At Least 119 Dead, Estimated 160 Missing In Catastrophic TX Flooding

25:34I only have to point to nuking the filibuster and thank God that we had Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema there to save the chamber. No longer, no longer here. No, and these folks now are using as a litmus test for primaries would you nuke the filibuster? But now Republicans are starting to take that bait. I am here to defend the Article I branch and to collaborate with the Article II branch, more so when there's a Republican in there, maybe a little less so when there's a Democrat. But still, I've managed to do bipartisan work when Biden was in office. But at the end of the day, I'm an institutionalist.

26:09And it's remarkable to me how I hear all these self-avowed institutionalists rationalized why they wouldn't vote for the amendment last week for John Kennedy to simply say, if we're going to give the president a billion dollars a year to spend on defense production, shouldn't there actually be a consultation with Congress before it's spent? And we had dozens of our members vote against it because the president rightfully wanted it. So I don't mind the tug and pull. I think the president would be wrong if he wasn't trying to make his branch as powerful as possible. By the same token, it's our job to maintain the historic intent of the Article I branch.

26:54And I'm willing to be dogmatic about that because I really believe that it's what has made this country so special. Do you think that the lesson for the Republican Party right now is fall in line behind President Trump or get out of Congress? No. No, look, I made a personal decision that it wasn't an in-the-moment decision. I had been— You had made the decision before all this happened with the bill. I had been—I started a process of what I described to many of my donors and supporters of confirmatory due diligence back in January and February when I said I've got to convince myself that this transaction of being involved in the most expensive race in U.S.

27:40history again, that it's worth doing and that there is a path to winning. And I felt like I needed to determine whether or not I could raise the money that was necessary for my campaign. I needed to determine if we were going to have a going concern in terms of governing over a reasonable period of time so that I could then determine if the environment of the election, if those two things were in place, knowing that it was likely going to be a negative environment because of the historic trend of the party in power in the White House having headwinds, then I was going to make a decision probably more in the September timeframe.

28:19But it just seemed like in the moment, I don't feel like what we passed out last week had any semblance of good governance. It was an artificial deadline created by some staffer in the White House who probably wanted the signature to happen while the rocket's red glare were bursting in air. That vision on July 4th, there was nothing in that deadline that had anything to do with a Senate priority. I have said, look, we could have probably taken 10 days and fixed this bill and had the president have a highly successful bill. But you got staff over there that are so obsessed with making the date that they don't care about the outcome.

29:00They just care about checking the box. And that's what I've continued to tell the president. He needs to be wary of. I'm sure that your supporters and your donors and your constituents, some of them said, this is exactly why you need to run for reelection because you are willing to stand up for the legislative branch. And even though you are very conservative, you are willing to work in a bipartisan way to get stuff done. What do you say to that? I felt like in the moment that I wanted to take off the table any question whatsoever about whether or not my reelection prospects had anything to do with how I make decisions here.

29:37I've been trying to tell people that for the last 10 years. Look, I got a wonderful life and a wonderful family and lots of professional options before I started this job. And I'm going to have them after I started this job. But I want to make it very clear, if you want to try and flex on me and make it look like my reelection prospects are at risk, I want to make it clear that that's not anything I care about. I care about good policy and I care about the future of this country. And I thought taking that off the table for the next year and a half may put me in a better position to help govern and help encourage other members to stand up for our branch and for good policy and absolutely support President Trump.

30:16But that flexing was not coming from Roy Cooper and Josh Stein. That flexing was coming from Trump and the MAGA forces who were— More the MAGA forces. Again, I don't have a problem with President Trump. I got a problem with some of the people I consider to be amateurs advising him. What do you make when you go on social— And so I want to make it very clear to them, guys, when you act like the president, when he's out of the room, you don't impress me. And they'll hear more of that in the coming months. Who are you talking about specifically? Stephen Miller? We'll get to that. Um, the, uh, what, what is it like?

30:49I don't know how much you go on social media. Oh, look, you got your grandkids on your socks. Yeah, that's all three of them right there. We'll get a close up of that later. Um, what do you make of what, I don't know how often you go on social media and for your own mental sanity, I hope it's never, but when people call you a rhino, a Republican in name only, even though you are obviously very conservative, though willing to work with Democrats and also willing to stand up for the legislative branch, what do you make of that criticism? I tell them, uh, I agree. I'm a rhino. I've just got a different take on it.

31:17I'm a Republican in need of outcomes. And the thing that most of these so-called true conservatives have in common, whether they're elected or party leaders, they've never legislated. They haven't scratched the surface of what I've been responsible for, for real, meaningful Second Amendment bills, for property rights reform, for pro-life movements. So they can spare me the amateurish view of how this world works because they don't have a body of work to point to. I do. And so if they want to call me a rhino, then go ask themselves, what advances did we make on so many conservative issues when I was Speaker?

31:54And what have we done here on spending or on conservative legislation that's hit the president's desk that some people is bipartisan, but it's fundamentally sound conservative legislation? I don't apologize for my body of work. I've run on it and multiple primaries and I've won every one of them. We still have a lot more for you from Senator Tillis. He wanted to set the record straight on his vote to confirm former Fox & Friends weekend co-host Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense. He also has a strong opinion about Hegseth now, plus what President Trump said today about his defense secretary and what sources are telling CNN about the order to pause weapons shipments to Ukraine, an order Trump did not make.

32:39We've got to squeeze in a break here. We'll be right back.

32:46So we're sending some defensive weapons to Ukraine, and I've approved that. So who ordered the pause last week? I don't know. Why don't you tell me? Well, in our world lead, sources tell CNN that it was Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth who authorized that pause on weapons shipments to Ukraine, apparently without informing the White House or getting authorization from President Trump. President Trump today continued to deflect questions, even as his White House is scrambling to figure out what happened and why. CNN's Kristen Holmes is at the White House. Kristen, what are you learning? This is very odd.

33:20Yeah, Jake, and the White House doesn't want to talk about it anymore. I mean, originally, this story was confirmed to me by a White House official, this pause on munitions headed to Ukraine. And they said that it was Secretary of Defense Hegseth who had signed off on a months-long review. But their argument at the time was that this was about a number of various countries. It was not just about Ukraine. It was about where our spending, us being the United States, was going in terms of foreign allies and where our weaponry was going. Since then, they have argued that instead the story is moot because the pause never went into effect, saying essentially that it couldn't have gone into effect because President Trump didn't sign off on it.

34:00And this is something that President Trump seemed to be trying to reiterate today when he was in that meeting. Take a listen. What does it say that such a big decision could be made inside your government without you knowing? I would know. If a decision was made, I will know. I'll be the first to know. In fact, most likely, I'd give the order. But I haven't done that yet. So this obviously goes to this idea that something this big couldn't have been done without President Trump's approval. But again, I was told originally that this was done. This pause had been signed off on by the Secretary of Defense because of this review that he had done.

34:40And I will note that at the time, we asked what other countries might be affected with this pause and got no answer. Kristen, the president also hinted today about sending another Patriot air defense system to Ukraine. Tell us about that. Yeah, he was pretty noncommittal on it, but we do know one thing. We do know that they are trying to figure out how to send more munitions to Ukraine. We have heard President Trump really almost do a 180 when it comes to supporting Ukraine in the last several days. A lot of this having to do with his anger and frustration at Russian President Vladimir Putin. So in this meeting, President Trump was asked about reports that he might be considering sending more of these Patriot missile systems.

35:15And he said that they're both rare and expensive and that Ukraine has asked for them. And it's something that they're currently looking into. And again, this would be part of likely a larger weapons package. As we've heard President Trump say repeatedly over the last several days that Ukrainians need to be able to defend themselves against the Russians. All right, Kristen Holmes at the White House for us. Thanks so much. Coming up next, what Elon Musk said about his AI platform, Grok, becoming anti-Semitic and praising Hitler. Stay with us.

35:53In our tech lead, the CEO of Elon Musk's social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, Linda Yaccarino announced that she's stepping down after only two years on the job. What isn't clear is whether her sudden departure has any connection at all with the storm of criticism provoked by the company's AI chatbot called Grok. As CNN's media correspondent Hadass Gold shows us, a few weeks after Musk said Grok would be retrained because he thought Grok was too woke, Grok started pushing Nazism and appeared to endorse the Holocaust as effective. Elon Musk vowed to retrain his AI system known as Grok.

36:34After growing angry with its answers, he said were, quote, parroting legacy media. The overarching goal for the X platform is to be the best source of truth. Those changes appear to have prompted Grok to use some anti-Semitic tropes. The chatbot going so far as praising Adolf Hitler, claiming Hitler could spot the pattern of anti-white hate and handle it decisively. Grock also claiming Jews, who are just 2 % of the U.S. population, hold disproportionate roles in places like media, finance and politics. Is that control or merit, it questioned. When CNN asked Grock its sources for some of these posts, it said 4chan, a favorite forum for extremists known for its hateful conduct.

37:11Had the right guardrails been in place and had adequate time been left for testing, I think these kinds of problems would have surfaced and would have been fixed. The fact that that did not happen is alarming. Musk himself has repeatedly said he favors total free speech, even if it's hateful. I think at the end of the day, free speech wins in that if somebody says something that's false, especially on our platform, you can then reply to it with a correction. But extremists were celebrating the changes. The founder of the far-right forum Gab posting, incredible things are happening. Musk himself has been accused in the past of trafficking in anti-Semitism, which he has denied.

37:57You know, obviously I'm against anti-Semitism. I'm against anti-really anything that is, you know, that promotes hate and conflict. After the public outcry, XAI deleted some of Grok's posts, issuing this statement. We are aware of recent posts made by Grok and are actively working to remove the inappropriate ones. Since being made aware of the content, XAI has taken action to ban hate speech before Grok posts on X. This is something that has a massive reach globally and serves to normalize the types of hatred and anti-Semitism that we have been warning about. Because those hatreds, we know, animate people to terrible things on the ground.

38:36Musk himself saying on X, Grok was too compliant to user prompts, too eager to please and be manipulated, essentially. That is being addressed. XAI, Jake, posts some of its prompts and code publicly on GitHub. And what's interesting is on Tuesday evening, they deleted this line from their prompts for Grok, saying Grok should not shy away from making claims which are politically incorrect as long as they are well established. That has since been deleted. And I should note that Grok has been quiet. It's been nearly 20 hours since the bot has replied publicly to anybody on X. It seems as though XAI may have frozen the bot for now.

39:09Jake. Hadass Gold, thanks so much. Coming up, more of my exclusive interview with Rubikin Senator Tom Tillis, who rarely does national interviews. Why Tillis is at odds with so many in his party today about what happened on January 6, 2021, the Capitol attack and his plan to take action on it. Stay with us.

39:33I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta, host of the Chasing Life podcast. Last week, there was this important report that dropped that I think got a lot of attention. It's about football. And there was this new study in the British Medical Journal, which estimates that of all the NFL players who died between 2016 and 2021, about 878 players, at least 25 percent of them had confirmed CTE. That is the disease that is caused by repetitive hits to the brain. So CNN's resident NFL veteran, Coy Weyer, he called me. We called fellow CNN sports anchor Andy Scholz, and we were talking about it. I know as a former player, anytime I forget my keys, if I get a slight headache, it pops in my head.

40:18I'm thinking like, man, I hope this is just... Andy, do you forget your keys? Rarely. Oh, you're supposed to say yes all the time, Quay. It makes me feel better. Listen to Chasing Life, streaming now, wherever you get your podcasts.

40:35Welcome to The Lead. I'm Jake Tapper. This hour, that desperate search for those missing in the Texas floods. What CNN learned today about officials coordinating the emergency response and who was not on a key call. We're going to go live to the disaster zone. Plus more of my exclusive interview with Republican Senator Tom Tillis in North Carolina. His very first since announcing he will not run for reelection. And after voting against President Trump's one big beautiful bill act because of the Medicaid cuts. This hour, does Senator Tillis regret voting to confirm some members of Trump's cabinet?

41:12The lead tonight, the death toll from the catastrophic floods in Texas, is now nearly 120. An estimated 160 people, meanwhile, are known to be missing. This is CNN affiliate KSAT reports. In the early hours on July 4th, a local firefighter requested an emergency alert be sent to warn the public about the raging floodwaters sweeping through the Texas Hill Country. but it reportedly took Kerr County officials nearly six hours to send that alert. Reporters pressed the Kerr County Sheriff today about the passing hours. I believe those questions need to be answered to the family of the misled ones, to the public, you know, to the people that put me in this office.

41:56And I want that answer. We're not running. We're not going to hide from everything. That's going to be checked into at a later time. CNN's Shimon Prokopos was at that news conference in Kerrville, Texas. So, Shimon, what else did officials have to say? Yeah, so one of the key questions here, Jake, is what did officials know leading up to this weather situation? Who was briefing who? Was the emergency operations center? Was the person who runs emergency operations for the county? Was he being briefed? Was he briefing any officials? And there are a lot of questions about that, including a phone call that supposedly took place on July 3rd with state officials that was offered, was offered to both the mayor and the county judge.

42:36And when I asked the mayor if he was on that call today, here's what he told me. The lieutenant governor said that on July 3rd that the county judges and city mayors were invited on a daily call Thursday to discuss weather forecasts. Were you on that call? Were you invited to that call? Do you know if the county judge was also on that? I can't speak for the county judge. That would be hearsay. And I'm not going to contradict the information you have. But I will tell you, personally, I did not receive a telephone bill. You weren't invited to the call. I did not receive a telephone bill. And you were never given any information about what assets were brought into the area.

43:20So I wasn't invited to the call. I'm not trying to deflect. No, no, I understand. Do you know why that would happen? Maybe I'm not a local mayor, I can't tell.

43:33And that's the thing, Jake. It's not entirely clear even if being on that call would have made a difference in the end. But certainly there's a lot of questions that maybe some information was not getting to some of the leaders of this county and of this city. And, you know, after that press conference, Jake, I wanted to go out and talk to some people here in the areas to see how they're feeling about things and whether they feel there's been any failures. And right now, they are very supportive here of the government, of city officials. You know, folks who live along this river, Jake, this was an RV park.

44:05I just want to quickly show you. This, on the July 4th, on July 3rd, this entire area here was filled with RVs. People out, it was a beautiful day. They were out eating, they were out enjoying the river. And then all of a sudden in the middle of the night on July 4th, everything changed. And I got a chance to speak to the owner of this RV park. She owns Howdy Bar. The RV park is Blue Oak. It's called Blue Oak. And it's just incredible how strong she is and how supportive she is of the rescue efforts that morning. She herself was out here. She called the sheriff's office at one point at 2 in the morning, she told me, asking what should she do?

44:49Should she be concerned about the flooding? And they told her that that time there was nothing to be concerned about. And then an hour later, she said everything changed and she saw trailers going through the river and she could see people inside the trailer banging on the windows. But the thing is this community is coming together. They believe that they will get the support, but they need more. They need more help from the government. They That is the top thing right now. They need help and they need resources to rebuild. All right, Shimon Prokopos in Ingram, Texas. Thanks so much for that reporting.

45:24My next guest has more than 30 years experience in public safety and disaster response. Joe Hernandez, who is the fire commissioner in Pine Island, Florida. Joe, thanks for joining us. So an estimated 160 people are known to be missing in Texas right now. That's just the known number. Take a listen to this Kerrville police sergeant on why it's been difficult to get an exact number. We do have a lot of people who came here in campers, RVs, and camped along the river. And, you know, if nobody reports them missing, if nobody is looking for them, we may not know that they're missing. Getting a handle on exactly how many people we're looking for has been tough.

46:04He also said no one has been found alive in Kirk County since Friday. How do you search for people when you don't know how many people are actually missing or where they were, etc.? you begin searching for people no matter what the numbers are the numbers always continue to increase as they did with the surf site building collapse numbers start small they end up being in greater amounts but it doesn't usually affect any of the responders and of course any of the volunteers that are there they're looking under every piece of material that they can include and they're not worried so much about the numbers they like to be told at the end of how many they were able to save.

46:44There are giant mounds of debris filled with mangled trees, wrecked cars, homes. A lot of it clogs near bridges along the Guadalupe River. What kind of technology is best to get through that kind of debris? And are certain devices used when searching for survivors versus those who have died? Absolutely. Absolutely. As the thermal imaging cameras being used by the helicopters and the airplanes being flown by the Coast Guard and the National Guard pick up the heat signatures from survivors that may be still alive in that pile. There's also what's called delayering of that material, just like it would be for a building as it was done in North Carolina after Hurricane Colleen, where they begin to de-layer the areas.

47:33Search cameras that were used in rubble, in concrete, are also used in that material as well that they're able to penetrate. Search dogs and canines have been brought in along with recovery canines, but mostly the search canines are able to alert the responder. The responder is able to signify a camera to try and get either a view and or a sound from that person. And new technology that has come out has now hit Texas. Through a partnership with Vodasafe, a brand new handheld, only kind in the world, a sonar underwater device, it's basically able to do 8 ,000 square meters in under five minutes.

48:17as we saw the responders many times during the CNN reviews of shuffling their feet, trying to locate possible victims under the water and not put their heads in the water. We're looking for different devices and technology that is able to break through those barriers and able to either do a search and or a recovery to bring closure. All right. Fascinating stuff. Joe Hernandez, thanks so much. Then today, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem reiterated calls to overhaul FEMA. It has been slow to respond at the federal level. It's even been slower to get the resources to Americans in crisis. And that is why this entire agency needs to be eliminated as it exists today and remade into a responsive agency.

49:03Let's bring in Democratic Congressman Jared Moskowitz of Florida. Congressman, good to see you. The Trump administration essentially wants to shift more responsibility for disaster response and preparedness to the states. How do you see that working? Does Florida have the capability to do that without relying upon FEMA? Thanks, Jake. Good to be with you. I mean, just listening to the secretary who's been saying this since she took office now for the last, you know, seven months, she was wrong when she first started it and she's wrong now. And what we're finding, I think, Jake, is that she has not reformed the agency.

49:40She has destroyed the agency. She talks about the agency being too slow. She's made it worse. She's made it less efficient. So much for Doge, for efficiency. She's made this agency less responsive. They've gotten rid of 30 % of the workforce. Everything over 100 ,000 has to go to her personal sign-off. Does that sound efficient? And so, you know, we're going to get into hurricane season. And unfortunately, we're not going to find out how much she broke the agency as a administrator with no disaster experience until we get a disaster that a state can't handle. God forbid. Let's hope it doesn't happen.

50:20Florida and Texas have better emergency management departments because they've invested the money because those state budgets have more money and they've had more disasters. I'm really worried about Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana. Those states go bankrupt without FEMA. So we're going to have to see how much Kristi Noem took an agency that needed reform and instead she dropped the bomb on the agency and destroyed it. And just for viewers at home who don't know, Congressman Moskowitz was head of the Florida Emergency Management Department under Republican Governor Ron DeSantis. So he has some personal experience running disaster preparedness.

50:59Congressman, during his Senate confirmation hearing today, President Trump's nominated lead NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association or agency rather, Neil Jacobs, said that he will work to improve weather warning systems. But he also said he supports President Trump's budget proposal, a budget proposal that critics say would cut NOAA's weather and climate research programs, which are meant to improve weather detection as the climate continues to warm. What's your reaction to this nominee and to his support for the president's budget proposal for NOAA? Well, I wouldn't expect person trying to get a job right now to go off script from what the administration is proposing.

51:46But I hate to bring it up, but this is literally chapter and verse right out of Project 2025. You can literally find it in the document where they talked about defunding the agency. They talked about getting rid of the people so that they break it to a point to where they can privatize. it's all there. And that's what they're doing. Now they're reversing course a little bit, right? They're trying to hire 125 new people because they realized Doge broke it to a point where it can't function. Look, a lot of these agencies need new technology, Jake, right? Whether it's the FAA or the National Weather Service or FEMA, they need new technology.

52:23We haven't invested in technology. Why? Because that costs money. You can't cut your way to technology. That's why the efficiency piece was never done by Doge. That's where they needed to invest in technology. The way you get around investing in technology is you have people. You have people covering that. Well, when they got rid of the people, they realized everything was breaking. And so, you know, the National Weather Service is going to need help. So is FEMA. And to get us through this hurricane season, this caught them by surprise, this horrific disaster, losing 120 people, losing 36 kids, you know, over 100 people still missing.

53:03This is a major disaster. And we are going to need an after action review to determine what failed, what didn't work, what communication between the locals and the state and the feds, what usually would have happened that maybe didn't happen because of these cuts at both FEMA and the National Weather Service. There are massive gaps in the timeline between when these notices went out and when evacuations started at the county. And evacuations start at the local level. They don't start at the state level. That's how it works in Florida. That's how it works in other states. Yeah. And so go ahead.

53:36Final thought. No. So I was going to say is, look, there's right now it's tough to say A equals B, but cuts to FEMA, cuts to National Weather Service did not help anybody in Texas. Democratic Congressman Jared Moskowitz from Florida. Thanks. As always, good to have you. Moments ago, we heard Republican Senator Tom Tillis say what he makes of politicians or folks who try to flex on him. Coming up, we're going to hear from Senator Tillis about what he thinks of Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth. His opinion has evolved since he somewhat reluctantly voted to confirm Hegseth to be Secretary of Defense.

54:12Plus, Tillis talks about the January 6th riots, his plan of action more than four years after the attack. Stay with us.

54:23In our politics lead, more criticism today for controversial Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. Five sources telling CNN that Secretary Hegseth did not inform the White House before authorizing to pause shipping weapons to Ukraine last week. This set off something of a scramble inside the administration to understand what happened and why and to explain it to Congress and Ukraine. In our exclusive interview with Republican Senator Tom Tillis of North Carolina earlier today, Senator Tillis told us how he would vote if the Senate held a confirmation do-over on the Secretary of Defense. You mentioned earlier that you thought President Trump was getting bad advice, not just about this bill, but also maybe about some of his nominees.

55:09You ultimately voted for both RFK Jr. for HHS secretary and Pete Hegseth for defense secretary, even though you were your vote was not guaranteed until the end there. Do you regret those votes now that you've seen them in office? Well, you know, first, I need to set the record straight on Hegseth. I had already informed my conference that I was going to defer to the Senate Armed Services vote. If he got a unanimous vote out of Senate Armed Services, then I was going to defer to them. I was on that committee for several Congresses. But then there was that allegation that came out on that Sunday.

55:41It was net new information. I complete my due diligence. And so I interviewed a number of people. I was called over to the White House on the Thursday night asking me to vote for them. I said, I may. The vote's not until tomorrow. I've still got to complete my due diligence. And quite honestly, there were conversations that I had on Friday that made me put this allegation in the same category as the other ones that I'd worked on before he was confirmed. This had to do with abusive tactics towards women? That's right. But what it came down to is, honestly, there was never an example of an eyewitness-cooperated account.

56:17And I had to be fair to Pete Hexeth on that issue. Now, with the passing of time, I think it's clear he's out of his depth as a manager of a large, complex organization. What was your reaction to the signal gate situation? Well, that's just one. I mean, this whole idea of having a pause in Ukraine defensive arms, that's just amateurish. I mean, that's from somebody who doesn't understand large organization dynamics. So, you know, I don't regret the decision I made back then based on the facts as I knew them then. But today I am beginning to wonder if maybe Armed Services was a little bit generous with respect to their assessment of his capabilities as a manager of the world's largest, most complex and arguably consequential organization.

57:02So you don't regret it, but if you had to do it again today, you probably wouldn't vote yes? I think based on the information I have today. If all I had was the information on the day of the vote, I'd certainly vote for him again. But now I have the information of him being a manager, and I don't think that his probationary period has been very positive. What about RFK Jr.? Because he's obviously gone back on a lot of the promises he made to your colleague, Senator and Dr. Cassidy, about vaccines. I think that that will be something that we'll take up. I defer a lot to Bill Cassidy on that. He's a brilliant man.

57:34And I consulted with Bill, quite honestly. The main reason I supported Kennedy was because Bill Cassidy thought that we should see how it plays out. And one thing I will say throughout this whole process is I'm thoroughly impressed with Mehmet Oz. I believe that he's quite capable and running a very important part in CMS. You also aroused the president's ire when you made it clear that you were not going to support Ed Martin to be a U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C. The president took the note and just made him the pardon attorney at the Justice Department. What have you thought about how he's been there?

58:13I couldn't care less about what he's doing in the Justice Department. What I cared about was having him be the key prosecutor in the district where he excused what happened to these police officers on January the 6th. That was just disqualifying. I mean, he literally was excusing some of the behavior of people who entered the building. I still call those people who got pardoned by the president thugs. There are about 200 or 300 people that should be behind bars now for what they did on January the 6th. I do agree with Martin that there were people that in the heat of the moment, they got more prosecution and more devastating consequences than they probably deserve.

58:58But at the end of the day, folks, we got to treat you like an adult or a child. You decide which one you want to be. You walk into a beaten and battered Capitol and you see police officers being wrestled to the ground and you don't think you're in a bad situation. You should probably think twice. So there should have been a consequence for them, maybe over prosecution. But where Martin missed it with me is saying that all of them had been over-prosecuted, and then all of them had a reasonable basis for their frustration. Absolutely no. What do you say to somebody who says that you seem to let President Trump off the hook for a lot of these things?

59:37Because Trump is, after all, the one that pardoned all those people that you're talking about. And you're the first Republican I've seen make the connection between the thin blue line, make the connection between back the blue, and what happened January 6th. A lot of Republicans don't want to talk about that. I went to the Senate. I walked around this building for a week telling every one of these Capitol Police officers who are professionals, keeping their emotions clear. I said, what the president did sucked, and I want you to know it. And then I got to thinking, you know, I probably should elevate that by going to the floor and saying the same thing.

1:00:06And I did that. And I think I have a number of members here who disagreed with the pardons who didn't. So this is something that I went and feel very strongly about. I mean, I was here. I was the last member out of the chamber on January 6th. I saw everything unfold, and I'm still angry about it, and I have no tolerance for anyone. The president should know if there is anyone coming up for a nomination through any committee of my jurisdiction that excused January the 6th, that they're not going to get confirmed in my remaining tenure in the U.S. Senate. I want to ask you about the flooding, because obviously Texas is dealing with that today.

1:00:39Last year, flooding from Helene, Hurricane Helene, caused at least 108 storm-related deaths. In North Carolina alone, over 250 overall. North Carolina alone in many areas, as you know, are still struggling to recover. This year, the Trump administration has made cuts, wants to get rid of FEMA, has done job freezes when it comes to the National Weather Service, the National Oceanic Atmospheric Association, et cetera. Can states manage these disasters effectively without the help that has traditionally come from the federal government? Last night, I was talking with two linemen that we recognized for their heroic work, trying to get power reestablished to the Veterans Hospital out in western North Carolina.

1:01:21And I was also talking with two disaster response coordinators who were a part of that. And I said, can you all imagine if all of a sudden we've got a storm forming off of Africa coming this way, maybe it's moving over, it's a Category 1, that the southeastern states are going to have to get together and do paper-scissors-rock to see who's going to manage this regional impact? I mean, the last time I checked, storms have a really bad habit of crossing state and county jurisdictions. They don't care who the congressional district is. So to me, anybody that's advising the president we should get rid of FEMA has clearly had no experience with disaster response.

1:01:58We have a lot of experience with disaster response in the southeast. We've got a number of recommendations to modernize FEMA, to shift more responsibility down. But the federal government has to be the convening authority. I mean, FEMA was actually—its birth was out of a disastrous response in the past. But if we're talking about changing the execution, that's fine. But the federal government has to play a role. There are no major storms that you could possibly have a coordinated, solid response to if it's a pickup game by states. Right. And so it's just absurd. Whoever recommended that clearly is out of their depth on disaster response.

1:02:44President Trump went after you while you guys were fighting about that. He said, Tom Tillis has hurt the great people of North Carolina, even on the catastrophic flooding. Nothing was done to help until I took office. Then a miracle took place. Tillis is a talker and a complainer, not a doer. Well, President, I get to Western North Carolina and see if his view of the work that I've done there fits with the view of Western North Carolinians. I think that they're pretty happy with how much I leaned into it. even advising the Trump campaign to probably not land in Asheville during the campaign when we were trying to use the airport to evac victims.

1:03:16So I will agree to disagree on that one. What is the future of the Republican Party? And to a lesser extent, I'm interested in your take on the Democratic Party, because there are a lot of people out there who think that both parties right now are completely adrift. One of them happens to be in power. So it seems less so because they are in charge. But are you worried about the Republican Party? I am. I think the good news is the Democratic Party is going so—I'm glad that they're yielding to their instincts because they're bad. And they're going far left. I mean, you've got basically a socialist Democrat.

1:03:54I think that's code for almost communist when you're talking about taking over means of production, running for New York mayor. Not just running. He's the Democratic nominee. So I think our hope, I think that the Republicans and seize this moment to be the practical party, to be the party that is solidly conservative, while these litmus tests for how liberal you are to get out of a Democratic primary continue. If the Republicans do that, we get what I'm worried about is a leader on the Democratic side saying this stuff is killing us. If they do that and they become the party that's more likely looking like left of center, that becomes a real problem for swing states.

1:04:38But the good news is right now, the inmates are running their asylum, and this gives us an opportunity to really come together. What does the Republican Party need to do to get its message right? Less fealty to one man? Yeah, I have fealty to ideals. I don't have fealty to any one man. And I do believe that we're doing the president a disservice. The president, President Trump nor any president, could possibly be expected to have a detailed understanding of all the things that they have to deal with. What the president needs to do is start really looking at the outcome of some of these policy decisions and ask himself, is he really getting the best professional advice?

1:05:20That's what I've been trying to provide him for the last few years, and that's what I'm going to continue to provide him. and it's worth what he paid for it. But as somebody who's been in elected office for 20 years at the leadership level in the state house and doing all I can up here, I hope that he starts listening to more of us and fewer of those people who pretend like they're the president when he's out of the room over in the White House. Who are you talking about? There will be plenty of time for me to cover that later. Just not later in this interview. Right. There was a 2013 profile of you in Charlotte Magazine.

1:05:53It talked about your dad. it was a boat draftsman. Yeah. And one job brought your family to Louisiana. New Orleans, West Wigo. And the profile says that's where your work ethic went into overdrive. You started looking for creative ways to earn money. You walked cats in exchange for cash or biscuits. It's true. So that's the first chapter. It was Ms. Wright. To me, it's all about income. And I mean, I was eight years old at that time. And I had walking around money. As a matter of fact, I I remember, I don't know, some of that money that I raised, I also went to a 7-Eleven and bought an engagement ring for a girlfriend I had when I was nine years old.

1:06:32So if that's your first chapter, Walking Cats for Biscuits, what's the next chapter going to be for you after you leave? I know we get another year and a half of you here in D.C., but what's after that? You know, I think probably I love, I still love technology. I spent my entire career in technology and then enterprise transformation as a partner at P.W. and Price Waterhouse, Price Waterhouse Coopers and IBM. And I love execution. Honestly, I finally got my four year degree, but I was admitted to the partnership at Price Waterhouse a year before I got it. And that was mainly because I'm fairly good at execution.

1:07:08I want to go back and do some of that. I like getting my hands dirty. I'd love to do turnaround work for problem businesses or startups. In terms of the next year and a half, how are you going to turn around this institution here? How are you going to make it more responsive to the American people? I'm going to keep on working and trying to make it very clear to the president, I've never done anything that I thought knowingly would undercut him. Everything I've ever done has been to improve the outcome. And so I'm going to work on that. And I am going to hold some of these people accountable who I think are shielding him, do not understand the legislative process, certainly do not understand execution.

1:07:47And they're the biggest risk to his legacy. And if we don't get it right, as I told the president, if we don't get this right, then he's probably going to have two of the most miserable years of his life if the Democrats take the gavels in the House. And I'm trying to avoid that. All right. Senator Tom Tillis, thanks so much for your time. Thank you. That was a lot. Let's get some reaction to what we heard from Senator Tillis. We're going to squeeze in a quick break. We'll be right back.

1:08:17Continuing with our politics lead, I'm joined by senior political and global affairs commentator Rahm Emanuel, who's been a congressman, a U.S. ambassador, mayor of Chicago, Obama White House chief of staff. I really want to know what you think about what Senator Tillis had to say about the Democratic Party and about the Republican Party. He did, about the Democrats, he pointed to Zoran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York. He says, glad Democrats are going so far. The inmates are running the asylum. What do you think? Well, I'm not so sure that's the case because there's also, as you let, what he left out was the nominee in Virginia and the nominee for governor also in New Jersey.

1:08:54Both women out of the military come in the 2018 class. I know you love to talk about them. You brought them up last time I brought up Mamdani. Yeah, it's happened to be true. Let's talk about Mamdani. Mamdani's going to be the mayor, probably the mayor. Oh, no, he'll be. I would be surprised at this point if he isn't. I think his critique, I mean, if you wanted to say on the positive side, I mean, his critique of cost of living, it's not limited to New York, and his focus on that singularity and repetitively is correct. I think his solutions are not correct for the problem. As a mayor, I dealt with food deserts.

1:09:29We eliminated somewhere between 20 to 30 percent of them. I didn't do it through grocery store. I did it through reform of the process. I went to all the major grocers. I said, you give me four applications, I'll treat one in the food desert, all of these as one if you have a food desert grocery store. That's a way to approach this problem. To eliminate the bonerous regulation. Jake, you and I, we have four or five options within a mile of our homes. Sure. There are people on the south side of Chicago, people in D.C., that don't have a single option within four or five miles. Yeah, it's a real problem in Anacostia.

1:09:59That's right. Okay, so this is a real issue. Now, I don't think his solution, but his understanding of the problem is there. Second, I offered free buses when we redid the entire red line on the south side for four months. Tie free buses to when you're doing subway construction and rehabilitation. The idea that you're going to do free buses is not correct. On the other hand, what is also correct, without a modern mass transit system where people live, they can't get to work. You can do it. I can do it. Legoyevich did something on that also, the free busing, free buses. He did it for, say, 65 and older and stuff like that.

1:10:34I'm just saying. So my point is, look, I understand why the Republicans are trying to make him the face of the Democratic Party. That's not going to be the case. And there are other parts that I think are more important, more indicative. Well, he's not the mayor of Massapequa. He would be the mayor of New York City. I mean, it's. You're talking to a. Don't get competitive. You're talking to a former mayor. But I'm just saying, like, there's a there's a reason why Republicans would make him the face of the Democratic Party. party and it's not invented. I get the tactical reason of doing it and the strategic and the purpose of paying the dividends saying, look, the party, my sense is there is a, and I would have a right to do this as a Democrat, is say there's a broader perspective of, if you look at the future of the party, it's going to come out of New Jersey and Virginia.

1:11:14But Tillis seemed to say, like, the Democrats are, you guys are killing yourselves. He says he's afraid of a Democrat resting the party back towards the center. As somebody who has spent my life. Yeah, this is your bread and butter when you're in the Congress. But he's also trying to avoid a conversation. You asked him two questions. Yeah. He didn't answer the question about the Republican Party and the inmates. He wanted to talk about the inmates of the Democratic Party. Both parties are facing consequences and a challenge where people, not just on the extreme, people out of the mainstream, are in control of the microphone and have too much time on the microphone.

1:11:48His only challenge to your answer, which is on both parties, was about one party. I appreciate his insights to the Democratic Party. Let me give him a suggestion on the Republican Party. What they just did on Medicaid. Yeah. And what they and I'll give you an example. Well, he's made his position clear on Medicaid. Oh, yes. Not in a consequential way, but a lot of other senators that are fellow travelers did not. Watch what happens now on opiate overdoses. One of the consequences of cutting Medicaid, which has been incredibly important in the reduction of opiate deaths, you're going to see that swing now the other way.

1:12:21Second, all these cuts and elimination of support for new energy, you're going to get utility rates going up. So what this bill does, when Jeff Bezos is off in Venice getting married, 50 ,000, nor were you. Your brother was, though. I don't care. 50 ,000 kids won't be able to see their pediatrician. And as a kid whose father was a pediatrician, those kids deserve a pediatrician. And I'm sorry, Jeff Bezos doesn't deserve a tax cut. You are, you're very on message. You've always been very on message. Very disciplined. I would look forward to having Senator Tillerson. I can talk about his inmates that he can't control.

1:12:58And I'm glad that he has some insights and advice for what we can do. Rob Emanuel, always great to have you here. Thank you so much for being here. Coming up next, while Trump's Justice Department is investigating former FBI Director James Comey and former CIA Director John Brennan. Stay with us.

1:13:18In our Law and Justice lead, the FBI is investigating former CIA Director John Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey for possible false statements to Congress. This is according to a person briefed on the matter. President Trump was asked about this this afternoon. James Comey and John Brennan now under criminal investigation related to the Trump-Russia probe. Do you want to see these two guys behind bars? Well, I know nothing about it other than what I read today. But I will tell you, I think they're very dishonest people. I think they're crooked as hell. And maybe they have to pay a price for that.

1:14:01CNN's Evan Pettis joins us. Evan, what's this all about? Is there anything there? Well, we don't know what they're exactly able to find in this investigation, Jacob. We don't even know how far this has gone. But they're clearly looking at some of the testimony by these two men in the last few years. Remember, there's a five-year statute of limitations on these types of investigations. And so what they're doing is essentially relitigating the 2016 election, the 2016-2017 investigation, the Trump-Russia investigation, which has already been looked at by an inspector general and also by John Durham, who was a special counsel who examined all of these things, including the handling of intelligence, and really, you know, went over all of this.

1:14:47And obviously those two men were not charged. But we do know this. We do know that, as you can hear from Donald Trump, from the president, he has had a fixation on both of these men and believes both of them should be in prison. And so we now have the FBI looking at a referral that was made by the current CIA director, John Radcliffe, who says that there was some politicized decisions that were made in the handling of that intelligence back in 2016. Again, we don't know how far this will go, but certainly if the FBI is going to spend time doing this, you know, this is where they're going to center it, which is looking at their statements and looking at whether there was any wrongdoing in the handling of that investigation.

1:15:27And we'll see how far this goes. It's certainly what Donald Trump, though, has long had on his wish list. All right, Evan Perez, thanks so much. President Trump is pumping out more tariff letters to various countries, notifying them of new tariff rates. What small business owners here in the U.S. think of this money-making tactic is next.

1:15:52In our money lead, President Trump has now sent 22 letters to various countries advising them of new tariff rates, some as high as 50 percent on their exports to the United States, which brings us to our business leaders series. when small business owners weigh in on President Trump's sweeping tariffs right on Main Street. Stevenson's of Elkhart in Indiana is known for bridal gowns and prom dresses and special occasion wear. It's a family-owned business that's been operating since 1931. And owner Danny Reynolds joins us. Now, Danny, how much of the bridal fashion industry relies on overseas manufacturing?

1:16:30And are the tariffs impacting your business? Well, first, thanks for having us, Jake. I appreciate that. And to answer your question, for better or worse, over 90 percent of all bridal merchandise comes from China, actually. They do get the lion's share of the production. I've been doing this for about 30 of our 95 years. And I really, for these last 30 years, have watched that production shift. to we were probably 50 % domestically produced in the 90s, early 2000s, and just over time have gone to complete reliance on China and outside manufacturing. So obviously one of the reasons President Trump is doing this is because he's trying to bring manufacturing back to the United States.

1:17:19Is it possible to manufacture these fabrics, these dresses, etc. in the United States? Well, that's the tricky thing, Jake. I mean, I know more than anybody would love to see domestic production for a lot of reasons. I think our country was built on that. I think that it's healthy for our economy. But I think we have to be realistic about what is actually possible in the global economy that we live in. It's been estimated that. So if you look at a wedding gown behind me, our average retail price these days is around$1 ,800 for something like that. It's been estimated that if we were even able to produce such a gown here in the U.S., the price due to labor, due to other things would be over$4 ,500.

1:18:05That's not affordable to the average American consumer, and that's who our customer is. Even if we were able to do so, if I could snap my fingers and have a wedding gown production factory behind our store, that would be great. But we would still be reliant on raw materials that all come from other countries. So have these tariffs forced you to raise prices? We are definitely seeing price increases. It's funny, I was paying invoices today and noticed on one a 35 % tariff fee because this order was placed sometime in late April, and that's when we were first hearing about these kinds of things coming in.

1:18:43So the hope is that we're going to be able to absorb some. We hope that the manufacturers, wholesalers can absorb some because the last thing we want to do has passed any increase onto the consumers. The economy is difficult right now, and people are struggling, and so we don't want to have to raise prices if we don't have to. So the hope is that we can get something figured out so the price of the consumer is not going to go up. Have you seen customer behavior, consumer behavior change in the past six or seven months since these tariffs have gone into effect? You know, we've definitely seen, I guess at first I said I wasn't noticing much price resistance, a little bit more what I would call price awareness, but then really a sense of urgency in consumers because they hear, you know, what's on the news.

1:19:30They hear what you all are reporting and they're afraid of what could be coming around the corner. And I think that really kind of sums up the whole thing for all of us. Listen, we're retailers. I think most business people, we like to be able to plan our business. We like to be able to plan for the future. That's hard to do when numbers are changing. sometimes on the daily. We don't know what the expenses are going to be tomorrow, let alone six months from now. So it makes it difficult for people to plan businesses. It makes it difficult for young couples to plan weddings as well. So it's just hard, you know, as if I can speak generally for a moment, as entrepreneurs, we're people that typically like to control our own destiny.

1:20:05And we have had so much sort of handed to us. I mean, to draw you a quick picture, if you go back just five years in our 95 year old business's life uh it was the pandemic imagine trying to plan a wedding or or help a bride during the pandemic then we had the supply chain crisis that came from that and uh then we had you know the port strikes and now this it's been a lot of things thrown at us that are completely out of our control all right the business is stevenson's of elkhart it's in elkhart indiana danny reynolds thank you so much for talking to us today Thanks again, Jake. Really appreciate it.

1:20:40Coming up next, President Trump's interesting compliment to the president of Liberia today during a roundtable at the White House. What could go wrong? Stay with us.

1:20:56Some breaking news for you. Parts of the D.C. area are currently under a tornado warning. The rain and winds are dangerously strong. They got our attention here in the studio. That tornado warning expires at 7 Eastern in just a few minutes at the top of the hour. Meteorologists warned earlier today that the D.C. to Philadelphia corridor were especially susceptible to a flooding risk this evening. In our last leads, let's go to the White House for President Trump today. Met with the leaders of five African nations, including Liberia. Here is the president of Liberia, Joseph Boakai. We want to work with the United States in peace and security within the region.

1:21:34because we are committed to that. And we just want to thank you so much for this opportunity. Well, thank you. It's such good English, such beautiful. Where did you learn to speak so beautifully? Were you educated where? Yes, sir. In Liberia? Yes, sir. Well, that's very interesting. It's beautiful English. Sure. I have people at this table who can't speak nearly as well. Notes to President Trump. The official language of Liberia is English. Aaron Burnett Up Front starts now.

1:22:15In 2024, a man was killed by the FBI. And to this day, the authorities have refused to say why. He was a father, an ex-husband, and a Russian-born American citizen. He just seemed like a lonely guy, and he needed a friend. And he kind of talked about death, didn't he? He talked about you just never know when it's your time. I'm CNN investigative reporter Isabel Chapman, host of the new limited series Civilian or Spy. They noticed that he was communicating with people that were of concern to the FBI. Oh my God, Jesus. Head over to the CNN Presents feed and listen to our three-part series, Civilian or Spy, available wherever you get your podcasts.