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Trump Says CDC is Being Ripped Apart; Strategy Split Among Democrats; Miles Yu is Interviewed about China Hosting World Leaders; Giuliani Gets Presidential Medal of Freedom; Trump Death Rumors. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired September 02, 2025 - 06:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:32:30]

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. I'm Audie Cornish. I want to thank you for joining me on CNN THIS MORNING.

It's now half past the hour. And here's what's happening right now.

Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin are holding their first formal talks since the Russian leader arrived in China for a rare four-day visit. North Korea's Kim Jong-un just arrived in his bulletproof train. All three will watch a huge Chinese military parade that could feature new hypersonic missiles and huge undersea drones.

Today, bipartisan pressure mounts to release the Jeffrey Epstein files. Lawmakers Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna will begin gathering signatures to force a House vote as the Oversight Committee meets with Epstein's victims and their attorneys.

And today, Carlos Alcaraz makes history at the U.S. Open. He's the youngest man to reach 13 grand slam quarterfinals. And last night, Naomi Osaka eliminated Coco Gauff from the tournament. Osaka is going after her third U.S. Open title.

And former CDC chiefs from both Republican and Democratic administrations are sounding the alarm on RFK Jr.. They blasted him in a "New York Times" op-ed for "endangering every American's health" after he fired former CDC Director Susan Monarez. Now she had refused to fire other leaders at the agency who backed the efficacy of the Covid-19 vaccines. President Trump, in a Truth Social post, is demanding "drug companies justify the success of their Covid drugs," and now says the agency is "being ripped apart over" the fight.

Here's how Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr.. sees it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY: The CDC is an agency that is very troubled for a very long time. And anybody who lived through the Covid -pandemic and saw all of these bizarre recommendations that were not science based. (END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: The group chat is back.

I'm bringing it to you guys because it's not every day you have a collection of former chiefs of things coming together these days to say, look, this actually could have consequences and cause danger.

Maria, what do you see in this moment of them willing to speak publicly?

MARIA CARDONA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think it's a moment that crystallizes what so many people were concerned about when Trump nominated RFK Jr. for this position. And I think the one person that is going to have some regrets here is Senator Bill Cassidy, because he was the deciding vote, as we remember. A Republican senator. A doctor.

[06:35:02]

And I -- I am sure that going into that vote, he wanted to perhaps vote no for all the reasons we know, right? This is not Republican versus Democrat. This is science versus crazy.

CORNISH: I'm not sure how much of a difference it would have made if you think about why some of these CDC people are leaving, which is like, they were being asked to fire other people, right, if you go through this "personnel is policy" type position.

One of the things that the CDC's director, Dr. Richard Besser, described, he's a former CDC chief, is he says, "we now have an acting -- oh, actually, we have him. Let's see if we can play it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. RICHARD BESSER, FORMER CDC ACTING DIRECTOR: We now have an acting secretary -- and acting head of the CDC who has absolutely no experience with the agency or in public health response. So, you know, I really worry what the consequences will be if we have a. public health crisis in the near future.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: OK, we also have a NASA chief, who's not a rocket scientist.

JONAH GOLDBERG, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes.

CORNISH: So, help me understand how bad this one is.

GOLDBERG: Yes. So, look, there's a -- there's a -- there's a timeline in which I would be on the show saying -- supporting a Republican administration for major shakeups at the CDC and NIH, because I think these bureaucracies need major shakeups for all sorts of reasons.

At the same time, I've been saying that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a -- is a crackpot crank for 25 years when he was a darling of the sort of fringe left, and now he's a darling of the -- not even fringe right. And it's -- it's -- it's -- it's beyond vandalism what he is trying to do because I think he has bought into crackpottery at a very high level. And the problem is, is that the -- that Donald Trump feels like he owes RFK in ways he doesn't owe other cabinet secretaries because --

CORNISH: Yes, he brought in that MAHA wing and brought in the -- yes.

GOLDBERG: Right. It was the only times in the campaign that Trump's numbers actually went up is when RFK endorsed. And -- and that's, I think, the background of that -- that -- that Truth Social post is that Trump does not like this.

CORNISH: Right.

GOLDBERG: And I -- it's very rare I agree with Truth Social posts, because they're basically wacky Japanese game show weirdness. But, by all means, if Pfizer has data that would clarify the fact that the Covid vaccine is safe, release that data, you know?

CORNISH: Isn't part of the conspiracy -- when we use this term "conspiracy" as news people, it's not just a slur, it's the idea that no amount of data would actually convince a person.

GOLDBERG: No, that's right. That's right.

CORNISH: But I want to bring something up about the consequence of this. Here's how the Trump administration is responding. They're saying, "although the world has moved on to a risk tiered approach, some in the American medical establishment are maintaining their blind faith in a strategy of boosters for all in perpetuity."

Just -- I want to translate a little bit. It's like, we should take more risk as Americans with our health, that that's acceptable and other places do it. And we don't have faith in what the medical establishment has been saying about these drugs.

EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Yes. And look, it is a measure of how broken we are still from the pandemic that four or five years after we were all locked indoors and worrying about dying from this disease, we don't have -- we're -- we're going through whether there even should be a -- a functional Center for Disease Control.

CORNISH: Right.

DOVERE: And that said, RFK Jr.. is not a scientist. He's not a doctor. He is not making these decisions based on science or fact. He's making it based on his own hunches about how things work. He had a comment last week about how he would walk through airports and see that people had mitochondrial deficiency. What -- what is he talking about? And what we're seeing here with the CDC is that the people there are -- who have left are saying, I don't know who's briefing him, but it's not us, right?

CORNISH: They were saying, no one's briefing him, actually. We saw that earlier this week.

DOVERE: Right.

CARDONA: That was -- that was terrifying. And I think -- and I think that's the thing. This -- I think we've gone past the moment of, oh, just shaking our head. This is downright dangerous. People are going to die. And I -- I actually -- I -- thank goodness that my children are now adults, that you don't have to -- I don't have to depend on what is coming out of the CDC for like the vaccine --

CORNISH: Yes. I mean mine are not, and so I care about that child immunization table. I'm in an internal panic.

CARDONA: They -- well -- well, exactly. That's what I mean. That's right.

CORNISH: OK. I want to turn to something else, which could be summed up in one word, distraction, which is something we're hearing a lot from Democrats.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): Donald Trump wants to distract. That's his game plan. It's been his M.O. for his first term in the presidency and now. So, he's trying to make this a distraction. What's he trying to distract from? Well, a lot of things. But above all, Epstein.

REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D-NY): As part of his effort to manufacture a crisis and create a distraction because he's deeply unpopular.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: All right, critics say describing President Trump's sweeping moves, including immigration, redistricting, putting soldiers on city streets as a distraction is dismissive and a big mistake.

Joining us now to discuss all this is senior -- senior political analyst Ron Brownstein.

[06:40:04]

Welcome back, Ron. Good morning.

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Hey, good morning. Yes.

CORNISH: All right. So, we've been hearing this word distraction a ton. And what do you think they think they're trying to accomplish by talking about it this way. And then I want to hear why the experts are questioning this.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes, I think it's one word that crystallizes the most important divide in the Democratic Party. You know, when Democratic congressional leaders, whether it's Schumer or Jeffries or former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, talk about the actions Trump has taken that threaten democratic safeguards, they will criticize them. But invariably, they describe it as an attempt by him to distract from something else. Whether it's the Epstein files in that clip that you played, or inflation, or the -- the one big, beautiful bill that cut Medicaid to fund tax cuts for the rich. And that reflects their core belief and desire to fight the 2020 election fundamentally on economic grounds, on the argument that Trump, you know, ran in 2024, saying he was going to make your cost of living more affordable, and he's failed. And if anything, he's added to your cost to fund tax cuts for his rich friends.

For the many critics in the Democratic Party, when they hear that word distraction, they -- they -- they interpret it as those leaders I think very clearly and accurately suggesting that -- that the actions that Trump is taking is less important than something else. And they view it as failing to reflect the urgency of the situation, you know, embodied in decisions like sending the National Guard into D.C. and L.A. and now potentially Chicago.

So, it is a big divide, Audie, that doesn't follow the usual -- usual ideological divide -- divisions in the party, but which really reflects competing, I think, theories of what is job one for Democrats in this very aggressive Trump second term.

CORNISH: Can I be devil's advocate here?

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

CORNISH: One of the things that occurs to me is, in the first term, Democrats were talking about everything as a crisis. And then it felt like nothing was a crisis.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

CORNISH: And now it seems like they're going in the other direction and trying to create a kind of hierarchy, right, for whoever they're talking to.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

CORNISH: Don't pay attention to this, pay attention to that. And it feels like maybe that is what the struggle is here.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes, absolutely. And, you know, and they're -- they're -- as I said, this -- this argument in the Democratic Party does not follow traditional ideological lines of left-right. I've talked to people, you know, identify with the left and the center of the Democratic Party on each side of this, nor is it unique to Democrats. I mean, you talk to political scientists who study this. You know, parties around the world that have run against kind of strong man parties have this same divide. Do you run on their actions that are threatening democracy, or do you run fundamentally on the price of eggs?

You know, the argument is, for those who think that the leaders are underplaying the risk here, is that the magnitude of what's happening is so different than in his first term. I mean we were not seeing the routine dispatch, the deployment of National Guard into blue cities during his first term. The threats to law firms and universities and what we're watching in public health that -- that essentially -- that, you know, the assault on the system of checks and balances and democratic safeguards is so much greater here. And to call it a distraction inherently is telling the public, you don't view it as that concerning, so why should they? In some ways it becomes a self- fulfilling, you know, prophecy.

CORNISH: Yes.

BROWNSTEIN: So, I think there is a real divide here among Democrats, but that word is, I think, you know, fingernails on the chalkboard for a lot of the Democratic Party.

CORNISH: OK, Ron Brownstein, thanks so much.

BROWNSTEIN: Thanks for having me.

CORNISH: Next on CNN THIS MORNING, America's highest honor for a civilian could go to a man who played a key role in trying to overturn the 2020 election, Rudy Giuliani.

Plus --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The dude is damn near 80 years old. Like, we need signs of life.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: We'll see President Trump later today after a weekend of wild speculation that prompted him to respond.

And China's strongman flexes his strength as allies line up by his side.

And we want to know what's in your group chat. Send it to us now on X. We're going to be talking about ours after this.

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[06:48:25]

CORNISH: A massive military parade will roll down the streets of Beijing tonight. And some of the world's most controversial leaders will be there to watch. The parade marks 80 years since Japan's surrender at the end of World War II and will feature some of China's cutting-edge military hardware. The guest list for this year features 26 world leaders, including leaders from Russia, North Korea and Iran, all meeting in the same place for the first time.

Some Washington strategists are calling it the "axis of upheaval." The optics will be familiar for Chinese Leader Xi Jinping, who has held more military parades since his rise to power than any of his predecessors. That's going back to the 1950s.

Joining me now to talk about this, Miles Yu, senior fellow and director of the China Center, Hudson Institute.

Miles, good morning. Thank you for being with us.

MILES YU, SENIOR FELLOW AND DIRECTOR OF THE China CENTER, HUDSON INSTITUTE: Good morning. Thank you for having me.

CORNISH: So, let's talk about the guest list. We mentioned some of the names there. I know there's also Myanmar, Cuba. There's many leaders here. What message is Xi Jinping trying to send to the world with this event?

YU: Well, like all communist governments, China's government loves pageantry and extravaganza. This is no exception. So, I (INAUDIBLE) is the center of the -- of the world. He can direct the direction of the -- of world affairs. So, he created this -- this -- this image and narrative that somehow people from all over the world converge to Beijing and, just like all the tributary (ph) system.

[06:50:00]

However, you can look at this -- you mentioned it correctly, he invited the 26 people, but actually 25 will go because the president of Indonesia could not go -- cancel it because of domestic disturbances at home.

So, it's hard for him to get even 10, 15 people go there. Fifteen years ago he did the same thing, but a few people showed up. Putin, of course. And then the only leader from western democracy who attended was the South Korean president, Park. This time, in order to beef up the attendance list, he had this Shanghai Cooperation Organization immediately before the parade. So, that's why you see on the list a lot of them were central Asian leaders. That's where most of the SCO members are.

CORNISH: Yes.

YU: And curiously, you notice that there is virtually nobody from Africa, from Latin America. Latin America -- I mean the Cuban leader showed up, would show up. And, in fact, Africa, which is China's sort of, you know, really, really bear (ph) road heavy investment area, there are only leaders from Congo and Zimbabwe. So, I think there's a (INAUDIBLE). As you mentioned -- previously mentioned that you got a bunch of very questionable, controversial figures showed up. Putin there. Even China's closest allies could not swallow this -- this -- this parade, like the leaders of India and Brazil. So those are not going.

So, I think, you know, you have the leaders of Iran, Russia, and North Korea and Cuba. And that doesn't -- doesn't really -- doesn't really show that he's a global leader in any way.

CORNISH: Yes. But I think one of the reasons why we're paying attention, for instance, to this parade in -- is about something you've talked about, how much of China's military hardware has been upgraded. And, in fact, it comes from some of these relationships. I think Ukraine is one, but also Russia.

Can you talk about the dynamic of China's weapons, what they have, and are there people at this summit who are going to benefit from what they have?

YU: Well, China is the -- military has made a substantial progress. Since, say, Xi Jinping's predecessor, which would be Jiang Zemin. So, yes, China's weapon that will show in this parade, as indicated by the rehearsals, we can see they're going to focus on anti-ship missiles, possibly hypersonic, and also they're going to do sort of underwater drone, submarine, basically, unmanned submarines, and also you're going to have some kind of a direct energy weapons, like laser, and also UAVs.

Now, what this indicates is that that this weapons basically are aimed at the U.S. capabilities. China always said that they're going to develop weapons based upon the -- the -- the philosophy of new domains and new quality, which says something that -- about China's military, which is a preponderantly ground base of forces. Now they're going to transform that into multi-domain, multi-service -- military, which has -- has achieved some kind of a achievement, but it still have a way to go.

Another way to do it is that they want to develop weapons, to deny American's capability to intervene. In scenarios like a Taiwan Strait or South China Sea. And I think that that is very interesting.

Now China, of course, is going to show off some of the drones.

CORNISH: Yes.

YU: Like many things Chinese, a lot of stuff is a work in progress. We don't know how much they are developing, how much they're actually still, still in progress. So, but parade's a parade. You need pageantry. You need sense of extravaganza. That's what Xi Jinping is getting.

CORNISH: And, Miles, you, as a senior fellow and director of the China Center at the Hudson Institute, thank you.

YU: Thank you.

CORNISH: All right, President Trump handing out the Presidential Medal of Freedom to political ally Rudy Giuliani, who helped push Trump's claims about the 2020 election. Giuliani led New York in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. He also led President Trump's legal team following the 2020 election. And those efforts to overturn the election ended with him losing $148 million defamation lawsuit brought by two Georgia election workers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUDY GIULIANI: Who was it called by? All of them. Oh, my goodness. All the networks. Wow. All the networks.

I know crimes. I can smell them.

You would have to be a moron not to realize that's voter fraud.

If we're wrong, we will be made fools of. Let's have trial by combat.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: OK, the group chat is back.

You know, I think if you had asked, like, 22-year-old me, I would be like, of course the Medal of Freedom, right? Like, this is how people were talked about -- talked about Giuliani at that time. It's the ensuing two decades of controversies that's probably raising eyebrows. What do you think is notable about this moment?

DOVERE: Well, look, Rudy Giuliani wanted a bunch of stuff from Donald Trump.

[06:55:03]

He wanted to be in the cabinet in the first Trump administration. Secretary of state. He didn't get it. He wanted help paying his legal bills that he accrued while defending Donald Trump's election lies about the 2020 election. He didn't get it. So, Donald Trump is giving him something that costs him nothing, some medal.

Look, what Giuliani did, not just on September 11th, but when he became mayor of New York City in 1993. New York was in a really terrible spot, and he helped bring New York back from the brink. Those are things that are notable. But it just -- Trump deciding to recognize him only when he got hit by a car and is --

CORNISH: Laid up with injuries, yes.

DOVERE: And doing it in this way that is like a gimme. It's not something that actually costs Donald Trump money, it says something.

CORNISH: Well, that's interesting context. Yes. You know, lots of people have gotten the Medal of Freedom -- like, presidents do give them to people who maybe were like, what is this for? What are you getting this for? And it does get at the idea of, like, it's -- sometimes these things are basically political. Am I wrong thinking that? I don't want to be dismissive of all the other people who have won this award in the past.

GOLDBERG: Yes. No, look, I mean, look, statistically, there are a large number of people who got this award that did really impressive things and were -- and deserved an award. And there was also a significant number who were sort of friends of the president, or politically useful and all the rest.

Look, I agree with you -- your set up entirely. You know, it's that old cliche that if Napoleon had been hit by a cannonball on his way towards Russia he would be remembered as one of the greatest liberators Europe had ever seen. If Trump -- if Giuliani, you know, had just disappeared from public view by 2003, he would be remembered as one of these great bipartisan statesmen with a very successful record as a politician. He squandered it all away. And I think to the extent -- and to a certain extent it does cost Trump something in the sense that it diminishes whatever value this award has.

CORNISH: Does it though?

CARDONA: Yes.

CORNISH: I mean the context of all the things they have done to rehabilitate January 6th, rioters and or offenders, meaning the people who got clemency or pardoned. I think -- did you bring up in the paper there's like a fund that's maybe being set up for them.

GOLDBERG: There are some lawyers for the January 6th guys looking to get compensated for their ordeal.

CORNISH: Yes. Like, he was part of that.

CARDONA: Yes. But, again, this is the presidential medal of freedom who historically should go to people who deserve it. And you're right, sometimes it is political. But I don't think we can look back and point to a time when this was given to somebody who was part of destroying our democracy. More -- more than that, though, he was disbarred and he attacked two election workers whose lives were destroyed by what this man did.

CORNISH: Yes. Who got their day in court, we should say, yes.

CARDONA: Yes. But their lives were just completely upended for the disgusting things that he did. Somebody like that should not get the Presidential Medal of Freedom. And if he does, I think it completely devalues what this medal thinks (ph).

CORNISH: Well, we'll see.

CARDONA: (INAUDIBLE).

CORNISH: I think it's still happening.

I -- there's one other thing I have to bring up before the end of the show. In just a few hours, President Trump is touting an appearance for what the White House is calling a, quote, "major announcement" from the Oval Office. And that happens all the time. But here's the thing, this is the first public event after a weekend of speculation about Trump's health. At one point the term "Trump is dead" was even trending on social media. Not true. Yes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm definitely going to need to text my boss and let them know, like, I'm going to need the rest of the day off to process this.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That guy looks like my grandpa. He's got -- this is not him.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Look at his body posture, his hands. This just does not look like the same Trump that was talking crazy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: The president is insisting he's fine. Responding to the online chatter with a social media post, writing, "never felt better in my life."

Group chat, bringing it to you, because you only have to respond when it like reaches your desk, right, and turns into a thing.

CARDONA: Yes.

GOLDBERG: Yes.

CORNISH: Who's got thoughts? Did anyone weigh in on this?

CARDONA: This was -- I mean, I weighed in only to -- privately, not publicly.

CORNISH: I won't judge you.

CARDONA: Thank you. I said to everyone, you guys know this is not true, right?

But the -- the -- the furor with which this grew from one second to another is what sort of made me go, wow, the -- like, the internet is on fire today and it was --

CORNISH: I wonder if it was the path paved by speculation to Biden that was easily run through the track again of the algorithm.

DOVERE: Yes, that seems to be some of it. It's also questions that are legitimate about what's going on with the president's health. These bruises that are on his hands that they now -- they keep saying are because he's shaking a lot of hands. Trump is a famous germaphobe. He doesn't shake a lot of hands. So, unless that's changed and they want to tell us that, then it does feel like we're not getting a full explanation of that. That doesn't mean that there's anything more seriously wrong with him.

CORNISH: But we know the more you raise questions, the more people want answers, which we were seeing in social media.

[07:00:01]

GOLDBERG: He's also a really old guy who's not in fantastic shape. I mean he's in better shape than a lot of people his age, but, like, you're going to get speculation about the president when he disappears from public view for a while.

CORNISH: Right, and is now not in comparison to someone else, right? Now you're looking at his health independently.

CARDONA: Well, there was comparison from the left --

CORNISH: Right.

CARDONA: Which is like, what -- you know, no one -- what about this, right? If this had -- had been Biden, you know, forget it, the right would be up in arms.

CORNISH: Well, let's see if his appearance today puts some of this to rest after all that speculation.

Thanks to the group chat. Thank you for waking up with us. CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.