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CNN This Morning

Trump Tariffs Go Into Effect. Is Respectability Politics Gone? Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired August 07, 2025 - 06:00   ET

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

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MJ LEE, HOST, CNN EARLY START: -- 500 pounds of unsalted butter into the bovine figure you saw there. And it's all done by hand.

And how would you feel about a tomato ketchup smoothie? This new drink is a collaboration between Heinz and Smoothie King. Heinz says that, unsurprisingly, it's the first ever ketchup based smoothie and it blends ketchup with acai sorbet, apple juice, strawberries and raspberries. And the company says it claims, it is both sweet and tangy. The smoothies are available at certain Smoothie King locations across the U.S.

Thanks for joining us here on Early Start. I'm MJ Lee in Washington in D.C. and CNN This Morning starts right now.

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST, CNN THIS MORNING: Dozens of new Trump tariffs are here and you're about to pay up. Where is all that extra cash going to go? CNN This Morning starts right now.

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DOUG FORD, PREMIER OF ONTARIO: I still stand by what I say. Dollar for dollar, tariff for tariff.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CORNISH: The things that could cost you more at the store. And the dinner party that never was. As reports swirled of an Epstein strategy meeting at the VP's house, what was behind the change in plans?

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

DONALD TRUMP, US PRESIDENT: I don't call it a breakthrough. I mean, we've been working on this a long time. (END VIDEOTAPE)

CORNISH: It's official, President Trump and Putin set to meet in the coming days. But it might be up to the President to make any progress. And ICE isn't letting age hold back its hiring goals. The change in policy to try and fill the ranks.

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MICHELLE OBAMA, FORMER FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES: When they go low, we go high.

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CORNISH: Respectability politics, is it a thing of the past? As fighting fire with fire becomes the trend. And UFOs, drones. There's been recent sightings of strange things in the sky. What's the likelihood it's actually aliens? It's 6 a.m. here on the East Coast. Here is a live look at the White House. Good morning everybody. It's Thursday, August 7. I want to thank you for joining us. I'm Audie Cornish, and this is CNN This Morning.

Now, as you wake up, President Trump's long promised and threatened tariffs on the world, well, they finally arrive. Effective at midnight, the administration's so called reciprocal tariffs snapped into effect. Ordering coffee from Brazil, well, that's going to cost another 50% to bring into the U.S. How about chocolate from Switzerland? That's 39% extra. Those are two of the five highest rates overall. A total of about 40 countries face a tariff of 15% or higher. If you thought the President was done with tariffs for now, think again.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TRUMP: We'll be putting a tariff on of approximately 100% on chips and semiconductors. But if you're building in the United States of America, there's no charge.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CORNISH: As it stands, Americans will pay an additional 16 to 17% of taxes on imported goods, the highest tariff rate seen in the US since the Great Depression. Those numbers could climb higher as trade negotiations with China and India drag on. The President is threatening to impose higher rates on them because they buy Russian oil. And trade talks with Canada and Mexico, well, that could end up with higher costs on two of America's largest trading partners, as some Canadian leaders push for retaliation.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FORD: You can't have tariffs on one side and not the other. I still stand by what I say, dollar for dollar, tariff for tariff. They understand strength, not weakness. I'm praying that everything's going to go fine. But if it doesn't, I gotta ask the people, do you trust President Trump? I don't.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CORNISH: Joining me now in the group chat, Aaron Blake, CNN senior political reporter, Daniel Koh, former deputy and special assistant to President Biden, and Kristen Soltis Anderson, CNN political commentator and Republican strategist and pollster. Kristen, I'm sorry I have to come to you as a pollster and as someone who's looking at this. You just heard someone say, do you trust President Trump on this? I don't. What are you kind of getting a sense from in terms of public response at this point, or even base response? KRISTEN SOLTIS ANDERSON, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST, POLLSTER: So, initially, when you had the Liberation Day tariffs and a lot of market turmoil, you began to see President Trump's numbers on the economy head south pretty quickly. This has always been something that, even for voters that don't love his tone, his tenor, his approach, they were at least previously sometimes willing to say, well, he's kind of good for my pocketbook.

As of April, that really began to change. But for some of his base, they still held out hope over the summer. Look, this isn't going to be about big tariffs getting imposed. This will be about negotiation. We'll wind up in a good place where we're getting what we want.

CORNISH: Right.

SOLTIS ANDERSON: And so arguably, I think it would be nice if countries like India and China were using less Russian oil, for other geopolitical reasons. But how much will the American consumer be willing to bear? I think as we get close to the end of the summer, we're getting a real true test of those limits.

AARON BLAKE, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Yeah, there's no question this has been a political liability.

[06:05:00]

The tariffs seem to be something that very few Americans have been asking for. If you ask them in polls, like, do you like the tariffs? It's like 30, 35%. But if you ask them, like, should we be doing this? Is this a priority for you? It's much lower than that. Republicans are kind of on board because it's Trump, but he has a long leash because of that. If you -- If you look at the Republicans and their views of this, they also trust the strategy behind this. Overwhelmingly, they think this is going to be a good thing long term.

CORNISH: I feel like you've also written about it as leverage, that fundamentally it has been effective in a thing that Trump enjoys, which is like making people come to him to negotiate.

BLAKE: Yes. And Trump loves that. That's what he's all about. And I think it has been effective to some degree. We've seen announcements of certain trade deals that are pretty low on details. Haven't exactly panned out the way that Trump has been presented them necessarily. But it does give him some leverage on other countries. He's good at using that leverage. The question now is, can he extend that leverage to all these countries all at once, or does this create more economic pains that maybe causes those countries to say, I'm going to wait this out and see if he backs off of this initially (ph).

CORNISH: Right. And then the rest of us have to figure out if we want to wait it out. Right? Over time. I just want to raise the consumer price index for June, expose kind of what's going on with tariffs. Prices for appliances up 1.9%, computers 1.4, sporting goods up. And also, I think toys rose for a second month in a row.

DANIEL KOH, HOST, THE PEOPLE'S CABINET PODCAST: Yeah. I think what we're seeing is a symptom of Trump's blowtorch approach towards tariffs versus what we did in Biden administration was a scalpel approach. There are certain industries that need protection. In the Biden administration, for example, we put a tariff on solar panels to make sure that domestic production was more competitive.

But what happens when you have to the point of leverage, if your leverage isn't working, that is the indicators of the economy are showing that it's slowing down and you actually need these partners geopolitically, that becomes more of a problem for you. And instead of taking ownership right now, I think you're seeing the president lash out, right?

He's blaming the BLS commissioner, saying the jobs report was fake. He's threatening to fire Jerome Powell. He's making up, you know, new potential threats to India. And when you don't have the back of, listen, I got, I got the job growth, so I'm coming without you or not, you basically become naked. And that's what we're seeing right now.

CORNISH: But if you look at a chart of tariff revenues, right, like the Biden administration wasn't bringing in $30 billion, you know, from other countries. Like, can't he turn and say there is an actual benefit? I guess it depends on what your benchmark for success is.

SOLTIS ANDERSON: Well, and I think it also, like, let's talk about the semiconductors of it all, right? Because that's like the new piece of this. So, you talked about wanting to protect American solar panel production. I mean, there is an argument to be made that it is not good that we are so dependent on Taiwan is really the place where we get all of our semiconductors. It would be wonderful if in the US we were able to produce more of them.

At the same time until that production is there, what's going to happen to American consumers? Our ability to compete in the AI race where we're so dependent, you know, all sorts of things we're really dependent on these semiconductors. So, a lot of trade offs there that may, I think, present some massive political risk to the President.

KOH: And those tariffs are only good if you're able to show that it's not affecting prices to consumers. Right? The reality is most Americans will see the tariffs manifested as a tax. Once you're seeing the indicators the way it is right now, I think Trump realizes that that is going to be manifested and seen by consumers and by people, and that's bad news for Americans.

CORNISH: Okay, you guys stay with me. We've got more to talk about today. Coming up on CNN This Morning, a shooting on a Georgia military base. How other soldiers took down the gunman. Plus, other states could soon be getting in on the redistricting action. And Vice President Vance is at the front and center of the fight. Plus, it's back to school. But what does President Trump's tariffs mean for your school supply shopping?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MOM, SCHOOL SHOPPER: I am looking for basic school supplies. Paper, pencils, scissors, glue. The tariffs are definitely a little scary. We're trying to get ahead of time because we don't know what's going to happen.

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CORNISH: It's 14 minutes past the hour now for five things you need to know to get your day going. An Army sergeant now in custody after shooting five soldiers at Georgia's Fort Stuart. Officials say the 28 year old used his own gun in the attack yesterday and his fellow soldiers were the ones who took him down. Five soldiers were hurt. They're all expected to be okay. However, the motive is still unknown.

And the man accused of gunning down two Israeli embassy staffers in D.C. face the death penalty. Elias Rodriguez was indicted on 10 counts by a federal grand jury, including murder and hate crimes charges. In this video of his arrest at the scene back in May, you can hear him chanting, quote, free Palestine.

And flights are running again for United Airlines after a technology issue caused major delays on Wednesday.

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UNKNOWN?: Tower United 54.

UNKNOWN?: 254 yeah.

UNKNOWN?: That company is advising us there's a system wide outage of our system that puts the numbers out to us.

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CORNISH: System wide. That meant more than 1,000 delays were reported. The issue had to do with the airline's weight and balance computer system. It's now been resolved, but the company says there could be residual delays still.

And turns out nine unexpected months in space was long enough. NASA's Butch Wilmore is retiring. You might remember him as one of the Boeing astronauts who went up to the International Space Station for what should have been eight days, then got stuck there for months. Wilmore joined NASA in 2000.

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BASEBALL ANNOUNCER: Smacks one in the air. Deep center field.

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BASEBALL ANNOUNCER: Scott going back. Forget about it. It's gone.

CORNISH: That's the L.A. Dodgers two way superstar Shohei Ohtani drilling his 39th home run of the season last night in a 5 to 3 loss to the Cardinals. It was the 1000th hit of Ohtani's career. And straight ahead on CNN This Morning, strategy meeting scrapped. The Trump administration will have to try again to get on the same page about the Epstein scandal. Plus, is it the end of an era for respectability politics? Good morning to Philly.

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[06:20:00]

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JASMINE CROCKETT, DEMOCRATIC REPRESENTATIVE FROM TEXAS: I am here to tell you the time is up for playing in our faces. The Democrats are not going to stand for this any longer. So make sure when you talk about them, press, put some respect on their names.

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CORNISH: OK. Put some respect on their name. Not exactly something you would hear from Kamala Harris, or Barack Obama, but it's right on brand for Texas Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett. She's part of a new generation of politicians ditching the old playbook of taking the high road in politics. And that's what I'm talking about on this week's assignment.

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CORNISH: I think I was reading a profile of Eric Adams and one of his, like, very key advisors, and she was quoted as saying, like, when they go low, you dig for oil. And I was like, you know, it's done, it's done. Like, people are not playing the nice game anymore. And often when I hear the phrase respectability politics, it's from younger people as an insult. It is a little bit like, ugh.

JASMINE WRIGHT, NOTUS WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, it's, you know, basically them saying that people aren't being transparent. They can't really say what they want to say. Their delivery is boring, and it's basically untethered to the reality that they exist in now. It doesn't shape young people's lives in the way that it shaped people's lives generations before us.

They no longer feel tethered to the idea that what they say has to be crowdsourced for approval. And therefore, why would the politicians, or why -- And they've also grown up in the age of Trump, where they've seen one politician continuously be successful, even if he was voted out of office once, be successful. Also not adhering to this idea of respectability politics.

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CORNISH: Okay, that was Jasmine Wright of NOTUS. She's covered Kamala for a long time. She's usually here in the group chat. But one of the things I'm interested in is respectability politics comes from, like, way back kind of Black history of, like, you've got to dress a certain way, behave a certain way because it's about dignity and get winning that dignity from a public that doesn't want to give it to you. But now you've got a group of a generation that's grown up post

integration, right? Like, and they feel like if you wear a hoodie, if you wear a suit, either way you might be pulled over and in danger. It feels like there's a different attitude they have towards the whole idea.

KOH: Well, look, first of all, I think the algorithms of social media has created an environment, or it's an incentive for division. Right? People put together extreme views, and they're able to get rewarded through the algorithm, the likes, and it's a dopamine hit, so to speak.

But look, I think there are a lot of Americans right now who are waking up every day worried about whether their democracy is going to exist by the time the Trump term is over. They're seeing insurrections being pardoned. They're seeing due process taken away. They're seeing educational institutions exploited. But --

CORNISH: But Jasmine Crockett has made the point. Look, I'm out here doing what you're saying, getting the attention, making the points, having the credibility, but you are not rewarding me in the party the way Republicans are rewarding, like a Marjorie Taylor Greene.

KOH: The institutions may not be like the traditional people of Democratic Party, but I think the public is. People realize that these are unprecedented times, and these are times for unprecedented action. So, I think if you talk to people in the general public, they think that she is a breath of fresh air to insert some of the energy that we need. We see that in the polls, right? 28% approval rating for Democrats. They don't think there's enough fight. I think Congresswoman Crockett is showing that she has fight.

BLAKE: I think that's exactly right. What we've seen in the Democratic Party in recent years is, I think, a growing realization that they haven't availed themselves of some of the dark arts of politics. They've seen Trump do it, but they've been skittish about kind of going in that direction. I think what you're seeing, especially with the Texas redistricting case, which we've mentioned on the show today, is that Democrats have decided they need to play dirty, too.

They need to stop worrying about these norms. They need to stop worrying about playing nice. They have a brand to repair. They need to mobilize their base. With Jasmine Crockett, somebody like that, I think it's a really good question of how much they embrace her. I think it's been kind of a mixed signal. They like her in the committee hearings because she's really good in that setting. But she also says some things from time to time that kind of reinforce some of the problems that the party had in the 2024 election. And so --

CORNISH: Right. Because the flip side is people thought Kamala was too buttoned up and not loose enough. And, like, I don't know what woman is ideal in this scenario.

SOLTIS ANDERSON: Well, there's also a like a chicken and egg problem here, right? Which is that, you know, you noted for Democrats, they're looking at Trump and they're going, wait a minute, why does he get to do these things and we don't? But in a way, what I've been hearing from Republican voters over a decade and kind of what led to Trump was them feeling like the dynamic was reversed.

For Republicans pre Trump but post, you know, Mitt Romney losing, sort of looked at him and said, look, we nominated a nice guy. And they said he was a racist jerk anyways, I'm done trying to be nice. And you would hear from people in focus groups, in the lead up to Trump getting that nomination the first time, you know, Democrats control all of these major institutions. We're the ones as Republicans that don't have any power. We're the ones that are hamstrung.

And so, you know what? Let's go break the rules.

[06:25:00]

SOLTIS ANDERSON: And that led to them embracing Donald Trump against all odds back then (ph).

CORNISH: Well, there's a lot to talk about. If you guys want to listen to the episode, please check it out. New episodes of The Assignment drop each Thursday. Next on CNN This Morning, great progress. That's how President Trump described the US meeting with the Russian president. But is he just playing into Putin's hand? Plus, is an alien invasion on the way? One can hope. The top Harvard scientists with an out of this world theory.

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