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Interview With Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE); Empire State Building Climbers in Court; Economy Adds Fewer Jobs in June; Trump Profiting Off Presidency?. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired July 02, 2026 - 13:00   ET

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

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ERICA HILL, CNN HOST: Mar-a-Lago's money machine. As President Trump's wealth soars, a new report details how his resorts are fueling the rise with record-breaking revenue.

Help not wanted, the jobs report for June falling short of expectations. We're going to take a closer look at just what could be responsible for that slowdown in hiring.

And climb and punishment. The couple who scaled the Empire State Building in court today, as we learn more about how they pulled off that brazen stunt.

We're following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to CNN.

We have new details on President Trump's very profitable first year back in office. The headline here, he made billions, most of it from crypto, although his Mar-a-Lago earnings also saw a significant boost, and that is raising new questions and concerns.

Last year, the president reported more than $77 million from his private club. That was actually at more than 50 percent over the previous year. It's important to note the dues to join also increased in that time.

Before Trump ran for office, the initiation was about $100,000, in 2024, $1 million to join. Some critics say people are simply paying for the access, right, the chance for proximity to the president, which could have its perks.

CNN's Alayna Treene is live at the White House with more.

Some of these numbers certainly raising questions about that access.

Alayna, what more are we hearing from the White House?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, look, that's exactly right.

Even as the White House and President Donald Trump himself, Erica, are trying to downplay this idea that he is profiting from the presidency, if you pore through this nearly-1,000-page document, this financial disclosure report from the last year, you see all these different areas where really Trump is bringing in more revenue than ever, and it looks like it's pretty good for his bottom line.

I do want to dig more into his properties, specifically his premier Florida properties, both Mar-a-Lago and his Doral resort in Miami, because this is where you're seeing a lot of surging in income for him. Let's take Mar-a-Lago, for example.

In 2025, the president made $77.5 million in income from Mar-a-Lago. That is more than 50 percent than what it earned him in the previous year, more than triple what he earned in 2020.

Just to give you a sense, if you look at the first term, the president brought in, you can see it on your screens, roughly $23 million a year from Mar-a-Lago, again, this past year, close to $78 million. And then, when you go to Doral, his other club in Florida, during his first term, Trump typically brought in $75 million per year in income from that club. 2024, it was 110 million. This year, though, it was $122 million.

Now, part of the reason -- when you talk to legal experts, ethical experts, they argue that part of the reason this is higher is because a lot of people are trying to have that proximity to the president. They want to go to his club. You see a lot of different political organizations, Republican leaders, wanting to host events there because of the Trump name. That's part of it.

But, also, especially when you look at Mar-a-Lago, for example, look at their membership fees. The membership fees in recent years has been $1 million to be a part of Mar-a-Lago. Before Trump had ever run, before 2016, that membership fee was $100,000, quite a difference in the amount, so just a lot to pore through in this report, but the properties, of course, definitely a big and very interesting part of all of this, Erica.

HILL: Absolutely.

I know the president brushed off some of the questions and concerns yesterday when he was asked about the money being made during his first year in office, but what about the White House? Is there any concern in the White House about the opti -- optics, that is, of the president pulling in more than $2 billion in just his first year back in office, especially as Americans continue to be concerned about affordability?

TREENE: Yes, look, I think, obviously, publicly what you are hearing from officials, Erica, is this idea of them really trying to downplay that Trump is intentionally trying to make more money, using similar language to the president in yesterday when speaking with reporters, arguing that he was always a wealthy businessman.

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I do want to read to you the statement from a White House spokesperson in response to all of this. It was Anna Kelly. She said -- quote -- oh, sorry. I lost it here.

She said -- quote -- "Neither the president nor his family has ever engaged or will ever engage in conflicts of interest. All actions by President Trump and his administration are taken in the best interests of the American people."

I will say, however, though, of course, there's many officials here who are seeing all of the different reports about this. There's actually a seething "Wall Street Journal" editorial right on this today, arguing that some of what you're seeing, with all the money that he is making, and not just him, but also some of his family members -- I'd remind you that a lot of the crypto money Trump brought in last year came, more than $500 million, from a firm managed in part by his sons Eric and Donald Trump Jr.

So there are some questions about this, particularly knowing that, if Republicans are to lose the midterms in the fall, Democrats are likely going to want to launch some investigations looking in to all of this, Erica.

HILL: Yes, absolutely.

Alayna, really appreciate it. Thank you.

We also have the latest jobs report to tell you about, and it showed a significant slowdown in hiring in the month of June, employers adding just 57,000 jobs. That's actually less than half of the number of jobs that have been added in May.

Government data finding leisure and hospitality was the area that actually saw the biggest losses last month, shedding 61,000 jobs. Keep that in mind that's happening as we're moving into the summer season. You, of course, have the World Cup happening, so a number of tourists in different cities around the country staying in those hotel rooms for the World Cup.

So, more industries actually added jobs than cut them, which is also important to note, among those areas, professional services, health care seeing additional jobs. Unemployment ticked down to 4.2 percent from May. Economists, though, say there are actually fewer people out there looking for work. So labor force participation has actually fallen to its lowest level in five years.

So a lot of things to dig into here.

Rick Newman is the business columnist and founder of The Pinpoint Press and joins us now.

Rick, as we look at this, let's start off, first of all, with just the overall numbers, fewer jobs added in June than in May, certainly far below estimates. What is your top-line takeaway from the June jobs report? RICK NEWMAN, BUSINESS COLUMNIST AND PUBLISHER, THE PINPOINT PRESS:

You know, we talked a lot about, did the number of jobs beat or fail to beat estimates?

I like to look at the longer-term trend. And if you just look at monthly job gains going back to 2024, there's just been a very notable slowdown in hiring. During 2024, Joe Biden's last year in office, average job gains per month were around 168,000. That is now down -- since Trump took office, that is now down to about 65,000, so less than half the pace of job gains when Biden was president.

In five of those months since Trump has been president, we have actually lost jobs. So we have had this kind of ping-ponging job market. We have had a couple of months where we have had startling job losses, and then we have some pretty good looking job gains. But it's all netting out to a slowing labor market.

And when you look at consumer confidence surveys and things like that, that is what Americans are saying. They think the -- they think it's very hard to get a job. They are not sanguine about the job market. And that is one of the reasons that people are very down on the Trump economy.

HILL: The unemployment rate, as we noted, did drop. But part of that is because there are a few people in the labor market. There are fewer people searching for work. That's a really important figure that I know folks pay attention to.

NEWMAN: Yes, the statistical quirk here is, if you are unemployed, but you stop looking for work, then you're no longer counted as a member of the labor force, and that changes the denominator that goes into determining the unemployment rate.

I saw one estimate today that said, if the labor force partition rate this month were the same as the prior month, the unemployment rate would be not 4.2 percent, but 4.6 percent. And that would be certainly getting a lot of people's attention, because that would be a meaningful job.

But, instead, we got this one-tenth of a point decline from 4.3 to 4.2. I don't think that's all that meaningful, and I think a lot of people will tell you that's not what the job market seems like in real life.

HILL: We pay such close attention to certain sectors, obviously, when we're looking at jobs that are being added. The fact that leisure and hospitality businesses actually shed 61,000 jobs last month, I mean, it's summer, it's World Cup, there's plenty going on.

This is a big indicator, a gauge when it comes to consumer health. You talk about consumer sentiment. We know, if people don't have money to spend, they're certainly not going on vacation. Is that how you read these figures, or is there something more to it?

NEWMAN: So you have to remember that these are annualized, which means they don't represent what's happening in any month, and these are complicated formulas the economists put into the Labor Department.

But I think what you are seeing throughout the economy is, number one, because of inflation, and there's another -- I think one of the most important trends is that real incomes, which is your income compared with inflation, real incomes have turned negative.

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So that means inflation is rising by more than incomes, and that is really putting the squeeze on a major portion of American consumers. This gets back to the K-shaped economy we talk about so much. So, what you see in spending is that, let's say, the upper 20 percent of earners, they're spending plenty of money.

They're not really worried about prices, and they're holding up most of the economy or most of the spending at this point. And the bottom 50, 60, 70 percent are really filling a pinch that was higher gas prices. It's higher food prices. And I think that is showing up in what you see in leisure and hospitality.

It's just fewer people eating out, fewer people taking vacations or shorter vacations. And, over time, when that goes on for a while, it shows up in hiring, which is what we got this month.

HILL: Yes.

Rick, really appreciate you joining us this afternoon. Thank you.

NEWMAN: Thanks.

Still ahead here: Surveillance videos show how the couple who climbed to the top of the spire there on the Empire State Building, on the antennas, how they actually hid inside the building the night before their stunt. We have those details for you.

Plus: found by his fingertips, fed through a syringe, a mall security guard finally rescued after being buried alive for a week under dozens of feet of rubble in Venezuela. That remarkable rescue just ahead.

And a bit later, 20,000 stadium seats and a JumboTron, I mean, it is the perfect formula for an unforgettable wedding. Event expert David Tutera is here to help us envision just what Taylor Swift's Madison Square Garden nuptials could actually look like.

That and much more coming up on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

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HILL: We have new details this hour on how that daredevil couple was able to evade security, climbing to the top of the antenna area on the Empire State Building.

CNN learning from a source the pair actually went into the building the day before as visitors, then hid inside the Empire State Building, stayed there after closing, spent the night, before, of course, their brazen stunt, when they scaled the building's spire, unfurled a banner some 1,450 feet above the city, and then appear to get engaged with a little selfie stick ready to capture the moment, before, of course, their stunt ended up with them in police custody.

The two officers who climbed four ladders to take them into custody seemed pretty chill about the moment. Take a look.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How you doing? Well, you can't be up here.

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HILL: "You can't be up here."

CNN's John Miller joining us now.

So, John, in terms of how they got to the point where they were ultimately taken into custody, how did all that unfold? How were they able to do this?

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, it's kind of interesting, and it clearly involves a lot of planning and preoperational surveillance.

I would guess that they came there a number of times before Wednesday, so that they could study the layout, look at what doors are locked and where they could hide. But they -- as you said, they came in there with tickets on Tuesday. They hid before the place closed at between 11:00 and 12:00 midnight, and then they stayed there.

But when they did the video canvass inside to see if they could track that, suddenly, at 5:04 a.m., a hatch pops up that leads to that 102nd floor. Apparently, they hid in a maintenance room prior to that. And then there are cables that block that stairway, because someone else had tried a stunt like this before. So they put this elaborate set of metal cables there.

But you see them take tools out. He loosens the brackets on the side so there's enough slack. She slips through. He's through. And then they cut two locks on a door that leads up to this to this spire.

And they waited until noon, when they knew they would get maximum news coverage, and then they did this with their banner, which said, "When love -- when the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace." That was their message of love.

The police department's message was one of less than love, because they charged them with criminal trespass for staying after the place was closed, burglary for breaking through the cables and the locks, possession of burglars' tools for having the equipment to do that, and reckless endangerment for putting people in danger who had to go up there after them, and the risk that they would have posed to people on the ground had they fallen. So they had their day in court today. They were released without bail,

and that leads to whatever's next.

HILL: Whatever's next. We will see for that, perhaps another stunt. I don't know. It's fascinating when you look at their Instagram accounts, and, of course, this Netflix documentary.

Was anything said in court about why they decided to do this? Was it just for some publicity?

MILLER: Well, I think what was said in court was mostly about the laws that they broke to get there.

But I think you can extrapolate from this their Netflix documentary, Skywalkers: A Love Story," I love the quotes from it. She says: "Love is like height. The fear never goes away. You just get better at managing it."

But her other line in the documentary's trailer is: "Security always has a blind spot."

I think the presumption is that they monetize their social media. They're in it for the clicks. That's not unusual. I think they would probably like to see a sequel to the documentary that takes that love story to its heights, no pun intended, and it's closed with a proposal.

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And I think they pretty much understood they probably wouldn't go to jail, at least right away.

HILL: Yes. Oh, boy. Well, here we are, John.

MILLER: What we do for love and money, right?

HILL: I mean, really. And the puns. The puns, well, yes, they write themselves.

Good to see you, my friend. Thank you.

MILLER: Sorry.

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HILL: It's OK. No apology needed.

Coming up here, we can show you the moment a mall security guard was freed. He was buried under 29 feet of rubble for more than a week in Venezuela after the earthquake, but perhaps even more remarkable, how rescuers were actually able to find him and then keep him alive until he could be pulled out.

Plus, the new information from the FBI when it comes to the search for Savannah Guthrie's mother and what the FBI now believes about some of those notes demanding ransom. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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HILL: Rescue crews are searching for survivors in Kyiv after what the mayor calls a terrible night of Russian attacks, blasts lighting up the skyline overnight. Ukraine's air force says Russia launched nearly five hundred drones and more than 70 missiles targeting the capital.

And the results are devastating. We know more than 20 people were killed, at least 85 others injured. Tens of thousands of Kyiv's residents, meantime, spent the night huddled in underground bomb shelters. The strikes themselves damaged more than 20 sites across the city, most of them residential buildings.

Russia's Defense Ministry said it was retaliation for Ukraine's recent attacks on civilian infrastructure inside of Russia. Ukraine's foreign minister said he is demanding strong international responses to stop Russian terror in the wake of the strikes.

There is new reporting from "The Atlantic" about how top Trump administration officials continue to use the Signal messaging app even after that massive scandal. So, you may recall "The Atlantic"'s editor in chief was inadvertently added to a group chat with top U.S. officials last year, in that chat, U.S. war plans.

Well, in the aftermath, the president advised them to stop using Signal, but apparently that didn't happen. "The Atlantic" says top advisers continue to communicate on the unclassified app. This is information that was gathered due to a FOIA request.

Some of those texts have been deleted, despite the federal law, of course, which requires the preservation of government records. "The Atlantic" reporting a screenshot from Rubio's phone shows that Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Dan Caine was the administrator of a Signal group with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Rubio that was set to automatically delete messages after eight hours.

And, also, another chat with 17 participants, including Hegseth, Vice President Vance, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick had deletion set to one week.

In response to the report, the White House told "The Atlantic" the records were -- quote -- "old news" and said in a statement: "As we have said, Signal is an app approved -- an approved app," rather, "that is preloaded on government phones."

Joining us now is Republican Congressman Don Bacon of Nebraska. He's a member of the House Armed Services Committee.

Sir, it's good to see you today.

I know you have warned yourself Signal is not secure.

REP. DON BACON (R-NE): Thank you, Erica. HILL: You don't think -- you don't think Signal should be used for sensitive communications. In fact, you revealed that, earlier this year, your account was actually hacked by Russia.

The president, in the wake of Signalgate, agreed maybe it shouldn't be used here. Do you think this is something that Congress is or should be investigating?

BACON: Well, I think the rules are already there, Erica.

So Signal's easy to use. I use it, but I don't put classified information on it, nor sensitive communications, say, with our allies or things that we're negotiating on with our allies. You don't put any of that on Signal, because I guarantee you Russia and China are monitoring it.

And if folks don't believe it, well, they're being naive. Russia and China are good at this. And, as mentioned, they have hacked my Signal about three months ago. I was notified by law enforcement and by the cyber officials of the House. And before that, China was in my MSN private e-mail accounts. This is about three years ago.

And I have known for about 20 years that my communications, whether it's my phone or my e-mail, are being monitored because of the jobs that I have had. And so I would recommend to the administration, it's all right to use Signal if you want to arrange a babysitter or some basic communications, scheduling stuff.

But you don't want to use it when you're relaying, like, your negotiating positions or damage assessments or whatever -- anything that's sensitive at all. I guarantee you that Russia and China are going to get it as fast as the other person you're sending it to. And it's just -- and I have I have been taught this from day one in the Air Force. I don't know why they're not doing it here.

HILL: Well, which leads me to my next question. You don't know why they're not doing it here.

I mean, is it your sense that the administration and these officials specifically are actually taking these threats, these concerns, the reality that you lay out, are they taking that seriously?

BACON: I think they're underestimating the threat, or maybe they don't see maybe the sensitivity of their private communications about what they said to an ally.

Trust me, Russia and China want to know all of this, their intelligence agents. And I just think they're underestimating the threat. Plus, Signal is very accessible, easy to use. But I assure you, Erica, that every one of these people could have classified cell phones, classified communications nearby at any time because of the jobs they have.

I strongly recommend, use the classified secure communications and protect the sensitive conversations and data that Russia and China dearly want. I used to be in this business. I'm a signals intelligence officer by trade. I worked in the intelligence career fields.

And I can assure you Russia and China want to be on these conversations, and they are.

HILL: Yes.

I also want to ask you about the legal issues here when it comes to retention of records. Does it concern you at all that what we have learned is, some of these chats were set to expire in eight hours, others within a week?