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Serena Williams Knocked Out of Third Round at U.S. Open; Farewell Ceremony for Former Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev; International Atomic Energy Agency to Have Continuous Presence at Zaporizhzhya; NASA to Attempt Artemis I Launch Again Today. Aired 3-4a ET
Aired September 03, 2022 - 03:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Live from CNN World Headquarters in Atlanta, welcome to all of you watching us here in the United States, Canada and around the world. I'm Kim Brunhuber.
Ahead on CNN NEWSROOM, shocking new details about the documents the FBI seized from Mar-a-Lago. What it could mean for Donald Trump -- ahead.
Russia bids farewell to Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the USSR. But one person is opting out of the funeral ceremonies. We're live in Moscow with the details.
And Serena Williams' legendary career comes to an apparent end. We're live in New York with more on her final match and her plans for the future.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Live from CNN Center, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Kim Brunhuber.
BRUNHUBER: Serena Williams, one of the greatest tennis players of all time, may have played her last match. Her dream of winning a 24th grand slam title before, quote, "evolving" away from tennis, came to a sudden end at the U.S. Open when she lost in the third round to Australian Ajla Tomljanovic.
When asked after the match about what her future holds, Williams had this response. Here she is.
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SERENA WILLIAMS, U.S. TENNIS PLAYER: For me, tennis has been such a huge part of my life. I can't imagine not being involved in tennis. I don't know what that involvement is yet.
But I feel like it's provided me with so many opportunities. And through that, it's provided other people with so many amazing opportunities. And, you know, I think it means so much to me in my life and I've had so many amazing moments that I don't -- I don't see a future without it.
What's my involvement?
I have no idea. But I think -- I think I'll be involved in some way or shape.
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BRUNHUBER: We're now learning startling new details about exactly what FBI agents took from Donald Trump's home in Florida. The full inventory was released on Friday by a federal judge, who is considering Trump's request for a special master.
But Trump's former attorney general scoffs at the idea of appointing a special master, calling it "a waste of time." Well get the latest from CNN's Sara Murray.
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SARA MURRAY, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A newly unsealed inventory revealing the trove of materials seized from Mar-a-Lago, including thousands of government documents and 103 papers marked classified intermingled with magazines, newspapers, press clippings, photos and articles of clothing.
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: You know, mostly the boxes are pictures and newspapers and shirts and gear and, you know, golf balls and just -- it's a lot of stuff. You know, when you're there for four years, it's a long time.
MURRAY (voice-over): While Trump has downplayed what was recovered by the FBI, a seven-page list ticks through how sensitive the material was, 18 documents marked top secret, 54 documents marked secret and 31 marked confidential.
Investigators also collected dozens of empty folders with a classified banner or labeled return to staff secretary/military aide.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: None of this is going to help Donald Trump.
MURRAY (voice-over): A federal judge in Florida unsealing the inventory and pondering whether to appoint a special master to independently review the seized material.
WILLIAM BARR, FORMER ATTORNEY GENERAL: The whole idea of a special master is a bit of a red herring. At this stage, since they've already gone through the documents, I think it's a waste of time.
MURRAY (voice-over): The investigators' haul, which included more than 11,000 government documents without classified markings, revealed just how much Trump was holding on to, even after more than a year of negotiating the return of documents and 18 months after leaving office.
TRUMP: So what you do is you accumulate a lot of stuff over a term and then all of a sudden you're leaving and stuff gets packed up and sent --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.
TRUMP: -- all sorts of stuff.
MURRAY (voice-over): But in Trump's office alone, investigators retrieved a number of boxes, including 27 documents marked classified in some way.
BARR: People say this was unprecedented. Well, it's also unprecedented for a president to take all this classified information and put them in a country club, OK.
MURRAY (voice-over): And investigators found them after Trump's team had assured the government any potentially classified materials had been kept in a more secure storage room and after a representative for Trump signed a document, saying everything with classified markings had been turned over a month before the search.
Meantime in a separate criminal investigation into the January 6 attack at the U.S. Capitol and the events leading up to it, former Trump White House lawyers Pat Cipollone and Patrick Philbin appearing before a grand jury today.
Both men pushed back on efforts to overturn the 2020 election and are key witnesses to the final days of Trump's presidency. CNN reporting they appeared after weeks of discussion with the Justice Department over executive privilege.
MURRAY: Back to that trove of documents that came from Mar-a-Lago, we're only learning all of these details about them, of course, because the former president has sought a special master, this independent reviewer, to oversee these documents.
The judge still has not issued a ruling on whether she will grant that request from the Trump team. But she did suggest she was leaning toward it, asking in a hearing earlier this week, what's the harm of putting forward a special master? -- Sara Murray, CNN, Washington.
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BRUNHUBER: Moscow bids farewell to Mikhail Gorbachev, the former Soviet president who played a leading role in bringing the Cold War to a peaceful end.
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BRUNHUBER (voice-over): And we're looking at live pictures here. Gorbachev died Tuesday after a long illness. A public service is being held in the Hall of Columns at Moscow's historic House of the Unions. U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan is attending but Russian president Vladimir Putin isn't. Later, Gorbachev will be buried next to his wife, Raisa, at another
historic location in Moscow, the Novodevichy cemetery. Again, we're looking at live pictures of the service there at the Hall of Columns in Moscow.
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BRUNHUBER: And joining us now to talk about it is Anne Applebaum. She is a staff writer with "The Atlantic" and the author of the book "Twilight of Democracy" and she comes to us live from London.
Thank you so much for being here with us. So first on what we're seeing now.
What do you make of the way Gorbachev is being mourned there?
He is not getting a state funeral and Putin, while he was paying respects, isn't attending the funeral.
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ANNE APPLEBAUM, STAFF WRITER, "THE ATLANTIC": It's not very surprising, given that Putin has described the end of the Soviet Union, which Gorbachev presided over, as the greatest political catastrophe of the 20th century; meaning presumably greater than the Second World War.
The current historiography in Moscow, promulgated by Putin, says that Gorbachev is to blame for enormous number of ills, for the economic crash of the '90s, for Russia's loss of status.
There are people in Moscow who will be genuinely mourning him and who remember his reign as general secretary and then as president of the Soviet Union, as a moment of great creativity and openness. It was the moment when Russia really finally, after many decades, began to change.
But the official line, the one that supports the current ruling elite and their argument for why they need an autocratic, kleptocratic state is he brought down the Russian empire.
BRUNHUBER: Looking back at his legacy, I was struck at the line from a recent piece of yours.
"Almost nobody in history has ever had such a profound impact on his era, while at the same time understanding so little about it."
Tell us what you mean by that.
APPLEBAUM: Gorbachev started out as a reform Communist. In other words, he wanted to fix the Soviet Union. He didn't want to end it. And he tried different methods. He tried an anti-alcohol campaign to reduce drunkenness. That was his first attempt at reform.
And then he tried glasnost or openness. He thought, if we would just talk about our problems openly, if we would end the great secrecy surrounding things -- and he was partly inspired by the Chernobyl disaster -- then we can fix our problems.
The trouble was is that once you opened up conversation in the Soviet Union, then people wanted to talk about all kinds of things. They wanted to talk about the repressions of the past. They wanted to talk about Stalinist mass murders and the gulag, the mass concentration camps.
And it became immediately clear with amazing speed in the late '80s and early '90s that the system itself had no legitimacy; despite all the propaganda, despite all the puffery, people hated it.
And once that had happened and once the various national movements in Ukraine and in the Baltic States and elsewhere began to gain traction, nobody wanted the Soviet Union, either.
So he -- it ended without him meaning to end it. He didn't intend to bring the era to an end. He didn't intend to end the Soviet empire in Eastern Europe, either. The fall of the Berlin Wall was an accident. It wasn't planned. So he wound up being a very important historical figure without ever planning for that to happen.
BRUNHUBER: All right. Just stay with us. I want to bring in senior international correspondent, Fred Pleitgen, who joins us now live from the House of Unions in central Moscow.
Fred, you are there at the public service. So tell us more about your impressions on how Gorbachev is being mourned there.
FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, there, Kim. First of all, I think everything said so far is absolutely correct.
I think one of the things we can see is a lot of the big mourning, condolence, telegrams, the big words about Mikhail Gorbachev as being one of the biggest leaders of the 20th century, they mostly come from outside of Russia.
If you look at for instance what the former German chancellor said, secretary of state Blinken as well, they obviously praised Mikhail Gorbachev as someone instrumental in bringing down the Iron Curtain.
Here in Russia, things are a little bit different. it's not just Vladimir Putin or the Russian government but also many Russians who simply feel that their situation after the fall of the Iron Curtain and especially at the dissolution of the Soviet Union got worse than it was before. There was a lot of uncertainty in many people's lives.
Obviously for a lot of people, economic decline but I think a lot of people also felt that, for many years, especially in the 1990s, that Russia was essentially humiliated on the world stage; going from a world power, being basically on par with the United States in the Western bloc, to being sort of a second-rate country for many years and one that was almost mocked internationally because of a lot of the issues that were here.
Nevertheless, you do have a lot of people who are coming here to the ceremony, who want the pay their respects. One of the things that we've seen sort of outside of the House of Unions where I am right now where the ceremony is taking place, is that a lot of the streets have been blocked off.
There are massive security measures. There is a lot of police as well. So you can see that this, for the authorities, they realize that this is a very important event, that there are still many Russians who obviously loved Mikhail Gorbachev for the changes that he's brought and for some of the freedoms people had, especially in the 1990s.
But certainly a lot of people, who felt that the Soviet Union was stagnating, that the Soviet Union was in trouble, they certainly felt that they were heard by Mikhail Gorbachev here in Russia.
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PLEITGEN: But of course, his role internationally is one that is remembered much stronger than here in Russia itself -- Kim.
BRUNHUBER: Yes and, Fred, what do you make of the -- I guess you'd see it as a snub, that Putin isn't going to the funeral and that he's not been given a state funeral like Yeltsin was.
PLEITGEN: Yes, and it's really interesting. The Kremlin was sort of dancing around the topic a little bit over the past couple of days.
On the one hand, you did have Vladimir Putin come to the casket, stand at and touch the open casket, bow down to Mikhail Gorbachev's body but then also saying he is simply too busy today to be attending this funeral.
On the one hand, that could be seen as a snub. On the other hand, if you look at the Russian public, not very much is being reported today. There is a few media that are out here but certainly nothing of the magnitude that you would expect for one of the greatest leaders of the 20th century.
As far as a state funeral is concerned, the Kremlin said there would be elements of a state funeral. So it's not officially a state funeral but there are elements of a state funeral. There is an honor guard. There is a ceremony.
And they also say that the state has helped to organize the event that we are seeing today. So, yes, it can be seen as somewhat of a snub. And you do see the Kremlin sort of struggling with the public messaging about this as well.
And you're absolutely right also that Boris Yeltsin, when he passed away in 2007, he did not just receive a state funeral but also the day of his death was declared a day of public mourning as well -- Kim.
BRUNHUBER: And again, just to bring our viewers up to date, we're seeing live pictures of the remembrance ceremony for Mikhail Gorbachev at the Hall of Columns in Moscow as we see the soldiers approaching the casket in the ceremony.
I want to go back to Anne.
We were talking about his legacy and you wrote, "In the end, he wound up racing to catch up with history rather than making it himself."
But obviously, he was a man of peace and things can easily have gone another way. And I think that, especially in the West, as Fred was saying, he is certainly seen as a transformational figure. Talk to us a bit about that.
APPLEBAUM: The really important things that Gorbachev did were the things that he didn't do. He didn't prevent the reunification of East and West Germany. He didn't tell East German guards to fire on people when they were crossing the Berlin Wall.
He didn't stop Ukraine from declaring independence. He didn't prevent the Baltic States from saying they wanted to leave the Soviet Union. There were some episodes of violence, when the Red Army, the Soviet army, sought to block some of those things from happening briefly.
But in the end, he was somebody who did not want to use violence. He wanted to end the practice of violence in the Soviet Union and had actually been talking about that since the 1960s.
And so, in that sense, the expression "man of peace" is correct. He wanted a reconciliation with the West. He wanted an end to the nuclear standoff. And although he didn't intend for the reunification of Europe to happen, he didn't stop it, either.
And I think, for those reasons, he is rightly remembered as a great figure. Look, he has given us 30 years of an end to the nuclear standoff, 30 years during which Europe was reunified and genuine reforms were carried out in many places, if not in Russia itself.
And so his status as a great world historical figure is unquestioned. It's just that -- the oddity of his position is that it was not planned. He didn't -- he didn't plan it. And, of course, that's also one of the things Russians are angry at him about.
He didn't prepare them for democracy. He didn't prepare them for free markets. Everything was very haphazard in the late '80s and early '90s. And this feeling that they were engulfed by chaos was not wrong.
BRUNHUBER: Yes. And I think it's worth underscoring that Gorbachev himself wasn't thrilled about the direction the country is heading on now under Putin and especially the war in Ukraine as well. We'll have to leave there it.
Author and "The Atlantic" staff writer Anne Applebaum and senior international correspondent Fred Pleitgen in Moscow, really appreciate having both of you on the story as we see there.
Again, live pictures of the funeral ceremony or the remembrance ceremony for Mikhail Gorbachev and the Hall of Columns in Moscow.
(END VIDEOTAPE) BRUNHUBER: All right. Turning now to Ukraine, where the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog says it will have a long-term presence at the Zaporizhzhya nuclear plan. The IAEA inspectors went there on Thursday for the first time since the war began.
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BRUNHUBER: Now the agency's chief says six of the inspectors will stay at the facility for a few more days while two will remain there on a long-term basis. They plan to release a report next week on what the inspectors found at the plant.
The IAEA chief said they already know much more than they did before the visit but they also shared their biggest concerns about the plant, which has repeatedly come under artillery fire. Let's listen.
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RAFAEL MARIANO GROSSI, DIRECTOR GENERAL, IAEA: It is clear that those who have these aims, these military aims, know very well that is the way to cripple or to do more damage is not to look into the reactors, which are enormously sturdy and robust, but to hit where it hurts so the plant becomes, you know, very, very problematic.
So my concern would be, you know, the physical integrity, would be the power supply and, of course, the staff.
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BRUNHUBER: Ukrainian President Zelenskyy says he is disappointed that Russia prevented journalists from coming and that the IAEA isn't pushing for a demilitarization of the plant. But he says he still believes the mission in Zaporizhzhya can be fruitful.
Europe could be facing a rough winter as Russian energy giant Gazprom shuts down a crucial pipeline to Germany. Gazprom says it turned off supplies in Nord Stream 1 due to an oil leak.
But many in the West are skeptical. News of the shutdown came after G7 countries agreed to cap the price of Russian oil, a move aimed at defunding Moscow's war in Ukraine and a German based company that makes turbines for Nord Stream 1 tells CNN it's the kind of leak that can be sealed onsite.
Siemens Energy says it's a, quote, "routine procedure during maintenance work."
They add that, in the past, the occurrence of this type of leakage has not resulted in a shutdown of operations.
NASA's Artemis I is set for liftoff again. After a few setbacks, it looks like all systems are go for Saturday's launch.
But will the weather cooperate?
We'll get details on that next. Stay with us. (MUSIC PLAYING)
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BRUNHUBER: Right now, it's all systems go for NASA's Artemis I mission. Saturday's launch window opens at 2:17 pm Eastern time. Monday's liftoff was scrubbed because of a number of issues, including an engine cooling problem.
The unmanned rocket will travel farther beyond the moon than any spacecraft intended to carry humans has ever gone; that is, if the weather also permits. Right now NASA meteorologists predict about 60 percent favorable conditions.
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BRUNHUBER: U.S. employers stay in hiring mode, expanding their payrolls for yet another month.
How will that affect the Fed's decision on interest rates?
That's ahead.
Plus, we're now learning the full extent of what the FBI took from Donald Trump's home last month. You'll hear what Trump's former attorney general thinks about it, next. Stay with us.
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BRUNHUBER: Welcome back to all of you watching us here in the United States, Canada and all around the world. I'm Kim Brunhuber. This is CNN NEWSROOM.
New details about the FBI search of Donald Trump's home show the former president appeared to be extremely reckless about handling top secret government documents.
On Friday, a judge released the full list of what was taken from Mar- a-Lago, including classified materials found stashed among boxes of magazines, clothing and other personal belongings, and dozens of folders marked classified or confidential were empty.
Trump's former attorney general says Trump only has himself to blame for the FBI search. Here he is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BARR: Let me just say I think the driver on this from the beginning
was, you know, loads of classified information sitting in Mar-a-Lago. People say this was unprecedented. Well, it's also unprecedented for a president to take all this classified information and put them in a country club. OK?
And how long is the government going to try to get that back?
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BARR: You know, they jawboned for a year. They were deceived on the voluntary actions taken. They then went and got a subpoena. They were deceived on that, they feel. And the facts are starting to show that they were being jerked around.
And so how long -- you know, how long did they wait?
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BRUNHUBER: The judge in this case is now considering Trump's request for a special master to review the seized materials, which Barr calls a waste of time.
Now maybe it's just a coincidence but sources tell CNN that just days after the Mar-a-Lago search, the National Archives suddenly received a new batch of texts and emails from Mark Meadows, Trump's former chief of staff. The Archives are the custodian of all presidential records.
And after seeing what Meadows submitted to the January 6th committee, they apparently realized they didn't have everything from him. His lawyers had already arranged to turn over the additional materials. But there is speculation the Mar-a-Lago search may have sped up the actual transfer.
The Biden administration has approved more than $1.1 billion in arms sales to Taiwan and China isn't happy about it. Beijing is warning Washington of potential counter measures and says the deal could both seriously jeopardize U.S.-China relations. CNN's Will Ripley has details from Taipei.
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WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It didn't take long after the announcement of this more than $1 billion arms package for the Chinese government to make its displeasure known.
More than half of this package includes a more than $600 million upgrade to an early radar warning system that has been operating here in Taiwan for almost a decade. There is also $330 million plus for anti-warship missiles, $85 million for air to air missiles.
And all of this, the United States says, is to help Taiwan enhance its defenses as tensions continue to soar with Beijing. This comes one day after an unidentified drone was shot down on Taiwan's outlying island, a matter of six miles, 10 kilometers from the coast of Mainland China. Taiwan's ministry of foreign affairs points out this is the sixth time
during the Biden administration and the fifth time this year that arms sales have been approved.
They put out a statement, saying they appreciate the United States honoring its commitments under the Taiwan Relations Act, a series of agreements signed more than 40 years ago where the U.S. agrees to recognize Beijing diplomatically and not recognize Taipei.
But they do agree to provide defensive weapons to the selfgoverning democracy which has had its own government and its own military for more than 70 years, since the end of China's civil war.
All that time Beijing and its Communist rulers say in fact they have sovereignty over Taiwan. So every time the United States and Taiwan engage in an arms sale or some sort of military interaction, Beijing says it is a violation of their One China principle and they have promised counter measures if these weapons sales and military interactions are not revoked.
They also say this severely jeopardizes U.S.-China relations and puts peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait at risk. But the U.S. State Department says these weapons are essential for Taiwan's security and they're continuing to call for a peaceful resolution of the cross-strait tensions that have been escalating very much in recent weeks.
This is now one month or so since the visit of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi caused China to stage unprecedented military exercises that encircled this island.
Of course Taiwan claims that the Pelosi visit was simply an excuse and the plans for those military exercises, which almost simulated a blockade of Taiwan, Taiwan says, they say those plans were in place for quite some time and China was just looking for a reason to make them happen -- Will Ripley, CNN, Taipei.
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BRUNHUBER: Coming up, more help is on the way for those suffering in Pakistan, where floods have killed more than 1,000 people, including hundreds of children. We get the details next.
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BRUNHUBER: The U.S. is stepping up relief to flood-ravaged Pakistan. A response team from the U.S. Agency for International Development is now on the ground to assess the situation and come up with a plan to provide more resources. Earlier this week, the U.S. said it would give $30 million in
humanitarian aid. So far almost 1,200 people have been killed, including more than 400 children. In total, the floods have impacted some 33 million people across Pakistan.
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All right. Let's bring in the head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies' country office in Pakistan, Peter Ophoff.
Thank you so much for being here with us.
A third of Pakistan is underwater. Last time you and I spoke, I think it was about a week ago, I think 3 million people were affected. Now that number has increased more than tenfold.
Have you ever seen anything on this scale before?
PETER OPHOFF, PAKISTAN COUNTRY OFFICE, INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF RED CROSS AND RED CRESCENT SOCIETIES: Good morning, good afternoon. Thank you for having me.
No, no. In my almost three-decade career at present, I've never, ever seen anything like that. The Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Society has classified this disaster as a red emergency.
Red emergency mean that it is the highest classification you can have on an emergency, on any disaster. And it also has to do with the number of people affected, the size of the disaster and the impact of it. So this is really a very, very bad situation for Pakistan.
BRUNHUBER: One of the impacts, obviously aside from the water itself.
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BRUNHUBER: Anytime you have a long-lasting disaster, widespread disease is always a concern. But the problem is compounded when you have so much water around.
OPHOFF: Yes, exactly. It is difficult. I have just returned from a field trip to one of the affected areas.
And while in some areas the water is slowly going down there, are other areas where we do know that water will still be there for the weeks to come. So we're really looking at two points.
We're looking at the short-term lifesaving needs and support that we can give. Clearly the needs would be food, shelter and would be safe drinking water and medical. That is really the need.
And as you said, stagnant water, waterborne diseases, the risk is there. And we are fully aware that we might have a big, big risk to have waterborne diseases coming off in the next couple of days. That's why medical help is to be deployed by the Red Cross/Red Crescent are in place and we're increasing the health units to be increased as well.
BRUNHUBER: Yes, I mean, the aid is so great. And we're seeing the pictures here. It's just incredible the devastation.
But how do you deliver the aid, given the extreme flooding and the loss of critical infrastructure?
OPHOFF: Aid is being done in different ways. It is also known that now roughly 4,000 kilometers of road have been washed away. Bridges have been destroyed. So access is a problem.
Wherever we can, we deliver the aid to people, positioned aid that we had in, I believe, (INAUDIBLE) in our warehouses. We are delivering that by roads wherever possible. Otherwise, we do deliver by boat.
Areas that are still submerged, we have boats, sometimes rowing boats, the basic boats, to deliver. Otherwise, the government and the army have deployed helicopters to save people, to rescue people but also to deliver aid. So that's what we are looking now and that's the only way we can operate at this moment.
BRUNHUBER: This is going to be such a long-term disaster. I mean, winter, you know, is coming. In the north, I believe, it's already getting cold. That's just adds to the urgency of the situation. U.S. AID is sending in expertise and money.
So what more is needed?
OPHOFF: Well, as I said earlier, we are looking at the short-term but also the long-term. So the long-term is the recovery. So, yes, winter is coming. So we are looking definitely at winter for the people affected, the communities affected. But also on the longer term, the recovery.
So people are -- whenever possible, people are returning home, to the homes that are destroyed. So they need shelter. Shelter is important. Then they slowly will start rebuilding the housing, restoring the houses, getting back on their feet.
And also the economic recovery. So we ask Red Cross/Red Crescent having now an appeal, we launched an appeal for $25 million U.S. to help 324,000 people. We do know that the needs will grow. But it's also a cash assistance.
The cash assistance means we will provide assistance to people returning back to the house to rebuild so that they can buy items that they need but also actually start their livelihoods again.
Over a million livestock has been killed during the disaster. Livestock is so important for the people in Pakistan. So we will also assist them by providing that funding so that they can rebuild their lives. They can buy cows. They can buy goats and start their lives slowly, slowly again.
But this will have an economical impact to a country that (INAUDIBLE) economic crisis because of the currency challenges, because of the COVID situation. This will have an impact for years and years to come.
BRUNHUBER: Yes, absolutely. Well, listen, stay safe, you and all of your workers out there, as you deliver much needed help to those affected. Head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies' country office in Pakistan, Peter Ophoff, thank you so much.
OPHOFF: Thank you so much, thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BRUNHUBER: And you can help those millions of people affected by the floods in Pakistan by going to cnn.com/impact.
The U.S. labor market keeps going strong, despite headwinds from inflation and possible recession. Still ahead, a new government report shows it's a good time to look for a job. We'll have more on that coming up. Stay with us.
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BRUNHUBER: U.S. employers are keeping the ball rolling on new hirings. The labor market beat economists' expectations again in August, recording another month of strong job gains. That's despite record inflation and concerns about a possible recession.
But as Rahel Solomon reports, job creation in August didn't match the blockbuster jobs report from the month before.
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RAHEL SOLOMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The U.S. jobs market still strong but the pace of hiring slowed last month. The economy added 315,000 jobs in August, which did top economists' expectations. But it's below July's blowout numbers.
The unemployment rate rose to 3.7 percent from 3.5 percent as the labor force participation rate ticked up. And wage growth eased. Average hourly earnings grows rose by 0.3 percent from a month earlier. It's up 5.2 percent from a year ago.
We also saw notable job gains in certain sectors. Professional and business services added 68,000 jobs; health care employment increased by 48,000 and retail trade added 44,000.
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SOLOMON: This jobs report is one of the key economic data that the Federal Reserve will review, as the central bank is battling the highest inflation in 40 years by raising interest rates. Some economists say that they don't believe the August jobs numbers will change Fed chair Jay Powell's aggressive approach.
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DIANE SWONK, CHIEF ECONOMIST, KPMG: I don't think this report changes that message at all given we're still so out of whack.
Job openings held at the July levels, even with a higher number of people seeking jobs in the month of August, we'd still be at 1.9 job openings per worker when the Fed is looking for a dipping more balanced at 1:1.
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SOLOMON: The focus now turns to the August consumer price report due later this month. That's a big inflation report. And the next Fed meeting is scheduled for September 20th and 21st -- Rahel Solomon, CNN, New York.
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BRUNHUBER: And that wraps this hour of CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Kim Brunhuber. I'll be back with just a moment can more news. Please do stay with us.
