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The Brief with Jim Sciutto
CNN International: Putin Doesn't Have to Meet Zelenskyy for Summit Says Trump; Putin and Trump Likely to Meet Next Week; Protests in Israel as Security Cabinet Weighs Gaza Takeover; Trump's Tariffs Take Effect; New U.S. Census to Exclude Undocumented Migrants; Judge Halts Construction at Everglades Detention Center; Farms Facing Worker Shortage. Aired 6-7p ET
Aired August 07, 2025 - 18:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[18:00:00]
JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to our viewers joining us from all around the world. I'm Jim Sciutto in Washington. And you're watching
"The Brief."
Just ahead this hour, Donald Trump says he would meet with Vladimir Putin even if Russia's leader does not agree to meet with Ukrainian President
Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Protests in Israel as its security cabinet meets to decide if the country should fully occupy Gaza. And President Trump's
tariffs on global trade partners take effect. They are now the highest since the Great Depression.
First, U.S. President Donald Trump says Russian leader of Vladimir Putin does not have to agree to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy
in order to have a summit with Trump himself.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: They would like to meet with me and I'll do whatever I can to stop the killing. So, last month they lost 14,000 people
killed last month. Every week is 4,000 or 5,000 people. So, I don't like. long waits. I think it's a shame.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCIUTTO: This after President Trump said on Wednesday that a trilateral meeting could follow with Ukraine's leader, getting all three of those men
on the screen together. The Russian president insists he will only meet with his Ukrainian counterpart if certain conditions are met. President
Zelenskyy emphasizes that Ukraine must have a seat at the table.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): Therefore, the format of the meetings, the meetings of the leaders is, in particular,
a trilateral format. And we spoke about this in detail yesterday, about several bilateral formats, about the trilateral format, about all the
possibilities.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCIUTTO: Simple statement of fact, it is Russia that invaded Ukraine, full-scale invasion in February, 2022. As he weighs a potential summit,
Putin is still wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and he is keen to pick a venue where he will not be arrested and sent off
to The Hague. Here's what he said while hosting the Emirati president today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): We have many friends who are ready to help us organize events of this kind. One of our
friends is the president of the United Arab Emirates. I think we will decide, but this will be one of the suitable, quite suitable places.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCIUTTO: Kevin Liptak is at the White House. So, first of all, Kevin, a reality check. At first, the leaders were talking about a face-to-face
meeting within days. That would mean next week, is that still a likelihood, a possibility?
KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Well, both the Kremlin and the White House say that it is still possible that they could meet as early
as next week, but you and I both know these summits take an extraordinary amount of work to put together, both logistically, but also trying to
ensure that they have something real to talk about.
And so, at this hour, American officials trying to get those preparations in place, but they haven't set a date, they haven't set a location. You
heard Vladimir Putin say today that potentially the United Arab of Emirates could be a host for these talks. He was meeting with the leader of that
country in Moscow. But when you talk to White House officials, they say none of that has necessarily been nailed down.
But they do appear to be moving very quickly to try and get this summit put together. I think it's less clear exactly what is going to be discussed at
the negotiating table. We haven't heard that Putin offered Steve Witkoff in that meeting yesterday any sort of new glimmer of what he's willing to
concede in order to bring this war to an end. In fact, it seems as if Putin's positions on this war continue to be the Maximalist goals that he
has held throughout the course of it, whether it is taking Russian control of those four Ukrainian regions, whether it's ordering Ukraine to limit the
size of its military, whether it's insisting Ukraine never be able to join NATO, he doesn't seem to have backed off any of those goals.
And so, what the two men will be able to talk about when they sit down remains, I think, unclear. We also haven't heard yet from Zelenskyy after
President Trump, just about an hour ago, said that he wouldn't condition the summit with Putin and Putin also meeting with Zelenskyy.
[18:05:00]
I think that will be a disappointment to the Ukrainians, a disappointment to the Europeans as well, who have said that Ukraine must be a part of any
of these prospective peace talks. So, a lot, I think, uncertain still at this hour as the White House and as American officials push ahead with this
potential summit.
SCIUTTO: So, is the White House sensitive at all to Putin, I mean, the appearance of Putin, setting the parameters to this meeting, refusing to
meet with Ukraine, which is of course the victim of Russia's invasion and Trump seemingly setting no conditions, including meeting Zelenskyy for
those talks? Are they sensitive to that perception?
LIPTAK: I think -- you know, I think that they're sensitive to the idea that Trump is being sort of wagged by Putin. They don't like that
impression. And I think Trump himself has been sensitive to the appearance that he's being tapped along by Putin. He's talked about that previously.
He doesn't like the idea that he's being strung along by the Russian leader.
But at the same time, he very much wants this war to end and seems open to hearing out what Putin has to say, even if it doesn't necessarily result in
an immediate end to the war. And that I think, is what's causing this sort of fraught ballot. Because remember, tomorrow is also the deadline that the
President has set for implying new sanctions on Russia if it doesn't immediately end the war.
And so, you have these two sorts of conflicting strains. One, the president trying to set up this meeting with Putin, and two, the president
threatening new sanctions on Russia, which could potentially scuttle the entire summit to begin with. And so, you have a lot of competing
objectives, I think, that the president has here, that the White House is trying to sort of reconcile. And it's not exactly clear how that will
happen.
You know, we heard from the president earlier today saying that those -- when it comes to those sanctions, asked whether this deadline of tomorrow
was still operable, saying that it would be up to Putin. So, not ruling them out entirely, but also saying he wanted to hear what Putin had to say.
SCIUTTO: Kevin Liptak at the White House, thanks so much. As Kevin referenced there, this comes on the eve of President Trump's latest
deadline for Moscow to reach a peace deal with Ukraine or face additional economic sanctions. Edward Fishman is the author of "Chokepoints" American
Power in the Age of Economic Warfare." Also, professor of Clumber University, senior research scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy.
Good to have you.
EDWARD FISHMAN, AUTHOR, "CHOKEPOINTS", PROFESSOR, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY AND SENIOR RESEARCH SCHOLAR, CENTER ON GLOBAL ENERGY POLICY: Thanks so much
for joining. Yes, good to be here, Jim. Thanks for having me.
SCIUTTO: So, help us understand, will the sanctions set to kick in tomorrow, if they do kick in as promised, will they impact the Russian
economy significantly?
FISHMAN: Well, look, the core problem with the sanctions since February, 2022 is that they left the most important sector of Russia's economy
relatively unscathed. And that's Russia's oil sector. So, Trump yesterday by imposing a 25 percent secondary tariff on India, ostensibly for India's
purchases of Russia oil, he's got the right idea. If you want to impose pressure on Putin, the one thing to do right now is to impose pressure on
its sales of oil.
But, Jim, the thing that was confusing about what Trump did yesterday, and which makes me a bit nervous about tomorrow, and frankly not very
optimistic, is that India is actually the second biggest buyer of Russian oil, and China, which is by far the largest buyer of Russian oil, has not
been hit with any tariffs or sanctions to speak of.
And so, I'm a little concerned that Trump has kind of shifted the conversation already to this potential bilateral meeting with Putin and
we're all sort of kind of forgetting about the fact that there's these big sanctions threat that's supposed to come tomorrow.
SCIUTTO: Yes, no question. And China, I mean, he's trying to make a trade deal with China, and I wonder if he's concerned about upsetting those
negotiations. So, zero in on India as opposed to China. If he does impose these sanctions just on India, will that have a side effect of also driving
up the price of oil? Because of course, concern in this administration and the last administration, frankly, was that well, they didn't want Americans
to pay more for gas.
FISHMAN: Exactly. Look, the reason that the Biden administration was relatively weak on Russian oil was because if you go back to 2022, the
conditions weren't very favorable. You had oil prices well above a hundred dollars a barrel for a period of time, and you had inflation at a four-
decade high. We were had inflation running at 7 percent in 2022.
You know, today, the circumstances are very different. You know, the inflation in the United States is below 3 percent and oil markets are
incredibly loose. You've got oil that's been hovering in the 60s, it only briefly went up a little bit with Israel and the United States' attack on
Iran, which was surprising, I think, to most oil market analysts who inspected a big spike in oil prices. So, I think there's much more latitude
Trump has today to actually drive down Russia's oil sales.
[18:10:00]
Let's say he's successful in reducing India's purchases of Russian oil, they're currently buying around 2 million barrels a day. If you could cut
that in half, I think you would get a marginal increase in oil prices. But I think the oil market right now is loose enough to absorb it.
SCIUTTO: How about India? Because India is hugely ramped up its purchases of Russian oil in the last couple of years to really 50 percent of what it
imports here, and they're doing it on the cheap, right? I mean, that's a bargain for them. What will be the economic cost to India if -- of weaning
itself off discounted Russian oil?
FISHMAN: Yes, I think you make a really good point, Jim. I think the reason that India has been buying this oil from Russia, it's not because
they depend on that oil for domestic consumption, they're not going to run out of oil to power cars in India or heat homes and in India if they don't
buy from Russia, they've been doing it because they can buy this oil at a discount. And then Indian oil refineries refined the crude oil into
gasoline and other refined petroleum products that they can sell at market prices. And so, these big Indian oil refineries have been making a killing
selling Russian oil that had been refined into gasoline and other products on global markets.
A couple weeks ago, the E.U. actually took very concerted effort to try to crack down on this, they impose sanctions on the second biggest refinery in
India. It's called Nayara Energy, that's directly involved in this Russian oil trade. I think the thing that's a bit confusing, again, about Trump's
approach is so far, he's not actually targeted the Indian refineries directly. And in fact, in these 25 percent tariffs that he announced,
refined petroleum products are exempt from them. So, in some ways, Trump is sort of, I think, missing the forest for the trees with this secondary
tariff approach.
SCIUTTO: Edward Fishman, thanks for helping us understand it.
FISHMAN: My pleasure, Jim. Good to be here.
SCIUTTO: Now, to the ongoing war in Gaza, protests across Israel and in Jerusalem as the security counts -- cabinet votes on a possible full
takeover of Gaza after almost two years of war there. That security cabinet meeting has been going on now for some six hours.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Fox News earlier that Israel does intend to take military control of the enclave at least temporarily.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Will Israel take control of all of Gaza?
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: We intend to, in order to assure our security, remove Hamas there, enable the population to be free
of Gaza, and to pass it to civilian governance, that is not Hamas and not anyone advocating the destruction of Israel. That's what we want to do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCIUTTO: Hamas has accused the Israeli Prime Minister of sacrificing Israeli hostages, quote, "to serve his personal political interests."
Earlier, some hostage families sailed towards Gaza in a last-ditch attempt to pressure the Israeli government to reach a ceasefire. CNN's Chief Global
Affairs correspondent Matthew Chance got an up-close look at airdrop operations by Jordan riding on an air force plane that dropped aid into
Gaza. He explains the obstacles and the dangers surrounding such aid deliveries.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CHIEF GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the pristine skies over Gaza, a clear view of the destruction. Journalists
are still blocked by Israel from freely entering this devastated strip of land. But CNN flew over with the Jordanian military in a cargo plane loaded
with aid, an effort to meet acute shortages amid a partial land blockade.
CHANCE: Well, there's been criticism of these international humanitarian aid flights drops into the Gaza. People say they're insufficient, they
don't deliver enough aid, that they're dangerous people on the and that they're purely symbolic and don't meet any practical need. All of that may
be true, but amid an intense starvation crisis in Gaza, with six and a half tons of milk powder and canned food that we'll be dropping out the back of
this Jordanian plane shortly, may be the difference for some people between life and death.
CHANCE (voice-over): But viewed from the ground, these airdrops are also a mixed blessing. Sending desperate Palestinians, scrambling, even fighting
each other for food.
It's a humiliation and injustice, says this man.
All I got was a ripped bag of lentils, and this carton of tomato paste, says another, amidst the rubble. It's just not enough, he adds.
[18:15:00]
From 2,000 feet, those individual hardships are impossible to see, but you do get a sweeping view of what nearly two years of Israeli bombardment has
done.
CHANCE: Well, I've spent this flight, as much as I can, looking out the window at Gaza Strip below, and I can tell you, from the air, you get a
stunning view of the complete devastation in the Gaza Strip. We've been flying over neighborhoods that I reported from over many years of going in
and out of Garza, and I can tell you those places were bustling areas, teaming with life, people, children, cars and other traffic, bustling
street markets, and you look at them now from above and it's just rubble. Utter devastation across vast areas of the Gaza Strip. It's shocking.
CHANCE (voice-over): Shocking desert of ruins where so many are now struggling to survive.
Matthew Chance, CNN in the skies over Gaza.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SCIUTTO: Joining me now is the CEO of IsraAID. It's a humanitarian organization which not only helped Israelis affected by the October 7th
attacks, but also helping now to get aid Gaza. Yotam Polizer, welcome.
YOTAM POLIZER, CEO, ISRAAID: Thank you. Thanks for having me.
SCIUTTO: So, you said that, quote, "people don't understand the complexity of balancing Israeli security concerns with the humanitarian needs in
Gaza." I wonder today, is Israel fairly balancing those concerns or does the food shortage there show it weighing its own security higher than the
needs of the Palestinian people?
POLIZER: Thank you. Look, the situation is desperate. We are in a very extreme humanitarian situation in Israel. And I personally have worked in
places like Afghanistan, Syria, Ukraine, and elsewhere, and I totally agree the situation in Gaza is really, really desperate.
However, I think that we all need to come together, and that's what we are trying to do at Israel. We need to bring all the different actors, the
U.N., the NGOs, the Israeli government, the IDF, everyone involved to sit in the same table to plan a humanitarian operation that actually make sure
the aid reaches the people who need it the most and not Hamas. And I think that's a real challenge, Jim, especially now. And the only way to solve it
is if we all come together.
SCIUTTO: The thing is that even Israeli officials acknowledge that not a significant portion of aid is taken by Hamas. And when I speak to aid
organizations, and you've noted this as well, the fundamental issues with the current aid distribution plan under the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation
are among other things, too few sites, and requiring people to travel to those sites, often long distances, through a war zone. Can those issues be
corrected by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation or should we return to the previous means of distributing aid, which was led by the U.N. and other aid
organizations?
POLIZER: Look, I think at this point of time, when we are at a very long point and a very desperate situation, we need all hands-on deck. We need
the Gaia Humanitarian Foundation, we need the U.N., we need the NGOs, we need Israeli civil society, we need the IDF, Israel and other countries,
including the Gulf countries who are already -- some of them playing a major role and could play an even bigger role.
So, what we are trying to do -- and we are right now probably the only organization that speaks to everyone in this crisis in order to facilitate
aid into Gaza. I'm not here to tell you that the situation is good. It's really, really bad. But we have to remember that this is -- that Gaza is
different. Gaza is very different than other war zones that we work with, whether it's Syria, Afghanistan, Ukraine, or elsewhere. It's a condensed
area where the civilian population and the active fighting are all in the same place. So, making sure the aid really reaches the people is a real
challenge.
And look, I think we're already starting to see an improvement, but we have a long way to go and we need to make sure that this flow of aid into Gaza,
from all directions, airdrops is clearly not enough. We need all the crossings open. We need to flood Gaza with aid, and that's what we're
working on.
SCIUTTO: As you know Israel is considering now occupying all of Gaza, that's the subject of this cabinet meeting underway and has been for a
number of hours.
[18:20:00]
How would a full Israeli takeover of Gaza affect the distribution of aid? Because what you're talking about is a shared responsibility. Right now,
that responsibility is in the hands of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which is an Israeli decision. If others are to get involved again,
including the U.N., if that's what you're talking about, would that be possible if Israel takes over the entire enclave?
POLIZER: Look, I'm not the government, I'm not the political decision maker. I'm a humanitarian worker. And that's what we've been doing for the
last 25 years. We worked in 64 countries. Right now, as we speak, it's not just the Gazi Humanitarian Foundation, it's the U.N., it's the NGOs. It's
really everyone working on this together or parallelly. And I -- at this point of time, I don't think there's one solution that could work. The only
thing that we can do is we -- is if we really try all these methods together to address this crisis.
And then, you know, we all hope for the hostages to be back. We all hope for the Gaza civilian population to receive the aid, their need, and to
address the acute crisis that they're at. And, you know, quite frankly, I don't know what will be the political situation. What I do know is that the
only way forward is for Israel and for Israeli civil society organization like Israel to be part of the solution. That's the only way forward.
SCIUTTO: Yotam Polizer, thanks so much for the work you're doing.
POLIZER: Thank you.
SCIUTTO: Still ahead this hour, the highest tariffs in place since the Great Depression now official for major U.S. trading partners. We're going
to discuss the economic impact of President Trump's escalating trade war right after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SCIUTTO: President Trump's substantially higher tariffs on dozens of U.S. trading partners are now officially in effect. The new levees represent the
highest level of U.S. tariffs since the Great Depression almost a hundred years ago, bringing the effective U.S. tariff rate to more than 17 percent,
all this likely to put upward pressure on consumer prices at a time when economists warn the U.S. is closer, not only to higher inflation, but
possible recession.
[18:25:00]
Businesses continued to warn about how the terrorists will affect their profits and their operations. The heavy machinery firm, Caterpillar,
announced this week or warned this week, that it expects tariff related costs of as much as $1.5 billion this year. On Wall Street, U.S. stocks
came under pressure amid the tariff concerns, both the DOW and S&P a bit in the red today.
Joining me now, Adam Posen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Adam, thanks so much for joining.
ADAM POSEN, PRESIDENT, PETERSON INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS: Thanks for having me, Jim.
SCIUTTO: So, I want to talk about the costs and benefits of this, or at least the argued benefits when you speak to Trump or read from Trump
administration officials. So, first on the costs. Companies to date have been absorbing the costs largely of what many describe as attacks on
imports into this country and they're taking big hits, Caterpillar among them.
Is the time now when they're going to begin to pass those costs on more to consumers, in which case then we'll see an increase in prices?
POSEN: Yes is the short answer. I mean, the way to think about this is it is a tax. There's no question about it, and it is a loss of real income.
And the question is, how much does that loss of real income show up in shareholders, in profits, in corporate land versus how much of that loss of
real income shows up in consumer land? And within consumer land, how much is higher prices versus shortages, delays?
So, a lot of the stuff we saw during COVID about inflation in the form of not having the variety available, not having lower price options available,
long times to wait to get things, whether it's furniture or appliances, shortages, those are going to be part of it too. And it will vary from
industry to industry. But now, that the tariffs are not going to be wished away, now that we've had a few months to work through accumulated
inventories of stuff bought before the tariffs, we will start to see the consumer price impact.
SCIUTTO: One benefit claimed by the president and his allies is that this is going to reindustrialize the U.S. and I know that that's not going to
happen in a day or a week or a month, but are you seeing any evidence of companies, foreign and domestic, moving manufacturing in measurable numbers
back to the U.S. or our labor costs here, et cetera, just simply too high?
POSEN: For the most part, labor costs are simply too high in a good sense that our people are capable of being very productive. So, reindustrializing
the U.S. is ultimately nonsense because the U.S. is quite industrialized. We export a lot of high value-added industry. We then pay people to screw
together iPhones in other countries, getting the value from their cheaper labor and our intellectual property, our engineering, our brands, our
investment. That's the way the world should work, and that's why the world is set up this way.
So, even if you see things happening and the president or people associated with the president will announce this company or that company is promising
to invest here, remember two things, first, they have to get workers from somewhere, and we're nearly at full employment in the U.S. and there's only
so many skilled manufacturing workers. So, if you pull them from someplace else, that means you're reducing production in another part of the economy.
And second, as we saw during Trump's first term, as we sold during Biden's term, companies make all kinds of claims and promises about what they're
going to invest. And usually, it's just what they already were planning on doing anyway. You don't get much new investment.
SCIUTTO: U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer makes the case, as does President Trump, that these tariffs remove unfair barriers to U.S. trade.
And they're not wrong. I mean, countries around the world had imposed higher tariffs than the U.S. opposed on them and had various other
restrictions to, for instance, protect domestic farmers, et cetera. Do these tariffs at least remove or reduce some of those barriers?
POSEN: No, they're largely wrong. Ambassador Greer is largely wrong. There are specific things, particularly in agriculture where the U.S. blocks
foreign imports, the other countries, India, Italy, everybody blocks American imports. And yet, American agricultural companies we're the
largest exporters, and again, high value-added exports for a long time and remain so. And again, it's productive. It takes very few workers to produce
a lot of value in U.S. agriculture.
The kinds of barriers they're talking about are not going to go away just because Trump threatens or imposes tariffs in other countries because these
are not things controlled by government action. This is the underlying failure to understand that goes through the entire Trump trade policy, that
you can order countries to order their companies, to order their consumers to behave a certain way. That wouldn't work in the U.S. and it's not going
to work in Japan or Germany or Mexico or Canada.
[18:30:00]
So, it's false. I mean, unfortunately, it would be a better world if the president and his advisers spoke things that were true, but they're right
now speaking things that are false.
SCIUTTO: Yes. The example you hear, for instance, from Japanese companies is, right, you know, Japan's not going to buy many more American cars
because the cars that America sells aren't ones that Japanese consumers want, right? I mean, you have an example like that. Adam Posen, Peterson
Institute, thanks so much for joining.
POSEN: Thanks for having me.
SCIUTTO: Still to come, President Trump makes a major announcement about his plans for the U.S. census. We're going to discuss what that could mean
for the country.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SCIUTTO: Welcome back to "The Brief." I'm Jim Sciutto. And here are more international headlines we're watching today.
President Trump says he will still meet with Vladimir Putin even if the Russian leader refuses to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr
Zelenskyy. The U.S. president previously suggested a trilateral meeting among the leaders. Putin insists it is only possible to do so if certain
conditions were to be met.
The U.N. says the number of hungry children in Gaza has skyrocketed. Earlier this year, 2,000 children under five were acutely malnourished.
This July was almost 12,000, the highest monthly figure ever recorded there. UNICEF calls the surge staggering, saying more aid needs to enter
the territory.
President Trump is nominating a high-ranking White House economic adviser to fill a key vacancy at the Fed. He's picked the current chair of the
Council of Economic Advisers, Stephen Miran, to temporarily fill the seat of Biden appointee, Adriana Coogler, who announced her resignation last
week. That vacancy gives Trump a new opportunity to shape policy at the Fed, which traditionally is independent.
[18:35:00]
President Trump also wants a new U.S. census count, one that does not include people living in the U.S. illegally. He's instructed the Commerce
Department to begin working on this, this according to a post on social media. Traditionally, census counts each person in each state regardless of
immigration status. The data used to determine congressional representation. The Constitution mandates a national census every 10 years
based on, quote, "the whole number of free persons and not just citizens."
Joining us to discuss adjunct professor and senior fellow at New York Law School, Jeffrey Wice. Jeffrey, thanks so much for joining.
JEFFREY WICE, ADJUNCT PROFESSOR AND SENIOR FELLOW, NEW YORK LAW SCHOOL AND U.S. EXPERT ON REDISTRICTING: Hi. A pleasure to be with you tonight.
SCIUTTO: So, the law on the Constitution seems to be clear, count everybody, free persons. And that was upheld by lower courts in Trump's
first term when he first tried to do this. Is that likely to happen again if Trump were to try this, that the courts would block it or, I mean, might
we not know with the current composition of the Supreme Court?
WICE: Well, if President Trump tries to move forward to take a new census of any type, you know, there are a few hurdles ahead of him. First off, he
doesn't have the authority to conduct a census or call for one. That's up to Congress. You know, the executive branch's job is to implement, to take
the census, but Congress develops, designs and authorizes it.
Secondly, the president is going up against the U.S. Constitution which requires, as you mentioned, a complete count of all persons regardless of
status. And on top of that, the Constitution also requires a house reapportionment or redistribution of districts among the states only once
every 10 years based on the federal decennial census taken the first year of each decade. So, whatever he does, he's likely to get litigated and most
likely to end up again before the U.S. Supreme Court.
SCIUTTO: You have extensive experience working in redistricting. Can you break down what excluding undocumented people from the census would do to
congressional representation?
WICE: It would have likely a major impact on the distribution of congressional districts among the states. If the president were to succeed
at the Supreme Court, you know, with his effort, you would probably see states with large Hispanic populations losing numbers and losing
congressional districts. That could especially be a problem in states where Trump expects to do well politically such as Texas and Florida.
So, his politics and his policies aren't quite consistent here because to exclude large Hispanic populations, which exclusion of citizens would do,
you know, could harm him politically. But the census is not about politics. It's about numbers, accuracy, and good government.
SCIUTTO: And this has been done every 10 years, as far as I know, for the history of this young Republic here. From a practical standpoint, to do so
mid-decade would be, in your words, almost logistically impossible. Why is that?
WICE: Well, logistically impossible, too late, costly, and illegal. The census for congressional reapportionment purposes takes place once every 10
years per the U.S. Constitution. The census under statute is allowed to do other kinds of census surveys in mid-decade, but planning for a mid-decade
census for economic and, you know, social data, that planning takes place several years in advance.
You know, planning for the 2030 census began literally in 2019. You can't turn things over on a dime. You can't organize a D-Day operation overnight.
The census is the second largest federal undertaking outside of the military at wartime. It is a huge endeavor, nearly $14 billion to conduct
the 2020 census. And to think that you can all of a sudden take a census like the 2020 or 2030 census now is just mind boggling.
SCIUTTO: Jeffrey Wice, thanks for helping us understand it all.
WICE: My pleasure.
SCIUTTO: Still ahead, the Trump administration's crackdown on illegal immigration is taking a toll on farm workers and farm owners. We're going
to have a special report coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[18:40:00]
SCIUTTO: A setback for the State of Florida and the Trump administration over the Immigration Detention Center, president likes to call Alligator
Alcatraz. A federal judge today temporarily paused construction at the site, not because of ongoing fears that detainees' rights are being
violated, rather because of the impact the site will have on the environment. The center is located in the Everglades, home to many
endangered species. The judge says the center can continue to operate in the meantime.
President Trump's ongoing immigration crackdown has been highly disruptive for America's $1 trillion farm economy. Some farmers cannot find enough
people to work their fields during peak harvest season. Even people with seemingly valid I.D.s and work papers or simply scared to show up for work.
David Culver has the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID CULVER, CNN SENIOR U.S. NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Are any of them still salvageable or not?
IAN CHANDLER, FARMER FACING WORKER SHORTAGE: No, there's not really anything you can do with them at this point.
CULVER: You've got more than 30 acres of this farm with rotting fruit. I mean, these are cherries that at one point were pretty appetizing, but
right now are more than two weeks past their prime.
CHANDLER: It's also lost revenue for the workers that would have been able to pick them had they been here.
CULVER (voice-over): Oregon farmer Ian Chandler says about half his usual crew didn't show up this season.
CULVER: You're calling them, I assume, individually and saying, what's going on?
CHANDLER: Yes.
CULVER: And so, what did they tell you?
CHANDLER: Well, in the beginning of the season, it coincided, unfortunately, with a lot of really strong immigration enforcement down in
Southern California, where our workforce comes from.
CULVER (voice-over): While Ian says his workers are hired with what seemed to be a valid I.D. and work papers, fear of ICE raids kept many of them
from traveling north this year.
To understand why, we head south to Central California.
CULVER: So, we're hoping that one of those farm working families will actually talk to us here and give us a sense of what life is like in
hiding.
I think you're good. No names or anything there.
Behind closed doors, making dinner with her mom, we meet Lisa.
LISA, MIGRANT FARMWORKER IN HIDING: Like every single summer, we will go up there. My parents or myself will pick cherries. But this year we decided
to stay home just to be safe.
CULVER: Because you're living essentially as though you're going to be targeted at any moment.
LISA: Yes.
CULVER: You've got to buy food.
LISA: Yes.
CULVER: You've got to go shopping. You do leave for that.
[18:45:00]
LISA: Yes, I have to. I mean, someone has to in the house.
CULVER (voice-over): Lisa's here under DACA program that gives temporary protection to people brought to the U.S. as children. Her three young kids,
all U.S. citizens.
CULVER: You can tell they get kind of bored, like cooped up inside, spending hours in front of the T.V. and on their phones, tossing a Frisbee
with himself.
UNKNOWN: It says life is good.
CULVER: Life is good.
CULVER (voice-over): Lights stay off to keep cool. Shades down for privacy. Her husband and dad, undocumented, but working to keep money
coming in as they're out.
CULVER: Is that your phone?
LISA: Yes, that's my phone.
CULVER: Go ahead if you want to get it.
CULVER (voice-over): Every alert from her phone sparks a brief panic.
LISA: It's OK. I'll call him back.
CULVER (voice-over): But it's her mom she thinks about most, still picking crops in her 60s.
LISA: I would like to point that out. My mom is not a criminal, and it hurts. Sorry.
Back in 2020, when the whole pandemic happened, my parents were being considered essential workers.
CULVER (voice-over): And now they have to hide. Back north in Oregon, farm manager Manuel Nava also noticed several no-shows this year.
MANUEL NAVA, CREW SUPERVISOR: Just last year, we probably had like five farmers coming from California to do the picking, and this year we missed
them.
CULVER: They didn't show up?
NAVA: They didn't show up.
CULVER: Others continue working. There's one woman, 75 years old, and determined to keep working, even once the hour has stopped, asking, can I
just collect two more buckets?
CULVER (voice-over): She says she doesn't find the work too difficult compared to jobs she had in Guatemala. Workers here earn about $5 a bucket
and average anywhere from $15 to $35 an hour.
KATIE BOLTON, FARM OWNER: We hire them just like any other employee. We have an I-9 and W-4 filled out for every employee.
CULVER: Are they paying taxes?
BOLTON: Yes. All of that is taken out of their checks.
CULVER (voice-over): While some may be using false I.D.'s, others here have legal status. But it doesn't matter. Fear runs deep.
CULVER: Katie started to post more and more signs making it clear this is private property, this one even requesting that anybody who comes onto
property, visitors and vendors, must go through the office here to sign in. She's done this as a way to reinforce to her workforce that they're in a
safe space to try to protect them and to be a barrier of anyone who might come in and target them.
NAVA: You can see 84 people watching what's going on.
CULVER (voice-over): Manuel says WhatsApp is just one piece of a growing underground network that many migrant workers rely on.
Francisco Aguirre is one of the voices behind those warnings. From the basement of a Portland church, he's getting the word out.
FRANCISCO AGUIRRE, ACTIVIST AND ASYLUM SEEKER: We are okay with the government enforcing the law and detaining those who come and do bad in the
country. But that's not what is happening. We are detaining families who sustain this country.
CULVER: I was noticing on my Ring app that there are now notifications about where ICE may or may not be. And then people on Waze, the app, will
even choose icy conditions on the road to signify that there's some sort of federal operation going on.
AGUIRRE: We have our own ways to communicate that we don't disclose.
CULVER: You won't tell me some of those ways?
AGUIRRE: We won't.
CULVER (voice-over): Francisco has lived in the U.S. undocumented since the mid-90s, fleeing violence in El Salvador. Despite prior arrests, he
says he's not interfering with ICE, but rather trying to clarify what's really happening amid rumors and fear. And he is not hiding.
AGUIRRE: I mean, I'm afraid. I will lie if I say no, I'm not afraid. I'm trying to do the right thing.
CULVER: What do you say to folks who say just by you talking about this, you're attracting potential ICE attention?
CHANDLER: Well, they are part of our community. Just like my arm is connected to my body, they are part of us. So, it's not just a matter of
just like cutting them off and be like, all right, see you later. If we lose them, we lose part of who we are as well.
CULVER: One of the things that stood out to us in speaking with those farmers is that they point out this could go well beyond agriculture
impact. They say that these workers that follow the fields all the way north, following the crops to work throughout the season, will move from
farm to farm and then into other industries, construction, landscaping, even making Christmas wreaths for the holiday season.
They say if the workers aren't going up there to pick the crops, then they're not going to be in place to then help those other businesses.
David Culver, CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
[18:50:00]
SCIUTTO: Still to come on "The Brief" --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Like when you had the scene where the cars were kind of probably kissing, you would assume, it was -- the energy was captured
really well.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCIUTTO: Kissing cars? It's a remake of a classic Shakespearean tragedy in a way, well, definitely never seen before. Romeo and Juliet goes off road,
next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SCIUTTO: The Ballon d'or nominees are now out for the best male and female footballer of the year. Nine PSG players got nominated, including Ousmane
Dembele, a favorite to win. Barcelona's Lamine Yamal was nominated for best under 21 player. On the women's side, two-time winner Aitana Bonmati is on
the list as is her Barcelona teammate, Alexia Putellas, put who also won the award twice before. The winners will be announced on September 22nd.
So, no dialogue, just music, stunt driving and steel, to depict one of the most iconic stories of all time, "Romeo & Juliet." Forget kisses, forget
balconies, An Estonian theater group have choreographed the entire show using machines in a quarry. The results, an unconventional production with
lighting and symbolism and cars falling off cliffs that's created an unexpectedly moving and memorable show. CNN's Lynda Kinkade takes a closer
look at what's making audiences smile and emotional. Have a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LYNDA KINKADE, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In a limestone quarry in the Estonia countryside, Shakespeare's most famous tragedy is
getting a heavy-duty makeover. This is "Romeo and Juliet" reimagined with buses, excavators and trucks taking center stage.
PAAVO PIIK, CO-DIRECTOR, KINOTEATER: It's basically a big experiment about what it means to do Shakespeare today and whether we can find new ways to
do it.
KINKADE (voice-over): And a Juliet, a red 4x4 pickup truck, small in size but bringing big emotion.
PIIK: We kind of had this, instantly this emotion, okay this could be Juliet. When we saw this kind of very vain looking semi-truck, this was
Paris for us.
KINKADE (voice-over): Romeo is played by a speedy rally truck and Mercutio and Tobold are two excavators able to duel with their mechanical
attachments clashing like swords.
In this version of the forbidden love story, the Montagues and Capulets are transformed into the motor-ready and carburetor families, a few told by
concrete mixer, semi-trucks and city buses.
But finding the right actors was only half the challenge. Directors had to find a way to express emotions, love, grief, anger through the machinery.
[18:55:00]
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I would still say that even though it was cars it felt really sweet and cute, like when you had the scene where the cars were
kind of probably kissing, you would assume, it was -- the energy was captured really well.
KINKADE (voice-over): The show sticks to the same beloved storyline known around the world and audiences seem to approve.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think they did a great job, a lot of great humor as we know from Kinoteater, quite a few nice little tweaks and surprises so I
think it was great.
KINKADE (voice-over): Complete with fireworks, music and a car falling off a cliff, this new version of Romeo and Juliet might not end well for the
star-crossed lovers, but it seems this mechanical tragedy has driven straight into the hearts of the audience.
Lynda Kinkade, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SCIUTTO: I've never seen anything quite like it. Thanks so much for your company today. I'm Jim Sciutto in Washington. You've been watching "The
Brief." Please do stay with CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:00:00]
END
