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Stocks Slide On Dismal Jobs Data, Trump's New Tariffs; Ghislaine Maxwell Moved To Minimum-Security Federal Prison In Texas; Biden & Harris Speak Out Against Trump's Moves In Second Term; Harris Breaks Down Decision To Forgo California Governor Run; Corporation For Public Broadcasting To Shut Down After Trump Funding Cuts. Aired 2- 2:30p ET

Aired August 01, 2025 - 14:00   ET

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

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[14:01:47]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: High anxiety, President Donald Trump announcing new tariffs across the globe. And a weak Jobs Report is adding to concerns for investors, and we're seeing that play out in the markets. Plus, a new prison for Ghislaine Maxwell, the convicted accomplice of Jeffrey Epstein moving to a new minimum security prison in Texas and a spokesperson for the Bureau of Prisons won't say why.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: And extreme makeover White House edition, the Administration announcing plans for a brand-new 90,000-square foot ballroom. Critics questioning if this is what the building known as the People's House really needs. We're following these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to "CNN News Central."

SANCHEZ: This hour, stocks are cruising for a bruising at closing. Markets rattled not only by President Trump's new tariffs, but also the worst jobs news since the end of the COVID pandemic. July seeing a weaker-than-expected 73,000 jobs added; the unemployment rate at 4.2 percent. But it's the tweaks that were made to June and May that are really stunning economists. Nearly 260,000 jobs were actually revised. They were reported down.

As for the tariffs, here's a quick look at where the president landed a 10 percent tariff on countries with trade surpluses with the United States, a 15 percent tariff on countries with a trade deficit, and 26 countries getting a tariff rate higher than 15 percent, some as high as 50 percent like Brazil. Let's discuss with Diane Swonk, she's Chief Economist at KPMG.

Diane, thank you so much for being with us. Now that the tariff deadline has come and gone, do you see the global economy remade in the way that the Trump Administration was aiming for by proclaiming that these tariffs were coming?

DIANE SWONK, CHIEF ECONOMIST, KPMG: Well, what we're seeing is the U.S. economy weaken and inflation pickup as a response to tariffs, which is what we expected in response to tariffs. It's also what the Federal Reserve expected in response to tariffs. Their forecast in June had a pickup in inflation and a pickup in the unemployment rate. What these data today shows with 85,000 jobs created per month in 2025, half -- less than half the pace of 2024 and too close to that margin of error, they could be there within the margin of error be negative at this point in time.

That means the Federal Reserve has to make the tough choice of, do they go ahead and cut rates in September or do they wait for more inflation related to these tariffs? Because they're going to be basically doubling them from where they're already at and the uneven nature in which they've been handed out, that elongates their effects. It takes six to 18 months for the full effects of tariffs to show up.

And in fact, we know historically, that they do protect jobs in the sectors that are protected most, but at the cost to the rest of the economy.

[14:05:00]

In 2018 and 2019, the steel tariffs back then, which were only 25 percent. Now, they're 50 percent and we're facing a much larger spectrum of tariffs out there. Those tariffs alone, in 2018 and 2019, they saved a thousand jobs at the expense of 75,000 in the overall manufacturing sector because of the higher input costs that we're now paying and especially in the auto industry, which is what these were supposed to be directed at. The auto industry now has a disadvantage compared to many of its competitors in Japan, Europe, and in South Korea because of their lower tariff rates and their vehicles coming in.

SANCHEZ: That is such important context to keep in mind. And specifically, the opportunity cost, the jobs that weren't created that could have been. To that point, what's your reaction to finding out that May and June, those Jobs Reports were revised and we actually didn't make a quarter million jobs that they had reported.

SWONK: It's really stunning to see such huge downward revisions, although we had gotten a bit of a heads up knowing that some of the labor force was changing. The numbers are not apples to apples. The data on a monthly basis for foreign-born versus native-born workers is not seasonally adjusted. But since April alone, we have lost 1.5 million foreign-born workers in the labor force. That's the most since the pandemic. And that's helped to hold down the unemployment rate.

Absent that, you would see a much higher unemployment rate along with baby boomers who are now either opting out early to take early retirement because they're afraid they might lose their Social Security benefits or just because we do have so many baby boomers aging into that 65-year-old and 68-year-old age bracket and tapping into Social Security. So, this is a really difficult situation for the Federal Reserve. I think they are certainly much closer to a September rate cut. If they had this data yesterday, would the Federal Reserve -- or two days ago, would the Federal Reserve actually gone with the two dissents and cut? It's not clear. But they might have.

And I think that's what's important, is that it's so hard when you're dealing with tariffs that are so large and coming out so unevenly. There is a stagflationary consequence to it. They both stagnate growth because they're so high and crimp profit margins at the same time they push up prices.

SANCHEZ: Diane Swonk, so great to get your perspective. Thank you for joining us. Brianna?

SWONK: Thank you.

KEILAR: We're also tracking breaking news on another front. Officials tell CNN that child sex trafficker and Jeffrey Epstein accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell was just moved to a federal prison camp in Texas. She had been serving her 20-year sentence at a more restrictive prison in Florida. And this move is coming just a week after she met with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who was formerly President Trump's personal attorney.

Let's bring in Dave Aronberg. He's a former State Attorney for Palm Beach County, Florida. He has also known Attorney General Pam Bondi for many years and worked as her Drug Czar in the Florida Attorney General's office. All right, Dave, so according to our Katelyn Polantz's reporting, this is a nicer prison, fewer violent offenders, more white collar criminals. What are the possible reasons for why Maxwell would've been moved here?

DAVE ARONBERG, FORMER STATE ATTORNEY FOR PALM BEACH COUNTY, FLORIDA: Brianna, good to be with you. Well, it comes closely after Todd Blanche, the number two person at the Department of Justice, met with her in private, spent hours with her getting her testimony, information about the whole Epstein scandal. And now, we see her move to a minimum-security facility. Apparently, this is the same facility where Elizabeth Holmes is, in Texas. It's a much better facility. She was taken out of Tallahassee at a low-security facility and put into one which has a lower staff-to-inmate ratio. These are like dorms rather than cells. There's no perimeter fencing. So, it's much better.

Now, is it because of what she said to Todd Blanche or is it because during the many hours that her attorney and Ghislaine Maxwell spent with the head of the Department of Justice, number two person there, that they convinced him to get her moved because the decision on moving a prisoner is up to the Bureau of Prisons. And who does the Bureau of Prisons report to? The Department of Justice.

KEILAR: OK. So, could it also be, I mean, if she's seen as someone who is cooperating, I mean, is she at risk there? And what kind of happens behind the scenes to negotiate something like this?

ARONBERG: Well, this is the benefit clearly and it's something that the attorney for Ghislaine Maxwell would've mentioned to Todd Blanche, said hey, we've been spending nine hours together. You can see she's testifying in good faith, honestly and openly. Can you at least send her to a better facility? I can see that conversation happening.

[14:10:00]

And by the way, that's -- it happens that inmates are transferred among facilities, it's nothing illegal or necessarily unethical, but the timing, of course, does raise eyebrows because it happens right after. And President Trump is saying that he's not dangling a pardon. He doesn't even want to have that conversation. But this is part of the discussions perhaps that Ghislaine Maxwell looks like she did give the administration what they wanted and as a result, she was moved to a better facility.

KEILAR: Yeah, like, it's kind of what the appearance is there. I also wanted to ask you, Dave, because you're such a good person to ask this of, there's so much focus on the Epstein files and the original Epstein files were in Palm Beach where you were state attorney after the criminal case against Epstein was closed. But as you know, Epstein had pulled his cameras, his hard drives before police searched his house. Authorities, I believe, never subpoenaed that. Correct me if I'm wrong.

And you have victims' lawyers and even journalists who have covered this case, who have questioned whether some of the state files, like the original files may have actually been missing a lot of things and a lot of documents. Do you think that's the case?

ARONBERG: It's hard to say, Brianna. There was an effort to get the grand jury transcripts at the state level and the legislature had to change the law to release the grand jury transcripts. Now we see that, but that wasn't anything huge because we already knew most of the stuff there. So now, the focus is on the Epstein files, which the Department of Justice has collected and they have it in their possession in Washington, D.C.

To your question, did the stuff from the state files get up to the files in D.C.? Probably, I am not aware of anything that has been missing. The thing that I am most interested in is that when the Feds went into Jeffrey Epstein's Manhattan Mansion, they had to use an axe to break into his safe. And when they broke into his safe, they found thumb drives. What's on those thumb drives? We don't know. So, that's all part of the files. So, that's another reason why people want to see this. It's more than just grand jury transcripts at the federal level. That's only a portion of what people are looking for. They're looking for the files.

KEILAR: Yeah. And I wonder if you think this grand jury stuff is a bit of a distraction, considering looking at the grand jury stuff in Florida, it was even thought by investigators that that wasn't, I guess, fulsomely pursued by prosecutors as it should have been, maybe not as informative as some people would want it to be. Do you think that that's a distraction, this grand jury stuff?

ARONBERG: Well, I do think that even if they get the grand jury materials at the federal level, it will only be a small portion of what the public is demanding. I think the Attorney General was right to say there is no client list because there is no client list. And to say that Jeffrey Epstein killed himself because he did kill himself. But as far as what's in the files, it's going to be a lot more than what's on the grand jury transcripts. Especially, now that we're hearing that only one or two witnesses testified before that grand jury and it was law enforcement. So if you want to know what third parties were involved in the sex trafficking ring, you're not going to get it from the grand jury transcripts. And that's why there's still that clamoring to get those files which may never be released.

KEILAR: Yeah. Dave Aronberg, thanks so much for being with us.

ARONBERG: Thanks for having me.

KEILAR: Still to come, Former Vice President Kamala Harris says she did predict a lot of what President Trump has done so far in office, but there's one thing she didn't see coming. We'll tell you what it is next. And it's the final day of the public hearings over that deadly midair crash between a commercial jet and a Black Hawk helicopter at Reagan Airport here in Washington, in the Washington, D.C. area. So, what we learned about the Collision Avoidance Systems in place there. And this just into CNN, President Trump ordering nuclear submarines to move into a strategic position after hearing what a former Russian president said. We have that on much more coming up on "CNN News Central."

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[14:18:50]

KEILAR: Former President Joe Biden and former Vice President Kamala Harris, both stepping back into the spotlight. Both have kept a relatively low profile since Donald Trump's return to the White House. But during public appearances on Thursday, both Harris and Biden offering their own warnings about Trump's second administration.

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JOE BIDEN, (D) FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I can't sugarcoat this. These are dark days. I'd always say that, every generation has an obligation to defend it. But I never, never, never, even though I was a sitting Senator at the time, believed we'd get to this point.

STEPHEN COLBERT, HOST OF "THE LATE SHOW", CBS: You said he would prosecute his political enemies. He would cut Medicaid and Medicare. He would ignore court orders. He would alienate our allies. He would give massive tax cuts to the rich.

KAMALA HARRIS, (D) FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: You are correct that I did predict a lot of it. But Stephen, what I did not predict was the capitulation.

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SANCHEZ: Joining us now to discuss is Jamal Simmons. He served as Deputy Assistant to President Biden and as Communications Director for Vice President Harris. Jamal, great to see you, as always. Harris was --

JAMAL SIMMONS, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT TO PRESIDENT BIDEN: You too. [14:20:00]

SANCHEZ: -- on Stephen Colbert to promote her new book. She's coming out with a book detailing the 107 days of her presidential campaign. I wonder why publish it now and also, what you're hoping to learn from it.

SIMMONS: Well, I'm sure she just took as much time as she could to get it written. I think it's coming out formally in a month or so. Listen, I think everyone wants to know what's going on. What happened during that campaign? What was her perspective? It was a very unique perspective. Obviously, she's the first woman -- the first woman of color vice president, and then obviously, the first woman of color to be nominee. And obviously, also the way the whole thing shook out, right? With Joe Biden having the horrible debate performance and then her being chosen so quickly.

So, it's a fascinating story that people want to get into and see what happened during those 107 days that ultimately, for Democrats and people who aspire to, the middle class, like Democrats want them to, what happened that was so disappointing.

KEILAR: And we learned that Harris is not going to run for governor in California. She said that she wouldn't run for public office because the system is "broken." What did you -- what did you make of those comments?

SIMMONS: You know, she's got a unique view. And so, her view of this is from someone who has been in the system for a long time, the local level, the state level, and obviously is a national leader both in the Senate and in the White House. And so, she is somebody who I think is a primary source when you ask that question. But when you look at what's happening in the government right now, you have a president who's taking on the First Amendment and curtailing freedom of speech, the Fourth Amendment and going after law firms and the right for people to have counsel, going after the Fifth Amendment and due process and people are being exported out of the country without having due process. The Fourteenth Amendment and the birthright citizenship.

So, we look at our constitutional rights norms that are being curtailed. We know the presidency itself is more stronger today than it was a year ago because the Supreme Court has given the president so much power and the president has taken power and realized so much of our system was built on kind of the norms of how we all chose to interact. And this president doesn't really care about the norms. He can't be embarrassed. And so, he'll do whatever he wants until people stop him. And I think that's probably the question that the president and vice president are really raising is, when will we try to -- when will we -- when will we stop him? And what can we do to really hold onto the democracy that we all cherish?

SANCHEZ: I wonder what you make of President Biden's comments, especially as the House Oversight Committee is interviewing some former aides of his, as part of their investigation into his alleged cognitive decline. I also wonder what you make of the idea that whether Biden or Harris, when she took over the campaign on the Democratic side, they argued for maintaining institutions at a time when a lot of the American populace felt that these institutions didn't live up to the promise that they had.

So for Democrats now, as they move forward, this is a very long, complex question, Jamal, I'm sure you can handle it though. How do they address that?

(LAUGH)

SANCHEZ: How do they get back to those middle-class voters that you're describing that they lost, that they need to regain in order to succeed?

SIMMONS: Well, I will testify to this. I have had several conversations with the vice president where she wrestled with this very question, of how do you stand up for the democratic process and then how -- but not necessarily stand up for institutions that people maybe have questions about and are wondering about and trying to figure out how do they -- they aren't working out for them. The problem in the course of her presidential campaign or any campaign or even like a television news hit, it's hard to have a constitutional conversation that you could take an entire semester to debate inside of a three-minute or a four-minute conversation.

So, I think that's something that the campaign kind of got reduced to because there was this argument about democracy and it kind of got built into the institution. So, Democrats have to get out of this business though. The institutions, people don't think the institutions are working for them. So, Democrats have to begin to talk about how to make the institutions work and be on the side of change at all times. That is the question for the next generation and next crop of Democratic leaders.

SANCHEZ: Jamal Simmons, we have to leave the conversation there. Thanks so much for being with us.

SIMMONS: Thanks for having me.

SANCHEZ: We have breaking news to "CNN News Central." The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has just announced that it will soon shut down because of the successful Republican-led efforts to defund local PBS and NPR stations across the country. Of course, last week, President Trump signed a law clawing back congressionally-approved federal funding for public media and foreign aid as well.

KEILAR: CNN's Brian Stelter broke this story. So Brian, what does this mean for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and for public broadcasting?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA ANALYST: This means the money is officially drying up effective September 30th. And so, the non-profit agency that sent this money out to local stations across the country is shutting down, about a hundred staffers losing their jobs.

[14:25:00] This is a political victory for President Trump because he tried several different ways this year to defund public media, to take out this Corporation for Public Broadcasting. He even tried to fire three of the board members, resulting in a lawsuit in federal court. Well, now that lawsuit is moot. It's going away because the entire corporation is going away. The federal funds will stop effectively at the end of September because of the rescissions. And there was a recent effort earlier this week, in Congress to try to find a new way to try to get money for NPR and PBS. That fell flat as well. There is simply no way the Republicans are going to budget money for NPR and PBS right now, due to allegations of bias at those networks.

So, these local stations will be the -- well, they're the ones that will suffer and they're going to suffer in different ways. I was speaking to the head of a public media network in Hawaii that said, look, it was only 6 percent of our budget. 94 percent of the budget there is from other sources of revenue, from donors and foundations. So big stations like that across Hawaii, they will survive. Smaller stations in more rural areas may struggle as a result.

Here's what Patricia Harrison. Harrison, the CEO of CPB, said in a statement moments ago. She said, despite the extraordinary efforts of millions of Americans who called, wrote, and petitioned the Congress to preserve federal funding, we now face a difficult reality of closing our operations. So what that means essentially is, they're going to help local stations and show producers figure out how to survive without this federal funding. And like I said, there are lots of different pathways forward.

It's about raising money from viewers and listeners, perhaps in some cases, getting states to bear more of the burden. We're now going to find out what it means to have public broadcasting without actual public dollars attached from the federal government.

SANCHEZ: Brian Stelter, thank you so much for the update to that breaking news.

When we come back, why President Trump is ordering nuclear submarines to move. We'll discuss in just moments.

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