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James Surowiecki is Interviewed about the Trade Deal with U.K.; Gates Announces He's Giving Away his Wealth; Milwaukee Schools Face Lead Contamination Crisis; China's President in Moscow. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired May 08, 2025 - 08:30   ET

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

[08:30:00]

SCOTT KIRBY, CEO, UNITED AIRLINES: Faster than the normal pace of government just because of the people involved.

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby, thanks for being with us --

KIRBY: Thanks, Pete.

MUNTEAN: On a pretty newsworthy interview here ahead of this 1:30 announcement by Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. A sweeping overhaul of air traffic control infrastructure, the behind the scenes infrastructure, and also the people. That is the big, critical thing here. And we will wait to see that from the Trump administration now with this problem on its hands.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, and it's great to have this -- to have Kirby on.

Thank you so much, Pete. Please thank him for us as well. An important voice in all of this and also just showing how big the problem is and how it will take years to fix. But first, we've got to find out what exactly Sean -- what exactly Secretary Duffy will be announcing later today. And you can see more of Pete's interview. It will be streaming live on cnn.com.

Sara.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: All right, thank you, Kate.

Trade deal watch is upon us. President Trump announcing what he's calling a major trade deal between the U.S. and the U.K., the first since his sweeping tariffs.

Also, Bill Gates says he's always planned that his foundation would be around long after he was gone, but now those plans, changing. That story and more ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:35:38] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, new this morning, we are standing by for a news conference at the White House after President Trump says the United States and the United Kingdom have made what he calls a major trade deal. We're beginning to get a few of the details here. Our friend Phil Mattingly, fantastic reporter, just published a report that says that he is hearing the announcement will be limited in scope, heavy on future commitments, and leave the existing 10 percent universal tariffs in place. That's according to a U.S. and U.K. official. Phil adds that this deal is expected to grant relief to the U.K. on auto and steel tariffs, and U.K. officials have proposed easing digital tax levies on large U.S. companies and a concrete negotiating pathway to a more wide ranging deal.

Again, that's new reporting from our friend Phil Mattingly.

With us now is James Surowiecki, contributing writer at "The Atlantic." And he's got a new piece out this morning titled "The Impending Doom of Trump's Trade War.

James, great to speak with you. Love reading your work.

I first just want to get your reaction to this announcement that's coming. And if it is as reported, how big of a deal do you think that would be?

JAMES SUROWIECKI, CONTRIBUTING WRITER, "THE ATLANTIC": It's not that big a deal. I mean, certainly in the context of the U.S. economy, it's -- it's not a huge deal. Our imports from the U.K. are very small. I think it's something like 3 percent of overall trade. And the U.K. and the -- has been looking for a trade deal from the U.S. pretty much since Trump's first term. Really, if you think about it, once they left the EU with Brexit, they were looking for an independent trade deal. And so I'm not surprised that -- that they were one of the first countries to really work on this.

The other thing to keep in mind, and it's kind of ironic, is that we actually run a trade surplus with the U.K., not a trade deficit.

BERMAN: Yes.

SUROWIECKI: So, you know, Trump's big thing has obviously been the fact that we run trade deficits with most of the world. The U.K. is actually an exception to that. So, it's kind of ironic that they're the first country that we have ended up cutting a deal with.

BERMAN: Yes, the first -- the first deal that is being announced is with a country that, by Donald Trump's own terms, the U.S. is already winning with. That is worthy of note there.

SUROWIECKI: Yes.

BERMAN: So your new piece out that just came out a few minutes ago addresses, I think, what we're hearing from some supporters of President Trump who say, look, you know, a month into this, or more than a month depending on how you count the beginning of it, unemployment is still low in the country. The inflation numbers haven't gotten markedly worse. And GDP, yes, it shrank, but that was because of rushed inventory. So, the sky, they say, hasn't fallen in yet.

Your piece, I think, is a response to that. Explain.

SUROWIECKI: I think it's absolutely true that the sky has not fallen yet. And you heard that yesterday from Jerome Powell, the head of the Fed chairman, who said that you really -- you can't really see any evidence of the -- or much evidence, let's say, of the impact of Trump's trade war in the hard data in the U.S. economy.

But the real point, I think, is that, if you think about it, the trade war, so to speak, has barely begun. You know, Trump's liberation day was on April 2nd. But when the market sort of sold off, both the stock and bond markets sold off in the wake of it, Trump pretty quickly put a pause on almost all of the tariffs in the world, with the exception mainly of China, Canada and Mexico.

And so, we haven't felt, by any stretch of the imagination, the kind of full impact of what those tariff rates would look like. And then the other thing is, the China tariffs, obviously, which are the biggest ones, just take a while to filter through. And I think my piece is really about, what will it look like when the real impact of those tariffs starts to hit. And then when will we see it? And my argument is, you'll probably start to see it at the end of the month and then really into the summer, assuming another deal is not made.

BERMAN: Yes, closing in on that time. Not yet, but maybe a few weeks or months.

Another thing you wrote that caught people's attention was in response to President Trump saying that there needs to be some kind of austerity plan when it comes to dolls and pencils in the United States. You know, children will have to live with fewer dolls and fewer pencils. You wrote on social media. Trump says he'll set the prices for all imported goods.

[08:40:02]

He tells us we'll have five pencils and like it.

Now we have the Treasury secretary talking about preventing the spiritual degradation of the working class. And then you write, "Trumpism is becoming perversely farcically Maoist."

So, what do you mean there?

SUROWIECKI: Yes.

BERMAN: Because I do think that that's an interesting comparison. I think on first blush people are like, oh my goodness, but you mean something specific there.

SUROWIECKI: Yes, I mean, I think one of the things that's very striking about what's happened over the last couple months is that it's really an incredibly top down model of how the U.S. economy is supposed to run. So, if you remember, in Trump's interview, I think it was with "Time" magazine, he has this line where he's talking about how he'll set all the prices for foreign countries to basically get access to the U.S. market. And he said at one point, I am the great store. He -- that was sort of what he literally said.

And so, what we're really seeing in the way the tariffs have been imposed and in the way any of these deals are going to happen is that it really is a very president-centered, Trump-centered model of how the economy is going to work. And that's really not how the Constitution is devised. I mean, in theory, Congress is supposed to be responsible for setting tariffs. And, obviously, it's not the way the U.S. economy historically has worked. We imagine that individuals and businesses should be making these choices and -- and that the free market should really work. Trump is taking a very interventionist view on that.

And then, on top of it, you're getting these very odd rhetoric, very odd coming from Trump, whose whole life has been about conspicuous consumption, where Trump is basically saying, its fine if you don't have that many -- little girls don't have that many dolls, you know, or if they only have five pencils instead of 250 pencils. It's this very odd austerity message, you know, that, actually, you should care more about, I don't know, the spiritual well-being of -- of the working class than about whether or not you can buy and sell what you want.

And -- and so it really is this very unusual and very top down vision of how the U.S. economy should run. And which does have sort of odd things in common with, you know, sort of the Maoist rhetoric that you saw in China in the '60s and '70s.

BERMAN: It'd be very curious if President Trump takes that as a compliment or not, the idea of a prescriptive, controlled economy.

James Surowiecki --

SUROWIECKI: Very well.

BERMAN: It is interesting. I love reading your stuff. Thanks so much for being with us this morning. Appreciate it.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Also new this morning, Bill Gates is announcing that he's planning to give away, quote/unquote, virtually all of his money, roughly $200 billion worth, over the next 20 years through The Gates Foundation, the nonprofit that he started with his ex-wife that funds global health and equity initiatives. CNN's Clare Duffy has much more on this.

And this is kind of an accelerated plan. Why the change? What is Gates saying about this?

CLARE DUFFY, CNN BUSINESS WRITER: Yes, that's exactly right. When he and ex-wife Melinda French Gates started The Gates Foundation, the plan was for the organization to continue spending out their money, continue their work, for up to 20 years after they died. But now Bill Gates says that he doesn't want to wait that long. He wants to spend virtually all of his money within the next 20 years and then close The Gates Foundation in 2045.

Now, he says that this is because of a number of reasons, in part because there is such urgency in addressing global health needs and as we've seen governments, including our own, pulling back on their own investments in public health and research initiatives. He also said that he wants to set a model for other billionaires and have this be part of his legacy. This quote that he wrote in his blog post this morning really stood out to me. He said, "people will say a lot of things about me when I die, but I am determined that he died rich will not be one of them."

And of course, The Gates Foundation has always invested in these global health initiatives, but they're really focusing on these three key goals over the next 20 years. They say they want to end preventable deaths of moms and babies. They want to eradicate all deadly infectious diseases. And they want to lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty.

And it seems like Bill Gates wants to see all of that happen in his lifetime and not have to wait for that to happen.

BOLDUAN: I mean those are important priorities, and there is a lot that they've already funded within those categories. That's quite an announcement today.

DUFFY: Yes, big news.

BOLDUAN: Really. Thank you, Clare. It's great to see you.

DUFFY: Thank you.

BOLDUAN: Thank you so much.

John.

BERMAN: All right, this morning, several public school buildings in Milwaukee are closed after lead was discovered in old paint. The school system says the very CDC team that would normally step in to help them has been laid off by HHS.

CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta traveled to Milwaukee for a firsthand look at the crisis.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Any building built before 1978 in America probably has lead based paint in it, which could poison kids. Our story starts here, Milwaukee, in January. A kid was found to have four times the amount of lead in their blood as expected. So, they started to investigate.

[08:45:01]

And they did not find any lead in the child's home.

And that brought investigators here, where, for the first time they were able to link lead poisoning in children to the city's aging schools. Specifically, they found evidence of lead containing paint in the elementary school bathroom.

Since then, at least three more children have tested positive for elevated blood lead levels. And eight schools have also been found to have unsafe lead levels as well.

In fact, here at Westside Academy, these kids had to be relocated to another school just this week. They found evidence of red flaking paint on the outside, and lots of problems on the inside. Paint that was flaking on doors and walls and window sills.

The city's now got a big job on their hands. They have to inspect around 100 buildings. The health commissioner has invited us to come take a look at the lab where they're analyzing a lot of the samples that have been taken from schools.

DR. MICHAEL TOTORALTIS, Milwaukee COMMISSIONER OF HEATH: They will be diluted and then actually tested within this machine. We look at that concentration and decide, OK, can a school reopen safely or does it need more time to be closed?

GUPTA: These shavings of paint, they're sweet. They taste sweet. Is that why kids eat them?

TOTORALTIS: Yes. So, they actually have a sweetness to them. So, that's why we're generally concerned about children under the age of six who are crawling around on the ground and constantly putting things in their mouth.

GUPTA: What is the lead actually doing in the body?

TOTORALTIS: It gets absorbed into the bloodstream and can cause long term cognitive delays and behavioral issues.

GUPTA: Do you guys have enough resources to accomplish what you need to do?

TOTORALTIS: We have enough of a team right now. I think the long-term investigation into the potential chronic exposures of students at the districts is a part that we were really looking to the CDC to help us with. And unfortunately, HHS had laid off that entire team for childhood lead exposure. These are the -- the best and brightest minds in these areas around lead poisoning, and now they're gone.

GUPTA: So, for now, the city is trying to do the best that they can. In fact, they've set up a testing clinic here at this high school to screen up to 300 children today.

Basically, the kid comes in, they sit down. There's a little lancet here that they do a finger pick test on. The -- it goes into this machine over here and they will get a result back right away, basically then telling the parents, look, your kid's lead level may be too high.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Again, I implore you all to shift to prevention, not reaction.

GUPTA: While we were at the screening, a parent-led group gathered nearby, making some demands about lead remediation.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My grandchildren have the right to go to school without the threat of exposure to lead.

GUPTA: Now, you should know that one of the most cost effective and straightforward ways to control exposure from old paint is to paint over it. But schools and the school district fell behind, and now the superintendent is under a lot of pressure to get this done.

This is particularly concerning if it's down low like this.

DR. BRENDA CASSELLIUS, MILWAUKEE PUBLIC SCHOOLS SUPERINTENDENT: That's right, because it's, you know, where kids handle their materials. And if you're pulling things out, you could certainly -- this chip. So, we remediated these surfaces. And then now we have to go back and paint it. But it's a constant cleaning, a constant upkeep, a constant painting. Painting a room can cost $800. We've got tens of thousands of square feet in just one school. We anticipate this could cost up to $20 million.

GUPTA: Do you have the money?

CASSELLIUS: Well, we -- we do in our reserves. So, right now I'm just saying, I need to just spend every dollar. We are working with urgency, and we are not sparing any expense because one student with lead is too many.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIDNER: One student with lead is too many. She's not wrong about that. That was a great report from our Sanjay Gupta.

All right, ahead, Vice President Vance says Russia is asking for too much in order to end its war on Ukraine. A tougher stance than we've seen before from this administration.

Also, a raccoon, holding a meth pipe -- stay with me -- in a car. Not exactly the bust that one police officer expected to make that day. We will explain, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:53:29]

SIDNER: Three former Memphis officers were acquitted of state charges, including second degree murder in the fatal beating of Tyree Nichols. Nichols was beaten during a traffic stop in 2023, all of it caught on body camera, where protests did result from those. Nichols died three days later. The officers, however, were convicted on federal charges last year and are still waiting to be sentenced. All right up to a dozen cast members of "Les Miserables" planned to boycott next month's performance at the Kennedy Center because President Trump will be there. This is a story CNN reported first. This comes after President Trump purged the Kennedy Center board and installed a new one that then elected him chairman. That prompted protests and condemnation from several artists. The White House has not responded to a request for comment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The raccoon has her meth pipe.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, my God.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Has what?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, my God.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Her meth pipe.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You've got to be kidding me.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's playing with the meth pipe right now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hello.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, don't reach for it. That's evidence now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) where you at?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, I don't want him to have that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, I'm -- that's why I'm going to do it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hey, buddy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hello. Huh?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's OK.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: Hey, at least they were both concerned with the raccoon there. Yes, that was police saying that there was a raccoon holding a meth pipe in the driver's seat of a car. This was during a traffic stop in Ohio. The raccoon, turns out, is a pet named Chewy. Sorry. Why are you making me read this?

[08:55:01]

The raccoon is said to be OK, and police say they train for the unexpected, but this -- this was a first.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: I -- there's -- I'm just going to have to leave it there. We've got to -- we're -- I mean we're leaving it there.

SIDNER: We'll leave it.

BOLDUAN: We're leaving it here. We're leaving it there.

Let's turn to this. Right now Chinese President Xi Jinping is in Moscow for a four day visit at the invitation of Vladimir Putin to celebrate Russia's victory day parade. The two leaders signed a joint statement today, quote, "further deepening their partnership."

Now, Russia's unilateral three-day ceasefire in Ukraine has taken effect, though Ukraine says that it has already been broken by Russia, saying that Russian forces struck hundreds of times along the front lines and launched guided bombs that killed and wounded civilians in several Ukrainian cities just today.

Joining me right now is Admiral James Stavridis, he's a former NATO supreme allied commander and a partner at the Carlyle Group, the international investment firm.

It's good to see you again.

What message do you think that these two leaders are trying to send with this meeting? The timing especially.

ADM. JAMES STAVRIDIS (RET.), CNN SENIOR MILITARY ANALYST: Well, it's like the old "Jerry Maguire" movie, the line, "you complete me." These are two authoritarian nations that kind of complete each other if you stop and think about it. Economically, you've got China, which is a factory, and Russia, which is really a big gas station, oil, gas, energy. You've got a nation that is a Pacific power, and you have one that hovers over the doorstep of Europe. Politically, two authoritarians. They're showing the world they're standing together. Look at them there, quite literally. And that has grave implications for the west in terms of support for Ukraine, in terms of the Middle East, in terms of geopolitics and especially in this turbulent economic time. They're projecting partnership, power and togetherness.

BOLDUAN: I mean it can have an impact that -- that -- what they're trying to project have an impact on -- I mean just name the international conflict that we could discuss and this can have an impact, right?

I mean just thinking of Ukraine, specifically. The vice president, J.D. Vance, he was in Munich yesterday, and it was interesting, seeming to offer a tougher tone on Russia, maybe showing the frustration that the administration is feeling with regard to peace negotiations.

Let me play this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I wouldn't say that the Russians are uninterested in bringing this thing to a resolution. What I would say is, right now the Russians are asking for a certain set of requirements, a certain set of concessions in order to end the conflict. We think they're asking for too much.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: They also seemed to offer a softer tone on Europe, kind of touting the importance of U.S. European ties. What do you make of it because, you know, sitting at -- sitting in Munich just a short time ago, it was quite a different tone coming from J.D. Vance.

STAVRIDIS: Indeed. I would like to think that kind of the light is going on for the administration, that the best pool of partners we will ever have in the world are our European allies. They share our values. Their economy is almost as big as ours. They're the second largest defense budget in the world collectively. It's a pretty powerful opportunity. And as we get to trying to cut these trade deals, and we may see one announce from a European nation, Great Britain shortly, as we try to cut these trade deals, we're going to need those European partners. We ought to recognize that, work with it. That's kind of the -- what I'm hoping I'm hearing from Vice President Vance because, yes, it's a difference in tone, and it's a smart pivot.

BOLDUAN: And it's interesting, as you -- it's all so intertwined right now, as you're pointing out.

STAVRIDIS: Yes.

BOLDUAN: The saying -- to talk about this quickly is -- is kind of impossible, but the dangerous escalation between India and Pakistan. You have more border shelling overnight. Pakistan says it shot down 25 Indian drones. But the defense minister in Pakistan also said that what they're trying to do is to avoid this becoming a full-fledged war. What are you seeing there and how it stands right now? Because it doesn't seem to be abating. I mean what's going to decide that? Where is that line between another round of tension and escalation and full- fledged war?

STAVRIDIS: We're right on it, frankly. And I think this crisis is real. And to my eye, it is kind of zooming past what's happening in Ukraine, what's happening in the Middle East, what's happening in U.S./China. It really is all hands on deck.

[09:00:00]

And this would be a good moment for China to call Islamabad, to call the Pakistanis, the U.S. to call India.