Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Democratic-Run Cities Brace for Wave of Immigration Raids, Federal Crackdown; Bessent: Tariff Refunds Would Be Terrible for the Treasury; 6 Killed, Several Injured in Shooting Attack on Jerusalem Bus Stop. Aired 8:00-8:30a ET

Aired September 08, 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]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LINDA BRADLEY, MORRISTOWN, TN RESIDENT: The roast I used to get for $12, $15, $35. It's awful.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everything, you know, just keeps going up.

TONY MAYES, MORRISTOWN, TN RESIDENT: Well, it used to spend $40 a week. Now it's $140 or something like that. I just don't think it's going to go down for a long time. They're not concerned with people like us.

BRADLEY: They said these tariffs that they've got on, it's going to bring prices down. They're not. because it's going to have to charge more to make up for them having to pay to bring it in. And I just say everything's going downhill.

REEVE: Did you vote for Trump this last time?

BRADLEY: No, I didn't. I didn't see no choice of a good president. No choice I'm not choosing. Maybe we'll get somebody good in office, and it'll change. Not before I'm gone, though.

REEVE: (voice-over): For Southerland, she says she wants to keep the conversation positive, and to do that, she banned certain words from her Facebook page.

BROOKE SOUTHERLAND: The banned words, I can give you a list as long as it's my leg. Republican, Democrat, liberal, conservative, tariffs, Trump, Biden.

REEVE: So I was looking for videos kind of like yours on TikTok, and the nasty comment I saw the most And maybe that's just my algorithm was, well, this is what you voted for. You know, that's what you get. Did you get -- do you see stuff like that?

SOUTHERLAND: Yes, the politicians are politicians and they're doing a job. They're making money, but we are here together. We are real people and we need to help each other get through this, get through these hard times because they're not seeing us on a personal level, but we can see each other on a personal level. REEVE (voice-over): Elle Reeve, CNN, Morristown, Tennessee.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: We've got new reporting just in on what city is next in the president's immigration crackdown and what legal reaction some of these cities might take.

Breaking overnight, gunmen opened fire at a bus stop in Jerusalem, killing at least six people, injuring several others. We are live on the scene.

And we've got new reporting just in on a fatal stabbing on a North Carolina train, reporting about the suspect and the victim who had arrived from war-torn Ukraine.

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

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: More ICE raids are coming, possibly to a city near you. That is the message today from President Trump and his team. Boston, the latest target where federal forces are ramping up immigration enforcement and operations. And the White House is laying it on pretty thick that Chicago is next. Protesters there took to the streets to push back against the coming crackdown.

Border Czar Tom Homan confirmed to CNN that it's not just rumors. He says there are plans to send federal immigration agents to Chicago and other so-called sanctuary cities this week.

President Trump's take? Well, he posted this, we'll show you. An AI generated apocalypse now inspired image with that message: Chicago is about to find out why it's called the Department of War.

The president later tried to pull back on that war rhetoric and pull that threat back as well, saying that he's not -- he actually did not mean essentially what he wrote. And then he said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Chicago is a very dangerous place and we have a governor that doesn't care about crime, I guess. We could solve Chicago very quickly, but we're going to make a decision as to where we go over the next day or two.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: CNN's Priscilla Alvarez tracking all of this for us and Priscilla. It has been kind of a combination of rumor and then implementation. What is known right now about what is coming this week?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kate, what I can tell you from talking to my sources is that the escalating rhetoric matches the more aggressive agenda that the administration wants to take. And it's not out of the blue. In fact, internally, there have been discussions about targeting Chicago, Boston, as well as other Democratic-led cities because of their so-called sanctuary policies.

Now, these policies don't have a clear definition. They change according to city. But generally speaking, it is limiting the cooperation of local police with federal immigration authorities. And that is something that we have heard multiple times from senior Trump officials criticize those policies and say that it hampers their ability to arrest who they call the worst of the worst.

But here is something else that's been happening over the last several weeks. There have been arrests in these cities, but what is happening now is more of an expanded operation in places like Chicago and Boston.

[08:05:00]

My sources call this, for example, the Los Angeles playbook, what we saw play out there happening in other cities as well, where you see more of that federal presence as they try to arrest undocumented immigrants.

Now, White House Border Czar Tom Homan said that the president's words about war, or the comments that you just played there, were taken out of context. Here is how he described it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOM HOMAN, WHITE HOUSE BORDER CZAR: I said we're going to war, we're going to war with the criminal cartels. We're going to war with illegal aliens, public safety threats that raped children, that raped citizens, that committed armed robberies, that distribute narcotics that kill Americans.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALVAREZ: So that is the White House border czar sort of explaining what the administration is doing here. It is true that they have arrested criminals, people with serious convictions. What's also true, Kate, is that they have arrested people who have immigration violations but don't have criminal records. And that is where this can get dicey, is who exactly are they arresting when they do these raids. And that is something that the data will bear out in the weeks to come, but for now it is about the rhetoric and about making their presence known in these cities that they have often criticized and sued.

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

BERMAN: With us now, CNN's senior legal analyst Elie Honig, author of a brand-new book titled When You Come at the King, which is out very shortly, so get your hands on that. In the meantime, Elie, I do want to ask you about the immigration situation. I just drove through Massachusetts yesterday. Obviously, the mayor of Boston, the governor, they're very upset about the enhanced immigration raids there, but what actual recourse do they have other than expressing addressing their anger. ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: So not a lot, John. I know that the mayor of Boston has suggested there might be a lawsuit seeking to stop some of what ICE is doing, but there's really nothing that state and local authorities can do legally to prevent a federal law enforcement agent like ICE from doing its business.

ICE, like the FBI or ATF or DEA, has essentially nationwide jurisdiction. And there's no legal way that the mayor of Boston, for example, can stop ICE from coming into Boston and making immigration arrests. Any more than they could stop DEA from coming into Boston and making drug arrests. So I understand there's political issues here and issues about public safety, but, legally, there's really very little that the locals can do.

BERMAN: So the flip side of that is that we had this federal judge in California, Judge Charles Breyer, issued this ruling, which said that the president's use of the National Guard in California overstepped his authority, was illegal. How does that case -- I guess, how could that case impact the president's use of the Guard elsewhere in the country?

HONIG: Yes, so there's a really important distinction here between federal law enforcement agencies on the one hand, and all the agencies I just named, ICE, FBI, DEA would fall into that bucket. That, with respect to those agencies, the feds can do essentially whatever they want.

Separately -- and this is the Judge Breyer decision -- there's the question of deployment of the National Guard. Now, what Judge Breyer's ruling out in California in federal court said is, You cannot use the military, including the National Guard, to conduct civilian law enforcement operations or really even to go out into the field and provide support and perimeters for law enforcement operations.

So I think we certainly are going to see that decision appealed. It has been appealed up to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. But if and when Donald Trump tries to send the National Guard into other cities, look at some of those cities to point to Judge Breyer's ruling and saying there's very little that the National Guard can do other than sort of passively protect federal assets.

BERMAN: To what extent, Elie, though, is there a timing gap here? Could the president do it and then wait for a judge to weigh in and then pull the troops back? Or will that legal ruling perhaps keep it from ever sending the troops in in the first place?

HONIG: Yes, Donald Trump has shown that he's going to be aggressive when it comes to deploying the National Guard. He's going to put them out on the streets first and then wait to be stopped by the courts later. And in fact, even if there's a ruling against Donald Trump, Judge Breyer's ruling was made last week. Often that will get put on hold pending appeal. In fact, Judge Breyer put his own ruling on hold until the end of this week. So it's one thing to get a ruling that sort of limits what the National Guard can do in the streets. It's another thing for that ruling, and it takes some time, you're right, for that ruling to actually take effect. BERMAN: Counselor, Elie Honig, great to see you. Thank you very much -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: So, what's the Supreme Court going to do about President Trump's tariffs? It's a big question. And will their decision put the government on the hook to pay out billions of dollars?

And South Korea's foreign minister is heading to the United States after that massive immigration raid in Georgia, a deal in the works to bring home the more than 300 workers that ICE now has in custody.

And Florida's Surgeon General, standing firm on his push to do away with all vaccine mandates in the state, we're going to talk about the possible impact with the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

[08:10:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: New this morning, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is warning the U.S. could be forced to issue billions of dollars worth of refunds if the administration loses its tariff case with the Supreme Court.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCOTT BESSENT, TREASURY SECRETARY: I am confident that we will win at the Supreme Court, but there are numerous other avenues that we can take. They diminish President Trump's negotiating position.

Though we would have to give a refund on about half the tariffs, which would be terrible for the Treasury.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And you're prepared to give those refunds?

BESSENT: Well, I mean, there's no be prepared. If the court says it, we'd have to do it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: That's what went on here is appeals court ruled that the president overstepped his legal authority by citing emergency powers to institute a huge portion of his tariffs. We think it's actually more than 50 percent of the revenue comes from these tariffs that quite possibly were issued outside of legal bounds, depending on what the Supreme Court says.

[08:15:00]

With us now, Madison Mills, senior Marcus reporter for Axios. We always love having you here. Maddie, thanks so much for coming in. So this is tens of billions of dollars worth of refunds that the Treasury might have to just cough up. But who gets them? Is this the type of thing if we had to pay more for goods the last couple of months, we're going to get a check? MADISON MILLS, SENIOR MARKETS REPORTER, AXIOS: Of course not, right? And this is the thing that I keep getting e-mailed about from our readers at Axios. They keep saying, OK, you guys are reporting that this could be up to $90 billion in rebates for companies, but public companies aren't necessarily going to be required to give that money back to consumers.

And also we know that companies have been kind of raising prices sort of across the board in very different ways in order to make it more palatable for people to eat the cost of these tariffs. So it's not like if you bought a TV and the price went up, you know, $0.10 that could have been spread out across different things across the company would be incredibly difficult to track how to give an individual consumer a rebate. This is just going to be profit for companies. So good if you're invested in those companies, but not if you're just a consumer.

BERMAN: And bad for the U.S. Treasury. I mean, coughing up what could be, what, you know, 80, 60, 70, $80 billion at once. It's hard.

MILLS: Exactly, exactly.

BERMAN: I feel like economics reporters and investors right now are like kind of canceling vacations and sort of bracing themselves here because a lot of the numbers that have been coming in really set the stage for what could be a fascinating roller coaster fall. The employment numbers were bad, right?

MILLS: Yes.

BERMAN: I mean, the weakest jobs growth for eight months that we've seen since 2009, not counting the pandemic here, and it's pretty broad based across many sectors and demographics.

MILLS: And really, the only sector we've seen strengthen right now is health care, and it points to this kind of AI-ified economy where if you have a human to human job for now, you're somewhat safe. If you have a job where you're caring for our aging population, right? But Entry level workers, college kids really struggling to get work. A lot of those jobs that can be fairly easily replaced by AI.

And also at the same time when I talked to CEOs of public companies kind of off the record, they're getting so much pressure from their boards to prove that they're using AI that they can cut jobs because of AI, so they don't want to do a lot of hiring right now. That makes them look bad. It makes them look like they're not on top of this whole AI thing that makes them struggle with investors, struggle with their boards. So that's also preventing companies from the increased hiring. And then at the same time, you've got a slew of headwinds from tariffs to the interest rate volatility, to not knowing where the economy is heading.

BERMAN: Yes, Madison Mills, thank you. We have inflation numbers coming up this week, just to be clear.

MILLS: Yes, inflation numbers coming, and that could help us determine what the Fed's going to do in that September meeting, if it's 25 or 50 basis points.

BERMAN: All right, brace yourselves for that. After the jobs numbers, I think there's a lot of concern about what they may show. Nice to see you.

I'm going to look over here. OK, breaking overnight. Gunmen opened fire at a bus stop in Jerusalem. We are live at the scene.

And a political firestorm growing in North Carolina after a murder on a train. A Ukrainian refugee stabbed to death. We've got new details coming in.

[08:20:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: The breaking news we've been following since overnight. The death toll is rising after a shooting at a bus stop in Jerusalem. Israeli emergency services now say at least six people were killed, several others seriously wounded in this attack. Police -- Israeli police say this all started with two gunmen opening fire just after the morning rush hour.

CNN's Jeremy Diamond is tracking all of this for us from Jerusalem. And Jeremy, what's the very latest you're picking up?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kate, we just returned from the scene of this deadly attack. Israeli authorities are indeed calling it a terrorist attack. They say that two Palestinian gunmen opened fire on a very crowded bus station in Jerusalem.

When we arrived on the scene, we found shards of glass all over the floor, pools of blood still fresh on the pavement, and indeed cleanup crews in action there. I spoke with one paramedic on the scene who arrived just minutes after this attack actually took place, and he told me that when he arrived he found multiple bodies laying on the floor with bullet wounds, some bullet wounds to the head, some to the torso, just a really gruesome scene. And this paramedic had been on the scene of attacks before, but he said that this was the worst one that he himself had witnessed.

We also saw one of the buses that was at that stop when the gunman opened fire. There were bullet holes in the front windshield of that bus as well as on the side. And people still very much shaken up by what had just transpired.

The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, also arrived on the scene, offering his condolences to the victims, but perhaps most of all, he was there to deliver a message to Palestinian militant groups in the West Bank, vowing that Israel would initiate a very harsh response. And we have already begun to see at least the initial steps of that response, as Israeli security forces have been raiding several Palestinian villages in the West Bank, where they say these two Palestinian assailants originated from before they came to Jerusalem and carried out this attack. As we were leaving the scene, though, I can tell you, Kate, life was

very much getting back to normal as buses were once again arriving at that stop. That is something quite remarkable that we tend to see in Israel as people try and get back to life as usual, even just hours sometimes, after some of these attacks take place -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Yes, absolutely. Jeremy, thank you so much. Thank you for being there.

Still ahead for us, an admission from Florida's Surgeon General that they did not do any research on how many new cases of disease there could be before the decision to repeal vaccine mandates in the state.

[08:25:00]

And school buses by day, giant portable batteries by night. This morning, we introduce you to a mom who is bringing school buses into the 21st century.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: All right, bruising new jobs numbers show the weakest growth over eight months since 2009. That's besides the pandemic. The president's poll numbers are lagging on jobs, as you might imagine. Then again, they're lagging on a lot and have been for a while.

CNN chief data analyst Harry Enten is here. Sir, you see something of a pattern here.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN CHIEF DATA ANALYST: I do see something of a pattern. Sometimes we lose the forest for the trees, but I want to look at the forest, and it is one ugly duckling.

[08:30:00]