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Agreement Reached for Trump, Putin to Meet in Coming Days; Trump Escalates Trade War as New Global Tariffs Take Effect; Planned Epstein Strategy Dinner Appears to Have Been Rescheduled; Army Sargent in Custody After 5 Soldiers Shot at Fort Stewart. Aired 8:00-8:30a ET

Aired August 07, 2025 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: ... fire 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 or on the flip side, though, if President Trump punks once again, gives Putin more time, which I don't know what this meeting next week would actually -- if that's what this would kind of come across as or effectively be -- not following through with the threat. Yet again, what impact is that going to have?

SIR WILLIAM BROWDER, FOUNDER AND CEO OF HERMITAGE CAPITAL MANAGEMENT: Well, it just if that were to happen, and I sincerely hope it doesn't happen. It gives Putin the green light to carry on and it ruins Trump's credibility and making these threats. And it's like, you know, when you if you declare that you have a red line, if you're the United States of America and say, here's a red line, if if you cross it, then these things will happen and then you don't follow through on these things happening, then your credibility is shot.

And we've seen this happen before. There was a Obama when he was president, had a red line in Syria. The Syrians crossed it and he didn't follow through.

And so there's there's many, many examples of these types of red lines. And I sincerely hope that we don't have the same thing happen here and now, because Putin will then just do what he wants to do and carry on with this war, which is what he wants to do.

BOLDUAN: Sir William Browder, it's always good to see you. Thank you so much for coming in.

A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: So it is on after one of the weakest jobs report in years. Import taxes, tariffs just raised to their highest level since the Great Depression.

New details about the man accused of shooting five soldiers at Fort Stewart, a disagreement he had with one of his victims the day before the shooting.

The Texas governor wants a leading Democrat out of office by the end of the day as the redistricting battle rages there.

And just moments ago, President Trump ordered a new census. Can he even do that?

Sara is out. I'm John Berman with Kate Bolduan. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

Breaking overnight, President Trump's tariffs take effect on dozens of U.S. trading partners around the world. This could create the biggest change in the world economy in nearly a century. A 10 percent minimum tariff on imports from nations the U.S. has a trade surplus with, 15 percent on nations the U.S. has a deficit with. Many other nations are facing rates far higher than that.

The president celebrated overnight, posting, quote, It's midnight, billions of dollars in tariffs now flowing into the United States of America.

The tariffs he is -- has already imposed this year have raised more than $100 billion in tax revenue paid for by U.S. companies that import these goods. Experts say that it's, you know, largely Americans absorbing that hit and it will likely raise prices on all kinds of things. At some point, computers, clothing, watches, shoes, alcohol, furniture, toys.

With us now, CNN global economic analyst Rana Foroohar. Rana let's just talk about what is now into effect. We talk about it remaking the world economic order. How has this changed things?

RANA FOROOHAR, CNN GLOBAL ECONOMIC ANALYST: Well, John, I mean, for starters, the baseline tariffs that the U.S. is putting on any number of countries have gone up exponentially. These are really tariffs that we haven't seen since the 1930s, you know. And in fact, what's happening now with we have tariffs, we've had trade deals, but even some of the countries that have trade deals are going to see additional reciprocal tariffs on new areas.

That's very much a 1930s paradigm where you start getting these kind of tit for tat tariffs, which ultimately, of course, led to a trade war and a hot war. I take no pleasure in saying that, but it's it's unknown territory. It's dicey.

You know, folks in the markets are looking for a correction. Some of the big banks are telling clients, don't be surprised if you see even a 15 percent correction in the next few weeks and months. Again, I don't want to scare folks, but this is pretty serious stuff.

We're in a we're in a new place.

BERMAN: You know, it's interesting. And it comes at a time where the president says that costs are way down and the country will experience unprecedented growth. In fact, the PC, which just came out, showed the prices are are up and GDP in the first half of the year was what, like 1.3 percent total.

So so growth is not unprecedented. It's not even that good. So so are we already starting to see a strain here?

[08:05:00]

FOROOHAR: Oh, one hundred percent. And you know, I'm going to say what I often do. I want to step back and give a little historical context.

Let's put aside Trump and all the things he's done to create pressure in the economy, even if that were not the case, even if we had a president that was not introducing political risk, not starting a tariff war, we would historically be in a place where it was about time for a slowdown. So we've already got that trend. Then you layer on all these other topics and, you know, I haven't even gotten the politicization of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, you know, threatening to push Jay Powell out of his job.

All of these things are just creating a powder keg. And really, every single market participant that I know is just wondering, you know, when it's going to blow.

BERMAN: The markets up a little bit today. It may be that they are reacting to what may be a sense of stability finally. You know, this is happening and it may stick this time and they want some consistency. So maybe they're getting that.

How long do you think they will feel this way?

FOROOHAR: You know, it's anybody's guess, the market gives a lot of strange signals, equities might be up a little bit, but the bond market is still showing us that interest rates are going to be higher for longer. That means that people are worried about not just inflation, but political risk in the U.S. Gold is very high relative to historic rates. That means people are worried about the solvency of the U.S. and its dollar, debt and deficit levels.

So, you know, the markets have been up and down, up and down since April. I wouldn't look at them as a guide for the overall health of the U.S. economy. I don't think they've really been that for about 40 years now. In fact, there's been a real divergence between where the markets are and where the real economy is.

So they're reacting to a lot of things. They may react again, you know, tomorrow. We could be having this conversation. It could be completely different.

BERMAN: Yes, again, if these stick and if this remains consistent, we will start to see the impact one way or the other, I think, in the coming months. Rana Foroohar, great to see you this morning. Thank you -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: So this morning, dinner delayed. I guess that's a question mark right now. A strategy session on the Jeffrey Epstein saga appears to have been moved or rescheduled.

A lot of questions surrounding this, though. The dinner meeting was supposed to happen at the vice president's residence last night, and that is until intense media coverage happened around it. Vice President J.D. Vance denied that there was ever plans to discuss

Jeffrey Epstein and then called it fake news. But hours later, sources then said the meeting was in flux. And for two of the key people set to attend, Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel, this meeting was also seen as a chance to clear the air after a very contentious meeting just weeks ago on this very issue. Jeffrey Epstein, the files, what to do about them.

CNN's Alayna Treene has this reporting from the White House for us. What are you hearing from your sources now about this?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, look, well, I do want to be clear on exactly what we had reported yesterday. What this meeting was about, because originally yesterday evening, Wednesday evening, we reported that the chief of staff, Susie Wiles, deputy attorney general Todd Blanche, of course, the person who sat with Ghislaine Maxwell last month and interviewed her over a course of two days, the FBI director Kash Patel and Vance, of course, who was having it at his home, all of them expected to gather.

And in part of that dinner, of course, we were told that Epstein was expected to come up and they were going to talk about the strategy and potential rollout for what they would be doing next in this. But also, it was an opportunity to try and maybe clear the air and really get everyone on the same page and on a united front as they continue to try and address this. And of course, the importance of that, the context of this is that it comes as the administration is weighing whether to release an audio recording and transcript or at least part of those publicly.

We know that the Justice Department has been digitizing, transcribing and redacting that interview that they recorded with Maxwell last month. And so all of that was kind of one of the focuses for that meeting.

Now, we did see, as you mentioned, the Vice President Vance and his team pushed back on this, trying to argue that Epstein was not going to be discussed at that meeting.

But again, it's very clear that they've been trying to get everyone on the same page and everyone on the same team here, specifically as they're really trying. You know, we're hearing from a lot of our sources in the White House, around the White House, in the broader Trump administration, that they really want to try and take over the optics here and try to try to control the narrative more around this.

Now, we did see the president address this yesterday, really, you know, seeming frustrated about this and kind of criticizing all of this as a hoax.

I want you to listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[08:10:00] DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Look, the whole thing is a hoax. It's put out by the Democrats because we've had the most successful six months in the history of our country. And that's just a way of trying to divert attention to something that's total bullshit. OK.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TREENE: Total BS is what he said, swearing in the Oval Office. Of course, Tim Cook of Apple was there as well. So it shows you where where the president is on all of this.

But yes, I mean, look, after we reported that meeting, I talked to a lot of people again, a lot of the officials in the White House, people who are familiar with what was happening at that meeting, telling us that because of the intensive media scrutiny around it, it was likely that it was going to get moved or rescheduled, maybe change locations. And so that's appears what to have happened.

But again, I think the important thing to keep in mind is that all of this comes as we could potentially see them release more information specifically on that Maxwell interview as early as this week -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Alayna, great reporting. Thank you so much -- John.

BERMAN: All right. With us now, CNN's David Chalian, CNN's Washington bureau chief and political director, and more importantly, my friend of more than 20 years, David, I want to go back to the tariffs into effect overnight because coming at this time, it's really this huge pivot point. You've had one of the worst jobs reports in years last week, massive changes to the world economy with these tariffs.

In a way, it's the president, you know, pushing everything into the table, going all in on the economy. This is a huge bet on what is now irrefutably the Trump economy.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF AND POLITICAL DIRECTOR: No doubt about it, John, and it is a huge bet. And now, now that this is going to place, we're at the point where we're going to start seeing whether or not this bet that Trump has made pays off or not. I think the entire Trump presidency here sort of rests on this project.

We know it's the number one issue for voters and we know it's also one of his longest held beliefs of his entire career, even prior to being a politician. This has been a part of Trump's ethos that thinking that America was sort of being screwed in the marketplace by other countries, as you noted earlier, which I think is so smart, is, of course, these tariffs aren't paid by the other countries. These tariffs are paid by the American companies importing them.

And then how much they pass on to the consumer will determine the success or failure of this, because, as you know, more than anything else, Trump was really elected in this moment of inflation where Americans were exhausted by cost increases. And so if indeed he is not seen as bringing down costs but actually rising costs or causing turbulence to the economy, that could spell real trouble for his party.

BERMAN: Let's stick on the subject going all in, because to an extent, that's what may happen with Russia and the war in Ukraine. If there actually is a meeting in the next week, few weeks between President Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin, that's really, once again, putting all your chips on the table on moving toward ending the war there, a huge risk if nothing comes from a face-to-face meeting with Vladimir Putin.

CHALIAN: Yes, and we know from reporting that the inability, it seems thus far in these first 200 days of the Trump administration to move the Russia-Ukraine war to a different place, that has been a source of real frustration for President Trump. We know rhetorically on the campaign trail last year, he said he was going to solve it on day one and this would be done. Clearly, that hasn't happened as we're now in day 200.

But my question is, what has fundamentally changed to cause this to be the moment where you say he's putting all the chips in, going mano a mano, face to face with Vladimir Putin and thinking he's going to come out of that with a path, perhaps, to the end of this war? I don't think that's clear right now, which raises the stakes of the meeting, as you note, because if he comes out sort of empty handed, that could be a problem. Now, if he comes out with a path towards some sort of off-ramp here to this, you know, three and a half year long conflict, that could be a great kudos to the president.

BERMAN: Sure, high risk, high reward with that to be sure. David, a circle back to the economy, which may be, you say he could be staking his entire presidency on these tariffs and other things right now. It comes at a time where, to an extent, he may be trying to control the metrics by which it is judged, replacing the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

And we learned just a few minutes ago that he ordered a new census. Now, I haven't had time to dig in too much of it because we've been talking about Little Debbie a lot. But the implications here are potentially huge, right?

A mid-decade census. We just had one, a mid-decade census, which then could in theory reshape congressional districts. He would have his own people doing the counting here.

How could that control things?

[08:15:00]

CHALIAN: Yes, well, it seems that one of his goals here is to not count undocumented immigrants in the country as part of the census. That obviously would have huge reverberations just because these numbers, which currently count all residents irrespective of immigration status. They impact every single thing, as you know, that the government does in aiding Americans and in programs across the country. If the count is different, that's going to alter how government serves the people no matter their immigration status. Now, he is suggesting, which I'm not quite understanding yet, so I

need to dig into it too. It's like going back to the 2024 election to inform this. I don't know how quickly you can stand up the decennial census and get an accurate count. Again, that impacts everything the government does in how it serves the country.

BERMAN: Yes, again, we all need to learn a lot more on this. It has huge implications potentially. David Chalian, great to see you this morning. Thank you very much.

CHALIAN: Thanks, John.

BERMAN: We've got new details about the army sergeant accused of shooting five people at Fort Stewart and why he may have been seeking to transfer out of the unit.

Vice President J.D. Vance headed to Indiana today. This is part of the effort to reshape congressional maps around the country.

Federal agents hiding in rental trucks for an immigration raid -- immigration raid dubbed Operation Trojan Horse. New information about this.

[08:20:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: There are new images out this morning of the active duty army sergeant currently in custody now accused of shooting five fellow soldiers at Fort Stewart in Georgia. The commanding general at Fort Stewart is praising the soldiers who tackled and stopped this man, 28- year-old Sergeant Quornelius Radford, after he shot his fellow soldiers. Authorities say that he had -- he had a disagreement with one of them, one of the victims just the day before. All five of the shooting victims are said to be in stable condition today.

And this morning, The New York Times has some new reporting that Sergeant Radford's father told them -- they spoke to his father -- that his son was seeking a transfer off of the base and that he had complained to his family of racism on the base.

Joining me right now, CNN senior national security analyst Juliette Kayyem. It's good to see you, Juliette.

This this is a unique scenario, much more to be learned exactly what all happened. And of course, then the search for motivation and and so on. But this was not a security breach, per se, right? I mean, so how -- what is to be learned from something like this?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: You're exactly right. Just the way we think about this is different because you didn't have a sort of a perimeter breach and therefore the Pentagon doesn't really have to lean in on sort of securing these bases throughout the United States.

What you do have is a personal conflict and someone brought a gun in unlawfully. But because he was lawfully or legitimately on the base, it's very unlikely that he would have encountered an additional search. We just assume that people who are secure to get onto the base are are not going to bring handguns in this case to -- to kill and or shoot someone.

So this is going to have more to do with motive. What did the base know about his mental condition? What are these allegations of racism that he had told his father and assess whether there were hints or clues about him that may have avoided this this near tragedy is horrible for the victims. But fortunately, no one was killed.

BOLDUAN: Yes, and I was going to ask you kind of what are the open questions or issues that need to be -- that need to be figured out still?

KAYYEM: So, I mean, the first for me is is this question of sort of notice what what what did people know about him? There is this sort of outstanding DUI that occurs off the base. There's normally in these situations some sort of memorandum of understanding that the that the jurisdiction that has arrested him would notify the base or that there would be some sort of notice so that the base would know that one of their soldiers in this case had had this criminal record or at least a violation.

You do that because obviously things that happen off the base are relevant to discipline, to what we expect of our soldiers, what we expect in the military. And so you often have that connection. It looks like that did not happen.

And whether it's relevant, we don't know at this stage because we simply don't know the nature of the conflict.

The second is (INAUDIBLE) numbers, there have been not -- there have been about half a dozen mass shootings on military basis in the last 10 years or so, Fort Hood, Washington Navy Yard, Chattanooga, the Pensacola, Pearl Harbor.

So it's not that these are common, but they are significant enough that the Pentagon should take a look at a number of factors that may be playing into what into this, whether it's perimeter breaches, which has happened in some cases. But in most cases, it is someone who had lawful access to the base and then used it for a mass shooting.

BOLDUAN: Juliette, it's great to see you. Thank you so much -- John.

BERMAN: All right, new this morning, the Department of Veterans Affairs has ended contracts with several government unions. The department says the decision is in response to an executive order the president signed in March that nicked collective bargaining rights for many federal workers in the name of national security. Five major unions were notified their contracts were being terminated, including the American Federation of Government Employees and the National Nurses Organizing Committee, the largest union of registered nurses in the country.

[08:25:00] Some contracts already in place will remain, including those covering 4,000 V.A. police officers, firefighters and security guards.

We're standing by for a decision from the Texas Supreme Court after Governor Greg Abbott asked for a key Democrat to be removed from office for trying to stall redistricting efforts there.

And inside what is being called a "narco superhighway," the brutal cocaine trafficking network.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: Breaking news, President Trump just ordered a new census right in the middle of the decade. The Constitution calls for one every 10 years. We've already had one this decade.

It could be this is tied to -- tied to his efforts to redistrict in states so Republicans can maintain their congressional majority. Today, Vice President J.D. Vance going to Indiana. Their delegation is seven Republicans, two Democrats. Some Republicans think they can make that nine to zero.

In Texas, the governor has asked the state Supreme Court to rule by tonight if they can kick from office, remove from office the Democrats who fled the state to block the redistricting vote. Let's get right to CNN's Ed Lavandera for the latest there.

Good morning, Ed.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good morning, John, what we are seeing here or what we will see over the next couple of days is the unprecedented escalation in the on the legal fight in this quorum break. We've seen the governor of Texas request from the -- request of the Texas Supreme Court to rule on having Gene Wu.

[08:30:00]