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Trump Reveals Historic New Tariffs for Nations Around the Globe; Global Markets Tumble After Trump Announces Sweeping Tariffs; Torrential Rains, Flash Floods Slam Mid-Atlantic, Northeast; Death Toll From Russian Bombardment on Kyiv Rises to 31. Aired 8:00-8:30a ET

Aired August 01, 2025 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: ... the number of measles cases absolutely is troubling. It's great to see you, Meg. Thank you so much for tracking this for us.

A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: The breaking news this morning, new tariffs on countries around the world just announced. Most go into effect next week, probably. Who gets hit and by how much?

U.S. futures reacting this morning, down about 1 percent across the board. Global markets take a tumble. And we're just minutes away from a critical report on jobs in the U.S. You can see it, this economic frenzy developing this very hour.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris just gave her first extensive interview since losing the election. What she is ruling out and ruling in for her political future.

Sara is out today. I'm John Berman with Kate Bolduan and this is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

BOLDUAN: The breaking news this morning, tariff day is here again, but only sort of. President Trump escalating his trade war with the world by announcing historic tariffs on more than five dozen countries ahead of that midnight deadline, which essentially created another deadline. The White House says that the new rates will take effect less than a week from now on August 7th now.

Here's how it breaks down. Under the president's order, there will now be a 10 percent tariff on nations that the United States has a trade surplus with. And for countries where the United States runs a modest trade deficit, they will now face a baseline tariff of 15 percent. And 26 countries will be subject to tariffs higher than 15 percent.

As for America's neighbors to the North and South, and of course, top trading partners, the president is hiking tariffs on Canadian goods, not covered by the current free trade agreement, from 25 to 35 percent. The reason he's citing it's still the fentanyl crisis. Canada's prime minister calls the move disappointing, but Mexico has a different deal now. They're getting a bit of a reprieve, more time to negotiate with the president extending the 25 percent tariff rate on Mexico, giving it another 90 days to cut a deal.

U.S. markets already reacting. Already reacting this morning. Market futures have been consistently down across the board all morning on this news, opening bell next hour.

CNN's Kevin Liptak is at the White House. Kevin, what more are you hearing about all of this as the day begins?

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, and you know, after so many fits and starts, it does really seem as if we are now fully entering this new trade era, totally re-imagined by President Trump. You know, he promised to do this as a candidate, and now we're seeing some of the effect of this. You know, some of these rates that he announced yesterday are a little bit lower than many of these countries had feared, but nonetheless, we are now at an overall tariff rate that is at a near century high.

The timing here, I think, is very important, and actually something of a surprise. You know, we thought these tariffs were going to go into place last midnight, but the president offering this seven-day grace period, they'll go into effect next Thursday, the 7th of August. That allows time for these countries to try and negotiate their rates lower, also gives them time for American customs inspectors to get ready to charge these new higher tariffs.

Any good that's loaded onto the ship by August 7th and doesn't arrive into the U.S. until October 5th will not be subject to these new higher tariffs, which could have the effect of putting off these higher prices for consumers that many economists have been warning about.

You know, there are a lot of rates. There are a lot of figures. I do want to hone in on at least one example that I think is kind of illustrative of the president's approach here, which is how he has treated North American neighbors. You mentioned Canada, subject now to that higher 35 percent tariff rate, higher up from 25 percent that was in place before this. The Prime Minister, Mark Carney, is responding, saying that while the Canadian government is disappointed by this action, we remain committed to CUSMA, which is the trade agreement that President Trump negotiated in his first term.

We should mention that the products covered by that deal will not be subject to the new tariffs.

The Prime Minister goes on to say that: Canadians will be our own best customer, creating more well-paying careers at home as we strengthen and diversify our trading partnerships throughout the world.

Now, the rationale that President Trump used for putting that higher rate on Canada is what he thinks is the fentanyl crisis, but we should note that the difference between the northern border and the southern border on fentanyl is pretty stark. In 2024, only 19 kilos of fentanyl came across the northern border, compared to 9,600 kilos coming across from Mexico.

[08:05:00]

But you see Mexico getting far different treatment from President Trump. He had what he described as a positive call yesterday with the President Claudia Scheinbaum putting in this 90-day reprieve for those higher tariffs to go into effect to allow more time to negotiate a trade deal.

And so you see in the differing approaches there to Canada and Mexico how the President has kind of approached all of this. In some ways, it is about his personal relationship with these leaders. In other ways, it's how the President wants to handle other topics unrelated to trade specifically and use these tariffs to sort of exert his geopolitical will.

And so all of this now getting ready to go into effect in one week's time. The question is whether all of this is set in stone. You know, if history is any example, the President isn't necessarily fixed on any particular rate, but it is clear now that we are entering a brand new trade era.

BOLDUAN: That's very true. Great reporting, Kevin. Thank you very much -- John.

BERMAN: All right, with us now, CNN Global Economic Analysts Rana Foroohar and Madison Mills, Senior Markets Reporter for Axios. And Madison, let me just start with the markets, what we're seeing right now. Futures down like a point, U.S. futures.

So, you know, could be a lot worse. We saw a lot worse. That's not good. 1 percent is still a fair amount. How are markets reacting?

MADISON MILLS, SENIOR MARKETS REPORTER, AXIOS: Well, and my sources on Wall Street this morning are telling me to not expect to see the level of selling that we saw back in April. And that's because investors have seen this movie before and the sequel doesn't tend to hit as much as the first one. And as is evident by your team's reporting this morning, there's a lot of uncertainty still.

And investors are kind of past the point of trying so hard to price in what all of this lack of clarity means. Instead, they're really focused on what the trade deal is going to look like with China. We also have a jobs report coming out this morning, so that could lead to more selling if that comes in with a negative number and indicates a slowdown in the labor market.

But by and large, we do expect an off day, but not necessarily a historically bad day for the market.

BERMAN: So, Rana, it goes into effect in a week, maybe, and then the actual tariffs won't hit for anything shipped before that, which gives another potentially three months to negotiate there. Is this a -- how real of a deadline do you think this is? RANA FOROOHAR, CNN GLOBAL ECONOMIC ANALYST: Well, you know, there's the political answer to that. Trump can always change his mind, but the economic answer is it's a rolling deadline. I mean, when you think about what the impact of tariffs are going to be, it depends on the industry, it depends on the country, it depends where you are in the country.

You know, if you're in places where there's a lot of supply on the shelves, you know, you may be feeling things in a different way than if there's a shortage. This is going to take many months to roll out. And also, big companies have done a lot to optimize their supply chains to really try and take away some of the hit.

I think smaller and midsize companies are going to feel the hit sooner, and they're going to pass on the prices to consumers sooner. And you may also see some smaller and midsize companies starting to go out of business if they feel too much heat. I've been hearing that already from different entities, you know, in rural areas in particular.

BERMAN: Madison, I read this morning some people describing a 10 percent tariff, which is still so much higher than we were, 10 to 15, maybe the cost of doing business as compared to something at 25 or 30 or 40 or 50 percent, where some countries were. How tolerable for the business community is 10 percent?

MILLS: Well, and for a lot of companies, they might just sit out the next three and a half years. I'm hearing from sources on different boards of companies, especially in the auto industry, that they're thinking, let's just stomach the pain of these tariffs and not necessarily move production back to the U.S., because that's a multi- billion dollar expense. And it's unclear whether or not these tariffs are going to stick around.

And that's the challenge for these companies. If these tariffs continue to change every single day, how much do they price in the ability to stomach a 10 percent baseline tariff when they don't know if that's even going to stick around much longer?

BERMAN: Rana, can you explain where we are in inflation measurements? Are we starting to see signs? We had the PCE come out this week.

Are we starting to see signs of prices creeping up and where might they go if these tariffs start to really go into effect?

FOROOHAR: Yes, that's a great question. A couple of numbers. I mean, as it stands now, we have tariffs on about 45 percent of all goods coming into the U.S. That's a lot.

You also have the overall tariff burden of the U.S. being at pretty close to the highs that we saw in the 1930s when you had a big global trade war. That's a big deal. That's a big change from where we've been in the last half century or so.

So, you know, there's no question in my mind that we are going to see some inflationary impact here. As I said earlier, it's going to, you know, be split geographically.

[08:10:00]

It's going to be split company by company, but I think it's going to be really tough for the Fed, particularly if we get strong jobs numbers today, if they blow through estimates like they did for the last couple of months. It's going to be really hard for the Fed to say, oh, inflation's cooling. You know, we're going to be able to lower rates. I don't think that's going to happen.

And so you're going to continue to see this standoff, I predict, between Trump and Powell and the politicization of the Fed, which has its own impact that makes investors very, very nervous.

BERMAN: Talk to me, Madison, about the jobs report today. I think CNN says expectations around 110,000. I've seen 100,000.

What do the numbers today mean?

MILLS: Well, it's an indication of the health of the labor market, and this is going to be critical to watch. All of my sources on Wall Street tell me the number one thing they're looking at every single month is the labor market, because if you start to see some of this corporate confusion around tariff policy, maybe corporates pull back on spending, and that could be seen in the form of layoffs, in the form of less hiring. So far, what we've seen is a low-hire, low-fire environment.

So you're only in a tough spot as a job seeker right now. If you lose your job, it's really hard to find a new one, but we haven't seen a huge uptick in unemployment. So that's what the market is going to be watching today.

Do we see that uptick in unemployment? What are wages looking like? And what does that tell us about the health of corporate America right now?

BERMAN: And, Rana, let me just end on Canada here, which seems to be a case in and of itself when it comes to the tariffs. You know, one of our biggest trading partners, not to mention we share the biggest border with, this alone could have a huge impact on prices and the economy here. What's driving this?

FOROOHAR: Oh, man, you know, it's the most unexpected trade war of all time. You know, it's, I -- but you know, I think a lot of what's driving it is personalities. I mean, Mark Carney is the anti-Trump.

You know, the prime minister of Canada is about as different a guy from Donald Trump as you can imagine, but he's a tough guy. I know him. He's a tough negotiator, and he's not somebody that's going to back down.

So I can only see this wild 35 percent tariff as a kind of a retribution for the fact that he's standing up and saying, no, Canadians are not going to take just whatever the U.S. decides to dole out. In terms of real world impact, you've already seen the effects of this

in the housing market. A lot of timber comes from Canada. Part of the housing, the fact that we have a supply shortage is due to the fact that there's not a lot of new build because prices have been up. Also, you're going to see an effect in the energy markets and in spot utility prices. A lot of Canadian energy affects supply chains in the upper Midwest, in factory areas.

So that's a place you could feel the hit right away.

BERMAN: Yes, a lot going on. And some of the specific cases here really do matter very quickly. Rana Foroohar, Madison Mills, great to see you both.

Thank you very much -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: So right now, millions of Americans have been left reeling from heavy storms and flash flooding across the Mid-Atlantic and the Northeast. Public transit systems in New York City and Philadelphia hit hard, rushing floodwaters through them. And a young boy actually in Maryland drowned when he was swept into a drainage pipe.

The threat from these storms not over yet. CNN meteorologist, Allison Chinchar is tracking this one for us. She joins us now.

Allison, what are you seeing?

ALLISON CHINCHAR, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Right, we're seeing more rain, which is the last thing a lot of these areas need. This video behind me shows roads just completely flooded over. This is in Orange, New Jersey, making it very difficult for folks to drive. And in some cases, probably shouldn't have been driving on some of those roads.

You can see now most of the heavy rain is finally offshore, but you've still got a couple of spots of that light rain still kind of lingering over portions of the Northeast and the Mid-Atlantic and some thunderstorms kind of wrapping up there across the Carolinas.

More showers and thunderstorms out to the West. And this is going to be the secondary area where we have a concern later today. We're talking the Central U.S., but also the Southeast. You can see more of those storms firing up late this afternoon and the evening, but same thing across the Carolinas.

Georgia into portions of Alabama and Mississippi. And that's where we're going to continue to see the concern, not just today, but even as we head into the weekend. So all of these areas you see here in green have at least the potential for some excessive rainfall.

The higher risk is certainly going to be in those yellow shaded areas, and that includes portions of the Carolinas as well as Georgia and then areas of Northeastern Texas, including Dallas.

The highest amount of rain, however, is really going to be focused over the Southeast in some of these areas because it's multiple days of rain. You are talking three to five inches of rain. Some folks could get that in simply just one day. Others, it could be spread out over the next three days, which that's the hope is that it gets spread out more and doesn't cause as much concern.

Now the front is not only bringing rain, it's also bringing some cooler temperatures a little farther to the North. And that is good news for folks in the Northeast and into the Midwest, but it's also bringing down some smoke from the wildfires in Canada. Those winds are pulling all of that smoke down from the North and in across areas of the Midwest.

[08:15:00]

And so all of these areas you see here shaded in gray are under air quality alerts, not just for today, but these are likely going to linger at least into the early half of the weekend where we can still expect to have some of those winds funneling a lot of that smoke back down.

So do keep that in mind if you have any outdoor plans over the next 48 hours.

BOLDUAN: Allison Chinchar, thank you so much -- John.

BERMAN: All right, the deadliest attack on Ukraine's capital since the war began, 31 people killed after an apartment complex hit overnight.

An infant found abandoned in a Tennessee yard shortly before four relatives found dead nearby. Now a suspect has been identified. A manhunt underway.

And the family of Jeffrey Epstein, accuser of Virginia Giuffre, speaks to CNN what they want the world to know about their sister and the new questions they have for the president.

[08:20:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: Breaking overnight, the death toll from the latest Russian attack on Kyiv is 31, the deadliest single attack on Kyiv in a year.

Rescuers this morning still pulling bodies out of the rubble of a residential building. CNN chief international security correspondent Nick Paton Walsh in Kyiv this morning. Nick, what's the latest from there?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, this death toll staggeringly, nearly trebling it seems overnight as they poured through the rubble. Rescuers finding more and more bodies. One apartment block turns to rubble, the floors collapsing, killing 28 in one single location. It's one of the deadliest single incidents for a long time as many can recall.

And stories of those killed, shockingly personal. A six-year-old boy, Matvii Marchenko, who loved karate, killed there. A neurologist, a policewoman, a teacher killed with her two children as well. And also the remarkable story of a 23-year-old woman who was actually

blown out of the building from nine floors up and survived with only a broken leg and damaged teeth. Her parents, though, killed in that missile strike too.

Another example of the nightly horror and terror inflicted on civilian targets and areas across Ukraine with a particularly acute death toll stemming too from a use of not the highest number of drones we've seen by Russia during that night, about 300, said President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, but designs to overwhelm air defenses and in this one instance claimed a horrific amount of civilian life.

At the same time too, Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed that the town of Chasiv Yar that we talked about yesterday, very significant in the east, is indeed in Russian hands. That has been outright denied by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy saying it's simple disinformation.

But being no doubt at all, these continuing nightly tolls on civilians and on cities around Ukraine, deeply damaging to the ability for Ukrainians to maintain their morale, that's coupled with the persistent bad news that we've been hearing from frontline positions.

Yes, the Kyiv government putting on a brave face saying that they are holding the line, but it's clear from the reporting we've been doing over the past week that villages are changing hands fast or simply are no longer accessible to troops or potentially the police because of the threat of Russian drones and indeed that the key towns of Pokrovsk, Kostyantynivka and Kupyansk are under increasing risk of encirclement. Things moving very fast indeed in that area, John, and the nightly horror of what Russia inflicts with its missiles and drones on multiple Ukrainian cities, it seems persistent -- John.

BERMAN: Nick Paton Walsh in Kyiv. Again, an apartment building where people live, civilians being pulled from the rubble right now. Thank you for your reporting.

New details about the lack of response to the deadly flood in Texas, how local officials missed an emergency planning briefing in the hours leading up to the tragedy.

And former Vice President Kamala Harris sits down for her first interview since losing the 2024 election, why she says she is taking a step back from running for office.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAMALA HARRIS, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT: I made the decision that I just, for now, I don't want to go back in the system. I think it's broken.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[08:25:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BOLDUAN: The family of one of Jeffrey Epstein's accusers, one of his victims, Virginia Giuffre, is speaking out now to CNN, then saying that she fought until her last day to get documents released related to her.

Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AMANDA ROBERTS, GIUFFRE'S SISTER-IN-LAW: She was still fighting for those documents to be released. They are sitting in our court system right now. She wanted the world to know what they've done to her and so many other survivors.

And she had been fighting that to her very last day. And I think we have taken that mantle on and we will continue to fight with her and for her and for all the other survivors so that their truth is known to the world and that they're vindicated.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Virginia Giuffre died by suicide earlier this year. Her family also refuted President Trump's claim that earlier this week -- earlier this week that Epstein stole young women from -- who worked at his Mar-a-Lago resort. Giuffre's brother says that she was preyed upon at President Trump's property.

President has denied any wrongdoing, has not been accused of any wrongdoing in this case. But his administration, as we well know, is now facing mounting pressure from inside and outside the government to have more documents released.

Coming up for us moments from now, a critical report released on the state of the U.S. labor market. We're going to break it down and talk about what it means for the U.S. economy right now.

And Joe Rogan dethroned from his top spot on the latest YouTube podcast rankings by a progressive show highly critical of the president.

END