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Trump Meets with Netanyahu; The Desperate Search for Survivors in Texas; Running the Numbers on Muck's Third Party; Rep. Josh Riley (D-NY) is Interviewed about Musk's Third Party. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired July 07, 2025 - 08:30   ET

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

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[08:30:55]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Happening today, President Trump will meet with Israeli PRIME MINISTER Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House. And an Israeli source tells CNN that indirect talks between Hamas and Israel regarding a ceasefire and the release of hostages from Gaza will resume in about an hour.

This will be Netanyahu's third visit to the White House since Trump returned to office, and his first one since the massive strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities last month.

CNN's Alayna Treene is at the White House with more for us on this.

This could be a very significant meeting. What are you learning?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: That's right. The president is going to be hosting the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, for dinner at the White House this evening. And it comes as the president has continued to voice confidence that he believes a ceasefire deal, securing the release of hostages from Gaza and really trying to find a more permanent end to this war is possible.

And we heard him reiterate that when he was leaving New Jersey yesterday. I want you to take a listen to what he told reporters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think there's a good chance we have a deal with Hamas during the week, during the coming week, pertaining to quite a few of the hostages, yes. You know, we've gotten a lot of the hostages out, but pertaining to the remaining hostages, quite a few of them will be coming out. We think we'll have that done this week.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TREENE: Now, Sara, this dinner comes as the president, as you mentioned, continues to voice confidence from this. You heard him say that. He believes a deal could be reached as early as this week. And it's also Netanyahu's third visit to the White House since the

president's second term began. More than any other foreign leader we've seen. And really, we're told that the president is hoping this dinner can persuade the Israeli prime minister to really agree on terms to finding a more lasting end to this war.

Now, you mentioned this as well, but all of it comes as we're learning that indirect talks between an Israeli delegation and those from Hamas continued or really restarted, I should say, in Doha, the Qatari capital, yesterday. And it comes after we know that Israel had proposed a ceasefire agreement in talks with the United States as well on this, a 65-day ceasefire proposal that would include the release of hostages between Hamas. And really, you know, we've heard now since that Hamas has submitted a positive response to that. But, of course, we're still waiting to see really where all this falls and how this meeting with Netanyahu, with the president tonight could potentially change things or even accelerate that.

And all of this has really, we've seen, taken on a renewed urgency ever since the president helped kind of strike that ceasefire between Israel and Iran late last month. The dinner tonight, Sara, we're told, as of now, is going to be closed to press. But as we know, that always often changes here at the White House. We'll keep you posted on any new details we learn of that.

SIDNER: Yes, often depending on what's happened.

All right, Alayna Treene, thank you so much for your reporting there from the White House.

Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: And joining us now to talk more about this is CNN national security analyst, former deputy director of national intelligence, Beth Sanner.

Beth, you see today -- tonight as a potential watershed moment in this war. What do you see?

BETH SANNER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, you know, all of this comes down to, can Trump figure out how to get Netanyahu to sign on to something that will lead to the end of this war, not just a ceasefire with half of the hostages, and to get Hamas to sign on with that -- only with that understanding that this will lead to the end of the war.

So, you know, and this deal is the linchpin for everything else that Donald Trump has wanted in the Middle East, to create those conditions for a stable and prosperous region. So, it's a big night, but it is also -- it continues to be the beginning of this process in a way.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely. I mean, and do you see that the conditions are in place for a ceasefire deal to be wrapped up this week, as the president seems to suggest?

[08:35:05] SANNER: Well, you know, wrapped up, right, obliterate, these are words that, I mean, sometimes our vocabulary might get in the way of actually that something significant can happen this week. And -- and the reason that this deal is more possible now is because Iran is in a whole different position. This is the head of the octopus, as the Israelis talk about it. That deal will absolutely be part of the conversation tonight because it is totally related. But at the same time, Netanyahu, with that put aside, has more political space now in order to make some concessions about ending this war and taking a political risk to do so, because that's always been a problem for him, that the government could fall. That's less of a concern to him now.

BOLDUAN: Because I was going to ask you about this. This is the first face to face for Trump and Netanyahu since Israel's bombing campaign on Iran, U.S. strikes on the three nuclear sites. How much do you think the dynamic has shifted in the Israel-Hamas war after what is really Hamas' -- one of Hamas' biggest backers, and Iran was hit so hard and set back?

SANNER: Yes, this is a great point you've just made, Kate. Hamas is at its nadir. It is the lowest point it has been. And, you know, some of the terms that Israel has wanted out of this agreement was to get all of the senior Hamas people in Gaza exiled. Well, now there really are none of those people. Someone said before it would take a boat. Now it would take a paddle board in order to move those people out there are so few left.

So, this end of support for Hamas from external forces, and the fact that their people are very anti-Hamas right now, the folks in Gaza, the Hamas folks do want to stay in power. And the only way that they can hope for any solution for them remaining a force there is to end this war.

BOLDUAN: This also renews the very, very unsettled discussions over the day after for Gaza. Netanyahu has continued to say that Hamas can never rule again in Gaza. What has changed in terms of this very important aspect of the negotiations, which is, we shake hands now, but what does Gaza look like in, you know, ten days from now?

SANNER: Exactly. This is "Groundhog Day" in terms of this conversation. Nothing has changed. There still is no political vision, let alone a practical plan for what comes when you end this war. And, in fact, one of the things I think that is maybe something that we -- that -- I don't know if President Trump understands this or not. He likes to have the quick deal. But, in fact, the process of having this 60-day ceasefire and then during that time him trying to get Netanyahu and it to agree to a concrete plan for that day after, it does create that space. You cannot have a dinner meeting and -- and -- and decide what the day after is going to look like because there's still wildly different views. Netanyahu doesn't want Hamas. No one does, right? Netanyahu doesn't -- still does not want the Palestinian Authority. He wants the Arab states to run the place. And the Arab states are like, hold on a second, we don't want this, this loser of a situation. No offense intended there. But just how difficult and intractable and expensive this is. We'll play along, but we don't want to run this place. So, these questions are fundamentally the same questions we've had for

the past 21 months.

BOLDUAN: Yes. The -- is there space for it? That is something we may find out tonight and -- and tomorrow.

It's good to see you, Beth. Thank you so much.

John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, we do have breaking news this morning. The first statement from Camp Mystic in Texas grieving the loss of 27 campers and counselors from the devastating floods.

Elon Musk says his new political party is formed, as he tweets about Jeffrey Epstein. President Trump says the billionaire is off the rails.

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[08:43:47]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, the breaking news out of central Texas. A brand-new statement from Camp Mystic saying they are grieving the loss of 27 campers and counselors from the floods there. At least 82 people are now confirmed dead in the flooding. Officials warn that number will likely rise. And, frankly, it's unclear how this new statement from Camp Mystic affects those numbers.

The weather threat not over in Texas. Let's get to CNN's Isabel Rosales in Center Point, Texas, for the latest on what you're seeing there.

Isabel.

ISABEL ROSALES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John, yes, Center Point, just southeast of Hunt, about 25 miles away. Still impacted by the Guadalupe River and the tributaries there that feed into the river.

And what we're seeing out here by a volunteer fire department is a lot of activity. We're seeing volunteers rolling in truck after truck after truck. They're bringing in heavy machinery, like you can see over there. They're removing this gravel from what appears to be a boat ramp here. Just clearing the way. Not just there, but look at all of this work that they have ahead of them. Heavy tree limbs all over the place.

And the work is not easy for these hundreds of volunteers who are carefully combing through this area, making sure that they're not missing any victims.

[08:45:02]

And they're searching underneath these heavy piles of debris and into holes exactly like this one. So many areas where somebody, a victim, might be found. I want to actually introduce you to Michael, who is a Marine.

Michael, you -- tell me about what actually inspired you to come out here, because you're from this community?

MICHAEL GUYER, VOLUNTEER: Yes. And, honestly, what inspired me is the fact that I figured I could be prioritizing myself in an important way, even though I'm not actively involved as a first responder and everything, I figured I can at least come and help relieve them of some stress and exhaustion. And also, it's my community. Like my fiance is from -- she -- she's a nurse over in this community. I work in this community. We have friends and family in this community. And, honestly, my biggest passion that kind of brought me out here is just, if anything, to find closure for the families because we don't know what we're going to find, if we're going to find anything. But at least the fact that we can find closure for each and every individual and family member, especially for the children that were lost at the camps and are still missing, I figured I could be doing my part just as much as these first responders and active personnel are doing.

ROSALES: Yes, and you're actually out here with your mother, too. You took your entire family out here to help out. And it's incredible seeing the -- the love from this community to lend their time to search for these missing people. What can we expect to see today out here that we haven't seen for the past few days?

GUYER: So, honestly, it's really just more search and recovery. Hopefully people find -- turn up missing. But, at the same time, we're prepared for more of a recovery effort. But, at the same time, today's brunt force is going to be more pulling debris.

ROSALES: Actually removing all this stuff out of the way.

GUYER: Yes. And, I mean, you can see already, there's workers going, like, digging. And then also cutting and everything. So, our job is going to be more of like the heavy lifting, pulling debris, actually, like, finding through a lot of this brush.

Now, I know that up towards Hunt and everything they're still expecting possibly more storm surges. So, we have to be on --

ROSALES: That's a big problem.

GUYER: Yes. And we have to be on the lookout for that too. I mean, we had to evacuate the area yesterday because they had more flooding. So, it's kind of mentally challenging because you hear a weather warning now and where we typically blow off the weather warnings, it's kind of like, we're -- we have a little bit of trauma now because it's like, you don't know what to expect now, especially with hearing that flooding came up about 30 feet in 45 minutes on the first day. So, the fact that --

ROSALES: You have to take it seriously, of course.

GUYER: Yes.

ROSALES: Yes. Yes.

GUYER: And the fact that it could just happen so fast in an instant, like, we just have to be prepared for anything.

ROSALES: Michael, thank you so much for your time and the work that you guys are doing. Super -- I appreciate it.

GUYER: Thank you.

ROSALES: Thank you so much.

John, back to you.

BERMAN: So wonderful to see people like Michael and his mother out there doing what they can at this moment.

Isabel Rosales, thank you for being in Center Point, Texas.

And for more information about how you can help the flood victims there, go to cnn.com/impact or text "flood" to 707070.

Sara.

SIDNER: As Texas reels from the deadly flash flooding, the remnants of a tropical storm are causing dangerous flash flooding in North Carolina. We are tracking that story for you this morning. That's ahead.

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[08:53:01]

BERMAN: All right, breaking this morning, Tesla taking a beating in the markets overnight after a new round of angry tweets and truths between President Trump and Elon Musk. Musk posted a new tweet about Jeffrey Epstein. The president said Musk is a train wreck, among other things. This all after Elon Musk said he has formed a new party.

CNN senior data analyst Harry Enten is here.

Let's talk parties, Harry. You know, this new party that Elon Musk says he has founded, what's his base?

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA ANALYST: Yes, this entire thing makes very little sense to me. It makes about as much sense as selling sand in the desert. What are we talking about here? What is the size of Elon Musk's base?

Well, I calculate it to be about four percent. Just four percent. One, two three, four percent of all voters. What is that base made up of? Well, it's those who view Elon Musk favorably and the GOP unfavorably. We're talking just about 4 percent of all voters out there, because it turns out, most of the people who like Elon Musk already like the GOP already. That is, they already have a party for him. In my mind, there is just no base for Elon Musk's third party in the electorate, at least initially speaking. BERMAN: All right, when we talk about third parties at the

presidential level, the candidate who most recently had the most success in terms of getting the most votes was Ross Perot. So, how does Elon Musk compare to Ross Perot?

ENTEN: Yes, we'll go all the way back in the time machine to 1992. And we will note, Americans with an unfavorable view, i.e. essentially, that Musk starts off with far more against him than Ross Perot ever did. Americans with an unfavorable view. Of Ross Perot it was only 14 percent back in 1992. Now, the vast majority of Americans are already against Elon Musk, 58 percent.

So, what we're essentially saying here is that Elon Musk is going to go into an electorate that already dislikes him, is already against him, while there were far more people who were open to the idea of a Ross Perot third party or independent candidacy as compared to an Elon Musk third party in which the vast majority of Americans have already sided against the man from Tesla.

[08:55:04]

BERMAN: So, Elon Musk says he's going to play -- forget -- you know, the presidential election is years away. The congressional election, next year, he says he wants to play there. What's the history of third party candidates in congressional races?

ENTEN: Horrible, awful, terrible, terrible, terrible. What are we talking about here? All right, elected to Congress from a third party. Since 1970, just 0.2 percent of all winners, of all winners were either third party, independent or write in. We're only talking about 24 out of over 13,000 winners. The bottom line is, third party, independents, they just don't succeed. Donald Trump is right when he's talking about the fact that third parties, simply put, don't work.

BERMAN: I will leave with this one coda, though. When you're talking about 4 percent here, it may not be about winning the race, but 4 percent has been enough to sway an election back and forth.

ENTEN: Ralph Nader in 2000, as we were talking about. He could spoil it for the GOP, but he probably can't win it himself.

BERMAN: Harry Enten, thank you very much.

ENTEN: Thank you, my friend.

BERMAN: Sara.

SIDNER: All right, for more on this I am joined now by Democratic Representative Josh Riley of New York.

First of all, just, what are your thoughts on Musk's announcement that he is going to be forming a third party? To be clear, there are other parties, the Green Party, the Libertarian Party, that already exist. But what are your thoughts on him as a multibillionaire, putting his name forward and saying, hey, we're going to have another party in existence? REP. JOSH RILEY (D-NY): Yes, well -- well, it's good to be with you.

I'm talking to you from the basement of our house in Ithaca. And if you can hear my two-year -old crying, you know what his views on this are.

Mine, look, I -- I get the frustration that people have with both political parties. You know, you talk to folks across upstate New York, I was just out at Highland Park for the Fourth of July, and people are really frustrated because they look and they see a Democratic Party that has become weak and out of touch and condescending. And they look at what just happened in Washington with the Republican Party and they see a party that's beholden to special interests in the pockets of big oil, in the pockets of all the corporate PACs, and you look around and you think, nobody's fighting for you.

And so my approach to this job, I can't speak to Elon Musk. I, you know, and -- and the -- the feuds between him and Trump. Nobody really cares about that stuff around here. But my approach to this job has been to show up in places that Democrats often don't go and show how the work we do can actually make their lives better. Whether that's lowering utility prices or lowering grocery prices.

SIDNER: You had some choice words on the floor about Trump's mega bill that Republicans passed and Trump signed into law July 4th. Just to remind our audience, here's some of what you said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RILEY: This bill will kill good, blue collar manufacturing jobs that we need to rebuild the economy in this country, it closes rural hospitals, it defunds health care, all to give trillions of dollars in tax cuts to your cronies. Don't tell me you give a (EXPLETIVE DELETED) about the middle class when all you're doing is (EXPLETIVE DELETED) on the middle class.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: Speaker Johnson is already talking about plans for two more GOP bills aimed at fulfilling the agenda. The American public voted in Trump. They voted in Republicans who control the House. What are your concerns about these -- these bills going forward?

RILEY: Well, look, let's start with the bill that we just voted on. This is a bill that would take trillions of dollars out of the health care system and have a devastating impact in rural communities like the ones that I represent. Across upstate New York we have about a dozen rural hospitals that are now on the chopping block. It would kill about 2 million good, blue collar construction and manufacturing jobs. And don't take my word for that. That's what the building trades have estimated to be the case. And it would do all of that just to give trillions of dollars in tax cuts to the top one, two percent in this country. The folks who have all the lobbyists and all the corporate PACs and all the super PACs and -- and pull the levers in Washington. And so this is a bill that's really everything that's wrong with

Washington. In that floor speech, I went back over the last 20 or 30 years of corruption and how the middle class has been sold out in this country. So, if we're going to try to do this again, the way to do it is completely different. I think, first of all, instead of a partisan bill, like this one, that had no Democratic support, let's bring Democrats and Republicans together to try to find some common ground on things. Things that I would want to do, lower the cost of prescription drugs. That's money back into the pockets of seniors. And it also saves the government a ton of money. Let's close all these ridiculous loopholes that the lobbyists are writing for themselves on Wall Street and use that money and put it directly back into the pockets of the middle class who needs a tax cut.

[09:00:03]

SIDNER: Of course, the president and Republicans argue that's what they're doing with this bill.