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Early Start with Rahel Solomon
Dry, Windy Heat Wave Fuels Wildfires Across Europe; European Leaders: Zelenskyy Must Attend Trump-Putin Talks; U.S.-China Import Tariffs Set To Take Effect Tuesday. Aired 5:30-6a ET
Aired August 11, 2025 - 05:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[05:30:00]
BARBIE LATZA NADEAU, CNN REPORTER: And we've just seen a lot of people -- a lot of the residents especially here don't have air conditioning in their homes. That's an issue that is -- people talk about and wonder why people don't have the air conditioning. But it's an infrastructure issue, it's an electricity issue, and so a lot of people are suffering that way.
But the other side of this, of course, is that these extreme temperatures tend to fuel these wildfires. Now we saw devastating fires last week across France. We've seen these fires in Spain.
Here in Italy there is a massive fire burning on the Mount Vesuvius volcano right now. This fire started on Friday. This is, of course, the volcano that destroyed Pompeii in '79 A.D. And this fire is not part of the actual volcanic eruption. This is a fire that was likely set, authorities say, possibly by organized crime syndicates to be -- who are burning toxic waste and things.
They're working to try to get this fire out and try to contain it. It's burned a lot of the national park up there. And they've closed the hiking trails up to the crater, which is a very popular thing to do this time of year.
But these sweltering temperatures -- we're expecting them to peak on Wednesday this week -- these fires that are out of control. It's just kind of a miserable situation for anyone here in southern Europe, MJ.
MJ LEE, CNN ANCHOR: Barbie Latza Nadeau in Rome keeping an eye on those fires for us. Thank you so much.
And still to come, EU leaders say Europe's future cannot be decided by Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. More reaction to the upcoming summit between the U.S. and Russian presidents just ahead.
(COMMERCIAL)
[05:36:08]
LEE: Days before President Trump meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin more European leaders are expressing their support for Ukraine. They are insisting that Ukraine must have a seat at the negotiating table for the talks on Friday -- and so far, the U.S. has not invited President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. And EU leaders say if he's not there the talks will not produce any type of just peace.
But the U.S. vice president says only Trump can negotiate peace even if it's unpopular.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
J.D. VANCE, (R) VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're going to try to find some negotiated settlement that the Ukrainians and the Russians can live with, where they can live in relative peace and where the killing stops. It's not going to make anybody super happy. Both the Russians and the Ukrainians probably at the end of the day are going to be unhappy with it. But I don't think you can actually sit down and have this negotiation absent the leadership of Donald J. Trump.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEE: Steven Erlanger is The New York Times' chief diplomatic correspondent covering Europe and he joins me from Berlin. Steven, thanks so much for being with us this morning.
Before we get more into the Trump-Putin dynamics I'd love to start with a reality check from you on the significant gap that currently exists between Putin's stated goals and what Ukraine is and isn't willing to accept.
STEVEN ERLANGER, NEW YORK TIMES CHIEF DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENT, EUROPE: I think it's an enormous gap and I don't think it's very easily bridgeable even by the great negotiator Donald Trump.
I mean, the fact of the matter is Putin's aims have not changed. He still demands territorial concessions the Ukrainians don't want to give and probably constitutionally aren't allowed to hand over permanently.
The war is in sort of a stalemate. The leverage Trump has on Putin is pretty narrow, particularly if he's refusing to sanction Russia further. And to be honest, Putin wants Ukraine to be a vassal state of Russia. He wants it to be more like Belarus. He doesn't want it to be like Poland.
And Ukraine has agency in all of this. Trump can't impose a settlement on Ukraine. And right now, at least in his current position stated to Steve Witkoff, Putin's giving up nothing and demanding more land that he hasn't even conquered yet.
So I suspect Putin has something else up his sleeve to suggest to Trump but right now the bridge is broken. It's not there.
LEE: I mean, so looking ahead to this summit, what is your best understanding of President Trump's motivations at the moment? You know, we should note too just what a big deal it is that a U.S. president is willingly meeting with Putin as this war continues on.
ERLANGER: Yes, and doing it on American soil when, you know, Putin is considered a war criminal by the International Criminal Court.
When Putin started this war -- I mean, Putin is not neutral in this war. He's an aggressor. But Donald Trump seems to feel that he has to do a deal with Putin as the other great power and Ukraine is somehow in the way. For Putin, just being in a room with Donald Trump on American soil is a public relations victory and I think this is a crucial thing.
Now, will Trump try to use leverage? Will he continue to let Putin tap him along, as Donald Trump once said, we'll have to see. But I'm not terribly optimistic about a solid outcome from this summit meeting.
[05:40:00]
LEE: Hmm.
And I'd like you to listen to something that NATO's secretary general said over the weekend -- listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARK RUTTE, NATO SECRETARY GENERAL: If Putin is serious and Putin then has to commit to sit down with Zelenskyy. He cannot do this through President Trump. In the end it has to be, as President Trump has stated himself, a three-way conversation, at least, with the Europeans heavily involved.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEE: And Steven, something you've reported on is this dynamic where European leaders are apprehensive about basically getting sidelined as Trump and Putin try to strike some sort of deal.
You wrote, "The Europeans are concerned that Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin will forge an agreement on their own, and that they will then try to impose on Ukraine."
European officials are telling you that they want Trump to understand this is not going to be like Yalta.
Describe the scenario that the Europeans are most worried about right now.
ERLANGER: Well, it is that -- that somehow, Putin suggests something to Donald Trump which involves considerable concessions from the Ukrainian side in return for not very serious concessions from the Russian side. Trump announces this is a great deal and then tries to impose it on Ukraine.
And the Europeans are concerned partly because they support Ukraine and Ukraine is part of Europe. It's right next door. So they see the Russian aggression as a serious strategic challenge to them and not for just today, down the road. If they believe that Putin gets a success in Ukraine that the Baltics are in danger. That Putin's aim is to undermine NATO -- to undermine the European Union to kind of draw a new iron curtain between Ukraine and the rest of the West. So that is their big concern.
Now they're talking to Vice President Vance. I do think Trump is sincere in that he wants to end the bloodshed. He wants to end the war. He also wants a big media victory. He hasn't had one over Gaza. He hasn't had one on the other issues that he says he could settle very quickly.
So I think Trump -- in a way, Putin will try to manipulate Trump's desire to come out of this meeting with something to show. Now whether that something violates Ukraine's interests or European interests -- because after all, Trump has said to the Europeans Ukraine is your problem. You pay for our weapons. I'm not going to pay for them anymore. You deal with the Ukraine's security guarantees. I'm not going to worry about that.
So if it's Europe's responsibility, Europe wants to be involved --
LEE: Right.
ERLANGER: -- at the table, and they support Ukraine.
LEE: I mean, so let's say there is no breakthrough on Friday. You said yourself this gap is going to be very tough to bridge.
In that scenario, what will Putin have gotten out of this meeting?
ERLANGER: Well, he's -- he will have gotten a lot of attention at home. I mean, he will have been broken out of this diplomatic isolation. He will have Trump's ear.
And the big question we always have is who will be in the room with Putin and Trump? If you remember in the first term in Helsinki it was just the two of them, which I think was not great for keeping records and notes.
So I think Putin will also succeed in buying time. I mean, after all, Trump was about to sanction him last Friday when suddenly this summit came up, which buys more time for Putin. I think Putin has been very, very good at suggesting to Trump that he's serious about a ceasefire. When Trump gets upset about it, Putin comes up with something else to sort of pacify him.
I think Alaska will be a big test of both men's strategies. Put it that way.
LEE: Steven Erlanger in Berlin. I always appreciate your insights. Thank you so much.
ERLANGER: Thank you.
LEE: And still ahead on EARLY START, tech companies make an unprecedented deal with the Trump administration for clearance to ship computer chips to China. We'll take a deep dive into those details.
(COMMERCIAL)
[05:49:00]
LEE: Welcome back. I'm MJ Lee. Here are some of the stories we're watching today.
Hours from now, Donald Trump is expected to announce a plan for FBI agents to patrol with police in Washington, D.C. President Trump scheduled a Monday news conference on the crime and beautification of Washington. Last week he ordered an increase in federal law enforcement in the city.
The legal battle of over President Trump deploying the National Guard to Los Angeles heads to court on Monday. California Governor Gavin Newsom filed a lawsuit in June saying the deployment violated the 10th Amendment to the Constitution and a 147-year-old law. President Trump's lawyers are expected to argue that the president does have the authority to federalize the National Guard.
And historic rainfall caused flash flooding and led to dozens of water rescues in Milwaukee over the weekend. Northwest Milwaukee reported 14 1/2 inches of rain on Sunday. The local fire department performed about 65 water rescues. Milwaukee County is under a state of emergency.
[05:50:10]
The Financial Times reports that tech companies Nvidia and AMD are set to pay the U.S. government 15 percent of their revenue from computer chip sales in China. They made the unusual arrangement so the Trump administration would grant them export licenses. The White House banned exports of certain chips in April, but President Trump reversed that order in June after meeting with Nivida's CEO.
Meanwhile, there are less than 24 hours until historic important tariffs are set to take effect between the U.S. and China. We are keeping a watch on both governments for any hint of a deal.
CNN's Marc Stewart has more on where the most accurate information would likely come from.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MARC STEWART, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Unlike the U.S. where we have seen President Trump and members of his administration drop hints -- almost a play-by-play along the way as to where things stand in these complicated U.S.-China trade discussions, it's simply not in China's style to make these remarks. It's usually reserved at the end of the process or if something major happens along the way. So if there is an announcement of an extension, it's safe to say it would most likely come from Washington.
As far as sticking points between the world's largest and second- largest economy computer chips, China wants access to American chips as it tries to propel its own high-tech ambitions.
Another issue, rare earth minerals. It's something that China has deep reservoirs of. It's something that the United States wants. It's a crucial ingredient in making many electronic devices that are used in our everyday lives.
And then, as we have seen with India, the United States placed tariffs on India for its purchases of Russian oil. If we look at the broader scale, Russia is China's number one supplier of crude oil. So that, too, could come up as a point of conversation. Of course, India is an American ally. China has a much more adversarial relationship.
These are some of the points of conflict, some of the points of conversation that could be driving the future of these talks.
Marc Stewart, CNN, Beijing.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEE: And let's take a quick check of the global markets as the world waits to see whether those tariffs take effect.
In Asia, the Nikkei closed up nearly two percent while the other markets were relatively flat. Japan's stock market was closed for a national holiday.
And ahead of the opening bell on Wall Street here in the U.S., markets look ready to open slightly higher with the Dow, S&P, and Nasdaq futures all in the green.
This father and son had a day that landed one of them in the record books. Coming up, what they were able to accomplish that's surprising even expert climbers.
(COMMERCIAL)
[05:57:32]
LEE: It was a historic weekend for Major League Baseball as Jen Pawol became the first woman to umpire a regular season game. She made her debut this weekend in Atlanta working first base, then third base in a double-header between the Atlanta Braves and the Miami Marlins. She received an ovation when she came to the field.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEN PAWOL, MAJOR LEAGUE UMPIRE: It's a dream that actually came true today and I'm still living in it. And I'm just so grateful for the umpires that I work with who -- we have just amazing camaraderie and we're having fun out there. We're working hard but we're having fun, and I'm just so thankful.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEE: She was back on the field Sunday behind the plate calling balls and strikes for the final game of the series. Again, the first woman ever to take that job.
Little League Softball's top honor returns to Pennsylvania for the first time since 1978. Strong pitching led the team of 10- to 12-year- old girls from Johnstown, Pennsylvania to victory on Sunday in North Carolina. They beat the team from Floyd Knobs, Indiana 1-0 in a close- fought game for the title.
And an 11-year-old boy is making a historic -- making history, excuse me, on an iconic mountain peak in the Alps. Sam Evermore is the youngest American to climb the Matterhorn. Sam and his dad posted this photo on Instagram. They reached the mountain's summit this weekend.
Climbers consider the Matterhorn summit fairly difficult to reach, especially for someone that young.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE EVERMORE, SAM'S FATHER: This is two years in the making. Two years of training and working a little bit every single day and, like, getting stronger and stronger. Sam has summitted a whole bunch of peaks to be able to do this. And to -- and, like, really it's -- you know, we -- he hit a record time. So, like, I mean, for us, at least, we never thought we would get it as quick as we did. It was three hours and 45 minutes to the summit.
And Sam was just like a machine -- he didn't stop. He was just moving the whole way. And it's a very difficult and technical and even dangerous mountain --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yeah.
EVERMORE: -- so there's several disciplines that Sam has had to learn to do it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEE: The Matterhorn is in the Alps between Switzerland and Italy with a summit altitude of more than 14,000 feet or nearly 4,500 meters.
[06:00:00]
And divers from around the world gathered in Bosnia and Herzegovina this weekend for the International Waterfall Jumps competition. Clearly an amazing sight for the crowds who turned out to watch. The 16 daredevils jumped off a waterfall that was the height of about a six-story building. The organizer says the ambience provides an unforgettable moment for the jumpers.
And thank you so much for joining us here on EARLY START this Monday. I'm MJ Lee in Washington, D.C. "CNN THIS MORNING" starts right now.
