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Trump Orders Firing of Labor Statistics Commissioner Immediately After Weak Jobs Report was Released; Trump Orders 2 Nuclear Subs Strategically Positioned; Final Day of NTSB Hearings into Deadly DC Midair Crash; Construction on Trump's $200 Million White House Ballroom to Begin in September. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired August 01, 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: We do have breaking news. President Trump has ordered the dismissal of the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: CNN's Jeff Zeleny is live for us at the White House. Jeff, of course, the timing of this notable given the less than stellar jobs report we got not only for July, but also the revision for May and June that showed that the economy created more than a quarter million fewer jobs than initially thought.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Right. We are hearing from President Trump really for the first time about this jobs report. He'd been unusually silent, really, for most of the last six hours.

And now we are getting a sense of what he's been thinking and potentially doing about this jobs report that the president's own economic advisers acknowledged was less than ideal in the words of one of his top economic officials. But -- so we are hearing now from the president. He just posted just a few moments ago on his social media account that he wants to fire the commissioner of Labor Statistics, who oversees the process of this.

I will read a bit of this post to you.

It says, I was just informed that our country's jobs numbers are being produced by a Biden appointee, Dr. Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of Labor Statistics, who faked the jobs numbers before the election to try and boost Kamala's chances of victory.

We'll go on here. He said. She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified. Important numbers like this must be fair and accurate. They can't be manipulated for political purposes.

Of course, that is exactly what we are seeing here now in real time, is President Trump calling for the firing and, in fact, likely dismissing the commissioner of Labor Statistics because he is not happy with the jobs numbers.

So we'll walk you through a bit of her history here. She is a government employee who was confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate back in 2024 by a vote of 86 to 8. This is one of the positions in government that goes beyond from administration to administration, is not a political -- actually is a political appointee but is confirmed by the Senate.

So again, confirmed by the Republican Senate on a vote of 86 to 8. That does not happen very often here. This is someone whose office is assigned and tasked to produce the jobs report.

But the revisions certainly are interesting, and that's something that the president is seizing upon, revising the jobs report from the last two months downward in a fairly significant way that the June jobs only about 14,000 were added. Of course, this does not look good for the White House's economic policy. So the president lashing out and calling for the firing and dismissal of the director and the commissioner of this office.

KEILAR: Yes, lots of questions abound about this. Jeff Zeleny, we know that you will dig on it. Thank you so much for the very latest there.

We do also have some more breaking news, and that is the president Trump says two nuclear submarines are now being strategically repositioned. He says after Russia made remarks that he's calling, quote, highly provocative, foolish and inflammatory.

SANCHEZ: CNN national security correspondent, Natasha Bertrand, is on this story. So, Natasha, what are you learning?

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Boris, I mean, look, the U.S. has a lot of nuclear powered submarines and not all of them are actually nuclear capable, not all of them carry nuclear warheads.

[14:35:00]

And so the real question right now is, has he deployed submarines closer to Russia that are nuclear armed?

And it is difficult to say because the longstanding policy of the United States is not to confirm or deny whether there are actual nuclear warheads on board. But it is notable that he has messaged this because that is also a very rare acknowledgement that the U.S. is repositioning potentially its nuclear armed submarines closer to an adversary.

And it's also worth noting, however, that these nuclear armed submarines, they conduct these kinds of patrols constantly. They're always on patrol. And, of course, one of their potential target sets, if need be, would be Russia, would be China, would be these major U.S. adversaries.

And so it is probably more of a signal sent to the Russians that, hey, we are around you. We have this capability. You know that we have this capability and we are moving these a little closer than it is an actual threat. It's more of a deterrent most likely. And so, again, we are trying to get more information from the White House and DOD about the implications of this. But, of course, there's been this war of words going on between President Trump and Dmitry Medvedev, the former Russian president, for a few days now. And Medvedev always -- or I shouldn't say always, but he does frequently make these kinds of threats himself as well about Russia's nuclear arsenal and kind of threatening to deploy that.

Obviously, that didn't sit well with President Trump when he did that yesterday. And Trump now saying, we are going to be moving these assets closer to Russia. Exactly where that is and whether they actually had to be moved much further than the areas they were already deployed in, that is also an open question.

KEILAR: So, to be clear, it's normally something Russia does rhetorically more than the U.S.?

BERTRAND: Exactly right. Yes, and particularly Medvedev, who frequently issues these kinds of veiled threats. The U.S. does not often make public where its assets actually are.

SANCHEZ: The backdrop of all this, of course, that 50-day/12-day to 10-day deadline for there to be a ceasefire in Ukraine, any indication that there's progress on that front?

BERTRAND: We've gotten no indication that the Russians are prepared at this point to come to the table. And the real question is whether after these 10 days are up, the U.S. is finally going to impose those secondary sanctions on the Russians.

SANCHEZ: Natasha Bertrand, thank you so much for the reporting.

Still to come, some NTSB hearings just wrapped. We're learning some significant details about that deadly midair collision between an American Airlines regional jet and an Army Black Hawk helicopter. Stay tuned to find out.

[14:40:00]

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KEILAR: The NTSB is in its third and final day of hearings that are looking into last January's deadly midair collision here in the D.C. area between a commercial jet and an Army Black Hawk helicopter.

SANCHEZ: Today, officials peppered witnesses with questions about safety systems and risk management. Yesterday's testimony revealed air traffic controllers should have warned the passenger jet about the helicopter before they collided over the Potomac.

CNN aviation correspondent Pete Muntean is here with the hearings' big takeaways. It's been a very stunning three days, given all the information that we've learned.

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Tough and technical and emotional for these unprecedented three days of hearings and really bombshell after bombshell. The focus today has been on the collision alerting systems in the helicopter, which is key because we know the system that provided the helicopters better position information to air traffic control was turned off. That was done frequently by the squadron in question, the Army's 12th Aviation Battalion, citing security concerns.

So far, we have heard from problems at all levels, problems with the equipment and the instruments on board the Black Hawk. The NTSB uncovered that altimeters in Black Hawks from the very same unit read 80 to 130 feet low, meaning the crew could have been flying higher where there were very narrow altitude margins under the approach going into Reagan National Airport.

Also problems with the culture among the Army Pilot Corps. They would regularly fly below, we found out in testimony, flights descending into land at Reagan National Airport.

And then there were problems uncovered with air traffic control procedures, that one controller in the tower did not issue a traffic alert to the arriving regional jet operated by PSA Airlines when he should have.

And here is the exchange between NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy and a representative from the FAA, which controls the air traffic control system nationwide.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JENNIFER HOMENDY, NTSB CHAIR: Were any traffic advisories or safety alerts issued?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No safety alerts.

HOMENDY: Should the local controller have let the PSA crew know that there was a helicopter there?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MUNTEAN: This all adds up to an incident that was so easily preventable. This does not end with a final cause. That will come in another six months. That's when NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy says this report should be done. We're only at the six month mark now.

So she says she is committed to a one year timeline to get all of this out in the open. This has been primarily trying to air all the facts. This is not like a court hearing. This comes with no real judgment, although there have been some huge findings so far.

KEILAR: Yes, it's really been important stuff to listen to with implications far beyond this crash as it should be. Thank you so much, Pete. Really appreciate it.

And when we come back, a fixer upper. The White House is about to undergo a makeover. [14:45:00]

What President Trump is planning to do with the East Wing and who's paying for it.

Stay with us.

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SANCHEZ: A vision that President Trump has had for 15 years is now coming to light. The White House says that construction of a new $200 million ballroom will begin next month. The administration is releasing these renderings of what the 90,000 square foot venue is going to look like.

It shows a large space with gold and crystal chandeliers, gilded Corinthian columns, coffered ceiling with gold inlays and a checkered marbled floor.

KEILAR: The renderings greatly resemble the Louis the 14th style main event room at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

[14:50:00]

The president has been envisioning a new ballroom on the White House campus since 2010, when he called former President Obama offering to build one. This is just the latest in a string of White House changes by Trump, including the removal of the Rose Garden lawn and the installation of massive new flagpoles. The White House says the project will be funded by Trump and other private donors.

CNN presidential historian Tim Naftali is with us now. Tim, how big of a deal are the -- I mean, let's do -- let's rewind this, because we've covered White Houses. And I think we're used to always seeing some new things in the Oval Office and that kind of things -- that kind of thing.

But this is bigger. So put this into context for us about how big this is and how often we see something like this.

TIM NAFTALI, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Well, setting aside Harry Truman's restoration of the White House, the White House was falling apart. The White House that Harry Truman inherited was falling apart and he adds the Lincoln -- sorry, he adds the Truman balcony but other than that doesn't change it.

Really you have to go back to FDR's edition of the East Wing and FDR's cousin Theodore Roosevelt's edition of the West Wing to see a change that would be as dramatic to the look and feel of the White House as what President Trump is suggesting.

SANCHEZ: Tim, I wonder what it says to you, this president that was elected with this sort of populist argument appealing to working-class folks, he's put a lot of gold into the White House. The motif itself is interesting and it says something about Trump, doesn't it? NAFTALI: Well now we're talking about taste, right, and people's taste differs. I will say this about presidential changes. Some are long- lasting and embraced by the American people and some just disappear.

Jefferson's colonnades, well they're still there, or at least they were restored by Truman, but they're still there. TR's West Wing -- it's still there. But TR's state dining room, oh my god, it's completely different. He made it into a hunting lodge. He had all these dead animals on the walls. They're gone.

The late 19th century East Room, which had heavy Victorian furnishing, it's different now. It's light and elegant. So what President Trump does inside the Trump ballroom may not survive the Trump presidency.

As long as the bones of the structure are good, future presidents will be able to redesign that space as they see fit.

KEILAR: OK, talk to us a little bit about, as we know these big events they have on the South Lawn, they do often have a tent, right? Can you talk, this is one of the reasons why they're saying this is needed, that there's sort of an overflow area or that there isn't space. And I do wonder what you think of that argument, that the building is not big enough to accommodate these kinds of events.

NAFTALI: Well, I would say -- and I'm not an architect -- I would say that the East Room is a lot smaller than you think it is. And it certainly makes sense that the ceremonial home and office of the leader of the most powerful country in the world should have a large public space for public events. So that makes sense.

And you know, over time, many presidents have complained that the White House is a little small. Those renovations that have occurred over time are largely the product of conversation that lasts over presidential administrations. So on the face of it, wanting a larger ballroom doesn't seem unusual and isn't outside the presidential tradition.

It's what it will look like that may actually be outside the presidential tradition. But as we've discussed, the taste of one president may not be the taste of the American people and they will be changed over time. So this won't be a permanent change to the White House -- I mean, the interior won't be. The exterior, as long as the American people don't find it outrageous, will be a permanent change to the White House.

So Donald Trump will have his imprint on the White House. It may not, however, look the way he'd like it to look five or 10 years from now.

SANCHEZ: Tim, before we go, I wanted to ask if there was any precedent to what we just learned a few moments ago that President Trump wants to fire the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, accusing her of manipulating the monthly jobs report. We should point out this is an official that was confirmed by a Republican Senate by an overwhelming number. I think it was 86 to 8.

[14:55:00] And on top of that, despite the accusations from President Trump during the Biden administration, she actually revised numbers down at a significant clip. Have past presidents complained about the jobs numbers and taken action in this way to call for the firing of these commissioners?

NAFTALI: Yes, and I'm not suggesting that there's a parallel here. But one of the darkest moments in presidential history was when President Nixon believed there was a Jewish American conspiracy in his administration. It was a product of his anti-Semitism. And he sought to demote any Jewish person in the administration who had power. And he focused on the Bureau of Labor Statistics because he saw the unemployment rate, as does President Trump, as politically significant.

He believed there was a conspiracy of Jewish economists who were playing with the numbers and playing with the interpretation. Of course, it was totally false. And as I said, it's one of the dark moments in American presidential history.

As a result of President Nixon's pressure, the head, the commissioner of the Bureau was pushed aside and some of the Jewish economists were demoted.

President Trump sees his own conspiracy. It's a Biden conspiracy. And as a result, he's trying to do, in effect, the same thing Richard Nixon did. And it's sad because the Bureau of Labor Statistics is a nonpartisan statistical agency.

KEILAR: Yes, and this is someone who has acted in that regard, certainly. Tim Naftali, thank you so much.

NAFTALI: Thank you, Brianna and Boris.

KEILAR: So it's about to be the final hour of trading and what has been a rough day on Wall Street. When we come back, we're going to dig into the tariffs and job reports that are driving the sell-off.

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