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Israel Targets Hamas "Senior Leadership" In Qatar Strike; Trump Claims U.S. Military Kills 11 In Strike On Alleged Drug Boat Tied To Venezuelan Cartel; Trump Order Rebrands Defense Department As Department Of War; U.S. Labor Market Added 911,000 Fewer Jobs Than Projected; Top Trump Economic Officials Almost Come To Blows At MAGA Club. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired September 09, 2025 - 12:30   ET

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

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DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: Back to our breaking news, Israel launched a strike inside Qatar targeting Hamas' senior leadership. You can see black smoke rising over the skyline of Doha. A senior Israeli official tells CNN that one of the targets was the chief negotiator for Hamas.

Now it's not clear yet whether the operation was successful. Sources say the U.S. was notified in advance of the strike, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says it was carried out independently by Israel.

Joining me now is Senator Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee. Thank you so much for being here.

SEN. JACK REED (D-RI): Thank you.

BASH: So as I just mentioned, Israel, at least officials, told CNN that the U.S. was made aware of the strike before it occurred. And this is just a day after President Trump gave Hamas a last warning in his words to accept his latest ceasefire proposal. What does that tell you?

REED: Well, this attack was extraordinarily disruptive of whatever peace process, even one that was very faltering. I think it was a signal by Netanyahu that he really does not want an agreement with Hamas. He wants to literally destroy Hamas, which means in many respects, continued fighting in Gaza.

I think the United States would have been wise to suggest he refrained from that. Kuwait -- Qatar, rather, Qatar is a close ally. Al Udeid Air Base is our principal air base in the region. They have supported us consistently over decades. And to allow an attack on a close ally is something I think is, again, reflects poorly on the administration.

BASH: What makes you confident that Hamas has been negotiating in good faith while being, you know, housed in Qatar?

REED: I think the question is not of the good faith. I think both sides that simply or surely Hamas has been deceptive.

[12:35:00]

But the process of negotiation is important to sustain. Because otherwise, the only alternative is further violence in Gaza and more and more civilian casualties. And that -- you have to do everything you can, in my view, to try to avoid that. And most negotiations, people hide the cards constantly on both sides or all sides, I should say.

BASH: Just real quick before we move on. Again, we don't know yet, unless you want to tell me something that you have learned from your perch there at the Capitol, who actually was killed. But do you see any hope that talks can return anytime soon to a ceasefire in Gaza and to getting the 48 hostages back, 20 of whom are believed to be alive, from Hamas captivity?

REED: Well, this certainly diminishes the prospects of returning the hostages and particularly those who are still alive. Because what Hamas is saying right now is that the United States lured these people into Qatar in order to set up the Israeli strike.

So that undercuts our ability to be an interlocutor and someone that can help moderate a peace. And it certainly increases their disbelief in whether Netanyahu is serious about a ceasefire and a release of the hostages.

BASH: Senator, I want to turn to the Trump administration's strike on a boat that it claims was operated by Tren de Aragua members bringing drugs to the U.S. Have you seen evidence that this boat was full of Tren de Aragua gang members? Do you believe the strike is what the White House, the Trump administration says it was?

REED: I don't think so. And even if it was, the boat was unarmed. It was a civilian craft. It was in international waters. The rule of law and the operating principles of our Navy and our military is, if there's a civilian boat that's suspected of anything, particularly in international waters, you have to make an attempt to stop the boat.

If you can't do that, then you have to disable the engines. You only fire really if fired upon. And this was a deliberate premeditated attack on a civilian vessel. And it really conflicts with not only the law of war, but also our constitutional requirements for Congress to authorize these types of military actions, not the administration.

BASH: I want to ask you about that in one second, but I just want to make sure I understand what you're saying. You said it was a civilian boat and you do not think it was in fact a gang, a very well-known gang that was on that boat?

REED: We don't know, frankly. The administration has indicated that their intelligence suggested there was members of this gang. That could be the case, but we don't have any details.

And also, again, under the law of international operations, the law of war, if they had stopped the boat, then they could have convincingly shown who was on the boat, what was on the boat. And if it was in international waters, they could at least urge that, you know, or make the case that they should be arrested.

BASH: CNN has reporting that the Trump administration is considering strikes now inside of Venezuela on the Tren de Aragua and other drug cartels. Is the Senate going to allow the administration to go to war effectively with Venezuela without a vote or informing the American people?

REED: Well, I hope not. I was just on the floor raising that same issue to my colleagues. The power to declare war is constitutionally vested in the United States Congress, not the president of the United States.

You know, he cannot invent enemies and then conduct unilateral military campaigns across the globe against them. If this is an "all- out war," quote-unquote, and they love the term war, then the United States Congress has to step in and authorize it.

BASH: Just real quick, you mentioned the word war. The fact that the administration that Pete Hegseth named, renamed, or at least did a subtitle, if you will, of the Defense Department, calling it the War Department, that is something that you need to officially make happen, right? Because what Pete Hegseth said is that they're restoring the warrior ethos to the Pentagon.

[12:40:01]

REED: Well, the Congress will -- would have to change the official title of the Department of Defense in Title 10 of the U.S. Code. It is the Department of Defense and he is the Secretary of Defense. That's the law.

What he's doing is more of a publicity stunt, superficial. It's, you know, we'll act like warriors. The real question is, do they not act, but do they actually carry out, consistent with the law of war, the best interests of the United States?

I think we can all ask ourselves, why do we have thousands of people off the coast of Venezuela? Four or five Navy ships, all these things down there. Is that a threat to us? What about the Indo-Pacific and China? What about Ukraine? Why aren't we doing more to assist the Ukrainians?

So their strategy, I think, is completely convoluted and it's more about making news every day. It's reality TV, unfortunately, brought to the Department of Defense.

BASH: Senator Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, thanks so much for being here. Appreciate it.

REED: Thank you.

BASH: Up next, the White House is seizing on new data showing U.S. jobs and the market is even worse than we thought. We have new details after a quick break.

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BASH: It turns out the U.S. job market is worse than we thought. An update to the annual jobs report out today shows nearly 1 million fewer jobs were added through March than originally projected.

CNN's Vanessa Yurkevich has been going through the numbers. First, tell us what the numbers are and what it means.

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS & POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Dana, this is a typical report in the sense that we get it every year and we've been getting from the Bureau of Labor Statistics some type of revision on an annual basis for 90 years. What is a little bit atypical about this revision is that it's so large. It's the largest on record to the downside.

911,000 fewer jobs added from April of 2024 through March of 2025. If you average that over the course of those 12 months, you're talking about downward revisions of about 76,000 jobs per month.

There's a couple reasons why job reports are revised downwards. And in this case, it is largely because some newer companies may have overestimated how many people they were looking to hire. Also you have the fact that the Bureau of Labor Statistics is trying to merge survey data responses they get from businesses with now more in-depth quarterly unemployment tax documents.

So they're trying to put these two things together and trying to understand just how many jobs businesses are adding. And then in those tax documents, it's not accounting, Dana, for undocumented workers which make up a larger portion of the jobs market but are not being counted in this particular revision.

Dana, this is the first revision. We do get another one in February of 2026 which will likely paint another picture of the jobs market.

BASH: And the Vice President JD Vance posted on social media, "It's difficult to overstate how useless BLS data has become. A change was necessary to restore confidence." Can you fact check that for us?

YURKEVICH: Well, listen, the BLS commissioner does not oversee the collection of any of this data. They don't see these reports, the jobs report until the Wednesday before it comes out on Friday. And according to William Beach he's a former BLS commissioner under Trump, he said that oftentimes he was locked out of the building while this process, this data collection was going on.

That's how not involved they are in this process in terms of the head of the agency. However, there is some opportunity for a new BLS commissioner to modernize the process of data collection. For 10 years now, Dana, the BLS has been saying that they need help modernizing the process so they can be even more accurate.

But a typical report we get every single year out today atypical in the sense, Dana, that it is a record number of fewer jobs --

BASH: Yes.

YURKEVICH: -- added to the economy.

BASH: Yes, I mean, close to 1 million. It's really --

YURKEVICH: Yes.

BASH: -- a stunning figure.

Vanessa, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Up next, two Trump administration officials nearly came to blows over who said what about the President. What that says about the Trump administration culture. We'll break it down next.

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BASH: The Treasury Secretary challenges a fellow federal official to a duel. I am not talking about the ill-fated Alexander Hamilton 1804 confrontation with Aaron Burr. This is a threat that occurred last week when, according to people in the room, I'm not even going to say where it happened, although I just did, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent nearly went fist to cups with Federal Housing and Finance Agency Chief Bill Pulte.

Our Stephen Collinson put it this way. This is much more about more than Beltway gossip. The near-fistfight spells danger for the global economy. Stephen, what do you mean by that?

STEPHEN COLLINSON, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Well, obviously, there's a cage match here to show loyalty to President Donald Trump. This is what it was all about. Supposedly, Secretary Bessent was worried about his colleague badmouthing him to the President. And it's all about loyalty to the President.

And the President is, at this moment, engineering the most fundamental reshaping of the global and U.S. economy that we've seen in generations. That means his subordinates are going to tell him what he wants to hear and not necessarily what he has to hear.

You saw those jobs numbers. His policies are now having big impacts on the economy. Is he really getting what he should hear and not what his people who want to be loyal to him ought to be telling him?

BASH: That's a good point.

LEIGH ANN CALDWELL, CO-AUTHOR, THE WASHINGTON POST "EARLY BRIEF" NEWSLETTER: Yes. I mean, this just -- this is not the first time Secretary Bessent has gotten into a fight with an administration official. He did so earlier with Elon Musk when Elon Musk was part of the administration. But it just shows how nervous everyone is in that administration to be not in Trump's good graces. [12:55:11]

TIA MITCHELL, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION: Yes, because, again, Trump's inner circle is not about who's the best at the job, who's got the most credentials, who's got the deepest range of knowledge. It seems to be prioritized by loyalty, which means the inner circle is constantly competing to be considered someone that Trump can trust.

BASH: Jeff, 10 seconds.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: I mean, look, this is the most that we've heard about Scott Bessent. In many respects, he's Trump's favorite Cabinet member. We'll see if that lasts. But clearly, it's revealing someone's trying to undermine that.

And it's not Howard Lutnick. That's what everyone thought, that Lutnick was talking about Bessent. It turns out it was not him.

BASH: Could be both (INAUDIBLE).

All right, thank you all very much.

Thank you for joining Inside Politics today. CNN News Central starts after a quick break.

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