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Early Start with Rahel Solomon

Trump Puts Washington, D.C. Police Under Federal Control; Trump On Putin Talks: "It's Not Up To Me To Make A Deal"; Two Workers Killed By Blast At Pennsylvania Steel Plant; U.S., China Agree To Extend Tariff Deadline By 90 Days. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired August 12, 2025 - 05:00   ET

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

[05:00:27]

MIN JUNG LEE, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning and welcome to our viewers, joining us from the United States and all around the world. Thanks so much for being with us. I'm MJ Lee. Rahel Solomon is off.

It's Tuesday, August 12th, 5:00 a.m. here in Washington.

And straight ahead on EARLY START.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Rescue our nation's capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor. We're not going to let it happen anymore. We're not going to take it.

MAYOR MURIEL BOWSER (D), WASHINGTON, D.C.: I'm going to work every day to make sure it's not a complete disaster.

DEMONSTRATORS: Free D.C.! Free D.C.!

SEN. JOHN FETTERMAN (D-PA): Reminds everybody how dangerous of a job it is to make steel here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a tragedy that we want to understand.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's lots to be investigated.

TAYLOR SWIFT, SINGER: Are you ready for it?

So, I wanted to show you something. This is my brand new album, "The life of a Showgirl".

(YELLING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(MUSIC)

LEE: Donald Trump says Washington, D.C. has become a cesspool of crime and violence and that he will put an end to it. He's announced an unprecedented plan to mobilize 800 National Guard troops, put D.C. police under federal control, have Attorney General Pam Bondi run the D.C. police and deploy FBI agents to patrol Washingtons streets.

But the latest police statistics don't support the president's rationale. They show that violent crime is down 26 percent compared to last year. Robbery is down 28 percent, and sexual abuse is down 50 percent.

Here's the way President Trump sees it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Our capital city has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth drugged out maniacs and homeless people. And we're not going to let it happen anymore. We're not going to take it.

See? They fight back until you knock the hell out of them, because it's the only language they understand. But they fought back against law enforcement last night. The police are and they're told don't do anything under any circumstances.

And you can see they want to get at it. And they're standing there and people are spitting in their face, and they're not allowed to do anything. But now they are allowed to do whatever the hell they want.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: Multiple sources tell CNN the D.C. police and federal agencies are scrambling to figure out their roles and strategy. Under Trump's new plan. Here's Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETE HEGSETH, U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: They will be standing right alongside our federal agents like they were in Los Angeles. They're going to be proactive. If you take an action or a shot at them, there will be a consequence. There's no rogue law enforcement going on from the National Guard, but there's also the application of common sense. We're not going to have national guardsmen sitting there like this, seeing a crime committed and not do something about it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser calls the plan unsettling, and unprecedented, and she warns that there's a danger that communities will lose trust in law enforcement.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BOWSER: I'm going to work every day to make sure it's not a complete disaster. If we lose communities who won't call the police, that could be a disaster. But it would be a disaster if communities won't talk to the police if a crime has been committed and could help solve that crime.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: More now from CNN's Sherrell Hubbard.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No president should be waking up in the morning trying to snap their fingers and take over our city. Whose city?

DEMONSTRATORS: Our city!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Whose city?

DEMONSTRATORS: Our city!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Whose city?

DEMONSTRATORS: Our city!

HUBBARD: Protesters responded to President Trump's announcement that he's putting the Washington, D.C., police force under federal control and deploying roughly 800 National Guard troops to the city.

TRUMP: To rescue our nation's capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor, and worse. We're going to take our capital back.

HUBBARD: Trump has made several claims about a rise in crime, despite data showing overall crime numbers in D.C. being lower than at this time last year.

Trump has threatened a federal takeover for months.

BOWSER: While this action today is unsettling and unprecedented, I can't say that given some of the rhetoric of the past, that we're totally surprised.

HUBBARD: D.C.'s mayor and residents expressing an uneasiness about the move.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think that's the first thing that a totalitarian dictator tries to do is to seize the capital city.

[05:05:02]

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I grew up in the military. I've always been proud of America, and this is the first time that I'm really scared of the direction our country is headed.

DEMONSTRATORS: Free D.C.! Free D.C.!

CHARLES RAMSEY, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: It has to be very well coordinated with clear roles and responsibilities. And if they're going to arm soldiers, they have to understand they're not in Iraq. They're not in Afghanistan.

HUBBARD: I'm Sherrell Hubbard, reporting.

(END VIDEOTAPE) LEE: And Juliette Kayyem is a senior -- senior -- CNN, excuse me, senior national security analyst and former assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security. She joins me live from Jamestown, Rhode island.

Juliette, thanks for being here.

There are multiple pieces, as you just saw to this announcement. Let me first ask you about this move to place the Metropolitan Police Department under federal control, including by designating a new interim federal commissioner of the MPD. How would that actually work in practice, particularly as it relates to command and control?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: So this is a great question because while there are, of course, sort of legal and political aspects to it on the ground, there are operational challenges. And I would say even confusion. One could even argue that maybe what the White House wants is that they want cities to look ungovernable.

When you overlay a new entity, federal or state, into a -- into a policies and procedures that a law enforcement entity has been doing for, for decades. And you have no training, no rules of engagement, no operating procedures. That is where there's going to be tension. There's going to be confusion. Who's in charge? What are the sort of terms of engagement?

You heard Secretary Hegseth sort of say, well, if they see someone beating someone else up, they're going to stop it. But I mean, of course. Right?

So, the question really is, is what are the rules of engagement? And those are -- have clearly not been set out. We saw some pictures and we're showing some images yesterday of just, you know, border patrol guys walking around the mall. That's just a -- it's a waste of time, but it's also a recipe for, for real confusion.

LEE: And let's talk about the other big piece of this, which is the deployment of national guard troops. Our reporting is that around 100 to 200 National Guard soldiers will be on duty at any given time. There are also not expected to openly carry rifles as they patrol the streets.

Can you explain to our viewers the specific training that National Guard soldiers get that's perhaps distinct from other parts of the military, and what specific skills they would bring to combating crime in a city like Washington?

KAYYEM: So it's a -- it's an interesting dynamic because in some ways, you know, the deployment is made based on imaginary numbers as, as we just reported. I mean, what the basis for this deployment is, is essentially in Donald Trump's head, because the crime numbers are down.

You know, every city, every -- every place experiences crime. But there was nothing to sort of justify this deployment. And then it's kind -- honestly, it's kind of an imaginary deployment when you talk about the national guard, 100 or 200 national guard members, unarmed, just roaming the streets. It's absolutely unclear what they will do that would be any different than if there were just more police officers who were deployed to a crime scene.

We do not know what the terms of engagement are for the National Guard. National Guard, unlike active military, which we saw in Los Angeles, at least the National Guard are trained in crowd control, civilian operations. They're often there to maintain or to sort of be an extra -- extra bodies to maintain order, say at a -- at a -- at a sporting event or inauguration.

So, they have much more integration with police. But 100 of them is like in D.C., it's like nothing. So, I -- last night, I sort of thought it's an imaginary threat and an imaginary deployment. I'm not minimizing it. I'm just saying it was -- given that it was done for purposes that have nothing to do with law and order, they have to do with what -- what Donald Trump essentially said, which is he, you know, the liberal cities he talked a lot about liberal, you know, liberal cities.

You know, he wants to assert authority over communities that that he has no sort of ties to. And D.C. is the easiest, just given that it's there, and because of the federal overplay in D.C.

LEE: So the city's mayor, Muriel Bowser, said that Trump's announcement is unsettling and unprecedented. She likened it to an intrusion on our autonomy. I'm hoping you can help put all of this in a little bit of perspective.

[05:10:01]

What kind of precedent is there?

You know, historically and what kinds of scenarios would federal law enforcement be brought in to intervene with the local police force?

KAYYEM: Yeah. So there is a whole series of interactions and trainings and standard operating procedures that we -- that integrate a whole of government approach to say whether there's concerns about urban violence or large event, the hosting of an Olympics or, or a FIFA World Cup, all of that is done cooperatively because there's a common interest in securing, say, a D.C. or Los Angeles or a Houston, Texas.

That is so normal that we don't even think about it. And it doesn't require a presidential mandate or a presidential press conference sort of asserting control over it. And this is where I think the mayor was talking about the historical significance of it.

One is it lowers the bar for a president to say, well, I'm just going to deploy the military because I don't because someone got carjacked, right? I mean, that doesn't happen. We have a 10th Amendment. The Republicans used to be pro states and locality rights. It just doesn't happen because you don't -- it's not the way our constitutional structure is set up. More importantly, it's not the way it happens, because that's not how

things are trained. There's not -- I mean, when you're out in the field, like I have often been, it's mostly cooperative. Theres not this antagonism. And unfortunately, what Donald Trump did is he asserted, a control that was unnecessary. And I think the mayor is trying to figure out, well, what does that mean for my rather large police department?

I worry there's going to be more crime, as she said, because people are going to be very nervous about this, this sort of federal footprint, which is not typically how we do local law enforcement, where you want neighborhood outreach, you want community outreach. My suspicion is that given its such small numbers, as I said, I think it's an imaginary threat and kind of an imaginary deployment done for political purposes.

Operationally, it's going to have to be unwound and understood, but it's not something that is going to, I think, change the dynamics in most of these countries. And most of these cities.

LEE: Yeah, clearly quite a bit of confusion. Juliette Kayyem, thank you so much for joining us this morning.

KAYYEM: Thank you.

LEE: And President Trump is already casting doubt on what, if anything, his upcoming summit with Russia's Vladimir Putin could accomplish saying, quote, "It's not up to me to make a deal."

The two leaders are set to meet this Friday in Alaska. President Trump says he wants to see what Putin has in mind for Ukraine, and he claims hell know in the first two minutes if a deal can be made.

This is what he says a deal could include.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: There will be some swapping, there will be some changes in land and the word that they will use is, you know, they make changes. We're going to change the lines. The battle lines. Russia has occupied a big portion of Ukraine. They've occupied some very prime territory. We're going to try and get some of that territory back for Ukraine

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: Ukraine's president, meanwhile, is still not invited to those talks.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy warns that Putin has no plans for peace.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT: He is definitely not preparing for a ceasefire or an end to the war. Putin is determined only to present a meeting with America as his personal victory, and then continue acting exactly as before. (END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: CNN's Clare Sebastian joins me now from London. Claire, not only are the two sides, that is Russia and Ukraine far apart right now, but Ukraine is still not even invited to this summit. So, what can we expect at this point?

CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, MJ, the bottom line is we still don't really know. Just three days out from the summit, a European official familiar with conversations around the Alaska talks telling CNN that the U.S. is still formulating its position. There seems to be some confusion around what was put on the table by President Putin when he met with Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, in Moscow last week.

So that is an extraordinary position to be in just three days out from these talks. I think what came out principally from the rather rambling comments that we got from President Trump on Monday, is that this is still, despite the confusion, a moment of risk for Ukraine. And I think one of the principal risks is that given this is now very likely a bilateral summit between Putin and Trump, that Trump will be brought round, as he has in the past, to Russia's way of thinking. And there were hints, fairly strong hints of that in his comments on Monday.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I get along with Zelenskyy, but you know, I disagree with what he's done very, very severely disagree.

[05:15:04]

This is a war that should have never happened, wouldn't have happened.

I was a little bothered by the fact that that Zelenskyy was saying, well, I have to get constitutional approval. I mean, he's got approval to go into war, kill everybody.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SEBASTIAN: So, look, the strong suggestion there seemed to be from Trump that he somehow blames President Zelenskyy for this war, which is, of course, a key Kremlin talking point. There is already clearly, given the commentary coming out of propagandists and officials in Moscow, an effort to prepare the ground essentially, for that kind of line in these Alaska talks.

So, I think that is a key risk. The other key risk that was floated a couple of times in those comments from Trump, is that he could still be prepared to walk away. He said, if nothing comes out, he could tell them to tell them good luck and keep fighting. And I think the clip you played talking about land swaps, is another major moment of risk for Ukraine. Ukraine has ruled out giving land, it says, to the occupier it

certainly does not want to give up land that Russia has not even occupied yet, which is something that Moscow has demanded.

So, all of that, I think, is the reason why we still see this frenzied pace of diplomatic activity here in Europe and from Ukraine, an effort to essentially wrestle back that narrative, because obviously this is still going on at a time when we see escalating violence. There is a sense among analysts that Russia is now launching a bigger push on the eastern front ahead of these talks, which is, of course, the exact opposite of what Ukraine and European leaders want. They want a ceasefire as the backdrop to any kind of meaningful peace talks -- MJ.

LEE: All right. Clare Sebastian in London, thanks for that update.

Authorities are trying to determine what caused a deadly explosion at a U.S. steel plant that killed two workers and injured at least ten people. The blast sent dark smoke shooting into the sky just outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

CNN's Gabe Cohen has our report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GABE COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, late Monday night, local police here in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, provided an update that after hours searching through the wreckage here at this U.S. steel facility, they were able to locate that last missing worker who sadly died in the explosion.

And so, now, this shifts to a recovery effort, and that will really ramp up the investigation into what exactly went wrong here. What caused this huge blast that injured ten U.S. steelworkers and killed two others?

And now, we're learning much more about the other worker who died in the blast. Thirty-nine-year-old Timothy Quinn. I spoke with his sister, who told me he was a loving father to three children. He was a caregiver to their mother and someone who lit up the room every time he entered it.

And the family is frustrated about how long it took for officials and for U.S. steel to actually notify them that Timothy had died in the explosion. As they were frantically calling hospitals all over the Pittsburgh area. Here's a little bit of what she told reporters on Monday.

TRISHA QUINN, FAMILY MEMBER: We live 45 minutes away, so driving to Pittsburgh is not an easy thing. And we can't go to every hospital. It's super frustrating. You know, one person saying he's deceased and then you're hopeful and it's just -- it's unanswered.

Like, we need to know where our loved ones are right now. What hospital were they stationed at? Are they with us? Are they not with us? My dad worked at the steel mill for 42 years, and he would be

disgusted and what the situation is right now. Accidents happen, but families, that's brothers and sisters. It's a stronger union. They need communication with these families.

COHEN: A family now mourning and searching for answers. They want to know what caused this explosion. We don't know at this point how long it will take investigators to provide those answers.

Gabe Cohen, CNN, Clairton, Pennsylvania.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEE: When we come back, there is worldwide outrage at the targeted killing of a Palestinian journalist and his colleagues in Gaza.

Plus, the U.S. and China have hit pause on the global trade war for at least another 90 days. We'll have details of the issues they still can't agree on.

And Taylor Swift is officially in a new era. We'll bring you the details of her surprise midnight announcement later this hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:23:42]

LEE: The U.S. and China have agreed to hold off on raising tariffs for another 90 days. The decision came just hours before a Tuesday deadline where each country's respective import fees were set to surge. U.S. and Chinese officials have been attempting to broker a trade deal for months after President Donald Trump imposed reciprocal tariffs on Beijing and other trading partners.

Here's what he had to say about the negotiations on Monday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We've been dealing very nicely with China, as you probably have heard. They have tremendous tariffs that they're paying to the United States of America. And we'll see what happens. They've been dealing quite nicely. The relationship is very good with president -- with President Xi and myself.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: CNN's Kristie Lu Stout has the details.

(BEGIN VIDETAPE)

KRISTIE LU STOUT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: U.S. President Donald Trump extended a trade truce with China for another 90 days. That's according to a White House executive order. Without the extension, tariffs would have snapped right back up to ultra high levels, that would be on par with the trade blockade. Now, this latest extension gives the world's two biggest economies some breathing space. It keeps lower tariff rates in place through early November, just in time for that surge of exports to America for the holiday season, like electronics, clothing and toys.

China's ministry of foreign affairs spokesperson said this, quote, we hope that the U.S. will work with China in accordance with the important consensus reached during the call between the two presidents to leverage the China-U.S. economic and trade consultation mechanism and strive for positive outcomes based on equality, respect and mutual benefit.

[05:25:15]

But sticking points remain. There is a long list of contentious issues in the U.S.-China trade relationship, including U.S. curbs on high- tech chips including HBM or high bandwidth memory critical for Chinese A.I., China's export curbs on rare earths critical for U.S. tech and defense. China's soybean purchases in fact, Trump says it's not enough. It wants China to quadruple it. Chinas purchase of sanctioned Russian and Iranian oil fentanyl, namely the flow of fentanyl precursor chemicals from China and the fate of TikTok with the deadline for a deal approaching on September the 17th.

That is a long list, but analysts say the extension will give both sides more time to untangle them. It could also set the stage for a meeting between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping.

The former senior U.S. trade official, Wendy Cutler, says this, quote, it's positive news combined with some of the de-escalatory steps both the U.S. and China have taken in recent weeks, it demonstrated that both sides are trying to see if they can reach some kind of a deal. That would lay the groundwork for a Xi-Trump meeting this fall.

Just last week, Trump said that the U.S. and China were getting close to a deal, and in the event of a deal, he would meet with Xi before the end of the year.

Kristie Lu Stout, CNN, Hong Kong.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEE: And U.S. stocks closed lower on Monday ahead of key inflation data set to be published in the consumer price index report today. Here's the latest on U.S. futures as we wait for the opening bell on Wall Street later this morning. All three major indices are basically flat at the moment, and all in the green.

Meantime, Asian markets have closed for the day, with Japan's Nikkei rising more than 2 percent.

Now here's a throwback for anyone who remembers the early days of the World Wide Web.

(DIAL-UP INTERNET SOUND)

LEE: After about three decades of use, that familiar sound of dial-up internet is finally heading into the digital dustbin. AOL says it is discontinuing its phone-based service at the end of next month, even though it seems like the world, the whole world now relies on a high- speed internet. AOL, formerly America Online, never stopped offering the service by connecting users to the web with the humble landline. About 160,000 people in the U.S. still rely on dial up internet.

And Madonna has become the latest celebrity to speak out on the war in Gaza, even asking Pope Leo to intervene. Those details just ahead.

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