Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Trump Issues Executive Order on Birthright Citizenship; RFK Jr. Visits CDC; Court Rules White House Ballroom Unlawful; Economy Loses 23,000 Jobs in July. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired August 07, 2026 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:00]

JEFF STEIN, NOTUS: And I'm sure we will continue to talk about the sexiest topic in the global news cycle.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN HOST: Trust me. Like, I implore people to understand this is really important. Jeff's story's great. You should go check it out. He's just back from book leave. His book is going to be awesome whenever that's coming out.

Jeff Stein, thank you, my friend, as always, for talking through this stuff. Really appreciate it.

Thank you for joining INSIDE POLITICS.

Don't miss "STATE OF THE UNION" this Sunday. President Trump's top economic adviser, Kevin Hassett, is on the program, along with Democratic Senate candidate in Michigan Abdul El-Sayed. That's Sunday at 9:00 a.m. Eastern right here on CNN.

"CNN NEWS CENTRAL" right now.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Summer stunner, July jobs report shocking economists, showing the economy lost jobs last month.

Narrow path. A vote on Todd Blanche as attorney general looks to be razor-tight, but a decision by one Republican could give him the votes that he needs for confirmation.

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN HOST: And making Meta pay. A court fines the company over half-a-billion dollars and orders it to make major changes to how kids can use its social media sites like Instagram.

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

KEILAR: A wake-up call this morning for both economists and the White House. The jobs report for July shows an economy sharply different from the booming one that President Trump describes.

The economy lost 23,000 jobs in July, and most analysts were expecting gains. Perhaps even more worrying, revisions for the past two months showed the economy wasn't adding jobs like we understood it to be. The White House had its own take on the report.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEVIN HASSETT, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL: The weakness in this number were really just two things, government workers and a sort of rebound from all the employment we got from the World Cup, because the World Cup was ending.

If you throw out the World Cup of the government workers, we actually had a number that was about plus-100,000.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: CNN's David Goldman is with us now.

All right, take us through this, David.

DAVID GOLDMAN, CNN BUSINESS SENIOR REPORTER: Yes. So, we will come back to what Kevin Hassett was just saying, because it's an important point.

But we did lose 23,000 jobs in the last month, and that is by no measure good. Now, 4.1 percent is actually a really decent unemployment rate, but we lost gains in the unemployment rate because folks were saying, I am so fed up with this job market, I'm going to stop looking.

We didn't count them in this report anymore, and that's why that number fell, not for the right reasons. Now, you can look at the history of job creation in this country, and you can say, hey, everything over here looks pretty good, but then what happened here?

Well, yes, over the last three years, we have really been in a situation where we're not really gaining that many jobs. We're not really losing that many jobs. We're kind of in this no hire, no fire economy right now.

Another concern is also wages, right? Because how much we made is important, and we only got a 3.2 percent pay raise on average over the last year. Why is that not so great? Because inflation is 3.5 percent. And we used to have a situation over three-year period right here where we were actually outpacing inflation with our paychecks.

Not so for the past few months, and that is why so many people think that this economy is unaffordable, Brianna.

KEILAR: So, what do you make of the White House explanation for this jobs report, David, blaming the numbers on government jobs and the World Cup?

GOLDMAN: OK, so this is what Kevin Hassett is taking a look at, and if you add these two together, you get minus-23,000, right? So the government shed 53,000 jobs, and we gained in the private sector 30,000 jobs. Now, I'm going to tell you that this is not a particularly healthy

number. We like to see this significantly higher. We were hiring hundreds of thousands of private sector folks over the course of the last few years.

But, also, this isn't a great number either, because those are real jobs that we're not creating anymore. So we shouldn't just discount them because they're government jobs. But let's look at the World Cup logic.

Well, where is this jobs boost that he said that we had? I'm going to tell you that we didn't get one, 19,000 retail jobs lost in the last month. Remember, the World Cup was being played in July. These are July numbers. We lost 40,000 leisure and hospitality jobs last month after losing 43,000 in the previous month; 83,000 hotel jobs basically just evaporated from this economy.

Where was this World Cup boost that supposedly we're now on the downswing from? It never actually happened. Now, another concern is that health care is not helping all that much; 22,000 jobs is a bright spot, actually, in this pretty moribund jobs report; 22,000 is just so much lower than we were having in just a few months before this.

[13:05:20]

That's not going to cut it. It's not helping. Now, why are markets so much higher? It's because the Federal Reserve now can't really raise rates in an environment where those rates could hurt the jobs market, which is looking a lot weaker. Now we're in a little bit of an economic pickle.

KEILAR: Pickle. Moribund. I love your word choice, David. It's part of the reason I enjoy your reports, even if it's not particularly good news today.

GOLDMAN: I'm just a thesaurus for you.

KEILAR: You are.

(LAUGHTER)

KEILAR: All right, Omar.

JIMENEZ: All right, can't compete with that.

But we got a lot of news we're following, including a major legal blow to one of President Trump's most controversial construction projects. In a split decision, the D.C. Court of Appeals ruled that Trump's $400 million White House ballroom is unlawful and requires congressional approval.

Now, the project has been under way since last year, including the complete dismantling of the East Wing, if you have seen the White House grounds as of late.

CNN's Kristen Holmes definitely has. She is at the White House. And, Kristen, the president just posted about this, as I understand.

What is he saying?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it is a very lengthy screed here.

And, unsurprisingly, he tries to make this political, but he also paints this completely as a national security need and necessity, rather than focusing on the ballroom at all, which isn't surprising when you get to the legality.

So, the first thing he does here is, he quotes the dissenting judge. As you said, it was a split decision, which called this a blatant abuse of discretion. He goes on to say that this decision has been stayed and does not take effect for a period of time.

I do want to make clear, the court did itself stay its own decision, but it's for two weeks, and that was to allow President Trump to actually be able to appeal to the Supreme Court, which he says in this post he is going to do.

Then he goes through all of the needs for this ballroom, but he doesn't refer to it as the ballroom, only as a top medical facility, a top security facility, really leaning into the fact that he is now saying that top law enforcement believes that this has to be built in Washington, D.C.

And I do want to read to you -- we obviously read you a line from the dissenting judge -- the two other judges in this ruling. And this is what they put forward when they made this ruling.

It says: "We are aware of no instance in American history in which a president unilaterally and using privately collected funds demolished substantial portions of the White House that Congress authorized to be built and American taxpayers paid for until now."

Now, of course, the big question is, what happens with the Supreme Court? Do they actually take this case up? There's also a lot of questions as to, if you halt construction, if this does end up being shut down, what happens to this now gaping hole that is outside of the White House?

And will Congress -- will this have to be brought to Congress? Now, interestingly, a Bush appointee -- this is -- actually, these judges were upholding a ruling from a Bush appointee. So I just want to make that clear, since everyone seems to want to bring politics and who appointed who.

This appointee actually addressed this idea of the gaping hole that you see right there. It says: "While I take seriously the government's concerns for safety and security of the White House grounds and the president himself, the existence of a large hole beside the White House is, of course, a problem of the president's own making."

So, don't have any real concrete answers as to what is going to happen if this does, in fact, go to the Supreme Court, if they rule to shut down this project. One of the complaints that President Trump has made, and we have actually heard this from people on both sides of the issue, is why this wasn't brought to the attention, why this wasn't brought to the courts earlier before the construction begun.

But, obviously, you see where we are now, and now we're waiting to see what that appeals to the Supreme Court and what the Supreme Court decides to do with this case moving forward.

JIMENEZ: And you can't miss the knock-downed building and construction there, again, if you're anywhere near the White House.

Kristen Holmes, appreciate it, as always.

Still to come: CDC workers who survived last year's shooting at the agency say they don't feel any safer, as Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. prepares to visit their offices.

Plus, nearly 200,000 Americans are told they're going to have to start going without water for 48 hours at a time as drought conditions worsen, essentially.

And then, later, we take you inside a laboratory where researchers are trying to find new ways to fight back against mosquitoes, but they're learning the annoying bugs are smarter than we think. I hate hearing that.

That and much more coming up on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:14:59]

KEILAR: HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. making a rare visit to the Centers for Disease Control headquarters in Atlanta, where he's set to attend a ceremony to mark the one-year anniversary of this, last year's deadly shooting at the CDC.

He's also expected to take questions from staff and leadership amid changes and deep staffing cuts. The agency is preparing to welcome its newly confirmed director, Dr. Erica Schwartz, as RFK Jr.'s leadership is being tested by major outbreaks of cyclospora and measles.

We're joined now by Dr. Daniel Jernigan. He's a former CDC official who resigned over concerns about RFK Jr.

You would have been involved in that cyclospora incident, obviously, at this point if you were still at the CDC, so we will talk about that in a moment.

But, first, the secretary's visit there to the CDC today. I know that you talk to former colleagues. What are they telling you about this visit?

DR. DANIEL JERNIGAN, FORMER CDC DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL CENTER FOR EMERGING AND ZOONOTIC INFECTIOUS DISEASES: I think a lot of people have -- are pleased that the secretary of health has come down to Atlanta a year after he was there when the shooting occurred previously.

[13:15:08]

But I think people were really wanting to hear some more supportive comments, things about how CDC really is the preeminent global public health agency. And so they got some of that from the secretary, my understanding.

However, it seemed to have fallen a little bit flat. We need to hear that kind of thing about supporting CDC all through the year, not just once a year at a point when we're commemorating the death of somebody who died during the shooting.

KEILAR: Yes, and you were in the building during this shooting last year. It was incredibly scary. Another doctor who still works there told CNN: "I don't think we're any safer than we were a year ago."

What's your understanding of how things are?

JERNIGAN: Yes, it took a long time to get the windows replaced. I think some of them actually still need replacing. When we were there about 10:00 to 5:00 on that afternoon. We started hearing that sound. We looked out the window. We could see people running down the street. And we realized then it was an active shooter.

We went into shelter in place. But, afterward, I walked the floors, talked to the different staff. They were shaken, but they were resilient, and it was just hard for them to understand how people that are -- have no trouble running into the forest and taking care of Ebola patients or of working in the laboratory with very high- consequence pathogens, how it would be less safe for them in their offices in Atlanta than for them in the field when they're trying to prevent disease and save lives.

KEILAR: So, Dr. Erica Schwartz was just confirmed as CDC director this week. This is a permanent post that has been vacant since Dr. Susan Monarez was ousted almost a year ago after she clashed with Secretary Kennedy. That was over vaccine policies and his efforts to oust some senior CDC officials. She only lasted about a month in that role.

What should Dr. Schwartz's first priority be, especially with an eye to what we're seeing the country deal with this cyclospora outbreak and other outbreaks?

JERNIGAN: Yes, I think the first thing -- and this happens with any director that comes in -- get to know the content, get to know what is actually happening, become very fluent in it, get to know the people, understand what they're doing, understand the work that they're doing, get to trust those people as well.

I think, especially for her, she's going to need to know, what's the line that she's not willing to cross? She needs to walk through the front door of CDC on that first day essentially being prepared to get fired. She needs to know, what are the legal lines, what are the scientific

soundness issues that she's going to have to deal with, and what are the ethical responsibilities that she needs to really be accountable for and protect in her role as a director of CDC?

KEILAR: We're learning White House officials are mulling this executive order that would focus on childhood vaccine schedule and -- or on the schedule.

It would focus on autism research amid this push by the president to take more action. What do you think about that? And how is that something that the new CDC director should be looking at?

JERNIGAN: Yes, I don't know the details of that.

I do know that autism is a disease that really needs to be understood so that we can find ways to prevent it and to treat it. To focus on vaccines right now is probably not the best use of resources. And so it is another example of letting the ideology drive the policies and the decision-making, rather than letting the evidence and the science direct you on which way to go.

I think this is going to be the first test for Dr. Schwartz, who I have great respect for, and I know that she has great integrity, and I look forward to seeing how she's going to use that to make sure that she's standing up to those kinds of things that may be asked of her that are really not the kind of good public health actions that need to happen.

KEILAR: You're clearly optimistic about her taking this role. And just this summer, I mean, she has her work cut out for her, right, because measles are at their 35-year high, the cases that we're seeing right now. It's a second record-breaking year in a row.

Of course, there's the cyclospora outbreak. Do you see Americans being served right now by their public health officials?

JERNIGAN: You know, at CDC, there are a number of folks that left. They have less -- some of the -- they certainly have 25 percent less staff at CDC in order to respond.

The communications about what to do about these big outbreaks, those are limited right now. And so it is not the same place where we were before. I really look forward to seeing how Dr. Schwartz is going to try and help and protect and advocate for the agency, so that they can do the most that they can to help prevent the record number of measles cases, the highest number of cyclospora cases, and an Ebola outbreak in Africa that looks like it's on its way to being the biggest outbreak that we have ever had.

KEILAR: Yes, a lot of work cut out for her in this.

Dr. Dan Jernigan, thanks so much for being with us.

[13:20:02]

JERNIGAN: Sure. Thank you.

KEILAR: Omar?

JIMENEZ: All right, starting today, more than 180,000 Puerto Ricans are being forced to ration water amid a relentless drought to this point.

People in San Juan and neighboring areas will be losing water access for 48 hours at a time. They have already been without reliable water for more than 100 days. And officials say the water rationing schedule could expand to 72 hours at a time.

In the next hour, we're going to speak live with the governor of Puerto Rico for an update on the growing water crisis. So, stick around for that.

But, also, President Trump is taking another swing at birthright citizenship and so-called birth tourism. We will tell you what his new executive orders mean right after this.

Plus, a U.S. Olympian accused of vandalizing the Reflecting Pool is speaking out about the ordeal days after prosecutors moved to throw out the charge.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:25:27]

KEILAR: President Trump is taking another whack at limiting so-called birth tourism and birthright citizenship. He signed executive orders last night. The Supreme Court, of course, struck down Trump's earlier attempt to curb birthright citizenship earlier this year. The court cited the 14th Amendment, which says all persons born on U.S. soil are U.S. citizens. It's pretty clear about that.

Let's bring in CNN's Priscilla Alvarez.

What's in this executive order?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So, this executive order is far more narrow than what he tried to do last year, which was a broader attempt at really curbing birthright citizenship. In this case, they're looking at very specific exceptions.

So, walking through those, that is alien enemies, it targets them, members of foreign terrorist organizations, and categories of people who lobby and act on behalf of foreign governments. Now, there have been some exceptions to birthright citizenship, but they're very, very few, including children that are born to two foreign diplomats in the U.S. or enemies during a hostile occupation.

So, in this case, it appears that they're narrowing in and finding ways to broaden these definitions and create these exceptions for birthright citizenship. Now, of course, it's not entirely clear how they would go on to enforce that, and it is likely that it would face litigation. But this is an issue that immigration hawks and the president's allies

have wanted him to continue to pursue after the Supreme Court's decision earlier this summer to uphold birthright citizenship. And the president reflected on that while announcing these orders just yesterday. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

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

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALVAREZ: Now, this wasn't just an announcement about birthright citizenship, but also about birth tourism. What birth tourism is, is people, pregnant women coming to the United States towards the end of their pregnancy to have their babies here to have automatic citizenship.

Now, scholars have found that this is only has been the case in 0.3 percent of cases over the course of 10 years. So it's a very small, narrow group, but it is one that the administration has been honed in on for some time.

Now, what the executive order does is really unclear in this case because there's already federal law that bans essentially people from coming here for this purpose, and consular officials can deny someone's visa if they find that individual is coming here only to give birth.

So I think we're still a little unclear on how this ban, as Stephen Miller put it, would be any different than what's already on the books. But, certainly, Brianna, what they made clear yesterday is, this is still an issue that they intend to pursue, one that their allies have wanted to be the case, despite what happened in the Supreme Court.

KEILAR: Yes, politically, it's a winning issue for the president, no doubt.

Priscilla, thank you so much -- Omar.

JIMENEZ: Well, the former U.S. Olympian who'd been accused of damaging the Reflecting Pool is speaking out.

And in an interview with CNN, David Hearn reacted to a judge officially tossing out the federal criminal case against him. And that is after, by the way, prosecutors dropped the case and admitted there wasn't evidence to support their earlier claim that he was responsible.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN HOST: Do you want an apology? DAVID HEARN, FORMER U.S. OLYMPIAN: 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?

NORM EISEN, ATTORNEY FOR DAVID HEARN: I think, for now, we're going to focus on getting the case dismissed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JIMENEZ: So, despite dropping the case, the judge did stop short of barring prosecutors from being able to revive the same case against Hearn in the future. Another hearing is set for September.

All right, coming up on CNN NEWS CENTRAL: Todd Blanche one step closer to confirmation as the country's attorney general. We're going to speak with a Democratic senator about his take on the nomination and his own concerns about Blanche.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)