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Rep. Sara Elfreth (D-MD) is Interviewed about Munitions Reports; U.S. Economy Lost 23,000 Jobs; "Decades in Sports" Looks at Billie Jean King. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired August 07, 2026 - 08:30   ET

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

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[08:31:44]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: All right, major developments in the war with Iran. This morning, Iranian lawmakers are working to pass a bill to bar what they describe as, quote, "hostile countries" from sailing through the Strait of Hormuz. According to Iran, that includes the United States and Israel, among several other countries.

We're also learning that some senior U.S. officials say President Trump is furious over reports that some U.S. munitions are being depleted in the war with Iran. Sources say he's privately complaining that it's making the U.S. appear weak in negotiations.

Joining me now, Democratic Congressman Sarah Elfreth of Maryland. She sits on the House Armed Services Committee.

Let's start with Iran.

You hear these, you know, concerns from the president that it makes America look weak because people are just talking about the shortage of munitions, which our sources tell us is very significant. Do you agree with him? Does he have a point?

REP. SARAH ELFRETH (D-MD): Well, I'm a little surprised that the president seems surprised here. As you just said, I'm a freshman member of Congress, freshman member of the Armed Services Committee, and I've been aware of and anxious about our depleted or depleting munitions since well before the president started this irresponsible and unsustainable war. So, his surprise here is -- I can't explain it. I'm not sure if Secretary Hegseth hadn't given him all the facts. But also, if you even look at the president's budget request to Congress, it includes $95 billion to backfill those munitions. So, this surprise is frustrating to me.

But the point that it makes us look weak, I think we needed to have -- step back and appreciated what we had before going into any armed conflict, let alone this full out war the president's engaged us in with no end in sight or exit strategy.

SIDNER: I do want to ask you, if Democrats do happen to -- and do manage to take both the House and Senate in November, how should Democrats handle this war with Iran differently?

ELFRETH: Well, certainly we've, as the American people have seen, have tried over and over again to pass war powers resolutions, to rein in this president's war mongering, not just in Iran, but across the world. This is a president who promised, on the campaign trail, not to engage us in forever wars. And yet I think we're up to seven or eight conflicts he's engaged us in unilaterally.

So, when we get the majority in January, when we get those gavels, we can actually start investigations. We can start holding the administration accountable. I don't know if we're going to talk about the attorney general nominee, but one senator said something yesterday that I found deeply disturbing, I've been thinking about it all morning, that there's nothing he can do to rein in this president. And the American people, I think, are fed up with that perspective of Congress generally, that there's nothing we can do here. That is blatantly false. And I think the American people are going to respond in kind in November.

SIDNER: Look, I want to move to something that is more domestic here. The president, once again, trying to curb birthright citizenship with two new executive orders, even after the Supreme Court made it very clear that if you are born in the U.S., you are a U.S. citizen, which is what the 14th Amendment indicates.

[08:35:00]

Do you think that these new executive orders may have some chance, they are very, very narrow, if they end up back in court, is this a concern to you that this could change at least some of the way in which the 14th Amendment is interpreted?

ELFRETH: I'm not an attorney, let alone a constitutional law attorney, so I can't tell you that. But I think I have been relieved for the most part that the Supreme Court and other courts across the country have slapped the president's hand and shot many of these blatantly illegal and unconstitutional executive orders down. I hope that they will do the same thing here. If the president wants to have a meaningful conversation with policymakers, with lawmakers in Congress about immigration reform, he can do that. Instead, he's legislating via executive order. And again, he is not -- he is not a king. And it is Congress' job to rein that back in. And it's something I look forward to do in January.

SIDNER: We are just now seeing a jobs report, we're about to report, that's coming in. But the numbers are not what was expected. Jobs have fallen by about 23,000, which was not what was predicted.

I'm just curious, when you hear this number, the unemployment rate now at 4.2 percent, what you make of it and what you think needs to be done about it and how it's affecting your constituents.

ELFRETH: Yes, I wish the jobs numbers were better. I don't want -- I don't wish ill on this president or this country. We always want a strong jobs report. But I'm also not surprised. We are back -- the House, at least, is back in our districts for the August recess, but we're all working back in our district. I visited a number of local companies over the last few weeks, listening to them about the impacts of tariffs, the impacts of this war on their supply chains, on their ability to hire, on the margins. That job -- that jobs report is not surprising to me based on what I'm hearing back in my district.

I'm particularly frustrated with the loss of manufacturing jobs in this country. Over 100,000 manufacturing jobs lost just since the president has taken office, despite him claiming he wants to bring that reshore and bring that manufacturing back to the United States. We're not seeing that. And it's, again, just wildly disappointing when people don't have the ability to find a meaningful, well-paying job to keep, you know, roofs over their family's heads and food on the table. We're going to see that anger come in full force in November for the election. And I think people are frustrated with the direction of this economy in general.

SIDNER: Well, the polling has been showing that over and over and over again, that people just can't afford the lives that they live and they're going into debt because of it.

Congresswoman Sarah Elfreth, thank you so much.

John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, as Sara said, the breaking news just moments ago, we got the brand-new jobs report from July. And, frankly, it's not good. And significantly worse than expected. CNN senior reporter David Goldman is with us now.

Talk to me -- OK, this is the stock futures. If we can, let's put the employment numbers up, which show that we lost 23,000 jobs. There it is. Go ahead.

DAVID GOLDMAN, CNN BUSINESS SENIOR REPORTER: Yes. And this number is actually 4.1. So, you know, you usually don't see the unemployment rate fall unless people are dropping out of the workforce. So, there's actually some -- two bad numbers that are on this chart right here. Twenty-three thousand is lower than the 60,000 that we hired in the month before. So, you know, that was pretty weak. And then this is, obviously, the exact opposite direction that you want to see the economy going in.

And if you look at the chart of job growth over the course of the last five years, you can really see the drop off because we were hiring in '22, '23, you know, at a really significant clip. But look at this.

BERMAN: Right there.

GOLDMAN: We're right there right now. And we've had several months over the past year where we've lost jobs. That is not the direction that you want to see that going in.

This isn't the only concern, though. Wages also fell significantly below where we are in the inflation rate.

BERMAN: Oh. GOLDMAN: We were at 3.5 percent. Basically matching the inflation rate. Now you're making less than inflation. Inflation is once again eating your paycheck. You can see the wage chart kind of looking at how these match up. And, you know, for a long time this gap right here meant that you were making more money than inflation. That has reversed as well.

Health care is the one sector that has been pretty strong throughout all of this. But 22,000 jobs is not going to cut it. It meant that almost every other sector of the economy, those jobs are falling.

[08:40:02]

And so what does this mean for the Federal Reserve? If you look at bond rates right now, these are all tumbling. And the reason is that no one expects the Fed is going to be able to hike rates to combat inflation. Now they're in a pickle because, what do you do? You have a weak jobs market and you have inflation. Now it's not really clear what there is to do.

BERMAN: Which gets back to why we saw that first number, which is the stock markets are responding, at least they were a second ago, favorably to this because they think it means there will not be an interest rate cut, because there are honestly jobs concerns now.

GOLDMAN: Yes, the stock market is always confusing there. Good news can be bad news. Bad news can be good news. This is one of those situations.

Really what's happening right here is that they're cheering that there probably won't be a rate cut in September. So, that's good news if you're an investor. It's not great news if you're looking for a job right now.

BERMAN: Right. Again, just to be clear, the headline number here is the economy lost 23,000 jobs. The prediction was that, what, they were going to gain 90.

GOLDMAN: Yes, 90,000.

BERMAN: OK.

GOLDMAN: So, this is a significant departure from that.

BERMAN: Big miss there. David Goldman, thank you very much.

Let's talk more about this frankly surprise this morning. With us, CNN global economic analyst Rana Foroohar. She's also the global business columnist and associate editor for "The Financial Times."

All right, Rana, make sense of this.

RANA FOROOHAR, CNN GLOBAL ECONOMIC ANALYST: Well, you know, I think that chart about the stock market going up in the midst of what, for most of us is pretty bad news, is really telling. You know, what's good news for Wall Street is bad news for main street. I think also the other -- the other bit of really key data here is the

fact that you've got a cost of living crisis. I mean you had that before. You had a lot of working people feeling like, wow, food, gas, everything. You know, I can't afford my life anymore. But now you have a real, you know, data chart there saying, yes, statistically, you can't afford your life anymore. Wages are not rising at the same pace as inflation. I think this is going to be, you know, just an even bigger political issue for the midterms than it already was.

A couple of other things that I would say. I think the fact that you just don't have that manufacturing job resurgence. You see areas like health care going up, but those are not highly paid jobs. Most of the jobs in health care that you see being created are, you know, they're $15 an hour, $20 an hour jobs. Good to have a job. But again, if it's not going to help you keep pace with literally the cost of living your life, that's a big problem.

BERMAN: Yes. Jobs losses just months before a midterm election are a political concern. But there's a pocketbook concern here for people. And if we can put those numbers back up on the screen, you were talking about wage growth again. I think, and I'm just trying to go off what I remember from when David had it up there, wage growth was what, like, 3.2 percent. Well, you can see the lines here. And the yellow line is earnings.

FOROOHAR: Yes.

BERMAN: The blue line is inflation. And whenever the blue line is above the yellow line, it means you're basically losing money, which is the situation we're in right now.

FOROOHAR: Right. Right. And people, you know, if we've been having this conversation, John, as we did, you know, post-Covid, a few years back, people had a cushion, you know. They had some money in savings. If there had been this kind of data coming out then, they would have been like, all right, we'll dip into savings. They don't have that cushion now.

So, this is, I think, going to start potentially impacting, you know, credit card defaults, you know, auto loan defaults. I think, you know, particularly at the lower end of the labor spectrum, where people are already suffering from health care cuts, Medicaid cuts, I think you're going to be looking at ripple effects here. And I wonder if this isn't the beginnings of what is going to be a broader, a broader slowdown. I wouldn't want to say that off the back of one report. You know, as I always say when I speak to you about these topics, three's a trend, but it's something that I'm going to be watching really closely going into fall.

BERMAN: I mean, one thing is clear, even when we have had months of jobs growth the last few months, we're in this cycle where sometimes there are losses. And even when there's growth, it's not strong. So, again, this is the stock market, which isn't what I'm talking about. But what do you think? Where do you think the weakness is? Why is the jobs market not stronger? FOROOHAR: I think there are three reasons. The most obvious is that

the president has just, you know, done a lot of things that haven't been helpful. Tariffs, a war in Iran that jacked up the price of oil, that all these things create inflation, which, you know, tend to make companies pull back, you know, look at their balance sheet, say, we're maybe not going to fire, but we're certainly not going to hire. That's one point.

The other point is that, for many years now we've been focusing on kind of short term market growth. You know, quarterly capitalism rather than really investing in the real seed corn the way China does, you know, to say, what's going to create growth in five years, ten years, 15 years.

[08:45:01]

You know, and then on top of that, I think there's the A.I. effect. And that's something that's -- it's hard to get your hands around right now. It's nascent. But just anecdotally, I hear from a lot of companies, particularly in financial services, media, tech, some of those industries, that they're just not hiring as many people. You know, you look at the number of say junior bankers that are coming in, now it's a third of what it would have been, you know, a few years ago. That is starting to ripple into other areas of the economy. We will, within the next year, get a better sense of what the A.I. effect is. But I can see it, I think, in this data.

BERMAN: All right, Rana Foroohar, we appreciate you being with us. Again, the headline here, the economy lost 23,000 jobs in July. And at this point, inflation is outpacing wage growth. Weak wage growth numbers.

Rana, thank you very much for that.

Sara.

SIDNER: Those are certainly not the numbers that people wanted, but it was unexpected that it went down.

Look, we've got a breakthrough in technology that is helping some people with spinal cord injuries, that helps them move more freely and live more independent lives. But the cost can put it simply out of reach for most people. And that's a challenge Amanda Boxtel knows firsthand. The 2018 CNN Hero lives with paralysis and has made it her mission to help others gain access to this life changing therapy. We're highlighting her work as CNN Heroes celebrates 20 years.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AMANDA BOXTEL, CNN HERO: I feel like the mountain had robbed me of the use of my legs, but I was determined to show that I wasn't going to give up so easily.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR (voice over): At 24, Amanda Boxtel was paralyzed in a skiing accident. After years of physical therapy, she had the chance to try a new, costly technology, an exoskeleton designed to help people with mobility challenges.

BOXTEL: When I stood up, and I walked for the first time in 18 years, and it was as if all of my dreams were burgeoning to life in one upright, powerful moment.

COOPER (voice over): Amanda purchased her own exoskeleton and walked 130,000 steps in a year, easing her chronic pain.

BOXTEL: The right leg was the first to come back, is that right?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's correct.

COOPER (voice over): In 2015, she founded Bridging Bionics to help other people with mobility issues benefit from the technology.

BOXTEL: It's not easily accessible. It's not affordable. And I thought, we could get a whole community up and walking with this unit.

COOPER (voice over): She even teamed up with her fellow 2018 CNN Hero Ricardo Pun-Chong, who provides free housing and support for sick children and their families while they undergo medical treatment in Lima, Peru. When Amanda learned a child in his program needed a wheelchair, she wanted to help.

BOXTEL: She has cerebral palsy. And she was in a stroller. She's been in a stroller for -- her whole life. It's time, don't you think, for her to have a wheelchair to call her own.

Look what we have for Dalaska (ph).

RICARDO PUN-CHONG, CNN HERO: Thank you so much.

With this new wheelchair and with her surgery, she's going to have a better life.

COOPER (voice over): Amanda recently secured a dedicated space for her work, allowing her to help more people access high tech physical therapy.

BOXTEL: We are truly giving the gift of mobility for free or next to nothing, to help our community get upright and walking again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: What an incredible human being. Thank God for people like her in our world.

All right, just ahead, moments from now, court resumes in the trial of that mother accused of strangling one by one her three children. The defense is waiting for what could be a pivotal decision on some key witnesses that they want to call.

All right, and there's a man living in a billboard over the streets of Los Angeles. So, he's seen a lot of traffic. What is he doing there? Why is he up there? What the heck is going on? We'll tell you, ahead.

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[08:53:44]

BERMAN: All right, new this morning, the man who was charged with damaging the Reflecting Pool, speaking exclusively to CNN. A judge officially tossed the Justice Department's case against David Hearn. In a court filing, prosecutors acknowledged there is not evidence to support the administration's initial claim that Hearn was responsible for damaging the pool. This was Hearn's reaction.

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KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Do you want an apology?

DAVID HEARN, EX-OLYMPIAN ACCUSED OF VANDALIZING REFLECTING POOL: An apology would be nice. It's hard to know what that apology might sound like from the people that have been pushing this so hard. And I don't -- I don't know what that would sound like. It would be nice to get an apology.

COLLINS: Who do you want an apology from? Jeanine Pirro or Todd Blanche, or even President Trump himself?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE, DAVID HEARN'S ATTORNEY: I think for now we're going to focus on getting the case dismissed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: The judge did not rule yet on whether prosecutors can revive the case in the future.

In central Pennsylvania, an SUV ran a stop sign, slammed into a tractor trailer, and then the tractor trailer ran into two garages and a shed. Emergency crews had to free the driver, I believe, of the tractor trailer, who was trapped inside the rubble.

[08:55:01]

This morning, along Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, an actor is living inside a billboard for three days. The idea is to promote the new film "The Last House." It is a sci-fi thriller about a family of four who gets sealed in their home with no way out. True story, Sara. My roommate, after college, living here in the city, an actor, for days lived inside a billboard in Times Square to promote the film "Office Space." Andrew Burlinson, wonderful commercial actor out of -- out of Los Angeles. Yes. So, this has been done before. And I visited him inside the billboard.

SIDNER: Here's the thing, John. This just, once again, goes to prove that you are the Forrest Gump of news.

BERMAN: Yes.

SIDNER: You have literally a tie to every possible scenario on this earth. It is unreal. And sometimes I don't believe you. And then you show me the proof. There's always the YouTube or the proof or some picture of you hanging out in some weird place.

BERMAN: Yes.

SIDNER: I'm stunned, but not really surprised. Thank you, John Berman.

BERMAN: It's true.

SIDNER: All right, the CNN Original Series, "Decades in Sports," explores cultural and political milestones that transformed sports and, in turn, transformed the country. It takes a look at how some of the world's greatest athletes broke barriers, inspired nations and become cultural icons. One of those icons, of course, is tennis great Billie Jean King, who's fought for equality and women's rights both on and off the court.

Take a look.

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MARGARET BRENNAN, CNN SPORTS ANALYST: You turned on Wimbledon, and you'd be watching Billie Jean King win something. Because if she wasn't winning the women's singles, she was winning the doubles or the mixed doubles.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you realize that you are ahead of every man American tennis player?

BILLIE JEAN KING, PROFESSIONAL TENNIS PLAYER: No.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well you are, apparently.

KING: They won't like that.

JACKIE MACMULLAN, FORMER SPORTS COLUMNIST, "THE BOSTON GLOBE": Billie Jean King was an incredible tennis player, but she was so, so much more than that. In 1973, Billie Jean King was at the top of her game. It's Billie Jean King and Margaret Court. Billie declares, if you don't pay us the same at the U.S. Open, the men the same as the women, I'm not playing. And the U.S. Open capitulated. And that was the first ever tennis tournament where men and women were paid equally.

LINDA COHN, SPORTS BROADCASTER: It was never about her. It was always about how far can the sport go and how far can women go in sports?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: And CNN sports analyst Christine Brennan, who you just saw in that clip, because she knows everything about sports, is here with me now.

Let's just start with the very basics of this. Sports has such an integral part of most of our lives. Even people who don't follow it are affected by those around us who love it so much. Give us a sense of this series and what, for you, really stands out that you love about it? CHRISTINE BRENNAN, CNN SPORTS ANALYST: You know, Sara, you played

sports at a high level, I was able to play sports because of Title IX, which was signed in 1972 by Richard Nixon. So, 54 years old. And, you know, that girl you see in the kitchen every morning, the girl you wave at across the driveway, she's got her volleyball bag over her shoulder, and she's going to go play lacrosse later and softball after that, you know that girl, this is what this series is about. Those incredible role models, the stepping stones we could call them, with women from Wilma Rudolph at the 1960 Olympics, a black woman who had gone through polio, winning three gold medals as Americans and the world are finally watching the Olympics on television. What a message and statement that was.

Move ahead those 13 years. Billie Jean King beats Bobby Riggs in the battle of the sexes. And while many will say it's an exhibition. Well, for me, as a girl growing up in Toledo, Ohio, watching that, I'd never seen a woman on a stage with a man and then a woman beating a man in anything ever.

And so, I think, Sara, as you know, sports are so -- such a part of our fabric of society. We are now teaching our daughters and granddaughters and nieces those life lessons that for generations we were only teaching boys the ability to win at a young age. And even more important, lose at a young age. Teamwork, sportsmanship. And we're seeing the result with women running for office as never before. And 94 percent of the women in c-suites CEO, CMO, CFO, they are -- 94 percent played sports.

So, we're trying in this series, and I'm honored to be a part of it, to tell that story and to explain how it happened, how we got here because of the history, as were describing it, decade by decade.

SIDNER: Look, I know you just mentioned sports taught you a lot. It taught me a lot about how to live, how to be a gracious loser. I'm still working on that. But also how to be a good winner as well and a good teammate. All those things. It helped to shape who I am today, the coaches and the losses and the difficulties and the training.

I do want to ask you about what we are seeing now in this day and age when it comes to women's sports, and I'm talking professional here. I mean we are seeing huge viewership. We are seeing multimillion or billion dollar media rights now for women's sports, where -- whereas just a couple of decades ago, it was sort of like, oh, women's basketball -- yes, basketball, OK.

[09:00:04]

I mean, yes, I sort of sometimes kind of go. Now it is a huge, huge business.