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Trump's Historic New Tariffs Now In Effect; Border Patrol Agents Hide In Rental Truck For Immigration Raid In L.A.; Kremlin: Agreement Reached For Trump, Putin To Meet "In Coming Days." Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired August 07, 2025 - 07:30   ET

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

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[07:34:25]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking overnight President Trump's unprecedented tariffs have now set in and hit dozens and dozens of countries. Much of Southeast Asia are getting hammered. Countries like Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam are facing new rates of around 20 percent. Markets across Asia though, so far, could be shrugging it off, so far.

As for China, negotiators are still trying to secure an extension to a trade truce that had been reached with the United States -- a truce that was set to expire next week.

[07:35:00]

CNN's Marc Stewart is in Beijing with much more. And Marc, you have some interesting new reporting, and China sees an opportunity actually in this moment.

MARC STEWART, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: No question, Kate. Beijing certainly sees it that way sending this message that China is open for business to the entire world, really trying to portray itself as a strong and stable trade partner amid all of this trade chaos with the United States.

So, for example, with Brazil that will now have to pay -- or subject -- subjected itself to hefty tariffs with its coffee business. China is saying come to China. We want your coffee beans. They have now opened its export market to dozens and dozens of Brazilian coffeemakers. There's a promotion on social media involving a Chinese food delivery service.

This again is part of this deliberate effort by China to really expand its reach and not be so depending on the United States. In fact, it was just a few months ago we went to a wholesale region in southern China. When we talked to some of the exporters there, they made it clear they're not just doing business with the United States; they're looking to places like Africa and to Europe. So this idea of reaching out to Brazil and other nations certainly fits in that mold.

This is also a real critical time in these trade talks between the United States and China.

We saw the U.S. impose very stiff tariffs on India because it is buying crude oil from Russia. Based off some comments that we've heard over the last 24 hours from President Trump, China, too, may face even stiffer tariffs from the United States because of its Russian oil purchases.

Let's take a listen to what President Trump had to say just last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It may happen. I mean, I don't know. I can't tell you yet. But I can -- I -- we did it with -- we did it with India. We're doing it probably with a couple of others. One of them could be China.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEWART: Maybe China.

And what's interesting about all of this is that India is an ally of the United States and the U.S. did not hesitate to take this action. China has much more of an adversarial relationship. So it's going to be interesting to see how this all unfolds.

And Kate, as you alluded to earlier, there is this trade deadline of August 12 -- this truce between the United States and China is set to expire. Right now a deal is not in place and this prospect of additional over this Russian crude oil -- it certainly could add many more levels of complication to this already challenging problem, Kate.

BOLDUAN: I was going to say an already complex negotiation and now it could become just that much more.

It's very good to see you, Marc. Thank you so much -- John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, with us now the former lieutenant governor of Georgia, Geoff Duncan, and Republican strategist Doug Heye.

And gentlemen, if you can bear with me, I do have a little bit of breaking news that I'm just reading, so let's all process it together. President Trump just posted on social media that he's basically ordering a mid-decade census. A new census.

He says, "I have instructed the Department of Commerce to immediately begin work on a new and highly accurate census based on modern day facts and figures and importantly, using the results and information gained from the presidential election of 2024. People who were in the country illegally will not be counted in the census. Thank you for your attention to this matter."

And I'm going to pull up the section of the Constitution that deals with the census because it actually is in the Constitution of the United States -- that Constitution. It says, "The actual enumeration [meaning the census] shall be made within three years after the first meeting of the Congress of the United States..." -- that when the country was founded -- "and within every subsequent term of 10 years in such manner as they shall by law direct."

So the Constitution says you have a census every ten years, just like you redistrict every 10 years. Now the president, four years-five years into the decade -- he wants to do it all again, Doug.

What do you see here?

DOUG HEYE, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST, FORMER RNC COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Well look, clearly, he's trying to make a play for it to be more palatable for what's happening in Texas and other states.

And I'll tell you, John, I've been -- I've worked on redistricting my entire career going back to 1992. I helped file a Supreme Court case in North Carolina redistricting. I know this issue very well.

I don't like what we're seeing in Texas, but this is nothing new. We've seen this time after time. Republicans do it. Democrats do it. Gerrymandering is named after a Democrat.

And I think of how many times on this network and on other networks I heard my Democratic friends say you know what we need? We need more Republicans -- more Republicans like Adam Kinzinger. And do you want to know what Democrats do at that same? They drew Adam Kinzinger out of his district. They drew other members out of their district.

And the reality is this is a bipartisan problem. It's a bipartisan issue. And as I watch Democrats in Illinois -- now Texas Democrats in Illinois, I think of what Michael Corleone told us. Senator, we're both part of the same hypocrisy.

[07:40:00]

BERMAN: And this is Doug Heye from the state of North Carolina, which is basically a 50-50 state that has a delegation that has 10 Republicans and four Democrats just to give you a sense.

HEYE: Um-hum.

BERMAN: Former Lieutenant Governor Duncan from Georgia, a state that's 50-50 -- nine Republicans, five Democrats. This may be about redistricting overall but this is also about numbers. This is the second time in, like, four days where the president doesn't like his numbers, so he wants to make some new ones.

He didn't like the jobs revisions, so he fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. He's going out to do a new census four years after the last one.

What do you think of it?

GEOFF DUNCAN, (D) FORMER GEORGIA LT. GOVERNOR, SWITCHED FROM REPUBLICAN TO DEMOCRAT (via Webex by Cisco): Yeah. I mean, I've got a lot to say about both parties gerrymandering across the country. I mean, it's -- both are guilty of it.

But yeah, going back to what Donald Trump is doing, I mean, this Truth Social post that just went out there -- of course, I don't have Truth Social. I get so save a few minutes of my life every day not reading the propaganda.

But, I mean, this is -- this is dangerous. This is another attempt at usurping democracy -- an obvious attempt. And I hope more and more Americans see what's going on here. I mean, if you don't like the numbers or you don't like the math, the Constitution doesn't say change it. It says work through a process. And Donald Trump doesn't want to work through a process. He wants to exert power in an authoritarian way, and this is dangerous.

But going back to gerrymandering, if Democrats and Republicans want to do the right thing -- I mean, you've got to -- you've got to isolate the process. I mean, putting in the hands of the very people that you're either allowing to stay elected or stay in control of whatever statehouse they've got, or congressional chamber is not the best move forward and both sides need to -- need to work for it.

If Donald Trump wants to do something serious here, which I'm not saying he does -- but if he really, truly wanted to tackle this problem he would work on some sort of law or some sort of process, or lead the effort in trying to create a more bipartisan attempt to district.

BERMAN: Yeah. It actually brings up a good point. Again, this just happened. I haven't had time to dig in more than just grab the part of the Constitution. But, you know, I think there is a law that does dictate how and when the census is done. I'm not quite even sure legally the president can say hey, let's do a new one every few years, but we'll see.

Doug Heye, happy tariff day. What are -- what are you looking for here given that we just saw these new jobs numbers, which maybe reflected some of the original impact of the April announcement? You know, job -- anemic job growth in May and June. You know, 14,000 and 19,000.

What do you expect might come from these new tariffs?

HEYE: Well, I think we'll see market reaction, obviously.

But like with this census announcement that Trump has made, so often Trump says big things and we learn that those things either don't happen, or they slow -- they slowly dissipate away. So Trump talks tough. He's going to raise big -- you know, big, tough tariffs, and then they go away. We see time after time he's negotiated a great, beautiful, big deal that may not actually be that.

I'm interested specifically to see what happens with India and what market reaction is today. We know that Donald Trump looks at the stock market every day and certainly, he looks at the bond market and what signals they send. And the bond market, especially on issues of tariffs, very important for the Trump administration.

BERMAN: And we should note that as you were speaking, we put the stock futures up on the screen here and the markets, you know, are actually a little bit up here. Unclear if it's related to the tariffs or not. The markets have wanted some kind of stability or certainty. It may be the reaction saying you know what? At least we know what's going on now with these tariff sticks, although we'll have to wait and see if they stick.

Lieutenant Governor, while we have you, I'm so used to introducing you when I bring you on as the former Republican lieutenant governor of Georgia. I guess that's still true. You are the former Republican lieutenant governor of Georgia. But you are, as of like two days ago, a current Democrat human being. You changed parties. Why?

DUNCAN: Yeah. Anybody who has been around me for the last few years saw this coming. I mean, it certainly -- it's been a parallel track. I mean, Donald Trump has sucked the life and soul and the direction of the Republican Party out. And also, you know, all the solutions that I seem to want to use in public policy seem to be opposed by Republicans and there's a -- there's a platform on the Democratic side.

And so, for me, this switch has been inevitable and it's an opportunity. I think Democrats, including myself now, need to become the party of ideas. It's no longer just about Donald Trump. He's obviously one of the worst things that ever happened to this country and that is what it is. But the Democrats, including myself, need to come up with big ideas and solve real people's problems.

And I think that's the market opportunity for Democrats across the country is if we can actually dig into things like Medicaid expansion in a state like Georgia that doesn't expand Medicaid and leaves 1.2 million people uninsured. When we have kids going to school hungry -- millions -- hundreds of thousands of kids hungry. We want to pass gun legislation, but Republicans won't let us.

These are real solutions to real problems, and I think there's market for that coming.

BERMAN: Former lieutenant governor Geoff Duncan, Godfather lover Doug Heye, thank you very much for being with us this morning -- Kate.

[07:45:05]

BOLDUAN: Also new this morning a new CDC report is out today and finds that ultra-processed foods account for more than half of what Americans eat. These ultra-processed foods have long been linked to a number of health issues and now this new data shows just widespread the problem is right now.

CNN's Meg Tirrell has the details for us. This coming out in this new CDC report. Meg, tell us what it details.

MEG TIRRELL CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Kate. So ultra-processed foods -- we're all learning a lot more about them in the last couple of years. These are a category of food that includes a lot of packaged foods which have ingredients that are industrially processed and created. Things we can't really make easily in our own kitchens.

And so what we're seeing here is we knew that they made up a big part of the food supply, but this really homes in on how much we're actually eating of them. And it shows that about 55 percent of calories for all Americans over the age of one come from ultra- processed foods.

And you can see there's a sort of split here -- distribution by age -- where kids tend to eat more ultra-processed foods than adults -- the six to 11-year-old age group being the highest there. But among kids under the age of 18, 62 percent of calories coming from ultra- processed foods. For grownups over the age of 19, it's 53 percent.

And Kate, one of the interesting things here is we see a difference by income level. One of the things about ultra-processed foods is they tend to be less expensive. They're very convenient. It can be more expensive to eat a less processed diet, and we are seeing that in the data. Among adults with the highest family income about 50 percent of their calories came from ultra-processed foods, and that was 55 percent for those from lower income families.

Now it's also interesting to see what the sources of ultra-processed calories actually are. And for those the top category was sandwiches, including burgers, for both kids and adults. Other big contributors were sweet bakery products, savory snacks, pizza, sweetened beverages -- all the things like that that are so tasty but that perhaps we all need to resist a little bit more if we can.

One interesting thing also in these data is that we see that there's actually been a trend lower over the last five years. If you look at the data for kids, in particular, between 2017 and 2018 the percentage was 66 percent. But then in 2021 to 2023, which are where these data are from, it's down to 62 percent. So this does seem to be decreasing over time. We'll have to see if that trend continues.

And, of course, this has been a huge focus of the "Make America Healthy Again" movement under Robert F. Kennedy Jr. -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Yeah. I mean, the numbers -- 62 percent is startling enough, and then you realize that it's actually an improvement from the years before. It just shows what a huge problem this really is.

It's good to see you, Meg. Thank you -- John.

BERMAN: The half of me filled with burgers is my best half.

All right. New this morning a possible breakthrough in the fight against Alzheimer's -- lithium, long used to treat mood disorders. Harvard researchers found boosting lithium in mice reversed memory loss and reduced toxic plaques. Lithium levels that were too low, on the other hand, revealed Alzheimer's-like symptoms. Human trials are still to come.

Breaking overnight -- I'm going to look over here -- President Trump could meet with Vladimir Putin as soon as next week. We've got new reporting on the plans here. Oh, I don't know -- trucks. This is, you know, Romeo, Romeo, wherefore

art thou -- truck Romeo. This is the actual truck version of Romeo and Juliet.

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[07:52:30]

BOLDUAN: New this morning "Operation Trojan Horse." That is what ICE named a raid at a Los Angeles Home Depot that led to the arrest of 16 people, and it is that raid that has left city officials promising now to fight back against it.

Omar Jiminez has the details on this. They're still coming in. And Omar, what are you learning?

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. So this was an operation that was very visible. As you mentioned, it happened in the parking lot of a Los Angeles Home Depot.

And I want you to take a look at this video -- some of it we are just showing on screen there. This is what appears to be border patrol agents loading into a Penske truck. Again, it doesn't seem to be a federal law enforcement vehicle or anything like that. A Penske truck there -- before they would then later get out and make some of these arrests in this parking lot. They jumped out of that Penske truck at one point.

And the company is actually responding saying it strictly prohibits the transportation of people in the cargo area of its vehicles under any circumstances, and that the company was not made aware that its trucks would be used in the operation and does not authorize this.

But bottom line, the L.A. Times reported a man driving that truck pulled up to day laborers at a Los Angeles Home Depot parking lot and told them he was looking for workers before border patrol agents then jumped out of the back. A total of 16 people were arrested -- people from Mexico and Central America, according to a DHS spokesperson.

The bottom line, though, this is imagery that the Trump administration has largely wanted to project -- that no one who may be in the country illegally is safe from immigration enforcement.

Now, we are still waiting to find out the exact circumstances and the exact nature of these arrests. But remember, it was just last week an appeals court ruled that the Trump administration -- it blocked them, I should say, from indiscriminate immigration stops and enforcement.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who really has been at the forefront of fighting for her city against the administration on this front, had this to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR KAREN BASS, (D) LOS ANGELES: It is hard for me to believe that raid was consistent with the court order that said you cannot racially profile, you cannot racially discriminate. This is something that is not acceptable and we are not going to stand for it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JIMENEZ: And again, still waiting to learn a few more details about the nature of these arrests. But if you remember, Kate, these were some of the very images that were the focal point of those protests we saw in the city that happened back in June.

[07:55:05]

BOLDUAN: Omar, thank you so much for that. I really appreciate it.

We also have this breaking overnight. A top Kremlin aide says an agreement has now been reached for President Donald Trump to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in "the coming days."

The president's special envoy Steve Witkoff just met with Putin in Moscow yesterday to continue discussions around bringing an end to Russia's war in Ukraine.

I want to play for you what President Trump said about that meeting.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We had some very good talks with President Putin today and there's a very good chance that we could be ending the -- ending the round -- ending -- the end of that road. That road was long and continues to be long. But there's a good chance that there will be a meeting very soon.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Now, tomorrow marks President Trump's self-imposed deadline -- another deadline for Russia -- an ultimatum of sorts. Agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine or face what could be crippling new sanctions -- the so-called secondary sanctions that would hit countries that buy Russian oil with a 100 percent tariff.

The president has already slapped an additional 25 percent on India, which is a big purchaser of Russian energy because -- for the penalty as punishment for continuing to buy Russian oil and gas. And the president has also threatened that China could be next.

Let's talk about this. Joining us right now is Sir William Browder. He's the founder and CEO of Hermitage Capital Management, a prominent Putin critic, and also the head of the Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign, and author of "Red Notice and Freezing Order." It's good to see you again.

So the exact reporting from Russian state media around this coming meeting they say is as follows. An agreement has been -- has been reached for Donald Trump to meet his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin "in the coming days" and the parties have begun working on preparations.

The president has also suggested that he could -- this meeting could happen as early as next week -- next week.

Why do you think Putin wants this meeting? And what do you think it means as the president -- it really means as the president is trying to broker an end to this war?

SIR WILLIAM BROWDER, FOUNDER AND CEO, HERMITAGE CAPITAL MANAGEMENT, PUTIN CRITIC, HEAD OF GLOBAL MAGNITSKY JUSTICE CAMPAIGN, AUTHOR, "RED NOTICE" AND "FREEZING ORDER": Well, I don't think that Putin particularly wants this meeting -- and much more importantly, I don't think Putin wants to end this war. He's showing no signs up until now of in any way diminishing his ambitions for a total -- in his mind, a total victory over Ukraine.

And so I think that all of this focus on process, on meetings, on different types of negotiations, all misses the point. The point is that Putin started this war and at no time has he ever wanted to end this war. And as much as President Trump has said he wants to end the war in 24 hours, end the war in six months, end the war next month, have a meeting next week, Putin doesn't want to end the war.

And so one of two things has to happen. Either Trump says you know what -- I don't care about that war anymore, or Trump has to follow through and actually get tough on Russia. And having a meeting doesn't particularly get us any closer to that if Putin doesn't want to budge.

BOLDUAN: You've been skeptical of President Trump's commitment and ability, I guess, really to sway Putin in any way and force him to actually negotiate and end here. This new escalation that President Trump is heading towards, doubling tariffs on India as a penalty for buying Russian oil, what do you think of this approach?

BROWDER: Well, I think it -- I think this is actually the key approach. It -- so at the moment, Putin has one big source of money and that is the sale of oil. Who is buying his oil? China, India, and Turkey. And so if we want to stop him from continuing this war, we need to take away that money. And to take away that money the best way to do that is to punish China, India, and Turkey.

And so if he actually does that -- if he actually says I'm going to put really tough tariffs -- and he doesn't have to do it on the whole country. He could just do it on the refineries that buy it, so they don't want to buy it anymore. That would do the trick.

Will he follow through? He seems to have done so with India. Where is China in this thing? We don't know yet. Where is Turkey? Will he leave these tariffs on India? There's a lot more to be discussed with India other than just the war in Ukraine.

If he does it, then it works. Then it actually works. That is the thing that Putin cares about.

And Putin is -- you know, he's doing a game of chicken. He's saying is Trump really going to -- going to follow through on this stuff? Trump has a history of making various extreme threats and then not following through. I think Putin is hoping that he can somehow charm Trump into delaying and then Putin can carry on with this war. BOLDUAN: I was actually going to -- going to ask you that because of

this deadline tomorrow that the president -- that Trump has set. I mean, Russia either agrees to a ceasefire or then the question becomes or else. And we can play it out, I guess, on two paths as you were just kind of pointing to. Trump actually sticks with it and follows through on the threat and that does what?