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Early Start with Rahel Solomon

Trump Claims Economic Success: We're Bringing Prices Down; Australia's Ban On Social Media For Children Under 16 Takes Effect; Zelenskyy: U.S. Likely To Get Revised Peace Plan Today. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired December 10, 2025 - 05:00   ET

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

[05:00:22]

BRIAN ABEL, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning and welcome to our viewers joining us in the United States and all around the world. I'm Brian Abel. Thank you so much for being with us.

It is Wednesday, December 10th, 5:00 a.m. here in Washington, D.C.

And straight ahead on EARLY START

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: President Donald Trump visited Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday for a speech that was meant to focus on the economy.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Inflation, we're crushing it and you're getting much higher wages.

REPORTER: Australia is banning children under 16 from using social media.

ANTHONY ALBANESE, AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER: Make no mistake: this reform will change lives.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The newly obtained report says Republican Congressmember Nancy Mace repeatedly insulted security officers.

REP. NANCY MACE (R-SC): That report was falsified, 100 percent fictitious, falsified.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(MUSIC)

ABEL: We begin with a tale of two countries. One, according to Donald Trump, is the best of times where prices are low and keep falling. The other, according to many everyday Americans, is among the worst of times, with confidence in the economy near record lows.

The U.S. president is back at the White House right now after a trip to Pennsylvania. His mission there convince Americans that the economy is doing well. He veered off script repeatedly, though, ranting about immigrants and windmills and railing against the autopen.

Nearly a year into his second term, he is still blaming his predecessor, Joe Biden, for the state of the economy, and he went back and forth about the affordability crisis, acknowledging Americans concerns, then calling it a Democratic hoax.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I can't say affordability hoax because I agree the prices were too high, so I can't go to hoax because they'll misconstrue that. But they use the word affordability and that's their only word. They say affordability. And everyone says, oh, that must mean Trump has high prices. No, our prices are coming down tremendously from the highest prices in the history of our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ABEL: And we have more now from CNN's Alayna Treene traveling with the president.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: President Donald Trump visited Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday for a speech that was meant to focus on the economy, especially this idea of affordability, the cost of living issue that's really been plaguing a lot of Americans this past year. And look, what the president did was really slip back into his 2024 campaign style mode. He repeatedly blamed his predecessor, the former President Joe Biden, for what he argued was essentially giving him a bad economy that the president inherited about a company. When he came in for his second term.

And a lot of the time, he also tried to argue that prices were coming down and that the economy was going to do better than it ever had.

Now, this is a little bit different from what I had been told in some of my conversations with White House advisers and Trump administration officials, which is essentially that they recognize that the Trump administration and the president and Republican parties overall have an issue when it comes to affordability that essentially they need to improve on the economy.

Now, the president, for his part, I'm told, believes that its a perception issue, a communications issue. And you could really hear him kind of selling that during his speech on Tuesday, where some of his team has argued to try and acknowledge that Americans are feeling economic pain at this point. There were a couple moments when the president did seem to read the teleprompter and read things like that. At one moment he said that he recognizes that perhaps there is still more work to do, but then he immediately went back into this idea of saying that prices are falling at a faster rate than ever. Listen.

TRUMP: You're getting lower prices, bigger paychecks. We're getting inflation. We're crushing it, and you're getting much higher wages. I mean, the only thing that it's really going up big, it's called the stock market and your 401ks.

TREENE: Now another striking moment during his remarks is when he referred to the word affordability as what he called a Democratic hoax. I talked to many people near a grocery store as we're coming in and going out and they said they essentially told me that they believe this idea that that word is a hoax is just not true. Every single one of them, whether they were Republicans or Democrats, told me that they believe strongly that prices are too high right now, that inflation is a problem.

Now, some of the Republicans said, you know, perhaps it just needs more Trump, that the president needs more time for his policies to sink in.

[05:05:07]

Others said that they need to see something change very quickly. But all to say, the president, while speaking about affordability, did not seem to relate to Americans and the pain that they are currently feeling.

Alayna Treene, CNN, Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ABEL: U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other administration officials met on capitol hill with congressional leaders known as the Gang of Eight. Amid growing bipartisan calls to release the full video of a controversial strike on a suspected drug boat in the Caribbean. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called the briefing very unsatisfying and said he would not commit to allowing lawmakers to see unedited footage of the double tap strike that killed two survivors.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): It was a very unsatisfying briefing. I asked Secretary Hegseth, Secretary of Defense Hegseth, would he let every member of Congress see the unedited videos of the September 2nd strike, his answer we have to study it. Well, in my view, they've studied it long enough, and Congress ought to be able to see it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ABEL: President Trump has seen it. He told "Politico" that footage of the second strike was, quote, not pretty. But he says the strikes are a must to stop the flow of drugs into the U.S. Australian kids are now adjusting to life without some of the most popular media apps. Australia's first in the world ban on social media for those under 16 went into effect today. The new law comes after years of concerns about the potential negative impacts that social media platforms can have on mental health.

Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads, argues the new ban will actually make children less safe. Most of the ten banned platforms say they will comply with the law using age verification technology. Australia's prime minister says the ban allows families to take back power from big tech companies.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANTHONY ALBANESE, AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER: Make no mistake: this reform will change lives for Australian kids and allowing them to just have their childhood. For Australian parents, enabling them to have greater peace of mind, but also for the global community who are looking at Australia and saying, well, if Australia can do it, why can't we?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ABEL: But the ban is already drawing pushback, as CNN's Angus Watson reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANGUS WATSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Teenagers Noah and Macey are taking their government to court in a fight to stay on social media.

NOAH JONES, PLAINTIFF: Taking away how we communicate to the world. This is how we do it. It's the modern day, it's social media.

WATSON (voice-over): From Wednesday, Australia will enforce a world first law banning children under 16 from many of the biggest platforms. Supported by Freedom Advocacy Group, Macy and Noah's case asserts a right to political communication. The high court has agreed to hear it next year.

WATSON: So what will you lose when social media is taken away from you?

MACY NEYLAND, PLAINTIFF: Well, we will lose connections, but we will lose our democracy. This law is saying that democracy begins at 16, which is condescending and it's incorrect.

JONES: Listen, there are definitely negatives on social media. I'm not denying that. I completely agree. We're saying that getting rid of the kids is not the solution. We didn't do anything wrong.

WATSON (voice-over): The government says it has acted to protect children from potentially harmful content, harmful people and addictive algorithms.

JULIE INMAN GRANT, AUSTRALIAN E-SAFETY COMMISSIONER: And there are these powerful, harmful, deceptive design features that even adults are powerless to fight against, like autoplay and endless scroll and snap streets. So, what chance do our children have?

WATSON (voice-over): Under the new law, young social media users won't be punished for being on age restricted apps, nor will their parents. Instead, Australia is requiring tech companies to take reasonable steps to keep under 16 seconds off their platforms and threatening fines in the tens of millions of dollars. Tech companies say they are already building safer systems. A.I. face detectors will likely be employed to verify age with tools

provided by third party companies like Verifymy. Users may also be asked to upload their identity documents.

ANDY LULHAM, VERIFYMY CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER: Australia is certainly leading the way when it comes to requiring an age check for every user to determine that they are over 16 or not.

WATSON: The government's ban is a catch all. If you're under the age of 16, you're off social media. But children are all different. They've engaged with social media differently, and they feel differently about the ban.

[05:10:00]

WATSON (voice-over): The students at All Saints Anglican School on Australia's Gold Coast are learning from cyber safety advocate Kirra Pendergast about how to best avoid danger on social media.

KIRRA PENDERGAST, CTRL+SHIFT CHIEF DIGITAL STRATEGIST: Because it is a delay. It's not a flat out ban. They're not banning the Internet. We're not trying to boil the ocean. It's literally just a delay age. And so, they've got time to catch up, to become more resilient and think more critically about how they use apps.

WATSON (voice-over): In their final year, Nicholas and Ruby wonder if maybe their school career would have been easier without the distraction of social media.

RUBY PETTY, ALL SAINTS ANGLICAN SCHOOL CAPTAIN: Nick and I were talking before about how if we could, we would delete Snapchat today, but it's more the fact that because there's now so much reliability and connection based off one app, you don't want to delete it.

WATSON (voice-over): Perhaps for young Australians, the fear of missing out won't be so bad if everyone is forced to miss out together.

Angus Watson, CNN, Sydney, Australia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ABEL: And for more on this, let's bring in Terry Flew, a professor of digital communications and culture at the University of Sydney and the co-director at the Center for Artificial Intelligence, Trust and Governance. He joins me live this hour from Sydney, Australia.

Terry, great to have you with us.

I first want to play for you some of what parents of bullying victims are saying about this ban. Then get your thoughts on the other side. So let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WAYNE HOLDSWORTH, PARENT ADVOCATE: Our kids that we've lost haven't died in vain because today they'll be looking down very proud of the work that we've all done.

MAT O'BRIEN, FATHER OF CHARLOTTE O'BRIEN: It means so much. You know, it -- it's a very emotional day. It's -- we're sort of glad we're here, but we're really not glad we're here at the same time. But we're also incredibly proud, you know, we're proud of Charlotte and the role that she's played in these changes

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ABEL: So, Terry, we can clearly hear the emotional impact of this ban, the emotional evidence of kids dying by suicide after online bullying. Do you believe this policy can prevent those deaths? And are we also seeing hard data that supports this law

TERRY FLEW, PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY: Those stories are very tragic. And of course, it is terrible to lose -- lose any, any child in in that way. The legislation has come out of about two years of debate, and it has had bipartisan political support. The evidence suggests that there is a correlation between social media and adverse teenage mental health issues. Of course, the nature of social research is that there can be multiple factors in that, but certainly, Australia has become something of a test case here for the question of whether, reducing or, you know, to some degree, eliminating, social media accounts for young people will have positive change. But the reality is, we won't know that for at least a couple of years.

ABEL: Terry, you mentioned this being a test case here in the state. Similar efforts have been met in the past with criticism that a ban is an affront to free speech. The Australian E-safety commissioner, which I find intriguing that Australia has that considering what's happened here in the states. The safety commissioner addressing that criticism, saying social media is the only consumer facing industry where we don't expect them to make sure there are safety standards.

Do you see this ban having implications for other countries? Is this a test case that the world is closely watching?

FLEW: It very possibly is. And of course, the question of implied freedom of political communication that came up there has generally been considered to apply to those who can vote, that is, to those 18 or over. So, testing that question of whether it applies to under sixteens in the courts will be a very significant question.

I think one of the things that other countries are interested in is the extent to which we have accepted for a long time the idea that the Internet is so different to other media that it cannot have any of the constraints upon it that have been associated with other media. And one of those was age restrictions. And so, we are now in a situation in 2025 where we've had 30 years of children as young as three to six. I saw figures in the U.K. saying 800,000 people aged three to six have social media accounts, are essentially getting the same Internet as adults are getting and there are real concerns about what are being the long-term implications for mental health development, brain development, the childhood people experience, social interaction, cyberbullying --

[05:15:02]

ABEL: Terry, there was pushback to this ban by some of the tech companies and that e-safety commission that we mentioned. She says some of the pushback is driven by the bottom line for those companies, it goes directly to revenue because there are about 2.5 million 8 to 15 year olds in Australia. So that is a lot of potential consumers.

Just how big of an impact does this have on the companies? And do you think the hefty fines that come with noncompliance will be strong enough of a deterrent on its own for both the companies to comply, but also for teens not to find a run around? What's -- what's the chances of that?

FLEW: Well, for at least some of these platforms and Facebook and Instagram would be examples. There has been a requirement that you've had to be 13 or over in order to open an account, but those requirements they been enforced. Have they been created, we may not be having this conversation.

Look, I don't know what the bottom line impact is likely to be for the companies concerned. Australia is not a large market by global standards, but there is possibly a concern that if countries like Australia are moving in the direction of greater regulation of the Internet and social media, other countries could follow suit. And as you know from your story, a number of countries are considering following Australia down a similar path.

ABEL: All right. Terry Flew for us in Sydney, really appreciate your expertise. Terry, thank you for joining us.

FLEW: Thank you.

ABEL: Ukraine is working on its revisions to the Trump administrations peace plan. We'll have more on what's included in those documents next.

And later, no love lost between President Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene. We'll tell you what they are saying about each other after their bitter falling out.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:21:25]

ABEL: Ukraine's president says his team is preparing an updated version of the Trump administration's peace plan and could be ready to send it to the U.S. today. Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he and European allies are discussing two other documents about security guarantees and Ukraine's postwar recovery. He also says that Ukraine will be ready to hold elections in the next 60 to 90 days if the U.S. and Europe can guarantee security for the vote.

CNN's Clare Sebastian is joining me now live from London.

And, Clare, it sounds like we are getting a slightly more clear picture of some of the concessions, potentially, that Ukraine is willing to make.

CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Brian, I think certainly Ukraine is trying to work very hard on the detail of this and figure out diplomatic ways forward. I think when it comes to this issue of elections in Ukraine, there's two things to read in the comments that we got from President Zelenskyy on Tuesday.

Number one, I think it's not a specific promise to hold elections within 60 days. What he's trying to do is send a message, I think, particularly to the U.S., on how difficult that would be by saying that if Ukraine is to do this, they would need help securing the elections. He talks about how would you hold them when missiles are flying towards Ukrainian troops?

I think this, hopefully, he feels, will get across the message of how difficult it will be. What would it take to hold elections during a war? Would they need some kind of ceasefire or a no-fly zone? Would they need international election monitors on the ground to try to secure this election?

Because right now, the feeling in Ukraine is that they would potentially be able to hold some kind of election, but it wouldn't meet internationally recognized standard. And as such intimacy of the result. So that's number one.

But I think number two is that Zelenskyy does want to try to give Trump what he wants. There is sort of that other flip side of this messaging. He's been very open that he doesn't think a lasting and real peace can be achieved in Ukraine without U.S. help in securing it.

So, I think that is certainly part of this. And as I said, detailed work is going on behind the scenes. Zelenskyy says there's now three documents. One is a 20-point peace plan, one is about security guarantees and the final one is about restoration and reconstruction in Ukraine.

But meanwhile in Moscow, and this is the big problem that I think this process will bump up against, we're not seeing detailed work. We're seeing a hardening of positions. We're seeing, you know, Russia doubling down not only on its desire to see what it calls the root causes of this conflict resolved but also doubling down on hostility towards Europe. I think buoyed by what we saw in the Trump national security strategy and his comments to "Politico" on Tuesday, calling Europe weak, essentially and decaying.

Take a listen to the foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, this morning

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SERGEY LAVROV, RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: As the presidents emphasized, we do not intend to fight Europe. We don't have any thought of this. But if there is any hostile step, including deploying European contingents in Ukraine or expropriating Russian assets, we will respond and we are already ready for this response.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SEBASTIAN: So, you know, I think an open threat really to Europe, they're not. We should note to the U.S., which just a year ago was enemy number one in Russia. And I think all of that makes the path forward relatively unclear at this point -- Brian.

ABEL: Yeah, not very subtle threat.

Clare Sebastian for us, thank you for highlighting just how complex a path to peace is. Clare Sebastian in London, thank you.

The Nobel Committee hands out its peace prize today, but this year's winner will be a no-show.

[05:25:01]

That's next on EARLY START.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ABEL: An Israeli security official says the government will reopen a border crossing with Jrdan to allow goods and aid in. The Allenby Crossing is considered a major route for bringing food, tents and other goods destined for Gaza. It's been closed to shipments since September, when an aid truck driver killed two Israeli military personnel.

Israel says it has tightened screening for drivers and truck cargo, and the crossing is also the only gateway for more than 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank to reach Jordan and other places.

CNN's Paula Hancocks joins us live from Abu Dhabi.