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Trump Meets With South Korean President at White House; Trump Signs Executive Orders Expanding Law Enforcement Crackdown; Trump Threatens to Send Military to Baltimore to Clean Up Crime, Calls Chicago a Killing Field; Trump Signs Executive Order to Cancel Cashless Bail in D.C., Other Cities; President Trump Says Higher Tariffs on Furniture Coming Later This Year. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired August 25, 2025 - 13:30   ET

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

[13:30:00]

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: -- wanted to go into war. He liked killing people. I thought he was essentially a bad guy. But I'm not involved in that. No, you'd have to ask Pam Bondi about that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are more raids coming, sir? Are more raids like that coming, sir? Are more raids like the one on John Bolton's house coming?

TRUMP: More raids? I don't know. You'd have to ask the Department of Justice. They raided my house. I can tell you that. They did a big raid on my house. They took away everything that wasn't pinned down. And they took away some of that too. No, they raided Mar-a-Lago. They started that. These were bad people that we had in our government before. They raided Mar-a-Lago. They went into my wife's area. They went into my son's area, my young son. And what they did was a disgrace.

But, how did it work out? We're -- Oh, I see. We're in the Oval Office -- oh, I guess it didn't work out too well for them, did it? They are bad people. They're sick. They're sick people. And they came in with their guns into Mar-a-Lago, like 98 people. I wasn't there. Fortunately, I wasn't there. But they are -- they are very evil, very sick people, that group. And they -- if they would've won the election, this country wouldn't exist as we know it. This country would've been a failed country. And now, it's the hottest country anywhere in the world by far. We are the hottest country in the world by far. OK. Another question?

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Yes, sir. Go ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah. Presently met with the Japanese Prime Minister, people of this summit.

TRUMP: That's good.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So is there something to discuss regarding the cooperation among the South Korea, U.S. and Japan?

TRUMP: I think so. Look, Japan is a great ally of us, and I had a little bit of a hard time getting you two together because you're still thinking about comfort limit, right? Comfort limit, that's all they wanted to talk about, was comfort limit. And I thought that was settled a few times over the decades. But there is -- there is an overlapping problem with that. Perhaps I'm wrong in saying it. Perhaps this isn't right. But, the whole issue of the limit, comfort limit very specifically, we, we, talked and that was a very, it was a very big problem for Korea, not for Japan. Japan was wanted to go. They want to get on and, but Korea was very stuck on that. You understand? So, I don't know, perhaps you'd like to answer. It's a good question. It was hard getting Japan and Korea together because of what took place a long time ago.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But, Japan wants to do it, I can say. Korea is a little bit more tenuous. Please.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: [Foreign Language].

LEE JAE MYUNG, SOUTH KOREAN PRESIDENT (through translator): Trilateral cooperation among Korea, the U.S. and Japan is very important and better Korea-Japan relations is also important for the Korea-U.S. relationship as well. Because I know that President Trump, that you put emphasis on trilateral cooperation --

TRUMP: Right.

JAE MYUNG (through translator): I made a visit to Japan before coming to the U.S. to settle all the difficult issues that we have.

TRUMP: Good. Well, Japan, Japan wants to get along very well with you. And I find them to be great people, great country obviously, and they want very much to get along with South Korea. And you have something in common, you want to solve the North Korea Club. But, Japan very much wants to get along with you and I'm sure they will. They're -- I find the people that I deal with to be wonderful people, as I do with you.

JAE MYUNG (through translator): So when I visited Japan and met with Prime Minister Ishiba, I realized that many of the obstacles that existed between our two countries were -- have now been removed.

TRUMP: True, during my term. We removed them during my term. There was an overlay, a little bit, but, but we removed many of those obstacles during my term. And if you look at Prime Minister Abe, who was a great man, he was a great friend of mine, and he was assassinated. But he felt very warmly toward your country, I can tell you that.

And the current prime minister, who I've gotten to know very well, feels the same way. So I think you're going to have a great relationship with Japan. Steve, go ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just to close the loop on Gaza, is there a diplomatic push underway to try to get all this to end? TRUMP: Oh, there's a diplomatic push.

[13:35:00]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. Is there?

TRUMP: There has been. Yeah, sure. Right now. Steve, I would say, very serious diplomatic push. Marco or Steve, you want to -- Marco, do you want to answer that first?

MARCO RUBIO, UNITED STATES SECRETARY OF STATE: Yeah, we -- it's never stopped.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.

RUBIO: We've always looked to find a solution there. Ultimately, as the President said, we want it to end. It has to end with no Hamas.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, sir.

TRUMP: Steve, where are we?

STEVE WITKOFF, UNITED STATES SPECIAL ENVOY TO THE MIDDLE EAST: I would say that we wouldn't be anywhere, but for the president's truth last week, which was a statement to Hamas that they better get their act together and get to the peace table. But for that, it would've been all stalled. So, as usual, he is the man who moves it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, sir.

WITKOFF: Thank you.

TRUMP: Thank you very much, everybody.

KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Thank you. Thanks guys. Let go. Let's go. Thank you. Straight out the door.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": We've been listening to President Donald Trump and South Korean President Lee Jae Myung at the, White House in the Oval Office, taking questions from reporters. A number of significant headlines during this first in- person meeting between Trump and his South Korean counterpart, the first since the South Korean presidential election in June. The president calling Lee Jae Myung a friend, saying that he feels very warmly towards South Korea.

Notably, he was asked, about relations between South Korea and North Korea. Trump touting his relationship with Kim Jong-un, saying that he hopes to meet with Kim Jong-un this year, even jokingly inviting the South Korean president to attend what would be a trilateral meeting together.

Trump very quickly though, after he was asked about meeting Kim Jong- un pivoting, saying that Xi Jinping would like him to go to China. And then he talked about China giving the United States magnets in exchange for access to airplane parts and clearly, trade with China, top of mind there.

The President was also asked about U.S. military presence in South Korea. And what he described as a rumor about South Korean officials raiding U.S. military bases there, the South Korean president trying to clarify that, saying that the chain of command in the South Korean military was looked into after martial law. A sort of fake martial law was installed in December and there was some issues in South Korean politics to say the least. But a lot of headlines there from Trump.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": So many. And he talked about denuclearization. He said Russia is willing to do it, referring to a conversation he'd had with Putin. And he thinks China is too. We have our Kimberly Dozier here, we're going to talk with her about that in a second. That definitely needs a fact check. He also was asked about some domestic issues that we're also going to get to here, which is about the cities that he is planning to activate National Guard in. The search on John Bolton's house by the FBI, he quickly pivoted to what he called the raid on Mar-a-Lago, at his own house, as he has done before.

And then he was asked about Japan and Korea, because we should note that the Korean president is coming after a visit to Japan, which is kind of uncharacteristic. Normally, he would come straight to the U.S. first as his predecessors have. But, because of, I guess, alliances that Japan and South Korea have with the U.S. being a little bit on less stable ground, it kind of speaks to Korea and Japan, who have certainly had their differences here in the past, kind of finding some common ground as they look to alternatives, as they consider these alliances with the U.S. economically and militarily. A little bit more in question than usual. Kim Dozier, you were here. What stood out to you?

KIMBERLY DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, when he talked about denuclearize the peninsula, and said that Russia and China were willing, they've tried this before and China has never been willing to join these talks and has instead aimed for parody with whatever the U.S. and Russia currently has. In terms of him talking about, "Hey, let's have a meeting with Kim Jong-un." Ironically, this is the right Korean president to be talking to about it because President Lee's Democratic Party has always wanted more economic ties, lowering of tensions, more relations with the North than the previous president, President Yoon, who was of course deposed after he tried to declare martial law.

So ironically, President Trump is reaching out to the right guy for that. But then he's also in his tweet and then in this -- in these comments, he talked about South Korea having purges and what he meant by that, it's emerging, is he heard about churches being raided. All that goes back to when President Yoon was kicked out of office. His wife and a number of his high ranking officials allegedly had used the Unification Church for kickbacks and corruption. And so the raids were part of that.

[13:40:00]

But conservatives in the U.S. who are talking to Trump are saying that's an attack on the conservative community. So Trump is like, on the one hand, lashing out because he hears conservatives being dealt incorrectly with, but on the other hand, this is the right guy if he wants to open relations with the North.

SANCHEZ: And notably, Lee jokingly suggested that a Trump Tower should be built in North Korea saying, "So I can go play golf in Pyongyang as well." We saw President Trump and he talked about walking into the DMZ and alleging that he had all these rifles pointed at him. Ultimately though, no substantial agreement came out of this opening toward North Korea, really the first time that you've had an American president literally go into North Korean territory to sort of open up a conversation with the hermit kingdom and Kim Jong-un, again, nothing much came out of it. Do we expect things might go differently if that's attempted again?

DOZIER: You know, it all broke down essentially over the denuclearization aspect. The North is not willing to denuclearize. They signed several agreements that were very vague, that talked about denuclearization as a goal, but they didn't have a ratification method or a schedule. And since that summit, North Korea has launched something like a hundred plus missiles in missile testing, has continued and expanded its nuclear weapons operations, according to experts who look at the satellite activity. So, it's hard to see who or why Kim Jong-un would step back from the nuclear brink.

KEILAR: But Kim, this president puts a lot of stock in photo ops.

DOZIER: Yeah.

KEILAR: Right? I mean, we look to the Alaska Summit with Putin and then really just what appeared to be this amazing shuttle diplomacy at the White House with all of these European leaders in Ukraine. Very quickly though, it became clear that not much had come out of that summit with Putin. But I mean, the pictures are something you haven't seen before. The pictures with Kim Jong-un at the DMZ, something you haven't seen before. But in a way, that is enough. If you listen to President Trump, that is almost standalone to him as an accomplishment. But when you're looking at it from a national security perspective, that's not enough if it's short on deliverables.

DOZIER: Yeah. I remember having conversations with a group of MAGA conservatives during the Biden administration, where North Korea came up and they said Trump managed to denuclearize it. And they said to me, oh, no, no, Trump denuclearized it and then Biden brought the nuclear weapons back. And I'm like, that's not what happened. But if Trump's base believes that, then these photo ops are serving a purpose.

But back to the South Korean meeting, what's going to happen behind closed doors is Trump has been talking about pulling, possibly pulling out U.S. troops unless North Korea -- South Korea pays more for basing them there, costs about $3.5 billion to keep them there annually, about 28,000 troops. South Korea already pays a little over $1 billion for it annually. So Trump will surely be asking for a higher payment.

Problem is with those troops and the threat of bringing them back to the United States, there literally isn't space for them to be garrisoned back in the U.S. There would have to be major construction to bring the troops in their families back to the continental U.S.

SANCHEZ: Really important point to keep in mind. Kim, please stand by. I want to bring in CNN's Senior Reporter, Daniel Dale, to fact check some of the claims that Trump specifically made about crime across the United States and in the nation's Capitol. Daniel, Trump said that it's the first time in many years that D.C. has gone a week, I think he said 11 days, without a murder. Is that accurate?

DANIEL DALE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: It is not accurate. So of course, it's fantastic. There has currently been the 11-day stretch without a reported homicide, but that also happened earlier this year. In February and March, there was a 16-day stretch with no reported homicides in the district. So the president is exaggerating again, and that wasn't his only false claim, guys, on the subject of D.C. crime. He said that it was an all-time crime high when he took office. He said the worst day was the day he came back, not even close to true. D.C. has not been even close to the all-time highs of the early 1990s.

Now, I know he's raised questions as the D.C. Police Union has about the validity of some D.C. crime stats. But let's just look at murder as an example, the least falsifiable kind of crime. D.C. had 187 homicides in 2024. It was over 470 in a couple years in the early '90s. So no, nowhere close to an all-time peak.

[13:45:00]

KEILAR: And then talk a little bit about, Trump was asked if he'd consider sending troops into cities in Republican states, because the cities he's focusing on now, Chicago, D.C., we had L.A. Of course, he has a -- he talks a lot about Baltimore as well. These are blue cities in blue states. He kind of turned it around and said, well, there aren't that many Republican cities. That's not actually what he was asked. He was asked about cities in red states because the governor is so essential when it comes to activating National Guard and the highest-crime blue cities are actually in red states, and those are not among the ones on his apparent target list, it appears. Can you talk a little bit about what you heard him asked and what he answered there?

DALE: Yeah, I think you did a great fact check there yourself. So, there are indeed a bunch of cities in red states that are high on national crime rate lists, however you slice the data. The president likes to blame the Democratic mayors of those cities. That's his right. But just looking at the facts, cities like Memphis - Tennessee, Cleveland - Ohio; Kansas City - Missouri, St. Louis - Missouri, Houston - Texas, all among the 10 or 15 cities with the highest violent crime rates, all in red states with Republican governors. So, who's to blame for that? I think that's subjective and complicated, but it's just not true that there aren't many cities in red states that are high on those terrible lists.

SANCHEZ: Daniel Dale, Kim Dozier, thank you both for breaking that down for us. Let's discuss this in more with Democratic Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois. His district includes Chicago Suburbs. Congressman, thank you so much for being with us and for waiting patiently as we were listening to President Trump at the White House. What is your response to hearing the president of the United States call your city a killing field, a disaster?

REP. RAJA KRISHNAMOORTHI, (D-IL): Well, obviously, it's false, but we know that he's trying to distract attention from his kind of mismanagement of the economy as well as the Epstein files. I think there's a real problem that he finds with those particular issues and he wants to try to change the channel, change the conversation. The problem with deploying National Guard troops in Chicago or other cities is, of course, it's illegal and unconstitutional.

And I think right now, we are counseling people in Chicago and other places, basically do whatever it takes to prevent this from happening. File declaratory judgment actions, temporary restraining orders in federal court to try to prevent this from happening. But at the end of the day, Donald Trump's action is illegal.

SANCHEZ: As California's own case against the administration for their deployment of the National Guard in Los Angeles earlier this summer works its way through the courts, I wonder if this winds up in a Supreme Court that leans conservative, that has bucked precedent before, what is in place to potentially stop Trump from doing this across the country in cities with leaders that he does not like, if this court reads the law the same way that the president interprets it?

KRISHNAMOORTHI: Well, first of all, I hope that cities nonetheless file litigation. At the least, it delays these types of actions and it basically brings clarity with regard to how illegal and unconstitutional these actions are, even if they are first rendered as district court or appeals court judgments. But in any case, we have to raise the alarm and make sure that people are educated and aware about what's happening because public sentiment also matters.

I think this president is a populace, not an ideolog. He does pay attention to what the public feels or believes. And in this case, I think that most people are very concerned about American troops being deployed on American soil and against American citizens. I've introduced legislation to be, with Haley Stevens, to make it very clear that a president should not be able to deploy troops on American soil without the consent of the Chief Executive of the Jurisdiction at issue. So in this case, the governor or the mayor.

But, in the meantime, we're just trying to make sure that people are aware of what's going on and I still believe that litigation right now is appropriate.

SANCHEZ: Sure. You mentioned that you worked on that legislation with a fellow Democrat, Haley Stevens. Have you heard any support coming from the Republican side? Any of your Republican colleagues tell you that they would confront the White House on this to support your bill?

KRISHNAMOORTHI: No. Right now, they are kind cowed into silence by the White House. But they have to realize, look, today, it's Democratically run cities, apparently, that are on his target list. [13:50:00]

But tomorrow, it could be anybody. It could be a Republican mayor, Republican governor that has fallen out of favor with Donald Trump. And by the way, that's happened many times. And so we need to come together on this. We can't go the route of a police state, which is what this type of action appears to be headed toward.

And again, this is a distraction from the main issues that my constituents and others are complaining about, which is they're worried about their grocery prices going up as well as their electricity bills going through the roof. And unfortunately, Donald Trump is trying to distract attention from those very problematic issues for working families.

SANCHEZ: Congressman, I do want to ask you specifically about cashless bail because it's something that President Trump has talked about repeatedly. He signed an executive order today on that, and we heard anecdotes during that signing about judges releasing suspects who then went on to commit further violent crimes. I know that Illinois eliminated cash bail for all offenses back in 2023.

I looked into some studies, specifically one from Loyola University. It proved to be inconclusive thus far. They cited a lack of data. They need more data and time to figure out what kind of impact it's had on crime rates. But in your experience, have violent criminals taken advantage of this policy? Is cashless bail something that should be re-evaluated?

KRISHNAMOORTHI: All we know is that crime rates appear to be going down right now. Judges have the discretion to be able to require people who are a danger to the public to be kept or to be detained. But at the end of the day, a lot of what Donald Trump says happens to be false. And so, I think we do need to go to the researchers and we need to go to the facts because I think they ultimately, matter more than what Donald Trump has to say about an issue.

SANCHEZ: Congressman Krishnamoorthi, thank you so much for the time.

KRISHNAMOORTHI: Thank you so much.

SANCHEZ: Of course. So up next, President Trump touting inflation numbers as proof that foreign countries and companies were picking up the tab for his tariffs and not American consumers. New data reveals whether that is actually the case. We'll be right back with some sneak-flation.

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[13:55:16]

KEILAR: That loveseat and dining table that you've been eyeing, well, it could cost you more as President Trump is now targeting furniture imports. CNN's Matt Egan is with us now. Matt, when are we going to see higher prices on this? MATT EGAN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Well, Brianna, we are already seeing some sticker shock on furniture and that was before the president announced this major investigation into furniture imports. The investigation is still going to take a few weeks to play out, but the president says higher tariffs are on the way. And look, we're already seeing this rattle some of the leading sellers of furniture in the United States. Williams-Sonoma down almost 2 percent, Wayfair 5 percent, and RH, the company formerly known as Restoration Hardware, also in the red.

Now, as I mentioned, we're already seeing higher prices. The overall inflation rate as of July, at 2.7 percent. That's elevated, right? The Fed is targeting 2 percent. That's well above that. But look at this. When you look at just furniture prices for living room, dining room, and kitchen, almost 8 percent, that is basically triple the overall inflation rate. And again, Brianna, this is before these furniture tariffs even kick in.

KEILAR: And talk to us about tariffs and sneak-flation.

EGAN: Yeah, that's right. You've heard of inflation, green inflation. Now, there's sneak-flation, which is companies subtly and gradually passing along costs to all of us as consumers. Now, Harvard Business School has found that the cost of goods, specifically imports, have gone up 5 percent more than what was implied by the pre-tariff trend. Now when you look at the overall inflation rate, we're nowhere near the crisis levels of three years ago. But, it is clear that inflation is heating up. It's going in the wrong direction.

This is the Fed's preferred inflation gage, PCE. Last fall, as the leading presidential candidates were crisscrossing the country, as the president was saying that tariffs -- I'm sorry, as the president was saying that inflation is out of control. We had inflation at just about 2 percent. It was almost at exactly the Fed's goal. But look where we are now. It's going in the wrong direction, 2.6 percent.

And Goldman Sachs has said that this is only going to increase, there is a problem. They estimate that consumers have only absorbed through June about a quarter of the cost of the tariffs. But they estimate that by October, that is going to increase to 67 percent. So Brianna, we are already seeing the impact of tariffs on prices and that trend is expected to continue.

KEILAR: This is not great news. Matt Egan, thank you so much. We have much more news when we do return. Don't go anywhere.

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