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Search for Missing in Texas; Danny Morales is Interviewed about Texas Flooding; MAGA World Outraged over Epstein Files. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired July 09, 2025 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

HADAS GOLD, CNN MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: And then he goes so far as to praise Adolf Hitler. Take a look at this post. He says that, "history's prime example of spotting patterns and anti-white hate, and acting decisively on them, shocking but patterns don't lie."

Extremists, white nationalists on X, they were celebrating. They were so excited about what was happening. I asked Grok what was going on. What was it -- where was it getting its sources from. And one of the sources it says it was using was the online forum 4chan. It's known as a place that's being -- as unmoderated, full of extremist, full of hateful content.

And so, when you are training an A.I. on something like 4chan and it's using that as one of its sources, then obviously it's going to start spitting out some of this.

I do want to read what Grok did post as a statement. This is coming from XAI. They say, "we are aware of recent posts made by Grok and are actively working to remove the inappropriate posts. XAI is training only truth-seeking and thanks to the millions of users on X, we are able to quickly identify and update the model we're training could be improved." They did freeze Grok for a while, at least on the public facing X responses. You can still chat with it privately. So far, when I last checked, it is still frozen.

Elon Musk, for his part, seems to be taking this in stride, sort of joking about it online, saying, you know, this place is -- sure is fun, and even responding in jest to somebody who posted a photo of Kanye West, himself known to be promoting anti-Semitic tropes. Somebody was joking that Kanye West is now the senior engineer of Grok.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Not hilarious. Also, when you train something on something like 4chan, you know what you're going to get. All you have to do is go on there and see what some of the responses are to -- to many different things. So, it shouldn't have been a surprise, right?

GOLD: Exactly. And that's why it's so important to be careful not only when we ourselves are using A.I., because, think about it, it is training on something, and that is going to influence its biases. SIDNER: Right. All right, Hadas Gold, great reporting. Thank you so

much.

A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, breaking this morning, the death toll is climbing and the search for any possible survivors growing more desperate in Texas. The number of people missing has skyrocketed to more than 170. And we're getting new details now about an emergency plan at Camp Mystic. New questions too.

And even more deadly flooding, this time in New Mexico. The water, so powerful it ripped a home right off of its foundation.

And outrage over Attorney General Pam Bondi's handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case. And this outrage is coming from fierce supporters of President Trump. Some are even calling for the attorney general to be fired.

Kate is out today. I'm John Berman, with Sara Sidner. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

And the breaking news this morning, the scope and scale of tragedy in Texas is even bigger than we first knew. As the search for possible survivors from the catastrophic floods grows more desperate, officials there have announced that the number of missing has soared to more than 170 people.

And we've got new reporting on Camp Mystic. That's the all-girls Christian summer camp, where at least 27 campers and counselors are among the dead. Records obtained by CNN show that just two days before the floods, a state inspector certified that the camp had an emergency plan in place and that its cabins and other buildings were safe. A counselor tells CNN that she and others did not have access to walkie- talkies in the event of disaster. And she adds that she personally did not receive any evacuation training.

Also this morning, we're hearing harrowing new accounts from survivors of how they escaped the floodwaters. Earlier, I spoke with David Fry, who was staying at a hotel when the floods hit. He and more than 30 members of his family, they were having a big reunion, they climbed on top of the roof to survive. This is what he told me.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID FRY, TEXAS FLOOD SURVIVOR: About 2:45, 3:00 a.m., we just had to make the executive decision. It is time to clear this place out. Go through, start banging on doors and notifying as many people as possible to get to safety.

BERMAN: And so you knocked on peoples doors, told them to move and go where at that point? Where did you all end up?

FRY: At that point there's really only one direction to go, and that is move away from the river as quickly as you can.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: CNN's Isabel Rosales is in Center Point, one of the hard hit communities there.

And, Isabel, you've been right in front -- and you're there again this morning, literally right in the middle of these search and recovery efforts. What are you seeing now?

ISABEL ROSALES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John, good morning.

Yes, this is the Center Point volunteer fire department, where you can see a lot of these volunteers are gathered here, essentially waiting for their morning briefing. This is where they're going to be told what the priorities of the day are, where they're going to be staging heavy equipment. They're going to learn where they're going to be going to. You see a crew of chainsaw -- people with chainsaws right now, they're cutting out all of this debris and making way so that they can continue to go through, follow the Guadalupe River and get into these really tough, rough terrains.

[09:05:13]

Make way and make sure that they are looking for this incredibly high number of people that are still missing.

They also have specialized equipment like this. This is a SHERP. This is an amphibious vehicle. These are made in Ukraine. And you can see, these tires that inflate and deflate, making it suitable for a situation like this. This can go into the river and help with those search efforts.

And actually, as we put the camera in that direction, you can see right here, Mission Mules. That name might be familiar because these are the very same mules, the very same nonprofit -- Christian nonprofit group that we saw last year in western North Carolina, helping out with the devastation left after Hurricane Helene. What they're doing is essentially, I've been told here by the founder, following the cadaver dogs. They're lugging their equipment, all of that heavy equipment, so those crews can move nimbly ahead and focus entirely on this incredibly important mission of finding survivors, if any are still out there, and, of course, returning these missing people back to their loved ones.

Listen to what the owner, the founder, excuse me, had to say when I asked him about that high number of people that are missing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE TOBERER, FOUNDER, MISSION MULES: Tells me that they were caught off guard. That's -- that's all you can really say because, you know, when was -- when has this ever happened? And nobody expected it. And I -- that amount of people getting taken like that just tells me that just nobody was ready for it.

(END VIDEO CLIP) ROSALES: And, of course, such a heartbreaking moment when they do find remains, but also the personal belongings that they're finding that have been left behind, swept away by these flood waters. Pictures, in particular. Mementos, baby pictures, wedding pictures, family pictures, a child's dance recital. I've seen these pictures. And I've been told by the volunteers that have found them that they've actually left the pictures inside of the fire department. They're hoping that the rightful owners can come back one day and reclaim them.

John.

BERMAN: Yes, just looking around you, Isabel, the range of ways people are trying any way they can to find, you know, survivors, or people who are just lost now and deceased, from the high tech to the -- to the mules behind you.

Great report. Thank you very much.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, joining us now is Danny Morales. He is the assistant chief of the Comfort, Texas, volunteer fire department.

Thank you, sir, for taking the time. I know you have been busy, and I know you must be exhausted as we are in day six of these rescue and recovery efforts.

Officials now talking about the number of missing that really has exploded to 170 plus. We have a rescuer predicting that number may even go higher. Is that how you see it? And do you have a sense of why these numbers exploded to seven times the amount of numbers that we had heard just 24 hours ago?

ASST. CHIEF DANNY MORALES, COMFORT, TEXAS, VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPT.: Well, Sara, like it was mentioned just here earlier, it took people by surprise. In our situation here, you know, I think our county might be up to about maybe nine, maybe ten recoveries here in our county. But, you know, that situation up there, like it was mentioned, that it was something that was taken by surprise, where here in Comfort, we were ready for the situation. We knew what was coming down the river and our system was in place.

SIDNER: Comfort County has something Kerr County, which is the hardest hit, just 20 miles away, does not, ad that is sirens. Do you think that those sirens saved lives in your community and made a big difference?

MORALES: It -- it did. And this is the first time that we've used the two siren system that we installed. We've always had a siren here in Comfort, the department has. And we've educated the citizens and we're going to continue doing the education for our citizens. And, you know, this is just one more tool in the box.

SIDNER: I'm going to take you back in time to 1987. There was another major flood, a wall of water sweeping teens at the Pot of Gold Christian Camp near Comfort, away. It inundated some of the busses that were trying to flee, and ten teenagers were killed in that disaster. Did that change the way your county operated ultimately?

MORALES: Well, it did for us. I don't know as much as a county. But our community of Comfort, and that being in -- in our area, you know, these things -- we were called, I believe, there may have been one camp that was in session in our area. They called us. From what they were telling us, that they were asking if they should evacuate.

[09:10:04]

Our thing to them was, after the '87 incident was that we're -- they should shelter in place. And water is rising to their location or their area, to gain higher access. But to shelter in place and not be moving out towards the -- in any of the, you know, endangered areas.

SIDNER: What is making it so hard to go out and try and find those who are missing? What are you experiencing? What are your crews experiencing there in Comfort?

MORALES: Well, you know, Sara, it's very hazardous down there right now. You know, there's debris everywhere. What we're encountering is, you know, there's very slick places of mud and things like that, places where you can't get in with the equipment. All this is done on foot. And the thing is, is that we're looking after our people that are out there searching and making sure that they've got everything they might need in order to -- to -- to do that.

SIDNER: Yes, I know it's hot, it's humid, there's huge piles of debris.

MORALES: Yes, it is.

SIDNER: They're as tall as buildings.

MORALES: Yes, it is.

SIDNER: That you all are going through. And I thank you and your crews for going out there and doing the (INAUDIBLE) work this morning.

Danny Morales, thank you so much. I really do appreciate you taking the time this morning with us.

John.

BERMAN: All right, new this morning, some in President Trump's base revolting over the administration's handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case. Some far-right activists calling for the attorney general to be fired.

The president fed up with what he calls BS from Vladimir Putin. So, why now? And what does this mean for support for Ukraine?

And, new flash flooding, not in Texas, but in New Mexico. Three people killed in a house just swept away.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh my.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my gosh.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my gosh.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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[09:16:09]

SIDNER: New this morning, the president is facing outrage by some of his biggest supporters over how the Department of Justice is handling the so-called Jeffrey Epstein files. In a series of scathing posts on X, longtime Trump ally Laura Loomer calling for the president to fire Attorney General Pam Bondi. It comes after a memo released by the DOJ and the FBI this week confirmed Epstein died by suicide, and Bondi said that there is no evidence that Epstein kept a, quote, "client list."

When asked about the investigation, here's what the president had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And are people still talking about this guy? This creep? That is unbelievable.

I mean, I can't believe you're asking a question on Epstein at a time like this where we're having some of the greatest success and -- and also tragedy with what happened in Texas. It just seems like a desecration.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: CNN's Alayna Treene is live from the White House.

One of the issues here is that it's his own -- some of his cabinet members themselves are the ones that ginned up the story about Epstein before they were in office. And now they are facing backlash from some in the MAGA world.

What are you learning?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: That's right. And despite what you just heard from the president there, there are a lot of people in this White House, and the broader Trump administration as well, who are really frustrated with how not only the Justice Department, but specifically how Attorney General Pamela Bondi has handled this. And, you know, the release of that memo on a Sunday heading into a busy week. Some people told me, one Trump adviser, I should say, that called this a "political nightmare," this memo that they released, and argued, why didn't they do this, you know, going into the holiday weekend rather than coming out of it to try and bury some of this news? Or even better yet, they argued, wait until after the midterms. One Trump administration official told me that Bondi had bungled the

case from the start by over promising some of these bombshell findings, only to do what they argued, underdeliver in the end.

And you're exactly right, Sara, that it's not just a lot of people in the MAGA movement, in the president's base who had been calling for more information on these files, asking for them to be unsealed by the judge in this case, asking for this Justice Department to open an investigation into any potential accomplices that Jeffrey Epstein may have had.

There are people in this administration, people like Vice President J.D. Vance, the FBI director, Dan Bongino, for example, who was involved closely on this, who had, prior to this administration, argued there was more to this case and the Epstein files than maybe officials were letting on. And so that's why there is so much scrutiny on this.

And adding to some of these problems, Sara, is what we had heard from Pam Bondi herself back in February. She was asked during a Fox News interview, you know, what is the status of that so-called client list that Epstein may have had, and she argued it was sitting on her desk for review. Of course, the memo that came out by the Justice Department on Monday said there is no such client list and that one of those doesn't exist.

Now, she did try to try and, you know, explain that interview during that cabinet meeting as well. I want you to take a listen to how she put it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAM BONDI, ATTORNEY GENERAL: It's sitting on my desk right now to review. That's been a directive by President Trump. I'm reviewing that.

I was asked a question about the client list. And my response was, it's sitting on my desk to be reviewed, meaning the file, along with the JFK, MLK files as well. That's what I meant by that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TREENE: So, as you could hear there, Sara, she's trying to argue that she was referring to a much broader case that was on her desk, but not an answer that -- I mean, I spoke with many people after Bondi's response there who told me that they just weren't satisfied with that type of answer.

I will say, though, that the president was briefed last week by Bondi, as well as the FBI director, Kash Patel, on some of the findings of that investigation.

[09:20:05]

So, he wasn't caught off guard by this. But again, a lot of people not very happy with how this has been handled, and specifically how Pam Bondi has really messaged on this.

SIDNER: Yes, interestingly, they did release more of the JFK assassination files, and there are a lot of people wondering why these files aren't also being released. We will see what happens.

Alayna Treene, great reporting from you from the White House this morning for us.

John.

BERMAN: All right, with us now, CNN political commentators, Democratic strategist, Maria Cardona, and Republican strategist Brad Todd.

Brad, let me just read you what some people who have been supportive of President Trump in the past, in some cases fiercely supportive, have been saying here. Laura Loomer says of Pam Bondi, "she needs to be fired. She has tainted the investigation." Megyn Kelly says, "her days are numbered as a member of the Trump administration." And then Elon Musk, who I don't know if we can qualify as currently supportive of President Trump, says, "how can people be expected to have faith in Trump if he won't release the Epstein files?"

So, Brad, let me just ask you about what Megyn Kelly said of Pam Bondi, "Her days are numbered as a member of the Trump administration." Do you think her days are numbered?

BRAD TODD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I don't, and I -- you know, I think Megyn Kelly is a serious commentator most of the time. But there is something to the notion that there's a clickbait industrial complex out there, and this is the perfect kind of tabloid story for them, that this -- this drives clicks from people who can't quit doomscrolling on social media. And that -- it's really nothing more than that. It's -- and I think that the president's right, there are serious things happening. There are serious -- there's serious progress being made in -- in things like keep -- make sure taxes don't go up, trying to crack down on illegal immigration. And I think the fact that so many people in the clickbait industrial complex, if you will, are focused on what is really a silly story, is pretty insulting.

BERMAN: Yes, but to sort of misquote "Scream" here, the clickbait was coming from inside the house for a long time, Brad. It was supporters, fierce supporters of President Trump. People working to get him elected. People who now have positions of power, whether it be Dan Bongino, or whether it be the attorney general, Pam Bondi, when she said she was reviewing the client files. Whether it be then senator, now vice president, J.D. Vance, who talked openly about the Epstein investigation and talked about the need for transparency.

So, Maria, what next?

MARIA CARDONA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: John, I'm glad you pointed that out because the clickbait industrial complex, as Brad likes to call it, is an intricate part of the Trump family MAGA supporter group. And so you can't disassociate the two, though I understand why, because Pam Bondi is in a lot of trouble, therefore that is going to reflect incredibly badly on the Trump administration. It underscores the corruption, the hypocrisy, the incompetence and the gaslighting that comes from all of those people that you just mentioned, John.

And frankly, it makes now voters, MAGA voters, as well as mainstream voters, go, hmm, why is it that now they have no interest in the Epstein files and in that supposed client list that now doesn't exist? Who might be on it that is going to be really hurtful to the Trump administration that they don't want that getting out? This is not the last that they're going to hear of it because they are the ones that ginned it up thinking maybe Democratic officials were on it, thinking maybe they could own the libs with it. And now it's backfiring.

BERMAN: Maria, let me change subjects here and ask you about another subject that did come up at that news conference as well. It's Vladimir Putin. The president's been talking about him. And, of course, the president said he would end the Ukraine 24 -- war in Ukraine. 24 hours within taking office. He hasn't.

But listen to what he now says about Vladimir Putin.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We got a lot of bull (EXPLETIVE DELETED) thrown at us by Putin, if you want to know the truth. He's very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So, as a Democrat who has supported U.S. efforts to help Ukraine to push the Russians out, do you welcome this new tone from President Trump? What do you think?

CARDONA: If it lasts, John. And I think that that is sort of the big question, because, you know, I spoke of incompetence before. Here's another instance where you can absolutely use the word incompetence because what so many people that are experts in the foreign policy space have seen from the very beginning, Vladimir Putin has played Trump like a fiddle. And it's now that Trump is waking up to perhaps he has been played like a fiddle and now understands that Putin has been the one in charge, and Putin is doing everything that Putin has wanted to do from the get go.

So, if now Trump is awake and is in this eyes wide open and understands what's at stake, yes, I think I welcome that.

[09:25:03]

Democrats welcome that. Frankly, Republicans who understand how important it is for Ukraine to win this war welcome that as well.

My fear is that Putin will get on the phone with Trump and they'll have a conversation, and he'll throw all of these, you know, rosy compliments at him, and then they'll be besties again and he'll be in Putin's pocket.

BERMAN: What do you think happens next, Brad?

TODD: Well, I think Democrats are incapable of working with Donald Trump or cheering on any of -- any of his successors or any of his initiatives. We saw two weeks ago, Democrats were basically rooting for Iran or rooting for Iran to not have lost their capability to enrich uranium because they wanted to make President Trump look bad.

So, you know, we've spent two years where Democrats have criticized Donald Trump on his approach to the Ukraine-Russia conflict. I think they will continue to criticize it, even if it means switching their argument 180 degrees.

BERMAN: Well, we'll see if the president has switched his argument as well. I think the actions are what we all need to look for now in terms of, do the weapons start to flow?

Brad Todd, Maria Cardona, thank you both very much.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, breaking this morning, three people killed in New Mexico. Floodwaters there swallowing entire homes. You see that right there before your eyes. We will talk more about that coming up.

And Texas officials are facing mounting questions about why evacuations weren't ordered in the hardest hit county ahead of those deadly floods. Those stories and more, ahead.

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