Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

U.S. Added just 73,000 Jobs in July; Stephen Miran is Interviewed about Unemployment; Administration Officials Visit Gaza; Air Marshals Reassigned to ICE; Markets About to Open after Tariffs and Jobs Numbers. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired August 01, 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]

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA ANALYST: This is going to be a big theme of her book tour. She said she didn't want to be a part of the pile on. How candid she gets about those decisions, that's going to be one of the most interesting parts to watch for when she's actually out marketing this book and talking about this book in September. But now the press tour has begun on Colbert.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, we will see.

Brian, it's great to see you. Brian, it's great to see you. Thanks so much.

A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: And we do have breaking news this morning. Economic news. Brand new jobs numbers just out. You can see them behind me. In July, the U.S. added just 73,000 new jobs, below expectations. The unemployment rate at 4.2 percent.

But the big news, really big news, major revisions for May and June. Major downward revisions. Those months much, much worse than thought. Really making them two of the weakest months since the pandemic.

Let's get right to CNN's Zain Asher for the latest on this. What are you seeing, Zain?

ZAIN ASHER, CNN ANCHOR AND BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: John, I -- I don't know what to say. I mean this number is bad. You mentioned the downward revisions. But if you look at this number, 73,000 jobs added, compared to 115,000 that was expected. And you have to remember that in order for us not to be in the danger zone in this economy, the economy should be chugging along at least 100,000 jobs every month. The fact that this is below that is significant. You have to go back to October last year to find a worse number.

As you mentioned, the downward revisions are really problematic. We're talking about June being 14,000 instead of 147,000.

BERMAN: That's a huge, huge discrepancy.

ASHER: That is -- John, that is huge.

And then you think about May coming in at 19,000. And a lot of the economists that I've been speaking to have been warning me that, look, when you start laying off the people whose very job it is to actually collect the data, that is likely at some point going to show up in the numbers. And the discrepancies is really what concerns me.

I do want to talk about some of the specific sectors. I'll start with some of the positive numbers that we got as we've spoken about time and time again. A lot of the jobs growth has been driven by health care, right? This is a care economy. You have an aging population. That -- that seems to be doing relatively fine.

Part of the problem, and what I find really problematic, and I'm waiting for Trump to post on Truth Social about these numbers and wondering what he's going to say about Jerome Powell and the Fed needing to cut rates. But when you think about manufacturing. Manufacturing is the one sector that the Trump administration has said that they want to help. That this -- this whole sort of tariff game is about helping that sector. That sector is losing jobs by the minute. When you think about the fact that factories are not able to import raw materials, that you have factories in this country that are sitting idle, that factories are laying people off, and you have at least 11,000 jobs being lost in manufacturing, that's a problem.

Construction is another sector. That sort of, you know, 2,000 jobs added. I mean, that's sort of relatively lukewarm here. You're not seeing much movement in construction. That's a sector that is definitely dependent on immigration. And when you have the fact that a lot of people in this country who are immigrants, who are from elsewhere, are scared to show up to building sites, that's also a problem as well. We're seeing wages in construction actually soar and activity go down as well.

Retail is a sector. It's OK. It added about 15,000 jobs. Sort of chugging along. Retail has, obviously. been problematic because of a little known company known as Amazon. But also retail is heavily dependent on tariffs as well. I'm really curious about what Jerome Powell is going to say, not just because of the headline number, because it's not really just about the headline number, as you know, John. It is really about, a, what is beneath the hood, but also these downward revisions, which tell you that. When I came on here --

BERMAN: Yes. Yes.

ASHER: Last month, telling you, you know, the economy is resilient, that's actually -- that wasn't actually the case because of these downward revisions we're seeing here.

BERMAN: If we can get that other board up because that's the one that actually tells the story. When you see job growth from month to month of 14,000, 19,000. And then, in the 70s, hopefully that can come back up --

ASHER: Yes.

BERMAN: Because that's the news here.

ASHER: Right.

BERMAN: You've got three anemic months of jobs growth.

ASHER: Right. Right.

BERMAN: Put that side by side with this new announcement that came overnight of these tariffs, which may or may not go into effect.

See, right here, this is the news.

ASHER: Right. Right. This is the news.

BERMAN: You look at this. These are -- and I'll just walk around. These are two of the weakest months we've seen since 2020.

ASHER: Right. Right.

BERMAN: It's 14,000, 19,000 --

ASHER: It's 14,000, 19,000 --

BERMAN: Those are very, very weak numbers. And it's also just statistically, and for those who keep track of things, way off from what they said before. But if you look at a three-month stretch like this, you say, wait a second, we've got an economy that's got some real challenges.

ASHER: That's got a lot of work to do. And when you think about the fact that liberation day, yes, October -- April 2nd, rather, liberation day, we were sort of wondering when we were going to see the effects of these tariffs on the labor market. And you and I were talking about the fact that, wow, we haven't actually seen it yet.

Well, we did see it. We just -- it just wasn't reflected in the numbers. And 19,000, as you point out, 14,000 jobs added in June. Clearly, it was having an impact. People were not hiring. You had so much uncertainty in this economy where employers just didn't feel comfortable actually hiring.

[09:05:05]

And I'm wondering what Jerome Powell is actually going to do. He talked about just this idea of being data dependent. And now we're seeing the data really showing some kind of indication that these tariffs are absolutely having an effect now. And so, a lot of people are saying that the September rate cut was already likely. It is now even more likely, John.

BERMAN: Zain Asher, thank you very much.

ASHER: Of course.

BERMAN: Kate.

BOLDUAN: Thank you so much.

Joining us right now for more on this from the White House is Stephen Miran, the chairman -- the chair of the president's Council of Economic Advisors.

Stephen, thank you so much for being here.

What's your reaction to this jobs report?

STEPHEN MIRAN, CHAIRMAN, COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC ADVISERS: Good morning. Thanks for having me.

Look, you know, this jobs report isn't ideal. There's no -- there's -- there's no way around that. But nevertheless, I think that the downward revisions reflect a couple of anomalous factors.

First of all, about 60 percent of the downward revision is due to quirks of the seasonal adjustment process. Then on top of that, there's the fact that the president created about, in the -- in the household survey, since the president took office, he created about 2.5 million jobs for Americans, whereas he's -- whereas we've eliminated about a million jobs for foreign born workers. That's a result of our strong immigration policy, of our strong border policy, keeping America safe. And eventually, the outflow of -- of foreign workers in this data were bound to show up in the establishment survey, as they finally did this morning too.

Finally, we've been hearing a lot about uncertainty over the last few months, but that's all resolved now. We -- we're creating trade deals left and right that have unlocked enormous new potential for the American economy. The tariff uncertainty is fading away. Tariff rates are settling in. The one big, beautiful bill is now law. There's no more uncertainty over the tax bill either, over the -- over potentially the biggest tax hike in American history. And on top of that, there are such strong, powerful incentives in the one big, beautiful bill for investment. Things like full expensing on investment in equipment, in R&D, on new factory structures. These are huge.

So, it's all going to get much, much better from here.

BOLDUAN: But on those major downward revisions for June and May, I mean June was initially said to be 147,000 jobs added, now revised to be just 14,000 jobs added. That amounts to the weakest month of job growth since December of 2020.

What --

MIRAN: Yes.

BOLDUAN: And you attribute that to what if it is not in part because of the uncertainty created in part by the president's trade war?

MIRAN: Oh, I attribute it -- I attribute it to the combination of the three things that I described before. About 40 percent of that is due to -- is due to seasonal adjustment quirks around teachers. Some of it is due to declining foreign-born employment, even as we created more American-born employment. And that is going to net out in a way that you see ultimately reflected in the data like that.

And then finally, there's the uncertainty, right? Don't forget, we were in the midst of restructuring the global trading system in a way that hasn't been done in decades. The president is standing up for American workers and American firms for the first time in decades. And of course, that was going to induce some uncertainty. It induced some volatility in financial markets. And we can see it induces some volatility in economic data too. But that uncertainty is resolved.

BOLDUAN: So -- so, Stephen, you --

MIRAN: The tariff rates are set. The one big, beautiful bill is law. It's going to get better from here.

BOLDUAN: Right. You had said that you -- you had said that this isn't ideal. But what I gather from you is the -- is the White -- that the White House is fine with this because you attribute this to the short term pain, long term gain argument of the trade war?

MIRAN: Oh, well, some of it for sure. But, I mean, look, there's no way around the fact that if you're engaged in a very serious negotiation -- and by the way, those negotiations are extraordinarily successful beyond my wildest dreams of what was possible. When you think about the deals the president accomplished, the deals the president brought home from Europe, from Japan, from Korea, from other trading partners of ours, they're very substantial deals. But there was no way of getting there without the leverage and the pressure to get there.

Now, that leverage and pressure involved some uncertainty. And I do think that that uncertainty is now resolved. So, I see -- I see major tailwinds for the economy in front of us.

BOLDUAN: Howard Lutnick just declared this week that Trump's economy has officially arrived. These big signs of a weakening jobs market that we're talking about here, if that is the Trump economy, what do you do about it now to stop the bleed? Do you just say that -- you're just saying here that it's -- it's -- it is stopped, because I think a lot of people would say, the uncertainty around the -- the trade war is not over with the announcement overnight.

MIRAN: Well, so for one thing, these downward revisions reflect May and June, right. The data from July are still pretty decent. And I think that, you know, we shouldn't overlook that fact.

But, moreover, when you look at the trade deals the president has brought home, together with the United States, these deals represent about 55 percent of global GDP, right? They represent an overwhelming share of our trading partners. And so, I think it's really important to understand that that uncertainty is resolved in large part. Of course, there still are some negotiations ongoing. Of course, we can sort of see if those -- if those proceed from here. But, you know, largely that uncertainty is -- is resolved. And the one big, beautiful bill, as I said, is now resolved as well.

A few months ago we had uncertainty of, is the American economy going to be subject to the largest tax hike in history that will drive it into a recession?

[09:10:07]

Of course, that's the case.

And guess what? There absolutely were firms waiting to make hiring decisions, waiting to make investment decisions for the bill to become law because they didn't know when they would start to be eligible for the types of investment credits that are in -- that are contained in the one big, beautiful bill.

BOLDUAN: So, on that exact point, on the tax cut and spending bill, Marc Short was just on the show. He was Vice President Pence's chief of staff. He worked closely in the Trump administration. He supported the administration's moves against China the first time around to put the squeeze on them. He's talked to me about that many times. But here is what he said about this trade war now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARC SHORT, FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF TO VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE: I think a lot of Americans celebrating the passage of the tax bill and tax relief coming. This wipes it all away. The -- basically the expense of the tariffs on every working family in America is going to counterbalance. When we talk about the amount of revenue coming in, it's not coming in from foreign governments, it's coming in from American citizens who are paying this tax.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: How do you respond to that?

MIRAN: So, I think that's a little bit ridiculous.

First of all, we ran this experiment in 2018, 2019. And what we saw then was no noticeable increase in inflation. No macroeconomically significant evidence of what he's describing. Indeed, the Chinese bore the incidents, bore the burden of the tariffs in 2018, 2019.

What you see happening today is so far we're on a similar path where there's again, no noticeable increase in inflation as a result of these tariffs. And, in fact, not only that, but we put out a report a few weeks ago about how imported goods were actually getting cheaper relative to -- relative to domestically produced goods. We looked at every single good that we have data on, and we broke it down to the component parts and said, how many components come from abroad? How many components come from -- come from -- come from -- come from America? And we looked at it and we found that imported goods were actually getting cheaper relative to domestically produced goods. So, there's just no evidence whatsoever of what he said.

BOLDUAN: Manufacturing lost 11,000 jobs in this report -- in this recent jobs report. And one thing on this is, when you're looking at the tariffs, the big three automakers have said that right now they are absorbing the extra cost of the tariffs. And that's right now. And they're reporting losses. But those are huge companies, like GM and Ford.

A smaller auto parts maker, for example, in Detroit, just had to lay off 100 workers and shut down a warehouse. The owner specifically blaming tariffs, disrupting their supply chain, making goods too expensive to bring in, in order to -- in order to make their parts. How is that -- with Detroit Axle having to shut down a warehouse and fire 100 workers, how is that good for American manufacturing?

MIRAN: Yes. So, we've also got evidence that Japanese automakers have been cutting the prices of their cars by like 20 percent or something like that. There was an article in Nikkei a few weeks ago about that, right? So, we've got plenty of evidence that -- that what we said would happen is going to happen.

And as far as one particular parts maker in -- in Detroit, you know, I don't know the story of that business, but it's always convenient to blame political changes when your business fails. So, I -- I don't know what to make of the -- that particular story. But economically, as I said before, there's just zero evidence of increased prices for consumers as a result of the tariffs. And, bear in mind, these are the most substantial, significant and dramatic adjustments to tariff policy the world has seen in decades. And we still haven't seen any -- any -- any response in consumer prices for it.

BOLDUAN: Real quick, Stephen, you say there's zero evidence of prices going up for consumers. There is evidence of prices going up for consumers. Are you, like, on -- on back to school goods it is something we have been tracking. We know that on toys, like Hasbro is raising prices. We know that they are raising prices. Are -- is your argument that that isn't -- that that isn't important? That doesn't matter. That is insignificant. That isn't consequential enough for it to -- I don't know.

MIRAN: No. My argument is that, look, there will always be changes in what economists call relative prices. You know, the price of this good can go up relative to the price of that good. But when you look in aggregate, there's no material increase in -- in prices in -- in aggregate as a result of these -- as a result of these tariffs. When you look across the entire constellation of things that American consumers buy, there's just no evidence of any macroeconomically significant inflation.

You'll always be able to find one or two products, this product, that product, that has these -- that has these experiences and -- of -- of higher prices. And by the way, this is happening internationally as well. If you look at the prices of the goods that have gone up in price and you look at it in an international context at the U.K., Mexico, Canada, it's an entire -- it's an entire phenomenon internationally. Other countries have experienced similar changes to goods inflation. And, in fact, European goods inflation is also sitting at a similar rate to Americas. None of those countries are engaging in the -- in -- in the widespread tariff application the United States is. And so, there's just very little ground to stand on for thinking that this is all due to tariffs.

BOLDUAN: Stephen Miran, thank you very much for coming on this morning.

MIRAN: Thank you.

BOLDUAN: John.

BERMAN: All right, breaking overnight, Trump administration officials on the ground in Gaza as -- to monitor the hunger crisis there.

[09:15:05]

We've got new pictures this morning of Steve Witkoff, the U.S. envoy to the Middle East, and the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, visiting an aid distribution site in Rafah.

CNN's Jeremy Diamond in Tel Aviv this morning with the latest.

Good morning, Jeremy.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John.

The U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff on, at President Trump's direction, visiting this aid distribution site in southern Gaza. He went alongside the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee. You can see them in these photos, you know, wearing bulletproof vests, clearly, as -- as they are in an active combat zone. We're told that they received briefings from Israeli military officials, as well as officials with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

And what this shows us, beyond the fact that President Trump has dispatched one of his very senior officials to see things firsthand on the ground, is also that the United States is clearly doubling down on this very controversial GHF model. GHF is a private American organization. It is backed by the United States and by Israel. But it is heavily criticized by the United Nations and the majority of the NGOs who are operating and have operated on the ground in Gaza for years now.

And a lot of that stems from the kind of militarized distribution system. Many of these GHF sites are placed in active Israeli military combat zones, and the results of what we have seen as a result of -- of that is that people are walking long distances to get to a very small number of sites, just three of them now operational in Gaza, and more than 600 Palestinians have been killed while trying to make their way to these sites by Israeli forces. That's according to eyewitnesses on the ground and the Palestinian health ministry. GHF, for its part, calls those numbers exaggerated and says there's violence around all aid efforts.

But the bottom line is that this is a controversial distribution mechanism and one that the United States clearly wants to continue and wants to see expanded in some way. We expect that Witkoff is going to be speaking with President Trump today, and that following that, the United States is expected to release some kind of new plan for aid distribution in Gaza. We don't know what that entails, but the United Nations and other humanitarian aid officials say what's most needed right now is for Israel to fully open the crossings into Gaza, to get hundreds more trucks of aid per day into the Gaza Strip, to even begin to alleviate the starvation crisis there.

John.

BERMAN: There's a lot of work to do.

Jeremy Diamond, for us in Tel Aviv this morning, thank you very much.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Still ahead for us, there is new CNN reporting. Federal air marshals hired to keep passengers safe on commercial flights being reassigned now to help on deportation flights. The highly-trained agents serving lunches and checking for head lice.

And a terrifying moment caught on camera. Police say a man tried to abduct a little girl from a play area at a Virginia mall. And now we are learning disturbing information about that suspect.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:22:07]

BOLDUAN: We have a CNN exclusive for you. CNN has learned that 200 federal air marshals have been redeployed since June. The new job, not protecting passengers on commercial flights. Instead, they've been sent to provide security on flights filled with detainees in ICE custody.

CNN's Rene Marsh has this reporting. She's bringing it to us now.

Rene, tell us more about what you've learned.

RENE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning, Kate.

You know, air marshals are federal law enforcement officers highly trained to stop another 9/11-style attack on board a commercial passenger plane. But now the Trump administration has reassigned about 200 of them so far to do security, as you mentioned, on these ICE deportation flights.

Now, air marshals are mostly unarmed on these ICE flights. And according to internal documents and communications, their duties include serving snacks to detainees, bathroom escorts, pat downs. And one group that advocates for air marshals says they're also doing lice checks and trash removal.

Now, the administration has tapped federal employees from across the government to help pull off this aggressive immigration crackdown, all while the data shows that the number of ICE flights have shot up some 34 percent since Trump took office.

Now, the TSA, the agency that oversees the air marshal program, tells CNN, quote, "air marshals are proud to assist their ICE colleagues by providing in-flight security functions on these flights." But one group that represents air marshals says, "the move is putting commercial aviation at risk." The Air Marshal National Council sent a cease and desist letter to DHS and filed a complaint with the agency's inspector general to stop the use of air marshals on these ICE flights.

And adding to the controversy, Kate, the group argues that air marshals are essentially supplementing the security workforce of a private contractor that's already being paid by the federal government to provide security on board.

We did ask about air marshals duties as far as taking out the trash, these lice checks and handing out sandwiches on these deportation flights. TSA did not respond to those questions, Kate.

BOLDUAN: Rene, thank you so much for bringing us this reporting. Really appreciate it.

Still ahead for us, former Vice President Kamala Harris sat down for her first extensive interview since losing the presidential election. What she said about her political future after announcing that she would not be running for governor of California.

And moments from now, markets will be opening on Wall Street, where investors are definitely reacting this morning to this morning's jobs report and this new announcement of more tariffs overnight.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:29:16]

BOLDUAN: All right, we're watching the breaking news this morning. We're just minutes away now from the opening bell after new data is out showing that the American jobs market slowed in July and was also a huge downward revisions for the two months prior in May and June. The new report coming out, of course, as President Trump has revealed sweeping new tariffs overnight impacting almost every nation, the entire world at this point.

Matt Egan back with us.

What more are you seeing in the numbers as you're digging into it?

MATT EGAN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Well, Kate, look, the job market, it's been the bright and shiny star of this economy for years, but now it is cracking, right? It's cracking from all the pressure right now from the tariff situation, right? It feels like tariffs are changing by the hour. New frameworks get announced.

[09:30:00]

Things get pulled back. There's new threats. It's almost impossible for CEOs to make sense of. So, it makes sense that they're just hitting pause right now. They're not hiring. So, look, the headline number,