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CNN This Morning
President Trump Calls To "Immediately" Remove D.C.'s Homeless; AI Applies, AI Denies: The "No Humans" Job Search; Netanyahu Doubles Down On Gaza Takeover Plan. Aired 6-6:30a ET
Aired August 11, 2025 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MJ LEE, CNN ANCHOR: -- world gathered in Bosnia and Herzegovina this weekend for the International Waterfall Jumps competition. Clearly an amazing sight for the crowds who turned out to watch. The 16 daredevils jumped off a waterfall that was the height of about a six- story building. The organizer says the ambience provides an unforgettable moment for the jumpers.
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And thank you so much for joining us here on Early Start this Monday. I'm MJ Lee in Washington, D.C. CNN This Morning starts right now.
AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: President Trump deploys the FBI to fight crime in the nation's capital. Is this the start of a federal takeover in D.C. and other big cities? CNN This Morning starts right now.
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This city has to be run. You know, I have the right to take it over.
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CORNISH: The fight over who's really in charge of the streets of Washington.
Israel's prime minister believes the best way to end the war in Gaza is to expand it. There's condemnation from the U.N., but just shrugs from the White House.
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SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): You know, more income and wealth inequality today than we've ever had.
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CORNISH: More money, more problems. Why Democrats are having a hard time connecting with the working class.
And Milwaukee underwater. Flash floods drenched the city and the threat isn't over yet. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If a tool can help you on the job search, then I think it's a great tool.
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CORNISH: Bot versus bot in the job market. One writes resumes, the other weeds through them. Where does that leave the humans who need work?
It's 6:00 a.m. here on the East Coast. Here's a live look at the White House. Good morning, everybody. It's Monday, August 11th. I want to thank you for waking up with me. I'm Audie Cornish. And this is CNN This Morning.
And in just a few hours, we're going to hear from President Trump about his plans for Washington, D.C. It's his latest target for a potential federal takeover. Over the weekend, federal agencies like the Bureau for Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the DEA posted about patrolling the city under the hashtag Make D.C. Safe Again. Up to 130 FBI agents could also be patrolling with local law enforcement, which is actually not all that common. The President's plan to make D.C. more beautiful than ever involves getting rid of homeless people.
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TRUMP: I think it's terrible and we'll have them removed immediately. We do remove it. We've got to get the mayor to run this city properly. This city has to be run. You know, I have the right to take it over.
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CORNISH: He also claims that the city is seeing a spike in crime numbers. So far, data doesn't show that. D.C. police stats show a 26 percent drop in violent crime over the past 12 months. This follows a 35 percent drop reported the year before.
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MAYOR MURIEL BOWSER (D), WASHINGTON, D.C.: Very specific things in our law that would allow the President to have more control over our police department. None of those conditions exist in our city right now. As I mentioned, we are not experiencing a spike in crime. In fact, we're watching our crime numbers go down.
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CORNISH: All right. Today, it's D.C. But what does the President's push for more power here mean for other cities? Joining me now in the group chat, Sara Fischer, CNN senior media analyst and senior media reporter for Axios. Stephen Collinson, CNN politics senior reporter. And Noel King, co-host and editorial director of the Today Explained podcast.
Stephen, I'm going to start with you because you had already been writing about the President's push into cities. At that time, I think we were talking about L.A., right, in the response to the riots there. Are you seeing something more as he raises it as an idea?
STEPHEN COLLINSON, CNN POLITICS SENIOR REPORTER: Yes, I think there's a constant thread that runs through everything that the President does. He looks for areas where there is unused presidential power and he grabs it and he tries to use it to, you know, bolster his own authority in standing. So it doesn't matter in this context that crime is going down in D.C. He can look strong by using federal officers in roles that they don't normally use. I think it's a small step towards what he wants to really do, which is the militarization of police.
He's already talked about putting the National Guard on the streets of Washington, D.C. He's more latitude to do it in this city than he does in other cities.
CORNISH: Yes.
COLLINSON: So that's where he's starting.
SARA FISCHER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA ANALYST: Well, the only challenge is that he doesn't have full sort of legal authority to do as you're saying. It would require the city to meet certain parameters in order for him to fully take it over. That's what Mayor Bowser was just saying. You would need to prove that crime was out of control in order to be able to fully take that on.
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Right now, he does have authority to bring in the National Guard, but the challenge is, this is a very progressive city. It's, in fact, one of the most in the entire country. We elect our mayor. We elect our D.C. City Council members. So I would expect pushback if he's trying to bring in this type of authority, especially when the residents of the city, which I think most of us are here around this table, aren't necessarily feeling the numbers that he claims are there.
NOEL KING, CO-HOST & EDITORIAL DIRECTOR, "TODAY EXPLAINED" PODCAST: I wonder if that's entirely true. So one of the problems we've seen in American cities is that we're hearing that crime is going down, crime is going down, but you talk to residents, and they're not feeling that crime is going down.
So the data is saying one thing, but the experience of people living in the city often feels very different. Now, that's not to say that I'm hearing from a lot of people in D.C., yes, we really want this. But Trump does have a way of, like, pushing a button that resonates with people sometimes.
CORNISH: Yes, it's not a subtle button. Here is Stephen Miller --
KING: Yes.
CORNISH: -- the President's chief of staff, speaking to "News Nation." Here's how he talked about it.
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STEPHEN MILLER, WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF: The President has been very clear that he is going to take the action necessary to secure the city of Washington for the people who live here, for all the American people and all who visit here. It's our capital city. It is more violent than Baghdad. It is more violent than parts of Ethiopia, parts of many of the most dangerous places in the world.
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CORNISH: So we're back to this language, right? The no-go zones, the -- like, this is the worst place in the entire world. Yes, talking about juveniles, I'm, like, people are one beat away from saying super predators.
KING: Yes.
CORNISH: It just -- it feels familiar.
KING: Yes, it sure does. It sure does.
CORNISH: In a good way?
KING: No, no. I mean, look, we went through a period in this country where we incarcerated juveniles as adults. This is what Trump is talking about now.
CORNISH: Yes.
KING: Jeanine Pirro is talking about it now. It did not do what people wanted it to do. It did not lessen crime. And what we found was that the juveniles went through the adult system and then went back through the adult system.
FISCHER: Can I just say one thing really fast? We're talking about two very different issues here, though. Donald Trump is talking about going after homelessness that is so different than juvenile crime.
CORNISH: No, Jeanine Pirro is also talking about that specifically.
FISCHER: So, but when you talk about the homeless problem, the fact is a lot of the homeless crime is not necessarily related to crime in the city writ large. I think they're trying to tie this issue of homelessness, of the city just not being run well, of it not looking the way Donald Trump wants it to look, especially in the areas where he occupies.
If you take a look outside Union Station, when people come in outside the Capitol, ton of homeless population there. Outside of the White House downtown, there's homeless populations. And so I think part of this is just cleaning up the city to make it look the way he wants to look. It's not necessarily aligned always to the crime numbers.
CORNISH: Right. And now we've got to watch how Muriel Bowser responds. I think like a lot of other Democrat-run cities, she's tried to navigate this period of Trump 2.0. You guys stay with me. We've got a lot to talk about in this show.
Coming up on CNN This Morning, as the President, as we mentioned, warns homeless people to get out of D.C. Where are they going to go? We're going to ask a Democratic congressman who represents the suburbs around the city.
Plus, a story straight out of the early aughts, AOL. Yes, still around, but it's actually ending a key service.
And ahead of the midterms, Republicans are falling back on an old strategy. Is it going to work this time around?
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Cooper stood with the woke left, endangering our kids.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Man-to-man defense isn't woke enough for Ossoff. He's playing for they-them.
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CORNISH: It's almost 15 minutes past the hour, and here is your morning roundup. Today, Iran will host the U.N. nuclear watchdog for talks, but there's no plan to visit its nuclear sites. After the U.S. and Israel launched military strikes on Iran's nuclear sites a few months ago, inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency have not been able to access Iran's facilities.
Flash flooding, more than 60 water rescues, and a state of emergency in Milwaukee on Sunday. The city got over a month and a half worth of rain this weekend, flooding homes, turning roads into rivers, and forcing the closure of their beloved Wisconsin State Fair.
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MAYOR CHEVY JOHNSON, MILWAUKEE: This flooding event, it's very significant. It's something that Milwaukee hasn't seen in perhaps a decade or more.
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CORNISH: And the threat's not over yet. Some spots could see up to five more inches of rain today.
The sounds of the early 2000s include Britney Spears, NSYNC, Furbies, and the AOL dial-up tone. Yes, it's still a thing. But AOL has decided it's going to end dial-up internet. That iconic you've got mail sound will be no more. It's going to shut down next month. AOL first introduced us all to dial-up in 1991.
Next on CNN This Morning, A.I. will help you build your resume, then reject you from the job. How can humans get ahead in the bot versus bot job market?
Plus, have Democrats turned over their base? Some in the party think so. What's their plan to bring them back?
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And going live to the Texas Statehouse in Austin, Democrats still out of state. Can they hold out another week for the special session to end? Does that date even matter?
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A lot of employers are already using A.I. to reject you. So I might as well get ahead of the curve, work smarter, not harder.
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CORNISH: It's a brutal job market out there. So people are using A.I. to write resumes and to apply to as many jobs as they can.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You just need to confirm that you're looking for a full-time role and you're in the U.S. and you have a resume handy.
I have so many jobs in my queue already.
All of these are already lined up, ready to go. And then I have all these additional matches that I can add to my queue as well.
And now I just sit back and look at my resume while I wait for the interview requests to roll into my inbox.
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CORNISH: Bosses are using those same A.I. tools to weed out hundreds and sometimes thousands of applications. The average job gets around 250 applicants, but only four to six candidates will be invited to interview. That's according to the online career platform Glassdoor, which means that's just about a 2 percent interview rate. It makes it that much harder to land a job these days. So the question is, will A.I. hire you or replace you?
Here now to discuss is Jessica Kriegel, Chief Strategy Officer at Culture Partners. Good morning, Jessica.
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JESSICA KRIEGEL, CHIEF STRATEGY OFFICER, CULTURE PARTNERS: Good morning, how are you?
CORNISH: Good. So let's start with those employers. Why are they using A.I. to screen candidates to even, I'm hearing interview candidates? Because in the end, it's going to be an actual person who has to sit next to you at the office.
KRIEGEL: Yes, certainly, or maybe not, depending on the future of A.I. and work. I mean, I worked for an applicant tracking system back in 2008 now. We were already using A.I. to screen candidates based on keywords and what their qualifications were. So the screening part isn't new. I think what's new is that the candidates are now using those same A.I. tools to develop their resume, to send in their -- their cover letter, to use agents to mass apply to as many jobs as possible.
So it's become a little bit less efficient than it was before. I think A.I. will solve this problem because A.I. is all about creating more efficiencies. So this is probably a short-term problem.
CORNISH: I was -- we played that TikToker. I don't know if there's a clip later of her being like, and now I'm in a job, right? Or she's still just applying. Who's winning in a bot versus bot scenario?
KRIEGEL: You know, it's funny, I don't know is the answer. But we're living in a world in which data is the new oil and A.I. is the new refinery. So to continue the metaphor, the raw materials are the resumes and the cover letters and even the interviews that you see, companies are now doing their first initial interviews through A.I., which candidates are actually, I've heard, getting quite resentful about that. They're feeling like, well, this is a two-way street.
I have to choose you. And if you're making me jump through A.I. hoops in order to just get to the first step, well, do I really want to work for a company like that? It's something employers need to consider.
CORNISH: Wait, does this mean they're chatting back and forth in an interview or is there an avatar? Like, are they talking to screens? Help me out here. I've missed this. I'm working.
KRIEGEL: I mean, they're -- yes, they're actually sending in video recordings. They're having conversations with A.I. bots in order to pass that first screening step as opposed to the way it used to be, where the recruiter would have the first call. And if you pass that test, you'd go to the hiring manager. It's a whole different world now.
CORNISH: I want to share what Vice President J.D. Vance said about A.I.'s impact on jobs. This was just yesterday.
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J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There's a lot of talk about how AI is going to destroy everybody's job. I actually don't see the evidence of that. I think it's going to lead to a boom in construction jobs. I think we're going to be able to do things that we weren't able to do before.
And there might be some disruptions, but fundamentally, when it comes to jobs, we ought to be focused on the ways in which A.I .is going to create great productivity and great new economic opportunities.
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CORNISH: Sixty-four percent of Americans basically believe there are going to be fewer jobs in the next two years because of A.I. I was hearing so much in the kind of LinkedIn world about what it's like for entry-level people. Do you think we're at a tipping point right now where we're losing jobs?
KRIEGEL: You know, I've said this before. Anyone who says they know what the future of A.I. is, they are selling something or they have an agenda. I think college grads right now are having a harder time than average finding work because their job is typically something that we've already figured out A.I. can replace.
The only thing that you can do right now to differentiate is to have that human touch, write a hand-person note, ask for a referral. That's how you can --
CORNISH: But do you hand it to the A.I. bot? Like, that's what I don't understand. Like, you're never going to get that job.
KRIEGEL: You know what? We're actually going to probably go back to the days where you ask your dad to introduce you to someone to get a job, which can be actually problematic for the problem of equity, right? I mean, we're going to go backwards with some of the progress that we have made when it comes to job screening because of that.
CORNISH: Jessica Kriegel is chief strategy officer at Culture Partners. Thanks for being with us.
KRIEGEL: Thanks for having me.
CORNISH: After the break on CNN This Morning, Israel doubles down on its plan to take over Gaza City, but hostage families are against it. How they hope to make their voices heard.
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Plus, people are going to die, is the warning from a former Trump White House official after RFK Jr. stopped some vaccine research.
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CORNISH: Good morning, everyone. I'm Audie Cornish. Thank you for joining me on CNN This Morning. It's now half past the hour, and here's what's happening right now.
Lawyers for President Trump and the California governor facing off in San Francisco in a courtroom today. Newsom sued the administration, claiming they violated a 147-year-old law when he deployed the National Guard to California during the immigration rate protest. Trump's team claims they were within their limits.
Today, Republicans in Texas will again try to vote on new voting maps. Democrats are one week into their walkout and have got just a little over a week left in the special session. But the state's governor said that deadline doesn't matter. He will call session after session until the vote is done.
An Israeli strike in Gaza City killed seven people, including at least four Al Jazeera journalists. The IDF say one of the journalists was their target, accusing him of leading a Hamas cell, something he had denied in the past.
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