they also say that this could put pressure on those around Maduro, who they believe are benefiting from the drug smuggling going through Venezuela, and that could eventually lead to him being toppled, which they don't reject as a possible thing that they would like to see.

TAPPER: Even if those allies had agreed to let the U.S. do whatever it wants in its borders, they might not ever acknowledge that they had ever agreed to that.

ATWOOD: No, they might say it's their own, you know, operatives -- TAPPER: Yes.

ATWOOD: -- who are carrying out those operations. So, there's a lot of questions here about how much the U.S. is working with those countries to ramp this up.

TAPPER: Kylie, I would. Thanks so much. Appreciate it. Welcome back. If your next flight is severely delayed or canceled, the proposed rule change by the Trump administration could keep you theoretically from getting compensation from that airline. Some notable reaction to that from the former Secretary of Transportation in the Biden administration.

[17:25:05]

Pete Buttigieg coming to us from an airport. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: In our National Lead, the Trump administration plans to roll back proposed rules requiring airlines to compensate passengers for some disrupted flights, siding in effect with the corporations, not the consumers. The rules were first proposed during the Biden administration, but in a document posted yesterday by the White House, the Secretary of Transportation announced that the Department of Transportation is going to abandon that proposed plan.

[17:30:00]

Pete Buttigieg was of course Biden's Secretary of Transportation and he joins us now. Secretary Buttigieg, I see you there at the gate at an airport. Tell us about these proposed rules and what consumers can expect now that the Trump administration is abandoning them.

PETE BUTTIGIEG, FORMER TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY: So the idea of this proposed rule was to make sure that you could get compensation for your time if you are in one of these extreme delay situations or if your flight gets cancelled. This is the norm in a lot of countries, Europe, U.K., Canada, passengers have enjoyed these rights for years, not so much in the United States.

And so during the time that I was Secretary, we launched a process to get these rules developed. It looks like under President Trump and Secretary Duffy, they are cancelling that process so passengers will not have that protection. And they're also indicating that they might be rolling back other protections, other rules that we had finalized, rights that you and I have right now as a passenger that may be at risk, may be rolled back based on some of the preliminary filings we've seen from this administration.

TAPPER: Transportation Department statement to CNN says that the department will, "implement all aviation consumer protection requirements mandated by Congress." Is that enough?

BUTTIGIEG: Yes, let me translate that. In plain English, what that means is they will not do anything to protect passengers unless Congress makes them. We did everything we could within the authorities that Congress provided. And that meant going above and beyond the minimum using the -- the legal authority the department had to do things like make sure that you did get your money back automatically to set strict rules on how that would work, to hold airlines accountable on things like their promises around seating you with your family, transparency around fees, so many other things that I think are really important.

Look, the reason we did this was because so many passengers were having such a frustrating experience with the way they were being treated by airlines. And I think that it's very important for a department to stand up for passengers. But I got to tell you, in the Trump administration, we're seeing decision after decision that tilts in favor of corporations and against consumers with credit cards.

They've allowed banks to increase junk fees and late fees. With the FTC, you've seen this conservative push that means that now it's easier for companies to trap you in a subscription that you don't want. And, you know, I always wondered if that was going to or when that was going to happen on the airline side.

Now it looks like it's underway with this news. And again, some signals from the Trump administration that they might keep calling back more passenger protections that, as of today, we already enjoy.

TAPPER: I know you're at a real airport because I hear a crying baby behind you. That's how I know it's legitimate. You're at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport right now. We've seen a lot of travel disruption this year because of outmoded equipment and air traffic control towers. The Trump administration routinely blames the Biden administration and you for not doing anything. Were you aware of, for example, the air traffic control problems at Newark Airport?

BUTTIGIEG: Yes, of course. That's why we did things like launching the contract to modernize the technology. Now, when the Trump administration came in, they stopped it or paused it to see if they could give it to Elon Musk. As I understand, that contract is now backed up and running.

But look, this is one area where I support the things that the secretary says he wants to do. There are definitely things that we saw needed to be done when we inherited the air traffic control system that -- that we inherited from the first Trump administration. We moved the ball as far as we could.

I'd like to think this is a bipartisan cause where so many of us, including obviously me at the moment changing planes, are members of the traveling public who depend on a safe, strong air traffic control system. This shouldn't be a partisan football. This is something the whole country should want to be done.

TAPPER: I know you got your flights about to board. So before I let you go, though, I have to ask you, should we expect to see you campaigning for Democrats during next year's midterm elections? And have you made a decision about running for office, including president in 2028? BUTTIGIEG: So yes and no in that order. Definitely too soon for me to make any big career decisions, but definitely not too soon to be doing everything that I can to encourage and promote and support candidates that I believe in, causes that I believe in. This is such an important moment for our country. And I know there's a temptation among a lot of people, I think especially in my party, to kind of tune out because there's so much bad news about freedoms being taken away, harm being done in our country. But I think that means we need to redouble our efforts to put forward better leadership.

Look, we know that the American people don't like what they're seeing under the Trump administration. Republican agenda is clearly so unpopular that one of their biggest efforts right now is to change the way the districts are being drawn in the middle of the decade because they know, even on today's maps, if they just ran on their ideas, they would lose.

[17:35:09]

That's something that should signal to us that we've got to go into these fights with everything we've got. And as a private citizen, I'm -- I'm going to do everything in my power to help.

TAPPER: Pete Buttigieg, thanks so much. Appreciate your time. And you better go catch your flight.

BUTTIGIEG: Will do. My pleasure. Thanks for having me on.

TAPPER: Two breaking news stories that we're following right now. First, from the White House, President Trump just spoke about those dismal jobs numbers out today. We're going to bring that to you. Also from New York moments ago, Mayor Eric Adams, who was running for re- election as an independent, addressed his political future.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: In our Politics Lead, may the record reflect, President Trump had a not great week when it came to court cases. An appeals court ruled that his national emergency went too far to justify tariffs. In Boston, a federal judge ruled his administration illegally canceled funding for Harvard.

[17:40:07]

In New Orleans, a judge said he could not use that 18th century wartime law, the Alien Enemies Act, for deportations. And another federal judge in California said he broke the law, Trump, by deploying the National Guard in Los Angeles. Let's discuss with our panel.

Now look, obviously they're appealing, and obviously who knows what the ultimate result will be. But there is a commonality, as the judges say, he was overstepping his executive authority.

ASHLEY DAVIS, FORMER HOMELAND SECURITY OFFICIAL, GEORGE W. BUSH ADMINISTRATION: Yes, and a lot of the judges are Biden or Obama judges, which happens, and this is not a really political thing. TAPPER: Not all of them. Not all of them.

DAVIS: Not all of them. However, Trump has lived in the courts his entire professional life, and I keep saying this, he is going to use the court system, he's going to take everything up to the Supreme Court than he has. Now they did overturn, I think this morning, the Alligator Alcatraz, it can stay. So that's one thing that he won.

But I think all of these cases are going to continue to go up to the Supreme Court. And they're going to be really tired of going on this, you know, docket that's so quick.

SABRINA SINGH, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR & GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, I think what this administration is -- is sort of doing masterfully is overwhelming the courts. I mean, they're doing that with D.C.

TAPPER: I know the feeling, by the way.

SINGH: Right, right.

DAVIS: We all do.

SINGH: And yes, exactly.

TAPPER: It overwhelms the news media, too.

SINGH: Exactly.

DAVIS: What happened at the August recess.

SINGH: Right, and right, I mean, I don't think there's ever going to be one, at least in this administration, but they're clearly, they -- they see a path here in overwhelming the courts. They're doing it strategically.

And like you were saying, they're going to continue to appeal all the way up to the Supreme Court. But I do think you are seeing Democrats in states fighting back, counter-suing. You're going to see that with some of the redistricting legislation as well. Will it work? You know, again, that's for the courts to decide that are completely overwhelmed.

TAPPER: Yes. So President Trump just spoke briefly about one of our top stories today, the bad jobs report. Here's a little bit of what the President had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: One of the things we've learned, and we learned that the hard way, watching over the last few months, are the corrections that people have been making. They'll say you're losing jobs, and then they'll say, by the way, we have a correction a month later of, you know, 100,000 jobs are missing.

(END VIDEO CLIP) TAPPER: Now, look, this is a real issue, and it has been going on for several years. The businesses have basically, they're supposed to return, it's a survey, and they're supposed to return the information within the month. Some of them take two months, some of them take three months, and the numbers have to get revised to make them more accurate, et cetera, et cetera.

He -- he tends to cast it in terms of there being some conspiracy to -- to embarrass him or to hurt him or to rig -- rig things against him, but it is a legitimate issue. It's been going -- and it was going on during the Biden administration, too.

SINGH: Yes, and we took issues when numbers would come out that weren't favorable when we said, and put policies in place that felt that the economy was coming back, but the numbers didn't reflect that. But we never attacked the credibility of the numbers, and those numbers fluctuate.

I think what's important here is this is Trump's economy, and when the numbers are great, he wants to embrace them. When they're not, he wants to run from them. The reality is Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have not been in office.

It's now, you know, Donald Trump has been in office. It's September. This is his economy. People are running from his, you know, so-called beautiful bill, and of course, the tariffs are having a real impact, and people are not spending right now.

TAPPER: What are you hearing about -- about the tariffs affecting businesses? I know you're connected to the business community.

DAVIS: Yes, no, absolutely. It's a concern, and I think the rule is, like, after six months, you can stop, you can't blame the previous administration anymore because it's really not their fault or the public opinion don't care. Here's the issue. I think that just like under Biden, the stock market's doing well.

The big picture economy is doing well. I don't know how many people are sitting around their table worrying about what the numbers were today, like, truly, in West Virginia, Iowa, whatever, but the problem is if they're still going to the supermarket and their prices are high, obviously, gas prices are down, but more importantly, mortgage rates and rent and things like that. That's the problem that this administration has to get a grasp on.

TAPPER: Yes.

DAVIS: And if the Federal Reserves in two weeks do cut the interest rate --

TAPPER: I think they will.

DAVIS: -- that will help on housing. Yes, I do, too. But that's -- that's the problem, and he's -- he's not doing well on that, just like Biden did.

TAPPER: There's a -- there's a crisis in confidence when it comes to the economy.

DAVIS: Yes. For real.

SINGH: And I think also injecting this, you know, chaos about the numbers. Markets around the world look to the United States for steady leadership, and when you don't have that and you have the President saying, well, don't believe this, don't believe that, only believe me, that doesn't instill consumer confidence.

TAPPER: So I want to turn to the mayor's race in New York because sources tell CNN that top Trump aides approach current mayor Eric Adams, who's running for re-election as an independent, about taking a job in the Trump administration if he drops out of the race, the intention being, of course, to clear the deck so it's just Mamdani, the Democratic Socialist, who was the nominee of the Democratic Party, against Andrew Cuomo, the former governor who resigned in disgrace.

That's what Trump wants. He wants to clear the deck so that Cuomo wins. Anyway, Eric Adams, who possibly has been offered a job as ambassador to Saudi Arabia if he drops out, called a press conference today, and this is what he had to say. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[17:45:08]

MAYOR ERIC ADAMS, NEW YORK: Andrew Cuomo is a snake a lair. I am in this race, and I'm the only one that can beat Mamdani. I have two spoiled brats running for mayor.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: So he's staying in the race, I take it?

DAVIS: Absolutely, and this is like the fight of the egos right now, and what's going to happen is Mamdani's going to win. And I heard on the earlier segments that yes, in theory, that helps Republicans because especially it helps Elise Stefanik if she runs for governor, that she can point to some of those policies, but it's very interesting that he's definitely not going anywhere. I would take the Saudi job because you're going to like bathe in gold.

TAPPER: Yes, one note that Dave Weigel from Semaphore brought to my attention, or reminded me of, when Obama was president, you guys might be too young to remember this, but when Obama was president, Congressman Joe Sestak, who Democrats wanted out of the race, said the White House offered him a job to try to get him out of the race.

Darrell Issa, Republican Congressman, Oversight Committee Chair, called for an investigation, called for an investigation, but here we have pretty much the exact same thing going on. No investigations are being called.

SINGH: It's the exact same thing, and Darrell Issa is yet back in the -- in Congress, in the House, and I don't -- I have heard crickets from him, so it's all very interesting. It's, you know, it's a bit of, they -- they want to play by a different set of rules. But at the end of the day, this will be a very interesting mayoral race.

TAPPER: All right, stick around, we got a lot more to talk about.

Our Health Lead now, we are paging Dr. Sanjay Gupta again. He's here to answer some of your questions about innovative and unexpected ways to treat and manage pain. Sanjay has spent more than three years researching these methods for his brand new book, "It Doesn't Have to Hurt: Your Smart Guide to a Pain-Free Life," as well as for a documentary that you can see this weekend on CNN. We'll have more on that later, but Sanjay, let's dive into the questions.

Karen Duke wrote in, she asked, what effect does diet have on pain? Which foods, drinks should be limited or eliminated? Which foods, drinks are helpful?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: So, the -- the way that we nourish ourselves is really the only signal we're giving from the outside world to our inside world, inside our bodies, on a regular basis, that we choose. Air, obviously, you breathe, that's a signal, but the food you eat, that's one that you choose every day. And I think two things have become clear when I was working on the book.

One is that we -- we're pretty inflamed. There's a lot of inflammation that most of us carry in our bodies, and a lot of that is from nourishment, and simply replacing more and more of our foods with plants, that makes a huge difference. I noticed myself, when I started doing this while I was writing the book, just simple aches and pains that I might have after a workout, those things diminished by doing more of an anti-inflammatory diet.

But another thing that came up, Jake, I think is really important, is keeping a food journal for a couple of weeks, and just trying to correlate the foods that you're eating with the aches and pains you might have, can go a long way as well, because everybody's different. There's certain foods that are going to trigger you, maybe not trigger somebody else. Keeping tabs on that can really be helpful.

TAPPER: Arun Jindal (ph) in San Francisco wrote in and asked, I really wish there was a way to measure the pain-like body temperature. How far are we from that?

GUPTA: Well, you know, it's interesting, because yesterday we talked about this on your -- on your show, this -- this idea that -- that there are these biomarkers in the brain, and people are measuring signals in the brain to -- to sort of give people an idea of that. And if you go to an emergency room with some sort of injury, they will measure your heart rate, and your blood pressure, and your oxygenation, sort of as indirect measurements of how much pain you might be suffering.

But I think, you know, one of the challenges, Jake, is always this idea that pain is still very mysterious. And it's physical, and it's emotional. And so the way, like if I hit your -- your thumb with a hammer on a Tuesday, it could be a totally different experience than on a Wednesday. And the thing you got to pay attention to is the patient and their experience. So they always have to be the North Star. We're going to get better at measuring pain, but the patients always going to be the ones that really tell us.

TAPPER: Evelyn from Boca Raton wrote in about how she fell and landed on her lower back 14 years ago. And despite doing physical therapy, dry needling, and medications, the pain has not gone away. And she asks, quote, I wonder if meditation or deep controlled breathing can help me get control of the pain?

GUPTA: I -- I think the answer to that is -- is absolutely yes. And I think anecdotally, we have known this for some time. But understandably, people have wanted data. And that's why I spent a lot of time with these researchers in San Diego who focus on meditation.

Hundreds of thousands of patients who they -- who have chronic pain who went through these meditation protocols. And what was interesting is that you find, they -- they wanted to give context to this. And they said a meditation sort of session, the way that they outlined it, was equivalent to about five milligrams of OxyContin. That's the context.

[17:50:04]

Now, OxyContin doesn't last forever, it wears off. Nor does meditation last that long. But during the time that these folks were meditating, many of them with severe pain, they were able to significantly reduce their pain scores on par with an opioid. So the answer to Evelyn's question is yes, it can be really, really helpful. It doesn't necessarily last forever, nothing does. But meditation changes your brain in ways that could really alleviate your pain.

TAPPER: Fascinating stuff, Sanjay. Thanks so much. Be sure to watch Dr. Sanjay Gupta reports, "It Doesn't Have to Hurt," this Sunday, September 7th at 9:00 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN. And of course, there is the companion book, "It Doesn't Have to Hurt."

Coming up, one man's huge task, trying to put a smart comedic spin on some of the week's biggest headlines.

Plus, the startling headline from the Wall Street Journal today about RFK Jr.'s plans to announce a link of Tylenol used during pregnancy to children with autism.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:55:27]

TAPPER: Big news in our Health Lead. The Health and Human Services Department Secretary, RFK Jr., has long been on a quest to find a villain on whom to blame increasing autism diagnoses in the United States, and this has led to a shocking pending announcement. HHS is expected to link Tylenol use during pregnancy to the developmental disorder. It's a move first reported by the Wall Street Journal earlier today. This despite the fact that the FDA and obstetrician gynecologists across the country continue to assure millions of pregnant women that Tylenol is safe to use. Although, as with all medications over the counter included, all pregnant women should consult their doctor before taking any medicine.

What's even more curious about this pending announcement, though, is that for years, RFK Jr. has been peddling the long debunked theory that autism is actually caused by childhood vaccines. And RFK Jr. says he believes that. He can believe it all he wants, but he's wrong, according to credible medical and scientific experts.

Now, of course, RFK Jr., according to our new reporting, has a new villain, it's Tylenol. Kenvue, the maker of Tylenol, said today in response, "we have continuously evaluated the science and continue to believe there is no causal link between acetaminophen use during pregnancy and autism." The HHS responded this afternoon, saying, "until we release the final report, any claims about its contents are nothing more than speculation."

Joining us now, CNN senior medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Sanjay, is there any credible data, any credible evidence suggesting that there is a causal link between Tylenol use by pregnant women and autism?

GUPTA: Not -- not a causal link, no. But at the same time, this -- this whole theory is not coming totally out of the blue either. There's been about a decade's worth of studies that have sort of looked at this, Jake. People have raised the specter and the possibility of acetaminophen or Tylenol, it's the same thing, potentially being associated with autism. There were studies, I think about 10 years ago, that did not really show this link.

And by the way, hard studies to do. You're basically saying a child who has autism, asking that woman to go back, look at pregnancy, did you take Tylenol, how much Tylenol did you take, when did you take it, it's hard to remember. And that's the nature of those sorts of studies.

But in 2019, we reported on a study out of Hopkins where they looked at cord blood. They looked at blood in the -- in the umbilical cord, measuring acetaminophen levels, and they did find in that pretty small study that higher levels of acetaminophen was associated with a -- with higher rates of autism. But again, it was -- it was an association, not a causal link.

I think what has attracted a lot of attention is a study just from last month, Jake, August of this year, basically looking at 46 studies, and 27 of them did -- did find an association between acetaminophen use, Tylenol use, and -- and autism. But again, I will tell you, these are hard studies to do. And also, when you have something that's as ubiquitous as Tylenol, there are so many other factors that could come into play.

Like, why were they taking Tylenol? Did they have a fever? Could the fever be the culprit? You sort of -- you sort of get the idea. And just to give you some statistics, I think 45 to 60 percent roughly of women during pregnancy have used Tylenol. So it's widely used across the board and widely used within this population as well.

Quickly, I'll just tell you, ACOG, which is the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, they did release a statement about this. And they have long advised that if you use Tylenol during pregnancy to -- to reduce fever, it is better than having a fever, which can be detrimental. But they said acetaminophen has long been established as a safe pain reliever for pregnant individuals during pregnancy.

There's no clear evidence that -- that proves a direct relationship between the prudent use of acetaminophen during pregnancy and fetal developmental issues. Neurodevelopmental disorders in particular are multifactorial and difficult to associate with any singular cause.

So they've all, you know, if you go to your doctor, they would say, if you have a fever, take Tylenol, but take the lowest amount for the smallest amount of time to be use it in the most prudent way. Jake?

[17:59:43]

TAPPER: Yes, I mean, I -- I find it so confounding because, I mean, women who are pregnant have pain and they take pain relievers quite often. 2024, I'm sorry, pregnant women are told Tylenol is a -- is a way safer pain reliever than Advil or ibuprofen during pregnancy.