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Trump Announces New Tariffs, Delays Deadline to August 1; At Least 105 People Dead in Catastrophic Texas Flooding; Hearing to Determine Sentencing Date for Sean Diddy Combs. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired July 08, 2025 - 08:30   ET

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

[08:30:00]

HARRY ENTEN, CNN CHIEF DATA ANALYST: -- trade policy, might have liked them at the beginning, might have liked them back during the campaign, but when they're actually in practice, they hate, hate, hate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, you have here also, because April was like the critical month. This was when Liberation Day set in. Why is, why do you have April as like a pullout?

ENTEN: Yes. Why? Because the last time that the voters actually saw them in practice, right, and it was -- and then all of a sudden he delayed it. Why did Trump pull back? Because the last tariff hurt Trump's overall net approval rating, March 28th. The pre-tariffs, he was even ground. He was significantly better than he was during his first term at the same time. But then in just a matter of weeks, his net approval rating down into the gutter, down into the water, minus six points, and he has never recovered from it. So, the last tariff war really hurt him and he hasn't recovered yet, and I think that might be why Trump is a little bit hesitant to go back into the water because he recognizes it just doesn't help him overall.

BOLDUAN: Maybe the manifestation of I'm firm, but not 100 percent firm.

ENTEN: Yes. There you go.

BOLDUAN: John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: With the new Coke thing, I was concerned there was a glitch in the programming. I honestly thought that there was something wrong there that we'd gone back to new Coke.

BLDUAN: You were waiting for this circle back. You never a circle back to there.

ENTEN: How about Crystal Pepsi?

BERMAN: Okay. I'm just saying. I'm glad you're okay. I'm glad you're okay.

All right, with us now is Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi, a Democrat from Illinois who happens to be running for Senate from that state as well. Congressman, thanks so much for being with us.

So, the original deadline for trade deals for the terrorists was April 9th, which then slid to July 9th, which is tomorrow, which is now sliding to August 1st, which is a few weeks from now, which the president says is firm, but not 100 percent firm.

So, if you are one of these countries, you know, South Korea, Tunisia, any one of these countries that's out there, what are you supposed to think of this moving target?

REP. RAJA KRISHNAMOORTHI (D-IL): Well, you think that it's Taco Tuesday. You know, Trump always chickens out. He pivots. But the bottom line is it creates great uncertainty for small businesses and others, including in my district and in Illinois, and it really hurts them. They pause hiring, they pause investment. It's harder for them to get investment, and some are even beginning to lay people off. We just went to a small business that was going gangbusters before Liberation Day, and since then, because of the uncertainty created by this tariff chaos, they're laying people off. So, it has real world consequences and it's hurting people and working families.

BERMAN: You know, you mentioned working families. You are running for Senate, as I mentioned, in Illinois. There's just a Democratic primary here in New York City in the winner with Zohran Mamdani, whose self- identifies (ph) Democratic socialist, espouses policies that are not part of the Democratic mainstream. And I put that in question mark -- not question mark. That's, you know, quotation marks there. I guess my question to you is, what does it tell you about what Democratic voters want right now?

KRISHNAMOORTHI: Well, I think that first of all, he ran a tremendous campaign. He identified the right problems of affordability and the pain points that people are feeling economically, and I think that's something that Democrats have to speak to.

Now, we may have differences in terms of our solutions or approaches to solving those problems, but unless you are attuned to the kind of underlying pain that people are feeling and you listen to them on these particular issues, they're going to tune you out on everything else.

And so to that extent, I think that we can agree that at least from my standpoint, we have to pay closer attention to the kind of economic problems or challenges that people are facing right now.

BERMAN: What concerns do you have about the party being pulled in that direction, particularly in primaries? What happens?

KRISHNAMOORTHI: Well, I think we have a healthy debate about, you know, what the solution should be to those problems. So, you know, in my case, I've been talking a lot about, you know, making sure that everyone has access to the American dream the same way that my family did.

I'm a child of public housing and food stamps, and as you know, with the one big, beautiful built law, I call it the a large, lousy law, that particular legislation cuts those particular supports, especially for people who are working. And if you're doing that at the same time that you profess to want more people to work, I think people see right through that and we have to point it out.

But that also means that in addition to pointing out the flaws and what Trump has passed and signed into law, we need to provide solutions to people's problems and kind of upskilling themselves for the economy of the future, which is something that I've worked on in Congress.

BERMAN: Elon Musk forming a third party, he says. How much appetite do you feel that there is for such a thing? And which of the two main parties do you think it would help or hurt more?

KRISHNAMOORTHI: I'm not sure about the appetite, but at the same time, I think that there are a slice of Republican voters who would probably side with Elon Musk on some of the policy positions that he's taken.

[08:35:11]

And I think it would hurt Republicans if he were to form this party, especially to the extent that it kind of appeals to people in battleground states like Pennsylvania and otherwise.

All that being said I don't think that what Elon Musk did with DOGE is something that's popular at all with anybody, and that's something that, you know, my constituents are constantly complaining about as well.

BERMAN: The Department of Justice says on Jeffrey Epstein, no client list, no new charges. What does that tell you? What questions do you have there?

KRISHNAMOORTHI: Well, I'm not really sure. I haven't really delved into the findings except that, again, my constituents aren't focused on that. They're really much more focused on kind of the economic chaos that they're seeing right now. I think that's partly why Trump's approval rating on the economy is so low and they want steady management of the economy. They don't want the chaos of the tariffs, and they don't want the large cuts to Medicaid and the social safety net programs that the large, lousy law is prescribing.

BERMAN: Well, they want something and they're texting you very, very actively about it right now.

Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi, great to see you this morning. Thank you very much. Sarah?

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Thank you, John.

Harrowing stories of survival. I'll talk to a man whose family had to climb on top of bunk beds and barely managed to escape the raging floodwaters below them.

And a man wanted in the deaths of his three daughters on the run for more than a month, where authorities say he may have been spotted.

Those stories and much more ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:40:00]

SIDNER: All right. Breaking news out of Central Texas, we are learning more about what survivors faced as the terrifying flooding hit.

Two young brothers are glad to be home after they had to climb bunk beds to escape the rising flood waters. The boys who were at Camp La Junta in Hunt, Texas, spent about 13 hours waiting for help.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRAEDEN DAVIS, TEXAS FLOOD SURVIVOR: Trunks were floating everywhere. So, they came into our cabin and someone told me that when they were walking around campgrounds that they saw that Cabin 5, which was the cabin right next to Brock's, their wall had fallen over.

BROCK DAVIS, TEXAS FLOOD SURVIVOR: And my door like flooded away.

We jumped up to another bed, like a top bunk. And like our beds starting tipping over and like we got to the top really quick. And then we like just -- and then like one of the walls like fall down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: Oh my gosh, just watching them recount that they're so sweet and having to go through such difficulty.

There are more stories like that, harrowing stories of survival, and my next guest has one. They were staying in a cabin with his family along the Guadalupe River.

Christian Brown joins me now. Christian, thank you so much for joining me. Tell me a about your experience. Describe for me what happened when those floodwaters started rushing in.

CHRISTIAN BROWN, TEXAS FLOOD SURVIVOR: So, we didn't actually expect the floodwaters to get up near the cabin. We're about 30 feet above the river at that point. So, even though we had gotten some of the flash flood warnings, we knew not to stay, you know, not to go down to a low water crossing or go down near the river or anything like that. But we assumed that the safest place for us was actually in the cabin, knowing that we were so far above it.

So, when, you know, we heard some different noises, we heard some sloshing and some banging around, we checked outside and we saw water about three feet above the ground. We grabbed our kids and we jumped up on a bunk bed also and just kind of waited to see what was going to happen. And then finally one of the back doors actually gave way and the flood waters just came rushing into the cabin. All of our furniture and lamps, everything was falling down, crashing, breaking, and we just kind of stayed up there to assess the situation and see what was going to happen.

SIDNER: My God. That must have been terrifying for you and, of course, the kids. What did you do to try to keep yourself calm, to try to keep your children calm?

BROWN: We were -- I mean, my wife and I were just trying to keep it together, trying to keep everybody from being too terrified, trying to explain, you know, what we're doing, we're going to watch the water, we're going to hope that it goes down. You know, at one point, we started singing Amazing Grace to just try to keep everybody calm and under control and things like that.

SIDNER: So, as this water is sort of rushing in, you said the door kind of blew off the flood waters just started rushing in. How high did the floodwater get? Because you said you all had to get up on bunk beds on the top bunk to try and avoid being swept away.

BROWN: Yes, ma'am. So, the backdoor actually broke off of the hinges. The floodwaters, I guess, were strong enough to break the whole backdoor off. And so that's how it actually got into the house. And at that point it was about three feet. So, it was high enough obviously, that we had to get up off the ground. And then we just kind of watched it as it went from two or three feet up to four, more than four feet. It got up over the doorknobs before it finally crested.

SIDNER: You, I understand, have had this cabin in the family for 75 years. And you said you're pretty high up, you're pretty far away from the water. Was there anything inside of that cabin that's recoverable at this point, or is everything just destroyed?

[08:45:00]

BROWN: We're hoping that we might be able to save some of the furniture, but I think almost everything else is gone, all the beds, all the stuff that we had, everything is pretty much destroyed.

SIDNER: What are your daughters and you all talking to each other about in these days after you're seeing, after experiencing that first and after seeing what happened at some of these camps as well?

BROWN: We're just mostly thankful that everything that we lost is replaceable. You know, our hearts got to those that weren't quite as lucky as us, and so we just want to make sure that the girls understand the magnitude of the situation without being too detailed and make sure that they understand how lucky we are.

SIDNER: All right. Christian Brown, I think you told us that you did get alerts on your phones, correct, to letting you know that there was a flashflood, but you just had no idea where you normally are when some of these things happen, that the waters would come up that fast and that high. Thank you so much. I really do appreciate your time this morning. John?

BERMAN: All right. There're still so many questions about emergency alerts and whether more could have been done to warn people.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LEIGH-ANNE AIKEN, SURVIVED FLOODS IN KERR COUNTY: There were a couple of flash warnings on that came through on the text system. To be honest, this was in the hours that I was asleep and there have been so frequent, these different types of flood warnings that I didn't really register that.

I couldn't tell you honestly if it was a warning or a watch. You know, there's always a flood watch or a warning here. So, with everybody being asleep, that was the hardest part.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: All right. With us now is Tony Plohetski, an investigative reporter for the Austin American-Statesman. And, Tony, first of all, let me just say, over the years we've spoken to you about all kinds of different investigative journalism, this time around you've been doing that, but you've also been telling stories of survivors and families that have suffered so much tragedy. You've been doing so much work. So, so thank you for your reference here.

About the warnings that we are hearing so much about, Sara, was just speaking to someone who said, yes, they did come through on my phone, but we didn't know how serious they were, we just heard from that woman there, what are you learning as you look into this about the warnings and what questions do you have?

TONY PLOHETSKI, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER, AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN: We're still trying to untangle all of this. And, John, the truth is I think it's early to possibly assign blame or the blame on a freak weather event, there are many questions still on the ground here in Texas. But what we do know is that the National Weather Service did issue a flashflood warning shortly after 1:00 A.M. on July 4th. And according to many meteorologists, including meteorologists we've spoken to who work in Emergency Management, they believe that was adequate notice to at least attempt to begin to get the word out to people who were possibly in the path of this flood.

But there are many questions as to how it was disseminated, whether or not widespread population, a widespread population, received that on their phone, whether or not there were potential cellular tower issues that may have prevented the emergency alerts from getting to people or whether or not, potentially in the future, there needs to be an enhancement and cell phone coverage in that area, a deeply rural area with rolling hills.

BERMAN: And then we heard from Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, who pretty bluntly said that sirens might have saved lives there. He seems to say that within the next year, they're going to put sirens up on that stretch, a pretty large stretch of the Guadalupe River, and that seems to be an acknowledgement that there wasn't something there that might have made a difference.

PLOHETSKI: Well, and we know that from local officials in Kerr County because it is now well-documented that over a period of years, an extended period of years, there has at least been conversation among local officials and people in that community as to whether or not they want to invest and enhance emergency equipment, including those sirens. It has not been supported in the past, at least not resoundingly enough, to push it to fruition.

But at the same time, given the scope and the magnitude of this tragedy, I do think you will see potentially the state step in and issue some sort of mandate, a legal requirement, and possibly put funding behind that as well. That is the conversation that is continuing to take place. It's in its earliest stages at the state Capitol today.

BERMAN: And then something we see in hurricane coverage, in any kind of area that gets hit by natural disasters frequently is warning fatigue.

[08:50:01]

And we definitely heard it from people that we've spoken to in Texas, they get warnings about floods on their phone from time to time. The issue is knowing whether it's catastrophic and life threatening right now.

PLOHETSKI: That's exactly right, and people who potentially have lived here a long time will remember, for example, a similar flood ten years ago in the town of Wimberley outside of Austin that killed multiple people, and the situation, the circumstances were somewhat similar.

So, I think among some people there may have been an awareness of this flashflood danger. But keep in mind, John, this was a holiday weekend. There were people from across the state, across the country, for that matter, who were along the banks of the Guadalupe River, who may not have had that experience, that knowledge, that information that something like this could unfold so rapidly as we now well know within a matter of hours and minutes.

BERMAN: Tony Plohetski, again, thank you so much for the work that you're doing for the Austin American-Statesman, a great paper. I appreciate it. Thank you. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Ahead for us, Sean Combs back in front of a judge today after his prostitution convictions. Big question now is when could he face sentencing? We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:55:00]

SIDNER: On our radar in Australia, new video shows a van taking the woman convicted of using poisonous mushrooms to murder three of her relatives to a maximum security prison. Erin Patterson was found guilty by a jury yesterday of using death cap mushrooms baked into a beef wellington that she served to several of her relatives, three of whom died. Newly released courtroom evidence shows her at the hospital days after the fateful meal. You see her in the red talking to hospital staff there. And more new video also presented to the jury shows a doctor taking photos of the leftovers. And the days after she served the tainted lunch, three of the guests died, Patterson's former parents- in-law, along with another relative. A fourth guest survived after a week's long stay in the hospital.

Now, federal authorities in Idaho are investigating a possible sighting of a Washington state man wanted in the deaths of his three daughters. A family near Idaho's Sawtooth National Forest reported seeing someone matching the suspect's description over the weekend. Authorities have expanded their search, though officials admit he may no longer be in the area and they say he may not even be alive. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Later today, Sean Combs will be back in front of a judge virtually this time to determine when he'll face his sentence. Combs remains in jail, you'll remember, after he was found guilty last week on two prostitution-related charges. He was acquitted on the most serious charges of sex trafficking and racketeering, but he still faces the possibility of up to 20 years behind bars.

The judge has set a tentative sentencing date for October 3rd, but Diddy's defense attorneys are now trying to get that date moved up.

Here with us now is CNN Legal Analyst Joey Jackson for much more on the next steps in this very long kind of case and trial that has gotten so much attention. The defense team wants to speed up this process. They want to get to sentencing right away. Why and why would the judge allow it?

JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes. So, Kate, good morning to you.

I think what a defendant always wants is finality, right? You want bring this to closure and you want to plan your life. And so at the end of the day, whether they move it or don't move it right, the judge will pronounce sentences either in October or before. If it's moved before, it doesn't mean the judge will still not give him more time, right? If it's moved after, it doesn't mean the judge will not give him more time.

But I think there's a sense of finality. The trial's over. He was acquitted of three charges, convicted of two. Let's get it on. Let's determine what the judge is going to do. Let's submit our sentencing memorandums, et cetera, and let us have -- let him have his life back. That's the argument.

BOLDUAN: We know that the defense team's admission in trial that Combs has this history of violent behavior, that the judge talked about that contributed to the judge denying him bail. Does that admission become a factor in sentencing?

JACKSON: So, it could and it will, and let me explain why. Well, first of all, the defense had to do that, Kate, because you have to embrace the elephant in the room. You can't run away from it. Everyone saw over and over and over again the tape with respect to Cassie Ventura and the vicious beating as to her. So, what you want to argue with what they did? Yes, he was guilty of that, but he's not guilty of RICO, not guilty of sex trafficking.

With regard to sentencing, it's very interesting. In federal court, you have these sentencing guidelines. And what they consider is the offense level. What was the person convicted of and what is their history? And then you calculate it to determine what that calculation looks like.

Now, their advisory guidelines, Kate, they're not mandatory and they give some discretion. You want uniformity in sentencing. You don't want two people convicted of the same thing, getting grossly disparate sentences. But to your point, there's something called relevant conduct. And what the judge can consider, even though you were not convicted of it, is prior conduct that was engaged in by defendant.

And I think in this case, prosecutors certainly want that consideration being given when the sentence is meted out, hence the disparity between the defense saying, hey, he's eligible for two years, and the prosecution saying it should be more like five in terms of what they believe he should be sentenced to.

BOLDUAN: All right. Well, we'll figure out maybe a little bit more today.

[09:00:01]

JACKSON: Yes, indeed.

BOLDUAN: It's good to see you.

JACKSON: Always. Thanks, Kate.

BOLDUAN: And new hour of CNN News Central starts right now.