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Trump Says Smithsonian is Too Focused on How Bad Slavery Was; Federal Judge Rejects DOJ Motion to Unseal Epstein Grand Jury Docs; Target CEO Stepping Down as Customers Turn Away; John Deere Lays Off 238 Employees Amid Trump Tariffs. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired August 20, 2025 - 13:30   ET

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

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[13:33:30]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": President Trump is escalating his efforts to make cultural institutions fall in line with his political directives. He's calling museums the last remaining segment of woke and saying, "The Smithsonian is out of control where everything discussed is how horrible our country is, how bad slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden had been. Nothing about success, nothing about brightness, nothing about the future." He says he's told his attorneys to conduct a review of museums comparing the effort to his crackdown on universities.

Joining us now is Cornell William Brooks, a Professor at Harvard Kennedy School, and former President of the NAACP. Thank you so much for being with us. And I just wonder if you can kind of respond to some of what the president is saying there. What do you -- what do you say to him lamenting that these museums don't actually focus on some of the positives of history?

CORNELL WILLIAM BROOKS, PROFESSOR, HARVARD KENNEDY SCHOOL: Well, Brianna, good afternoon. It's good to be with you. In response to the president, I would simply note this. When he makes the point that the Smithsonian should not focus on how bad slavery was as opposed to presenting a brighter view of history, the Smithsonian is charged with simply telling the truth about American history. And I would argue in so doing, by telling the truth about the brutality, the ugliness, the injustice of American history, the Smithsonian also lifts up those stories of resistance and resilience and in so doing, highlights that part of American history, which is brighter and beautiful.

[13:35:15]

What do I mean by that? In terms of slavery, we know that 3.9 million people were enslaved when the Emancipation Proclamation was written, when the 13th Amendment was brought into effect. We know that at least 12.5 million people were transported across the Atlantic and enslaved. We know that approximately 58 percent of enslaved women and girls were sexually assaulted. Slavery was horrible. It was inhumane; it was brutal. But we also know as a consequence of the artifacts, the exhibits in the Smithsonian, we know about Frederick Douglass, whose Bible is in the Smithsonian. Frederick Douglass, the most photographed human being on the planet at that time, who inspired a nation to free itself from slavery.

We also have in the Smithsonian Nat Turner's Bible. We also have in the Smithsonian artifacts that speak to the eloquence and the brilliance of Martin Luther King's civil rights marches and Americans all across this country who fought to free the country from slavery. The point being is that the truth is brutal. It is beautiful. It needs no embellishment because it simply is what it is. And this Smithsonian has done a powerful job, a magnificent job in telling the truth about American history. And the way we know that is because it is the best, largest museum complex in the world, and millions of people, millions of Americans visit the Smithsonian every year. And, we don't need the micromanagement with macro incompetence from the White House in terms of making the Smithsonian better and certainly not worse.

KEILAR: So Professor, Trump is comparing this effort to the crackdown the administration did on universities across the country. You're there at Harvard, and Harvard was one of the big names of that crackdown, Columbia, so forth. I also though spoke to a professor at a junior college in a western state who said that they too were experiencing a chilling effect because there was a big concern that there was a way for the Trump Administration to affect their funding as well. And similarly, President Trump here is not just targeting the Smithsonian complex of museums, he says this is about museums all over the country, making us wonder if they're going to be looking at a way to target funding perhaps of other museums. What would the effect of that be?

WILLIAM BROOKS: This would be devastating. In other words, if we simply imagine all of the school children who come to Washington, who go to cities and towns all across the country to visit museums, to have the lessons of the school classroom come alive before their eyes. In other words, museums play a valuable role in terms of the bridge between schools and life. And so, for the president to threaten not only the Smithsonian, but museums in our hometowns, with this violation of, I would argue, the First Amendment, this chilling effect in terms of what art we can show, what exhibits we can put before the public, this impacts who we are as Americans.

We need to be very, very clear about this. We don't need the president moonlighting as a part-time museum curator. We don't need the president or anyone else literally assaulting our culture, assaulting our history in a way that diminishes us as Americans. And we don't -- certainly don't need our museums treated like the universities have been treated. We see all across the country, colleges and universities losing students, losing funding, losing opportunities to advance our research and to make our communities better as a consequence of the incompetence and the chaos of this White House.

So, what is being done and has been done to universities and community colleges need not be done to our museums as well. We need not make bad worse. And lastly, Brianna, I have to say this. This war on colleges and universities and this war on museums, literally is reminiscent of the kind of autocratic behavior that we saw in the 1930s and the 1940s. And it is a threat to not merely what we learn and what we see when we visit a museum or go into a college campus, it is literally threat to American values and it's extraordinarily dangerous. [13:40:00]

KEILAR: Professor, thank you so much for being with us. Cornell William Brooks, we appreciate it.

WILLIAM BROOKS: Thank you.

KEILAR: And after a quick break, some breaking news ahead on the Jeffrey Epstein case and the government's efforts to unseal some grand jury testimony. Stay with us.

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BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": We have breaking news into CNN, a judge has just rejected the Trump Administration's request to release Jeffrey Epstein grand jury documents. CNN's Kara Scannell has the details. Kara, what are we learning?

[13:45:00]

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good afternoon, Boris. Yeah, a federal judge in New York has denied the Department of Justice request to unseal the documents in -- that were related to the Jeffrey Epstein investigation. These were the grand jury transcripts and exhibits denied the Department of Justice requests to unseal. The documents in that were related to the, Jeffrey Epstein investigation. These were the grand jury transcripts and exhibits that DOJ had asked the judge to unseal.

Now in denying their motion to unseal, the judge does point out that the Justice Department has the trove of information that the information that came before the grand jury was very limited. It was a law enforcement official's testimony that no victims of Jeffrey Epstein testified before the grand jury. And that really, as he put it, the more logical place to release the information is the Department of Justice. And he called the motion to unseal the grand jury transcripts a diversion. The judge writing the information contained in the Epstein grand jury transcripts pales in comparison to the Epstein investigation information and materials in the hands of the Department of Justice.

The judge also said another compelling reason to keep the grand jury materials under seal is to protect the victims of Jeffrey Epstein. He said he was moved by some letters submitted by Lawyers for the victims, and he pointed specifically to possible threat to victim safety and privacy. So this is the second attempt by the Department of Justice to get records unsealed. They also tried to get records unsealed in the Ghislaine Maxwell case. Maxwell was Jeffrey Epstein's former girlfriend and accomplice in the sex trafficking operation. She was convicted at trial.

A federal judge denied the department's request to unseal those records, so this is a 0-for-two for DOJ's efforts to try to get a judge to unseal records while they've been under pressure to release information about the investigation from a key component of Trump's base. As it stands now, it's unclear when we will see more records. The Congress has said that they will begin to receive records from the Justice Department as soon as Friday. And when they make those records public remains to be seen because they also have recognized the need to redact and continue to withhold from the public any information about these victims, most of whom were under-aged at the time that Epstein had sexually assaulted them. Boris?

SANCHEZ: Kara Scannell, thank you so much for that important update. Just minutes from now, we're going to get a new update on Hurricane Erin from the National Hurricane Center, the East Coast already seeing the storm's impacts. Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back.

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[13:52:06]

KEILAR: Target's CEO is stepping down after an 11-year run that saw him earn kudos for revitalizing sales and masterminding a turnaround at the big box store, but now competition from other stores and also backlash to that DEI policy and pulling back on DEI policies, sparking a boycott, have led to slumping sales and a plunging stock price. Today, Target said sales fell for the third straight quarter. CNN Business and Politics Correspondent Vanessa Yurkevich is here with the backstory on this. Vanessa, how did Target lose its way?

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, so you have the CEO stepping out and you have the COO now stepping into the role. Brian Cornell, who has led the company for more than 10 years, really leading Target through its best years, but also recently some of its worst years, not being able to pull the company out of that slump. And now, you have Michael Fiddelke stepping in as the next CEO February 1st. Also in their earnings call, Target reporting more slumping sales in the second quarter really led by consumers pulling back. And if you look at over the last year, you can just see Target's share price falling quite dramatically.

In the beginning of the year, that is when consumers started boycotting the company because they rolled back some of their key DEI initiatives, something that the core consumer of Target really liked. And since then, they've really yet to recover. And you can see at the end of your screen right there, the share -- stock price falling at the open today at about 10 percent. Also, amid all of this is tariffs. You had Brian Cornell, the CEO, of the company this morning on the earnings call talking about that tariff impact on the business. Listen.

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BRIAN CORNELL, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, TARGET: As one of the largest importers in the country, the prospect of higher tariffs meant we were facing some major financial and operational hurdles as we entered the year. This was further complicated by the multiple changes in tariff policy that had been announced and implemented as the year had progressed.

(END VIDEO CLIP) YURKEVICH: So Target gets 50 percent of its inventory from abroad. So 50 percent of the inventory selling in stores is tariffed. Target says it has tried to mitigate a lot of that, but obviously hard to escape that when 50 percent of what you're selling is not made right here in the United States, Brianna.

KEILAR: And Vanessa, tell us about John Deere, the farm equipment maker, talking about how it's going to be laying off hundreds of workers.

YURKEVICH: Yeah, John Deere reporting that they have been hit really bad by tariffs, by this trade war, reporting losses of hundreds of millions of dollars. And they say it's because tariffs are really affecting farmers right now and they're simply not buying new equipment. So, orders and demand has really plummeted.

[13:55:00]

And so they're going to have to start this later this month into September, laying off 238 employees in Illinois and Iowa. Now, the company does employ 30,000 employees here in the United States, but still, Brianna, obviously a concern as you're looking at retailers right now and the impacts that these tariffs are having, even though it's 238 employees, that is still someone's livelihood. And of course, this is all happening amidst this trade war and these price pressures that companies are now starting to have trouble absorbing, Brianna.

KEILAR: Yeah, it's very clear the impact. Vanessa Yurkevich, thank you so much.

Still ahead, we just received an update on Hurricane Erin as it's making its way up the East Coast. The National Hurricane Center says conditions are expected to deteriorate soon there along North Carolina's outer bank. So we'll be checking that out and we'll have details next.

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