WH Faces Growing Criticism Over Handling Of Epstein Case

23:05There's something making their base mad every day. Do you agree with that? Listen, I think our base is happy with the progress they're making, that President Trump is making. But, yeah, they are frustrated with the fact that the shot, at least for four years, the shine of the American spirit was harmed by Joe Biden, whether it's their domestic policies, whether it's border policies or anything. And so they're eager to have that restored. they see President Trump doing, they just wish more was happening. Just for the record, Superman isn't woke. It's a pretty apolitical movie. I don't know if either one of you saw it.

23:33I'm going there this Saturday with my kid. Yeah, I took my daughter. First time she hasn't looked at her phone during a movie in her entire life. I think that's enough for me. Yeah, exactly. There's no politics in it. It's just fun. Looking forward to that. Yeah, Brian Lanz at Chuck Roku. Thanks so much. Appreciate it. Coming up next, what the White House revealed about President Trump and a new diagnosis for the 79-year-old president. CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Listen closely, and he's going to be here with his take.

24:22We'll see you next time. Gear up for fall projects with the right tools to keep your projects moving. Do you hear that? That sound, right? That means that summer's officially here. It means that grown adults just sprint into the street for a frozen dessert shaped like a cartoon. But this summer, Mint Mobile has a better treat. Every plan, including unlimited, is$15 a month. And unlike ice cream, it won't drip down your wrist or look nothing like the picture. Does anyone have any cash? Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of$45 for three months,$90 for six months, or$180 for 12-month plan required.

24:56$15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. New customer offer for initial plan term only. Greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. See terms. New today on our health lead, the White House revealed earlier today that President Trump has been diagnosed with a condition called chronic venous insufficiency. The news comes after the president and some eagle-eyed Americans noticed swelling in his ankles and bruising on his right hand that he appeared to try to cover up with makeup over the past few months. Let's bring in CNN's chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta-Sanjay.

25:25Sanjay, what is this condition and how common is it? So, you know, so you have arteries which take blood away from the heart and veins which return blood back to the heart. So we're talking about the veins here. Chronic venous insufficiency means the veins really aren't doing their job. They're not returning the blood back to the heart. And that's why you see swelling, typically in the legs, just because of gravity. And it was pretty noticeable, as you mentioned. Pretty common, Jake. Like over the age of 50, about 5 % of people have it, and that percentage goes up significantly. Certainly, people in their 70s are far more likely to have it.

26:03So not that surprising. Typically, you know, you want to get it checked out. One thing I'll point out is, you know, he had the physical exam released in April, just three months ago. And at that point, they made no mention of the swelling. So it seems to be, at least according to those reports, that the swelling has sort of really either worsened or just developed over the last three months or so. So that's something to keep an eye on. They did all kinds of testing, though. You know, they talked about this, but they looked for blood clots, did not find any. They looked at the overall status of his blood to see if he was more likely to develop blood clots.

26:38Did not appear to be the case. They did an echo of his heart as well, basically trying to determine, Is his heart not functioning or pushing blood as well? That did not seem to be the case. So then they did an ultrasound of the legs, and that's how they made this diagnosis, Jake, of chronic venous insufficiency, veins just not returning blood back very well to the body. What kind of treatment might President Trump be looking at here? Well, if there's not an underlying problem like blockages in those veins from blood clots, which, again, does not appear to be the case, then really you sort of think about this mechanically.

27:13You got too much fluid, too much fluid that's built up in the legs, raising the legs, elevating the legs at night. Sometimes people will sleep with their legs on a couple of pillows at night. Sometimes people will wear compression socks. You're just basically trying to move that fluid up. You know, a couple things that are potentially problematic is the skin in that area, that can become ulcerated as a result of all that swelling. So you have to keep an eye on that to make sure no ulcers are developing. If so, you'd have to give antibiotics. But typically, more movement. People who sit a lot are more likely to have this.

27:48So my guess is in addition to mechanically trying to move the blood back up towards the body, towards the heart, encouraging to be not sitting and on his feet much more. The memo from the White House about this goes into the cause of the bruising on Trump's hand, the hand that his right hand is appearing to try to keep covered. We've seen bruising on this hand before when Macron visited. He had a big dark bruise on his hand. What exactly is going on there? Well, first of all, I think these are two distinct problems. Maybe most people sort of realize that, but this chronic venous insufficiency we were just talking about really has to do solely with his legs and the swelling in his legs.

28:29The hand, you know, it's interesting what the White House has said is that people who are on some sort of blood thinner, we know the president is on aspirin, and also shaking hands a lot, irritating his hands a lot, they say that that's really the cause of this. And that sort of tracks, Jake, that is something that happens to people. There are other potential concerns. And I can tell you since February, since you saw those images back several months ago, several doctors have reached out to me about this, sort of offering their speculation as to what this might be. And there are different things, but the most likely cause I think is exactly what the White House said, irritating the hand over and over again, especially in someone who's on blood thinners, it can lead to a hand looking like that.

29:13So that does track. All right, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thanks so much. Appreciate it. Coming up, a boys summer camp along the Guadalupe River in central Texas was also flooded, but evacuations there looked quite different than those at other camps, especially Camp Mystic. Stay with us.

29:32Sad story internationally. The body of eight year old Virginia Hollis was brought home to Belleville, Texas last night. Hollis was killed in the devastating flooding at Camp Mystic on July 4th. Residents of the city lined the streets as Virginia's grandfather escorted her horse, which walked behind the hearse. As Camp Mystic continues to mourn the lives lost there, another nearby boys camp, La Junta, was far more fortunate after it was able to evacuate everyone safely. But the camp itself is a skeleton of what it once was. For the first time to CNN's Pamela Brown and the world, the owners are letting us see what it looks like now as they reflect on what happened that awful night.

30:15To see the growth and the giggles and the fun and the friendships that form here, that's what this is supposed to be. This is not supposed to look like this. This is not what we're supposed to be filled with. Almost two weeks after catastrophic flooding hit central Texas, the owners of Camp LaHunta, Scott and Katie Fineski, are opening up for the first time to CNN and reflecting on how quickly deadly waters overran their idyllic campground full of campers on July 4th. This was our dining hall. So this was a walled building. It had all of our tables. We had 35 giant wooden tables. Awakened by the thunder in the overnight hours, the Finaskies started planning for rainy 4th of July activities until Katie looked out the window.

31:06A lightning bolt came across the sky and lit up the athletic fields. And she looked at me and said, I think I see our dining hall table floating across the athletic field. Water does not rise this fast here. And it's just something that was beyond belief. So the finaskies jumped into action, splitting up and going to each of the 18 cabins on the main grounds because there was no other way to communicate. We've got speakers all through camp. We also have our own radio station that we broadcast announcements. But all of that stuff washed away. Evacuation is one of those things that's on that emergency plan.

31:41And so when the counselors got the directive to pull the kids out of the cabin to go to the maintenance road, they knew exactly what to do. They knew how to do it. They knew the path that they were going to go. One of the counselors helped campers climb onto wooden rafters to escape the rising waters in their cabin, as you see in this picture shared with CNN. Water was rushing by with huge force and was about chest deep on Scott when we came down. We were on the high ground screaming at the counselors to get their kids in the rafters. As the water rushed through the camp, one of the cabins for adult staff was ripped from its foundation and began drifting away.

32:23Never made it down to the river. It just floated down the back sidewalk and stopped at the tree right there. The Vineskis emphasized the bravery and heroism of the counselors, mostly teenagers. We were very fortunate in the fact that all of our kids were able to get out safely. And without them and without the way that they reacted, it could be a completely different story. That reality of a different story becoming abundantly clear to them once the sun rose on July 4th, when they say a little girl from Camp Mystic was found alive next door after floating five miles in the torrent. It was very shocking that she was there.

33:06It was very shocking that she was in good spirits. And it was very shocking that she wasn't injured. Now they're grappling with the loss of friends from nearby camps. Jane Ragsdale from Heart of the Hills and Dick Eastland from Camp Mystic, along with 27 campers and counselors. It's a really strong community. So losing Dick and losing Jane is just, we have, it's unthinkable. Our heart goes out to everybody at Mystic, everybody in the community. This is a disaster that's hitting a whole lot of people. Despite the physical toll of the storm, they say the camp's spirit of grit and resilience is unchanged since its founding nearly 100 years ago.

33:48We plan to be back in 2026. I feel like the work we do here is too important to miss, and it's just not an option for us to not rebuild and be back for the kids next year. It's not camp right now. It will be. It will be. But it's hard at this moment to see and to know what it has been for so many years. And it's difficult.

34:20And our thanks to Pamela Brown for that reporting. A TSA rule that's been the norm in the United States for nearly 20 years could soon be changing what the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security says about those travel-sized bottles. required for any liquid you want to bring in your carry-on and the technology that could make that a thing of the past. Stay with us.

34:4880 bucks worth of makeup. That hurt. August 2006, that's when TSA and many airport security agencies around the world clamped down on liquids that you could bring in your carry-on luggage onto a plane. One month later, TSA loosened its rule a bit and allowed passengers to carry on some liquids, but restricted them to 3.4 ounce containers. Fast forward to today and we could soon see the rules change again. The day I walked in the door, I started questioning everything TSA does. I mean, the liquids, I'm questioning, so that may be the next big announcement is what size your liquids need to be. We're looking at our scanners.

35:39We have put in place in TSA a multilayered screening process that allows us to change some of how we do security and screening. So it still is safe. It is still a process that is protecting people who are traveling on our airlines. Let's bring in two people who know a bit about this subject. CNN chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst John Miller and CNN senior national security analyst Julia Kayyem. John, so this ban started after the so-called transatlantic terror plot when al-Qaeda and affiliated terrorists wanted to detonate liquid explosives on planes headed to the United States after they took off from London.

36:18Who's to say someone wouldn't want to try something like that again? It's not like the terrorist threat is gone. Well, no, and that was a particularly diabolical plot. I mean, that involved, if you remember, I'm sure you do, you know, you used to be able to go through airline security with liquid in a bottle, provided that the seal on the bottle was still unbroken. What they had done is they had basically been able to create needle sites in the bottom of bottles and inject hydrogen peroxide and other explosives in the bottle. So once they sealed those holes up with a little crazy glue and maybe a piece of tape over it, what you saw was a bottle that appeared to be unopened.

36:58The seal and the cap wasn't broken. And 24 people were involved in that plot with these hydrogen peroxide-based liquid bombs that were supposed to blow these planes out of the sky. They dumbed that down to no more than three ounces on the idea that that much explosive wouldn't be capable of downing the plane. Moving away from the liquid thing at this point is really to say that the screening technology has improved to the point that when a bottle goes through that machine, some of the machines have sniffer capabilities to detect explosives, chemical anomalies, but also really sophisticated things like artificial intelligence, which is it begins to recognize what a normal sealed bottle looks like.

37:47But if it spots a structural anomaly in the bottle, it will flag that. So the technology's advanced. But I have to say, Jake, and Ms. Khayyam knows this well, for everything we do in the lab on this side of security, the terrorists from groups like Corazon Group from ISIS and al-Qaeda's development people, they're looking for the next thing we haven't thought of. Yeah. And Juliet, you started at Homeland Security a few years after the liquid ban had been in place. Secretary Noem suggested that TSA's multi-layered screening process might alleviate the need for a liquid ban. What do you think of that?

38:25And how has security evolved in the last 19 to 20 years? Yeah. Well, I'm very supportive of both of these changes at TSA. The shoe one we saw a couple of weeks ago and this potential liquid one. Look, security needs to adapt not just to the threat, as John was saying, but also to the technology. and this has been tested in other airports. It's a form of tomography. Basically, it's a CT scan or a 3D image that you can look at a bottle and determine, as John was saying, whether it's been tampered or other changes to it. It's also part of layered defense. So when you show up at the TSA line, there's already been about 10 checks on your name and police officers scanning the area.

39:10So at that moment, that tends to be the clog, right? The taking off the shoes and figuring out whether your hair gel is big enough or is in a small enough quantity or not. That's the holdup. And I think this this focus on on both, you know, speed in the right way and sort of flow, as well as security is important at this stage. Just last week, TSA announced passengers no longer need to remove their shoes, as you alluded to, when they go through airport securities. What does that that enhanced security look like, Juliette? So it's going to be the irony. I just have to say the irony here is, of course, we're also having major discussions about the lack of travel going on.

39:54So while we're going to make it easier for people because of a domestic economic environment and international fears, our airports are not under as much stress. But the shoe aspect is very similar to the way the technology has changed, which it can take imaging of the shoe now in a way to determine whether it's been tampered with. Richard Reid, people who are younger won't remember this. Richard Reid tried to blow up an airplane by lighting materials in his shoe. The most important thing to remember about that, it was four months after September 11th. It was our reaction was swift and it was probably too static.

40:32Twenty five years later, we are now ready to adapt to a changing threat environment, but also technology. All right, John Miller, Julia Kayyem, thanks to both of you. Today at the White House, CNN asked the press secretary if President Trump knows exactly what has yet to be released in the much talked about Epstein files. And will he get a heads up on what goes public if the Justice Department ever decides to release anything? Hear the response next.

41:01Fall is the perfect time to refresh and reorganize your space. At the Home Depot, find power tools and tool sets starting at$50 to help tackle DIY projects, home updates, and more. Whether you're drilling brackets to support new shelving or sharpening your hedge trimmer blade with an angle grinder, the Home Depot has the tools you need to check projects off your list. Shop Labor Day savings at the Home Depot and gear up for fall projects with the right tools to keep your projects moving. In business, the best days are when priorities stay on track. The Hartford helps midsize and large companies manage key exposures with insurance and proactive risk solutions, so focus can stay where it belongs.

41:44Visit thehartford.com slash risk mitigation to learn more.

41:53Welcome to The Lead. I'm Jake Tapper. This hour the White House is fiercely pushing back against calls from even some Republicans to appoint a special counsel to investigate the Jeffrey Epstein case. How long can President Trump continue to dismiss concerns from in his own party and his own base when frustrations over the case are now delaying the Republican agenda on Capitol Hill? Plus, millions of Americans at risk tonight for flash flooding as dangerous storms move in, threatening to drop up to a foot of rain amid these new threats. Tonight, we're going to take a closer look at how staffing and budget cuts might be affecting forecasting at the National Weather Service.

42:31Also, after being kidnapped near the site of the Nova Music Festival, he spent nearly 500 days as a hostage of the terrorist group Hamas. And now Orr Levy is sitting down with CNN's Jeremy Diamond for his very first international interview, detailing his time in captivity, talking about how he learned his wife had been killed on October 7th and what life has been like ever since he was reunited with his young son.

43:00Our lead tonight, the White House is digging in despite growing criticism from Democrats and even some Republicans over the administration's handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case as the growing controversy risks delaying an unrelated vote on President Trump's doge budget cuts in the House. CNN's Kristen Holmes is live outside the White House for us. Kristen? Yeah, Jake, I mean, the real news out of this press conference or press briefing we just saw with the press secretary, Carolyn Leavitt, was the fact that she said President Trump would not recommend a special prosecutor or special counsel when it comes to reviewing the Epstein case.

43:36Of course, this is now raising more questions. One of the things that Trump had said was that it was not something he would have anything to do with in terms of appointment. But we know one thing, even though this would fall on Attorney General Pam Bondi, it's very clear that President Trump would have a say in this as Bondi has operated the Department of Justice as almost an extension of the White House. And I also followed up with Levitt about a few other things, including what exactly President Trump knows about those files. Does he have knowledge or an understanding of what is in the files related to Epstein that have not been released?

44:16Not to my knowledge, and that's a question for the Attorney General, as I said. And the President has told the Attorney General if they have any more credible evidence, they should release it. Is that evidence, would she have to run that by the President before she released it? I don't think so. He said if she has any more credible evidence, she should release it. Now, I was trying to follow up there with who gets to decide what's credible, what is deemed credible. She had moved on to another reporter. These were not the only questions that she got, particularly on this case, as it continues to really plague the White House.

44:47They have tried to do everything they possibly can to change the subject here. She defended President Trump. She defended the attorney general. At multiple times, she deferred to the attorney general saying that's something you'd have to ask her. But one quick note here, she says to me, you'd have to ask the attorney general. I don't know what President Trump knows. Well, the president was briefed. So that would be something that we would ask the White House about. It's not just a question about something the Department of Justice did. The president himself would have knowledge of this if he had been briefed.

45:18And he has admitted that he's been briefed on this. Jake. All right, Kristen Holmes at the White House. Thanks so much. Let's go to CNN congressional correspondent Lauren Foxx live on Capitol Hill. Lauren, this drama around the Epstein controversy appears to be delaying the Republican agenda in some ways. We heard from Manu earlier when it came to the vote on the Rules Committee. Has this been figured out yet? Well, the Rules Committee is just getting underway right now, Jake. And I talked to Representative Ralph Norman, a conservative who's on the Rules Committee, who has been arguing all week that he wants more transparency related to the Epstein case.

45:55And he said that, yes, they are on a good path with leadership, that he was willing to move forward with this rules committee happening at 6 o 'clock tonight. But he didn't say what the deal was, what was agreed to with leadership. And he has so far still declined to say what exactly leadership did in order to convince some of these holdouts to move forward with this rules committee meeting. So that's still really a mystery right now on Capitol Hill. But there is really this sense that more transparency is needed from many conservatives. And some of these folks are really close to Donald Trump.

46:33They are people who have been stalwarts, who have been supportive of him on almost every issue. But they are saying they're hearing from their constituents. I talked to one congressman, Representative Burleson, earlier this week, who said this is one of the top issues he's hearing on his phone calls into his office. So this is really something that is putting Republican members at odds between President Trump, who they're very supportive of, and their own constituents back home. And I think that that is why this has continued to be a huge deal. Now, we should note that the Rules Committee getting underway doesn't mean that they're close to a vote in that committee.

47:10Once they get through that committee, they still have to put it on the floor. And then they have to have a final vote on the president's$9 billion rescissions package. All of that has to happen before midnight tomorrow. Tell me about this deadline. Why is this deadline for the doge cuts bill so important? Why midnight tomorrow? Yeah, basically you only have a certain number of days to pass a rescissions bill. That is part of the Budget Act and that is part of the way that this process works. So if they can't get it done, they have to start this process all over again. Certainly they could do that.

47:44The votes were there in the Senate. We expect eventually the votes are going to be there in the House, But you can imagine what a massive waste of time that is, especially given the fact that senators didn't vote till 2.30 in the morning this a.m. to get this passed. So it's a really painful and excruciating process if you have to start the clock all over again. All right. Lauren Fox on Capitol Hill. Thanks so much. My panel's here to discuss. Michael, let me start with you. So the president campaigned on in no small part and his campaign team, including Elon Musk and others, on releasing these files.

48:16He's now refusing to release these files. And it's actually having an impact on his legislative agenda with this House Rules Committee issue about the rescission, about the budget cuts. It doesn't have anything to do with Epstein, but people. Yeah, but a lot of these members are hearing from their constituents. So I've talked to several members to the point that you're making and people are hearing from their constituents. You have Loomer, Banner, Charlie Kirk. You even have Ben Shapiro, although he's in agreement with President Trump on this issue. and Megyn Kelly had a debate several days ago that was posted on social media.

48:49There are a lot of very influential individuals on the conservative right who aren't supporters of the president, but would like to have more transparency as it pertains to Epstein. Even if there's nothing there, the ask is just release what you guys can release so that we can make our own determination. I think the quicker the president comes to determination on this, the quicker it goes away. And, Brendan, let me play something for you. The Democratic Senator Ron Wyden, who's the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, he said today about the Epstein files. Let's roll that clip. Somewhere in the Treasury Department, Mr.

49:20President, locked away in a cabinet drawer is a big Epstein file that's full of actionable information. Follow the money details about his financing and operations that await investigation. Is that true? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I can't speak to that specific information, but I can talk about the general perspective that Senator Wyden is talking about here. And it speaks to sort of a fundamental problem that this president has with its Department of Justice. You know, DOJ only has its credibility. It doesn't have missiles. It doesn't have an army. It doesn't have money to give away. The only thing it has is its ability to convince judges, to convince juries, and to convince the public of what it's saying.

50:06Because of how many people it's fired, because of the cases it's taken on, This president has burned through its credibility with the Department of Justice. And so it's hard for people to believe what he's now saying about Jeffrey. But I do wonder how much credibility the Department of Justice actually had, though. Before this discussion, I was just looking up the available polling that I could find on how the general public feels about prosecutors. And overwhelming, Jake, the vast majority of American people do not like prosecutors. They believe they have too much power and too much discretion.

50:36So to have a president, regardless of what you may think about his views, trying to rein in some of that, I think the data would probably err more on Trump's side than it would Democrats. Well, let's talk about this, continue to talk about this subject, because Maureen Comey, the daughter of James Comey, she worked on the Epstein case. She was a prosecutor. And let's remember, it was during Trump's first administration, 2019, that it looked as though there actually was going to be accountability for Jeffrey Epstein from U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Berman. and I guess Maureen Comey. But she was fired yesterday.

51:10A spokesperson for the Southern District of New York U.S. Attorney's Office declined to comment on why she was fired. In a message to her former colleagues obtained by CNN, she wrote, quote, if a career prosecutor can be fired without reason, fear may seep into the decisions of those who remain. Do not let that happen. Now, Brendan, you were a former prosecutor with DOJ. You resigned your post voluntarily shortly after Trump pardoned the January 6 rioters. What's your take on the firing of Maureen Comey? Ms. Comey was fired under a legally ridiculous idea that the president has absolute authority to fire any person in the executive branch for any reason.

51:46This is a theory that is discredited by anybody that takes these issues seriously. And yet, this administration is pursuing this theory not to make prosecutors less powerful, but to make them more powerful and more loyal not to the law, but to the president. Let's turn to another matter in the judicial realm, which is President Trump's former personal attorney, Emile Bovee, who's currently, I think, number three at the Justice Department. He's one step closer to a lifetime appointment as a federal appeals court judge. And, Brendan, you were one of more than 900 former DOJ lawyers to sign a letter urging the Senate Judiciary Committee to not confirm him.

52:22Part of the letter says, quote, it is intolerable to us and anyone who disgraces the Justice Department would be promoted to one of the highest courts in the land as it should be intolerable to anyone committed to maintaining our ordered system of justice. Republicans did advance his nomination today by a vote of 12 to nothing. Democrats had left to protest because they weren't allowed to question Bovee on some matters, including the Epstein case. Why would you say he disgraces the Justice Department? E.M.I.L. Bovey, if he is confirmed, will be generationally dangerous for the judiciary. It's not just his hypocrisy, the fact that he worked on January 6th cases and then tried to fire January 6th prosecutors, that he said that he was going to procure cocaine for one of his coworkers while or then serving as co-chief of the international narcotics section.

53:09It's the fact that he suggested that this administration could ignore court orders. We have had lots of judges over the years. I don't think there's a single one in our lifetime who has said that judges' court orders could be ignored. But did he say you can ignore the court order or did he say you can go through the appellate process quickly to try to get back to the Supreme Court to be the final arbiter? I think those two are a bit different, a little conjecture here. That said, there was also another president who appointed someone who didn't have a judicial experience. That was Elena Kagan, who ultimately was appointed to the Supreme Court and confirmed during President Obama years.

53:41She was a solicitor. No, she was, but he also has some legal experience that I think the president would point to outside of just loyalty alone. But every single president wants to nominate judges who they believe are in sync with their ideological perspective in terms of the judiciary. However, Aleda Kagan did not say that she was going to procure cocaine for her co-workers. All right, thanks to our panel. Really appreciate it. Today, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called any plans to reopen Alcatraz. The, quote, stupidest idea Trump has had in his second term. Do Republicans support the significant costs involved in paving over this tourist site and creating a new supermax?

54:13I'll ask one next.

54:22And we're back with more in our politics lead. The House is racing to approve$9 billion worth of cuts in foreign aid and federal funding for public broadcasting and other places by tomorrow's deadline. The partisan effort to claw back money that Congress has already appropriated doge cuts passed in the early hours of this morning in the U.S. Senate by a vote of 51 to 48. Joining us now to discuss, Republican Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. So, Senator, thanks for joining us. The House is now taking up this$9 billion of spending cuts involving money Congress had previously appropriated. You, along with all but two Senate Republicans, voted in support of the measure.

55:00Today, the White House budget chief, Russ Vaught, said the White House is likely to send another round of doge cuts to Congress. Is that something that theoretically you would support? I hope they do. I think doge identified something like$160 to$180 billion of waste, fraud, abuse. We're going to spend$7 ,000 billion this year. This will be the fifth year that we're going to have deficit of about$1.9 trillion. So$9 billion represents 0.12 % of total federal spending. Jake, when you've gone from$4 trillion in 2019 to over$7 trillion, I have to believe there's literally hundreds of billions of dollars and 2 ,600 programs, hundreds of programs that if you completely eliminated them, nobody would even notice, except for the grifters who are sucking down the waste, fraud, and abuse.

55:50So listen, this is the least we can do. It's a little depressing that it was difficult to get the$9 billion. But no, if somebody thinks that something ought to be cut from the federal government, I'll probably support it. Including money from the Pentagon? I think we should definitely take a look at how we spend our defense money. I don't think we spend it particularly well. We had to be far more strategic. But listen, defense spending is a top priority of the federal government. As a percentage of GDP, we are way down. It's a dangerous world. I would say certainly made more dangerous by the feckless administration, the Biden administration.

56:27So, no, we've got to probably plus up defense, which means we need to find savings in other areas. And, by the way, there's plenty of savings to be had. If you go back to 2019, exclude Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and interest, and plus up all those other total expenditures, actual expenditures by population inflation, we're spending$384 billion more than we spent in 2019. Completely unjustified. That's how I would target it. And that's what we're going to do, I think, with our budget review panel. Go line by line, program by program, and ask these agencies to justify why are you spending so much more than you did from fully inflated 2019 spending?

57:07So with this bill passed and the rescissions, with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act becoming law and the rescissions, I assume you know what the projection for the national debt will be in 10 years, even with those cuts, right? It's$36 trillion that the U.S. owes right now. Do you know what it's going to be in 10 years? Yeah. Right now, we're on a projection of$26 trillion of additional deficits. Additional. Additional. So, yeah, we're going to be up over$60 trillion. I realize that. But the last thing we wanted to do was increase taxes. By the way, Democrats, when they have a similar position, They could have repealed the Tax Cut and Jobs Act.

57:47They could have increased taxes on the wealthy. They didn't do that because they realized that would be harmful to our economy as well. So I've been railing about spending. We have a spending problem. Again, it's difficult. We're doing the hard thing. It's easy to cut taxes. I understand that. It's easy to spend money. It's very difficult to dial it back. Again, we went from$4.4 trillion to$7 trillion. You know for the last six months I've been railing about how much we spend, how we need to dial that back. I was disappointed that we weren't able to do more of it. I'm disappointed that$9 billion was hard to do.

58:20But I'll be beating this drumbeat as long as I'm in Congress. We have to reduce spending. We have to reduce the size, scope, and cost of government. So as you know, there are a lot of questions about the way in which this rescission package, these budget cuts were brought in. I want to play something that your colleague, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut said before this package of cuts passed. Take a It will become hard, maybe even impossible. And Senator Tellis laid this out very well. To write a bipartisan budget ever again, because the minority party now knows that they can get double-crossed.

58:58And believe me, if Republicans do this now, Democrats are going to do it when they're in charge. What's your response to that? The whole idea that this rescissions package, clawing back money that Congress had already appropriated, is essentially a double cross, and this is going to come back and haunt you. Well, again, when Democrats were in charge, they used budget reconciliation to blow a massive hole in our budget. Again, they averaged$1.9 trillion deficits in their four years in office. Prior to the pandemic, we averaged$660 billion. So they had no problem spending. That's our problem. We don't have bipartisan support for spending reduction to return to a reasonable pre-pandemic level spending.

59:42And the bipartisan appropriation process, again, for the 25 % of the budget that we actually do appropriate, it's$145 billion over what we spent in 2019, fully inflated, fully plussed up for inflation in population. So the bipartisan appropriation process is the reason we are$37 trillion in debt. In the House Rules Committee today, there was a rebellion among some House Republicans saying that they weren't going to let the rule go forward to pass these rescissions, these budget cuts in the House, until there was an agreement to do something about the Epstein files, releasing the Epstein files.

1:00:19You told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about the Epstein case that you're all for transparency and, quote, there's something in this matter that just doesn't smell right. There is momentum in the House to vote on a bill that would force the release of Epstein documents. But today, Senate Majority Leader John Thune indicated he's not seeing that interest in the Senate. This is now impeding the ability of President Trump and Republicans like you to do budget cuts because constituents are reaching out to House Republicans and saying, this stinks, please release it. Do you not think that there should be as much released as possible?

1:00:53Yeah, there should. But this is a point where President Trump ought to use his leadership skills and tell the House pass the rescission package. We'll talk about Epstein later, but pass the nine billion dollars of, you know, let's face it, pretty meager spending reduction. Yeah, but why not release the Epstein files? I mean, this is something that Republicans campaigned on. You said said there's something in it that doesn't smell right. It seems pretty obvious that this is causing legislative problems for the president and him just saying, you know, he's already said everybody should change the subject.

1:01:26This is boring. People who care about this, I don't want your support anymore. You're weaklings. That's not working. Republicans are upset. The base is upset. So, again, I don't know what's in the Epstein files. You know, I do know that the Epstein files are in the custody of the Biden administration. I don't know to what extent they've added or deleted things. It's kind of amazing. Now, Democrats who did not want them released, now they want them released. So again, I'm a little concerned about chain of custody. I don't know anything about it. I'm as curious as anybody else. I'll let the process play out.

1:01:56But we should not hold$9 billion of spending reduction hostage for a debate over the Epstein files. Republican Senator Ron Johnson from Wisconsin, thanks so much. Appreciate it, sir. Have a great night. After spending nearly 500 days in Hamas captivity, former hostage Orr Levy is now sharing his story as he adjusts to his new reality and fights to bring the remaining hostages home. His first international interview is next.

1:02:27Fall is the perfect time to refresh and reorganize your space. At the Home Depot, find power tools and tool sets starting at$50 to help tackle DIY projects, home updates, and more. Whether you're drilling brackets to support new shelving or sharpening your hedge trimmer blade with an angle grinder, the Home Depot has the tools you need to check projects off your list. Shop Labor Day savings at the Home Depot and gear up for fall projects with the right tools to keep your projects moving. Hey, it's Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. Well, now, I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited premium wireless for$15 a month is back.

1:03:05So I thought it would be fun if we made$15 bills. But it turns out that's very illegal. So there goes my big idea for the commercial. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of$45 for three months,$90 for six months, or$180 for 12-month plan required. $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. Initial plan term only. Greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. See terms. In our world lead, quote, no human should live like that. These aren't my words. They're the words of former hostage Orr Levy, describing his 491 days of captivity by the terrorists of Hamas, beginning on October 7th, 2023, when he tried to attend the Nova Music Festival.

1:03:47He recently sat down with CNN's Jeremy Diamond for his very first international interview, not only to talk about what he endured, but the reason why he stayed alive.

1:03:58Five months ago, these images of Or Levi shocked the world. His emaciated body, a testament to the 491 days he was held hostage by Hamas. And I must say it's after three weeks of a lot of food that got into, like, that we got. Meaning, had you been released three weeks earlier, you would have looked a lot worse. For sure. That's hard to imagine. It's hard to understand how difficult it is to live on one pita a day for 491 days. It's something that no human should live like that. And for the people that are still there, I know those days were even worse than what I've been through. And it's scary.

1:04:55Just as difficult as the physical toll was the emotional burden of captivity, being ripped away from his then two-year-old son, Al-Mogh. When his birthday came and I was there, it was my worst day of my life. What did you do on that day? So I sing to him and crying most of the day, thinking and telling stories about him, about what we went through.

1:05:30Promising that I would do whatever it takes to go back and doing his next birthday together. That wish came true two weeks ago, a birthday that came five months after Orr was reunited with his family and with Al-Mog. I remember seeing him, hugging him, hearing his voice. Crazy. But he says that day was also the hardest of his life. It was the day he learned that his wife, Einav, had been killed on October 7th. I met this woman from the army and I asked her about my wife. I told her that I think I know, but I'm not 100 % certain that I want to know. And then she told me.

1:06:31Orr and Enav were huddling inside this bomb shelter when Hamas militants began throwing grenades and opening fire. And the last picture that I remember seeing is the Hamas terrorist shooting inside the bombshell. Hirsch Goldberg-Polin, an American-Israeli later executed by Hamas in captivity, was also kidnapped from that shelter. They would spend three defining days together in Gaza's tunnels. He said to me, he who has a Y can bear any how. And for me, when I was in captivity, I understood that I have a why, and this can help me survive anyhow. When he got back from Gaza, he got the mantra tattooed on his arm.

1:07:21What or who was your why? Al-Marq. Every rough day that, you know, you're about to crack, I was to touch here, right where I did my tattoo. and talking to Al Morg and saying to him, yeah, you're my why, and I will go back for you. And I remember on rough days, I would like to do like this, feeling stronger, feeling stronger, and not wanting to die. The thought of dying crossed your mind. Every day, every day. But for me, I didn't accept that, because I knew that people are waiting for me. My kid is waiting for me, and I don't want him to grow up without mom and dad. Orr is home, but he must now answer his son's questions alone.

1:08:24Just the other day, he asked me why I didn't take him to this far place I was in. That's how you describe it to him? You were in a far-right place? Yeah, yeah. So he asked. He asked about his mom, about what happened to her, about who caused it. What do you tell him about her and how do you carry on her memory? So first of all, I explained to him every time that his mom didn't want to go. That his mom loved him from the bottom of her heart. I'm showing him pictures of her every day, of us three, telling the story behind this photo. This is something that I promised to myself, even when it's hard, to get him to know her, because it's harder for him.

1:09:28But Orr's ordeal won't be over until all the hostages are home. The fact that people are still there haunts me in the night, for sure. I think that nothing is worth more than getting those people home. I know that we need to push on to get a deal that gets everyone home and finish everything. Jeremy Diamond, CNN, Give a Time Israel. And our thanks to Jeremy Diamond for that report. Our small business series takes us to Illinois next, where a company dedicated to helping your family enjoy your home to the fullest is struggling under the weight of Trump's tariffs. Are they passing higher costs on to consumers?

1:10:11Stay with us.

1:10:19it's time for our business leaders series where we hear from small business owners coast to coast about president trump's tariffs some are enthusiastic many tell us the impacts have been very difficult to deal with american sale is a chicagoland retail chain for home recreation selling anything from grills and pools to hot tubs to seasonal decorations whatever you might need to create a fun backyard. President and CEO Bob Jones joins us now. Bob, where do you source the products that you sell? How have the tariffs been impacting you and your business? Well, we, you know, source products from all over the world, really.

1:10:56And most of our products are sourced in the United States. But we do have a significant amount of products that we do source from overseas, especially in China. So that's where a lot of our product comes from. And have the tariffs obviously from China, I would think that would have a huge impact. Have you been forced to raise prices as a result of these increased tariffs, increased tariff fees? Not yet. A little bit so far, but for the most part, we've been able to front load our inventory. We did a lot of that in the beginning of the year. We did get hit with one group of containers that came in where we had to pay the 145 % tariff.

1:11:38It was$150 ,000 that we had to pay for that. Unfortunately, that's going to prevent us from buying some trucks that we were going to buy. We had a forklift that we were going to buy. We're going to hold off on that because of that expense. And, you know, we're taking advantage of this reprieve that we've had over the last 90 days to get a lot of our winter product in. After that, it looks like the tariffs are going to be here to stay. We're well into the season. We're well into the season for summer backyard fun and pool fun. Have you seen this shift in any way in how your customers are spending money this year?

1:12:19Oh, yeah. Yeah, there's a lot more hesitancy in customers as they that the ones that we're talking to coming in the door. I'm sure there's a lot of conversations being had around the kitchen table also that we don't hear those conversations. And consumers are much more hesitant right now because they just don't know what the future holds. And I can tell you with what I call the TTT, the Trump tax or tariff tax, that hasn't really hit yet. But coming over the next six months, you're going to see a lot of price increases. What do you wish that President Trump and other lawmakers understood about how tariffs are impacting businesses like yours?

1:13:01Well, there's a lot of impact. And one of the impacts certainly is just the money that we've had to spend in these taxes that we're paying to the government, which impacts our landed costs and what we have to charge customers. The other thing is the tremendous disruption that we've had in our business with all our people trying to manage around all of these tariffs, front loading, trying to work in the reprieve, and just frankly not knowing what the price of the products that we've ordered, what our landed final cost ends up being and can we sell it for that cost. That's a big concern of ours.

1:13:39You can find American sale locations across the Chicago area. Bob Jones, thanks so much for your time. Really appreciate it. Well, you're welcome, Jake. Thanks for having me. How some of music's biggest stars are working to try to bring attention to the climate crisis as they perform across the country, that's next.

1:14:04Our buried lead now, that's what we call stories we feel are not getting enough attention. Another round of flash flooding hit the Rudoso, New Mexico area, where deadly floods struck just last week. New video shows rushing water sweeping past homes and partially submerged cars. Last week, we also saw water gushing onto platforms in New York City's subway and flowing through subway cars. And at least 135 people died in the catastrophic flooding in central Texas, of course, where about 100 people are still missing. While search and recovery efforts are ongoing and expected to take months, officials are still looking into a variety of things that appear to have gone wrong in those critical early morning hours.

1:14:42but recent reports about how staffing and budget cuts are affecting forecasting at the National Weather Service have been out there for months, whether or not it's related to any of those stories. In May, we reported the National Weather Service is in worse shape than previously known due to a combination of layoffs, early retirements, and pre-existing vacancies. Several current and former agency meteorologists told us they were concerned that forecasts and life-saving warnings were not going to be issued in time in the future. And after losing more than 560 weather service employees earlier this year, as of early June, the agency was only planning to rehire 125 meteorologists and specialists as hurricane season begins to get underway.

1:15:23In April, we also reported on the Trump administration's plans to eliminate the research arm of NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and to eviscerate its budget by 27 percent. That budget proposal was recently submitted to Congress. We reported, quote, the cuts would devastate weather and climate research as weather is becoming more erratic, extreme and costly. It would cripple the U.S. industries that depend on free, accurate weather and climate data and expert analysis. It could also halt research on deadly weather, including severe storms and tornadoes, unquote. Now, it's not just NOAA and the National Weather Service.

1:16:00For months, President Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have declared that FEMA might be eliminated. Just days into his second term, President Trump said this in North Carolina. I'll also be signing an executive order to begin the process of fundamentally reforming and overhauling FEMA or maybe getting rid of FEMA. Maybe getting rid of FEMA. In April, about 20 % of FEMA's staff, roughly 1 ,000 employees, took a voluntary buyout as part of Trump's staff reduction effort headed by Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. Another more than 800 employees took buyouts earlier this year.

1:16:39And just last month, President Trump told reporters he wants to phase out FEMA after hurricane season. We want to wean off of FEMA and we want to bring it down to the state level. A governor should be able to handle it. And frankly, if they can't handle it, the aftermath, then maybe they shouldn't be governor. FEMA officials trying to pre-position search and rescue crews to respond to the disaster in Texas ran into a new spending approval requirement imposed by the Trump administration that slowed down its work, according to FEMA officials, we reported last week. Those teams were not authorized to deploy until more than 72 hours after the deadly flash floods began.

1:17:24But since the devastation, President Trump has struck a different tone. Well, FEMA is something we can talk about later, but right now they're busy working, so we'll leave it at that. Shortly after that, Secretary of Department of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, said Trump wanted FEMA to be remade rather than destroyed. probably not a bad idea. In our Earth Matters series, some of music's biggest names are showing CNN's Bill Weir how they are trying to bring attention to the climate crisis and to combat it, including Grammy winner Billie Eilish. Take a look. He set out to bend the industry around her values.

1:18:10Haters and big oil companies be damned. Yeah, it was funny. that video really went kind of viral in the kind of, oh my God, she's satanic world, which was really funny to me because I was like, no, no, you guys, this is a metaphor for climate change. I'm a bird falling into a thing of oil. Like that's kind of the whole point. I have been trying to change the way that the industry has been running for a really long time. So for like food backstage, All of my catering is vegan. Yeah, we have, like, refillable water stations. We don't sell, like, plastic water bottles. And I have, like, a no idling policy for all the trucks, you know, to save all those fossil fuels.

1:19:00Yeah, and save your lungs. Save your lungs and save all the things, yeah. But, yeah, it's really amazing. So it's leading by example, sort of. And CNN's Bill Weir joins us now. Bill, what did you learn from talking to Billy and other superstars? It's fascinating, Jake. She became a superstar at age 14 and came from a family where they would recycle wrapping paper at birthdays, had solar panels on the roof, were eco-conscious. And when the music industry started backing up trucks full of swag for Billie Eilish and her brother and her family, she's like, wait a minute, we don't want any of this.

1:19:31And then they started demanding plastic-free shows and new kinds of catering and a battery-powered stage at Lollapalooza. If you're going in a couple weeks, the fact that there's not diesel generators idling literally 24-7 for a week is thanks to Billie Eilish using her star power. But I wanted to follow sort of the legacy back to Willie Nelson and Bonnie Raitt, Jack Johnson, the Hawaiian surfer turned pop star, who took their sort of environmental attitudes just about a planet in balance, a better way to do this, and are having huge cultural influence. Coldplay actually worked with MIT to measure the footprint of the whole industry.

1:20:07and they're not nearly on par with big industries like fashion or building any of that, but they have such outsized influence. And maybe a generation ago, they considered it a win if they could get a fan to register to vote. Now they're trying to connect fans at shows into these grassroots networks where people can turn their climate anxiety into action locally, work on earth repair, and everybody knows the words to the same song. So it's a special filled with ideas about hope and trying to get people to rally. And these days, as you just reported, political leadership and even corporate leadership on this is completely absent.

1:20:41So cultural pop fans, pop stars have the biggest cultural influence these days. All right. Celebrate these ones. So that's music stars and their fans outreach to try to affect climate. What has been the effect of climate on music festivals? I've got to imagine all this extreme weather that we're seeing has had an impact. Absolutely. Bonnaroo, the big festival in Tennessee every year, three of the four days canceled because of flooding. The Steve Miller Band just announced he's not going to tour due to issues about weather scares and climate. Doesn't want to get big crowds out in the elements, given what's happening right now.

1:21:18And organizers are paying exorbitant new insurance rates to cover this. So it's having a real effect. All right, Bill Weir, thanks so much. Don't miss Change Amplified, live music in the climate crisis. That's Sunday night at 8 Eastern and Pacific, only on CNN. Thanks so much, Bill. We'll be right back.

1:21:43In our Law and Justice lead today, one day in jail. One day. That's how long the Justice Department says an officer convicted in Breonna Taylor's case should serve behind bars. Brett Hankison was convicted last year of violating Breonna Taylor's civil rights by firing several shots during the House raid in 2020. The Justice Department stated yesterday that although Hankison was present, he, they say, is not responsible for Breonna Taylor's death. And our money lead, tariffs may be starting to take a bite, but Americans are still opening their wallets. The Commerce Department announced a six-tenths of a percent rise in sales last month compared to May when sales declined.

1:22:23That increase, although modest, surprised many economists. June's numbers show people were using more of their pocket money for eating out and going to bars, but also making bigger investments, such as buying automobiles. In our sports lead, Caitlin Clark will not be playing this weekend in the WNBA All-Star game after suffering a groin injury earlier this week. It was only her fourth game back after a five-game absence because of a different injury. Some sad news also in our sports league. Super Bowl winning linebacker Brian Brayman of the Philadelphia Eagles has died. He was only 38 years old.

1:22:59Brayman's agent said the linebacker died of a rare form of cancer. He was diagnosed just in February. He started his NFL career in 2011 with the Texans. Then he played four seasons with the Philadelphia Eagles, culminating in that historic sweet 2018 victory against the New England Patriots in Super Bowl 52. too. Our thoughts are with his family and with the Eagles world. May his memory be a blessing. You can follow me on Facebook, Instagram, ThreadsX, and on the TikTok at Jake Tapper. You can follow the show on X at The Lead CNN. If you ever miss an episode of The Lead, you can listen to the show once you get your podcast.

1:23:33Aaron Bernatto up front. Starts now.

1:23:40Fall is the perfect time to refresh and reorganize your space. At the Home Depot, Find power tools and tool sets starting at$50 to help tackle DIY projects, home updates, and more. Whether you're drilling brackets to support new shelving or sharpening your hedge trimmer blade with an angle grinder, The Home Depot has the tools you need to check projects off your list. Shop Labor Day savings at The Home Depot and gear up for fall projects with the right tools to keep your projects moving. Go inside the sports moments that brought us together and made history. From the underdogs to the rivalries and the miracles.

1:24:16It sends chills down your spine. It's what sport was all about. The new CNN original series, Decades in Sports. Now streaming on the CNN app.