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Interview With State Rep. Nate Schatzline (R-TX); Trump DOJ Targets New York Attorney General; Israel Plans Takeover of Gaza. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired August 08, 2025 - 13:00   ET

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

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BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Warnings of a new catastrophe, Israel approving a plan to take control of Gaza City. The plan provoking global condemnations and defiance on the ground from Palestinians, who refuse to accept new evacuation orders.

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN HOST: And security surge. The White House ramps up its use of federal law enforcement to fight crime in Washington, D.C. That's despite statistics showing a sharp drop in violent crime in the nation's capital.

And a trailblazer in Major League Baseball. A woman is about to make history as the first female umpire in a regular season game.

We're following these major developing stories and so much more all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

KEILAR: New explosions pounding Gaza today just hours after Israel's Security Cabinet announced a controversial plan to expand military operations and seize control of the enclave's largest city.

Israeli Defense Forces are already advancing that intention, which calls for the full evacuation of Gaza City by October 7, according to sources. The desperate humanitarian situation is growing more dire by the hour, social media video showing a balcony collapsing as Palestinians in Gaza City race to collect airdropped aid that was caught on the roof of a building.

It's unclear how many were injured in this incident. Gaza's Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital says that fuel supplies are so low they may only be running for a few more hours. Hamas calls Israel's takeover plans a full-fledged war crime.

It's also already drawing intense backlash internationally and internally across Israel, protesters taking to the streets of the Israeli cities there, as Prime Minister Netanyahu and his Cabinet met behind closed doors. The father of one hostage still in Gaza says that Netanyahu prefers the hostages dead because it's going to make it easier for him to "go brute force on the Gaza Strip, bomb everything."

CNN's Matthew Chance is in Jerusalem.

Matthew, this is a major escalation in this war, but Israel's plan is stopping short of taking control long term of the entire Gaza Strip, as Netanyahu said was his intention. He doesn't appear to have support internationally for this escalation. How is this playing out?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CHIEF GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, international support, Brianna, definitely very low indeed, to say the least.

The Germans, who are strong supporters these days of Israel, have basically said they're not going to be supplying weapons to Israel anymore if they're going to be used in Gaza. And so that's a big blow diplomatically, from a European point of view.

But, internally, inside Israel, there's so much opposition to this. The vast majority of Israelis are categorically against the idea there's going to be a further escalation of the war in Gaza. People here are exhausted by the nearly two years of conflict that they have been subjected to already.

The military is against it, essentially. Reserve soldiers are utterly shattered and exhausted. And so it's coming amid this really kind of negative backdrop. There's only one real group in Israel that is for this. And these are the right-wing extreme politicians that form a part, an important part, of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister's, political coalition.

They have been pushing hard for a stronger hand in Gaza for a complete capture of the Gaza Strip, even staying publicly that they want to establish Jewish settlements there in the future and essentially kick out the Palestinian population.

It's so important for Netanyahu, if he wants to stay in power, to maintain the support of those small coalition parties. And, so, many Israelis who are against Netanyahu are saying, look, this just shows that this is a political decision to escalate the war in Gaza, to keep those coalition partners onside, but it's not necessary.

What should be done, many Israelis say, is to strike a deal as soon as possible with Hamas and to get their hostages -- and there are 50 hostages, remember, still being held in Gaza -- to get those hostages back home. -- Brianna.

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KEILAR: Matthew Chance, thank you so much live for us from Jerusalem.

WHITFIELD: All right, let's talk now about the reality of Israel's plans.

We're joined by Elise Labott. She's an Edward R. Murrow press fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, the host of Cosmopolitics on Substack, and a former global affairs correspondent for CNN. And also with us, CNN military analyst retired Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton.

Great to see both of you.

KEILAR: That's right.

And as we're looking at this, Cedric, the Security Cabinet approving this plan to take over Gaza City, what does that even look like? And what can fighting really achieve at this point if you look at what the objectives are?

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes, Brianna, this is a really difficult time for the Israeli military, for the Israeli Defense Forces, because what they're looking at is an environment where there basically have been all the targets that they needed to get, for the most part, have been eliminated.

What you're looking at here is, in essence, a series of events that have eliminated about 90 percent of the buildings, the standing structures, in Gaza itself. So people have no place to live. Then, when you want to remove them from places like Gaza City, which this plan calls for, you're going to have to force them back into the southern areas.

Those southern areas are areas that have had significant difficulties when it comes to sustaining people, providing them with food, water, all of the requisite health care needs. All of that is basically gone. The infrastructure has disappeared. So the Israeli army is going to have a really difficult time positioning itself.

From a military perspective, they're also going to have a difficult time fighting Hamas forces that remain in those areas. And that is going to create basically a quagmire for them, and that's the big danger here.

WHITFIELD: Elise, what ever happened to the long-term plan of handing over Gaza to Arab states?

ELISE LABOTT, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: Well, this is the rub here.

This was all conditional upon some kind of cease-fire, a long-term vision for Gaza, what we have been speaking about forever, this political horizon, that the Arab states would help contribute forces, help the Palestinian government, which is still defunct and corrupt, and there's really no viable Palestinian government.

But they were going to help reform the P.A. and get them to stand in. And then Arabs would kind of help patrol and give aid. No Arab state -- and I have talked to a lot of Arab diplomats in recent days -- is going to go in under the -- behind the barrel of an Israeli gun.

So Benjamin Netanyahu is saying, oh, we're going to hand it over to Arabs. That's not happening. That's a nonstarter. And that's one of the reasons, among the reasons that Cedric is talking about which is why this is so unpopular, guys, with the Israeli national security establishment. There is nobody in Mossad, in the national security establishment in

Israel, the military. This is very unpopular, and obviously it's unpopular among the Israeli public.

WHITFIELD: And among Israeli citizens too...

LABOTT: Exactly.

WHITFIELD: ... who are concerned about the fate of the hostages. What's the plan for them?

LABOTT: That they will be killed, that they will be starved further...

WHITFIELD: Right.

LABOTT: ... that they will be some friendly fire. They have killed a few in the past.

And so nobody thinks that this -- the Israeli National Security Cabinet came up with five principles that they're trying to do. None of them are really going to be viable under this plan.

And so everyone's wondering, why is he doing it?

LEIGHTON: Well, and the other thing is, when you look at this, as Elise was mentioning, one of the key problems with the hostages is, you have to -- if you're going to mount a rescue operation, for example, that has to be handled in a very compartmented, very secretive fashion.

You don't bring conventional forces into a place where hostages are being held, and to hope to rescue them. If they are rescued, that's going to be a perchance kind of situation. That's going to be happenstance.

WHITFIELD: Except it's already happening.

LEIGHTON: Well, it's happening in the sense, yes, they're moving those forces in, and that's going to make it much harder if the Israeli military wants to, in essence, mount an operation to release the hostages, the remaining hostages. It's going to make it much more difficult to do that.

LABOTT: And then there's the aid situation, right? The Israelis are saying there's no starvation. And a lot of Israelis question, why are we responsible? They attacked us on October 7. Why are we responsible for feeding them?

And they say that, look, anybody with eyes can see what's going on the ground. Even if the numbers are exaggerated, even if the definition of what starvation is exaggerated, anybody with eyes can see the pictures on the ground now. Israel left Gaza in 2005. They were not -- no longer the occupying power. They go in now.

Everyone remembers Colin Powell during the Iraq War, the Pottery Barn rule. You break it, you bought it. Israel will be 100 percent responsible for the feeding of all those Palestinians. I think this is, as Cedric said, a quagmire they don't want.

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KEILAR: Why doesn't the Israeli military's perspective here hold more sway, because they're in such disagreement?

This was a very fiery Cabinet meeting. These are the leaders who are leading the charge. We're seeing the suicide rate skyrocket among members of the IDF.

LEIGHTON: Yes, absolutely, Brianna.

And I think the key problem is, is that the political considerations that Netanyahu is experiencing, they are overriding the military considerations. They are breaking the Israeli military by doing this. And that's going to be something that is going to create a huge, huge problem for the Israeli military going forward.

They performed really well when they were meeting their objectives just from a tactical military perspective. They killed Hamas leadership. They killed off Hezbollah leadership. They, of course, were successful defending themselves against Iran. All of those things are critical components and show what the Israeli military and the intelligence forces, the intelligence and the Israeli security agencies can do.

But the problem is if you take, if you hollow out the force, you are going to create problems where you won't be able to defend the country in the future. And the political leadership in Israel is not thinking about the future.

LABOTT: And then there's the West Bank. There's a lot of violence going on in the West Bank. Is that the next thing? When you hear these members of the Cabinet, the more extreme members of the Cabinet talking about, this is our opportunity, the Israeli military just doesn't believe in this.

And they're beaten down. They're exhausted. I don't think Israel can handle it if there's an intifada in the West Bank or something like that.

KEILAR: Elise Labott, Cedric Leighton, thank you so much for your perspectives. Really appreciate your insight.

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KEILAR: The Justice Department is opening an investigation into New York Attorney General Letitia James' office.

It's part of a criminal investigation into the president's longtime adversary. And it's the latest example of the administration targeting the president's perceived enemies.

WHITFIELD: CNN correspondent Brynn Gingras joins us now with the latest.

Brynn, what have you just heard from James' office?

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Fred, well, and Brianna, this isn't just one investigation into James. Now this is the second that we know of.

And we know from sources telling our Kara Scannell that there is a grand jury convened in Albany, and that is what obviously issued those subpoenas looking into whether or not James' office violated Trump or his sons or his businesses' constitutional rights when investigating ahead of that civil lawsuit that we, of course, followed for several months.

Back in 2022, she issued the lawsuit. Remember, that was a civil trial where James' office accused Trump Organization and his sons of inflating their assets in order to basically get financial gain. That was a lawsuit that she won.

I mean, Trump's had to pay back now about half-a-billion dollars, when you take into interest into fact, and that is something that they're appealing. So it certainly does look like this is going after James for that civil lawsuit that was filed and won.

Now, I do want to read a lengthy statement from James' attorney talking about the weaponization of the DOJ in this instance, saying: "Investigating the fraud case Attorney General James won against President Trump and his businesses has to be the most blatant and desperate example of this administration's carrying out the president's political retribution campaign.

"Weaponizing the Department of Justice to try to punish an elected official for doing her job is an attack on the rule of law and a dangerous escalation by this administration. If prosecutors carry out this improper tactic and are genuinely interested in the truth, we are ready and waiting with the facts and law."

Now, we did reach out to the DOJ. They do decline to comment. It's important to know we're not really clear what stage this is with the grand jury, but certainly does appear things are moving forward with the subpoenas being issued.

KEILAR: Yes, raising a lot of questions.

Brynn Gingras, thank you so much.

And still to come: Want your paycheck? Show up in person. That's the message to Democrats in the Statehouse in Texas. Republican lawmakers are using direct deposit to try to force them to return to the state.

Plus, President Trump has ordered a surge of federal law enforcement to D.C. to combat what he says is -- quote -- "totally out-of-control crime," even though crime data has actually dipped in D.C.

WHITFIELD: And later: A woman will make Major League Baseball history this weekend. Meet the female umpire set to make her historic debut.

Stay with CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

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KEILAR: Democrats in Texas who left the state to block Republicans from picking up five congressional seats in a GOP redrawn map now have less than one hour to return or face expulsion.

Texas' attorney general says, if they aren't there when the Statehouse gavels in today, he's going to move to vacate their seats. Earlier, the direct deposits of their paychecks were also suspended, meaning, if they don't show up, they don't get paid. And with arrest warrants already filed, Republican Governor Greg Abbott may soon raise the stakes even higher.

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GOV. GREG ABBOTT (R-TX): You know, what I'm thinking now is, if they don't start showing up, I may start expanding. We may make it six or seven or eight new seats we're going to be adding on the Republican side.

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KEILAR: We're joined now by Republican Texas State Representative Nate Schatzline.

Thank you so much for being with us, Representative.

One of your Democratic colleagues says that the Democrats have actually agreed to stay away for another two weeks. There's going to be another vote here shortly. What does the vote achieve, knowing that it appears there is going to be a break of the quorum?

STATE REP. NATE SCHATZLINE (R-TX): Yes, well, Brianna, it's -- I'm honored to be on. Thank you for having me on.

And we're in a precarious situation right now. We have got Kerr County flooding that took place. We're trying to get disaster relief passed. We also have veterans being taxed out of their homes here in the state of Texas, skyrocketing property taxes that are putting young families to where they can't afford to live in our state anymore.

And here we have the Democrats who have fled town. They have abandoned Texas and they have gone to party with Governor Pritzker, instead of giving us an opportunity to actually do the work of the people. And so you're right. In less than an hour, we will be joining the House floor.

It's a 50/50 up in the air right now, whether we're going to have a quorum. I think we were six short earlier this week when we tried to gavel in. But my message to the Democrats is, come back home so we can give the relief that Kerr County desperately needs and that the -- excuse me -- and that our constituents, the property tax relief that they're begging for, I mean, all across the state. It's bipartisan.

KEILAR: Yes, I mean, this is very much about the redistricting, as you're aware.

Your Republican House colleague Mitch Little told me earlier this week when talking about Democrats who are actually staying in Texas as they break the quorum that -- quote -- "We intend to go out and retrieve them."

What are you actually doing to get them, to go out and retrieve them?

SCHATZLINE: Sure.

So we have talked to Texas DPS. I know these are civil warrants, and so it's not criminal. And so what we're looking at is, we're going to do whatever it takes to get them back. Look, the reality is, is that the accusations made by the Democrats and these very far left governors, such as Gavin Newsom in California and in New York, they have already gerrymandered their states to the level to where Republicans are not represented within their congressional maps.

I mean, good lord, we have got Massachusetts. Not one Republican is represented in the congressional delegation, and they have over 400,000 people who voted for President Trump. And then we have got Chicago and Illinois; 45 percent of the vote went towards President Trump, and 15 percent of the congressional delegation is Republican.

And so, as we're seeing these threats from our other Democrat states, they're saying, hey, we're going to redistrict. And our Texas House colleagues on the Democrats side are saying, hey, you know what? We're not...

KEILAR: Well, California is an independent commission, as you're aware, and there's so many votes at stake there. That's a huge state.

SCHATZLINE: Sure. Sure.

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SCHATZLINE: Absolutely, Brianna.

KEILAR: Do you...

SCHATZLINE: And what I'm pointing out is that we have an opportunity to redistrict in a really special way to give real representation to the people of Texas. And our Democrat colleagues are denying not just the redistricting efforts, but they're denying disaster relief and they're denying property tax relief.

KEILAR: Do you think that energizing Democratic voters who are looking at your efforts for redistricting, and also by supporting immigration policies that may turn off Latino voters, when it seems that the Republican calculus on this redistricting map appears to be that the Latino voters that you have made gains with will stay with you, could force you Republicans to actually pay political costs for redistricting?

SCHATZLINE: I'm going to tell you this right now. And I hope this goes directly on the record is, I know that the nation wants for us to have strong borders, by and large.

Amongst the Hispanic population, we see that they want secure borders. They want public safety. We have had enough fentanyl come across our southern border to kill every man, woman and child in the state of Texas alone. And so when we're talking about border policies that we have passed, I think the deportation efforts we're seeing from Tom Homan and the Trump administration is just getting started.

I'm not at all concerned about that harming us in the election. I actually think people want safe streets. I think people want us to crack down on drug trafficking, on human trafficking and making sure that we don't have another invasion that we saw under the Biden border invasion.

And so when we're looking at this next election cycle, what we're really looking at is, we're looking at an attempt to make sure that we don't have our great president, Donald J. Trump, impeached, which we know the Democrats have already claimed that that's what they want to do. We want to make sure that that America first agenda first can get across the...

KEILAR: Let me get back to that issue of safety that you brought up, because it is clear that is what voters voted for.

But President Trump promised to deport the worst of the worst, the rapists, the murderers, the gang members, the criminals. ICE is now disproportionately, when you look at the percentages, targeting undocumented immigrants with no criminal record at Home Depots, on farms, military spouses, parents of Marines.

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That is not necessarily what voters were looking for.

SCHATZLINE: So I can only speak to what's going on here in Texas and the laws that we pass.

And the laws that we pass right now, our 287(g) program that we just passed, which mandates that all sheriff's departments and counties -- it's when criminal illegal aliens come into the jail that we're doing these deportations. That's what we're focused on here in Texas, because you're right.

I think, by and large, in America, we're looking at a situation where we have violent illegal aliens. Look at Jocelyn Nungaray, the horrific story. And that happened right here at home in Texas. And so what we're focused on is getting criminal illegal aliens not just off the street, but out of our country.

And I think Tom Homan is doing a fantastic job. I think he's been tasked with a near-impossible mission to clean up the efforts of what was really just an open border. And I think what everyone can agree with is open border policy is pro-human trafficking policy. Open border policy is pro-drug trafficking policy. And I don't think Americans are for that.

KEILAR: Texas State Representative Nate Schatzline, thank you so much for being with us.

SCHATZLINE: Thank you, Brianna.

KEILAR: And still to come: President Trump following through with his threat to order federal law enforcement to patrol Washington, D.C., streets.

The move's impact, the president's motives and the questions they're raising -- right after this.

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