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Latest Poll Showed Most Americans Don't Approve Of Trump's Performance; Trump Speaks To Reporters After Returning To D.C.; Trump Speaks To Reporters After Returning To D.C., Russia Strikes Ukrainian Government Building For The First Time; Trump Family Seeing Windfall With New Crypto Legislation. Aired 7-8p ET
Aired September 07, 2025 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[19:00:00]
JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: The new polls coming as Trump puts his focus on deploying the National Guard onto the streets of D.C. while implementing hardline immigration tactics.
CNN chief data analyst Harry Enten is here to run the numbers on all of this, and we do have some fresh numbers today.
So, Harry, what are they telling us?
HARRY ENTEN, CNN CHIEF DATA ANALYST: Yes, I think they're telling are they telling us what we know about the Trump presidency is that Americans don't like it. So why don't we just take a look at these new polling that we have? And he remains under water.
Look, the CBS News poll, look at that. He's 12 points underwater. You want to go over to NBC, you want a different network? You can go to a different network, but it's the exact same story. 14 points underwater, double-digits on this. This has been the story throughout much of the Trump presidency. He remains underwater as we get past Labor Day, Jessica.
DEAN: And just how consistent have Trump's ratings been?
ENTEN: Yes. OK. So this to me was the fascinating thing because, you know, I come on either every Saturday or Sunday or sometimes like this weekend, both days, and I talk about Trump's approval rating is underwater. I come up with some witty line or some line I think is witty, like he's more underwater than the Little Mermaid or something like that. And I decided to actually look, OK, how long has this dude been underwater?
All right. So let's take a look at it. All right. Negative net approval rating for Trump, every single day. Every single day in my aggregate of polls since March 12th. Since March 12th, in terms of number of days, 180 days in a row, he has been underwater. That is basically half a year. You know, the NFL season started this week. You basically have to go back to the end of the last NFL season to find a day in which Trump was above water.
The bottom line is he has been swimming with the fishes for a very long period of time, Jessica.
DEAN: And what groups has he lost ground with?
ENTEN: OK. So you know, we're talking about the fact that he was last positive. You got to go back before March 12th. So what has changed? What has changed since February, which was the last full month in which he was above ground? Well, take a look here. Trump's net approval rating among age 18 to 29. We're looking at the CBS News poll, but it holds true in the average as well. He was plus two back in late February. Look at where he is now. My god, that is a 32 point drop since the beginning of this year. How about Hispanics? He was at minus six, a little bit underwater, but not too bad.
But look at where he is now. Minus 34 points. That's a -- what is that? That's a 28-point drop since February? These of course were two groups that he exceeded expectations with back in the 2024 election, did much better than the traditional Republican has this century. But now these groups have absolutely moved away from him and he is way underwater, 30 points and 34 points underwater.
Those two groups have moved away from him in tremendous fashion, and it goes a long way in explaining why his overall approval rating, his net approval rating has fallen through the floor and been negative for such a long period of time, Jessica.
DEAN: And what issues does he do well with?
ENTEN: OK, so there are a few things that I think that are so important to figure out here. OK, so we're talking about groups, like, is there any place, any place where Donald Trump does well with? Well, let's talk about issues first. OK. Trump's net approval rating, I got crime, immigration, foreign policy, the economy, trade. There's a whole slew of red. And this isn't Republican red.
This is negative red, Jessica Dean, minus two points. Minus three points. Minus 12 points. Minus 14 points. Minus 17 points. On all the key issues of the day, he is underwater, Jessica. No wonder you can't survive in a presidency having a positive net approval rating when you're underwater on all of these different issues. And of course, crime and immigration were two of his best issues. And now he's underwater on all of them.
And then, of course, the economy, which was the reason he was reelected in the first place. This is the one I really circle here. He's 14 points underwater, which basically looks pretty much like those CBS News and NBC News polls, which have him at minus 12 and minus 14 points.
I'll point out one last little thing. I'm going to jump ahead a question because I just feel like I'm in such a roll, Jessica Dean. I just feel it, the energy with me.
DEAN: You keep going. Don't let us stop you.
ENTEN: Thank you. Thank you very much. So we see all this negative, but the thing that you pointed out at the beginning that I think is so important, what is the one saving grace for Donald Trump right now? And that is the Republican base. What are we talking about here? Well, take a look here. Republicans who approve of Trump, well, in the CBS News poll back in February, look at this. It was 90 percent.
Look at where it is now. You mentioned it at the top. It's at 91 percent. As long as this Republican base sticks with him, as long as he's hearing the good news from the conservative talk radio host, as long as he's hearing the good news from the folks out there on the right, he's going to think he has very strong support. So I don't think that Donald Trump is going to do anything differently as long as this 91 percent holds. And as I said, it's steady as ever, because that's actually a point higher than it was in February, Jessica.
DEAN: All right. Harry Enten, running the numbers as always. Thank you very much.
ENTEN: Thank you.
DEAN: And let's bring in CNN senior political commentators, David Urban and Van Jones. David is a Republican strategist, Van worked for the Obama administration, and they both held numerous other positions since then. But that at least gives you a good working idea.
[19:05:00]
David, let's start first with you. Sometimes I have to prompt you with the whole question, but Harry just went through a lot of data. What did you think about all that?
DAVID URBAN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. Listen. So, Harry is great at that. And what he didn't tell you, though, and what Harry would admit to is that Donald Trump's ceiling ever since he's been a candidate has been 44 percent. That's the number in that YouGov poll that just came out this morning. The CBS-YouGov polls at 44 percent. By the way, that's up 2 percent since the last poll in July.
And so he's just consistently pulled that 44 percent approval rating. And so, you know, that's kind of where he was at when he won the election in '24. It's where he's been at consistently. And as Harry points out, he's up a percentage point with Republicans. And so I don't think that, you know, that Rome is burning here. I think that Trump is continuing to do what he did. He's delivering on the messages that -- on the immigration and cracking down on crime that won him the election in '24. And he's being rewarded among the base for it.
DEAN: What do you think, Van?
VAN JONES, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, look, I think that if I were the Republicans, I'd be worried about that Latin number. They scared the living bejeebers out of us in November when you saw this stampede of brown voters rushing to Donald Trump. We said, holy crap, and that was the whole ballgame. And then you got a bunch of young people as well.
And so that's why you've seen the therapy bills for Democrats going through the roof because we had this fantasy that we were always going to be the party of black, brown and young voters. And suddenly we were just the party of African-American voters, and even we didn't come out as strong as we usually do.
Trump could have kept all that if he had just been -- if he had done what he said was going to do on immigration. He said he was going to go after the bad folks. And listen, I live in Los Angeles. There's some people who need to get the heck out of this country, but they're not nannies. They're not people who work, you know, who are standing around the Home Depot trying to get a day laborer job. When he started going after just everybody's kind of working class cousin, it just -- the floor fell out from under him.
And I'm telling you, as somebody who lives in Los Angeles, there are a lot of people -- now, listen. He has a lot of support in some parts of the country, but in parts of the country where working class Latin folks thought he was going to go get the bad guys, and they went and got their cousins, he's in real trouble.
DEAN: David, do you think, just again, putting aside the 91 percent approval rating with Republicans, but to Van's point, we saw those numbers with Harry, the younger voters and the Hispanic voters that are dropping off from supporting the president. Is it because he's gone too far on some of these issues, like what Van is talking about?
URBAN: Yes. Look, I don't know if it's that, Jessica, or if it's economic issues because if you look in those polls, right, people are feeling it in their pocketbook. Those polls say that, you know, that they're not feeling better about the economy. They're concerned about their future. There's a report out today that I noted that auto loan defaults, prime and subprime auto loan defaults are at historic all time highs. So when you --
JONES: That's bad.
URBAN: When you -- when you can't pay, you know, you have money short, right, and your pocketbook, you're not -- you're paying your rent. You're paying for your food. What are you going to let slip? You're probably going to let you slip your car. So it's kind of the canary in the coal mine as to what's going on. And so I think the challenge for this administration in this upcoming midterm election is to deliver on those economic promises that people talk about sitting around their table every night, whether or not they can pay the rent, pay their bills, you know, buy some new school clothes for their kids.
Those are the things that people are talking about in America and want to see addressed. And that's the challenge this president, this administration face. How do you make life better for real people? And you're going to have a referendum on that in these midterms. If you can't turn that feeling around, Republicans are going to be in for a world of hurt.
DEAN: Yes. Because, Van, that was a huge in addition to the immigration and the crime stuff, people were really concerned about the economy in this last election.
JONES: Yes. It's true. And, you know, it's always hard. You know, if things go well, the president gets the credit, they go bad, the president gets the blame. The problem is the president did promise a lot. He said he's going to have the best economy ever. And there's a particular weakness that you have. And frankly, Democrats have no answer for this either.
These young voters that graduated off of a cliff the last two graduations where you had so many college graduates who did the right thing, they did their homework, they stayed out of trouble. They at least didn't get as much trouble they got thrown out of school. And then they graduate and they get a picture with their grandma and no job. And they don't still have a job. That is the base for a lot of discontent in the country. And frankly, Democrats and Republicans have great answers.
But if you look at here, right now I'm in New York City, the entire New York mayoral race is being turned upside down by these disappointed college graduates who are under the age of 30, who said, I did what you told me to do, and there's no job for me. I could have literally stayed at home with my near-do-well cousin and played video games, been a better position. I'm mad as hell. That is something both parties are going to have to deal with. But Trump is losing those voters by the bushel.
DEAN: And look, Van, if we zoom out on these numbers to something, I just wanted to talk to both of you about because I think it's kind of a bigger picture thing.
[19:10:08]
But it is -- it is worth noting that Trump's approval rating is at 91 percent among Republicans. It's at 4 percent among Democrats. If you flip it around, for the Democrats, look right there. It's 96 percent. You know, if you flip it around the other way, Democrats 96 percent to 44 percent.
Van, and then you have all these people in the middle, right, that maybe don't consider themselves a Democrat or a Republican. Like, what do we as a country do about those numbers?
JONES: Look, you know, Dave and I get along, but nobody else does. I don't know what to say.
DEAN: Yes.
JONES: Listen, you can't have a country --
URBAN: Hey, Jessica, those numbers are so bad and Democrats continue to lose.
JONES: Well, I don't think we're in a left-wing period or right-wing period. I think we're in a turbulent, volatile period. And you just see the voters just jumping all around. Biden had, you know, triple blue, his first part. Now Trump's got triple blue less than five years later. So I think you've got a bunch of disaffected people on all sides, people in the middle that don't know what to do. But I think Dave will agree. You can't have a country this divided
with these many -- with these challenges from abroad, with these young people in trouble, with technology that's taking jobs away and make it. We are going to have to get back to the table and be one country on something, pick any issue. I don't care what it is.
DEAN: Pick something.
JONES: And be one country on something.
DEAN: Yes, I mean David, it's hard. Look --
URBAN: Well, you know -- yes. Jessica, to Van's point, that's what Trump did and they put together that coalition that elected him. And Van correctly alludes to, right, black and brown voters, young men. He made a lot of promises that he's going to have to deliver on, the Republican Party is going to have to deliver on in the midterms and moving forward to '28. And the challenge for Democrats is to find somebody who's a more attractive candidate with a better message. It's not -- it's not super hard in theory, but in practice, very hard.
DEAN: Yes. And Van, look, the president can be quite incendiary. He says things that divide people. Democrats, there are plenty of Democrats that also say things that are meant to divide people. I mean, a lot of people look at politicians writ large and say, you know, what do we do?
JONES: Well, I think part of it is that the media system has changed quite a bit. It used to be coming to the middle was going to reward you because you've got a media system. The system was going to reward that. We're getting eaten alive now by social media algorithms, where if you want earned media, you can get attention and never show up on CNN, never have to deal with any serious journalists.
You can just go on a podcast, say some crazy stuff, clip that thing, throw it on TikTok, throw it on Instagram, and all of a sudden you're one of the most influential people in your party on either side. And nobody in -- whoever raised any money, whoever passed a bill, whoever governor state has ever heard of you and you have bigger numbers and bigger name ideas than the establishment politicians. That makes it tough.
DEAN: Yes. David, OK, one example and I do want to ask you about this, because we saw from the president yesterday this post about the Department of War. This is why they're going to find out why it's called the Department of War in -- to a city in America, Chicago, that he is the president of. Is that appropriate for him to be saying things like that?
URBAN: Yes. Jessica, look, I think -- here's what I think about Chicago, right? You had nine murders last weekend. 50 people seriously injured. That's being done by very bad people as Van alludes to in these various cities that have been run by Democratic controlled, Democratic governors, Democratic mayors. And so, yes, I think we should declare a war on people who are harming our citizenry, whether they're U.S. citizen gang members, whether they are just thugs, whether they're criminal aliens.
We should have no quarter for them in any city. And I would say that if you're a citizen in Washington, D.C. or Chicago or any place in America that you are under siege, you're unsafe. You can't step out. I would welcome more help and aid in combating those criminals, whether it's in Anacostia or the South Side of Chicago, I think the people who live there deserve to live without fear in their lives, without walking outside and getting shot or sitting in their living room and a bullet, stray bullet coming through the window.
We've got to end that kind of fear in those cities. And if it requires the federal government to put troops in there to kind of shine a spotlight on those issues, I'm all for it.
DEAN: Van, is that how you read that post and how you think about this?
JONES: Yes, I see it differently in that, first of all, no, nobody cares more about those funerals than I do and the people who live in those communities, I have family in those communities. I think there's this fake idea that somehow, you know, these sidewalks have got teddy bears on them and flowers and balloons because some child was murdered in that neighborhood, people live in that neighborhood don't care.
The biggest movement for peace and for nonviolence and for stopping the violence is coming out of these communities. But those communities are not calling for troops.
[19:15:03]
They're calling for the kinds of things that have been proven to work in places like Philadelphia, where the crime came down 30 percent, not because of troops, but because they were paying violence interrupters to go and talk to these damn kids and figure out what their problems were, and getting them attached to coaching and to jobs and stuff like that. So the places where the crime has come down in Philadelphia, there's a neighborhood in Chicago where it came down 70 percent.
There were no troops involved. And so I think the people who are on the ground say, listen, you can't out-care about our own kids than we do. But if you want to work with us, let's work with us. Let me just say something here. Joe Biden made a big mistake on immigration. When those red state governors started shipping people up to blue cities, he could have called everybody, say, hold on a second. I want my blue city mayors to come to the White House. I want my red state governors to come to the White House.
Obviously, now immigration is a big problem for both. Let's work out something together. He didn't do it. The problem got worse and worse and worse. What Trump hasn't done is to call his blue city mayors to the White House. Sit down with me. What do you need? Let's talk about this as I am your president and you are responsible for the safety of a bunch of my citizens. I don't like what I'm seeing. Let's work together.
When you don't do it that way, Biden didn't do it on immigration and Trump is not doing it on crime, and Americans suffer when our leaders don't work together.
DEAN: Yes. All right. Van and David, I --
URBAN: Yes, I agree -- I agree with Van. I was going to say, Jessica, I agree there. When you live in Chicago and Chicago has led the nation in murders for the past 13 consecutive years, 13 years that city has been under siege, I think something needs to be done and I would applaud -- I would, you know, I think what Van suggests is have the mayor of Chicago come to D.C. and sit with the folks in the White House, and really try to get their arms around it, because those citizens deserve better.
DEAN: All right. Van and David, I have to leave it there. But I really do appreciate both of you on a Sunday evening. It's good to see you both. Thank you.
URBAN: Thanks.
DEAN: While President Trump hints at potential new punishments for Russia, Moscow is only accelerating a string of intense and deadly attacks on Ukraine. The latest hitting a government building for the very first time in the heart of Ukraine's capital. And the president is changing his tune on crypto after years of criticism. The reversal comes as the digital currencies earn millions for those in his orbit. We'll walk you through that.
You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DEAN: President Trump is speaking to reporters. I just want to dip in and listen to what he's saying.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: -- I've ever seen before. Incredible talent, and I enjoyed it. And I used to go all the time, but, you know, lately it's a little bit more difficult to go. I really enjoyed it. They were really nice. The fans were really nice. I didn't know what to expect. Usually you would say that would be a somewhat progressive as they say nowadays crowd. Sometimes some people would call it liberal, but we'll use the word they like to use, progressive. But they were -- they were great. The fans were great.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Mr. President, back on Russia. Russia had a pretty big attack on Ukraine over the weekend.
TRUMP: Yes. I know all about it.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: You have always said how good your relationship is with President Putin.
[19:20:00]
But he's not really giving you anything that you want. Is that making you less trustful of him?
TRUMP: Well, nobody was tougher in Russia than me. That has to do with the pipeline. As you know, Nord Stream II and lots of other things. But I'm not happy. I'm not happy. I'm not happy about the whole situation. You know, it's interesting. It doesn't affect us because it's not our soldiers, but they're losing. I used to tell you, 5,000. They're losing 7,000 between Ukraine and Russia. 7,000 soldiers every single week.
It's such a horrible waste of humanity. So, no, I am not thrilled with what's happening there, I will tell you. I think it's going to get settled. So I settled seven wars. This, I would have said, would have been maybe the easiest one to settle of all. But with war, you never know what you're getting. But we're going to get it. I believe we're going to get it settled. But I am not happy with them. I'm not happy with anything having to do with that war. It's just such a waste of great humanity.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: -- the greatest obstacle to a peace deal in Ukraine?
TRUMP: Say it?
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: As of right now, what do you think is the greatest obstacle to a peace deal?
TRUMP: Well, we're going to see. I mean, we have some very interesting discussions. You know, Europe, certain European leaders are coming over to our country on Monday or Tuesday and individually, and I think we're going to get that settled. I think we're going to get it settled. We have to. You can't lose. You know, when they're losing 5,000 to 7,000 soldiers a week for no reason, you have to get it settled.
Of all of the wars, whether it's the Congo and Rwanda, they said it was impossible to settle. You look at every one of them. I mean, every one of these wars were impossible. I got every one of them settled. Seven of them. Seven. This was the one I really thought would be the easiest. But it's not. But I think it's going to get settled.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: There was some reporting at Axios that in the last three months of the Biden administration, we did about 4,000 pardons. The chief of staff assistant was sending e-mails to pardon his own family. Are you still interested in getting to the bottom of the auto pen scandal?
TRUMP: Well, I think the auto pen is one of the great scandals of our time. The auto pen was our -- was our president or to put it a different way, whoever operated the auto pen was our president. It's not allowed. It's just not allowed. And they gave a pardon to the unselect committee after the unselect committee realized that that whole situation was a hoax, and it was all their fault, including Nancy Pelosi turning down security and, you know, turning down soldiers.
It all came out bad for them. They burned everything. They got rid of everything. There's absolutely nothing there. It's all gone. And that was based on an auto pen. You know, they gave --they gave those members of Congress that were on the unselect committee, they gave them pardons.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: What do you think --
TRUMP: So I think that -- I think it's a big, I think it's a tremendous scandal.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: What do you think the media would say if you pardon your kids your last day in office via an auto pen? Don't you think the media would go (INAUDIBLE)?
TRUMP: Well, I think it would have been a big story.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: It's a big story.
TRUMP: Would have been -- I like this guy.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: He's got multiple times on a Charlotte subway. You've seen this video and do you have any reaction to it?
TRUMP: Yes. Where was it? The subway was where?
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: She was in charlotte, on a night train. She was stabbed multiple times by (INAUDIBLE).
TRUMP: Horrible. No, I haven't heard.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: OK.
TRUMP: When did this happen?
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: It happened in August. But the video just came out.
TRUMP: Oh, I see. Yes. I see the video. I'll know all about it by tomorrow morning. OK. Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Do you have plans for Chicago this week?
TRUMP: No. Not really. Not really. We're going to go someplace. We're picking -- look, D.C. now is 100 percent. I don't want to say 100, but it's pretty close to 100 percent. Healthy, happy, thriving. It's a crime free zone, you know that. You know, you could go out to dinner tonight, Jeff. You can go out to dinner, and you most likely will not be harmed. You know that. You won't be beaten to hell.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: There's still some crime.
TRUMP: Huh?
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: There's still some crime.
TRUMP: Very little. And within a week, within a week, there will be nothing. Do you agree with me?
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: I feel much safer. I can't fight them.
TRUMP: It's a safe place now. But --
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: But you've been talking a lot about Chicago. And there was some --
TRUMP: No. No. Chicago has been talking a lot. So Chicago last week lost nine people were killed and 28 people were shot. The week before it was seven people were killed and 37 people were shot. The week before that, it was the same kind of number. Chicago is a very dangerous place, and we have a governor that doesn't care about crime. I guess we could solve Chicago very quickly, but we're going to make a decision as to where we go over the next day or two.
[19:25:05]
When you look at what happened to D.C. in a short period of time, honestly, it's amazing. Over a period of 12 days, in other words, on the 12th day, we had the crime just about solved. And right now people are walking out. They're going out right now to restaurants all over D.C. whereas if you go back a year ago or six months ago, nobody was going out, nobody. We did it in 12 days. Now it's better than it was in 12 days.
We'll make it even better. And then we're also going to clean it up. We're going to clean up the city. We're going to make some great improvements to the roads and the medians, you know, to all of the signs. You got signs that have been up for 30 or 40 years. They're worn out. They look like hell. We're going to redo the signs. We're going to put up new signs. It's going to look beautiful in -- within a six-month period, it will look really beautiful.
But you have essentially a crime-free zone. I mean, here we are on a nice Sunday evening. If you'd like, it feels like Saturday, actually. If you like, you can go out and you could have dinner on me, but you wouldn't do that. But you could have dinner on me if you'd like.
Go ahead. What else?
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: When do you plan to speak to President Putin next?
TRUMP: Very soon. Over the next couple of days. Look, we're going to get it done. The Russia-Ukraine situation, we're going to get it done. I have confidence we're going to get it done. Think of it. I got seven done, all of which were impossible to do. If you look at any one of the seven, you know, I don't have to go through them. Many of them were -- one was 31 years, 10 million people killed. One was 34 years with eight million people killed.
How about the Congo? They lost nine million people. And it went on for years with Rwanda. All settled. Everybody happy. The one that I thought would have been for me the easiest because of Putin. I thought that would have been it. It's not turned out that way but we're going to get it settled. UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE) you brought him in to discuss the
Gaza issue and help make peace in Gaza. What's some of the advice he's giving to you? And why did you bring him back in that work on this deal?
TRUMP: I think -- I think we're going to have a deal on Gaza very soon. It's a hell of a problem.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: What gives you --
TRUMP: Again, it's a problem we want to solve for the Middle East, for Israel, for everybody. But it's a problem we're going to get done. So they have hostages. It could be a little bit less than 20 because some, you know, they tend to die, right? They tend to die even though they're young people largely, they're dying. Young people don't die. Young people stay alive. But with this whole thing, they tend to die. But we have, let's say, 20 people and we have about 38 bodies. Bodies, meaning bodies.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Are you confident you can get them all released?
TRUMP: Yes, I think so. I think we're going to get them all.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Did you see the turnover of the Japanese prime minister stepping down? Do you have any reaction to that?
TRUMP: No, I was surprised because I knew him. I liked him and he's just now stepping down. A little bit surprised. I found him to be a very nice man, actually. We dealt very well together.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Mr. President, the price of beef continues to rise and other items keep going up. Is there any way to address the cost of beef?
TRUMP: You know, once it kicks in, once our policies kick in, the price of beef will be going down. Just like the price of eggs went down and the price of a lot of other grocery items went down. Beef will go down. It all go down. Energy has gone way down. The price of gasoline has gone really, I mean, I think you'll be hitting $2 very soon. And it was four and a half dollars a little while ago.
So energy has gone way down. That brings everything else with it but beef has gone, as you know, for other reasons, the price of beef has gone up a little bit. It will be coming down.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Before you went to Alaska, in the Oval Office said that the first lady expressed she wasn't too enamored with Putin. You said you came home. You said you spoke to Putin. She said, well, I heard he just blew up a village today. Has she expressed anything since you've come back?
TRUMP: No. The first lady actually got along great with Putin, as I did. But, you know, we're disappointed, both of us are disappointed that this ridiculous war continues.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Are you proud to see her sending the letter that she --
TRUMP: Yes, she is. And she's felt very strongly about the children. Yes, she feels very badly about it. Thank you, everybody.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Do you have plans to go to Japan and South Korea this fall?
TRUMP: What does that mean?
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Do you have plans to go to South Korea and Japan?
TRUMP: I mean, we'll see. But it's going to be very interesting what comes out. I think we may have learned something because when they come here and there's nobody that can do what they're supposed to be doing, and they bring people, those people can also teach our people. You know, it's complicated stuff. And something very interesting could come out of that. Thank you everybody.
REPORTER: Thank you so much.
[19:30:16]
DEAN: And that was President Trump speaking to reporters as he's back at Joint Base Andrews after spending the day at the U.S. Open in New York City. He talked about the conflict, Russia's invasion in Ukraine, saying he's not happy about the whole situation.
He did continually mention that he had settled seven wars. That's not quite true. Some of those conflicts remain unresolved at this point. But he said that he believes he'll be talking to Putin very soon and has confidence that he can solve that.
He also talked about the autopen for a bit. It is worth noting that autopens were used by presidents going back decades now, and also about his efforts there in Washington, D.C., which he categorized as a crime free zone there.
There is still crime in Washington, he said no one was ever going out to restaurants and now there are people who are going out to restaurants and that he's going to make a decision on Chicago in the next day or two. Our reporting has indicated that they have had big -- they have had plans in the works for Chicago for some time now, yet, we are still waiting to see if any moves are made there.
And then, he did touch on Gaza saying that he called it a hell of a problem and said that again, he hopes to solve that very soon.
I want to stick with the Russia of it all, because we're going to bring in CNN Moscow Bureau Chief Jill Dougherty and also Alayna Treene, who is joining us from the White House.
Alayna, let's start first with you. Sunday evening, the President just riffing on some topics, for a little bit there as he arrives home. What stuck out to you?
ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Well, one of the things that stuck out to me is what he said about a potential ceasefire with Israel and Hamas. We know that that's something that the United States has proposed reopening these talks the first time since late July.
He actually told reporters, Jessica, he said, I would have gone back to talk to you on the plane ride back from New York here to The White House, but said essentially that he didn't because he was dealing with stuff with Hamas. And then he later once landing and you mentioned some of this, but he said essentially that he believes that he will be able to get a ceasefire deal with Gaza done "very soon." And he said, "I think we're going to get them all" referring to the hostages.
And just to remind some of our viewers of our reporting today, we know now that the United States has put on the table a proposal that Israel is on board with the United States -- excuse me, the President had posted earlier about that. And essentially, what we were learning about this deal is that it would require that all of the hostages that are still in Gaza being held by Hamas, be released, and that the talks would continue as long as, you know, and the United States would say, no, the war would be ceased, really and holding off on the war as talks continue.
And so, more details on that. I'm hoping we will continue to get more from the President and he'll hopefully talk to us again once he lands at the White House. And then as it relates to what you mentioned between, you know, the war between Ukraine and Russia, he said some European leaders are likely to come to the United States this week. We'll see if, you know, some of the talks related to that are actually on Ukraine and security guarantees that to remind you, just a couple of weeks ago, we saw seven European leaders all come together, as well as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to The White House to discuss that.
And then he talked about his frustration, of course, with Vladimir Putin specifically, something that we've reported. He's been growing increasingly frustrated with in recent weeks. I know that after that Alaska Summit last month with Putin, he really wanted to see both Putin and Zelenskyy sit down for a bilateral meeting, something that really the Russians have not been willing to commit to. So, a lot there that we could learn and obviously waiting to see more of that call with Putin that he preview actually happens.
DEAN: Yes, and Jill, you're joining us as well and I think let's just remind everyone that we saw these strikes from Russia on Ukraine in Kyiv for the first time on a government building and that that is a big moment in this war. Give some context around where we are now that we're hearing what Alayna just laid out from the President this evening.
JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Yea, well, the drama today really was the attack on Kyiv that hit that government building. That actually is a center of the government. I've been there many times, and it is a very big deal. It's located right in the middle of Kyiv, and it's the first time that a government building like that has been hit since the war began, so, in three-and-a-half years.
So now, listening to what President Trump said, I think you know, what exactly what he said. In fact, pretty much verbatim, he has said many times before and in the context of these attacks today, I think it's very hard to see how this will get solved.
I mean, maybe there is something that the President knows, but we've been hearing this a lot, and if you take the attacks themselves President Putin continues those attacks even more viciously than before. You have the security guarantees that the Europeans have been talking about, and if they're coming to D.C., they might talk about that. That's a crucial issue that there would be European troops in some form as kind of monitors to keep the peace in Ukraine.
[19:35:31]
But the Russians just said President Putin just the other day said, no way, that if they introduced any troops, they would be fair game for attack. And then the final thing sanctions, we can talk more about that but that was pretty much, you know, the issue of today that President Trump had said, yes, I'm ready to go to, you know, number two, category two sanctions. Nobody quite knows exactly what that means.
So, you know, there are a lot of questions here, and it makes it difficult to understand what President Trump is saying, why he really believes this will get solved.
DEAN: Right, and I thought it was interesting too, that he said he thought this would be the easiest conflict to solve because of his relationship with Vladimir Putin, which is, you know, just not turned out to be the case.
DOUGHERTY: Yes. I mean, he has said that multiple times before, but it's quite obvious, you know, Mr. Putin and I think everybody pretty much knows this by now that Mr. Putin does not make decisions about war or his situation in Russia. Anything like that based on personal relations with other leaders.
It might help, you know, there was a period where he had a good -- it appears relationship with Mr. Trump early on, but I don't think he's gotten what he wants from President Trump. And so, I don't know where the relationship stands. He does -- Mr. Putin has a very good relationship with the President of China, actually and that is significant as well.
DEAN: All right, Alayna and Jill, our thanks to both of you for helping give us a little context around that. Thank you so much.
Cashing in on crypto, President Trump and his family and his allies reaping the benefit of shifting the attitudes toward the digital assets despite mounting concerns about conflicts of interest.
You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [19:41:46]
DEAN: Concerns over conflict of interest are being raised as "The Wall Street Journal" reports, the Trump family crypto business has made the President and his sons $5 billion richer since he returned to office. The Trumps, along with a few others, founded the company World Liberty Financial last year, and the conflict of interest concerns come after new legislation passed under the Trump administration made it easier to cash in for bigger and bigger profits.
Let's bring in CNN's Nick Watt, who is digging into all of this. What did you find, Nick?
NICK WATT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, listen, there are a couple of issues here. One is that foreign individuals or governments could try and curry favor, exert influence in this crypto space and also this conflict of interest. If the President is moving legislation that benefits him, is that a conflict of interest? Well, of course, we asked the White House Press Secretary, Karoline Leavitt. She told us, neither the President or his family have ever engaged in conflicts of interest or will ever.
Take a watch.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WATT (voice over): Trump family amasses $5 billion fortune after crypto launch, read "The "Wall Street Journal" headline.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Crypto is likely now the Trump family's primary business interests.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He is the crypto president --
WATT (voice over): A Fox business host, usually a Donald Trump apologist, explained it like.
STUART VARNEY, FOX BUSINESS NETWORK HOST: This crypto friendly legislation coming from the President of the United States who is in turn cashing in on the crypto phase, personally, his family.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Conflict of interest. They say, no, but that's how it appears.
VARNEY: That sounds true.
WATT (voice over): Back in 2021, Trump was not a crypto guy.
TRUMP: Bitcoin, it just seems like a scam.
WATT (voice over): Then he changed his mind.
TRUMP: I'm laying out my plan to ensure that the United States will be the crypto capital of the planet.
WATT (voice over): On the eve of his Inauguration, the Trumps launched two meme coins, Trump and Melania. In May, the biggest Trump coin buyers were rewarded dinner with the President.
In June, Trump declared $57 million in earnings from so-called token sales, digital assets. That's some of the cashing in the Fox business guy was talking about, now that legislation/regulation.
Week one in office, Trump signed a crypto focused Executive Order that, among other things, called for a reevaluation of regulations.
TRUMP: We're going to make a lot of money for the country.
WATT (voice over): The crypto weary chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission had already been eased out.
J.D. VANCE (R) VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We reject regulators and we fired Gary Gensler and we're going to fire everybody like him.
WATT (voice over): The SEC soon dropped cases against a handful of major crypto trading platforms.
This summer, Trump signed the Genius Act, designed to make crypto trading safer, which increases public confidence, which makes it more valuable. Meanwhile, Trump Media, owner of the flagging Truth Social, is pivoting into more crypto trading.
ERIC TRUMP, PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP'S SON AND VICE PRESIDENT OF TRUMP ORGANIZATION: Our family loves you.
WATT (voice over): This week, Eric Trump was in Asia promoting American Bitcoin, a company he founded. He and his brother reportedly hold a stake worth north of a billion bucks.
Finally, the back story to that "Journal" $5 billion headline. Last year, Trump and sons and others founded World Liberty Financial. This week, it launched a digital currency onto the market, landing the Trumps that $5 billion on paper.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
[19:45:25]
WATT (on camera): So one of the other founders in that company, World Liberty Financial, is Steve Witkoff, who is the President's primary envoy in the Middle East and elsewhere -- Witkoff and his son.
Now, since January 20th, Donald Trump, the President, and Steve Witkoff are listed as co-founders emeritus on the company's website.
Listen, there have been questions since the beginning of the first Trump presidency over the business-political interface overlap. With digital currency, it is now just moving into a whole new sphere and really interesting to hear those experts saying that they believe that digital currency is going to eclipse, or already has eclipsed property as the main focus of the Trump family's business -- Jessica.
DEAN: Very interesting. Nick Watt, thanks so much for that reporting. As CNN celebrates this year's champions for change, we are
highlighting one man who is using his own brush with death to help save others' lives by repurposing commonly used medications.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:51:09]
DEAN: Coming up all this week, the spotlight is on innovators, people finding new and creative ways to solve problems in their communities and around the world. And we call them Champions for Change.
Tonight, meet a man who was on his deathbed with a rare immune disorder back when he was a young medical student. He then used his life, his training, to discover a lifesaving solution for his own disease, blazing a new trail to help save others.
Here's Dr. Sanjay Gupta with the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DR. DAVID FAJGENBAUM, CO-FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT, EVERY CURE: When I got the phone call from my dad saying. David, your mom has brain cancer. That just changed everything for me, Sanjay. I made a promise to her just before she passed where I said, Mom, I'm going to dedicate the rest of my life to trying to find treatments for people like you. Then, in my third year of Med School here at Penn, I just got critically ill and everything changed.
The doctors told my family I wasn't going to make it. My family said their goodbyes to me. A priest came into my room and read me my Last Rites. I had so many things that I wanted to do in my life that I wasn't going to be able to do.
I had this amazing girlfriend, Caitlin, that I wanted to have a family with one day. The diagnosis came back. Castleman Disease, they started me on chemotherapy right away because there were no approved treatments, and they just wanted to try something.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: So, David Fajgenbaum decided to look at his own blood samples, his own lymph nodes, as sort of a Hail Mary trying to find a clue and hopefully find a treatment that everyone else had missed.
FAJGENBAUM: These are actually a couple slides from these early experiments I did. This is a typical lymph node. We saw that brown means that the pathways turned on and as you see, there are cells that stain brown. But then, we stained my lymph nodes.
GUPTA: Wow.
D. FAJGENBAUM: This result really stood out to me and exactly I thought, okay, if this thing is so turned on, I know how to turn it off because the drug sirolimus is really good at turning it off.
GUPTA (voice over): Sirolimus is a drug that's actually been around for decades, primarily used to treat transplant patients. For David, it worked. It helped tamp down his immune system, treat his Castleman's and it only cost him about $20.00 a month.
GUPTA (on camera): You saved your own life. What point did you say, hey, look, I need to widen the mission.
FAJGENBAUM: Sanjay, I've never been able to walk past a CVS since then without just thinking to myself how many hidden cures are just sitting in there that we were using them for this disease or that disease, but they could also use for that disease and that disease, it gives me goosebumps.
In 2016, my Uncle Michael was diagnosed with metastatic angiosarcoma. I went with Michael to see his oncologist and I started asking questions. Well, could we, you know, think about existing medicines that could be repurposed. And the doctor said, David, no one with angiosarcoma responds to these medicines.
DR. MICHAEL FAJGENBAUM, ANGIOSARCOMA PATIENT: So, I then went back to my doctor in Raleigh. I asked if he would send tissue for this advanced DNA testing. I was convinced because of David that this was the right course to follow. He finally sent tissue off and it turned out that I was exact match for a drug that was already in existence. Here I sit nine years later.
FAJGENBAUM: Michael's story, that for me was this incredible moment to think, wait a minute, are there breadcrumbs out there for other diseases too?
GUPTA (on camera): In some ways, this is a little bit of an indictment of the existing medical system. Like, how did they not find a $20.00 a month drug that you could take orally that has saved your life now for over a decade?
FAJGENBAUM: You know, drug companies pursue single drugs for a few diseases, and then the drug becomes generic and they move on. There's never really been the kind of computational power to really look across 18,000 diseases and about 4,000 drugs.
GUPTA: David is trying to change those numbers. So far him and his team at every cure they have repurposed 14 drugs offering hope for diseases that previously didn't have a lot of hope.
David is a Champion for Change. He not only saved his own life, but he's now using what he learned to save many more lives.
[19:55:20]
GUPTA (on camera): You're doing well today?
FAJGENBAUM: I'm doing well, yes.
GUPTA (on camera): I mean, are you physically 100 percent?
FAJGENBAUM: I'm 100 percent, it's been 11.5 years. Today also happens to be my sweet daughter's seventh birthday. I mean, Sanjay, I'm not supposed to be here.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
DEAN: That is amazing.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta thanks for that. Be sure to tune in Saturday at 10:00 for Champions for Change. Its only here on CNN. We'll have more for you when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:00:32]
