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July Jobs Report; Murkowski Won't Support Blanche's Nomination; "Axios" Reporter Alex Isenstadt is Interviewed about the GOP Midterm Convention; Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) is Interviewed about the Midterms; Trump Tries Again on Birthright Citizenship. Aired 9- 9:30a ET

Aired August 07, 2026 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Just a couple of decades ago, it was sort of like, oh, women's basketball -- yes, basketball, OK. I mean, yes, I sort of sometimes kind of go. Now it is a huge, huge business. Give us a sense of how we got here.

CHRISTINE BRENNAN, CNN SPORTS ANALYST: Yes. Well, it -- so, it's projected to be over $3 billion in revenue in women's sports this year. Billion with a "b." Those are numbers we could have never dreamed about 10 or 15 years ago. It seems like every time you turn around, there's a new women's pro sports league. We were just talking in makeup about the women's baseball league that has started up.

SIDNER: Yes. Yes.

BRENNAN: Of course, women's ice hockey is exploding. And, of course, the Olympics helps. I mean women dominate -- U.S. women dominate the Olympics, win more gold medals and more overall medals than U.S. men. That's been happening now for four or five straight Olympic games, winter and summer. Because of that, that's the launching pad. The Olympic games, many of these Olympic sports then, obviously, are the ones where women are so good. They've gotten the opportunities. We're seeing the result. And Americans want more. And the world wants more. And I think that's the story of the next few decades.

SIDNER: I certainly want more. I love going to the Liberty games here in New York. It is a good time.

But my coach in news, Marcus, says that it's time for us to go. So, I'm going to actually, for once, listen to the coach. Christine Brennan, thank you so much for being here and for being a part of. This is really cool. Catch a new episode of "Decades in Sports" Sunday night at nine on CNN and next day on the CNN app.

And a new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

Breaking just moments ago, bad news for the July jobs report. The economy lost 23,000 jobs last month when analysts had expected a 95,000 job gain. We're taking a closer look at the numbers in just a bit here. Also breaking, a key Republican senator says she will oppose Todd

Blanche's nomination for attorney general. That narrows his path to confirmation. Can he hold on to the Republican support he needs to get that A.G. job permanently.

And while calls grow for Congressman Max Miller to drop out of the re- election race because of abuse allegations by several women, he's confident he can still win, even planning to lend a campaign his $1 million to keep it going.

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

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, breaking just a short time ago, a brand-new report on the labor market. And it is not good. This number right here, 23,000 jobs lost in July. The expectation, I'll write it right here, was for, what, 90,000 jobs added. You can see, losing 23,000 is a lot worse than gaining 90,000.

With me now, CNN senior reporter David Goldman, to get a sense of what we are seeing here. And talk to me about this report. What happened?

DAVID GOLDMAN, CNN BUSINESS SENIOR REPORTER: Yes, 23,000 jobs is significantly less than the 57,000 that we added in the previous month. And, you know, we're looking at about negative 19,000 retail jobs. And we had a loss of 40,000 leisure and hospitality jobs. What happened to that World Cup bump that we were supposed to get? We got the exact opposite of that. And that is dragging that number down.

The other thing that we also saw was we only gained 22,000 health care jobs. That is not going to sustain a jobs rally. We've been relying on health care in this country to keep jobs afloat. That isn't going to do it.

Now, 4.1 percent unemployment rate, that sounds like a good thing. That's down from 4.2 in the previous month. But we are losing people from the jobs force, and that is pulling that number down. This is something that we don't want to see necessarily, even though it sounds like a good number.

BERMAN: All right, let's just look back a little bit on what we've seen over the last few months here. And kind of like, look, since July of last year we have a number of months where we have actually lost jobs.

GOLDMAN: That's right. I mean, so we called this the low fire, low hire economy because, you know, in this month, well, we lost 23,000 jobs. But we also, in the previous week, had the lowest number of unemployment claims since 1969. And so, people aren't getting fired, it's just that they're leaving the workforce and they're really not getting hired.

I mean the best month that we had, we only gained 200,000 jobs. If you put this chart going all the way back to 2022, we were seeing that in a bad month. So, this is certainly not the kind of economy that we want to see right now for jobs. Another thing that we also get from this report is how much people are

getting paid. On average, we got a 3.2 percent increase in our paychecks over the past month.

[09:05:05]

Why is that bad? Because inflation is at 3.5 percent, which meant that inflation ate everyone's pay raise over the course of the last year. And look at this. We were in the green, I guess -- I guess this is yellow. We were outpacing inflation for three straight years. That's reversed itself just like we were in 2022. We all know what happened then. So, that's not great.

And look what it's doing to the stock market. This is really interesting because you would think, bad jobs report, bad market, right? Well, no, what they're cheering here is that the Fed probably can't hike rates in September. This is not necessarily great news for the economy though because if inflation needs to be combated and the Fed's not allowed to do anything because it could ruin the jobs market, now you're stuck.

BERMAN: Yes. And again, just to point out here, what this means is there's a cost of living issue, right? You have inflation. The blue line, higher than wages, which is what we're earning right there. It may be closing a little bit here, but you just never want to see any space there.

GOLDMAN: That's right. No, this is the thing that people really feel when they say that they don't like the economy is that they can't afford things, right? Well, this isn't going to help with that situation.

BERMAN: And again, just one more thing I will point out, given the timing, you just don't want to see, if you're running for office, a negative number, jobs lost in July, before the November of an election year.

David Goldman, thank you very much for laying all this out. Appreciate it.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right. Thank you, gentlemen.

Breaking this morning a massive blow to Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche's odds of getting the job permanently. Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski announcing she will not support his nomination, posting early this morning that she does not have confidence Blanche will, quote, "check the impulses" of President Trump and the Trump administration. With Maine Senator Susan Collins also saying she will oppose Blanche's nomination, and Senator Mitch McConnell still absent, this means Blanche's fate is now in the hands of just one person, that is Republican Senator Bill Cassidy.

CNN's Annie Grayer is live from Capitol Hill.

Are we hearing from Cassidy this morning?

ANNIE GRAYER, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Well, Sara, we haven't heard from Cassidy, but we surely are going to try and get a statement from him as soon as possible, because Lisa Murkowski coming out against Blanche's nomination really puts this all in Cassidy's hands now.

And Murkowski lays out a number of reasons as to why she does not support Blanche's nomination. She's concerned about the general politicization of the Department of Justice and the targeting of former administration officials, including U.S. senators. She's concerned with how Blanche handled the release of the Epstein files, which he oversaw. And we know there was a lot of issues with that redaction process. Still, millions of documents not to be released. And then she targets the weaponization fund. She says that the agreement that Blanche and Tillis and Cornyn reached over that fund was -- is not satisfactory enough to her. That's the fund that was about $2 billion that potentially January 6th defendants and rioters could get money from. And Blanche worked for a while behind the scenes to try and get an agreement with Tillis and Cornyn. But Murkowski says that that deal is not firm enough. She's still worried that that fund could be resurrected. So, she says she cannot, in good conscience, support Blanche for his nomination.

So, that is now, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski as no's. And with Mitch McConnell not voting in the Senate right now, that means that Republicans cannot lose any more votes. So, it all comes down to Bill Cassidy. And Bill Cassidy is not running for re-election because he lost his primary after President Trump endorsed one of his opponents.

And Cassidy has been in this hot seat before. When it came to the nomination of HHS Secretary RFK Jr., it all came down to Cassidy again. He was the chairman of that committee, trying to -- trying to figure out if he could support RFK because -- and he was really concerned as a doctor of RFK's vaccine hesitancy. He ultimately got around and came to vote for RFK there. The big question is going to be, will he vote for Blanche this time?

Now, because Trump has put Blanche in as acting, he can keep him in that position. So, Blanche could continue to serve in that role, even if he is not Senate confirmed. But, of course, the administration wants to see a vote that would give Blanche that confidence to continue serving in that role.

So, the Senate has a lot of biz in front of them today. They're supposed to be leaving for August recess today, Sara, but this vote for Blanche has not been scheduled, and we -- it might not get scheduled if they can't get the votes together.

Sara.

SIDNER: It'll be interesting. Good luck to the president, who, if he wants to push, this is a person he backed his opponent. I don't know if that will work. We will see what happens.

Annie Grayer, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

John.

BERMAN: All right, new this morning, a new report on how Republicans are planning for a political convention before the midterms.

[09:10:05]

We really haven't seen anything like this before. It is happening in Dallas. And "Axios" is reporting this morning that the Republicans plan to use it to try to paint the Democrats, saying they have become a captive to an activist left.

So, with us now with his exclusive reporting, Alex Isenstadt of "Axios."

Alex, it's great to see you. Love your work. So, talk to me about exactly what Republicans are planning to do in a month in Texas.

ALEX ISENSTADT, SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER, "AXIOS": Sure. So, here's what Republicans are trying to do here, which is to turn this midterm election from a straight referendum on how -- on Trump's first -- on Trump's first -- last 18 months into a choice election between how voters feel about Trump and how they feel about Democrats. And so, what they're going to try to do is they're going to try to paint Democrats as far left as possible. And that means spotlighting a lot of big name, liberal figures, like Abdul El-Sayed, for example, and James Talarico, who's running for Senate in Texas.

So, the way -- what you're going to try to see here is Republicans tie Democrats running up and down the ballot to some of these much more liberal figures.

BERMAN: And just because Republicans say they're holding a convention doesn't necessarily mean it's going to generate the excitement of the quadrennial political conventions that we see before presidential races here. So, what are they going to be doing over two nights as they lay out this case and try to tie Democrats to people like Hasan Piker?

ISENSTADT: It's going to feel a lot different than the quadrennial conventions that you typically see. This is only going to be a prime time TV event, whereas conventions otherwise start in the afternoons.

But what you're going to see, I understand is, a lot of big name speakers. They're not releasing all the names yet, but the first night of the convention is going to be J.D. Vance. The second night is going to be Donald Trump. And then you're going to see a bunch of other celebrities. People from the UFC world, the sports world. You're going to see some up and coming Republican candidates.

And what they're going to try to do is focus the party's message onto this theme of Democrats being captive to their far left, and they're going to try to drive that message home starting in early September at this event, and then continue on over the next two months leading up to the midterms. And what they're hoping is that that could help them stem some of the losses that they may be about to incur if you look at the polling right now. BERMAN: And again, the fact that it's happening in Texas is notable

and perhaps important, right? They have a key Senate race there. The Republicans have to win. They have to try to beat James Talarico against Ken Paxton there. There are a lot of House races there. They redistricted, but those House races may not be going as well as they would have liked.

So, Texas, in and of itself, is pretty important, yes?

ISENSTADT: Texas is super important. It's a really big Senate race. Republicans need to get money to Ken Paxton. He's the attorney general. He's running against James Talarico, who is raising a boatload of money. And so, one of the interesting things here to see is, does Ken Paxton get a -- does Ken Paxton get a speaking slot at the convention? That's going to be another thing that's going to be interesting to watch, too, because one way the Republicans might be able to get fundraising for candidates is by giving them slots at the convention.

BERMAN: Any response from the Democrats? Are they doing something similar?

ISENSTADT: The Democrats decided a while ago that they would not be doing a midterm convention. What they're saying is, is that Republicans are simply wasting money, and they don't think that this is going to make much of a dent. What they argue is that voters have made up their minds largely about how vote -- about how they feel about the Iran War, how Trump's dealt with the economy, and they don't think that holding what they call a two-day infomercial is going to make much of a difference.

BERMAN: Listen, Alex Isenstadt of "Axios," as we said, we love your reporting. Thanks so much for coming on with us this morning. Appreciate it.

All right, with us now is Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Democrat from Florida, who also, at one point, happened to be the chair of the Democratic National Committee.

So, let me first ask you, you know, with your knowledge of committees and conventions and how they work.

What do you think of what the Republicans are doing, and how should Democrats try to counter this message that they're going to deliver, that you are -- you have become extreme?

REP. DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ (D-FL): Well, what we need to do as Democrats -- and thanks for having me, John -- is focus singularly on what voters care about the most and what Americans care about the most. And that is keeping the focus at the state and local level on making life more affordable for everyday Americans, reducing their housing, their health care, their groceries, their gas costs. And a -- now is not the time to be ramping up a convention, which, honestly, takes a lot of resources, a lot of organizational time.

[09:15:08] And anything right now, from my point of view, that distracts from showing voters that you care about their life being totally unaffordable means that you show you don't get it. And so, we're in the field right now across America, running grassroots door to door, neighbor to neighbor campaigns. And I know we're all hearing from voters. I know I'm hearing from my voters that they care about the fact that their grocery and health care bills are too high, as well as gas and housing, and that this administration is out of control. Donald Trump is corrupt and is essentially profiting off the presidency, and that he's dismantling our democracy.

So, while we'll be focused at the doors locally on those issues, Republicans will be distracting people from -- attempting to distract people from things that they care about. And it's just not going to work.

BERMAN: The breaking news this morning is the brand-new jobs report, which showed the economy lost 23,000 jobs in July and that inflation, the Consumer Price Index, is actually outpacing wage growth, which means people aren't making enough to keep up with inflation.

How specifically should Democrats message that? What are Democrats offering to fix that?

SCHULTZ: So, look, what this is boiling down to is Donald Trump has a tariff policy that has dramatically increased costs for businesses. I have business owners who have told me they aren't able to stay in business anymore because of their loss in profit margin.

And, you know, you mentioned in that piece about the lack of health care hiring as much as it has usually been. Well, leading up to the expiration of the enhanced premium tax credits, those subsidies that help lower health care costs for Affordable Care Act holders that Republicans allowed to expire at the end of last year, we had health care leaders locally all across America come to D.C. and tell us that they were going to face programs, vital health care programs, you know, maternity wards that were going to have to close. Of course -- other entire hospitals, especially in rural America, were at risk of closing.

So, you've got four million people that have lost health care. That means that they aren't able to go to the doctor. And so, of course, hiring has slowed. And, as a result, you can see that those jobs have not increased. They've decreased instead.

We have to focus on making life more affordable. Groceries, gas, health care, hiring and housing, that's what we should be singularly focused on. That's why Democrats will win the majority in November.

BERMAN: So, Michigan is not Florida. And Michigan is not your problem. But Republicans are trying to make it your problem, right? One of the things we just heard at this convention is they're going to talk about Abdul El-Sayed, who is the Democratic nominee for Senate there. No doubt they will focus on his opposition for aid to Israel. But my question to you is, now that he is the nominee, and now that he will be the focus nationally, I think, for Republicans, what do you want to hear from Adul El-Sayed heading into November?

SCHULTZ: I, honestly, I'm not thinking about what I want to hear from Abdul El-Sayed because I represent a congressional district in Florida. And not in the Midwest. And the voters that I hear from, the constituents that I represent, want to make sure that their grocery bill goes down. They want me going to bat to make sure that this illegal Iran War is shut down, because that's dramatically increased their gas prices. They're having trouble affording driving to work.

I mean, the skyrocketing cost of health care. Millions of people losing the ability to have health care insurance coverage. Grocery prices skyrocketing out of control. That's what -- and also Donald Trump's corruption and dismantling of our democracy. People are worried about whether they're going to be able to cast a legitimate, you know, a legitimate vote in this election in November, or if they're going to be rounded up illegally by ICE that's out of control.

So, that's what Democrats are focusing on, fighting against Trump's lawlessness, his cruel focus -- out of touch focus on his vanity projects, like an arch and gold leaf attached to the Oval Office walls. We've got to -- we've got just a couple -- a few months until Election Day. And every single day that we are not focused on making life more affordable for Americans and bringing down their costs is a day wasted.

BERMAN: Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, from Florida, thanks for being with us this morning.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, President Trump targeting birthright citizenship once again despite the Supreme Court shutting down his previous executive orders. Now there are two more. We'll talk about it.

[09:20:00]

And breaking news, that deadly school shooting in Thailand, we're now learning that five teachers were killed when a 14-year-old opened fire there. The new details that we just got in, in the last few seconds.

And, it's a dangerous combination. Two young kids taking the wheel of their family car. How this ends in tragedy.

Those stories and more ahead.

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SIDNER: President Trump refusing to give up his efforts to limit birthright citizenship. Weeks ago, the Supreme Court smacked down his original attempt to curb the constitutional right. Now, the president is trying to get around that in the form of two new executive orders.

CNN's Priscilla Alvarez is tracking all of this for us.

Give us a sense of these orders and what this means going forward. PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Sara, like you described,

this is yet another swing at birthright citizenship and birth tourism. However, it is far more narrow. And at least with birth tourism, it's still unclear what exactly would change because there's already U.S. law that prohibits what they are saying people do.

[09:25:09]

So, let me explain and break down all of this.

First of all, immigration hawks and allies of the president have wanted the president to still do more on this, despite the Supreme Court's decision in June, which upheld birthright citizenship. So, yesterday, in the Oval Office, the president reflected on that decision and announced these two executive orders. The first one you see there, it targets alien enemies, members of foreign terrorist groups and people who lobby and act on behalf of foreign governments. There are already exceptions to birthright citizenship on this front.

What this executive order appears to do is broaden those exceptions, though we don't exactly know what that would look like in practice. The second is on birth tourism. And on that front, U.S. law already bans people from obtaining a visa, quote, "for the primary purpose of obtaining U.S. citizenship for a child by giving birth in the United States."

Now, Stephen Miller, the architect of the president's immigration policy, said that this is an outright ban. But how that is different from what U.S. code already says, again, is a bit unclear.

What does remain clear, however, is that the president is not backing down from this and is still furious about the decision in June.

Take a listen to what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think we had a very unfortunate decision in the Supreme Court concerning birthright or it was close, but a very, very unfortunate decision. So, we're making adjustments.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALVAREZ: So, the question is, will there be litigation again on these fronts? We will keep an eye out on that. But for now, what we did see is a far more narrow approach to birthright citizenship and birth tourism. Now it's a matter of how it's done in practice.

SIDNER: Yes, and how it plays out because, inevitably, there will be lawsuits that will end up putting it right back in court, maybe all the way up to the Supreme Court.

Priscilla Alvarez, it is a pleasure. You've got great reporting, as always. Thank you. All right, in a new interview, President Trump says voters aren't mad

at him. He says they're really angry at Republicans. Guess what the polls say? Well, you don't have to because our Harry Enten's got the numbers for you.

Also, scientists use A.I. to create 16 new viruses from scratch. They did not exist until these scientists created them. What could possibly go wrong with that?

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