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Political Blowback for Trump; Cardiff Garcia is Interviewed about the Job Market; Enrique J. Pepen is Interviewed about ICE Targeting Boston; Charlotte Train Murder Sparks Backlash; Trump Breaks with RFK Jr. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired September 08, 2025 - 06:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:32:09]

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. I'm Audie Cornish. Thank you for joining me on CNN THIS MORNING. It's half past the hour. And here's what's happening right now.

The House Oversight Committee is expected to begin receiving files from Jeffrey Epstein's estate as soon as today. A source tells CNN those documents are expected to have redactions. This is part of the call from lawmakers to release all the files to the public related to Epstein.

And South Korea's foreign minister will land in the U.S. today to help workers detained in an ICE raid in Georgia. Of the nearly 500 workers taken, some 300 of them are South Korean. After negotiations with the U.S., the Korean nationals will be returned home.

And the Trump assassination attempt trial starts today. The suspect, Ryan Routh, wants a number of things at trial, like a golf showdown with Trump and strippers. Ruth is representing himself in court. He's accused of pointing a rifle at the president while he was golfing in Florida last year.

And eight months into President Trump's second term, the political blowback over his policies is piling up. His immigration crackdown has ignited pushback from California's Gavin Newsom and Illinois' J.B. Pritzker. Meanwhile, a federal appeals court just struck down Trump's move to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members. And now the fight over his tariff policies is heading straight for the Supreme Court.

Here's what Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had to say about that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCOTT BESSENT, TREASURY SECRETARY: I am confident that we will win at the Supreme Court, but there are numerous other avenues that we can take. They diminish President Trump's negotiating position.

So, we would have to give a refund on about half the tariffs, which would be terrible for the Treasury.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And you're prepared to give those refunds?

BESSENT: But -- but -- well, I mean, there's no be prepared. If the court says it, we'd have to do it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Group chat is back.

I was actually surprised to hear that, number one. Oh, you're nodding.

FRANCESCA CHAMBERS, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, "USA TODAY": Well, I thought it was such an interesting exchange, the way that Kristen really pinned him down on what they would do and whether or not there would be rebates. That was the first time I'd actually heard them explain how they would respond to this if the court didn't rule against them. Sorry, I -- that's (INAUDIBLE) --

CORNISH: No, that was good. Instead of just -- instead of just saying, we're going to win, we're going to appeal, we're going to appeal.

STEPHEN COLLINSON, CNN POLITICS SENIOR REPORTER: Imagine how much President Trump would enjoy cutting a check to all these foreign nations for all of these tariffs going back.

CORNISH: Right. But it's like, sorry, India, sorry, whoever.

COLLINSON: Presumably that would include all the consumers that have had to pay higher prices that we're beginning to see. But that was a very -- you know, if the tariffs get overturned, although the White House says, OK, we've got other legal options here, that would make a big hole in the administration's economic policy.

CORNISH: Yes.

COLLINSON: They've used a lot of this tariff money already to finance the big tax cuts. They're banking on more regulation coming -- more regulation cuts coming through.

[06:35:04]

But, you know, that's a complicated issue. At a time when it looks like the economy might be slowing a little, unemployment might be rising. There are fears about inflation.

CORNISH: Yes, it's certainly --

COLLINSON: This is a very complex mix here.

CORNISH: But it's also -- to your point, the other thing is, the ruling was against them using emergency powers to do something that was not within the power to do so.

COLLINSON: Yes.

CORNISH: So, I almost feel like, in a way, this conversation goes beyond the economy because he's done similar -- not oversteps, but like reaching for presidential power in everything, the National Guard and all of these other areas.

SARA FISCHER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA ANALYST: Yes, the tentacles are spread very wide, Audie. They -- I think about my beat, for example, on tech and media. They're trying right now to put some federal oversight into the U.S. Copyright Office, the U.S. Library of Congress. These are things that have traditionally had legislative oversight. And so, they are looking at every little corner where they could possibly take executive power out from legislative power.

Now, some of these bigger examples are going into the Supreme Court. In the copyright fight, that could maybe one day end up in the Supreme Court. But the -- the telling thing about Secretary Bessent's comments is that, once you get to the Supreme Court, it's really hard to start to lodge an appeal, right? And some of these lower courts, the fight has always been, well, we're just going to appeal that. We're just going to fight it back. Once you get to the Supreme Court, you're done.

CORNISH: Yes, I --

CHAMBERS: But that's the strategy. I mean the entire strategy is to test the limits of presidential power on every angle, as far as they can, hope it gets to the Supreme Court, where they know that justices are likely to rule in their favor in most of these cases.

CORNISH: Although the cover of your paper today says "Barrett stands firm, I'm nobody's justice," right, referring to Amy Coney Barrett. Let me see that. I can show it to people. But it means that they have a sense that people are talking about the court this way, right?

FISCHER: Yes.

CORNISH: The idea that everyone perceives this to be the strategy.

I want you guys to stay with me. We're going to hear from a couple folks today.

The Trump administration is now defending, as we've been talking about, that economic record, because the latest jobs report shows a slowdown in new jobs. So, over the past three months, the U.S. economy has averaged adding about 30,000 jobs per month. Some groups are being hit harder than others, with about 40,000 manufacturing jobs lost since April. Unemployment. Unemployment rates are also surging for younger workers and black Americans, but administration officials say the data isn't showing the full picture.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCOTT BESSENT, TREASURY SECRETARY: Let's look at the efficacy of this number. August is the noisiest month of the year. Typically, the highest revisions come in August.

KEVIN HASSETT, NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL DIRECTOR: And there's dissonance in data that you have to sort of watch how it all works out.

MARGARET BRENNAN, CBS NEWS ANCHOR, "FACE THE NATION": Got it.

HASSETT: And the thing that I'm most suspicious of right now in terms of data quality is the job number.

HOWARD LUTNICK, COMMERCE SECRETARY: You know, you look at the unemployment rate numbers today. Wait until a year from today. Wow, it will be amazing numbers.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Joining me now to discuss is Cardiff Garcia, editorial director of the Economic Innovation Group.

And, Cardiff, I suspect you're going to have a different forecast. Not that economists want to be in the forecasting business. But I want to look at that unemployment number. The number is still good, right? It's something around 4 percent overall.

Why did you want to talk about these numbers that are creeping up for young Americans, for black Americans?

CARDIFF GARCIA, EDITORIAL DIRECTOR, ECONOMIC INNOVATION GROUP: Yes, I mean, there's -- there's a few different reasons. The last number, the unemployment rate for black. Americans is especially important, I think. It has really shot up in the last few months. It's now around 7.5 percent compared to the 4.3 percent for everyone else. That's distressing for a couple of reasons. Most of all, of course, because those black Americans appear to be losing their jobs, but also because traditionally economists have noted that when that unemployment rate goes up, it tends to be a precursor to a wider downturn for all other workers.

I want to caution that that -- that that figure tends to be quite volatile. So, I'm going to be watching really carefully to see if the trend itself does hold. But if it does hold, in other words, if that's not just a head fake in the data, then I think that could be a signal that there are worse things to come for the entire rest of the economy.

For those other segments, I think the manufacturing job losses are especially important as well. And that's partly because manufacturing jobs were precisely the jobs that were meant to be preserved and even enhanced, increased because of the tariff strategy, at least when looking at that particular data point, it doesn't seem to be working. And so that's another thing to pay attention to.

CORNISH: All right, it's one thing for economists to talk about the numbers. I understand your group has done some surveying of actual workers. How are people in this economy talking about their access to work and whether they think that the president's economy is delivering on its promises?

GARCIA: Yes, this is a survey of workers exclusively, which -- which makes it a little different from other -- other surveys of -- of voters or residents. And what we see is that workers feel like the economy has, in fact, become a little bit more fragile over the course of the last year.

[06:40:05]

And the findings are consistent with an economy that is very finely balanced on a razor's edge between the continued weak growth we've seen in the last few months versus an outright downturn.

So, we've seen, for example, that workers are less optimistic about the economy. We've seen that they are less optimistic that they're able to go out and find a good job with good pay. And we've seen that they're a little bit suspicious of the president's approach to this, of using tariff strategy to help things out. Instead, what we see is that they're most worried about the same things that they actually were worried about during the Biden administration, which is the cost of basic goods and services and the cost of housing. They really wish that the administration and the Congress would focus on that instead.

And when we looked at all the different kinds of options that legislators and the president has to help the economy, tariffs actually ranked dead last as what workers think that the president should be prioritizing right now. They think the president should be laser focused on helping reduce the cost of goods, cost of services, and helping them afford the things that they need from day to day.

CORNISH: That's Cardiff Garcia, editorial director of the Economic Innovation Group.

Thanks so much.

GARCIA: Thanks, Audie.

CORNISH: Next on CNN THIS MORNING, a war of words between President Trump and the mayor of Boston. The city is the administration's latest crackdown target. Is this about safety or political power?

Plus, a vaccine clash erupts, Trump-backed science and somewhat breaks with RFK Jr.

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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[06:45:53]

CORNISH: Boston is back in the spotlight as the Trump administration steps up its immigration crackdown in Massachusetts. It follows the arrest of nearly 1,500 undocumented migrants in the state by ICE. Boston Mayor Michelle Wu says that "no Boston police or local resources" will be part of the deportation efforts. She also warns that the city is prepared "to take legal action" if necessary.

Joining me now to discuss is Boston City Councilor Enrique Pepen.

Good morning. Thanks for being here.

ENRIQUE J. PEPEN, BOSTON CITY COUNCILOR: Good morning, Audie. Thank you for having me.

CORNISH: So, hearing that number of the deportations that federal forces manage, it's quite large. What are you hearing from people in your community about how this is playing out?

PEPEN: Yes. So, you know, I can use a specific example from just this past Friday where my office received several phone calls of sites of ICE agents outside of a parking lot right in one of my neighborhoods, in Roslindale.

And what I sense was fear. Fear of not knowing why they were there. A few business owners reached out saying, you know, should we be alarmed? It was also during the pickup hours of schools. So, parents were also a little bit worried to go pick up their children. It's just -- that's the type of (INAUDIBLE) that we're dealing with right now.

CORNISH: Mayor Michelle Wu has been defiant about this cooperation request from the Justice Department, going after Boston for its sanctuary city policies. I want you to hear how ICE Director Todd Lyons has been talking about this.

It says, "we're going to continue to do our mission. We're going to keep making Boston safe, as she's failing to do with sanctuary city policies. And we did operation patriot in March, which yielded over a thousand arrests." They also say that you are going to see more ICE agents coming to Boston.

Can you talk about whether or not the city is looking at, say, that ruling out of L.A. where they were able to fight against the National Guard, and that raised questions about the deployment of federal forces on their streets. Are you looking at other kind of legal ways to respond?

PEPEN: You know, these mass deportations policies, to me, don't work. We have a big trust in our local police department where we put forward community policing. Whenever I'm at a community meeting or I'm walking down the street in my neighborhoods, there's a police officer greeting everyone. There's a sense of trust amongst our people.

When your local government is actually serving the people and working with the residents, working for the residents, that's the type of trust that we have here in Boston.

Now, that's what we will continue to embody moving forward.

CORNISH: Now, the number of homicides in Boston in recent years, it's nothing like Chicago. I think, in 2024, there was something like 24, 25 murders. But it is a city that has leaned into criminal justice reform, right? Reducing cash bail and making other adjustments. Is this the kind of thing that does make Democrats vulnerable on -- to being called soft on crime?

PEPEN: You know, I think it's a (INAUDIBLE). I think we're doing a great job here in the city of Boston. In the past few years we've added tremendous amounts of investment into our youth jobs, into summer programing, especially our affordable housing projects that we have all across the city.

What we've seen is that we -- when we invest in our people, we invest in their future. We invest in their safety. We create the sense of trust amongst local government and the residents that we serve. That is what leads our cities to be safer. And that is why we've gotten to be known nationally as one of the safest major cities. And we will continue to use that strategy moving forward.

CORNISH: That's Boston City Councilor Enrique Pepen.

Thank you.

PEPEN: Thank you so much for having me.

CORNISH: I'm going to turn now to the political firestorm growing in North Carolina after a horrific murder on a train. Over the weekend, the local metro authority released surveillance video showing the murder of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska.

[06:50:05]

Police say she was riding on a train in Charlotte last month when the suspect, Decarlos Brown Jr., pulled out a pocket knife and killed the 23-year-old. Brown is now facing first degree murder charges. He's been committed to a hospital for a judge to do a mental evaluation for 60 days. CNN has also reached out to his defense attorney for comment.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy claimed the incident shows the ugly truth behind the criminal justice policies of the city's mayor. Elon Musk posted about the story several times and called to name and shame the judges who allowed the suspect to walk free.

The group chat is back.

People are talking about this because this suspect had multiple arrests over the years. He also, as we learned, is possibly being diagnosed for mental health issues. So, when -- how -- we know video can change a national narrative, right? That's what happened with police brutality. Is this a situation again where video is going to affect how people see this?

FISCHER: It absolutely is, Audie. And it is really rallying the MAGA right in a way that they haven't been united for the past several months because of so many divisive issues, like the Epstein case, et cetera.

One of the big rallying calls around this has been, where has been the coverage? I find it ironic that we're sitting here on national cable talking about this incident because a big theme from a lot of MAGA influencers has been, why is nobody talking about how bad this incident has been? The mainstream media is covering up these bad crime policies. And I think that's going to help them rally around this issue in a way that we have not seen in a long time.

CORNISH: Yes. COLLINSON: Yes, what was interesting about your interview there with the Boston representative is, this is someone that's with the people all the time, has a very nuanced view of criminal justice, of immigration, of the community. The people that are planning these raids, these crackdowns in cities, they're not in touch with those people. And that does make you think, well, this is not really about finding out the best solutions for either immigration enforcement or cracking down on crime. It's a big, political issue. It's outsiders coming into these Democratic cities imposing their view.

But at the same time, incidents like this show that President Trump is -- is pushing on an open door in some of these places because people don't --

CORNISH: Pushing on an open door, yes.

COLLINSON: Right, because people don't necessarily feel safe. There's a difference between the public perception of crime and the figures that are coming down. It's -- it's an emotional issue.

CORNISH: Right. Or, you know, one thing I wasn't able to say with our Boston city councilor is that petty crime was up in Boston. Vandalism and things like that. Those are very visible crimes that people can feel, right?

COLLINSON: Right.

CORNISH: And can make them feel unsafe.

Francesca, it feels like the Venn diagram between, we're dealing with immigration and deporting people, crime is a problem, is a circle, right? And that meme that the president put out with the apocalypse now joke, and then referencing the Department of War, it's bringing in yet another angle, right?

Is that -- is that on purpose, that sense that if you make crime and immigration the same problem?

CHAMBERS: I think that the Trump administration, going back to the Trump campaign, has -- has kind of tried to make those part of the, you know, the same exact arguments.

But, you know, something else I wanted to touch on here, when it comes to the -- Chicago and authorities and what you were talking about is that Tammy Duckworth also said yesterday that they hadn't heard anything from -- the local authorities hadn't heard anything at all about whether or not they were going to send into the National Guard, that they weren't working closely with them and seemed to kind of suggest that maybe wouldn't be happening.

CORNISH: Yes, it's not been clear.

CHAMBERS: So, yes, wouldn't be happening as soon as the president has made it sound like there have been.

CORNISH: But don't those memes keep the ball in the air? It kind of gives everyone this thing to say, like, we're working on it, we're doing something, and also it forces the Democrats in those places to speak up.

CHAMBERS: Well, and the vice president, J.D. Vance, said that there were no immediate plans to go in, whereas Trump has kept saying, we're going to do it in a couple days. And then a couple days later, it's like, no, really, we're going to do it in a couple of days. So, it creates this off kilter sense to your point of, you never know if he's -- if he is going to do the things that he says on social media that he's -- he's going to do in a -- in a few days.

But one -- one thing that the president said last week that I found really interesting was, he tried to turn this argument about whether or not it's a distraction on its head --

CORNISH: Yes.

CHAMBERS: And say, well, actually, this Epstein files stuff that they're pushing on Capitol Hill is a distraction from what I am trying to do on crime. And so I thought for, Sara, for the -- for the --

CORNISH: I know.

CHAMBERS: I guess the media analysis, I thought that was a -- that was an interesting way to try and pivot off of it and put the review (ph) back on them.

CORNISH: Well, in the attention economy, distraction is its own currency.

FISCHER: One hundred percent. But they have actually a very clear message with this one, which is, Democrats not doing enough on crime, federal government, Republicans, we are going to take over. And like you said earlier, if you have video showing how graphic and how horrific something is, it's the perfect prop.

CORNISH: All right, you guys, I want to talk about something else because obviously politics has been injected, no pun intended, into the vaccine debate.

[06:55:04]

President Trump is trying to have it both ways. Basically, the way he's talking about Covid shots sounding very different from RFK.

So, he was questioned whether they were safe after RFK Jr. put limits on who can get them. Now, the president seems to be kind of distancing himself from that.

Here's what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You have some vaccines that are so amazing. The polio vaccine, I happen to think, is amazing. A lot of people think that Covid is amazing. I think you have to be very careful when you say that some people don't have to be vaccinated.

Look, you have vaccines that work. They, just pure and simple, work.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: And the president is correct. There are studies to back him up, like the one published in "The Lancet" that found 19.8 million lives were saved globally by the Covid vaccine between December 2020 and December 2021.

Group chat is back.

I have always been puzzled by this line between, I am the president who led Operation Warp Speed, helped develop the vaccine that saved lives, also, and, a bunch of you hate the vaccine, and, like, maybe we shouldn't do it. And here's a guy in charge who's going to say we shouldn't do it. Do you see that in this?

COLLINSON: Yes, Trump's never really been that willing to --

CORNISH: Own it.

COLLINSON: Test his base --

CORNISH: Oh.

COLLINSON: To -- to go against his base, at least until this whole Epstein saga came along. So, I think that's consistent with that.

My question is whether he watched that hearing last week with RFK Jr., which was -- it was theatrics, although --

CORNISH: And he liked the punchiness of it he said.

COLLINSON: Right. But did he start to think, well, wait a second, was I elected to take away vaccines from people, to -- to make people -- for all of -- for all of the power of the make America healthy again coalition, which is going to be important to him in the midterms, is he looking at this and maybe just rowing back RFK Jr. a little bit? Did he not like the spectacle of that?

CORNISH: Yes.

COLLINSON: And is he contemplating, well, where's the political damage on this issue, because he's got a pretty good antenna on this stuff.

FISCHER: MAHA is not his base, though. That's the one thing I'd say. I watched this very closely in the campaign. There's a whole set of MAHA media, MAHA influencers, right? The Danica Patricks of the world and the Sage Steeles that follow RFK and are loyal to him.

CORNISH: Which is why he had to be brought into the fold, right?

FISCHER: Yes, because he needed to get that scale. But they're not necessarily the exact same as the MAGA base and so I think Donald Trump recognizes that he doesn't necessarily have to go all in all the time on RFK. In fact, making RFK his Health and Human Services administrator is enough in some ways to appease that group. So, he doesn't have to totally appease them to keep in line with MAGA.

CORNISH: Because he's the lightening rod.

FISCHER: Exactly.

CORNISH: Yes, interesting.

CHAMBERS: And to your point, you can back him when it comes to firing the CDC director on the one hand. On the other hand, you can also say, look, I support vaccines, including Operation Warp Speed, which Pfizer now says that I deserve a Nobel Peace Prize for.

So, you also have the angle of the senators on Capitol Hill. There were Republicans, primarily the physicians --

CORNISH: Yes.

CHAMBERS: Including Barrasso, and he's in top leadership, who were also pushing back on RFK, too. So, it gives the president a little bit more cover, as well as when you see some of this polling that shows that most Americans, including most Republicans, support vaccines.

CORNISH: All right, I want to go to what's in your group chats kicking off this week.

Sara, you've always got the goss. What are you talking about?

FISCHER: I've got some fun goss. I think we are in this moment where we are craving the nostalgia economy more than we ever have. We've talked about that big Gap ad going viral. It's so reminiscent of the '90s.

I was watching the VMAs last night. Tate McRae reminds me so much of a Britney Spears, where it's all about the sex and the dancing.

CORNISH: Yes.

FISCHER: And then you're seeing, like, "The Wizard of Oz" come back doing incredible at The Sphere in Vegas. "Jaws" just was re-released in August in theaters. Crushed it. The nostalgia economy is back, Audie.

CORNISH: We're looking back to a simpler time.

FISCHER: Yes. Yes.

CORNISH: Stephen.

COLLINSON: It's not a simpler time with U.S.-Russia.

CORNISH: Yes. Well, it is back to the '80s in a lot of ways.

COLLINSON: Trump -- yes, well, it is, kind of. Trump keeps getting embarrassed by Putin. We had the biggest raid this

week -- this weekend on Kyiv since the start of the war. He came out and says, I'm thinking now about stiffer sanctions. Yesterday, he seemed to roll that back. Has he finally got to the point where he realizes Putin doesn't want peace? We may find out in the next few days.

CORNISH: Especially coming off that big meeting in China.

COLLINSON: Yes.

CORNISH: Where all those countries were sort of showcasing their -- themselves being an alternative to the U.S.

Final moment to you, Francesca.

CHAMBERS: OK, because you got to -- you got to promote the top half of the paper.

CORNISH: Do it. Yes. Below the fold.

CHAMBERS: No, no, I was very excited about -- no, I was very excited about the -- the menopause story.

CORNISH: Oh, let me see this.

CHAMBERS: Yes, the --

CORNISH: I don't know if people can see this. "Men altering their approach to menopause." Honestly, I need to know more information there.

CHAMBERS: No, it's about -- it's about men supporting their spouses, about supporting women through, you know, the difficult and challenging health issue and how they're redefining and changing masculinity.

[07:00:01]

And I just thought it was a very insightful, enlightening story.

CORNISH: It's also fascinating because the conversation about menopause and specifically perimenopause is a very big deal right now online. There are whole algorithms being carried by Halle Berry, I think, who's at the forefront of this conversation.

So, thank you for pointing that out. We appreciate it.

All right, thanks to the group chat. Thanks to you for spending time with us. I'm Audie Cornish. And "CNN NEWS CENTRAL" starts right now.