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Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) Says She Will Not Support Blanche's A.G. Nomination; Trump Tries Again to Curb Birthright Citizenship, Birth Tourism; Today, July Jobs Report Released at 8:30 A.M. Aired 7- 7:30a ET

Aired August 07, 2026 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking just moments ago, a key Republican senator comes out against Todd Blanche's attorney general. His nomination now hangs in the balance. One more Republican no could sink him. The latest intelligence on where things stand.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: President Trump trying again, issuing a new executive order to limit birthright citizenship despite the Supreme Court just weeks ago ruling to protect that constitutional right. What's inside this new order and how it squares with the law? We'll discuss.

Also, from calm to chaos in the blink of an eye, insane video showing the moment an earthquake struck a hospital in Japan in the middle of a surgery. What these amazing healthcare workers did.

Kate is off today. I'm Sara Sidner with John Berman. This is Friday, thank goodness. It is also CNN News Central.

BERMAN: All right. Breaking news just moments ago, the chances that Todd Blanche will be confirmed as attorney general just shrunk, or at a minimum, the path got more narrow. Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski just announced she will not support his nomination.

A few minutes ago, she posted, quote, I have had numerous constructive meetings with Mr. Blanche, and he comes across as decent and capable. Ultimately, however, I will oppose his nomination. The country needs an attorney general who will check the worst impulses of this administration. I hope Mr. Blanche is able to achieve that if confirmed, but I simply do not have confidence that will be the case.

Now, Senator Susan Collins also says she will oppose the nomination. Now, the question becomes could Mitch McConnell vote if he had to? That seems unlikely, which leaves a single Republican senator who seems to control the outcome here.

Let's get right to CNN's Alayna Treene at the White House for this latest development, this latest sort of headcount.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Exactly. Todd Blanche's nomination to be attorney general, John, is now on the brink with this no from Senator Lisa Murkowski. I want to get a little bit more into what she said in a statement released just moments ago.

She said that she did not believe that Blanche, who has been serving of course as acting attorney general ever since the president had ousted his former attorney general. And she said that she did not believe that he would act to rein in the president and reverse what she called, quote, politicization, even weaponization of the Justice Department, something she argued has accelerated under President Donald Trump.

Now, really, Blanche's fate is going to be up to Senator Bill Cassidy, absent, as you mentioned, a kind of miraculous return from Senator Mitch McConnell, who has been having some health issues recently and has been out of the Senate.

I'd remind you just how tall an order it might be to get Cassidy on board. He is someone who has been very vocal in some of his opposition to the president ever since Trump worked to oust him from his Senate seat. So, these two men have been really, you know, butting heads for some time now, and really have a very sour relationship. So, we'll have to see whether or not they can get Cassidy on board.

I'd note that Cassidy and Murkowski both met with Blanche earlier this week on Wednesday afternoon. Unclear, though, what Cassidy is going to do at this point.

I will say we did hear from the president yesterday, or today, the interview was released. He was interviewed, though, by Punchbowl News yesterday, where he talked a little bit about this and really saying that he believes it's important for Blanche to get through. Listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: All I can say is that he's a great gentleman. He's a great person. He's great at what he does. Everybody agrees with that. People think he's incredible. If they don't agree to do what they should do, it'd be very sad. And we'll all survive. Todd will survive.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You'll keep him in as acting --

TRUMP: Yes, sure, he'll be acting. But why should he be acting when -- and, you know, if he was a marginal -- everybody agrees he's fantastic. He's great. He's fair. He's a fair guy, not a radical flamethrower. Yes, he's going to be acting and, you know, we'll try it again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TREENE: So, look, this is important because if his confirmation vote fails, John, the president's saying he still will remain acting and keep him in the role.

[07:05:06] But this is something that has been very important to this White House and the president particularly, wanting to get him, Blanche, confirmed into the role permanently. That's why you saw over the weekend Blanche come out and put in writing that they were withdrawing the $1.8 billion weaponization fund that the president has continued to believe in, something that was very controversial.

And, you know, essentially, that move to withdraw it got other senators, people like Senator John Cornyn, Senator Thom Tillis, other people that the president has also pushed to oust from the Senate, got them on board with his vote. Again, very unclear though what is going to happen now and whether or not Cassidy will actually get there and confirm Blanche.

So, we'll be watching very closely any statements from him today.

BERMAN: Alayna Treene, we appreciate you scrambling to the cameras with this breaking news, which came out just a few minutes ago. Thank you very much for being with us this morning. Sara?

SIDNER: All right. Thank you, John.

This morning, President Trump taking another crack at trying to limit birthright citizenship as we know it. This comes just after weeks after the Supreme Court smacked down his original attempt to curb the constitutional right. The president is trying a way around it, signing two executive orders limiting the number of people who are eligible for the 14th Amendment and cracking down on what he calls birth tourism.

Joining me now is CNN legal analyst Joey Jackson. Can he do this? I mean, I guess that's the big question that everyone is wondering, because the Supreme Court literally just weighed in their last session.

JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: So, they did. Good morning to you, Sara. And it would appear, because of the Supreme Court's ruling just last session, just, you know, a month ago that he cannot do it, it appears that way, but there are issues, and let me talk about why.

First of all, I think the Supreme Court was very clear in their birth citizenship that anybody born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof is a citizen. What's the significance of that language? It's pulled from the 14th Amendment, and it basically means if you're born on U.S. soil, as the Supreme Court noted, holding 125 years' worth of precedent valid, it says you're good. Why? You're subject to the jurisdiction. You're subject to arrest. You're paying taxes.

We know that there are certain exceptions to that, of course, involving foreign diplomats involving, you know, foreign ships, et cetera. But it appears that in their frustration, they are trying to crack this anew.

Now, here's why I think they could have problems, but here's why I think it could advance. Let me explain. SIDNER: Now, you're taking us on a road trip. Go ahead, Joey.

JACKSON: Well, here's the issue. The Supreme Court seemed to not be involved with the intent of the parents, right? If you look at these executive orders, they're designed at focusing on the fraudulent nature of the parents, right? Whittling down, expanding various exceptions that exist, but talking about, hey, are you coming here and you're pregnant for purposes of just trying to have a baby that's a citizen, right? We're not going to allow you in.

So, if you look at the whole issue, syndicates, right, who are really propagating and coordinating people to come here and give birth so they can be citizens. The Supreme Court was pretty clear that the intent of the parent was not relevant. It's whether the child was born here.

Now, the thing that is of concerning is I was one who believed that this birthright citizenship case would be a unanimous decision.

SIDNER: Right.

JACKSON: It wasn't. It was 6-3, and so there were three conservatives who agreed with the proposition. And so if the president is narrowing, narrowing, narrowing, do you get an appeal to those other conservatives who say, I think there's something here, maybe we expand it. But the court was very clear that this is not to be done.

SIDNER: And if that happened, of course, it doesn't just go directly to the Supreme Court. It usually has to go through some court, someone has to challenge it, et cetera, et cetera, then the Supreme Court would pick it up. But what you're saying is there is a potential path to going back, potentially, through the court system because these seem to contradict what the Supreme Court said.

JACKSON: It seems that way, Sara, and it's concerning. And, yes, it would have to be challenged, et cetera, before it ultimately got back to the Supreme Court, but it just -- and because the Court said, look, you know, executive action cannot do this, right? We don't have kings, we have a system, and the system worked because those who interpret the law, right, essentially, you have the Supreme Court of the United States who interprets the law, said you can't do it.

But the fact that it was 6-3, and the fact that this is a narrowing and it's focused on those terrorists, who have one parent who's involved in a terrorist organization, those pregnant women who are coming here to have birth you know, you kind of wonder whether this appeals enough, if it gets there, to the other members to have, of the Supreme Court, to have them say, hey, you know what? Maybe this is right for presidential action.

SIDNER: We will have to wait and see. Joey Jackson, it is Friday. Thank you. Thank goodness. And thanks for explaining all that to us. I appreciate it.

JACKSON: A pleasure. Thank you.

SIDNER: John?

BERMAN: All right, Congressman Max Miller with a new move to try to save his campaign in the face of domestic abuse allegations, which he denies, vowing to pour a million dollars of his own money into the race.

[07:10:03]

This as there are new calls from elected officials for him to drop out.

For the first time, A.I. AI creates brand new viruses. How excited or terrified should you be?

And then a dramatic police chase for a suspected repeat hit and run driver comes to an end, but you can see there, it wasn't easy.

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BERMAN: All right. We are standing by for the brand-new jobs report out in just a little bit, which looks backwards at July, but could be a key sign for where things are headed into the fall.

CNN Senior Reporter David Goldman is with me now. What are we expecting?

DAVID GOLDMAN, CNN BUSINESS SENIOR REPORTER: Yes, we're kind of in the extra innings of this jobs expansion, and it, you know, it's gone back and forth. But right now we're in the lead.

And, you know, we've seen these jobs numbers kind of, you know, around 50,000 and then 100,000, we're expecting 90,000, that's pretty good.

[07:10:03]

It's not great, but it's fine. And --

BERMAN: In this new normal it's pretty good. It's fine.

GOLDMAN: This is the new normal, exactly. Remember just a few years ago, a good month was 200,000 jobs, 300,000 jobs. And so now we're kind of in this world where it's, there's not a lot of hiring, but there's not a lot of firing. In fact, in the last week, we had the lowest number of jobless claims since 1969.

BERMAN: Which is good.

GOLDMAN: That's good news. We'd like to see a little bit more hiring, and we want to see it a little bit more diverse than we've seen it. Most of it has come from the healthcare sector. We want to see it from other places as well.

So, there's a lot of things that we'll be looking at today, in addition to the unemployment rate, in addition to the number of jobs that we're looking at, one of the things that we really want to see, wage growth, right? Because we're in this sort of period where inflation is kind of high, 3.5 percent, wage growth is also at 3.5 percent. You want that number to be a little bit higher so that our paychecks are growing too.

BERMAN: Yes, I'd like to see some wage growth.

GOLDMAN: That would be good.

BERMAN: Yes. I don't think anyone's against wage growth.

I will say this, David Goldman, the Red Sox went into extra innings last night. I'm sorry, I'm taking this moment. We're both Red Sox fans here. This game was crazy.

GOLDMAN: It was unbelievable. I kept falling asleep and then waking up to they scored again. And so, you know, I think we're in good shape. Eight wins in a row, I'll take it. They were down, like, eight different times in this game and still won, but they're going to kill me.

Thank you, David Goldman.

This morning, the devastating wildfires in Spokane, prosecutors now say a man admitted to starting one, and that's not the only one that they say he claimed responsibility for.

And then breaking this morning, new details coming in from a deadly school shooting overseas. We're hearing at least six people have been killed.

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[07:20:00]

SIDNER: New details this morning on those wildfires that have charred thousands of acres across Washington State and destroyed hundreds of homes. Prosecutors say the suspect in one of the wildfires devastating the Spokane area right now has admitted he ignited it. Investigators say he told them he also set more than two dozen other fires in the past year. He is now charged with multiple counts of arson.

Today, challenging fire weather returns to the Pacific Northwest, as if they don't have enough problems with high wind gusts, and the temperatures are rising.

CNN Meteorologist Allison Chinchar joining me now. How hot is it going to get? How strong are these winds? Those two things can make huge differences in trying to batten down this fire.

ALLISON CHINCHAR, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes. The temperatures have been high the last couple of days, but it's really those winds. That's where we're going to see the greatest threat really in the next 24 to 48 hours. It's also why you have that elevated fire weather of concern for not just Washington, but really much of the Western U.S. where you're going to see those very dry conditions, those increasing winds, and yes, the temperatures that are above average. It's also why you have a lot of the red flag warnings because those three things combined make for those ideal fire conditions, and that does include the area in and around Spokane where we've had those very three big fires recently that we've been keeping a close eye on.

We talk about the temperatures too. Now, the average in Spokane this time of year is roughly about 86 degrees. But all of the next three days, you're going to see that high temperature in the 90s. So, you're looking at anywhere from five to ten degrees above average, and they're not alone. Again, Seattle, Portland, Boise, Casper, Billings, I mean, look at all of these places looking at those temperatures above average.

Now, the Pacific Northwest, by the time we get to Sunday, you're going to start to see things coming back down, but not in the next 48 hours. The other thing that's of importance in the next 48 hours are the winds. We're going to gradually start to see those ticking back up to about 20 to 25 miles per hour. That may not sound like all that much, but that is more than enough to take those embers that are already out there and spread them very quickly and very far.

And it's not just that the winds are expected to be high today, but also even as we go into Saturday. So, this is going to be a two-day concern for a lot of those fire crews that are out there. And, again, this is the threat now for Saturday. So, again, you can still see that elevated fire risk even going into the weekend.

One thing to note though, the smoke is going to start to change directions as that wind increases, so places like Seattle and Portland may actually get a brief break from the smoke.

SIDNER: At least someone's getting a break from that. Those conditions are really hard.

Thank you so much, Allison Chinchar. I do appreciate it.

All right, ahead, a medical breakthrough or a huge security concern. Get this, A.I. created 16 new viruses that are not found in nature. Who could think that would be a problem? We'll discuss coming up.

And a wild wing walker stunt lands a 97-year-old woman in the Guinness World Record book. Guess who she beat out to win this?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:25:00]

BERMAN: All right. The breaking news, Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski says she will not support the nomination of Todd Blanche to be attorney general, which puts the chances of his confirmation in jeopardy. She says the country needs an attorney general who will check the worst impulses, her words, of the administration, and she does not have the confidence Blanche will do that.

Now, we're standing by to hear what President Trump might have to say about this morning. He did just sit down with Punchbowl News for a wide-ranging interview, and he spoke in ways that I really haven't heard before about Republican chances in the midterms. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: If I don't run, will those people go out and vote? And that's the one thing I can't tell. I'm going to ask them to, but I'm just watching guys like you, and you're very talented people. The question is, will they vote? Because a lot of them are very angry at Republicans, to be honest with you. They're angry at --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why is that?

TRUMP: I don't know. I mean, they're angry at Republicans, but they're not angry at me.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's an interesting thing. Why though?

TRUMP: They're not angry at me, but they are angry at Republicans.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: With us now from Punchbowl News Senior Congressional Reporter Andrew Desiderio. Andrew, they're angry at Republicans. That in and of itself is a fascinating line, but they're not angry at me, equally fascinating, and also, by the way, judging by his approval ratings, not true. So, what do you think about that statement?

ANDREW DESIDERIO, SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, PUNCHBOWL NEWS: Yes. Well, look, my, my colleague Jake Sherman, you heard him there asked the president why he thinks that and the president said he doesn't know. The president is contributing to that sense, right? I mean, the ways in which he goes after John Thune, for example, and Senate Republicans for, for example, not getting rid of the filibuster or not passing the Save America Act.

You know, Senator John Cornyn, who obviously the president helped oust in his primary by endorsing a primary challenger to him has said recently that the president and many of his fellow Republican senators are actively demoralizing the Republican base by making it seem like Republicans can pass things, like the SAVE America Act, right, even though they all know that it's not possible because of the filibuster and because Republicans simply do not have the votes to get rid of the filibuster, right?

So, naturally, that leads Republican voters the, you know, the MAGA --

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:30:00]