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Trump Defends Decision to Fire BLS; Texas House Reconvenes Today; Lulu Flores is Interviewed about the Texas House Fight; Epstein Files Fallout; Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) is Interviewed about the Texas House Fight. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired August 05, 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]

JESSICA DEAN, CNN ANCHOR: The Texas governor orders the arrest of Democratic lawmakers for fleeing the state as Democrats declare war over the GOP effort to redraw the state's congressional map. What we can expect when the state house reconvenes in just a few hours.

Also, overnight, a wildfire in California exploding in size, now burning some 72,000 acres. We are speaking with a crew member on the ground fighting that fire.

And the beehive is buzzing. (INAUDIBLE) teaming up with Levi's for a new ad and possibly hinting at her next album?

I'm Jessica Dean, with John Berman. Kate and Sara are out today. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: And breaking just moments ago, President Trump defending his decision to fire the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as we're standing by for him to announce a replacement. He did so with a combination of data he does -- does not like with a data timeline that is simply being made up.

We have new CNN reporting on what set him off. Let's get right to CNN's Alayna Treene at the White House.

Alayna, what are you learning on all this?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, well, look, first I just want to point out that this firing of the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics we know came, of course, after Friday's worse than expected jobs report. But in my conversations with people here at the White House, John, I was told that he had been kind of unhappy about Dr. Erika McEntarfer, the head of -- the commissioner of BLS, for some time. Mainly he was irked by the idea, of course, that she was a Biden appointee.

But also, I can tell you that even before he entered office, he was commenting and criticizing on the jobs report data and specifically the revisions that, you know, the agency would put out the data, the economic data, and then later revise it, either higher or lower, something that Trump took issue with. And that's exactly what he argued again when he spoke with CNBC just moments ago. I want you to listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Days before the election, they put out numbers that it was like the country was on fire. It was doing so well. And then they did a revision about two weeks later and the revision was down by almost 900,000 jobs. Do you remember that?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, but --

TRUMP: And I said, man, I said, what would have happened -- what would have happened if I lost? Think of it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right, but --

TRUMP: I would have said, they gave phony numbers, and then they revised them a week and a half later.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TREENE: So, all of that, that you just heard, John, is the president kind of continuing his argument that he believes some of these numbers are cooked. That it's, you know, being made political and that it -- these numbers and this data are being manipulated. I'd argue again, though, we do not have any evidence, of course, of any of that.

But I want to go to what one White House official told me, what really angered the president the most about Friday's jobs report. It wasn't just that they had showed the economy was adding fewer jobs than people had anticipated. It was the revisions down from May and June. They had put out numbers saying that the economy was doing great. They added a lot of jobs. And then said, actually, those numbers are lower.

One official -- White house official told me, quote, "that's what set him off." He said that, "the president saw the revisions and knew something was awry for it to be changed so drastically." And again, you're hearing the president now say just that when talking to CNBC.

Now, one thing I want to point out as well is that despite the president having brought up the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics previously before firing her on Friday, they didn't really have any reason to try and oust her because actually the jobs reports we saw in the early months of the Trump administration, the second term, were very good. We often saw the president himself, but also top officials here at the White House, including different economic officials, touting those numbers as proof that the president's policies were good for the economy. Of course, it wasn't until we saw this worse than expected report that ultimately the president actually moved to axe her.

And that's exactly what we heard as well, that when Sergio Gor, one of the officials in the White House Personnel Office, reminded the president that Dr. Erika McEntarfer was a Biden appointee, that's what kind of led to a lot of this. Now, John, we do know that the president has promised to announce her

replacement by the middle of this week. That's obviously in the next couple of days. Last I talked to White House officials about this, they said he does not have a name yet, but he is, of course, going to be making that decision with some of his top officials here, as well as the top officials on his economic team.

BERMAN: And just one last thing about his interview with CNBC. His timeline is wrong. It's just factually wrong. November 1st, the jobs report that came out before the election last year was a terrible jobs report. The initial report was just 12,000 jobs added. It was actually revised upwards after the election to 45,000. And that number, that 900,000 number he keeps quoting, that number came out in August before the election. It was actually $800,000 -- 800,000 jobs off for a revision from before. But his timeline is just 100 percent wrong as he's justifying this.

[09:05:02]

Alayna Treene, at the White House, thank you very much.

All right, new comments from President Trump this morning in new CNN reporting on the standoff in Texas. The state house is set to reconvene today for a second day without dozens of Democrats after Republican Governor Greg Abbott ordered civil arrest warrants for those lawmakers who fled, denying Republicans the minimum number of members they need to advance a plan to redraw the state's congressional map.

Now, if the Republicans succeed, it could have a big impact on the midterms. The plan would potentially eliminate five Democratic-held seats in the House.

And now this fight is going nationwide with a number of blue states jumping into the fray. CNN has learned that Democrats in California are in deep talks to redraw that state's map to possibly flip five Republican held seats. Sources briefed on the talks say the new maps are expected to be part of a ballot referendum in the November special election. They would have to do that in order to get it through in California. A lot of steps. And it's not easy.

Just moments ago, President Trump took new aim at California and those Texas Democrats, many of whom have fled to Illinois. This is what he just said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You notice they go to Illinois for safety, but that's all gerrymandered. California's gerrymandered. We should have many more seats in Congress in California. It's all gerrymandered. And we have an opportunity in Texas to pick up five seats. We have a really good governor, and we have good people in Texas.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: All right, let's get right to CNN's Ed Lavandera. Ground zero at the Capitol there.

What's going on, Ed?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, another few hours away from another attempt to reconvene the Texas house here today. But it's clear Democrats will not be here in Austin. So, I imagine it will be a short, brief session to once again establish that there is not a quorum of -- made up of Democrats who have fled the state. By our count, about 56 Democrats have left Texas.

But the rhetoric that you continue to hear around all of this, John, really suggests that both sides are entrenching themselves, and it's hard to see a way forward in how this is going to continue to play out, other than, you know, bare knuckles politics at this point. There are about two weeks left in this special legislative session, so Democrats would have to stay away that long to be able to kill the redistricting bill here in Texas, at least for this session. But a reminder that the governor can, once again, call special -- another special session. And we would be doing this all over again. And that is what I think many Republicans expect to happen. Republicans simply just have the votes, and Democrats say they're -- they're trying to bring attention to all of this, take their fight nationwide. And that's what Democrats say that they're -- they're doing, by leaving -- leaving Texas.

Here's one of them now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES TALARICO (D), TEXAS STATE HOUSE: Ideally, we want citizen led redistricting commissions in every state, because voters should be picking their politicians, not politicians picking their voters.

But if one side is intent on cheating, then the other side has to respond. Because I remember when I was younger and there was a bully on the playground, I figured out that you can't just lie down and play dead. You've got to look that bully in the eye and you can't blink. That's exactly what happens here. If one side cheats, all bets are off. I hope we don't get to that point.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAVANDERA: So, John, you know, the rhetoric, as I mentioned, has just been really much more intense than what we saw in 2021. You have the governor threatening to remove these lawmakers from office. Also threats of pursuing charges of -- criminal charges of bribery. And the A.G. and others suggesting that these Democrats should be arrested or, in fact, civil arrest warrants were issued yesterday. None of this is really binding or -- because these lawmakers are out of the -- out of state. So, it's not like state troopers can fly to Chicago and start arresting these lawmakers and bringing them back.

So -- but it kind of just is a sign of just how intense this political fight is right now. And it's hard to believe that it's going to change anytime soon.

John.

BERMAN: Yes, and we'll see theatrics today in Austin and Chicago, no doubt.

Ed Lavandera in Texas this morning. Thank you very much.

Jessica.

DEAN: And joining us now from Chicago is Lulu Flores, a Democratic representative from the Texas state house.

Congresswoman, thank you so much for being here with us.

I want you to walk us through what your next move is. You are there in Illinois. How long do you plan to stay?

LULU FLORES (D), TEXAS STATE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES: Yes. Hi. Good morning. We're here in Illinois, correct. And we plan to stay as long as it takes. You've just heard that the special session lasts until August 19th. That's the very least time that we expect to be out here.

DEAN: And the Texas governor has threatened $500 a day fines, threatened charges of bribery should anyone accept any help for paying for that.

[09:10:00]

There have -- your Republican colleagues have voted to have you all arrested. What do you think of all of these things? Are you concerned about them?

FLORES: Well, it certainly, you know, offsetting that the -- the governor has threatened us with felonies, though I don't know that he has anything to back that up. None of us are accepting money right now to -- at least I am not personally -- to defray any of the fines. Those are part of the house rules that we passed at the beginning of our session. And we left fully knowing that we were taking great risks. But it's important to us to save our democracy in our state and also our nation.

DEAN: And you mentioned this special session has a couple weeks left. He can call another one at will. Can you actually stop this from happening?

FLORES: Well, we are taking it a day at a time, a session at a time. We will wait to see what the governor decides to do once this special session ends. You're correct, he can call subsequent special sessions. However, the mood of the nation is, and you've heard from other states that are -- that are willing to -- to take action. So, perhaps we can reach, you know, an agreement to not do this now. There's no need to do a special session at this time. The emergency is not redistricting. The emergency is helping victims of a flood, a devastating flood, and disaster that occurred in Texas. And the Democrats want to be able to help those victims. And the governor can do that without calling a special session. So, we're calling on him to cease and desist with the redistricting and to please take care of the matters that are at hand in Texas.

DEAN: All right, Texas State Representative Lulu Flores, coming to us from Chicago, Illinois, where you plan to be for at least a couple more weeks. Thank you so much. We appreciate it.

John.

BERMAN: All right, quote, "I'm not some pawn in your political warfare." Two of Jeffrey Epstein's victims slam the Trump administration's request for grand jury testimony to be released.

Perhaps not unrelated, Attorney General Pam Bondi moving ahead with a grand jury probe into the Trump Russia investigation. The Obama officials now being targeted.

And nearly 2,000 firefighters on the front lines of a major fire out of control in southern California.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:16:30]

DEAN: In a new court filing, the Justice Department specified it wants to make public five days of grand jury testimony against Jeffrey Epstein and his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell. That came hours after two of Epstein's victims condemned the DOJ's request to unseal the testimony. In emotional letters they expressed frustration with the government's latest handling of the case. One of them wrote, quote, "I am not some pawn in your political warfare. What you have done and continue to do is eating at me day after day as you help to perpetuate this story indefinitely."

CNN legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Elliot Williams is joining us now.

Good morning, Elliot. Good to have you here.

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Good morning.

DEAN: Let's -- let's talk first with these victim statements. We are expecting more to be filed. Look, they, obviously, are expressing great pain. And they have said, look, if you're going to do this, let a third party, let our attorney go through and make sure that our names, we remain anonymous. How much does all of this play into how the judge is thinking about this?

WILLIAMS: To some extent, it will play into how the judge is thinking about it. But to be clear, Jess, grand jury materials are very rarely released. And the law is quite clear and, frankly, far clearer than it is in virtually any other area of American law as to what the rules are. Grand jury materials are really only ever released, you know, to other prosecutions or official business or to other grand juries.

Now, there might be circumstances where public interest is so great that a court might allow it, but that's few and far between. You're talking, you know, things that are 70 or 100 years old or Watergate related, you know, big, high-profile matters. This may not be it.

Now, certainly a judge can consider things like victim statements, the statements of the parties, the defendant, and so on. But the notion that any grand jury release, in any case, is going to be straightforward or easy is just -- we should get that out of our minds.

DEAN: Yes. I mean, that was my other question to you, more big picture, exactly what you're saying, which is, this is a rare thing that any judge would -- would agree to this to begin with.

WILLIAMS: Yes.

DEAN: The DOJ has to know that.

WILLIAMS: The -- DOJ certainly does know that. And to be clear, the victims here are not asking for anything unreasonable. We would expect that even in the off chance that grand jury materials were ever released that victim names would be redacted for their own protection. And, quite frankly, the names of people who were accused of crimes are investigated but not charged with crimes would also be redacted, too. It's -- you know, any release of this, of these prosecutorial materials, would be heavily limited, such that people were not unduly embarrassed by what they saw here.

So, the DOJ has to know this. They're still pushing forward, knowing full well that the law largely isn't on their side here. But you never know.

DEAN: Yes. OK. I want to talk about another issue, which is that this grand jury investigation that Pam Bondi has announced into -- looking into 2016 and the Russia investigation. I first just want to get your thoughts on if that is -- is just purely politically motivated. Is there any legal basis for this?

WILLIAMS: Well, there's always a legal basis because the standard for opening a grand jury investigation is quite low. If they think a crime has been committed, then they can certainly pursue one. But we should step back and note just the -- the sheer number of times these very allegations have been investigated. Number one, the intelligence community, which, you know, viewers don't know, that's 18 organizations, including the armed services of the United States, looked into the 2016 election and Russian interference and found an attempt by -- or intent and attempts by the Russian government and Russian actors to influence the election, right?

[09:20:16]

Then, the Senate Intelligence Committee, a bipartisan Senate committee, led at the time by current Secretary of State Marco Rubio, also found Russian involvement in the 2016 or -- 2016 election. Then John Durham, a Republican Trump appointed U.S. attorney who had been special counsel, investigated this as well and found that he could not charge anyone with crimes. And then at the end of his investigation thanked Attorney General Merrick Garland, this was Joe Biden's attorney general, for his transparency and working together in this process.

So, any number of entities, Robert Mueller, I know his name can be somewhat radioactive in these circles, but he looked into this too and couldn't charge anybody with crimes. And so where the there there is certainly remains to be seen. They can open an investigation, but this is well-trod territory and none of these -- these bipartisan or outside entities have found any wrongdoing here.

DEAN: Yes, and it's true. We should note that CNN's reported that the allegations surrounding all of this from the DNI director, Tulsi Gabbard, misrepresent what the intelligence community concluded in 2016, which is also good context as we move forward with all of this.

WILLIAMS: Yes.

DEAN: Elliot Williams, always good to see you. Thank you so much.

WILLIAMS: Thank you.

DEAN: Democratic lawmakers are under pressure to fight back as Texas looks to implement aggressively gerrymandered maps.

And wait until you see what an officer did with this alligator, once he got that alligator, oh, into his squad car.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:26:20]

BERMAN: New this morning, President Trump is defending the Republican- led effort in Texas to redraw the state's congressional map. It could potentially eliminate five Democratic-held seats in the U.S. House. The Texas state house is set to reconvene this afternoon after Republican Governor Greg Abbott ordered the arrests of Democratic lawmakers who fled to block a redistricting vote. Many of them ended up in Illinois and in other blue states.

With us now, someone who literally stood alongside those Texas Democrats, Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi, a Democrat from Illinois.

Congressman, just moments ago, President Trump was doing an interview about what's going on in Texas and he said, quote, "Republicans are entitled to five more seats in Texas." What's your response to that?

REP. RAJA KRISHNAMOORTHI (D-IL): That's ridiculous. I think that, first of all, President Trump is trying to distract attention away from the Epstein files and his mishandling of the economy and staging this episode where he's ordered Governor Abbott to essentially redraw the map and gerrymander Democrats out of the federal delegation.

But as we said yesterday to Governor Abbott, and we welcomed these legislators, don't mess with Texas. Don't mess with democracy. If you decide to gerrymander those seats, two can play that game. And other states will, and neutralize whatever the Texas Republicans do to the federal map. BERMAN: I'm not great at math, but if Texas can add five Republican

seats to their map, how many do you think you could add in Illinois? It's already 14-3, Democrats or Republican.

KRISHNAMOORTHI: I don't know, but I saw that Gavin Newsom proposed a map where five Republicans would potentially lose their seats.

Look, let's not go down this road. This is the other message to send to the Texas Republicans. If they decide to go down this road, they will be neutralized elsewhere. It would be better not to even embark on that adventure to begin with.

BERMAN: For instance, you know, J.D. Vance, "Punchbowl's" reporting, headed to Indiana, where its seven Republican, two Democrats. They think they may be able to make a map nine-zero Republicans. I mean, where does this end, Congressman? I understand the desire to fight fire with fire, but where does it end?

KRISHNAMOORTHI: I don't know. I think it -- I think the ball is in the Republican's court. Look, they know that they're going to lose the majority in the house given the president's mishandling of the economy, as well as the Epstein file debacle and so forth. I think that rather than trying to deal with those issues, they are instead trying to mess with democracy. And I think that, at this point it would be better -- it would behoove them to deal with those issues substantively and -- and try to mitigate the disaster that the large, lousy law, which they call the big, beautiful bill, is about to create as well, rather than go about trying to redraw these maps.

BERMAN: How fair do you think the Illinois congressional map is right now? As I said, you have 14 Democrats, three Republicans. Adam Kinzinger, you know, CNN political analyst, Republican, basically, you know, gerrymandered out of his district in the last redistricting maneuvers. How fair is Illinois right now?

KRISHNAMOORTHI: I don't know. I mean my -- I have an interesting shape of my own congressional district.

Look, I think that overall, if I had my druthers or others were able to control the situation, we'd have fair maps across the country, across every state, all at once. But right now, that's not the case. And so, we have to deal with reality as it is.

[09:30:00]

BERMAN: You are on the House Oversight Committee, which in theory has jurisdiction over some of the Epstein matters. Where do things stand right now