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CNN Poll Shows Democrats Far More Energized Than GOP About Midterms; Retail Sales Jump More Than Expected in June; Study Finds No Link Between Aluminum in Vaccines and Autism. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired July 17, 2025 - 08:30   ET

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

[08:30:01]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: You hear them also parroting what you're hearing online, saying, release the files, this is terrible, blah, blah, blah. I mean, is that working for them?

HARRY ENTEN, CNN CHIEF DATA REPORTER: No. I mean, look here at here. Here's what's so important. You know, we talk about the potential of Republicans leaving Donald Trump. They're not leaving him. But what about Congressional Democrats and problems with their own base? Democrats' net approval of Congressional Democrats, according to Quinnipiac University in June of 2025, it was their second worst ever at minus 12 point. It's that not low enough for you? How about we go even lower? In July of 2025, minus 13 points, their worst net approval rating for Congressional Democrats among Democrats ever.

Donald Trump is not the one who has problems with his political base. It is Congressional Democrats are the ones who have problems with their own political base.

SIDNER: All right. Harry Enten giving us all the numbers, thank you so much. I appreciate you.

ENTEN: Thank you. Kate?

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Joining us right now is CNN Senior Political Commentator David Urban and CNN Chief Political Analyst David Axelrod.

So, for this discussion, we're going with Axe and Urban is how we're going to do this because I know you guys too well to call you by your full name, unless you're in trouble.

DAVID AXELROD, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: I want to just say one thing.

BOLDUAN: What?

AXELROD: I'm drinking this. I want what Harry Enten had this morning.

BOLDUAN: No, you don't. I promise you, do not.

AXELROD: I mean, this is just not having the same effect on you. BOLDUAN: He drinks like Coke Zero. That's basically what it is.

Okay. Let's play a game, I'm just calling it today of Choose Your Biggest Headline. The options -- Axe, you get to go first. The options are coming from a little bit of the CNN polling that's just out this morning and a little dash of conspiracy theory. So, Democrats are far more energized about next year's midterms. An overwhelming majority of Americans tell the Democratic Party, we do not like you, with favorability hitting the lowest point for Democrats since CNN began polling in 1992, or young Democrat-aligned voters are split on whether Democrats in Congress should even be reelected, or Jeffrey Epstein, which is the biggest headline?

AXELROD: Well, that's a tough one. That's like choosing between your kids. What do you --

BOLDUAN: How do I choose?

AXELROD: Yes. No, look, let's talk about the Democrats.

BOLDUAN: Yes.

AXELROD: I mean, maybe this rescission package, by the way, that passed in the middle of the night through Congress, where Congress sort of gave their authority away to the president that was handed to them by the Constitution, but we'll set that aside. That's a trivial matter when you're thinking about Jeffrey Epstein and so on.

But on the issue of the Democratic Party, the reason those numbers are so low are in part that Democrats themselves are disillusioned because they don't think Democrats are doing enough to stop Trump. And there is a limit to what they can do to stop Trump when they have neither House of Congress nor the White House. The real answer for them is to win elections. So, it's kind of paradoxical.

But just as Trump tries to rally his base by fleeing Democrats, come next year, this election's going to be very much about Donald Trump. And Democrats as disillusioned, as they are with each other, I suspect, we'll rally behind him.

And what he should worry about are where independents are relative to him. The people who are going to decide this election are much less, you know, happy with him than he should want them to be. So, anyway --

BOLDUAN: Add it all up, that's Axe's take.

David Urban, so could the biggest -- the headline with the biggest, I don't know, lingering tail -- you get to weigh in after I ask my questions, sir.

DAVID URBAN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Okay. Go ahead.

AXELROD: Shut up, Urban.

BOLDUAN: I didn't say it for once, just so you know. But to David's -- to Axe's point is the headline with the, like, the longest tail, the enthusiasm numbers that Democrats are ready to vote and ready to vote now?

URBAN: Well, that's an incredibly great spin on what I just heard Harry Enton say, which was gloom and doom for the Democrats, the lowest -- Kate, just kind of the lowest numbers in the history of CNN polling? I mean, there's no way to spin that and say that's good. You could try to -- and, listen, I agree with Axe. The midterms are going to be incredibly close. Midterms are never, you know -- well, I shouldn't say never. They're generally not blowouts in either direction, although Axe enjoyed that when he was -- when his former boss was in power. But this upcoming midterm election is going to be incredibly, incredibly close.

And so I think the numbers that Harry was showing, he had shown some numbers yesterday about what Democratic numbers favorability and numbers look like in the previous two midterm elections and they were much, much higher. So, I think Democrats are at a giant hole they need to dig out. Trump's favorability is really, really strong amongst the base, which is incredibly important in midterms when you got to have your base show up.

But Axe's is right. It's all about where these independents kind of go, the people in the middle. A lot of those folks at the president got to join his coalition. Democrats who may have not have traditionally voted for Republican, we need to keep those folks on the team, Hispanic families, young men, African Americans.

[08:35:03]

We need to keep that coalition together if we stand a chance of keeping the House and picking up even a couple more seats.

Hispanic families, young men, African Americans, we need to keep that coalition together if we stand a chance of keeping the house and picking up even a couple more seats.

AXELROD: Well, I just -- let me make a couple of points. One is that enthusiasm really is important in these midterm and sort of off-year elections. And Democrats, one of their strengths is they are doing better among most engaged voters. That's why they do well in midterms and special elections. And the question for Trump is, can he get his people out in a midterm election? That's an open question.

The second is, history suggests that Democrats will do well in the midterm elections. Incumbent presidents rarely pick up seats. The last time was 2002 after 9/11, George W. Bush, and the House is very narrowly divided. This is why Trump is urging Texas to remap their state because he wants to pick up more seats, because he doesn't have any confidence that under the current circumstances they're going to do very well.

BOLDUAN: You're actually going to have a Texas congressman on. We wanted to ask actually about that coming up.

AXELROD: I'm just sitting you up here.

BOLDUAN: Thank you so much. AXELROD: Yes.

BOLDUAN: It's like you've seen my rundown.

Urban, Jeffrey Epstein, the president wants it to go away, but the way Politico put it this morning is this is no longer just a political world story. It's entered the pop cultural zeitgeist. Just witness the right-coded comedian, Shane Gillis, making a joke about it at the ESPY Awards last night. I think we have a sound bite of it. We can play it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHANE GILLIS, COMEDIAN: Actually, there was supposed to be an Epstein joke here, but I see it got deleted. It must have probably deleted itself, right, probably never existed actually. Let's move on as a country and ignore that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Urban, the president's new strategy is to blame Democrats, but really doesn't have any footing when you look at the facts of the background here. What's your advice to the president on this one now?

URBAN: Yes. Listen, Shane Gillis was funny, little known fact. Shane Gillis went to West Point for like a day, my alma mater. It's -- you ever get to listen to him talk about it, it's pretty funny.

Listen, I think Donald Trump, the only answer to this to solve what the base is looking for is radical transparency. The administration needs to turn over whatever they have. And the administration needs to have a fulsome briefing and explain why they can't turn over some of the documents, while some of these things that people are hoping to see will never see the light of day because they're, you know, protected by a court order or they're protecting victims, or they're -- you know, they're just -- they have, you know, sensitive -- minor, the information or the child pornography.

There's a reason that most of this is sealed. I think it's a salacious case. It has made its way into the, you know, like you said, the zeitgeist of the American pop culture now. It is not going away. I think they need to, you know, really have a fulsome briefing. I don't think pointing an independent counsel or firing Maurene Comey or any of the other things that are going to happen, opening Alcatraz, I don't think any of these things are going to have any difference other than a full, you know, document dump and a long explanation.

AXLEROD: It'd be easier if the A.G. hadn't promised full transparency before, not delivering it. This is a problem of their own making.

BOLDUAN: Yes, this is definitely of like roll the tape is becoming their worst enemy. But if Alcatraz enters into this story as well, I don't really know who's won that bingo game, but that's going to be pretty wild.

Urban and Axe, thanks, boys. John?

AXELROD: Good to see you guys.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: I'd be sure I can talk. I don't want to talk before it's my turn. I saw what happened to David Urban right there.

BOLDUAN: Now you can speak, sir.

BERMAN: All right. Now I can speak.

All right, we are watching the stock market right now. We just got some brand new economic numbers on retail sales. What does it say about the strength of the economy?

And, first, we were all allowed to wear shoes again. Will liquids be next? Hints that new changes could be coming to TSA checkpoints.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:40:00]

BERMAN: All right. Breaking just moments ago, we got some brand new economic numbers, retail sales.

Let's get right to CNN's Zain Asher. All right, that's an arrow pointing up. What does that mean?

ZAIN ASHER, CNN ANCHOR AND BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Trade war? What trade war? What tariffs, John? Yes, the number actually came in pretty hot, 0.6 percent in June. And when you compare it to what we were expecting, we're expecting a rise of about 0.3 percent. That's coming in significantly hotter than expected. And that tells us that the U.S. economy, or rather the U.S. consumer in this country is very resilient despite all of the headwinds we've seen as it pertains to volatility, as it pertains to uncertainty with this trades war, they are still going out and they are shopping.

When you think about this in the context of the retail sales numbers we've seen so far this year, I mean, they have been literally, I mean, John, look at that all over the place, when you look at from January 2025 until now, part of the issue, look at March, right, it sky skyrocketed. Part of the reason is because people back then were frontloading. They were going out and buying appliances, buying furniture, buying all the things that we import from China in advance of liberation day. And then it dipped dramatically in May. And that's because, well, listen, if you buy all the goods that you need earlier in the year, you don't necessarily need to buy them again in May.

So, this number we're seeing in June, right there, was really important for economists to see where things had sort of leveled out. And when you look at that number, it tells you that people are still shopping despite everything that we've seen, all the headwinds people are still going out.

And so one of the things that sort of we still sort of continue to ask here at CNN is, why is it that this trade war, that all of the uncertainty is not trickling into the hard data just yet? What I found interesting as I peeled back the numbers is that, you know, even though appliances and electronics, we did see a slight dip. Obviously, those are very tariff-sensitive. But clothing, for example, food services, people going out to bars and restaurants, that was actually significantly higher as well. And that shows us that discretionary spending is strong.

[08:45:00]

People are shopping even for the items they don't necessarily need. So, yes, overall a very positive number.

BERMAN: Continued hot numbers on this economy.

Zain Asher, great to see you, thank you very much. Sara?

SIDNER: All right. Joining me now is CNN Global Economic Analyst Rana Foroohar. She's also the global business columnist and associate editor of the Financial Times. Thank you for being here.

Let's just quickly look at these retail sales that we're seeing here, higher than expected. Does it surprise you? Do you wonder what this says about the effect of tariffs on people that doesn't seem to be stopping them?

RANA FOROOHAR, CNN GLOBAL ECONOMIC ANALYST: Yes. You know, it's really interesting. There's a couple of things here. For starters, as Zain said, tariffs hit different industries at different times in different ways. But what I'm also hearing is that large companies in particular have done so much to increase productivity, optimize their supply chains after COVID, after the war in Ukraine. I mean, businesses have really gotten their acts together, and so they're mitigating a lot of the effects of tariffs. I've heard large companies say they think they can mitigate 80, even 100 percent of just to 10 percent across the board tariffs. So, big companies are not suffering.

Small and mid-sized companies, I think, you are starting to see some say, gosh, you know, we're going to have to raise prices. We might go out of business. So, I think this is a story that's still unfolding.

The other thing that I would note, though, is the fact that the numbers are coming in hot is yet another reason to be concerned about inflation, which is, of course, at the heart of the battle between the Fed and the president right now. So, this just sort of puts a little bit of kerosene on that.

SIDNER: Right, because do you raise interest rates, this is what Trump wants. And let's speak to that.

A White House official has told CNN that Donald Trump is toying with the idea of firing Fed Chairman Jerome Power. Publicly, when asked, Trump said it was highly unlikely. But then sources tell CNN that in a meeting with Republican lawmakers, Trump not only polled them about whether he should fire Powell, but had a document he said was a letter that was to fire Powell.

What effect would it have on Americans as a whole if Donald Trump does this completely unusual move and fires the Fed chief? FOROOHAR: You know, Sara, it sounds wonky. We don't -- you know, the Fed is not kitchen table conversation. It is, I think, the single most important thing that could happen economically if the president were to fire Jerome Powell.

Let me tell you why. The Fed is historically an independent body. That's something that's very important for investors in America, particularly investors in the bond market. Foreign investors, they look at America and they say, okay, you have your politics, but you have a central bank that is independently run, the money supplied, the basic economics of the country is something that is apolitical. If that changes, the U.S. is suddenly an emerging market.

And you could just look at countries like, for example, Turkey, where the president did fire the central banker for the exact same reasons. The currency plunged, the stock market plunged and there is now 35 percent inflation in Turkey.

Now, I'm not saying it's going to get that bad in the us but I will say I was at a CEO conference about two weeks ago and the CEOs I was talking to were, this was their single biggest red flag right now in the economy.

SIDNER: Well, that is saying something and sort of the confidence that the U.S. has an independent Federal Reserve is really important to not only those who are here in the U.S. CEOs and the like, but also to the rest of the world.

I have to ask, I mean, does Trump even have the power to do this? Didn't the Supreme Court weigh in on whether the president had the power over the Federal Reserve, which you just said is sort of a quasi-private entity?

FOROOHAR: Yes. Yes, they did weigh in. I mean, this was part of a conversation that's being had around the National Labor Relations Board, which is another body that helps unions organize. You know, the president has challenged a lot of independent bodies. The Supreme Court said that that was okay in certain situations. And so the assumption was, well, the Supreme Court thinks it's okay then, you know, maybe you can go ahead.

But the Supreme Court actually came in and said specifically, no, the Fed is different. The Fed was set up as a quasi-public private entity. There is a long history. It was actually set up after the big financial crash of 1929, to really the safeguard and protect the country from the sorts of things that had happened before. And so that's a pretty strong statement. The Supreme Court doesn't usually weigh in, particularly in advance on things like this and say, no, hands off.

SIDNER: A big warning there from the Supreme Court as well.

Rana Foroohar, thank you so much for your expertise. I really appreciate you coming on this morning. Kate?

BOLDUAN: A new major study just out debunking a common claim by anti- vaccine activists. One person who's pushed that claim in the past, the HHS secretary, RFK Jr.

And one Arizona woman gets a major shock when police officers show up to her home, ring her doorbell to deliver a pizza.

[08:50:03]

We've got more.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: New this morning, hikers confront a man accused of starting a fire in Los Angeles.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You started that fire.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The fire?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, this guy just set that fire.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's up.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He started that fire? You just came from over there. We just saw you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So, the man told the hikers it was a controlled burn and they were able to stop him from leaving, and, eventually, police arrested him. He pleaded not guilty to arson. It took 53 firefighters to put out the flames, which spread about a quarter of an acre.

Two Arizona police officers going beyond the call of duty after arresting a food delivery driver who they say was speeding and driving recklessly while on his way to drop off a pizza. Instead of letting the customer go hungry, though, the officers finished the job themselves. The Tempe Police Department posted video of the delivery on social media saying, quote, the order was hot and ready, and the suspect was caught and steady.

I appreciate the effort and I love the hot and ready thing. I'm not quite sure I understand what steady means in the caught and steady part, but we'll just leave it --

BOLDUAN: Sometimes you just need to rhyme, J.B.

[08:55:00]

BERMAN: It does rhyme. It does rhyme.

BOLDUAN: Okay.

BERMAN: DHS Secretary Kristi Noem says the liquid limit for carry-on bags could soon be changing. Since 2006, the TSA has required liquids in carry-ons to be limited to 3.4 ounces and stored in clear bags. It was put in place after the British foiled a terrorist plot to detonate liquid explosives on flights.

If this does change, it'll be the second big change in recent weeks after the TSA stopped requiring people to take their shoes off at these checkpoints. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Updates to come. There's also this, a new major study out is now debunking another common claim by anti-vaccine activists. The study out of Denmark was published this week in the Analysts of Internal Medicine, researchers found no evidence exposure to aluminum salts added in vaccines led to statistically significant increase in a child's risk of developing a range of conditions, including asthma and autism.

Now, this directly counters the claims pushed by anti-vaccine activists for years. That includes Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr.

This study was also massive, mining the health records of more than 1 million children over 24 years. And none of the 50 conditions that the group looked at occurred at, again, statistically higher levels than would be expected otherwise.

Aluminum salts have been used for more than 70 years, added to some childhood vaccines to improve their effectiveness. And this report adds to an already existing large body of evidence that confirms the same.

This comes at a critical moment. The World Health Organization just reported more than 14 million children around the world remain completely unvaccinated.

Joining me right now is Dr. Paul Offit, the director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital Philadelphia, and a member of the FDA Vaccine Advisory Board.

Dr. Offit, aluminum salts, what do you -- what's your reaction to this study?

DR. PAUL OFFIT, VACCINE DUCATION CENTER DIRECTOR, CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL OF PHILADELPHIA: It is an amazing study. I mean, here was Denmark -- researchers in Denmark looked between 1997 and 2020 during which time children would receive a variety of different vaccines, which contain more or less aluminum salts. And aluminum salts are in vaccines because they enhance the immune response, allowing for fewer doses and lesser quantities of that particular vaccine.

And what they found was that when they looked at these 1.2 million children over that period of time, there was no association between receiving aluminum salts and any of the variety of disorders, neurodevelopmental disorders, allergic disorders, atopic disorders, autoimmune diseases. It was -- if there's such a thing as a definitive study, this was a definitive study.

And you're right, it comes at a really important time because there are many of us who feel that sometimes in the next few months, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is going to hold up some bogus study and say, see, aluminum magnesium causes harm, and this goes a long way to refuting that.

BOLDUAN: And let's dig into that. Because we know vaccine-hesitant groups have pointed to aluminum salts as one of the reasons of concern. Pediatricians have talked about this. We also know that this is something that has been promoted, a conspiracy with it, has been promoted by anti-vaccine activists for years, and that includes RFK Jr.

I want to play for you what he said just in June of 2024.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., HHS SECRETARY: The mercury has been removed from a lot of the vaccines, but there's aluminum in those vaccines, which, you know, operates along the same biological pathways and does the same kind of damage. It's extremely neurotoxic.

And everybody will say, oh, there's no study that shows autism and vaccines are connected. That's just crazy. You know, that's people who are not looking at science.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: But this is the actual science that he keeps claiming is being hidden from the public, what is now out from Denmark.

OFFIT: Right. And, you know, he sort of capitalizes on the fact that the minute you say the name of a metal, like mercury or aluminum, that scares people. But if you live on the planet Earth, you're going to be exposed to both of those products. I mean, aluminum is the third most abundant element on the Earth's surface. It's in the water we drink, it's in breast milk, it's in infant formula. We all have aluminum in our bloodstream. And if you believe what Paracelsus said in the 1600s, the dose makes the poison.

If you look at children who get aluminum containing vaccines, or you look at children who receive vaccines that contain thiomersal, which was an ethyl mercury-containing preserver, you couldn't tell that they'd gotten vaccines that contain mercury or aluminum because the burden from just living on this planet was much greater than anything they were ever going to get from vaccines.

So, if you follow RFK Jr.'s logic that the biology matters, yes, the biology does matter, I think he doesn't understand the biology and is just sort of dealing with kind of in fear-mongering.

BOLDUAN: Real quick on that World Health Organization estimate of 14 million kids that are unvaccinated in the world right now. They call it a very troubling trajectory. How do you turn it around though, the challenges of vaccinating children worldwide?

[09:00:01]

OFFIT: It's hard, especially in war-torn areas. And what I think we haven't done in this country is we basically eliminated USAID, you know, the United States Agency for International Development, and we've eliminated our contributions to GAVI, the Global Alliance Vaccine Initiative, which has been around since 2000. It's probably immunized about a billion children. It's probably saved 20 million lives, and we just cut off funding to GAVI.

I think it was a dangerous and unreasonable thing to do, and I think we aren't fulfilling our obligation to this world as a technologically advanced wealthy country to help those who are more impoverished and not as technologically advanced. And I think it's been hard to watch us shirk our responsibilities here.

BOLDUAN: Yes. And the through line about anti-vaccine sentiment and activism, that connects it to this conversation as well about vaccinating the world.

Dr. Offit, it's good to see you. Thank you so much for coming in.

A new hour of CNN New Central starts now.