Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Trump Ends Tariff Exemption For Low-value Packages; RFK Jr. Names HHS Deputy Jim O'Neill As Acting CDC Chief; Hearing Ends With No Ruling In Fed Governor Lisa Cook's Challenge To Trump Firing Her; Trump Administration Plans To Deport Hundreds Of Guatemalan Children; Trump Administration Plans Big Immigration Enforcement Operation In Chicago As Soon As Next Week. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired August 29, 2025 - 14:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:00:16]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: End of an era. For years, Americans used a tariff loophole to buy cheap goods from abroad. Well, those days are now over and that could wreak havoc for online shopping. See just how much prices could go up.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Plus, a leadership crisis hanging over the CDC. Big questions about the person tapped by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to run the agency and even bigger questions about what this might mean for your health. And an architect in chief, just the latest attempt by President Trump to put his stamp on Washington, D.C. He's now ordering that all federal buildings embrace classical architecture. What does that mean? We're following these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to "CNN News Central."

There's a new tariff rule that just kicked in and it is rippling around the world. This one is targeting cheaper goods that many Americans buy online. President Trump's executive order ends what is known as the di minimus exemption. And for decades, it has allowed packages that are valued at less than $800 bucks to enter the country duty free. U.S. Customs and Border Protection numbers show de minimus shipments account for 92 percent of all cargo that enters the country. Now, companies from Asia to Europe are pausing their shipment parcels to the U.S., citing logistical compliance challenges.

Official data shows that in 2024, the volume reached 1.36 billion packages or 4 million packages processed each day. That's a dramatic increase from less than 637 million just four years ago. President Trump says di minimis is a catastrophic loophole that has been used to get unsafe or below market products into the country. Joining us now is Roben Farzad. He's a business journalist. He's also the host of Public Radio's "Full Disclosure".

All right, Roben, so the worst part about all of this amazingly is not that we have to speak Latin. This -- it actually has a huge impact. Tell us how we're going to feel this.

ROBEN FARZAD, BUSINESS JOURNALIST AND HOST OF PUBLIC RADIO'S "FULL DISCLOSURE": This is immediately going to gum up the works for the little things that we've gotten used to buying, the Shein hauls, the -- if something is suddenly memefied, like that guy who threw the subway sandwich at ICE officials or National Guard people in D.C. a couple weeks ago. This is the kind of ultra-globalized economy where you could take that and immediately react and say, I'm going to print out 20,000 of these as an iPhone cover or an iPhone -- an Apple sticker for a laptop, the behind the laptop. This makes that so much more difficult. This throws sand into that.

This adds layer of friction, compliance. You have to ask yourself how much of it is going to be tariffed? Is it exempted? And so for the meantime, you have the merchant's perspective and otherwise saying, and the -- and the shippers saying, we're just not going to do it at all until we get -- until and unless we get more clarity on it.

KEILAR: So, how are the shoppers going to get the bill? Is it included in shipping costs? Do they pay it separately? How does it work?

FARZAD: This is the problem, is you don't know. Right? And there's not an omnibus way of doing it. It determines -- is there -- is there metal content? Is there aluminum content that's sourced from abroad? You don't know in the shipping thing. And so, to CYA and to protect yourself, if you're the merchant, you have to bring in a middleman, a middle broker, and that's going to lard up the costs. So my point is, is that this has become so second nature, like in this culture of Amazon Prime free shipping and how free shipping has taken over the world.

That is extended to, you get Havaianas last second, your Diadora sneakers. You can get specific things that just go viral on Insta and you can order a ton of them. Now you're going to think twice or thrice. If you're paying even more in terms of what the product cost is by way of tariff, you're not going to do it at all.

KEILAR: Yeah. Love my flip-flops or as they call them in Australia, thongs, right? Both ways go because this is a global thing. CBP actually used to do this. They're the ones who used to kind of do the math here. And I mentioned those compliance, those logistical compliance challenges that actually have foreign post offices saying, we can't do this. We're not equipped to handle this change. Tell us about that. Why aren't they?

FARZAD: They're just not, they're just not built to do that. I mean, it's one thing to turn to a FedEx or a UPS, which is intensely back officed into American corporations and B2B accounts. It's another thing to depend on varying U.S. Postal -- Italy's postal system, there's no uniformity. There's no -- this -- this adds a lot in the way of man hours. Who's responsible if the wrong tariff or if too low a tariff is docked?

[14:05:00]

I think the whole point is, if you think about it, it's to really stick it to the mom-and-pop merchants of places like China and Thailand and Mexico, who in this globalized, intensely globalized economy with zero broadband costs, with on-demand. You know, you could print t-shirts on demand. You could literally turn this around overnight. If there's a -- something happens at a football game, determining like who wins, if there's a meme, if there's a thing. If you go on Amazon, a lot of these merchants in the United States sell effectively on demand minute to minute products. It makes it impossible to do that.

You have to have such a sophisticated middleman operation to calculate that and to know, are we going to -- is it going to hit us? Are we going to charge the end customer? Is the end customer going to see this as a separate charge? Is the $5 products suddenly going to be a (ph) $15 product? And so in the meantime, it just causes this seizing effect across the board.

KEILAR: Peter Navarro, the president's Senior Counselor for Trade, says ending the loophole would add up to $10 billion a year in tariff revenue. Could it? How does that work? Who benefits from that?

FARZAD: Technically, but guess who ends up paying it? I don't think these merchants want to eat it. I think they want to pass it along. This is a creative way of taxing, I think the U.S. end customer and saying, look, we're -- you're doing a double mitzvah, if you will. You're hurting these people who are exploiting the loophole abroad, right? The Chinese dumping, and you're collecting revenue in the United States that will help us bring down our enormous debt and the interest expense. I mean, it's like a Jedi mind trick.

I mean, you know who's paying for it? You're paying for it. You know what your Shein haul costs? You know what these super cheapo things? I mean, yeah, you talked about the Havaianas, the things that we've gotten used to just in the last 10 years of getting on demand, getting sans tariff because if it's $800 or less, you have this wonderful de minimis loophole. That's not wonderful to an administration that wants to up the pain quotient in this terrible trade war with places like Mexico, China, Vietnam, India.

KEILAR: The double mitzvah de minimus Jedi mind trick. I love it. You always explain things so well, Roben, thank you so much.

FARZAD: That's kind of made for Instagram. That's like vertical equipping right there. I didn't even intend to do that.

KEILAR: Yeah, you like memed it. Let's make t-shirts. 0808 bumper stickers, 08.

FARZAD: Print it out.

KEILAR: Probably can't do --

FARZAD: Print it out, Brianna.

KEILAR: Can't do it. All right, Roben, thank you.

FARZAD: Don't you have connections in Australia, Brianna?

(LAUGH)

KEILAR: Maybe. All right, Robin, thanks so much. Boris?

SANCHEZ: So, there is new leadership today at the top National Public Health Agency in the United States. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appointing Jim O'Neill as Acting Director at the CDC. O'Neill has been serving as Kennedy's Deputy Secretary and he takes over for Dr. Susan Monarez, who was fired earlier this week for clashing with Kennedy's views on vaccines. CNN's Jacqueline Howard joins us now with more. Jacqueline, what more do we know about Jim O'Neill?

JACQUELINE HOWARD, CNN HEALTH REPORTER: Well, Boris, we do know that Jim does have a history at the Department of Health and Human Services. He did work there at HHS during the George W. Bush administration. We also know that he has spent years as a biotech and technology investor in Silicon Valley. He had stints at the Thiel Fellowship at the Thiel Foundation, working closely with billionaire Peter Thiel.

But the main question that many CDC employees I've talked to say that they have is, where is he going to steer the ship at CDC? What are his priorities going to be? What's his stance on different vaccine policies? And their message that they told me they have for Jim O'Neill and really for the entire administration is, they want to make sure politics is kept out of public health, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Jacqueline Howard, thanks so much for that update. Brianna?

KEILAR: Today, a landmark legal battle got underway with the independence of the Federal Reserve hanging in the balance. Today's hearing focused on Fed Governor Lisa Cook's request for a temporary restraining order, which if granted would allow her to remain in her role as the case plays out. President Trump fired Cook earlier this week over allegations that she committed mortgage fraud. CNN Crime and Justice Correspondent, Katelyn Polantz is with us now. So Katelyn, explain how this went today in court.

Katelyn Polantz, CNN Crime and Justice Correspondent: Well, there wasn't a decision from the judge, but it was more than two hours of arguments. And there are a lot of legal questions here, not only about the independence of the Federal Reserve, but how much has to be done? What role does the court play in deciding where they stand when the president desires to fire someone for cause, in this situation a Fed governor, someone that is a little bit different than all of those other people in independent agencies fired over this past year.

[14:10:00]

There was no ruling because the judge here, Jia Cobb, she's in the federal court in Washington. She wants a little bit more of the arguments in writing. That happens sometimes in these big meaty hearings even if it's a fast-moving case. She could rule as soon as Tuesday. But the main question around her ruling is going to be at this time, initially, can Lisa Cook keep showing up for work? Is there harm there to her or is the harm greater to the U.S. government if Donald Trump wants to remove her from that board, and they can't initially. There are a lot of arguments that are happening here in different places. One of the Justice Department's arguments is that the judge shouldn't have the authority to second guess the government and that it would harm the United States, the reputation of the Fed, if someone like Lisa Cook has allegations around her and does keep going to work. The judge didn't fully buy that, that there's nothing there. But she did say that Congress hasn't defined what for cause means if somebody's going to be terminated by the president. So that question will definitely have to get flushed out by the judge.

KEILAR: The allegations involve mortgage fraud, right? Which we got sort of a glimpse into that her lawyer saying this was actually a clerical error, I think. But talk to us about this Trump official who has sent a new criminal referral to the DOJ about her. POLANTZ: Yeah, there's two criminal referrals now to the Justice

Department, and we do understand the Justice Department has Ed Martin who is doing investigations around mortgage fraud there in the department, looking at it. There isn't any charge of Lisa Cook at this time. The allegations are around how she was identifying properties. She had a second home, saying she was using it as a second home rather than an investment property in Massachusetts where she teaches some of the time. That's one of the allegations.

But what the lawyer for Lisa Cook is saying, this is Abbe Lowell in court today. He spent a lot of time saying this is not a real allegation. It's not proven. She hasn't had a chance to respond to it. The judge did buy that a little bit in the argument, but he also said there was never cause to begin with to fire her, even with these allegations. And it's just their effort, the Trump administration, to get rid of governors, so the president can have a majority on the Federal Reserve Board that this is a pretext because Donald Trump doesn't like that interest rates haven't been cut.

Abbe Lowell, the lawyer here, says that this is the weapon of force they're using right now against their political foes. The judge didn't fully buy that either, so we're going to have to exactly wait to see what happens. And of course, it's a trial-level judge. So there will be appeals very likely, from one or both sides.

KEILAR: Oh, the gift that keeps on giving. Katelyn, thank you so much. And still to come, an exclusive report on the Trump administration's plans to send hundreds of children back to Guatemala, the legal questions raised by the move. Plus, the people of New Orleans are marking 20 years since Hurricane Katrina devastated their city. We'll have a live report. And then later tennis player Taylor Townsend returning to the court tonight after her last opponent had some controversial choice words after their match. Of that and much more coming up on "CNN News Central."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:18:00]

KEILAR: Now to a CNN Exclusive. Sources say the Trump administration is taking steps to send hundreds of Guatemalan children who arrived in the U.S. alone back to their home country. It is the latest in a series of moves the president has made since returning to office focused on his immigration crackdown. CNN's Priscilla Alvarez is joining us now with more on her exclusive reporting. What did you find here?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is an unprecedented move. Every expert official that I've talked to can't recall ever seeing something like this, which is the U.S. government working in coordination with the Guatemalan government to send back hundreds of children that are in U.S. government custody. The reason that this is so unprecedented and unheard of is because there are so many protections in place in U.S. law for these children who arrived to the U.S. southern border alone, meaning that they didn't have a parent or legal guardian. And were therefore put in the care of the Health and Human Services department.

It's when they're in that care that officials will try to find a family sponsor in the United States, someone who is here. It could be a sister, aunt, relative, it could be a parent as well, and/or a legal guardian. And when they are placed with them, the idea is that they are to go and see if they have protections in U.S. law in the immigration proceedings. So here's where things get different. This is a plan by the administration to send back more than 600 children that they have identified that are in government custody to Guatemala. They are expected to not have a parent in the United States and some family in Guatemala.

So some people may say, well, in this case, they're being sent back to a parent. But what that omits is that in many cases, these children are fleeing bad conditions at home. That could be because of a parent. Those that are fleeing their family there, or it could be because their family can't protect them from what is happening in country. There's no small thing for a child to come to the U.S. southern border on their own. And we were talking here about a range of ages from zero to 17.

[14:20:00]

So the administration internally is calling this repatriations, meaning that they're not involuntary removals, but the advocates I've talked to said it is unlikely that these kids understand what is actually happening, for them to be sent back and to not be afforded the protections that they typically would be had that process continued in the United States.

KEILAR: It really is unprecedented. Thank you so much for the reporting, Priscilla. Boris?

SANCHEZ: Meantime, sources tell CNN that the Trump administration is planning a major immigration crackdown in Chicago that could begin as soon as next week. You might recall, immigration enforcement officials targeting the city shortly after the president took office. We're told this new operation is expected to surpass that with multiple agencies involved. It's also separate, legally speaking, from the crime crackdown the president has threatened in recent weeks. We're joined now by Jonathan Fahey. He's a former Deputy Assistant Homeland Security Secretary under Trump. He also served as acting ICE Director in President Trump's first term.

Jonathan, thanks so much for being with us. So, this large immigration enforcement operation in Chicago involves armored vehicles, potentially the deployment of the National Guard using Los Angeles earlier this summer as sort of a model for deployment. The governor of Illinois, J.B. Pritzker, has called this the militarization of a city. What would you say is the justification for this?

JONATHAN FAHEY, FORMER ICE ACTING DIRECTOR UNDER TRUMP: Well, the main justification, it's interesting J.B. Pritzker said this. But Chicago and Illinois, they are sanctuary cities and a sanctuary state. Meaning they keep criminals, illegal aliens that commit crimes in the United States. They don't even cooperate with ICE to deport them. So J.B. Pritzker, he is doing this because as a Democrat, you have to do two things to be in good standing. One, be full on open borders and illegal immigration, and two, oppose Donald Trump at every turn.

But this is the way they have to combat Chicago and the fact that they will not even turn over criminals to ICE, so they have to go in there and use more resources, putting more people in danger, meaning more agents in danger and also being out in the community. This could be simply fixed in a lot of ways from Chicago's point of view if they just simply cooperated and got rid of the criminals. But this will be effective. It will make Chicago safer, make the United States safer, and it'll also be deterrent to more illegal immigration coming in.

SANCHEZ: A federal judge has blocked the administration from certain steps that it's taken to try to alter what you're describing as the sanctuary city policy or sanctuary state policy of Illinois. Those have been blocked. Things like threatening funding and things of that nature. What you're saying is that effectively this is another step to get a municipality to do what the White House wants?

FAHEY: No, it's another step to get illegal aliens, criminals removed from the country and because the municipality won't cooperate. And yeah, there are those lawsuits, but these sanctuary cities are doing things that are bordering on the edge of what's called alien harboring, which is a federal criminal statute. When you're doing things to incentivize illegal aliens to come to the country or to stay in the country, that's a violation of the Title 8 USC 1324.

When you're doing things to shield them for ICE custody, that's also a violation. So they're really skirting both the criminal law and civil law here, but the administration is doing, they're putting public safety first, which is a marked change from the prior administration, which was all illegal aliens all the time, didn't matter if they were committing -- they did not even want to commit the most symbolic --

SANCHEZ: You are being hyperbolic.

FAHEY: I don't -- I don't -- I don't think so. Their policy, they would not even -- they would not even deport illegal aliens convicted of aggravating felonies unless they met other characteristics, other than just being an aggravated felon. So they were not deporting anyone. They were incentivizing that. Yes.

SANCHEZ: I get that you're being hyperbolic.

FAHEY: It's not being hyperbolic. That's actually their policy if you want to look at it.

SANCHEZ: You're describing that Democrats are full open borders and we've spoken to numerous Democrats who've supported, for example, the bipartisan Senate bill that was attempted to pass in the last administration, the last year of the administration that had all kinds of funding for ICE that -- and allowed the president, given certain quotas, to shut the border.

FAHEY: Any of them --

SANCHEZ: Nevertheless --

FAHEY: Have any of them come to your set and said anything out about sanctuary cities?

SANCHEZ: Not that I can recall.

(CROSSTALK)

SANCHEZ: I can't speak for every guest that we've had.

(CROSSTALK)

FAHEY: -- they have to be in favor of.

SANCHEZ: I can't speak for every guest that we've had.

FAHEY: Right.

(CROSSTALK)

SANCHEZ: Nevertheless --

(CROSSTALK)

FAHEY: -- a general matter.

SANCHEZ: Nevertheless, in order to invoke Title 10 and deploy the National Guard, by law, there has to be either an invasion, a looming invasion, an open rebellion, or you know what I'm saying?

FAHEY: You know we got the order, right? Yeah.

SANCHEZ: There's an order, local officials can't keep control of the situation. Officials on the ground there for some reason can't enforce local law. That hasn't happened in Illinois.

FAHEY: Or if there are things that are preventing the federal government from enforcing federal law, which when you have J.B. Pritzker saying he's basically going to defy Donald Trump at all costs because we know that elevates him within the Democratic Party by defying Donald Trump. So he's already come out and said that. "You can't come for my people." He's talking illegal aliens as his people. [14:25:00]

So he's sort of set the stage here that he plans on openly defying ICE, openly defying federal immigration law. So if they are unable to do their job, that would be appropriate for the National Guard to come in. And I don't know that we're there yet, but certainly that would be under law, much like what went on in California. And there might be also a use for National Guard and things sort of background and other types of things.

SANCHEZ: Well, I mean, federal -- federalized troops are not supposed to be used for law enforcement.

FAHEY: That's part of the Posse Comitatus.

SANCHEZ: That's part of the California cases is being adjudicated. Now --

FAHEY: Which California has lost, right?

SANCHEZ: The characterization of sanctuary city policies as just being pro-migrant, like come here, that is a bit colored in a certain direction. What they do is not provide the legal status of these folks to ICE agents if they're being processed for something. It's not necessarily that they invite these folks. That's a way to describe things.

FAHEY: Well, it induces people to say once you're here, we're going to do nothing to kick you out. But what they do do is when people are in state custody for a crime, it can be a serious crime, could be a sex offense, could be an offense against children. They still will not even turn them over to ICE to be deported. It is truly astounding that they would put them back in the community. But that just shows how committed the Democrats are to this open borders agenda. And you said --

(CROSSTALK)

SANCHEZ: -- these folks are like going out into the street, like --

FAHEY: Yes, it does.

SANCHEZ: They're being adjudicated, the cases depending on the crime that they've committed.

FAHEY: No, and after they're being adjudicated, they're being put back on the street and often they're being put on bond before their case is adjudicated and putting the public in danger. So, there's --

(CROSSTALK)

SANCHEZ: We could get caught in the details of the semantics.

(CROSSTALK)

FAHEY: But that's what sanctuary cities, that what they do. SANCHEZ: I do want to get to a number of other questions because there's a lot of them. You talked about public safety a moment ago, this week, border patrol agents arrested two firefighters in Washington State as they were fighting a wildfire. How does that help public safety?

FAHEY: Well, I don't know the exact circumstances, but at least one of those two had been order to be deported before. So we have illegal aliens in the country that are being deported. Does that -- in and of itself, maybe, is not clear, but deporting illegal aliens as a whole helps public safety. It deters others from coming in. And you know what's really interesting? We spend at least $150 billion taxpayer just for services for illegal aliens. So just think if that money was saved, how much money more could be spent for firefighting or other things.

So on average, the citizens of Washington and citizens of the United States are going to benefit from people being deported because there will be more tax dollars for things like fighting fires and other things. So overall, it's a good thing. But again, we don't know the facts of these, but we do know one of these people has been deported before. So, this idea that should just get to stay in perpetuity and get de facto amnesty, which was the prior administration's policy --

SANCHEZ: I guess, the question just speaks to if someone is trying to serve their community and they don't have a criminal record, and they've been in the country for a long time, maybe they came as a child. And we've seen that the majority of the cases of the folks that the administration has rounded up in the last seven months or so, the majority of them are not violent criminals. So because they've committed a civil offense, which is what being undocumented is treated as, they're getting rounded up and sent to places like Alligator Alcatraz. Is that not morally wrong?

FAHEY: Well, one, to say it's a civil offense. Anyone that illegally enters the country, that's a criminal violation. It's Title 8 USC 1325. That's a misdemeanor when you've reentered, that's a felony. And one of these people, again, was -- had already been gone through the process. We always talk about due process and had been deported by an immigration order, deported by an immigration judge. I don't know how he got this particular job, but this idea that if you come here illegally, get order deported, but then if you get in a certain line of work, you should get to stay in perpetuity. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

And that's not really in the interest of public safety, because if, like we saw from the fire --

SANCHEZ: A certain line of work that isn't farming, which the president has said, that is something that migrants are built for. Before we go, there's one more question that I have for you. On Kilmar Abrego Garcia, right? The federal judge overseeing his criminal cases, considering whether to order administration officials should stop making negative comments about him. I'm sure you've heard them. His lawyers argue that that could jeopardize his right to a free trial. The judge has already asked the administration to sort of moderate some of the comments that they've made. He's been described as a pedophile, as a terrorist, things that he's not even being charged with. Why, if the federal government feels so strongly about the case that they have against him, do they have to come out and suggest these things that he's not actually being prosecuted for?

FAHEY: Well, I think you have two things. You have -- you have this issue as a right to a fair trial, but you also -- and talking about the particular case, but you also have the broader policy issues, talking about illegal immigration, the harms of it. And the particular legal issue is just can this person get a fair trial if these things are said? And typically, courts rule in favor of free speech and say a jury is presumed to be fair and impartial once they've been chosen.