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Retail Sales Rise in June Even as Trump Tariffs Begin to Set In; Attorney General Bondi to Visit Notorious Shuttered Prison Alcatraz Today; Trump Tries to Shit Blame as GOP Split Grows Over Epstein Case; Interview with Representative Lloyd Doggett (D-TX); Senate Judiciary Committee Votes on Advancing Emil Bove Nomination; New Details on the Case of Colorado Dentist Accused of Murdering Wife. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired July 17, 2025 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: -- of vaccinating children worldwide.

DR. PAUL OFFIT, FDA VACCINE ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEMBER: It's hard, especially in war torn areas. And what I think we haven't done in this country is we basically eliminated USAID, 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.

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

A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts now.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Breaking news. The attorney general is headed to Alcatraz, the original one, the one that is now a tourist attraction that President Trump says he wants to reopen as a federal prison. So why exactly is the attorney general there?

Just as the White House wants the Jeffrey Epstein saga to go away, President Trump suggests the FBI should launch a new investigation into what exactly? It comes as a key prosecutor in the case is fired. A prosecutor with a famous name.

And two huge blackholes collide in space. We're told this is the biggest blackhole collision ever? So what does that mean?

I'm John Berman with Sara Sidner and Kate Bolduan. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: What trade war? U.S. consumers appear to be brushing off worry over tariffs. Brand new retail sales data is just in to CNN showing a sharp rebound in June from May. Retail sales up 0.6 percent last month.

CNN's Zain Asher is here to break down the numbers for us.

What does this tell you? What does it show?

ZAIN ASHER, CNN ANCHOR AND BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: It shows me that the effects of this trade war, Sara, are simply not trickling to the hard numbers just yet. I mean, despite the sort of slight inflationary pressures we've seen in the sort of CPI report we got on Tuesday, people are still going out to shop.

Let's pull up a graphic to show you what the numbers are. So June coming in hot 0.6 percent. We expected 0.3 percent. So that is significantly higher than what we were anticipating. And the reason why this is important is that retail sales, consumption in this country make up 70 percent, 70 percent of GDP. So that's a huge economic indicator as to the strength, as to the resilience of the U.S. economy.

What I found interesting looking at, and I showed John this earlier, is that when you look at where the numbers have been so far this year, over the past six months, I mean, they've literally bounced around. I mean, up and down, you know, just sort of doing this dance there. And when you -- one of the reasons why is because earlier in the year, when people knew that tariffs were coming, they ran out and they went to go and get their appliances.

They went to go and buy their refrigerators and their washing machines and their laundry machines in anticipating -- in anticipation of the trade war. And then later on, last month, we actually saw a significant decline in May, retail sales down 0.9 percent. And that's because obviously, if you have already shopped for everything that you need, you don't need to go out and buy it again.

So one of the reasons why economists are looking closely at the June numbers is that it sort of tells us, OK, how have things sort of leveled out after the wild swings that we saw earlier this year? The categories, I really think the categories are important. What are the categories tell us? So electronics and appliances. Listen, obviously we import a lot of goods from China. That's actually slightly down. That's important to note because those are the goods that are a bit more tariff sensitive.

But when you look at discretionary spending, Sara, people going out and buying clothing and accessories, people going out to sort of food and drink, this is not actually groceries, but this is actually going out to bars and restaurants.

SIDNER: To the restaurants.

ASHER: That's also up. So discretionary spending, which is a true indicator of just how resilient the U.S. economy, or rather the U.S. consumer actually is, that is actually in the green. And for the life of me, we are trying to figure out why that is. How is it that we've had tariffs and we're in the middle of a trade war with pretty much the entire world? Yes, it's been sort of stops and starts, but yet this economy proves to be resilient, whether you're looking at the jobs numbers, whether you're looking at inflation, whether you're looking at retail sales, the list goes on.

SIDNER: Yes. What about the Fed? And you know, Donald Trump has been going after Powell trying to get him to raise those or to lower those interest rates.

ASHER: Lower.

SIDNER: What will the Fed do with these particular numbers?

ASHER: You know, it's interesting because the Fed has to look at a whole bunch of numbers. And I have to say that retail sales, it's important, but it's not the most important, right?

[09:05:03]

As I mentioned, some of the other numbers that they're going to look at is of course the nonfarm payrolls, the jobs report. That is probably the most important. And when they're looking at inflationary data, they're looking at CPI, which I gave you on Tuesday. They're looking at PCE. They're looking at PPI.

Retail sales is important because it is a part of GDP, right. Consumption is a part of GDP. They're absolutely going to be looking at it. I mean look at GDP only comes out once a quarter. Retail sales comes out every month. So it's a little more time sensitive. But of course if the economy continues to heat up, and people are going out to spend, that's less of a reason for the Fed to cut interest rates.

SIDNER: Zain Asher, thank you so much. Still trying to figure out how all this is working right now.

ASHER: As am I, darling, as am I.

SIDNER: All right. Really appreciate it. John?

BERMAN: All right, we do have some breaking news. We just learned that Attorney General Pam Bondi is heading to Alcatraz today. Alcatraz, the former federal prison turned tourist attraction off the coast of San Francisco. And it comes a little bit after President Trump called for this tourist attraction to be reopened as a prison.

Let's get to CNN's Alayna Treene at the White House.

So what's going on here, Alayna?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. So we're learning, John, and this is according to a source familiar with their expected visit today that the Attorney General Pam Bondi, as well as Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, will be together going to Alcatraz. Of course, that famous prison that has now been shuttered for roughly 60 years off the coast of San Francisco. They'll be visiting that.

And we also got a notice or really a comment from Nancy Pelosi's office saying essentially that they've been advised that they're going to be making some sort of announcement before tours open at Alcatraz today.

Now, as you mentioned, the context of this is so important. It comes roughly two months after the president has said that he wants to reopen and rebuild Alcatraz. This was a post he had made in May. He said, quote, "I am directing the Bureau of Prisons together with the Department of Justice, FBI and Homeland Security, to reopen a substantially enlarged and rebuilt Alcatraz to house America's most ruthless and violent offenders."

I remind you as well, part of the reason Alcatraz has been closed for so long is because the cost of keeping it open and operating was so high back then, and even though it had hosted some of the most notorious criminals, I mean, Al Capone, George Machine Gun Kelly, it has been closed for so many years. The president wanting to reopen it.

We hadn't really heard much about this, John, in the months since he had posted that, but their visit today is definitely sparking questions over whether they're actually going to formally move forward with this. And that announcement is going to be something, you know, around wanting to revive formally Alcatraz as a federal prison.

BERMAN: You know, Pam Bondi, the attorney general, has been in the news a little bit lately, having to do with the Jeffrey Epstein case. Where does the White House think it is in terms of moving on from this story, which the president seems to keep on sort of fanning the flames?

TREENE: Yes, I think saying she's in the news a little bit, she's been in the news a lot a bit. Look, there's been so much frustration inside, I need to say, not just outside, inside and outside of the White House with the handling of all of this. It has been over a week now, and despite the president's best efforts, John, to really try and get the media, but even more specifically, his supporters, people in his base who have been fixated on the Epstein case and wanting the Epstein files to be published, trying to get them to move on from it, it's not going away.

And we have heard him continually talking about this yesterday. He actually argued that some of the people, some of his supporters who have been so fixated on this, he called them his past supporters. He said they are weaklings. He said they doesn't -- he doesn't want their support anymore. I mean, some of those comments, when I talked to some of his, you know, supporters on the outside, high-profile MAGA influencers, they say they are perplexed by the president's handling of this because normally he is in lockstep with his base of support.

But this is very much an issue that they have been completely fractured and divided on. A key question, of course, is where does it go from here? We've heard from people like Laura Loomer, who's very influential with Donald Trump, saying perhaps a special prosecutor needs to be appointed. Very unclear if that could be the next step here. Our colleague D.J. Judd said yesterday, or asked the president yesterday if he was even open to that, he said, I don't have anything to do with it. So stay tuned for more on this.

BERMAN: Yes, that was an interesting answer to a very good question.

Alayna Treene at the White House this morning, thank you very much. Kate.

BOLDUAN: Joining us now, Democratic Congressman Lloyd Doggett of Texas, for much more on this.

Congressman, I want to play for you what President Trump is now saying about this whole thing, bringing up Epstein unprompted, when asked about what he'd like the FBI to, quote-unquote, "get to the bottom of." And he's really trying to put this on Democrats now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And they could look at this Jeffrey Epstein hoax also, because that's the same stuff that's all put out by Democrats. And, you know, some of the naive Republicans fall right into line like they always do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[09:10:00]

BOLDUAN: And this new strategy of trying -- of saying, you know, blame Democrats as part of the deflection, I'm curious what you think this means when he says that he would now support an FBI investigation into the Epstein hoax.

REP. LLOYD DOGGETT (D-TX): Any way to distract from himself. You know, it's really surprising to see him attack his own supporters as stupid, as weaklings, and send Pam Bondi off on a waste the taxpayer dollar to discuss reopening Alcatraz. Anything to move the dialogue away from discussing his own failings. Obviously, they opened these files. They saw some secrets they didn't want to disclose to the public. And so now they're doing all this double talk and distraction.

They ought to go ahead and just open the files and do what they told their supporters they would do, even if it makes some buddy of theirs look bad.

BOLDUAN: I mean, stand by to stand by for the next twist in this. To the news from the Hill overnight, though, the Senate passed the $9 billion in funding cuts targeted by DOGE. And it now comes back to the House for final approval. These cuts, you know, going after NPR and PBS and foreign aid, what did the cuts mean? Do you think the cuts are bigger or the cuts on funding the bigger concern for you, or is it how Congress is handing power of the purse over to the executive branch?

DOGGETT: Well, the first thing I would say is they're doing this in large measure because of the failures of Elon Musk and DOGE. He promised he was going to save $2 trillion from waste, fraud and abuse. He never presented a single case of actual fraud. And now, instead of $2 trillion, they're focused on $9 billion. That $9 billion is important. I don't want to see NPR, PBS around the country terminated or limited. They obviously don't like the facts that come out from those news outlets, just as they often criticize CNN.

And so there's harm being done. And of course, abroad, there are actually thousands, if not tens of thousands of lives that are being lost as a result of this abrupt cutoff of health care support for AIDS, malaria, measles and the like. The harm that they've done is great. But the reason they're doing it is they need to have at least a little bit out of all the Elon Musk-DOGE-Trump efforts, which probably, when all is said and done, will have cost American taxpayers more than they save.

BOLDUAN: There's this new CNN polling out today that says quite a bit, Congressman. It says that there is big Democratic enthusiasm to get out and vote in the midterms, far outpacing Republicans right now, but also that just 28 percent of Americans view the Democratic Party favorably. And the context of that is that is the lowest mark for Democrats in the history of CNN's polling going back to 1992.

And for Democrats, they have a lot more work to do to win back favorability within their ranks, within the party than Republicans do. Why do you think this problem persists? What do you ascribe to being the issue?

DOGGETT: Well, you're absolutely right. We have our work cut out for us. I think it's a combination of a number of things. In the last election, we lost, and we lost because we didn't come across as the party of change. We came across as a party that was tied to the past, and that was a serious mistake.

Many of those Democrats that you talked about in the same poll that are the most enthusiastic, are the ones that are calling and saying, you're not doing enough to push back against President Trump. I think we need to appeal and explain that our focus is on the everyday economic issues Americans face.

The only thing I would say about the Republican reaction to those numbers, however, is Donald Trump is obviously worried, or he wouldn't be demanding that the Texans provide him five new Republican members of Congress, much as he once demanded that Georgia --

BOLDUAN: I was going to ask you about that, Congressman.

DOGGETT: OK.

BOLDUAN: I was going to ask you about that.

DOGGETT: Yes.

BOLDUAN: Because the governor has actually called -- the Texas governor called a special session to redistrict, rare, and they're doing it in hopes of winning or basically ousting longstanding Democratic lawmakers trying to pick up more -- redistrict the congressional districts and pick up more seats for Republicans. What does that mean for you? DOGGETT: Well, what it means is not that it's about Texas, but it's

about democracy, and it's about race. Trump sees his House majority vanishing, and so he is -- it's not a Texas idea, but Trump has told and announced from the White House he wants five new Texas Republicans and the legislature will meet on Monday to begin trying to provide him that.

[09:15:02]

He has chosen as his targets, as he always does, people of color, and he's going after the minority opportunity districts in Dallas and Houston trying to eliminate them and replace them with Republicans. I believe ultimately we can put a stop to this. It is not an issue that just affects our state. It's part of the manipulation he's doing in anticipation of the next election. He's also interfering with questions about voter rolls and voting machines in Colorado and half a dozen other states.

We will see more and more of this and the place to put a stop to it is in Texas by saying no to this plan. That's not a Texas plan, but a Trump plan to try to survive at a time he can see he will face a House that can be a genuine check on his ability to govern. And we need that kind of check immediately.

BOLDUAN: Well, a lot of people's eyes glaze over when they hear the word gerrymandering and redistricting. This is important. It is happening. It's happening right now, and we'll be following it very closely.

Congressman, thanks for the time.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right. Ahead, chilling testimony in the trial of the Colorado dentist accused of killing his wife by poisoning her protein shakes. Today, the lead detective in the case will take the stand. The same detective the dentist is accused of plotting to kill.

And breaking overnight, the Senate passes $9 billion in cuts to foreign aid and public broadcasting. What will the house do with it as it faces a hard deadline?

And a major lawsuit against FEMA as a disaster response agency cancels a grant program that guards against natural disasters.

Those stories and more ahead.

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[09:20:38]

BOLDUAN: All right. We're going to show you live pictures right now. This is inside the Senate Judiciary Committee room. Very soon, the Senate, this Senate committee will be voting on advancing the nomination of Emil Bove to a prestigious and lifetime appeals court judgeship. Now, this nomination has gotten a lot of attention as Bove, the former

personal attorney to President Trump, has faced multiple controversies during his time as a top official at the Justice Department, including whistleblower claims that he directed -- he directed Justice Department attorneys to ignore court orders when it came to the president's deportation efforts.

CNN's Paula Reid has much more on this for us right now.

Paula, what are you hearing about his nomination as the committee is going to be voting today?

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is going to be really an interesting one to watch because, as you noted, there have been a lot of bumps for Bove on the way to confirmation. He still has the full support of his colleagues at the Justice Department and the Trump administration.

Now, as you noted, he is a former Trump personal attorney. He sat alongside Todd Blanche, representing the president during his criminal case last year. He was then appointed to several top positions inside the Justice Department. He was basically running DOJ before Pam Bondi and Todd Blanche eventually were confirmed and arrived there. And that is partly how he found himself at the center of all of these major controversies over there.

I think his biggest controversy we can say is leading the effort to drop the corruption charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams, but he really had a pretty short tenure there. I mean, he was there for fewer than six months before he was tapped by President Trump for this, this really very prestigious appeals court job. But shortly before his confirmation hearing, where he was pressed by lawmakers, a whistleblower came forward alleging that Bove intended -- told lawyers that he intended to ignore court orders.

They've also backed that up with documents, but that so far has not derailed the vote today. There's also a letter from over 75 former federal judges urging the Senate to reject his nomination. This is a common thing we've seen. These strongly worded letters. They don't tend to knock the administration sort of off the course that they're on.

I've spoken to a lot of people close to Bove and look, on the other side they describe him as someone who's really smart. He's a great writer. They also point to the fact that he has been not only a longtime federal prosecutor, he's also a defense attorney, and he served at the top of the Justice Department. And they argued that's exactly the kind of person you want in the federal bench, someone who has seen cases from all sides.

So this is definitely a vote to watch. But as you noted, this is just the vote to get him out of committee. And then it would potentially head to the Senate floor.

BOLDUAN: Thank you so much, Paula. It's good to see you. Sara. SIDNER: Next hour, the lead detective in the case of a Colorado

dentist accused of killing his wife with poisoned protein shakes will take the stand in his murder trial.

Now, this is the same detective that Dr. James Craig is accused of plotting to kill from his jail cell. On the stand yesterday, Craig's office manager testified that a package containing potassium cyanide was delivered to the dentist's office just days before his wife, Angela, died. Another witness told the jury that Craig insisted the cyanide was bought as a game of chicken between him and Angela.

Here now CNN's Jean Casarez.

How important was this testimony from Craig's office manager?

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Pivotal. Caitlin Romero was her name, and she talks about that on March 6th, she was already there as the office manager. He comes in late and he says, you know, I gave my wife this protein drink this morning. I made it for her and she's not feeling well. She's going to urgent care. So that's how all of this started.

Well, beyond that, she was there after hours on that day, March 6th. She stayed late and she saw him come back to the office about 5:30. He doesn't go in his own office where the computer is. She sees him go into an exam room, a generic exam room's computer. He's on it for a long time. She leaves. She gets a text a little bit later. He says, "I ordered a personal package. Just put it on my desk when it comes. Don't open it."

So then the days go on. On March 9th, that package arrives there and intermittently he's saying, he keeps saying, I don't think my wife is going to make it through the night.

[09:25:05]

On March 9th, the package arrives. Dental hygienist assistant opens it up because she doesn't know you're not supposed to open it. And so there it is, Caitlin Romero sees it. It's got the poison symbols on the front. There's a foil package. She looks at the invoice. She sees potassium cyanide? She Googles what it is at that point.

Two days later, she Googles what the symptoms are because he kept telling her the symptoms his wife had. She saw, wow, this matches. So his business partner, a fellow dentist, was finally told. And then on the 15th of March, when Angela actually became brain dead, he was at the hospital. He told the nurse, they told the police at that point, but it's all because of that office manager.

Now, there's always a cross examination. He's innocent until proven guilty. And the focus of that was that she admitted that they had had a personal relationship. The defense will use that to say she's a biased witness, that she is not telling the truth here. She's trying to get him at this point in all of this.

Now, this went on because the business partner who was the fellow dentist, his wife took the stand yesterday. She has a PhD in nursing, but she related a phone conversation. I got to tell you this. They're on the way to the hospital. The fellow dentist confronts Craig on the phone about this package. I know what's in it, he said. Yes, I bought a ring for my wife. You didn't buy a ring. It was potassium cyanide.

He said, all right, I did buy it. She asked me to buy it. She's suicidal. I was playing the game of chicken.

SIDNER: And we should mention that people are not seeing these witnesses. You saw the opening statements from both the defense and the prosecutors, but you're not seeing the witnesses, because that is -- the court has not allowed the witnesses to be shown.

CASAREZ: That's why I have to tell you. Yes.

SIDNER: This is why you have to explain it all.

Jean Casarez, thank you so much. You do it so well.

CASAREZ: Thank you.

SIDNER: John.

BERMAN: All right. Russian officials scoffing at President Trump's threat of new tariffs 50 days. It used to be 24 hours. It used to be 100 days. We've been through all of this, they say. And never mind the outrage over Jeffrey Epstein. President Trump has turned his attention to different pressing matters. The recipe for Coca-Cola.

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