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Trump Makes Case that a Weak Dollar is Actually a Good Thing; Meta Shelling Out Big Bucks to Get Ahead in AI; Extreme Heat Can Accelerate Aging Process. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired July 25, 2025 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:30:00]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Before departing for Scotland today, President Trump weighed in on a number of issues, including the weakening U.S. dollar. While the currency is off to its worst start to a year and more than half a century, today the president made the case that a weak dollar has its advantages.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm a person that likes a strong dollar, but a weak dollar makes you a hell of a lot more money. I hate to tell you, I don't know if you study it, but I study it. When we have a strong dollar, one thing happens, it sounds good, but you don't do any tourism, you can't sell tractors, you can't sell crops, you can't sell anything.

It is good for inflation, that's about it, and we have no inflation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: We're joined now by Justin Wolfers. He's a professor of economics and public policy at the University of Michigan. All right, Professor, silver linings and a weak dollar, is that the way that we should be looking at this?

JUSTIN WOLFERS, PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS AND PUBLIC POLICY, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN: Look, the language we use around this makes the whole topic more confusing than it ought to be. Let's not call the dollar strong or weak and evoke a sense of who's got the bigger biceps. Let's just say the dollar is expensive or cheap.

So when the U.S. dollar is cheap, that's what it is right now, that means that American goods are cheap for foreigners to buy. So we're going to export more stuff. That's what the president was talking about. He's exactly right.

It's also true that when the dollar is cheap, that means foreign currencies are expensive. And so for Americans, foreign stuff is more expensive.

And so for those of us who like to buy our olive oil from Europe, that olive oil will become more expensive, not just because of tariffs, but there's an extra 10 percent bump coming from the currency as well. So the thing to worry about is this is something that could very easily create inflation at exactly the moment the White House and its tariff program may also be sparking inflation.

KEILAR: Trump also said that he was looking at rebates for Americans using tariff revenue. How do you think that would work?

WOLFERS: I have no idea. Rebates for the dollar being too cheap. We all earn American dollars. It's what we all use. If I sound incoherent right now, it's because this policy proposal sounds incoherent right now.

KEILAR: Yes, but let's -- OK, but let's pull some of the incoherent threads then. Right. You're talking about tariff revenues.

Let's talk about the transfer of what revenue to whom. Right. So people, in some cases, they might already be paying for some of these. They're paying the cost, right, of the tariffs, getting the rebate, presumably because things have been more expensive. I mean, just sort of like walk us through what hole this might plug.

WOLFERS: Brianna, I love the fact you asked me. Come back, Justin. Be a teacher. Let's teach the point. Look into it.

KEILAR: I'm trying, Justin.

WOLFERS: Look out there, class is in session. So look, the tariff revenue is already spoken for. The point is, if you remember, probably a couple of times ago when we last spoke, Trump just passed the Big, Beautiful Bill.

The Big, Beautiful Bill cuts spending by a lot and taxes by a huge amount, which means we're running even bigger deficits than we were before. If we had any chance of not completely blowing up the national debt, it would be if we got a lot of tariff revenue. We're getting some, but not a lot.

So, yes, we could take that revenue. We could give it to everyone who's affected by the cheaper U.S. dollar. But guess what? That's everyone. Because every single one of us imports stuff from abroad, whether you're low income, medium or high income, you're just importing different things.

And so it would be taking money from one set of Americans in the form of tariffs, the Americans who bring stuff in from abroad, and giving it back to the same set of Americans. That is, Americans who buy stuff from abroad.

So it just seems like there's a lot of paperwork and messing around in the middle to just move money out of our pockets and then back into our pockets. Does that help?

[14:35:00]

KEILAR: That helps, Professor. I appreciate it. And I want to ask you about this. This may be, for a lot of people, the most important thing I have to ask you about today, which is that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says Social Security and Medicare trust funds are just over seven years away from insolvency. They say the one Big, Beautiful Bill, which is now law, dictates that once reserves are depleted, they can only pay out what they have coming in from revenues. And so that does mean a cut to the benefit. It's a 24 percent cut or about 18 grand a year for a dual earning couple in late 2032.

The question is, because we always, you know, we always hear about different projections, what's going to happen with Social Security.

Is this a real threat? How concerned should people be about it?

WOLFERS: It's a very real threat. And it's something to be very worried about. And it's something that folks at home should be demanding action on.

Let me quickly explain how Social Security works. You might think that when you make your payments, well, the money comes out of your paycheck every month, that it gets put in a vault for when you're old. But it doesn't.

What happens instead is it goes to pay the current generation of old people. Now, when you and I get a little older, Brianna, we're going to be retired and we hope that the young people can pay for us. The problem is we have the wrong ratio of young people to old people.

And so what that means is whatever we've got left in the Social Security bank right now is going to run out. That's what's happening. Now, how worried should you be?

Some people hear the idea of insolvency and think there'll be no Social Security for me. That's not true. It's just there'll be no extra.

So what it means is however much young people are putting in, that caps how much, say you and I, we'll get when we're a little older. Now, there's so few young people around these days. What that means is that you and I stand to get a substantial cut to our Social Security.

We'll get something, but not as much as we might have hoped. That's the problem right now. Economists have been warning about this for 30 years.

And 30 years ago, you might have been able to say, well, anything could happen in the interim. We're now seven years away. This is going to happen.

There are many different ways we can solve it. But Congress doing nothing is not one of them.

KEILAR: Yes, the ROI on everything taken out of our paychecks since we were just little lads and lasses. Alas, we'll see what they come up with. Justin Wolfers, thank you so much. Really appreciate it.

WOLFERS: A pleasure.

KEILAR: Ahead, Meta and Mark Zuckerberg are spending big money to get ahead in the race for AI dominance.

[14:40:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is shelling out billions of dollars to get ahead in the AI wars. He reportedly wants his company to be the first to reach so-called artificial super intelligence. That's the theoretical point where AI goes beyond the capabilities of human knowledge.

To get there, Zuckerberg is on a mission to recruit an all-star team of researchers and engineers to beat his competitors.

CNN's Clare Duffy is joining us now with more on this interesting race here. Clare, how is the race for AI dominance shaping up?

CLARE DUFFY, CNN BUSINESS TECH WRITER: Yes, Meta really has kicked off this war, this talent war within the artificial intelligence space. And Mark Zuckerberg appears willing to spare almost no expense to make sure his company wins. Of course, the company had already been spending hundreds of billions of dollars on AI infrastructure, like data centers and chips.

And now it's really kicked off this hiring spree that started with a $14 billion investment in the AI startup scale last month. In that deal, Meta hired away its founder and Alexandr Wang, to start this new team called Meta Super Intelligence Labs. And since then, it's hired two dozen of the leading AI software engineers, researchers, product managers.

And reportedly, it's spending millions of dollars on pay packages for these individuals to try to lure them away from their rivals. And that strategy appears to be working. It has hired top talent away from the likes of Open AI, Google, Anthropic, Apple, Scale AI.

And I've got to say, seeing some of the numbers that are being thrown around here, it's made me wonder if I maybe should have studied machine learning, Jessica.

DEAN: Maybe we all should have. That's not a -- if we could go back.

Also, we had President Trump this week here in D.C. announcing his AI action plan. It was targeted at making the U.S. dominant within the AI race. How is that going between -- where the U.S. is and where the rest of the world is?

DUFFY: Yes, look, I mean, the U.S. is already a leader in this space. The top AI companies are largely based here. You know some of these big names from Silicon Valley.

And this plan from President Trump really should be a boost to all of these big American tech giants. I mean, there's a few things in here that they are going to be really happy to hear. One of them is that Trump wants to pull back some of the guardrails on these companies that were, you know, maybe targeted around safety. He wants them to be able to grow as fast as possible and not worry about some of those restrictions.

The other key piece here is President Trump would like to see more investments in AI infrastructure. So he's going to make it easier for these companies, faster for them to get permits for things like data centers and power facilities.

And that is really essential for building these big AI models, because the thinking is to make these models smarter, you need to process more data. And that requires a ton of computing power. So I think Silicon Valley is going to be very happy about this AI action plan.

DEAN: All right, it is fascinating. Clare Duffy, thank you so much. Really appreciate it -- Brianna.

KEILAR: Now to some of the other headlines that we're watching this hour.

[14:45:00]

Police are searching for a suspect after one person has died and a second was injured in a shooting on the campus of the University of New Mexico. This happened early this morning inside of student housing.

University officials say the armed suspect may still be nearby. They've ordered people on the campus in Albuquerque to remain sheltered in place. And they've told others to avoid the area.

This is at least the 33rd school shooting so far this year, according to a CNN analysis. 14 have been reported on K through 12 campuses, 19 on university and college campuses.

Also, a nine-year-old has died after an incident at Hershey Parks Water Park in eastern Pennsylvania. We have very few details beyond a post on Facebook by the CEO of Hershey Entertainment. He doesn't say if the child was a little boy or girl. The post says that a lifeguard team noticed a child was in distress, and they performed an immediate rescue, followed by life-saving efforts by lifeguards, medical personnel and others.

The child was transported to Hershey Medical Center, where the post adds, despite everyone's tireless efforts, the child did not recover. The police and coroner's office are reviewing the death.

And new fallout from this moment caught on the so-called KISS cam at a Coldplay concert earlier this month.

The chief people officer of the tech company Astronomer, Kristin Cabot, has resigned. Her resignation comes after Cabot, who oversaw the organization's human resources and Andy Byron, the then-chief executive of the New York-based company, were seen embracing on the Jumbotron. Byron resigned last week after being placed on leave. The incident went viral earlier this month.

And still to come, dangerous heat hitting millions today and through the weekend. We'll look at how those extreme temperatures could accelerate the aging process.

[14:50:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DEAN: Severe heat-fueled storms are thrashing parts of the U.S. with dangerous flash floods. More than 2.5 inches of rain triggered this morning's high waters in Kansas City, Missouri. The heavy rains are impacting the central plains and west to the northeast.

And look at this dramatic video of a trailer being swept away by rushing water in New Mexico. That trailer smashing into trees before breaking apart.

And more than 80 million people from Texas to Maine are under heat alerts right now. But the extreme weather could also be taking a toll on our actual bodies, making us age faster.

And for that, let's bring in CNN health reporter Jacqueline Howard. None of us like to hear this, Jacqueline. We're sweating and aging all at the same time. Explain this to us.

JESSICA HOWARD, CNN HEALTH REPORTER: Exactly, Jessica. And you know, we may not even realize that this is happening in our bodies. But new research does show that being in extreme heat for extended periods of time can actually accelerate aging in our cells.

And how researchers came to that finding, they looked at data on more than 3,600 adults. These are adults older than age 56. The researchers found that those who experienced at least 140 days of extreme heat each year, they aged up to 14 months faster than those living in places with fewer than 10 extreme heat days per year.

And extreme heat in this study was measured as greater than 90 degrees Fahrenheit. And Jessica, right now I'm in Atlanta, Georgia. It's 91 degrees. There are many places across the country right now experiencing greater than 90 degrees Fahrenheit.

And what's really happening according to this study is that these soaring temperatures can cause a deterioration in our tissues and our cells. And researchers say that may be what's driving this acceleration of biological aging if you're experienced to so many extreme heat days in a year.

DEAN: So what do you do?

HOWARD: That's the question. You know, it really comes down to being mindful of how much time you're spending in extreme heat.

So if you go outdoors to exercise, aim to exercise during the cooler part of the day, not the hottest part of the day. For all of us, it's still obviously important to exercise regularly. Just make sure it's in cool temperatures instead of hot temperatures.

Eat a healthy diet. Maintain a healthy weight. Don't smoke. Limit alcohol. Those are things that can accelerate aging.

And some people might not realize if you are prescribed a medication for a chronic disease, some of those medications may help slow cellular aging, like metformin when it's prescribed for diabetes, for instance, and some GLP-1 medications.

So those are some things to keep in mind when you think about biological age, which obviously is different, Jessica, than your chronological age, which is how long you've been alive based on your birthday.

But biological age really comes down to how well your cells and tissues are functioning. And you may even know someone in your life who's older in their 70s, 80s, or 90s, and they're still moving around and still have vitality and good health, and that can be a sign of biological age -- Jessica.

DEAN: Yes, that's the thing that really, really matters. As you're aging, you want to be able to live well as long as possible.

And then one last thing, Jacqueline, so you have the chronological or the biological aging you're talking about, all that. There's also physical risks, health risks tied to extreme heat, which we see. Things like heat stroke, that sort of thing.

HOWARD: Oh, absolutely. Yes, yes, like acute heat stroke or heat exhaustion, and that's something to be mindful of as well. I mean, with heat stroke, your body temperature can rise to 106 degrees Fahrenheit within 10 to 15 minutes.

This is when you do experience extreme, extreme body temperatures, and that's something to be mindful of in this high heat across the country.

[14:55:00]

Look for signs of heat stroke, look for signs of heat exhaustion, and make sure that our most vulnerable infants, pregnant women, older adults, they are at risk of these acute heat concerns, and make sure they're well hydrated and kept cool in this high heat.

DEAN: Yes, keep everybody cool. All right, Jacqueline Howard, thanks so much.

Still to come, we're going to hear from the investigators who helped bring a killer to justice. What they still want to know about the murders of those four University of Idaho students.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DEAN: President Trump about to land in Scotland this hour before leaving the White House. He said he hasn't thought about giving Ghislaine Maxwell a pardon, but that he has the power to do so. This, as the convicted Jeffrey Epstein associate spent a second day meeting with the number two official at the DOJ ...

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