Return to Transcripts main page
Early Start with Rahel Solomon
Two Children Killed, 18 Other People Wounded In Attack; Sources: Deputy HHS Secretary Jim O'Neill To Lead CDC; U.S. Envoy: Russian Attacks Threaten Trump's Peace Efforts; U.S. Ends Low-Value Package Tariff Waiver; Thailand's Prime Minister Removed From Office. Aired 5-5:30a ET
Aired August 29, 2025 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[05:00:22]
MIN JUNG LEE, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning and welcome to our viewers, joining us from the United States and all around the world. Thanks so much for being with us. I'm MJ Lee. Rahel Solomon is off.
It's Friday, August 29th, 5:00 a.m. here in Washington, D.C.
And straight ahead on EARLY START.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A memorial grows for the two students who were killed and the 18 others who were wounded.
JESSE MERKEL, FATHER OF 8-YEAR-OLD VICTIM FLETCHER MERKEL: Please remember, Fletcher, for the person he was and not the act that ended his life.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can't do that. You can't do that.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Leonel Chavez captured his own arrest in Norwalk, Connecticut.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't feel home because all my life is in the U.S.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There is chaos at the CDC right now.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What makes us great at CDC is following the science. So let's get the politics out of public health.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(MUSIC)
LEE: We are learning more about Wednesday's deadly shooting in Minnesota, including the names of the two children who were killed. Ten-year-old Harper Moyski and eight-year-old Fletcher Merkel were identified Thursday by their families. Both were killed after a shooter opened fire Wednesday at a mass for students of Annunciation Catholic in Minneapolis. Eighteen other people were injured during the attack.
Meanwhile, investigators say the shooter had a, quote, deranged fascination with previous mass shootings and the acting U.S. attorney for Minnesota said the shooter was obsessed with the idea of killing children.
Police have not been able to identify a motive for the attack, despite the shooter leaving, leaving behind hundreds of pages of writings. This comes as the Minneapolis chief of police says procedures that were in place at the church helped to save lives.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHIEF BRIAN O'HARA, MINNEAPOLIS POLICE DEPARTMENT: We believe that the church doors had been locked yesterday morning, and that's a procedure that they had in place. So, this coward committed this act by shooting from outside the church through the windows into the church. The shooter was never able to get inside of the church because the church doors were locked. And so, we think that action in and of itself, in addition to what we will believe, will be countless stories of heroism from children, from staff members, from parishioners, all of that combined ensured this -- this tragedy was not far worse.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEE: And as the Minneapolis community mourns, parents are sharing the stories of their children.
CNN's Whitney Wild reports from Minnesota.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JESSE MERKEL, FATHER OF 8-YEAR-OLD VICTIM FLETCHER MERKEL: Yesterday, a coward decided to take our 8-year-old son, Fletcher, away from us. Because of their actions, we will never be allowed to hold him, talk to him, play with him and watch him grow into the wonderful young man he was on the path to becoming.
WHITNEY WILD, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Emotional words tonight from the father of 8-year-old Fletcher Merkel, who was killed in the deadly shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church.
MERKEL: Please remember Fletcher, for the person he was and not the act that ended his life give your kids an extra hug and kiss today. We love you, Fletcher. You'll always be with us.
WILD: The family asking for privacy and space to grieve as they deal with the loss of their son following the shooting on Wednesday.
MERKEL: While the hole in our hearts and lives will never be filled, I hope that in time our family can find healing. I pray that the other victim's family can find some semblance of the same.
WILD: Outside, a memorial grows for the two students who were killed and the 18 others who were wounded, 15 of them children. UNIDENTIFIED BOY: Glass was broken from when people got in. And when
we got out, all of us went to like different rooms. My group went to the gym and that's where I saw my little sister. And then when we got out, there were like a lot, like a lot, a lot of police cars. And there were some ambulances and fire trucks.
WILD: Danielle Gunter tells CNN her 13-year-old son was shot in the stomach and survived surgery. In a statement, she says our hearts are shattered not only for him but for everyone who was harmed.
We grieve and we pray for the others who were shot, for their families and for those who lost loved ones.
The Minneapolis police chief says officers recovered approximately 116 rifle rounds from the scene, one live round from a handgun and three shotgun shells.
O'HARA: Literally hundreds of pieces of evidence have been recovered thus far, which include electronic devices that will be further searched and processed.
[05:05:05]
WILD: The motive remains under investigation, but officials say the shooter was obsessed with the idea of killing children and had a deranged fascination with previous mass shootings.
JOE THOMPSON, ACTING U.S. DISTRICT ATTORNEY, DISTRICT OF MINNESOTA: The shooter left behind hundreds of pages of writings, writings that describe the shooter's plan, writings that describe the shooter's mental state and, more than anything, writings that describe the shooter's hate -- pure, indiscriminate hate.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WILD (on camera): Police are still investigating where the shooter bought those firearms. In a journal, the shooter mentions plans to buy a rifle from an acquaintance and even says, in their own words, quote, it should be harder for people like me to carry out these attacks.
Whitney Wild, CNN, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
LEE: As people continue to mourn in Minneapolis, we are hearing from students who witnessed the shooting about how this tragedy is affecting them.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHLOE FRANCOUAL, WITNESSED SHOOTING: So, my mind, for some reason, keeps on replaying that exact scenario when the teacher started, like the teacher was in the middle of saying our prayers and then we heard a just one shot. It felt I smelled smoke before everything, but I heard one shot. I thought it was a firework like everybody else.
The second shot was just everybody just covering their ears. The third shot was when everybody started ducking low and all these shots were like, slow until the fourth shot. It started getting faster and faster, and then that's when everybody took into action.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEE: Meanwhile, comfort dogs have been spotted outside a prayer service in Minneapolis. The animals are part of a K-9 dog ministry at the Lutheran Church. Charities, and they're meant to help provide solace to anyone who needs it. This charity is known for deploying their dogs to help support people following a mass casualty event. Vigils and memorials also have popped up in Minneapolis as the community shows support for the victims and those impacted by the tragedy.
And we do have some breaking news coming out of Thailand, where a court has removed Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra from office. She is accused of a serious breach of ethics over a phone call with Cambodia's former leader, in which she appears to criticize her own military's actions. Paetongtarn became the country's youngest prime minister in August in 2024 and has served only a year in office. We'll have more on this breaking story later in the show.
And turning now to the Trump administration, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is expected to name a new acting head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Sources tell CNN he is Jim O'Neill, the current deputy HHS secretary.
O'Neill was previously a Silicon Valley based technology and biotech investor with ties to Palantir founder Peter Thiel. RFK, Jr. fired the previous CDC director, Dr. Susan Monarez, after just a few months on the job, reportedly after clashing about vaccines.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: It was President Trump who was overwhelmingly reelected on November 5th. This woman has never received a vote in her life, and the president has the authority to fire those who are not aligned with his mission.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEE: CDC staffers lined the sidewalks outside the agency's Atlanta headquarters as four top officials resigned in protest. They say the Trump administration is pushing skepticism instead of trusting science.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. DEMETRE DASKALAKIS, FORMER CDC CHIEF OF VACCINES AND RESPIRATORY DISEASES: What makes CDC great are the people that make CDC up, the scientists, everyone that makes this a family, and it's a family that defends our country and the health of our children and the health of adults.
DR. DANIEL JERNIGAN, FORMER DIRECTOR, NATIONAL CENTERR FOR EMERGING & ZOONOTIC INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Let's get the politics out of public health.
(CHEERING)
JERNIGAN: Let's get back to the objectivity and let the science lead us, because that's how we get to the best decisions for public health.
DR. DEB HOURY, FORMER CDC CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER: We haven't been as effective because we've had staff cuts, program cuts, and then political interference.
REPORTER: And what about ACIP? Is that --
HOURY: So, ACIP coming up is really one of the things that tipped us all. We are concerned about the upcoming recommendations that probably have been made before we have the data and the science.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEE: The U.S. envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, says Russia's massive new assault on Kyiv threatens President Trump's efforts to end the conflict. Officials say hundreds of drones and missiles launched early Thursday killed at least 23 people, including four children. It's being described as the second largest air assault since the war began.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the attack clearly demonstrates that Russia's war goals have not changed, despite Vladimir Putin claiming that he is ready for peace.
[05:10:04]
The head of the European Union condemned those deadly strikes.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
URSULA VON DER LEYEN, EUROPEAN COMMISSION PRESIDENT: I'm outraged by the attack on Kyiv. Also hitting our E.U. offices. This was the deadliest drone and missile attack on the capital since July. And as you can see behind me on the screen, it was an attack also on our delegation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEE: With that as the backdrop, a Ukrainian delegation is expected to meet with U.S. officials in New York later today for talks on ending the war with Russia. It comes two weeks after President Donald Trump's summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Zelenskyy says Europe must clearly define the security guarantees for Ukraine as part of any peace deal. But the effort to reach an agreement appears to have stalled.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is casting doubt on whether there will be a meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy after all.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FRIEDRICH MERZ, GERMAN CHANCELLOR: We have some tasks that we can only solve together. Unfortunately, this includes the ongoing war of Russia against Ukraine. We have to deal with this topic again today, and this before the background of the fact that there obviously will not be a meeting between President Zelenskyy and President Putin, different from what was agreed between President Trump and president Putin last week when we were in Washington together.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEE: CNN's Salma Abdelaziz joins us now from London with the latest.
Salma, what more can you tell us about these continued diplomatic pushes to try to bring an end to the war?
SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, right now, what you're hearing as you've played there is just the outrage that is coming from European leaders. You have Prime Minister Keir Starmer, of course, here in the U.K., who says that these strikes absolutely sabotaged peace efforts, who is accusing Russia of killing children and killing civilians. You have the same accusations, of course, coming from the European union.
And it is today that E.U. defense ministers will be meeting in Copenhagen to discuss not just how they can continue to support Ukraine in defending itself against these types of attacks, but also in how to support those peace efforts that President Trump wants to initiate. And their major task is, of course, those security guarantees. So, this would be a backstop measure of some sort that if and when a peace deal is reached, would give Ukraine insurance that if it was attacked again by Russia that there would be help from its partners that they would step in.
But Russia has said it does not accept those security guarantees. It would not accept foreign forces on the ground. So, there is a dead end there. You also have this very important meeting that is set to take place in New York today. Top officials for President Zelenskyy meeting with officials from the White House, from President Trump's administration to discuss how to push this forward.
Well, President Trump says that the way to push this forward is to hold a bilateral meeting between President Putin and President Zelenskyy. But so far, yet again, that is a dead end. The Kremlin has dragged their feet on this said, maybe potentially, President Zelenskyy isn't the right person to meet. You heard there the doubt from the German chancellor that a meeting like that would take place.
President Trump himself has said he doubts a meeting like that would take place because Putin doesn't like President Zelenskyy, that the sheer personality of those two would mean that they cannot sit down for a meeting. I think what matters most today is going to be how President Trump reacts to these strikes, which President Zelenskyy says is President Putin's answer to these peace efforts, 600 drones, nearly 600 drones and 30 missiles fired, killing more than 20 people, he says that is President Putin's response.
President Trump, according to the White House, yesterday said that he was sad to see these strikes happen, but that he wasn't surprised. That might speak to his mindset of feeling like time and time again. These outreach efforts have not led to any movement on these peace negotiations, but it's wait and see now, how will President Trump respond? Will he continue to push these peace efforts, or will he start taking a more hardline approach?
LEE: Salma Abdelaziz in London, thanks for bringing us that update.
For years, Americans have been shopping online for cheap goods from China. But a new tariff change by the Trump administration could end all of that. Ahead, what the end of the de minimis exemption means for low cost shoppers?
Plus, video of the arrest of two migrant brothers went viral recently, and now one of them is speaking out about how frightened he was when agents dragged him from his car.
And later, a shakeup at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has staffers lining the streets. But the Trump administration did to anger so many health professionals. That's straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[05:19:22]
LEE: Americans who love to shop online for cheap goods from overseas will now be facing some serious sticker shock. The Trump administration has eliminated a decades old waiver of tariffs on imported packages valued at less than $800. The so-called de minimis exemption made shopping at places like Temu and Shein a rock-bottom bargain. But that waiver expired just a few hours ago, and Donald Trump says it's gone for good.
This means shoppers and small businesses who order from other countries will now pay more for products, if they can get them at all. Dozens of countries have suspended U.S. bound parcel services and deliveries because of confusion over the change.
[05:20:02]
And joining me now is Sean Henry. He is the CEO and co-founder of Stord, a business that's focused on making e-commerce businesses run more smoothly.
Thanks so much for being here this morning, Sean.
Boil this down for us. You know, starting today with this de minimis exemption now officially gone. How big of an impact and what kind of impact are we talking about for both businesses and for consumers?
SEAN HENRY, CEO AND CO-FOUNDER, STORD: Good morning, MJ. Great to be here. Thanks for having me.
As you already mentioned, it's a massive impact. If you look across the last decade and how de minimis has changed. It's grown so massively in the United States. In 2012, there was only $50 million of inventory entered the U.S. under this exemption. And last year that was over $65 billion. And so, if consumers have wondered why they're seeing more packages on their doorstep directly from China, directly from Mexico, de minimis is why.
Now, what de minimis is, is really there's two types of tariffs. What a lot of the noise has been about over the last few months has been about the general commercial tariff. You're bringing a container to a port, a pallet through an airplane into an air station. But there's another loophole around that. Even if you had that tariff applied, if you were sending your inventory in as a small package directly to a consumer's doorstep, you're essentially in an express lane in the airport, there was no paperwork, no duty, no tax.
And so, overall, brands found that if they were shipping directly from China, from Mexico, from an international market, they were often getting not only 30, 40 percent logistics arbitrage in the costs in that market to ship internationally, but they were also getting another, let's say, 20 percent arbitrage or more on the actual tax. And so, a lot of incentive has been to keep your inventory internationally and ship directly to a consumers doorstep, which is ultimately slower, less efficient, and other elements for the end consumer getting that package.
LEE: You know, here in the U.S., we live in a world where increasingly people expect that they can just, you know, press the buy button on their phone and have a package arrive at their doorstep almost instantly. So, is that consumption habit now about to come to an end do you think?
HENRY: No. I believe packages will actually get faster as a result of this. If you go back in time, it wasn't so often that we got packages on our doorstep from an international market when we were just shopping at our average online clothing brand or other retailer, but all of a sudden, that incentive has been there. A study showed that almost half of the top 100 e-commerce apparel merchants on Shopify and similar platforms were shipping from Mexico into the United States or Canada, into the United States.
Well, that's normally a 5 to 10-day package delivery lead time, let's say, relative to having a regional warehouse that holds your inventory domestically in the U.S., providing that rapid delivery in 1 to 2 days, a la prime, like next day delivery. And that's really what today's consumers expect.
Now, what I will say is that these brands are still fulfilling internationally. And now with this de minimis going away, there is going to be a lot of delay and confusion for end consumers receiving their products. As you mentioned, multiple international postal carriers have already stopped shipping packages into the United States because what's occurring is if prior 4 million packages per day were entering the U.S. under the de minimis exemption.
But again, we're in this fast lane with no paperwork, no taxes. They were moving quickly. Well, all of a sudden, those all have to go through the general security line. And all of a sudden, there's all these backlogs, some confusion and some carriers just deciding to suspend service until they see what the resolution will be.
And so, if you are shopping still from these international platforms, still from low cost apparel retailers, it is probable that you may see not only delays in those packages getting here even further, but often start to see items pop up in the cart saying here's the new fee for the effective duties and tariffs that you're receiving. Just so retailers are calling out and being transparent with their consumers because the worst experience for a consumer is for the online brand not to manage that duty and tax upfront. And now you're getting a package delivered on your doorstep with a tariff bill as well.
LEE: So, your company Stord helps businesses and business owners navigate the world of supply chains. Can I assume that you've been hearing a lot of concern from business owners who use your services? I mean, how are you advising them right now, given all of this confusion?
HENRY: Yeah. Great question. We manage about $10 billion of commerce in the U.S., helping them get that Amazon like rapid, cheap, trusted and delivery that all major platforms are really pursuing.
But it's so hard for independent brands to achieve. And so, our job is to level the playing field. And that's exactly what we've been trying to do in this situation. We've migrated about half a billion dollars of commerce into U.S. infrastructure. These are brands that were shipping prior out of Mexico, out of Canada, directly from China, and now saying, my packages are getting stuck. I'm being hit with these fees. And now I have a worse end consumer experience.
Well, oftentimes U.S. and traditional logistics infrastructure being hard assets can't move rapidly. And so, some of these brands are having a real struggle to move and advance.
This has been signaled long before the administration took office, and ultimately was first impacted all the way back in January, where the Mexican president signed away some of their similar exemptions around IMMEX and holding inventory in Mexico before it gets to the U.S.
So many brands have been preparing year to date with us since that January impact. And a lot of what we're advising these brands is find ways to rapidly move your inventory into the U.S. so that you can benefit from cheaper, localized shipping, that cheaper localized shipping should offset some of those international tariffs and duties.
But then ultimately work with logistics partners, work with manufacturing partners to try to improve cash flow, to try to move your inventory into bonded facilities where you're taxed upon sale rather than upon entry into the U.S. and so there's a lot of mitigation strategies that a brand can have that ultimately result in faster, cheaper end shipping to try to offset these costs. At the end of the --
LEE: All right. You know what? Sean Henry, really appreciated this conversation. We do have to now return to some breaking news, but thanks so much for joining us this morning.
We are, as you said, returning to breaking news we brought to you a moment ago. A court in Thailand has removed the country's prime minister from office. CNN's Mike Valerio joins us live from Seoul with this breaking news.
What do we know right now, Mike, about Paetongtarn's ouster?
MIKE VALERIO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right. So, MJ, this is Paetongtarn Shinawatra. She is the youngest person to serve as prime minister of Thailand. And this is seismic news. This is certainly sending tremors throughout all political corners here in Asia, certainly from our Seoul newsroom.
What all our viewers need to know who are watching us either back home in America or wherever you are around the world, this has to do with the border tensions and clashes that happened just over two months ago between Cambodia and Thailand. You might remember seeing these pictures of fighting and real tensions on the border on your social media feeds if you live outside the region. Real tensions that have not been seen in years.
So, this was the country's prime minister now kicked out of office minutes ago, effective immediately, trying to -- from her point of view, defuse those tensions. So, what happens, just over two months ago, she gets on a phone call with Cambodia's former prime minister. He's still in the mix. He's still a leader of the Senate, so he's still very influential within Cambodia.
And according to the court case against her, tried in Thailand's constitutional court, she paraphrasing here, very much paraphrasing for the sake of our conversation, seems to side and maybe not side, but very cozy with the former leader of Cambodia and potentially besmirched the name of a Thai military official during this phone call, which had audio leaked by this former leader of Cambodia. She says again paraphrasing, that if the former leader of Cambodia needs anything for him to call her and that she'll take care of it, tones that if you're listening to this conversation and if you live in Thailand, perhaps when nationalistic feelings are running high and when there's this border dispute happening that is pretty consequential.
People were certainly outraged in Thailand that their head of government was having a conversation like this, and audio leaked. So, she was suspended. This court case played out over about two months, and the constitutional court just comes out with its verdict. That said that Paetongtarn Shinawatra is guilty of ethics rules violations.
So, in terms of what happens now, you know, this, of course, is a hugely consequential country to the happenings in politics of Southeast Asia, dynamic country that so many of us love and visit the country, the parliament is going to have to come up with a new successor. Their choices are only the candidates who were standing for office in the last election, which is 2023.
But, you know, for people who are following this news, MJ, this is the third leader of a political dynasty in this family to be removed from office. First, it was her father, then it was her aunt. And now, it's her.
