Flash Floods In New Mexico Town Kill At Least Three People

25:59The White House called today's ruling, quote, an obvious and unlawful attempt to circumvent the Supreme Court's clear order against universal relief, unquote. Here to discuss CNN crime and justice correspondent Caitlin Polance and legal analyst Carrie Cordero. Thanks to both of you for being here. So what is the judge's reasoning for blocking the executive order, and does he have the authority to do this? Well, Jake, he does because he's following the Supreme Court's direction here. The judge has a lot of reasons for blocking this. And I should also say there have been many courts that have looked at the birthright citizenship executive order ending, giving that to babies born in the U.S.

26:34to immigrant parents. And they have all said this just doesn't fly under the Constitution. The block by Trump doesn't fly. The block by Trump, yeah. So in this case, a group of people, specific group, that was the direction the Supreme Court gave. You have to have a specific group. They went to the judge in New Hampshire. And he wrote that he, the judge, has no difficulty concluding that the rapid adoption by executive order without legislation and the attending national debate of a new government policy of highly questionable constitutionality that would deny citizenship to many thousands of individuals previously granted citizenship under an indisputably longstanding policy constitutes irreparable harm.

27:17It's a mouthful, but it packs in everything the judge is finding here, that there's no input by Congress, that the White House went very fast when it put this executive order in place, that there was little public debate, that it hurts a lot of people to end birthright citizenship, and that there had been policies for a long time allowing for birthright citizenship under the U.S. Constitution. he says it's highly questionable. It's probably not constitutional. And so I'm blocking it. I'm blocking it nationwide for babies born after February 20th of this year and any babies that would be born from this day forward.

27:54It's going to be paused for more appeals, but it's a defined class and it's a very thorough finding. Carrie, how strong is this lawsuit? Do you think it can survive the appeals process? Well, I think if courts, if the Supreme Court ever gets to the merits of the birthright issue, then they have a very, very good chance of winning on this because as Caitlin was describing, I mean, in my judgment, I think in the judgment probably of most courts that are taking up the issue related to the birthright orders, that the birthright order is just simply unconstitutional and is not going to stand eventually.

28:28The difficulty and why we're in sort of this constant back and forth between the district courts and the Supreme Court and different methods in which litigants are trying to solve this issue is that the birthright order is the vehicle through which the Trump administration was trying to deal then with nationwide injunctions. And so you've got these two separate issues, really. And the Supreme Court decided the issue of the nationwide injunctions, but never really solved the issue of the birthright citizenship order and then invited district courts to consider it through this class action option.

29:03So ultimately, this is going to end up before the U.S. Supreme Court. And right, ultimately. Yeah, I think ultimately the issue of birthright citizenship and this order that the president issued is going to end up before the court. And they just they have pushed it farther and farther beyond. But right now, it's who can bring. They've already defined who can bring it. They still might have to define where you can bring a suit like this, what kind of judges can do, how far they can do, what they can find here. There's a couple different levels. We could have this going on for quite some time before it gets to, as Carrie said, the merits here.

29:34And that's a difficulty, yeah, because they're not actually getting to the substance of it. And what this district court is pointing out is that people really will be harmed. I mean, what is more fundamental, the judge says, than birthright? Right. Well, then citizenship, whether or not you can stay in the United States. All right. Fascinating stuff. And I guess we're going to be doing and having this conversation for several years. For a while. All right. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it. Carrie Cordero, Caitlin Polance, thanks to both of you. Ahead, the unease for Elon Musk this weekend. His right-handed ex, the CEO, has stepped down.

30:04His AI chatbot is spewing Nazi content. Is this bad for business in today's America? My next guest follows the tech world for a living. Kara Swisher joins us next. Thanks. In our tech lead, the makers of Grok, G-R-O-K, the artificial intelligence chatbot on Elon Musk's XAI, or on Twitter AI, have seemingly frozen the app's X account so it stops spewing pure unadulterated anti-Semitism. Today the app's new upgraded paid version will still give you inappropriate posts, but apparently only when pushed or specifically prompted to do so. For instance, CNN asked Grock to give an edgy response to provocative questions, and Grock did exactly that.

30:56But before the freeze, what happened to Grock? Why was it spewing such unfettered Nazi content? CNN has reached out to ex-AI. Let's talk now to Kara Swisher, host of On With Kara Swisher. She covers the cross-section of tech and media. Kara, other AI apps seem to have higher guardrails to prevent them from becoming Nazis. What exactly happened here with Grok? Well, do you remember Jessica Rabbit? I'm like this because I'm drawn that way. That's how they made it. That's how he's changed it. He thought it was too woke, if you recall, a couple of weeks ago. And so he didn't like the responses. And he changed and messed with the algorithm.

31:36And that's what it returns. Everything is what you put into it. And there's an expression in tech which is garbage in, garbage out. And that's really what's happening here. If you program in a certain way, it will respond in a certain way. AI is people, if you really think about it. It's data about people and whatever you tune it to do, it will do. Yeah, and Musk hates legacy media. He hates institutional knowledge. And he apparently plugged it in so that the Grok would consider Reddit to be a reliable source of information. And there's all sorts of just bigotry and nonsense there. Who knows? On X.

32:15It's not clear. It's not clear what the data is coming from and what he changed from the previous version, which he didn't, didn't, didn't suit him. You know, and now they're doing it again. But I think the whole point, it underscores that this is someone who doesn't care about the safety issues on the platform, which he didn't really before, honestly. And the departure of Linda Iaccarino says he doesn't care about advertising. So he's building something else here that has to do with the data and the information collected and using it for various things. Today, they just linked up Tesla with Grok.

32:48And so you're starting to see sort of what's coming into view, which is he's trying to create an AI that does things for you, but is not focused on Twitter anymore, really. On XAI's website, it says, quote, Grok is your truth-seeking AI companion for unfiltered answers with advanced capabilities and reasoning, coding, and visual processing, unquote. Some people believe that whatever Grok or other AI chatbots tell them is perfectly true. Beyond XAI, are these tech companies showing any concern about the consequences of this? Some of them are. Some of them are putting up some guardrails. a lot of it is a marketing message.

33:28We care. But if you've noticed what happened in social media over the past decade, you can see where we're going with this, is they would rather have very little control over these things and let them do whatever they do and morph it any way they morph. And so putting in guardrails, they'll start to say that's limiting free speech when actually it's just publishing correctly and not allowing hate speech to get in there. Now, in Twitter's case there was a lot of complaints that it was you know nazi adjacent a lot of white supremacist stuff and now they're just going it's not adjacent anymore right um now he can tweak that out and pull those things out those heinous things and it wasn't just anti-semitic it was violence towards women all kinds of things um and they can they can take those things out but it shouldn't be done on a case-by-case basis it should be the ai should be tuned so that there are some safety issues and it doesn't let you, you know, search for how to assault a woman or build a bomb or things like that.

34:26Yeah, Grok was instructing people on how to do a violent rape of one. I think it was a progressive critic. There's been some, you just talked about Linda Iaccarino, who stepped down as CEO of X after only about two years on the job. Oliver Darcy put it this way on his newsletter status. When she strode into X, I'm quoting here, she was widely regarded as one of the most respected advertising executives in the country, but after nearly two years of shilling for Musk and running attempts, running cover for his attempts to strong arm advertisers into cutting checks for X, her once gilded reputation has been nothing short of decimated, unquote.

35:03Now, I'm not an expert on the advertising world. When I think of Linda Iaccarina, I think this is somebody who oversaw the Nazification of Twitter. Do you think that Oliver's right there? No. I think it's going to be difficult, although it's the advertising business, They tend to forgive a lot. You know, she's a very talented advertising salesperson and was for NBC. That's when I knew her, before she went. And I talked to her about going to Twitter when she did. I think, you know, we'll see. I mean, we'll see what she does. We'll see who's interested in her, what she's interested in. She's probably made some money at X.

35:39It depends. Elon has a history of not paying people. So who knows what's going to happen there. But I think she'll probably try to reenter the space. and people are very forgiving in the advertising business. And if she's good at creating marketing opportunities, they'll hire her. That would be my wild guess here. So forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown is what you're throwing at me? Chinatown. All right. Caris Wisher, thanks so much. Appreciate it. The future of FEMA in the wake of disaster. How about this take from a survivor of Hurricane Helene in Western North Carolina? FEMA doesn't need to be eliminated.

36:17It just, the processes need to be easier. CNN's John King went back to this region to hear folks there and what they have to say about dealing with disaster and the politics that come with it. That's next.

36:34And we're back with our politics lead in questions about the future of FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The Trump administration says that they would like to get rid of it altogether and let states take over disaster response. But the flood crisis in Texas, as well as the government response, harkens back to what people in Western North Carolina experienced last fall. Back then, Hurricane Helene caused catastrophic flooding, loss of life, and people had to deal with FEMA. Fast forward to today, and CNN's John King is just back from North Carolina for his All Over the Map series. You hear that sound?

37:12It's the sound of excitement. This is Corey Hampton's office, her source of income and of joy. But seeing the French Broad River is much more complicated now. The floodwaters nine months ago changed everything. We pulled people out of second-story windows in a river that just the day before had been calmer even than it is today. Hampton and her husband Mitch run French Broad Adventures, but they also volunteer for the local raft rescue team. Days of exhausting rescues after the flooding. Then, weeks of worse. Doing recovery work. And what that means is... Looking for bodies. It painted the river in a new light for me.

37:57I still see piles and I wonder if there's somebody in it. I still smell smells and think I should go look at that pile. It's hard to kind of switch back to the, like, oh, everything's fun, no big deal. Tiny hot springs flooded when debris turned this bridge into a dam. Most of downtown is still a mess. Hot Springs Mayor Abby Norton puts the build back at 40%. What I thought Washington would do would be to immediately come in and either fix everything or supply the funds for us to fix everything. but that's not how it works. Mayor Norton says she voted third party for president just weeks after the flood.

38:44Is there a Biden difference or a Trump difference in what you have experienced? First of all, I'm not a politician. I never have been. But it has been better under the Trump administration than it was under Biden. My opinion. Is that because they're more receptive and responsive? Yes. Or is it because Biden was president when it was hell? Things are getting done faster. They are more responsive. We're getting a lot more help. But the mayor is quick to say things still take too long, like waiting for federal help to rebuild the town offices. Now troubled when she hears the president talk of big FEMA changes.

39:25FEMA doesn't need to be eliminated. It just, the processes need to be easier, more user-friendly. No, I don't think it needs to be eliminated at all. or shifted to the states or? No. I think it's just remarkable. You go to these small towns, Marshall, 800 people, Hot Springs, 500 people. These people are not waiting for help. They need a lot of help. They're frustrated. They haven't gotten more help from FEMA, from other places. They're not waiting for it. They're rebuilding their communities. And interesting to hear the mayor there. She says the Trump response has been better than the Biden response in terms of getting somebody on the phone and getting stuff done.

40:00But she says way too much red tape. It's taking way too long to get things done. But she was adamant. Yes, Trump's better than Biden, in her view, but do not get rid of FEMA. Make it better. Make it streamlined. Make it more user-friendly. Yes, but as the people of Texas go through tragedy nine months ago, those towns were underwater. They say, you know, FEMA actually was a lot of help. Can it be better? Absolutely. Don't take it away. That's exactly what her U.S. Senator Tom Tillis told me yesterday, another conservative Republican. John King, excellent work as always. Thanks so much. President Trump said again today, more tariffs are on the way after imposing dozens already just this week on various countries.

40:34But the 50 % tariff threat on Brazil, that's different. This one is Trump attempting to use economic pressure as a political weapon on behalf of an ally. And it could come with a rise in prices on your orange juice and your coffee because of that ally. We'll explain ahead.

41:00This podcast is supported by Anthropic, the public benefit corporation behind Claude. Everyone's got a hard question about AI, your job, your kids, where it's going. Anthropic was built to surface those questions and share what it finds along the way, because there's hope in hard questions. Ask yours at claude.ai slash Spotify and keep thinking. That's claude.ai slash Spotify. With summer coming to an end, you're going to be spending more time indoors. Get your home ready and save up to 50 % off custom window treatments during the Labor Day mega sale at Blinds.com. From room darkening to light filtering shades, finding the perfect fit is easy.

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42:02Welcome to The Lead. I'm Jake Tepper. This hour trumps beef with Brazil. Why his latest trade war is in retaliation for what he's calling a witch hunt against one of his Brazilian allies. But is that kind of interference and appropriate use of American tariffs? Plus, the agonizing surge continues for more than 150 people missing in Kerr County, Texas, after the devastating flash flooding along the Guadalupe River last week. While local officials are facing heated questions today about why so many of them slept through the flooding and why the county signed off on the camp's safety two days before the tragedy.

42:38And an incredible escape, how 31 workers were rescued after a sanitation tunnel collapsed in Los Angeles. What caused the collapse in the first place?

42:52Our lead tonight, America's top money minds say it's only a matter of time until President Trump's tariffs could deliver another big blow to American consumers. whereas prices are already rising and inflation is at a turning point, aggravated by Trump's threat today of a whopping 50 % tariff on Brazil. Why? Well, because the president doesn't like the way Brazil's current president is treating Brazil's former president. Unlike the other 21 countries that have received tariff letters from Trump this week, Brazil does not have a trade deficit with the United States. Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, Republican lawmakers say they support Trump, but their constituents are already feeling quite uneasy.

43:32I don't want to say fatigue so much as the uncertainty of this is starting to wear on people. The folks in my part of the country are more concerned about retaliation for tariffs that are put on. We haven't seen them yet, but that's a concern they've got. Back at the White House this afternoon, the Trump administration stepped up attacks on Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, with whom Trump has been hounding to cut interest rates. CNN's Caitlin Collins is at the White House for us. Caitlin? Yeah, Jake. Jay Powell is in the White House's sights once again. Now, this time, we are seeing people like the president's budget chief, Russ Vogt, accusing him of potentially violating government rules by a building renovation that they are doing at the Federal Reserve headquarters here in Washington.

44:16He wrote this letter that he sent to him, accusing him of changing what exactly those renovations are going to look like and saying that the president is, quote, extremely troubled that those plans may have violated the government building rules with what they are calling an ostentatious overhaul. I mean, Jake, you can get into the nitty gritty of what exactly those renovations are going to look like. But what it seems to be is another avenue that the White House is using to increase scrutiny on Jay Powell, someone that the president has made quite clear he wants out of that job. But obviously, Jay Powell has said it would be illegal for the president to remove him from that role, that he has no plans to go anywhere.

44:53But I asked Kevin Hassett, who is another top economic advisor to the president, who has also been someone mentioned as a potential contender to replace Jay Powell over at the Federal Reserve, if they are basically laying the groundwork to try to oust him by coming up with this complaint about the renovation that is happening at the Federal Reserve headquarters. He declined to answer our question just over here a few moments ago on the North Lawn of the White House. to Jake. But obviously you're seeing what is happening here with tweets not just from Russ vote but other top aides to President Trump as he has made quite clear he does not believe Jay Powell should be in this job any longer.

45:27And remember Jake what is at the center of this fight is exactly what you just mentioned with Brazil. The tariffs that the president is coming up with which oftentimes don't always have a rhyme or reason to them. And Jay Powell has said he's concerned about what that could do to inflation. The president has said he believes that's completely just wrong here, but it all goes back to how the president is waging this tariff battle against other nations, the concerns Jay Powell has about the aftermath of that, and of course the two of them being at loggerheads over exactly which path the Federal Reserve should take here.

45:57The question is, is the president searching for a way to try to oust Powell from this role that they could argue is legal? All right, Caitlin Collins at the White House for us, thank you so much, and don't miss Caitlin on her fantastic show, The Source with Caitlin Collins, which marks two years on the air tonight. Happy birthday, Caitlin. So tune in at nine o 'clock Eastern right here on CNN. Right now, CNN's Issa Suarez is going to explain President Trump's beef with Brazil's government that led to this massive new tariff. Take a look. President Trump is using the economy as a political weapon.

46:32He's been saying that tariffs are about leveling the playing field, that there's a trade imbalance, and that the United States is being ripped off by other countries. In the case of Brazil, that is not true. President Trump yet is imposing a 50 % tariff on the country. The reason, you ask? A court case against former President Jair Bolsonaro, a case which he says is a witch hunt in this letter and should end immediately. So this is not about business, but about his body. The two have been friends since Trump's first term. Probably because of the relationship that we have, Brazil and the United States have never been closer.

47:16And they've been building on that relationship ever since. In 2022, Trump supported Bolsonaro's bid for re-election. So I strongly endorse President Bolsonaro. He will be your leader for hopefully a long time. And even though he lost to current President Lula da Silva, Bolsonaro came out for Trump ahead of the 2024 election in the US, praising their exceptional relationship when he appeared at a CPAC convention. President Bolsonaro, a great honour. Now back at the White House, Trump using the weight of the office to help his buddy out. But why is Bolsonaro on trial? They'll get into the Capitol tonight.

48:02Well, remember when Trump's supporters stormed the Capitol? Brazil had its own version on January the 8th, 2023. Pro-Bolsonaro protesters broke into Congress and the presidential palace. I was there in the aftermath and I personally saw the damage the rioters had done, ransacking government buildings, destroying artefacts, including art pieces, even setting some buildings on fire. Prosecutors say they found a connection between the riots and Brazil's former president. And earlier this year, they charged Bolsonaro, along with 33 other people, in connection with an alleged plot to overthrow the government.

48:45Those accused deny the charges. For his part, the Brazilian leader says his country has a right to reciprocate the tariffs and has refused to get involved in Bolsonaro's court case, telling Trump to do the same. This country has laws, this country has rules and this country has an owner, and that's the Brazilian people. So save your judgments for your own life and keep them out of ours. Isa Suarez, CNN. London. And our thanks to Isis Suarez for that report. CNN's resident tariff expert, Phil Manningly, is with us here. So Phil, this tariff that the president is imposing against Brazil is extraordinary because there is no trade deficit with Brazil.

49:28So if the United States does this because Trump wants to help a political ally who is going through legal problems, quite appropriately it seems, this actually could hurt consumers in the United States. Almost certainly. on products that people care a lot about. But I think you make a really important contextual point to start with, which is these reciprocal tariffs that were announced on April 2nd and delayed that the president is now re-announcing via letters, there have been 20 plus letters. The changes in the rates have not been very dramatic. And then the president truthed out the Brazil letter, which was strange to me because Brazil hadn't even been on the initial April 2nd list.

50:03The reason why is because of this right here,$7.4 billion. That's actually how much Brazil takes from the U.S. There is a, not a trade deficit would be the shorter, more clear way to put this right now. The U.S. actually imports about$43 billion from Brazil. They export about$49 billion from Brazil. In other words, the national emergency the president declared was based entirely upon trade deficits, trying to balance those out. They're the ones that have a trade deficit with us. The U.S. doesn't have a trade deficit with Brazil. Now, what does this actually mean going forward in terms of products for consumers?

50:41Well,$1.4 billion in beef in 2024 was sent from Brazil to the U.S. Coffee, about 30 % of the coffee sold in the United States originates in Brazil. Crude oil and crude-related products,$7.6 billion. More than 50 % of orange juice sold in the United States comes from Brazil. These are products where they have significant market share that will all be hit by tariffs based on the threat that was put out at this point. I've used all four of these in the last 24 hours. I'm glad you're eating beef. That's a good thing. Americans produce beef too, though, so in case you get attacked for that. This is important to note, though.

51:15These tariffs are not built all the same, right? There are very legitimate implications for some of the tariffs that have been targeted or implemented up to this point on national security grounds. There are trade deficit issues that certainly exist here. But this is probably the most expansive and aggressive example of another element, a very Trump-specific element, which is a willingness to use tariffs for things far outside the economic means, starting with, you know, when they threatened Greenland before he was even inaugurated or threatened Denmark with tariffs over the issue of Greenland.

51:43Or how about Colombia? Because the Colombian president would not accept migrants being sent from the United States, threatening 100 % tariffs on foreign films, 50 % tariffs on the EU to restart negotiations, 25 % tariffs on smartphones, 10 % tariffs on BRICS countries just a short while ago. Obviously, the fentanyl tariffs that were also emergency authorized tariffs. and now, of course, the 50 % tariffs on Brazil. How much of this does he plan to implement? Well, most of those, minus the fentanyl tariffs, he has not. He uses this, though, as a very clear leverage tool. The difference, and I think what makes this so much different, is that he's doing it for a political ally of another nation that is currently facing trial for an attempted coup.

52:21Yeah, and it seems tariffs on general, foreign exporters, are absorbing some of the costs. Yeah, I think this is actually a really important point right now because the Trump administration rightly has gone out repeatedly over the course of the last several days and said, look, there is no inflation right now or inflation-effective tariffs. All of these things you were talking about that were going to be so terrible are not actually taking place. And what you're saying is actually validating on some level what has long been the rather minority view, but widely held inside the White House, that because of the inelasticity of the consumer market in the United States, this is the biggest market in the world.

52:55Every country and every country's exports wants to play here. They will end up eating the cost. Goldman's saying it's about 20 % right now. The administration has said it's going to be much more than that. We'll see playing out, but it's also early. And I think this is important to know because we are already seeing some effect in the most tariff sensitive areas. Things like appliances, 0.8 % increase, toys, 1.3 % increase, household furniture, tools, sporting goods, all have seen increases right now. Not substantial. And that's a large part because there have been a lot of buildup of inventories.

53:23There are a lot of companies that are very concerned about trying to raise prices at a time when obviously the president's very sensitive to that as well. Also, the uncertainty in general. There is a hope that tariff rates will drop, that the president will back off. Until there's certainty there, people are holding off. You're going to want to watch Consumer Price Index. Next week is the latest report. Jay Powell, the Fed chair, very much under attack right now, has said, look, we don't think this is actually filtered through yet. We don't know the full picture. That's what they're waiting for.

53:49And there's an expectation. It's coming. This is also averages on a national basis, whereas we talk to, as you know from when you subbed for me, we talk to small business owners across the country every day. And they are on a case-by-case basis being forced in many ways and many times to raise their prices. Specifically, it might be 0.8 as a national increase, but for one small business, it might be a 30 % hike. The most important thing from those interviews, which have been fantastic that you and your team have been doing them, is how much they say, I can hold on at this level without raising prices and taking a big hit for like another two or three weeks or another two or three months.

54:25They all say it's coming. We're just trying to hold off right now in the hopes something will pull back. The it's coming part is pretty much around now. Absolutely. Phil Mattingly, excellent work as always. Thank you so much. Coming up, CNN spends a day with volunteers who are scouring for Texas flood victims where more than 160 people are still missing. 160 still missing their harrowing journey that's ahead.

54:52We turn back to our national lead and more on the catastrophic Texas flooding. An image into CNN today shows several campers at Camp La Junta in Kerr County sitting on their cabins wooden beam rafters to escape the floodwaters during last week's storm. The mother of one camper told CNN that her son's counselor helped the kids get up there as water rose above their bunk beds. Thankfully, everyone from that camp was safely evacuated, but at least five Camp Mystic campers are still missing. And across the entire state, at least 160 people are still missing. Sinan's Ed Lavandera is in Kerrville, Texas.

55:27He spent the day with the Center Point Texas Volunteer Fire Department as they continue their search efforts. It's horrible, heartbreaking work. Ed, tell us what you saw on the ride-along today. Well, Jake, it's fitting that you show that image from Camp La Junta, which is in the town of Hunt. Where we were today was about 30 miles downstream, 25 to 30 miles downstream from there. And we spoke with some firefighters that had been working this since Friday. They told us they've actually found debris from Camp La Junta along the riverbed of the Guadalupe River over there and part of their search efforts.

56:06We spent the day watching in some of these areas that are the hardest to navigate to. We've seen an incredible amount of heavy machinery having to turn in the edge of the river into roadways so they can clear out debris. It was a stunning sight to see. And this is an area around Centerpoint. That command post is in charge of about seven miles of the river searching through that. They've been doing that since Friday. the areas that we were in we were told by a firefighter that we were with this several bodies have been found in fact bodies have been found every day since July 4th and he talks about just this one little spot really speaks to the volume of the work that is being done all along the stretch of this river and what kinds of what kind of debris have you guys found down here as well well We've found signage from Camp Art of the Hills.

57:07That's up there by Camp Mystic. That's 30 miles away. That's staggering. That's staggering. That's the power of this river. And also the mind blowing, trying to wreck your mind how something can make it that far down the river through all these trees. You know what I mean? But there's vehicles, there's all kinds of stuff.

57:32And Jake, you know, it's just more of the tedious work. In fact, Razor Dobbs, who was a volunteer firefighter with the Centerpoint Fire Department there, he told us that he thinks that this could very well take months to complete. And you've been spending a lot of time in that community. Ed, how are people there feeling? What's the mood like now on day six of these search efforts? Well, it's interesting. We met the gentleman you just heard from, the volunteer firefighter, Razor Dobbs, at the volunteer firefighter fire station, which had eight feet of water in it. That fire department lost all of its firefighting gear.

58:10It all got washed downstream. But that fire station has since been turned in to the command post. And what was fascinating, Jake, is that it has basically been taken over by volunteers and an army of people who have shown up to help. In fact, there were two men who were kind of running point, navigating people, telling people which direction to go. They should go check in with this person or go check in with that person, navigating and organizing volunteers that were bringing food or volunteers that were out on search missions up and down the river. And what was really striking was just how all of these people had just taken it upon themselves to create this command structure, if you will, in this massive operation to conduct the searches and to conduct the clearing of debris all through that community.

58:58All right, Ed Levin, Darren Kerrville, Texas. Thanks so much. Coming up, former Governor Andrew Cuomo has spent millions of dollars on his legal defense against his accusers. And guess who's footing the bill? You are, New Yorkers. That's ahead.

59:18This podcast is supported by Anthropic, the public benefit corporation behind Claude. Everyone's got a hard question about AI. Your job, your kids, where it's going. Anthropic was built to surface those questions and share what it finds along the way, because there's hope in hard questions. Ask yours at Claude.ai slash Spotify and keep thinking. That's claude.ai slash Spotify.

1:00:12huge savings on doorbusters right now during the Labor Day mega sale at blinds.com. And today's tech lead, the vanishing line between free speech and malicious, thoroughly inaccurate, biased hate speech when it's served up by artificial intelligence. Case in point, a few weeks after Elon Musk said X's AI chatbot Grok would be retrained because Musk thought Grok was too woke. Well, then Grok started pushing Nazism and appeared to endorse the Holocaust and Hitler as effective. Joining us now, Jonathan Greenblatt of the Anti-Defamation League. Thanks for joining us, Jonathan. So Sina and Sadas Gold has been following the story.

1:00:51She tells us that while the public free-facing version of Grok was horribly anti-Semitic and doing so seemingly without being pushed, it has not responded to anyone publicly since Tuesday evening after this story blew up. However, Hadass also tells us when then she used the paid Grok 4 version today and prompted Grok to take on an edgy white nationalist tone, she got an anti-Semitic response. Again, it's the paid version and she asked it to do so. But the anti-Semitism is still being served up by Grok. What do you make of that? I mean, it's really atrocious, Jake. But we have to keep in mind that anti-Semitism doesn't seem to be a bug, if you will, on social media.

1:01:33It's a feature of these services. And if Grok is building its intelligence using X as its LLM, then no one should be surprised that one day it wakes up and says it's Mecca Hitler. I mean, literally, it sounds like something from a science fiction movie. But as you kind of reported in Hadassah's, it spewed anti-Semitism, blamed the Jews for the floods in Texas, repeated anti-Semitic memes. I mean, it was really ugly. And in a moment when we've seen this historic rise of anti-Semitism, the idea that one of the most popular social media platforms on Earth is sort of vomiting this stuff out, Jake, it's not just ugly.

1:02:16I think it's explosive. I think it could lead to violence. So it's a good thing that Elon interjected himself that they deleted the ugliest of the posts. But they've got a lot more work to do to get this right. So this has emboldened the far right, for want of a better term, on social media. Here's a post from Andrew Torba calling Grok4 incredible. For anyone unfamiliar with Torba, the ADL identifies him as the founder and CEO of Gab. Gab is an online hub often used by extremists and conspiracy theorists. The Tree of Life synagogue shooter was on Gab right before he attacked the Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018.

1:02:55So this new unfiltered grok is pleasing the anti-Semites. Yeah, I mean, like when Andrew Torba is your fan, you've clearly done something wrong. I mean, the reality is that, I mean, Elon Musk is this extraordinary innovator and inventor. I mean, he is one of the most well-resourced people on the planet. it he ought to be able to apply some of that innovation and use some of those resources to help this system stop spewing out anti-jewish hate i mean a lot of things are hard getting rockets into space is hard knocking the nazis off your platform that should be pretty easy so we want to see the company number one enforce real guidelines number two bring in the experts like ADL and other organizations that understand this stuff to help them get it right.

1:03:49I want to get your reaction to something I just read, written by the executive editor of Commentary, which is a conservative magazine, Abe Greenwald. He was just publishing a story and an essay on this issue, and he wrote of Elon Musk. I don't believe he's a neo-Nazi, but I don't doubt for a moment that he gets a thrill out of the obnoxiousness of online bigotry like so many others who have only recently come to identify themselves as right-wingers. He loves to offend. is there really any reason at this point to think that he didn't know what he was doing when he gave those quote Roman salutes on stage in January as I recall ADL was somewhat defended Elon Musk when he gave the Roman salute that some people thought was a Heil Hitler salute do you think in retrospect he didn't deserve the the benefit of the doubt there no look like I know Elon and I've dealt with him before, and I do think he's a bit of an edgelord who enjoys, you know, mixing it up.

1:04:42I think what happened there, I mean, again, that still is a little bit deceiving in the moment. He was, I think, being awkward and doing a gesture. But what I missed at the time, Jake, and what I'll say here today is it's not so much what he intended. It's the impact that it had. It's the way that white nationalists rejoiced at seeing him do this. It's the way that literal neo-Nazis were applauding online, and he failed to push back on that. He failed to correct the record, and I think that was a mistake on Elon's part, and I wish we'd called it out more clearly when it happened. On another matter, the National Education Association, which is the United States' largest teachers union, it's endorsed a proposal to cut ties with your group, the Anti-Defamation League.

1:05:25The proposal has not been officially adopted. It's been referred to the NEA's Executive Committee for consideration. What is going on there? Why are they cutting ties? And what would the impact be? Yeah, look, we've got Nazis to the left of us and socialists to the right, if I might. It's really something else. This is the largest teachers union in the country. And at their convention over the weekend, a small group of radicals sort of routed around the process to put something on the floor of the NEA to cut ties with ADL. Now, look, let me be clear. Our education materials are peer reviewed in the gold standard.

1:05:58Holocaust education, anti-bias training. I mean, this is not political, but it shows you what a small group of radicals can do. And they don't like the fact that ADL is a Zionist organization, something for which not only will we never apologize for, we'll never retreat. And so in that context, they said, well, they can no longer teach us. It's cancel culture, Jake. They can't teach our kids about the Holocaust, even though they've been doing it for decades and reach millions of children. So here's the good news. It hasn't gone through yet. It's still going to go through their executive committee.

1:06:32But as I see it, and I think as all of us see it, I've gotten so many calls this week, Jake, from members of Congress, from elected officials, from public figures who are saying this isn't just an attack on the ADL, it's an attack on the entire Jewish community. That the idea that after the rise of anti-Semitism, the NEA would literally isolate their Jewish educators, alienate their Jewish students, and make the oldest anti-hate group in the country, sort of persona non grata in their schools, is a bizarre way to respond to bigotry. And it reeks of the kind of double standards that's a classic trope of anti-Semitism.

1:07:06So here we are yet again. Jonathan Greenblatt of the AADL, thank you so much. Good to see you. Coming up, the independent tug of war in the New York mayoral race. Could Eric Adams and Andrew Cuomo split voters and deliver the election to Mamdani? We'll discuss.

1:07:25New today in our politics lead, Andrew Cuomo's defeat in New York City's Democratic mayoral primary has not dashed his hopes of a political comeback. The former governor is still on the ballot for mayor in November on a different slate, not the Democratic Party. Four years after he resigned in disgrace as New York governor over multiple sexual harassment allegations, Cuomo's spending millions on what some legal experts say is at times an aggressive and unconventional legal defense against his accusers, including seeking the gynecologist's record of one of the plaintiffs. While Cuomo contemplates a formal run as an independent mayoral candidate, New York taxpayers are the ones footing the bill in this legal fight.

1:08:08And M.J. Lee is here with me now. M.J., tell us what you found. Yeah, Jake,$20.5 million. That is how much the state of New York has spent so far for the legal defense of Cuomo and several officials who worked with him in three lawsuits brought by women who made Me Too allegations against him. That is an eye-popping figure. And my colleague Sabrina Souza and I wanted to understand Cuomo's legal defense strategy that has cost New Yorkers so much money already. So we look through hundreds of pages of legal documents from those lawsuits. We interview the plaintiff's lawyers, Cuomo's advisors, legal and ethics experts.

1:08:44And we also spoke with several of Cuomo's accusers. And what some legal experts told us is that Cuomo's defense team has, at times, used aggressive and unconventional tactics that appear intended to slow down the legal proceedings. For example, in one case, they sought the plaintiff's gynecological, optometrist, and family therapy records. They've also tried to probe third-party accusers' romantic histories and past alleged experiences of sexual trauma, as well as their communications with members of the media. Now, Cuomo has denied the allegations of sexual harassment, and his advisors tell CNN he is not going to settle.

1:09:22They say that, yes, these ongoing lawsuits have been expensive and protracted, but they blame who they describe as cash-hungry ex-employees who decided to sue him, as well as what they see as a political witch hunt orchestrated by New York Attorney General Letitia James. Now, as a reminder, the AG's office conducted an investigation that found that Cuomo sexually harassed around a dozen employees. And you spoke with some of Cuomo's accusers. What do they have to say? Yeah, you know, speaking to some of the former Cuomo employees who accused him of inappropriate behavior, But the ones who never sued him, they are still being saddled with significant legal bills because they are being subpoenaed in some of these other ongoing lawsuits.

1:10:07So, for example, one woman, a former Cuomo aide named Anna Liss, she told me that she had an eight-hour deposition with Cuomo's lawyer two summers ago. And she decided to not have her lawyer present for it, which no lawyer would advise that. But she did this because she could spare herself the additional legal bill. She says that her legal bills related to Cuomo so far have been around$30 ,000. And then there are, of course, the accusers who did choose to sue him. One of the three, Charlotte Bennett, she recently dropped her lawsuit against him. And at the time, she said in a statement, quote, I've many times believed that I'd be better off dead than endure more of his litigation abuse, which has caused extraordinary pain and expense to my family and friends.

1:10:51I desperately need to live my life. That's the choice I'm making today. Cuomo's lawyer said the medical records they requested from Bennett were all pro forma and routine. And that after and we should also note after she dropped her lawsuit, Cuomo filed a notice of intent to sue her. Now, Bennett also separately settled a lawsuit with the state of New York for$450 ,000, the majority of which went towards paying her lawyers. Now, some of the experts we talked to raised the concern that Cuomo's team's tactics are basically having the effect of intimidating and harassing individuals who have either spoken out against Cuomo or could do so again in the future.

1:11:27And they said that this costly strategy has been made easier because Cuomo's legal fees in these cases are being covered by New York taxpayers. Jake, unbelievable. All right. MJ Lee, thank you so much for that report. And let's zoom out and get more into the mayoral race. Joining us now is New York Magazine's David Friedlander. David, you've been reporting on this race extensively. In the past week, we've learned that former Governor Cuomo is trying to pressure sitting Mayor Eric Adams to drop out of the race. They theoretically are both running as independents. There is a fear that they could split voters who don't want to support Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for mayor.

1:12:05A Cuomo campaign spokesperson said in a statement, quote, Mayor Adams did not run in the Democratic primary because he knew he was anathema to Democrats and unelectable. Nothing has changed. We do not see any path to victory. for Mayor Adams. Adams responded in an interview on Monday. Take a listen. I said, Andrew, are you that level of arrogance? I'm the city mayor. I'm the city mayor of the city of New York. And you expect for me to set aside when you just lost to Zohan by 12 points. What is your take on all of this tug of war going on? I mean, Eric Adams accusing Andrew Cuomo of arrogance is quite something.

1:12:44I don't quite know what to make of it. I mean, you know, Zoran Mondani, he won the Democratic primary by a lot, by 12 points. I mean, he really crushed Andrew Cuomo there. This is a Democratic city. It feels a little bit like all these people are sort of fighting over to be second place in the general election. CNN's Isaac DeBeer is reporting that other Democratic socialists, Mondani is a Democratic socialist, are they're feeling emboldened by his victory and they could be gearing up to challenge various incumbent establishment Democrats in the primaries next year. One of them on their target list, Congressman Richie Torres, who was on CNN last night with Abby Phillip.

1:13:20He weighed in on the possibility. I think it's fair to say that my colleagues in the New York Congressional delegation and I, we do not care about the Democratic Socialist of America. We're focused on defeating congressional Republicans in the midterms and making Hakeem Jeffries the Speaker of the House and reversing the catastrophic consequences of the Republican reconciliation bill, we could care less about Mickey Mouse primary challenges. Is Taurus right to be brushing off the challenge? I mean, I remember AOC's surprising victory during a primary against a guy that everybody thought was going to be the next Democratic Speaker of the House.

1:14:01Yeah, I mean, look, politicians should always take challenges seriously. I mean, but this mayor's race seems pretty unique. Mondani was a pretty unique candidate. And Andrew Cuomo was a pretty unique candidate. You know, I think it might be some of these DSA activists, it might be a little far-fetched to imagine that this would be a spillover into congressional races based on what happened in the mayoral race this year kind of thing. So Richie Torres, Congressman Torres that we just heard from there, is very supportive of Israel. The panel on Abby's show last night posited that that's one of the reasons he is one of the primary targets of the Democratic Socialists of America.

1:14:39What do you think? Oh, I'm sure it is. I mean, Israel, you know, no politician would sort of say anything negative against Israel until Mondani. He did. You know, he was sort of like way far out on that issue, and it didn't hurt him seemingly. So, you know, I think the sort of political calculation of that has changed quite a bit. You spoke to Mamdani for New York Magazine following his primary victory. He talked about the backlash to his refusal to criticize the phrase, globalize the intifada. That's a week before the election. He told you, quote, what you do in moments like that is you actually just respond to what every single New Yorker has told you is their top priority, which time and again is affordability, unquote.

1:15:20Do you think he's going to have a tougher time in the general election, or do you think his toughest race, when it comes to the mayor's race, is already behind him? Well, I don't know. I mean, I think if Andrew Cuomo and Eric Adams and the Republican Curtis Sleewer are all in the race, I think Mandani wins pretty easily. Like, right now, there's sort of some conversations to get, like, two of them to drop out so that it's a one-on-one race, and the person who will be pulling the highest, say in September, would sort of be the standard bearer of that. But still, you know, I think it'll be an uphill for anyone.

1:15:54It is a democratic city. All right, David Freelander from New York Magazine. Thanks so much. Always good to have you on. Coming up next, small business bugs. A natural tick repellent company is being stung by President Trump's tariffs. That's ahead.

1:16:13it's time for our business leaders series where we talk to small business owners from coast to coast about the impact of president trump's tariff some are supportive many are feeling overwhelmed three moms organics is a brand of natural tick and insect repellents created when its founder was struggling with neurological lyme disease and unable to find an effective solution on the market. Lisa J. Eggert joins us now from East Hampton, New York. Lisa J., what part of your product is impacted the most by tariffs? We produce, procure everything within the United States. These tops are bought within the United States, but they are only produced in China.

1:16:56I have no control over where my distributor gets these tops. And it's the second most important component to our product, first being the product. Right, the actual repellent itself. Yeah, the repellent itself. So do the tariffs mean that you're going to have to raise prices? How has it hit your business? You know, I'm hoping that we don't have to, but I'm so small. I can't afford that, you know, double the cost of a top. I'm hoping that we can get something worked out. This has been a very confusing time for small businesses. I can't plan ahead. I can't, I don't know where my margins are going to be.

1:17:44It's making it a little tough, and I don't want to pass that off to the consumer. I want to keep them safe. Yeah. Are you worried at all that if you do have to raise your prices that you might lose customers? You know, I hope not. We have a pretty good following. It's a really good repellent. You know, we can absorb maybe some of that. I'm not sure if we can absorb it all. If you could speak to your lawmakers here in Washington, D.C., if you could talk to President Trump, what would you say to them?

1:18:19That's kind of a loaded question. I've been speaking to lawmakers in Washington, and I've asked them this. Do you really understand how tariffs are affecting small businesses across the country? Or do you know exactly how it is affecting small businesses, and you just don't care? Either way, both those answers are just really unacceptable. And to be clear, if you could buy that spray component from a company that manufactures them in the United States, you would in a second. In a second, in a heartbeat. But it's going to take years to get a manufacturing facility off the ground. I would love to have, you know, some time to suss that out.

1:19:03I'll start a manufacturing facility. But I just, you know, it makes it really, really hard. I have no control over where they're made. I do buy within the United States, procure everything within the United States, and manufacture in the United States. Yeah. All right. Well, the brand, for anybody out there that wants to support Lisa Jay, it's 3Moms Organics. 3Moms Organics. The products are available online. Lisa J. Eggert, thank you so much, and good luck to you. Thanks for giving businesses a little voice. We try to do it every day. Thanks so much, Lisa J. Coming up next, a dramatic rescue in Los Angeles after a traumatic tunnel collapse 400 feet below ground.

1:19:55Thankfully, all 31 workers were able to make it out alive, and we'll tell you how next.

1:20:05Our national lead now, the dramatic overnight rescue in Los Angeles, where 31 men working on a wastewater project in a massive underground tunnel, were trapped 400 feet below surface, five miles away from the only entry and exit point. Parts of the tunnel collapsed. CNN's Stephanie Elam has more on their miraculous rescue. A sigh of relief across Los Angeles Thursday, after 31 workers were rescued during what officials describe as a, tense and traumatic tunnel collapse. How bad could this have been? It could have been very bad because we're talking about 31 human lives, but I'm very happy to say it wasn't.

1:20:43We're very pleased and very, very happy that all of the workers were able to get out. A portion of the tunnel, which is part of a wastewater project, collapsed about 400 feet below ground, roughly five miles from its only entry and exit point, briefly trapping the workers. They've lost their phones so they do not have any communication with them at this point. The incident occurred when workers were operating a tunnel boring machine, which builds a tunnel as it digs as shown here in this instructional video from the project. The chief engineer says a section that was already completed caved in due to, quote, squeezing ground, a phenomenon that happens when the soil deforms during an excavation.

1:21:23The Los Angeles Fire Department says trapped workers managed to climb over 12 to 15 feet of loose soil and debris to the other side of the collapse and onto a tunnel vehicle which took them to the exit where they were hoisted up in a rescue cage to safety. LA Fire Captain Danny Wu was one of the 100 or so firefighters who responded. He says he was expecting the worst upon arriving at the scene. Driving there in my car my heart just sank. It was just so sad to see 31 families out there just not knowing what was going on so I'm just I'm just really happy for the outcome. Now, officials say construction on the tunnel will be halted indefinitely.

1:21:57We have to do an assessment for safety. We have to do an assessment for structural integrity. And we have to do engineering assessments to ensure everybody's safety going forward. Stephanie Elam, CNN, Los Angeles. And our thanks to Stephanie Elam. Our last leads now dramatic video shows when a Liberian flagged ship sank yesterday in the Red Sea. This was after days of Houthi attacks, killing three people. European teams rescued 10 people. The Houthis said they took some crew members on board but won't say where those crew members are now. The U.S. mission to Yemen accused the Houthis of kidnapping and called for the crew's immediate release.

1:22:35This is the second commercial ship that the Houthis attacked just this week, vowing to continue until Israel ends its military campaign in Gaza. In our money lead, going once, going twice, sold for 10 million dollars that's how much the original birkin bag was auctioned for including fees this morning after a 10-minute bidding war in a sotheby's online auction a private collector in japan won the rarefied black leather bag stains and all the famous hermese purse was first designed exclusively for actress jane birkin in 1984 but has since become the ultimate symbol of luxury In our Earth Matters series, chimps may not have TikTok, but that doesn't mean they don't know about the hottest summer trends.

1:23:18Researchers say chimpanzees living in an African sanctuary have been seen copying each other by wearing grass blades or sticks in their ear holes. There's no evidence that they're doing it to scratch their ears, but instead they seem to be doing it as a fashion trend. If you ever miss an episode of The Lead, you can listen to the show whence you get your podcasts, whether or not you're a chimpanzee. Aaron Burnett out front starts now.

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