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Trump Now Focuses on Somali Immigrants; Costco Sues Trump Administration; Bobby Polido is Interviewed about his Political Bid. Aired 6:30-7a ET
Aired December 03, 2025 - 06:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[06:33:59]
AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everybody. I'm Audie Cornish. I want to thank you for joining me on CNN THIS MORNING.
It's half past the hour, and here's what's happening right now.
New this morning, a federal judge blocks the Trump administration from making widespread immigration arrests in Washington, D.C. The judge says the arrests without warrants or proof of flight risks are likely illegal. Now, this is a major win for immigrant rights groups who brought the lawsuit against Homeland Security.
And after five hours of negotiations in Moscow, U.S. and Russian officials say there is no deal yet on ending the war in Ukraine. A Russian spokesperson called the discussions useful, but each side stuck to its demands. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he expected to communicate with the U.S. negotiation team immediately after their talks with President Putin.
And only weeks after the government shutdown, the Trump administration is threatening to withhold SNAP benefits from several blue states unless they turn over enrollee data. The USDA says it's an effort to root out fraud and abuse.
[06:35:03]
The agency plans to start withholding funds next week unless the remaining 21 states comply.
And President Trump using the shooting of two National Guard members by an Afghan national to ramp up his immigration crackdown. His latest target, Somali immigrants.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: What do the Somalians have to do with this Afghan guy who shot the National Guard?
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Nothing. But Somalians have caused a lot of trouble. They're ripping us off for a lot of money. There's a tremendous amount of money going back to Somalia. What the hell are we paying money to Somalia for?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: Trump and his allies are blaming recently indicted Somali Americans for at least $300 million in fraud, billing Minnesota's state agencies for Covid-related services that were never provided. And that as Minnesota braces for stepped up immigration enforcement targeting undocumented Somali immigrants in the state. An overwhelming majority of the foreign-born Somalis in Minnesota are naturalized U.S. citizens. That's according to the Census Bureau.
The group chat is back.
I wanted to bring this up because you have a lot of people who are naturalized, a lot of people who were born in the U.S. who are Somali, and ICE is about to march in and do its thing. And I feel like there's a collision course here where some U.S. citizens could be swept up.
ZACHARY WOLF, CNN SENIOR POLITICS WRITER: Yes. And it will be more evident. I think that's already happening with the current sweeps. And we might see it even more so when you apply it to the Somali population.
But I think the, you know, larger -- just Trump is applying -- he's referring to an entire subset of people in the country as garbage. Like, let's not -- let's not let that be OK. In his first term, when he said he didn't want people coming from, you know, countries that -- and he applied an expletive to them, it was sort of shocking.
CHARLIE DENT, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ASPEN INSTITUTE CONGRESSIONAL PROGRAM: That's right.
WOLF: This should be a shocking thing if he's saying Somalis are garbage. That's a -- that's a -- that's incredible.
CORNISH: I want to add to this because I feel like this is a wider conversation on the right, not just about Somalis and what's happening in Minnesota, but basically immigration itself as an unmitigated bad.
So, here's Christopher Rufo, one of his Substack's. He's a very influential voice on the right. And he said, "in the absence of strong assimilation pressures, the fraud networks aren't so surprising. They reflect an extension of Somali institutional norms into a new environment with weak enforcement and poor designed incentives."
You also had people like Charlie Kirk, before his death, as late as June saying multiculturalism is not a good thing. And I wanted to ask about this. I think this is a very popular argument on the right.
DENT: Well, I think the right, though, is missing a point. There are a lot of Americans right now who are disturbed by the way immigration law is being enforced. They don't like a woman being snagged from a nursing home who's working, changing bedpans, or the guy working in a chicken processing facility who really hasn't committed any crimes other than the way he may have entered the country. And so, I think that this overreach is causing problems with a lot of folks who voted for Donald Trump. Yes, they wanted him to go after the bad guys, the drug dealers, the criminals, maybe some of the people who most recently arrived during the Biden administration, but they didn't sign up for a lot of this nativism.
CORNISH: Yes.
DENT: And it's creating economic hardships too.
CORNISH: But do -- Jerusalem, do you see this, for the administration, as an opportunity, right? They get to say, look, here in Minnesota, there was this big scandal, 50 people arrested, most of them Somalis. Now, you don't have to say, we stole a grandma. You can say, look, there's problems and we're taking care of it.
JERUSALEM DEMSAS, FOUNDER AND EDITOR, "THE ARGUMENT": I mean, this is a repeated pattern, right, of collective punishment. People commit crimes all the time of various ethnicities, national backgrounds, et cetera. Every day there are people committing crimes. And we know that immigrants commit crimes at a lower rate than native born Americans, in particular because they're afraid of losing their visas. They're also highly selected groups of people who are able to make it to this country. They're very intent on working, making a living, finding a way to build a life here. And they love America. That's why they come here. They are attracted to something about this country.
And so, you have the situation now where it's not just, oh, we're going after the worst of the worst, exactly as people expected or wanted Trump to do. We have a situation where he's saying, well, the fact that there are Somali criminals is an indictment of the entire culture. It's an indictment of the entire people. And this is, I think, the real concerning thing that I see coming out of parts of the right, right now, is that it's not just a question of, how can we get criminals and drug dealers out. It is actually -- there's something fundamentally wrong with certain groups of people, and they shouldn't be allowed to be part of America.
CORNISH: OK, you guys, stay with me. There's more to discuss on this topic and others. But I want to turn to something, which is the economy. Because when it comes to tariffs, one company is looking for a refund. Wholesale giant Costco is suing the Trump administration, arguing that the government overstepped its legal authority in issuing the import taxes.
[06:40:06]
In total, that tariffs have cost all U.S. importers about $90 billion. That's as of late September. New polling into CNN shows more people are blaming the Trump administration for the economy overall. Sixty- one percent of people say the president's policies have worsened economic conditions in the country. But {resident Trump says none of that is true.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You know, there's this fake narrative that the Democrats talk about, affordability.
The word affordability is a con job by the Democrats.
We fixed inflation and we fixed almost everything, if you want to know the truth.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: Joining me now to discuss, Republican Jim Renacci. He's a former congressman from Ohio.
Congressman, thank you so much for being here.
So, first I just want to start with this question about this lawsuit, because we've seen lawsuits from, say, Democratic attorney generals, but now we're seeing it come from a major company. Is this a kind of red or yellow flag for the administration?
JIM RENACCI (R), FORMER OHIO CONGRESSMAN: Well, good morning, Audie, and thank you for having me.
Look, if I was a big company, I'd be doing the exact same thing. Starting to line up to see what's going to happen in the Supreme Court. If the Supreme Court does say that President Trump's tariffs were illegal, you know, those companies are going to say, we want our money paid back.
So, Costco is the first one in line. There's going to be others. I think it's probably on the president's radar right now. It should be because he realizes this could be a big expenditure and payback for the federal government if they're ruled illegal.
CORNISH: Now, at this point, I think new data from Moody's Analytics says that the average American household is paying more than $200 more per month for the same goods and services they were buying a year ago. But you just heard the president, right, saying, affordability is a con job from Democrats. And in that same cabinet office, I think, meeting, J.D. Vance was like, look, you can't expect us to clean up a problem from the Biden administration. Can you talk about this message that it's not a problem or it's someone else's problem that Republicans are, I guess, going to be campaigning on?
RENACCI: Well, look, if I was the president, he's got to say some of those things. But the truth of it is, the wealthy are doing OK. The poor are doing OK because they're still getting subsidies. It's the middle. It's that middle group of people who are working every day, 40 hours, 60 hours a week, trying to make ends meet, 25 percent of those people are living paycheck to paycheck. And, yes, prices have gone up because of tariffs. It's an expectation. When we're buying goods from other countries, which we do, the price is going to go up when you put a tariff on it. It's one of the reasons -- and, by the way, I was a supporter of candidate Trump in 2015 when nobody else was. I realized we needed somebody to come in and make some changes.
But this change, I was never supportive of. I believe tariffs can be used -- are great for strategic negotiations with other countries. But right now, these tariffs are causing problems to many of those in the middle. And they're talking about it here in Ohio, but also across the country.
CORNISH: I want to ask you about Congress, because we're seeing, even though Republicans control both chambers, yet in the House and Senate there's a lot of folks heading for the exits. Twenty-eight lawmakers have announced that they're either retiring or running for different office.
You know, I thought this was supposed to be winning. Like, when you are the party in power and you control committees and all this sort of stuff, you're supposed to feel good. Why are people leaving?
RENACCI: Well, the real issue -- and look, I left for the same reason. There's confusion, there's chaos now, which we didn't have back then. But there's also the feeling you're not getting anything accomplished.
The real issue now is, the chaos is even greater than when I was there. And that's a real issue. I mean, I was frustrated that we weren't getting anything done. But when you have such a small majority and you have chaos and you realize you're away from your family, sometimes the best answer is the exit. And I think we're seeing that more now just because of the additional chaos and non-partisanship, which I also believe -- when you have a small majority, which the Republicans do, you have to have a little bit of partisanship. You don't have to give them, the other side, everything they want. But you've got to be willing to work on both sides.
CORNISH: Yes.
RENACCI: And we're not seeing that anymore in Washington.
CORNISH: Congressman, I have to ask you one more thing, which we were just talking about immigration and the immigration crackdown here. And I'm thinking a lot about Ohio because we remember during the last race, J.D. Vance made up a story about Haitian immigrants, right, attacking peoples, like, pets or something like that.
[06:45:02]
What do you make of the movement on the right that says multiculturalism is bad, that certain immigrants don't assimilate, because it feels like Ohio has sort of touched on this discussion.
RENACCI: Well, look, I think there's still 70 some percent of the people that believe what President Trump is doing on immigration is positive. How he's doing it is the real problem. And we see that in Ohio. We have an immigrant who was working in Wayne County for 24 years that just got picked up. He's married. He has four children. And he's been taken away too. So, the actions of how it's getting done and some of the comments being made, that's really the problem. They love that we're cracking down on illegal immigrants in Ohio and I believe across the country. How it's being done in some cases is really problematic. And I think that's part of the problems that the president and the administration is having now convincing people that this is a good thing.
CORNISH: OK, Jim Renacci, thanks so much for your time.
RENACCI: Thank you for having me.
CORNISH: All right. If you missed any part of that conversation or you want to share it with someone or catch the rest of the show, please know we are a podcast. You can find us later. Just scan the QR code right now to get that. CNN THIS MORNING is also available anywhere you get your podcasts.
And next on CNN, Tejano and Latin Grammy winner Bobby Pulido, he joins us next. Why he's leaving the stage for a run for Congress in Texas.
Plus.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I wish I could do that, sleep with the cameras.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: The man who coined the phrase "sleepy Joe," did he have some trouble keeping his eyes open yesterday?
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[06:51:16]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BOBBY PULIDO, MUSICIAN (singing): (Singing in foreign language).
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: From the stage to the stomp, Latin Grammy Award winner Bobby Pulido is hoping to hit the right note for Democrats in Texas. He has launched a bid for the 15th congressional district in that state. He's looking to flip it.
Republicans actually won it back in 2022 and then again in 2024, and after the Democrats had had it for almost 120 years. That district also voted for Trump by 18 percent in last year's election. And Hispanic voters dominate the region.
Pulido is a household name for Tejanos, hopes to be the familiar face and voice to get that control back, and he joins us now.
Bobby Pulido, thanks so much for waking up for us.
BOBBY PULIDO (D), TEXAS CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE: Thank you very much. The song that was playing in the background is "Desvelado", which is sleepless. And that's kind of me right now.
CORNISH: Yeah, yeah. PULIDO: Good morning.
CORNISH: We should say you're on the tail end of the tour. We were just talking with a former Ohio lawmaker about why so many Republicans are hitting the exits. Why would you want to run for Congress?
PULIDO: Because we need a voice. The truth of the matter is, is down here, the district is almost 80 percent Hispanic. And I'll tell you, down here in the Rio Grande Valley, people here don't consider themselves poor. They consider themselves broke.
We're actually very aspirational people. And right now, what's happening is not -- it's really affecting a lot of small business owners and a lot of families that are living in fear down here. And we don't deserve that.
CORNISH: Now, there are a lot of people who have been looking at where the Latino vote went in South Texas, okay. And there were a lot of Latino supporters for Trump. And they were dissatisfied with the economy. They were dissatisfied with the immigration policies from before.
Do they have buyer's remorse? Do you think there's some new way for you to appeal to them that Democrats were not doing before?
PULIDO: I think so, you know, the people here always wanted border security, but they also want immigration policies that actually work. And that's been the clamor. That's what they want.
Just fix the immigration system. The border situation will get better if you fix immigration. And so, it just feels like as Hispanics and Tejanos -- I really say more Latinos. We're Tejanos. That's how we consider ourselves.
You know, we -- the truth of the matter is, is that we -- we just want them to stop using us as a political football, because that's what's happened, right? Just both sides have not really made it a concerted effort to fix the immigration.
And I know that, you know, Senator James Lankford actually proposed a really good one --
CORNISH: Yeah.
PULIDO: -- that then President Trump killed in the last year before the election. We're tired of that. Let's just fix the system.
It's not -- you know, the people here just want an opportunity to work. Most of our small business owners down here are Latinos.
CORNISH: Uh-huh.
PULIDO: And they're having problems right now because they can't find a workforce, especially the building community. The builder community has been hit really, really bad by these ICE raids, and they can't field crews, you know? And the bank doesn't really want to work -- they're not going to work with you with that note that you have. And if you can't finish your project, it really hurting our economy down here.
CORNISH: One of the things that happened in the last election is people were talking about backlash to progressive policy language. So, the debate over trans rights is a good example.
But in the Latino community, it was this conversation about the term Latinx.
[06:55:01]
And there were a lot of young, Latino activists who were like, this is the way to go. This is what we're going to be talking about. And it turned out there was a backlash to that.
But let me play for you something from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who was talking about this debate.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-NY): There are some politicians, including Democratic politicians, that rail against the term Latinx. And they're like, this is so bad. This is so bad for the party, like blah, blah, blah.
And like, it's almost as though it has not struck some of these folks that another person's identity is not about your reelection prospects, like -- this is not about you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: So, this is from 2022. And since then, you have so many lawmakers who say, I won't use this term, I won't talk like this.
Where do you stand on it? And why do you think it's a debate?
CORNISH: Well -- I mean, I don't speak like that. And the people down here don't speak that way, and that's not anything offensive to her. But let's be honest, you know, New York is East Coast, so is California.
And maybe those areas, they do talk like that, but not down here. Nobody in their average everyday life speaks like that. That's just a fact.
And it's not offensive to me, but I don't -- I don't use that terminology. And I do think that, that a lot of people felt like there was a lot of change going on on the language.
And, you know, a lot of issues, too, like oil and gas. My district is pretty much all oil and gas and, and these are jobs that in many cases in these rural areas are the best paying jobs that people have seen in years.
And so, you know, I think you got to have a candidate that represents the district. And my district is very different than New York, extremely different.
And I would never tell, you know, Ocasio-Cortez, how to run over there. That's -- she runs the best way to represent her district. But here, it's a little different. And I think that should be kind of respected.
CORNISH: Okay. Bobby Pulido, thanks so much.
PULIDO: Thank you.
CORNISH: OK, you guys, I want to talk about one last thing. Seems a little silly, but it happened.
So, the president said a lot during Tuesday's cabinet meeting at the White House. But there were plenty of moments where he wasn't saying anything at all. In fact, while his secretaries went around the table, the 79-year-old president might have looked to some as though he may have dozed off a few times, eyes closed, head nodding down. The White House says what you're seeing here is the president listening attentively while running basically a marathon three-hour cabinet meeting.
So, why are we talking about this? Well, it's something that Trump himself made a central issue on the campaign trail a year ago
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: He spends a day and then comes back. He falls asleep at every single event.
They don't target Joe on the beach as he sleeps. He sleeps. How do you fall asleep when cameras are raging? I wish I could do that, sleep with the cameras
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: That was just last year.
Group chat is back.
Listen, my pastor will say I should not be talking about this, OK, because I've been busted. But is it part of the ongoing conversation as people are noodling around Trump's health?
DEMSAS: Yes, I mean, obviously there's like a level of hypocrisy here about, you know, his own ability to remain really alert and awake, as -- in performing his duties. But I do think there's like a question here about why it stuck so much with Biden when it doesn't seem to stick with Trump. There is something about Trump that I think many people kind of sense, a level of -- he's getting old, but they sense a level of vitality in him. Like, this man is still incensed about tariffs. He's still incensed about, you know, immigration. Like he's not --
CORNISH: Firing off like 25 Truth Socials in an hour.
DEMSAS: Yes. Minimum. Minimum.
CORNISH: Yes, exactly.
DEMSAS: And so there's a level to which -- I mean, the reason -- I mean I think there's a -- there's a -- there's a lot of frustration among Democrats that, like, well, why isn't this sort of thing sticking with Trump when it stuck with Biden? It's like, Biden was absent in so many ways as a leader that I think it makes it easier for that to stick, and it's harder for your allies to defend you.
CORNISH: Yes.
Zach.
WOLF: I think the reason it doesn't stick is because Democrats don't have a messenger who is calling him sleepy Don over and over and over again. The branding is not there, and they are not as ruthless about, you know, making the criticism.
However, I just want to say, I think we should all, across the country, hope for a well-rested president of the United States who is able to do everything he needs to do because he's got a big job.
CORNISH: Yes.
WOLF: So, if he needs to take a nap, he should take it.
CORNISH: Last word to you, Charlie.
DENT: Well, you know, a lot of people around 80 years old sometimes like to take a nap in the afternoon. The ones I know. And all I can say is, you know, when you watch that, it just reminds me of the Churchill line when he's sleeping in parliament, snoring as speaker says, Mr. Churchill, must you sleep while I'm speaking? And Churchill rouses and says, no, it's purely voluntary.
CORNISH: OK.
DENT: There you go.
CORNISH: Charlie with a Churchill reference.
[07:00:00]
DENT: There you go.
CORNISH: That's why you come to this show. This is amazing.
You guys, thank you so much for talking with us. We talked a lot about a lot of things today. I want to thank you for waking up with us. I'm Audie Cornish and the headlines are next.
