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DHS Opens Detention Facility in Indiana; Capt. Scott Safechuck is Interviewed about Fires; Forecast Not Helping Wildfires; Yankees Continue Slump. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired August 06, 2025 - 09:30   ET

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

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[09:31:04]

JESSICA DEAN, CNN ANCHOR: New this morning, after the opening of the so-called Alligator Alcatraz in Florida, the Trump administration has announced a new detention facility in Indiana.

And CNN's Priscilla Alvarez is in Washington with more on all of this.

Priscilla, what are you learning about this new detention facility?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jessica, senior Trump officials have said repeatedly that they have been in discussions with multiple states to try to replicate what they did in Florida with that Alligator Alcatraz, that makeshift facility that they mounted in a matter of weeks. Well, they want to see the same with Indiana, announcing yesterday what they are dubbing now "Speedway Slammer."

Now, in this case, they are using a structure that already exists. That would be the Miami Correctional Center. And they say that that's going to expand detention space by 1,000 beds. So, using an existing site and then adding immigrant detention at that site.

Now, we don't have any clarity yet in terms of when they would start receiving immigrants and when the facility would be ready because these centers do have to meet a certain set of standards.

But this is what Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KRISTI NOEM, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: They don't belong in this country. They never should have been allowed in under the Biden administration. And so that's what this facility is in Indiana. And we're so grateful for the partnership that we're building with governors. We've got several of these facilities that will come online soon, and it really is meeting a need that our country has to clean up our streets.

(END VIDEO CLIP) ALVAREZ: Now, we also received a statement from the Indiana governor who said, quote, "we are proud to work with President Trump and Secretary Noem as they removed the worst of the worst with this innovative partnership."

Now, the funds that the administration is using here are the funds that were provided by Congress earlier this year as part of the president's big, beautiful bill. An historic amount of funding that they can now dip into for these facilities.

When I spoke to White House Border Czar Tom Homan over the summer, he told me they want to reach 100,000 beds by the end of the year, doubling their detention capacity as it stands now. And it is these types of facilities with states that they are looking to do this with because they see it as a way to do it very quickly.

So, in this case, this week, announcing what they're calling -- going to call "Speedway Slammer" in Indiana.

Jessica.

DEAN: All right, Priscilla Alvarez with the very latest on that new facility in Indiana. Thank you so much.

John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, it is now the largest wildfire in California this year, burning more than 83,000 acres and raging out of control. This morning, we've got a look at the weather forecast for the rest of the day and week.

And then a wall of water wipes out an entire village as rescuers rush to find survivors.

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[09:38:33]

BERMAN: Firefighters in San Fernando, California, rescued a woman trapped inside a chimney. The 30 year old was found stuck about three feet down. Rescuers attached to harness to her and were able to lift her out. Now, it's unclear exactly how she got stuck there in the first place, which is kind of the big question here. She is said to be in good condition.

A wall of water slammed into a town in the Himalayas in northern India. Look at that. At least four people are dead. A search is underway for dozens of others who are missing. One top official says the flooding may have been caused by a sudden downpour of heavy rain, known as the cloudburst. You can see it has just left homes buried underneath tons of mud.

The Department of Health and Human Services has announced it is winding down development of mRNA vaccines. Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. says 22 such vaccine development investments will be cut and suggests that vaccines do not effectively protect against Covid and the flu. This despite evidence that they do work for both. Dr. Peter Hotez, with the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children's Hospital, says this decision will, quote, "promote their pseudoscience agenda and weaken our nations biosecurity."

Jessica.

DEAN: The Gifford Fire in California not even 10 percent contained right now. It's already the biggest fire of the year in that state. It has burned more than 80,000 acres in southern California. And right now, Santa Barbara County Fire Captain Scott Safechuck is joining us.

[09:40:02]

Captain Safechuck, I believe, is joining us by the phone.

Can you hear me OK?

CAPT. SCOTT SAFECHUCK, SANTA BARBARA COUNTY FIRE DEPARTMENT (via telephone): I sure can, Jessica.

DEAN: Thank you so much for being here with us.

We're looking at video as we're talking to you. I just want you to set the scene for people. It's one thing to see this on television. It's something else to be there in person. What's it like?

SAFECHUCK: Yes, well, we've been experiencing temperatures in the 90 degrees, with relative humidity below 20 percent. And we'll -- our firefighters are working in a rural part of the county, and it's -- it borders Santa Barbara County and San Luis County. And there's steep drainages. We've got the forest and the wilderness that our firefighters are working in. And it's just super steep, rugged terrain with intense fire behavior. And as it heats up throughout the day, the coastal influence recedes, which allows for that fire behavior to increase, creating columns that have so much moisture in them and so much energy that it rises up to a high altitude. And the top of that smoke column ices out, collapses down, and then increases the fire behavior that much more, and spreading it in all directions.

DEAN: Yes. And you can see by your description why this is so hard to get under control right now. The weather just not helping you at all.

And I can't help but think about earlier this year, also in southern California, in the Palisades and Altadena, firefighters, I would assume you all were -- were there as well, working absolutely overtime to keep people safe. How does this compare to that?

SAFECHUCK: It's a little bit different in nature. Where the southern California fire, such as the Palisades Fire, the Eaton Fire, they were really wind driven fires that just pushed that fire out of the vegetation and into the neighborhood. And once it gets established into the neighborhoods, under those windy conditions, it's so hard to stop it. And -- and when the wind stops, then we're able to battle that.

Where here, we're dealing with more terrain driven and wind -- and wind influence fires with a lot of old growth in those areas. So, very difficult fires to fight, just kind of different influences on them.

DEAN: That totally makes sense. And we also think about those firefighters, these heroes that are out there, your colleagues, doing incredible work. Do they have what they need? How are they holding up?

SAFECHUCK: Yes, well, we need more -- we're -- we have more firefighters coming in. We have just over 2,000 firefighters and one base camp. And the geographical, you know, the spread of this fire is so great that it takes our firefighters over an hour and a half to get to certain areas. So, we're establishing a second base camp, putting another 700 to 1,000 firefighters there with the potential of a third base camp out in New Cuyama, which would be on the north side.

So, think of north, east and west sides of the fire will have large base camps that look like mini cities.

DEAN: And so how -- what happens now? How long do you think it will take to get this under control? Obviously, you're surging your resources.

SAFECHUCK: That's right, we are surging our resources. We have competitive -- competing fires. So, we compete for resources. But this is the largest fire in the state currently. And it was just a month ago that we had the largest fire at 80,000 acres. So, we've surpassed that. And that fire was just to the east of us. So, our northeastern edge has hit that edge of the Madre Fire. So, that -- that allowed us some containment improvement. And we just keep working forward. We have more resources coming. And we'll just keep working hard on this fire.

DEAN: And last -- just quickly, do we know what started this? I know that can take a while to figure out.

SAFECHUCK: Yes. It is under investigation with our law enforcement partners under a unified command with the Forest Service, Cal Fire, California Incident Management team, which is a federal team, as well as the sheriff's department. And collectively they are working to -- to -- to solve this.

DEAN: All right, Captain Scott Safechuck, thank you. Please stay safe out there. We really appreciate your time.

And I want to bring in Derek Van Dam now in our Weather Center to walk us through the elements that they are fighting.

Derek, as we were just talking to the captain there, he really laid out just how much they are up against the weather here.

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, 100 percent. So, there's this recipe for hazardous fire weather, right? Low relative humidities, strong gusty winds, and we have increasing temperatures. And, unfortunately, that's set to continue in the days to come.

But I want to show you just how effective these firefighters are on the ground. This is some astounding video timelapse of the Gifford Fire as it approached this ridgeline. Here's the firefighters. They're creating what is known as a firebreak. It's a natural break in the vegetation to help stop the forward progress of the fire as it travels over these steep mountainsides in southern California, Santa Barbara, San Luis, Obispo County. And then as we get into the darkness of night, you can see the flames still burning out of control, out of what is now the largest fire in California so far this year. And, of course, we're just getting into the meat of the season.

[09:45:08]

So, it is a challenging, challenging situation considering that we're talking about over 80,000 acres that have been burned so far, with 9 percent containment.

But when we talk about the relative humidity levels, we want to see them upwards of 50 to even 90 percent. But right now, they're ranging from 15 to 25 percent. That's a problem considering that that low relative humidity means we have such a dry atmosphere in place.

Then you add the winds that increase and then the temperatures that increase and we have a recipe here for more explosive fire growth.

So, this is the Gifford Fire. You're looking at the evacuations map. That shading of red is actually the mandatory evacuation orders. It is by law required to evacuate that area. The evacuation warnings surrounding that. There's a lot of smoke associated with this system as well. And this is just incredible because the future forecast of this smoke has it billowing out of the Gifford Fire, moving eastward, impacting places like Las Vegas. This is what it looked like on the strip yesterday. Just that hazy, smoky residue over the Las Vegas Strip is just really saying something. Four hundred miles away from the actual fire.

So, the heat, not getting any better this week. In fact, the hazardous fire weather conditions will continue and get elevated as we go forward in time.

Jessica.

DEAN: Yes, just really telling to see how far that smoke has traveled.

Derek Van Dam, thank you so much.

John.

BERMAN: All right, well, we don't see the Kraken here, but, look, the unlikely face-off between a team mascot and a real life bear.

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[09:51:28]

BERMAN: All right. Come with me. I need to show you something. That says "Yankees Slump." I wasn't sure that this was real, but I double checked it to make sure. The New York Yankees lost again.

Let's get right to CNN's Andy Scholes with the latest on this. Andy, that can't be right. Just two hits. They just got two hits

against a great Red Sox, former Red Sox pitcher, Native Ali, last night?

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Berman, the Yankees fans, they're down bad right now. And you are certainly not helping. They've been playing some bad baseball over the summer. You know, since the middle of June, they're just 18 and 29. They went from first place in the division. They're all the way down to third now. They're just barely hanging on to that last playoff spot in the American League.

Now, they did finally get their superstar, Aaron Judge, back Tuesday after he missed more than a week with that elbow strain, but looked a little rusty. Went 0-3, two strikeouts in his return. The Yankees, as you mentioned, two hits all night. Rangers starter Nathan Eovaldi just continuing his incredible season. He went eight innings, gave up just one hit, struck out six. He's got a Major League best, 1.38 ERA. Rangers, they shut out the Yankees 2-0 as the losing streak now grows to five for New York.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AARON JUDGE, 2024 AMERICAN LEAGUE MVP: We got to take care of this. We got to look ourselves in the mirror. You know, it starts with each individual on their own. We've got to say, hey, I got to step up. I got to be better. And, you know, enough's enough.

AARON BOONE, NEW YORK YANKEES MANAGER: I remain confident in this group. But, you know, we continue to say that. And we got to start making it happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: All right, Arizona, meanwhile, new Padres reliever Mason Miller was throwing absolute heat against the Diamondbacks. He's the hardest thrower in baseball. And Lourdes Gurriel was able to foul off two pitches that were clocked at 104 miles per hour. But then he timed one up and unloaded on it. The last 104 mile per hour pitch, the fastest pitch ever homered off of since pitch tracking began back in 2008. Gurriel actually hit two home runs in that game, but the Padres still won 10-5 in 11 innings.

All right, in the NFL, rookie Shadeur Sanders is expected to start the Browns' first preseason game on Friday. According to ESPN, the fifth round pick is slated to start with both third round pick Dillon Gabriel and Kenny Pickett dealing with hamstring injuries. The Browns also have veteran Joe Flacco, but this is his 18th season, so he doesn't necessarily need the preseason reps. Sanders noticeably fell -- notably fell in the draft, but immediately going to get his chance to impress when the Browns play the Panthers.

ESPN, meanwhile, announcing a landmark deal with the NFL to acquire the NFL Network and The Redzone Channel. So, in return, the NFL is going to get a 10 percent equity stake in ESPN. The NFL Network will be integrated into ESPN's upcoming direct to consumer streaming product, and will continue to be available on traditional pay TV providers. The agreement is subject to approval from the owners and government regulators.

All right, and, finally, who would win a match between a blue troll and a brown bear? We almost got our answer. Seattle Kraken mascot Buoy was on a promotional video shoot with forward John Hayden. And this part of the video, they were fly fishing at Katmai National Park when a brown bear saw them. And the brown bear must not like blue trolls because he just came charging at Buoy at one point. And here's what Hayden had to say about the whole encounter.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

: I want to blame it on Buoy. They were pretty interested in his -- his whole look. So, we got out of it OK, but it was -- it was a close call.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[09:55:00]

SCHOLES: Yes, bears very common in the park there in Alaska, and the group did have guides with them for safety.

But, guys, you know, props to them for remaining calm because that's what you're supposed to do apparently when a brown bear starts charging at you, because if you run away, it might trigger like a predatory response. But, yes, I don't know, what would you guys do? I don't know if I'd remain that calm.

DEAN: I know there's different protocol with black bear, brown bear, and I can't ever remember which one it is. One of them you get big with, and the other one I think you play dead.

SCHOLES: Yes, I think it's brown. Yes.

BERMAN: I have one protocol with bears when I'm with other people, it's that I don't have to be faster than the bear --

DEAN: Yes.

BERMAN: I just have to be faster than you. That's -- that's my -- that's my protocol.

DEAN: Or in that case, Buoy.

BERMAN: Yes. I mean that mascot didn't look so tough. All of a sudden that mascot didn't look so tough anymore, Andy.

DEAN: No. No.

SCHOLES: I'm wondering what his face -- his face was under that mask --

DEAN: That thing pounced --

SCHOLES: As the bear was charging right at him.

DEAN: Yes. OK, well --

BERMAN: All right, Andy Scholes, I have to say, thank you so much for delivering all that news. And I am really sorry to hear about the Yankees and that losing streak.

DEAN: Very sad.

BERMAN: Very sad.

DEAN: (INAUDIBLE).

BERMAN: Jessica Dean, thank you so much for being here.

DEAN: Thanks for having me. Always a pleasure.

BERMAN: I would absolutely not run away that fast if we were with a bear.

DEAN: Sure.

BERMAN: I'd make sure you're OK, probably.

DEAN: I believe you.

BERMAN: All right, thank you for joining us. This has been CNN NEWS CENTRAL. "THE SITUATION ROOM," up next.

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