Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

ICE Hiding in Rental Trucks?; Putin-Trump Meeting?; Trump Administration Firing Senior FBI Officials. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired August 07, 2025 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Firings at the FBI. The White House gives two senior officials their walking papers. At issue, the administration's push to learn the names of agents who worked on cases related to the January 6 insurrection.

And going toe-to-toe. A meeting between Trump and Vladimir Putin could take place next week, but that's after a Friday deadline set by the White House for a deal to end the war in Ukraine.

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN HOST: And Operation Trojan Horse. Federal agents arresting immigrants outside a Home Depot provokes outrage and leads to new questions about the tactics used in the White House's immigration crackdown.

We're following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

KEILAR: Sources telling CNN the FBI is firing senior officials who seem to be at odds with the Trump administration.

We have CNN correspondent Katelyn Polantz who is following this story for us.

Tell us who's being fired here.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Well, Brianna, we're hearing a handful of people that are being fired by the Trump administration at the FBI.

But the main name, it's Brian Driscoll, the person who was the acting director of the FBI previously before Kash Patel was confirmed as the political appointee. And this is not just another one of these firings. The FBI is a very specific circumstance in this world of the Trump administration.

This is an agency where there has been a culture of fear and distrust with the Trump administration because early in the administration, when Brian Driscoll was the FBI acting director, the administration wanted the names of thousands of people that had worked on January 6 cases at the FBI. There was a lawsuit. There was a lot of fear of retaliation and there were some people who

were fired at the agency who the administration said, we need them to be fired because we believe they are part of weaponization. They can't be trusted in this administration.

And so this is all coming in the heels of that, seeing Brian Driscoll leave, someone who had gone to bat for people who were rank and file in the agency previously, and then we're hearing of some other leaders too. Someone named Steve Jensen, who was the acting director in charge of the Washington field office here, a person who just yesterday the U.S. attorney's office said he'd be at that press conference announcing, the indictment for the murder of those two Israeli Embassy staff members the indictment of the alleged perpetrator there.

Jensen, he was not at that press conference today. Someone asked about it. And the U.S. attorney, Jeanine Pirro, she dodged answering.

KEILAR: This was just part of their portfolio right? This is sort of a topic that comes with the assignment.

POLANTZ: Yes, that's one of the things that is very particular to the FBI. A lot of these agents are assigned to cases.

So the January 6 agents, people working on those cases, if they're being fired because they were working on those cases, it wasn't by their choice. They were assigned to those jobs. That was part of why Driscoll went to bat for so many of the people here. And so that is something to watch.

Is this another round of firings where the administration just wants to get rid of people they perceive as political opponents in their agency? And the other thing about the FBI is that the agents have very little recourse that other federal civil servants may have to challenge firings.

KEILAR: Very good point.

Katelyn, thank you for the reporting. We appreciate it -- Fred.

WHITFIELD: All right, Brianna, President Trump's tariff threats are now economic reality.

Major American trading partners are now facing punishing taxes on goods they sell to the U.S., and they are the highest in nearly 100 years now, since the Great Depression.

[13:05:07]

Today, the president is taking a victory lap, saying -- quote -- "Billions of dollars in tariffs are now flowing into the U.S."

But economists are warning that prices will rise on popular products, including alcohol, computers, Crocs and toys. By one estimate, it could cost the average American family $2,400 a year. Still, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is projecting the U.S. will be making big money from these higher tariffs. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HOWARD LUTNICK, U.S. COMMERCE SECRETARY: I think we're going to be heading towards $50 billion a month in tariff revenue that no one's talked about except for the president.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: With us now is Roben Farzad, business journalist and host of public radio's "Full Disclosure."

Great to see you.

So the president is touting that the U.S. took in $30 billion in July as a result of higher tariffs. So where does that money go, by the way, and how will it impact the American economy?

ROBEN FARZAD, HOST, "FULL DISCLOSURE": The White House is saying that that goes into paying down the deficit and the debt. And it sounds great, right? It's a win-win thing.

In reality, these costs are going to get passed down to consumers. Right now, a lot of these companies are waiting to see what their rivals, for example, Toyota versus GM and the others -- the foreign companies even have excess capacity here in the United States in places like Alabama and Tennessee. So they haven't fully passed down the cost yet.

So is it really a victory if you're effectively taxing the end customer in the United States for whatever reason, if it's paying down the deficit or going back into Treasury coffers? I think that really remains to be seen.

WHITFIELD: The Trump administration is also -- it's still negotiating with China and Mexico and has agreed to delay charging higher rates on merchandise from those two countries. Trump is charging some Canadian imports at 35 percent tax that took effect just last Friday, unless they are USMCA-compliant.

So what should consumers and U.S. businesses be bracing for? Because many have already said that it really is hard to plan ahead.

FARZAD: Yes, and I don't see a situation where reflexively -- they're saying this, and Lutnick said it and Trump said it. If you don't want to pay these tariffs, build here.

Well, that's far, far easier said than done. I mean, the supply chains took decades to refine. And things that you could take for granted that we get from Mexico, from Canada, from India, from Korea, agricultural goods from Brazil, you just don't replace those things overnight. And, moreover, the output of factories, even if -- the end goal here is presumably to get more factory jobs back in the United States.

But these factories have become better at automation. They churn out much more with fewer work forces, smaller work forces than they did in the '70s and '80s. So, meanwhile, if you -- step three is, these companies are saying, what if we just pay something and drag out the clock and wait for the next administration to come in?

There's always more than an even chance that these tariffs get pulled back.

WHITFIELD: So would the U.S. benefit from imposing higher tariffs on, say, China or India because of buying Russian oil? I mean, if Trump is trying to punish countries, so to speak, with secondary tariffs, while also pursuing trade deals with China and India, can he effectively use tariffs as both an economic weapon and foreign policy tool?

FARZAD: And a political tool, if you see what's happening in Brazil with Jair Bolsonaro, his political ally, effectively Brazilian MAGA.

He is slapping a punitive huge tariff on Brazil, which we trade quite a bit with, for the way it's been treating him in the judicial system. So this is a really slippery slope. I know that China and India have been really good at evading sanctions, whether in dealing with Iran, other players that the United States doesn't want to deal with.

You could put false flags on ships. It's brutally hard to find this. But you can put pressure on the companies that are close to Beijing, for example, quasi-state-owned companies, and make them cry uncle if they can't transact as neatly with American consumers, which, after all, the American consumer is the most coveted consumer at this point.

So I have not seen that work, especially if they're able to buy oil at a discount, and Putin and Iran and others are making it easier for them. You would have to enact a lot of pain on them for them to say, OK, we're not buying your oil anymore.

WHITFIELD: Right now, the Dow is down 300 points, just over 300 points, and already Americans are paying a bit more for some electronics, some produce, even clothes.

So what do you think the administration thinks is the pain threshold?

FARZAD: I think the pain threshold, frankly, is markets. And it doesn't help that stock markets recently hit an all-time record. Bond markets might call him in. He's waging this war against his own Federal Reserve appointee in Jerome Powell at the same time and saying that we need interest rate help.

[13:10:00]

That might also help him with the national debt. But this is almost like a circular firing squad. It's very hard to plan around interest rates. You saw beef on your visual, consumers -- grocery prices, auto prices, laptops, pharmaceuticals coming down the pike, because we import a ton of pharmaceuticals.

And you have not seen that yet at the Walgreens or CVS counter. So I think a lot of the pain remains to be felt.

WHITFIELD: Yes, so much for the prices coming down, at least immediately. We all remain hopeful.

All right, Roben Farzad, thank you so much -- Brianna.

KEILAR: A high-stakes meeting between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to be in the works. A top Kremlin aide says the two leaders will meet in the coming days.

Putin is suggesting that the United Arab Emirates is the location for the meeting. Yesterday, President Trump said there was a good chance he would meet with Putin following U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff's visit to Moscow.

Let's talk about this now with CNN national security analyst and former Deputy Director of National Intelligence Beth Sanner.

All right, first, you heard me describing that, Putin saying UAE. Trump's talking about the other, they're going to maybe meet. I mean, where are the details on this? Because there seem to be some gaps.

BETH SANNER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Yes.

So, and I think one of the latest things, not confirmed yet, is that -- out of the White House, some indication that President Trump is saying he will not have that bilateral meeting with Putin unless Putin agrees to the trilateral meeting with Zelenskyy, Putin and himself.

I actually think that that would be a very good deal for him to push and to hold his feet to the fire, Putin's feet to the fire, because, honestly, what pressure has and what penalty has been put on Russia? And I would say nothing.

If we walk out of this deal where the threat is a cease-fire on Friday or else, what is the or else? We haven't seen that. And or else right now is a bilateral meeting with President Trump. Wow, that is a complete win for Putin, and he will want to get out of the trilateral with Zelenskyy.

KEILAR: And that's very clear, because today he said he was open to the possibility of meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy if -- he's open if certain conditions are met...

SANNER: Yes.

KEILAR: ... which is really just kind of this roundabout way of saying like, no, I'm not going to meet with this guy. Explain why he's so resistant to meeting with Zelenskyy.

SANNER: Right, and so it begins, right? This is exactly what we expected.

Putin does not want to meet with Zelenskyy primarily because he doesn't think that Ukraine is an independent country.

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: It belittles him, in his eyes. SANNER: Oh, absolutely.

So if you recognize him -- Putin sees Zelenskyy as not part of a legitimate government. He is a neo-Nazi of a country that doesn't exist. That's literally part of Russia. That's what Putin thinks. So meeting with him would confer that great power status. Putin does not want that.

And so, for us, we think it is as a giveaway, a throwaway. But for Putin, it's actually a thing.

KEILAR: Totally.

SANNER: And he really wants to avoid it.

KEILAR: So who's got the upper hand going into these negotiations, Trump or Putin?

SANNER: I think Putin has the upper hand. He's been doing this for a long time, and he really knows how to manipulate people.

I do think that, look, this pressure on India, that's not pressure on Russia.

KEILAR: The secondary sanctions.

SANNER: Secondary tariffs.

KEILAR: Tariffs. That's right.

SANNER: Because -- tariffs. I know. It's so confusing, right?

Tariffs are paid by the American consumer, right? This is not a penalty on Russia. And India, Modi is going to be meeting with Xi at the end of this month and going to China for the first time in seven years. I do not think that Modi is going to give on this. If we really want to punish Russia, we sanction the shadow fleet.

And if we wanted to punish them regarding India, we put secondary sanctions on those refineries.

KEILAR: OK, so if these discussions -- one, if they happen, if they happen and they yield nothing...

SANNER: Yes.

KEILAR: ... what are President Trump's options and how much of these negotiations are going to be Putin trying to kind of construct this sense of Trump getting something, when really he's not?

SANNER: Yes.

Well, I mean, and he wants and Trump wants it to look like he is making progress. He wants to make progress, right? So I think that he will want to see these things as being very positive. But Putin is going to try to flip the -- trying to flip Zelenskyy on the other side, right?

Zelenskyy right now is getting closer to Trump. But I think that this meeting has a great danger for Ukraine, especially if there's no one else in the room, that Putin could get a rerun almost of that Oval Office meeting where Trump ends up telling Zelenskyy, you have no cards and you have to agree to a deal that takes a lot away from Ukraine.

[13:15:06]

KEILAR: That's a really interesting image to think of.

Beth Sanner, thank you. Really appreciate your insights.

And still ahead: outrage after federal agents use a Penske truck to raid a Home Depot in L.A. What we know about this operation dubbed Trojan Horse.

WHITFIELD: Plus, we hear from the heroes. CNN talks to two of the soldiers who raced to the rescue during the shooting at Fort Stewart in Georgia.

And we know too much screen time is not good for kids, but how do you convince them to ditch those phones and screens? The experts asked them.

Stay with CNN NEWS CENTRAL. We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:20:12]

KEILAR: Growing outrage in Los Angeles after cell phone video captured Border Patrol agents hiding in the back of a rental truck before arresting more than a dozen migrants in what federal officials are calling Operation Trojan Horse.

This raid comes less than a week after an appeals court upheld a lower court ruling that blocks the Trump administration from indiscriminately making immigration stops and arrests.

CNN's Priscilla Alvarez is with us now.

And, Priscilla, what more do we know about this raid?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we're getting more details from the Department of Homeland Security as to what unfolded.

And what they say is that Border Patrol conducted what they're calling a targeted raid, where they arrested 16 undocumented immigrants from various nationalities. Now, what we're seeing in the video is Border Patrol agents getting onto a Penske truck and then, when they arrived to their destination, which was a Home Depot parking lot in Los Angeles, that opens up and they spread out and make those arrests.

And it is there where there has been pushback from local officials about the court order that is in place blocking the administration from making indiscriminate arrests, because, if you see the video not only of them loading, but then unloading, it looks like they fan out across this parking lot.

And that is exactly what the mayor was criticizing in her statements yesterday. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAREN BASS (D), MAYOR OF LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: It is hard for me to believe that 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)

ALVAREZ: Now, remember, Los Angeles has been the epicenter of this aggressive immigration enforcement campaign the Trump administration has launched.

But they're not only getting pushback from the mayor. They're also getting it from the company of that moving truck, the Penske -- Penske saying that they strictly prohibit the transportation of people into the cargo area of its vehicles under any circumstances.

They go on to say they were not made aware that its trucks would be used in today's operation and does not authorize this. So, there hasn't been responses to that so far, but certainly what this shows is that continued immigration enforcement operation unfolding in Los Angeles with Border Patrol agents who have been on the ground there in bigger numbers over the last several weeks.

KEILAR: And then ICE is trying to recruit, right, in big numbers. This is a big priority for the Trump administration. But you actually have some law enforcement officials specifically in Florida that are taking issue with these recruitment efforts? What can you tell us?

ALVAREZ: Yes, major, major push happening right now by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to add on thousands more personnel after they got that money from Congress, but it's not rubbing everyone the right way.

And our colleague Michael Williams spoke to some of those law enforcement officials in Florida, a state that has been so closely tied to this administration when it comes to immigration enforcement. But what they're not pleased about is that ICE is trying to pluck their own law enforcement officers to join the ranks of this federal agency.

They -- I will quote you here Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd, who called this -- quote -- "biting the hand that's feeding you," going on to say it's -- quote -- "not professional. It's bush league work, is what it is."

Here's the thing with hand that's feeding you. Florida has been arresting a lot of undocumented immigrants. They also set up that Alligator Alcatraz facility, detention facility, for migrants. They have been rapidly picking up people. I have been hearing that from my sources on the ground there.

So for ICE to come in and to try to pluck some of their own federal law enforcement agents, it's just not going to sit well with them. But this is a push that we're seeing not only in Florida, but across the country, because one of the incentives for the administration -- and I have talked to the White House border czar about this -- is that, if they can get law enforcement, they can cut down the training.

They can bring them online much faster. And so that is why it is so appealing to them to not only recruit people across the country, but to specifically get those law enforcement agents that don't have to go through the weeks-long training in Georgia.

KEILAR: Sure. Then you have to train up law enforcement to replace the people they're plucking, obviously.

Priscilla, great reporting. Thank you so much.

Still ahead: What will it take to get kids off of their phones? Here's an idea. Let's ask them. What a group of experts just found out after talking to hundreds of children about all that screen time.

And today is about to be a good day. Hip-hop icon Ice Cube joins the show to talk about his new tour, his basketball league, and the, shall we say, harsh critical response to his new movie?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:29:20]

WHITFIELD: All right, an eye-opening new report from the CDC today shedding more light on America's addiction to ultra-processed foods.

It says they make up more than half of the calories consumed by U.S. adults. The study looked at a two-year period ending in August of 2023 and found that children are even more reliant on ultra-processed foods. They get about 62 percent of their calories from them, on average. That's down from a study done four years earlier, but still considered too high.

Ultra-processed foods are typically high in calories, sugar and sodium, and they have been linked to weight gain and chronic conditions, including cancer and type 2 diabetes.

KEILAR: And, also, most parents worry about something else, which is that their kids spend too much time online. But they're finding it difficult to peel them away from the screen.