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Netanyahu Urges Full Conquest of Gaza with No Ceasefire in Sight; Gifford Fire Grows to 82K Acres, California's Largest this Year; National Weather Service to Refill 450 Positions Cut by DOGE. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired August 05, 2025 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: With ceasefire talks in Gaza stalled, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with his security cabinet for several hours today in an effort to push for a full military conquest of the enclave and Hamas.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: There's also growing outrage in Israel after Hamas released propaganda videos of emaciated hostages. Many hostage families, though, are urging the government not to escalate the war, fearing that could be a death sentence for their loved ones.

And in Gaza, scenes of desperation and hunger as crowds race for aid and food as the humanitarian crisis there deepens.

Let's discuss these developments with retired Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton. He's a CNN military analyst. Also with us, Kirsten Fontenrose. She's a former senior director for the Gulf at the National Security Council.

Colonel, what is the end game here for Netanyahu?

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes, that's a really good question, Boris, because if he goes into Gaza in a kind of conquering mode and basically taking over the entire territory. What we're going to end up with is Israel being mired in this conflict for a really long period of time, possibly for the foreseeable future.

This is something that the Israelis really don't want to do.

[15:35:00]

They should be paying attention to the kinds of things that happened to the U.S. during Iraq and Afghanistan, and also just look at other histories, you know, of the Israelis before they were able to do some of the things that they did in terms of decapitating the leadership of organizations like Hamas, like Hezbollah, and getting lucky with Syria.

So those are the kinds of things that they have to really watch out for. This is dangerous territory for the Israelis.

What it could look like is a prolonged conflict that will really tax their resources, manpower, financial resources, their military resources in general. So it's a very difficult thing for them to deal with.

KEILAR: And Kirsten, talk a little bit about the objective here with the hostages and what may actually be doable, because the Hostage Family Forum is warning the government against expanding the military campaign. They say, quote, Netanyahu is preparing the greatest deception of all. The repeated claims of freeing hostages through military victory are a lie and a public fraud.

Help us understand the reality of the situation.

KIRSTEN FONTENROSE, FORMER SR. DIRECTOR FOR THE GULF, NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL: You're asking the big key question, what is actually doable? Israel will say that in order to ensure there are not future hostages and in order to ensure that any hostages come out alive, they will need to continue military operations because they do not believe it is Hamas's intent to release any of them either alive or to release them before they have guaranteed that their future is secure in terms of having a role in the governance of Gaza. Which means in the future, any Israeli is a potential hostage again.

So we have a question about what is possible militarily versus what does it look like in the future in terms of Hamas's intent?

SANCHEZ: I wonder, Kirsten, with the scenario that Colonel Leighton painted of this being insurgent warfare and a drain on Israel, not only militarily, but I imagine economically as well. What does that mean for the United States based on the ironclad agreement between Trump and Netanyahu and other supporters of Israel that the U.S. would back Netanyahu and the IDF?

FONTENROSE: It likely means that regardless of things that we're seeing right now, for instance, Senate resolutions and draft that will call for cutting off military support to the Israelis, you won't see those happen. President Trump is greenlighting little activities that put a little bit of pressure on the Israeli government. He hasn't come out against many of the governments that have said they will recognize a Palestinian state, for instance.

I believe he finds it useful for some of that political pressure to come from other corners, but not the U.S. And as long as Hamas does not say we pledge to no longer pose a threat to the state of Israel, and as long as they insist on continuing their own military operations, and as long as Israel is able to convince this administration and the American people that they do pose what might be an existential threat in the future, two years, four years, 20 years down the line, you will not see the U.S. cut off that kind of assistance to Israel.

KEILAR: I wonder, you know, Cedric, it seems like Israel, even as they are looking for this offensive, they've done so much when it comes to Hamas, Hezbollah, and really hitting these proxies so hard. What realistically more can they do?

LEIGHTON: Well, that's the problem. They've basically, Brianna, run out of targets. And from a military perspective, yes, it's very possible that an element of Hamas will come up and will try to do some kind of attack against Israeli forces, but it's not going to be like what they had back in October, on October 7th of 2023. It's going to be something quite different and much smaller in all likelihood.

So what the Israelis really should be doing here in this particular case is take the win. They have done a tremendous amount of work in terms of decimating Hamas, Hezbollah, and other proxy groups.

In essence, what they've done is they have made Iran a non-player in a large part of the Middle East, which is also a very significant achievement. They should consolidate those gains and move forward that way. If they do this with Gaza that they're planning to do, if they actually plan to continue military operations at an extensive level in Gaza, what they risk doing is undermining all of the other work that they've done.

And if they do that, their diplomatic efforts in the rest of the Middle East, such as peace with Saudi Arabia, all of that is going to go away.

SANCHEZ: Colonel Cedric Leighton, Kirsten Fontenrose, thank you both for the perspective.

Evacuations are currently underway in California, where a fast-moving wildfire has just become the largest in the state this year. It is almost completely uncontained.

We have the latest details in just a few minutes.

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KEILAR: Happening now, firefighters in California are desperately trying to contain the Gifford Fire, which has exploded in size to become the state's largest wildfire this year. The blaze has already scorched through more than 82,000 acres. It's only 7 percent contained right now, and evacuation orders are still in place for both Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties.

Officials say that three people at this point have been injured and nearly 900 homes are currently at risk.

Meteorologist Derek Van Dam is tracking the latest here. All right, Derek, tell us about the conditions and what firefighters are facing right now.

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, Brianna, it's hot, dry, and windy conditions, so this is only going to make the containment efforts on the ground that much more challenging, especially going forward. And the weather forecast doesn't really play along in helping extinguish the flames. Check this out.

You're looking at satellite view of the fire. When it was exploding in size with this explosive fire growth, consuming over a football field's worth of acreage every two seconds. That was this past weekend.

[15:45:03]

And you can just see the fire ring, the outer perimeter of the Gifford fire here, encompassing now two separate -- parts of two separate counties, and now has surpassed the largest wildfire in California so far this year.

So talking about the conditions on the ground. It's challenging. We only have 7 percent containment. That has actually notably gone up since this morning's update. So that's a bit of good news, but it's going to be difficult going forward.

Here's a look at the evacuation map. So everything in yellow is an evacuation warning, meaning it's suggested that you leave. This shading of red, that's an evacuation order.

And this is the acreage that has burned so far with the Gifford fire, right? Santa Maria just to our west. So we've got San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties encompassing both of these evacuation areas.

And what they're concerned about is the southern progression of the fire. The winds will relax overnight but pick up again through the course of the morning hours tomorrow. And we're talking about bone dry conditions, the never-ending drought it seems like across the southwestern U.S. This is playing into this recipe for fire danger across this region, and so is the increasing heat and the low relative humidity. All of these are the ingredients you need for wildfire to spread the way that we've seen it.

So check out the temperatures increasing for many of these locations. And of course, we can't talk about wildfire without talking about the quality of the air in and around the wildfire.

There's a lot of smoke billowing out of the Gifford fire right now, among other fires over the western U.S. But talking about the Gifford fire in particular, look at all the moderate to hazardous air quality alerts that are in place over southwestern portions of the country. Going forward, this is the forecast from the smoke model that we have, and you can see it just extending into the southwest basin.

And I want to point out Las Vegas here. This is what it looked like on the ground over the past 24 hours. You see that thick haze over the horizon? That's smoke from the Gifford fire over 400 miles away.

Here's another perspective. The strip, we all are familiar with this. And that is what it looked like downtown Las Vegas here within the past 24 hours. So the smoke from a far distant wildfire has made its way into populated places like Las Vegas as well.

Very familiar along the east coast, we have wildfire smoke from Canadian fires that we've been talking about too as well -- Brianna.

KEILAR: Driving everyone into the casinos, no doubt there.

VAN DAM: Yes. KEILAR: Derek Van Dam, thank you so much. We'll be keeping an eye on that fire.

Next did DOGE cuts go too far, a sign they did? How hundreds of people are suddenly being hired back in a very specific field.

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KEILAR: The National Weather Service has been given permission to hire some 450 experts, which would in effect reverse those DOGE cuts that were ordered by the Trump administration earlier this year.

SANCHEZ: Those cuts raise concerns about how well-prepared any given community could be when a major storm hits the Central Texas flood, serving as a tragic example.

Rene Marsh has been tracking DOGE's work from the start. Rene, obviously this is a big deal.

RENE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it certainly is. I mean, the National Weather Service had lost more than 550 positions in the aftermath of DOGE. And that included people who were fired, as well as those who resigned, opting to take the administration's buyout offer.

And now this hiring spree that the National Weather Service is on would recover a large portion of that. We're talking about 450 positions. They're looking to fill positions like meteorologists, hydrologists, scientists who study flooding, radar technicians.

But we're not going too far by saying this is yet another example of the Trump administration have to essentially go back and undo something that we saw DOGE do. So a lot of these positions had been wiped out, and now the agency is finding that they have to rehire.

KEILAR: They could have just not canned all these people, right? Because some of them aren't going to come back, I'm sure of that. As they bring on new people, isn't there a bit of a learning curve in the middle of a hurricane season?

MARSH: Yes, I mean, it's also not a stretch to say that this is happening late. I mean, we are seeing hurricane season really ramp up and heat up.

And you know, a lot of career employees within the agency, they're really just scratching their heads. Many of them speaking to CNN's Andrew Friedman and saying, what did we just do? We just let go all of these people, and now we have to rehire them.

And what the agency is saying is that we are bringing back positions. That doesn't necessarily mean that they have to rehire everyone that they let go. So that also means we're going to have to have a couple of months of, if you have a new employee, new training, that comes at a cost. Again, the inefficiency of the situation here where lots were let go, they're now having to bring these individuals back. And to your point, we have weather events like Texas, and we are right in the middle of hurricane season.

SANCHEZ: Do we know whether the flooding there had an impact on this decision directly?

MARSH: We know that when these cuts at the agency happen, it certainly sparked concerns about preparedness. Even lawmakers saying, wait a minute, does this mean that my 24-7 forecast office, there's no guarantees that it will be open? So there was certainly an outcry and concern on the local level.

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But then when Texas happened, this deadly flooding event, I think it really punctuated the concerns about what these cuts at the National Weather Service could mean as far as the impact for if we ever do and when we ever do have another event like Texas, would the agency be prepared? So it certainly played a role.

SANCHEZ: Rene Marsh, thank you so much. Stay with CNN. We'll be right back.

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KEILAR: Well, it seems that music star Chappell Roan could soon make people H-O-T-T-O-G-O, and my producer made me do that. You don't even know what it means, Boris.

SANCHEZ: I think you did YMCA wrong.

KEILAR: To Canada. That's pretty much what happened. In her latest single, The Subway, Roan singles out one province as a place to go.

If you need a remedy for heartbreak, here's a little sample.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHAPPELL ROAN, SINGER: I'm movin' to Saskatchewan

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: There's so much happening that I don't understand right now. Saskatchewan, so hot.

KEILAR: So hot.

SANCHEZ: So hot right now. Tourism Saskatchewan is already launching a marketing campaign based off of this song that I've never heard. Check out the tourism board's website where it says, from vintage dance halls to starlit prairie escapes. Here's how five iconic Chappell Roan tracks map perfectly onto unforgettable Saskatchewan destinations. I admit, I truly still don't understand what's happening.

KEILAR: We're going to Saskatchewan.

SANCHEZ: We'll check out Saskatchewan.

KEILAR: After "THE ARENA" with Kasie Hunt. It starts right now.

END