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Trump Vows To "Go Other Places" After D.C. Police Crackdown; Soon: Texas Senate Expected To Pass Trump-Backed Map Favoring GOP; FBI Conducts Search At John Bolton's Home. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired August 22, 2025 - 07:30   ET

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

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[07:30:38]

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DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And we're going to then go on to other places. But we're going to stay here for a while. We want to make this absolutely perfect. This is our capital, and I guess it used to be, many years ago, safe -- but it's certainly not had a very good run. And you've got to be strong, and you've got to be tough, and you've got to do your job. Whatever it takes to do your job, you've got to do your job.

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KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: President Trump took to the streets of Washington, D.C. to thank federal agents and National Guard troops who have been carrying out his orders to take over the local police department there in Washington and handing out hamburgers and pizza to say -- to show his appreciation. And also posting on social media overnight -- in part, saying, "Washington, D.C. is safe again."

D.C.'s mayor, though, has pushed back on that assertion saying that crime has been on the decline and going down for two years now thanks to the work of the existing D.C. police department. The White House though also offered an update saying that hundreds of arrests have been made since National Guard troops and other agencies flooded D.C. streets. And as you heard, the president says he's warning other cities they could be next.

Joining me right now is CNN senior law enforcement analyst and former deputy director of the FBI, Andrew McCabe. Andy, on the issue of the president saying that he's going to expand this, can he expand this? I mean, how hard would it be for him to use this D.C. blueprint elsewhere?

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST, FORMER DEPUTY DIRECTOR, FBI (via Webex by Cisco): Yeah. So I guess the short answer to your question Kate is can he, yes, because we know -- we have the memory of Los Angeles. Will it be the same? It will not be the same in D.C. So D.C. is totally unique. It is, of course, not a state. The way D.C.

is organized it has to basically endure an enormous amount of congressional oversight and it's essentially a -- you know, a city created by federal authority.

So the president's ability to basically federalize law enforcement and bring in more federal agents and then, of course, bring in the troops is pretty easy to do. He has the power to do that as he has for a limited period of time. It's 30 days at the end of that period. To extend the effort he'd have to have Congress pass a law, which is I think highly unlikely.

Now, the rest of the country is entirely different. He would have to rely on his Article II authority and claim some sort of like a national security emergency that demanded the deployment of troops.

BOLDUAN: It's -- the president has been saying -- suggests very clearly that this D.C. deployment, at the very least, is going to continue. He's already talked about wanting to ask Congress for the extensions that he would -- that would be required.

Which that has me wondering if you -- if you accept -- or you have to accept the premise that FBI agents that are on the ground and have been doing patrols with D.C. police -- if you accept that they are being pulled and will stay -- pulled from their regular posts and reassigned to help with this takeover for some time -- how long is too long for your -- for your old office? I mean, when do you think you would see clear signs of a negative impact of FBI -- on FBI work due to this reassignment of agents?

MCCABE: Well, I'm quite sure that the FBI is seeing that negative impact already. And so really for any period of time that the FBI is not doing what the FBI is supposed to be doing -- not exercising its unique investigative authority, not pursuing its very unique mission of protecting the country from terrorist attacks and understanding what foreign agents and spies are trying to steal from us every day around the capital and in other cities, no one else is doing that work.

So every day the FBI is taken away from that work, we are less safe. We're less -- and the FBI is less effective in protecting us. So that's already happening and the idea that might get maybe expanded into other cities or dragged out for some period of time -- unknown period of time in D.C. really kind of elevates that risk. And I think it's something that people should be concerned about.

BOLDUAN: Yeah.

Andy, it's good to see you. Thank you so much -- John.

[07:35:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. We're standing by as Texas lawmakers are set to vote as soon as this morning to approve this new congressional map there, which would make it easier for Republicans perhaps to pick up five House seats in the state in the midterm elections. That's Texas.

In California, voters will now have a say on Governor Gavin Newsom's redistricting plan after state lawmakers there approved it. They think they can pick up five or six seats. Governor Newsom says it would neutralize the Texas situation.

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GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM, (D) CALIFORNIA: He is failing. He recognized that and that's why he made a phone call to Greg Abbott asking for five seats. He can't win by playing by traditional sets of rules. He plays by no rules. I remind you all the time it's not the rule of law; it's the rule of Don -- and we're standing up to that. We're responding to that.

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BERMAN: Let's get right to CNN's Arlette Saenz in Austin, in Texas, where this could take really the final steps over the next several hours.

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, it really could, John. Texas Republicans could vote in just a matter of hours on that redistricting bill, finalizing that new congressional map that was backed by President Donald Trump and really kicked off this redistricting race across the country.

California Governor Gavin Newsom had explicitly said his state would respond, trying to find -- draw up five more Democratic-leaning seats in order to counteract what Texas has done. And the California Democrats did take those steps yesterday to approve bills to start that process.

Now, unlike Texas where lawmakers can push this through on their own, this will have to be considered by California voters, and Gavin Newsom has set November 4 as the date for that election. What will happen here is voters will have to decide whether they are willing to suspend the state constitution, which requires an independent redistricting commission to draw lines.

But the fight is not far from over. At this point we are expecting a multimillion-dollar campaign from both sides. Democrats and supporters of the redistricting bill in California trying to mobilize their voters. Then you'll have Republicans -- former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger coming out against the redistricting, and former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy saying that he is willing to help a group raise money to try to turn out Republican voters against this measure.

But really, this could just be the very start of the redistricting fight that we're seeing. There are a host of Republican states who are weighing whether they should also seek measures to try to redraw their congressional maps -- places from Indiana to Ohio, to Missouri. But -- so there's still a lot that Republicans are considering and some Democratic governors, like Kathy Hochul in New York, have said that they will try to pursue potential redistricting or see what their options are. Now here in Texas the impacts of these new congressional maps that

will be approved very soon are already being felt.

Congressman Lloyd Doggett, who has represented this Austin area for 30 years -- he announced yesterday that he would not seek reelection if the courts uphold these maps. That's because a neighboring district that spans from Austin to San Antonio -- the 37th district represented by Greg Casar -- that's essentially been eliminated. And Casar had indicated he would run in Doggett's primary. That would have set up a very bruising primary fight. So his announcement could potentially stave off that from happening.

But in just a matter of hours these Texas Republicans could act to make these congressional maps a reality.

BERMAN: All right, Arlette Saenz in Austin monitoring the situation there. Arlette, thank you very much.

With us now is former Biden White House director of message planning Meghan Hays, and CNN senior political commentator David Urban.

And friends, I want to shift gears here because both Axios and The New York Times picked up on a new study from Pew Research, which found that between January and June of this year the immigrant population in the United States -- and that's both legal and illegal -- the foreign- born population dropped by 1.5 million, down from 53.5 million to 51.9 million -- a drop of 1.5 million, David.

Talk to me about the political significance of that.

DAVID URBAN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST, FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN ADVISER: Well John, I would say that you used to be able to just say those folks would be voting for the Democrats but this president, Donald Trump, has made huge inroads in a lot of those immigrant communities and working-class families across America. So I don't think it breaks neatly down or amongst Democrat or Republican lines. It is a -- it's a different story and that's -- and that's the benefit of what Donald Trump has done for the Republican Party.

When you're looking at these redistricting -- these new that are going to be done and the redistricting in Texas, there's a big gamble that Hispanics and Latinos will continue to vote for Republicans like they did in these past elections. And so it is incumbent upon Republicans and Donald Trump, and others that if you're going to redraw these districts you really have to go after those voters in those kind of border states and those swing districts that are populated heavily by minorities.

[07:40:10]

BERMAN: You went a different way with that than I thought you would. What I thought David was going to lean into, Meghan, is promises made, promises kept by President Trump. If the immigration population in the United States, both illegal and legal, is going down that's what he campaigned on.

Does this show, Meghan, that he is or has been effective?

MEGHAN HAYS, FORMER WHITE HOUSE DIRECTOR OF MESSAGE PLANNING, DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION CONSULTANT: I think he's effective very -- he is very effective in immigration, and I think that was one of his promises that he made early on.

But I think that to the rest of the American people and what's really going to plague him into the midterms is he hasn't lowered the cost of anything. The costs are still rising. The tariffs now are bringing costs even higher for everyday people who are just looking at how much they are paying in groceries and how much they're paying for their housing, and they have no money at the end of the month.

And those are the issues that I think are really going to plague Donald Trump and the Republican Party heading into the midterms.

BERMAN: It is interesting. There was an article -- I think it was in The New York Times where they went to the southern border and talked to some Hispanic voters there who did vote for Donald Trump. And they said they're not going to next time because of the economy and inflation -- some of them in that article. So you do see exactly what issues may be swaying things going forward.

URBAN: Yeah. John? Yeah.

BERMAN: Go ahead.

URBAN: I was just going to say that Meghan does make a good point. The kitchen table issues are the most important, but I do think that we're going to see the impact of the tax cuts maybe made permanent. If you look at the numbers across America, those in the $50,000 or below are big winners in terms of what's going to actually be in their pocketbooks.

In the state of Pennsylvania, for example, the average -- the average taxpayer is going to save about close to $4,000 because of this --

BERMAN: Yeah.

URBAN: -- these tax cuts being made permanent. And that's real money. If you're making $50,000 a year, you're saving $4,000 additionally. That's almost a 10 percent increase in your -- in your pay overall -- and Donald Trump is going to get credit for that.

BERMAN: Yeah, and that's the messaging that Republicans haven't been leaning into with this plan all along, and they feel like they need to now, which is why J.D. Vance is out giving new speeches reframing this giant legislation in ways that mirror what David was just saying there.

On the subject of J.D. Vance, Meghan, I want to play for you what he says -- he said to President Zelenskyy of Ukraine who is trying to wage war against Russia who invaded his country. Listen to what J.D. Vance said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) J.D. VANCE, (R) VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: President Zelenskyy walked into the Oval Office. I was chatting with him with the president and with some of the senior Ukrainian delegation. I said, "Mr. President, so long as you behave, I won't say anything." And he just chuckled a little bit and it was a good little icebreaker.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So telling Zelenskyy -- again, whose country has been invaded -- that he needs to behave, Meghan. What do you think about that?

HAYS: Yeah. I mean, this is just disgraceful on the world stage, right? This is not how you should treat diplomats coming into our country and to leaders of other countries coming into our country, especially ones that did not start a war.

And it just resignifies that they are -- they realize that they are being played by Putin. They don't have a way out of this.

BERMAN: Yeah.

HAYS: Putin could stop this war at any moment. He is the one who invaded Ukraine. Zelenskyy had nothing to do with this.

BERMAN: Yeah.

HAYS: He is defending his country and defending his land and his people. And I think it is disgraceful that the United States would even put any sort of laughing matter or joking with -- Vance joking with Zelenskyy in the Oval or outside the Oval for that matter.

BERMAN: David, before you jump in -- before you jump in --

URBAN: Come on -- come on, Meghan -- come on -- yeah.

BERMAN: Hang on. David, David, David, hang on.

URBAN: Yeah.

BERMAN: Hang on. Hang on. We've got some breaking news --

URBAN: OK.

BERMAN: -- that I actually think both of you are going to want to hear.

So let me get to Katelyn Polantz who is in Washington with information about an FBI raid at the home of former ambassador John Bolton who was just with us yesterday.

BOLDUAN: Yeah, yesterday. He was on the show yesterday.

BERMAN: OK. So Katelyn, tell us what's going on here.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well John, we have confirmed here at CNN that the FBI has conducted a court- authorized search of John Bolton's home. He was a top official for Donald Trump previously -- someone who has been in many Republican administrations related to national security issues.

This search now, court-authorized, is part of a national security investigation and there have been FBI personnel that are seen near Bolton's home. CNN was able to reach him, and he said he was unaware of this FBI activity, and he was looking into it further. So we don't have much more right now on what exactly this is.

But may I remind you that there was quite an intense political and legal standoff between Donald Trump and John Bolton after he left the White House in the first Trump administration.

There was a criminal inquiry around John Bolton's book, which was highly critical of Donald Trump and his handling of national security information at that time. That situation -- there was a lawsuit where the Justice Department tried to prevent John Bolton from publishing that book or having it made public. And on top of that, John, there was a grand jury investigation that led to no charges against John Bolton at that time.

[07:45:00]

This -- big question marks of what it is. Is there any possibility this could be looking at similar things? John Bolton has not been in government since he left that first Trump administration and instead has been out there as a very critical public voice of Donald Trump.

Lots of questions of what's going on here but that, indeed, is pictures of the FBI personnel seen near John Bolton's home this morning.

BERMAN: Let me preface this by saying again, we don't know what this raid was for exactly. We don't know what information they were speak -- they were seeking.

You say a national security investigation. We do know from the book the first time around that was a discussion about whether or not he revealed information that was classified that he should not have.

Often, investigations like this pertain to the retention of documents that could be classified, Katelyn. And I don't know if it's ironic or not, but we will remember that President Trump himself was under serious investigation, if not indictment, for the possession of said documents.

Is there -- is there a possible parallel here?

POLANTZ: I mean, we just don't know until we know a little bit more about what could be investigated here. And sometimes at this stage when there would be an FBI search, you're not going to know anything at all if there's grand jury activity because it is secret pre- indictment. So we're going to try and learn more about what the --

BERMAN: Yeah. POLANTZ: -- Department of Justice and what the FBI may be doing here. What has been authorized by a federal court to have a search conducted in Maryland.

But that issues of John Bolton and classified material back when he wrote his book -- it was looked at very closely. Had he revealed anything? And he had very good lawyers at that time. They argued against the administration in many different ways that he had gone through the proper channels.

And even if Donald Trump didn't like it -- didn't like what Bolton said in that book about him -- it's essentially accusing him of carelessly handling national security information in the first presidency -- it was not something that resulted in any criminal charges.

BERMAN: All right, Katelyn. Stand by if you will or go pick up the phone and find out what more you can. Digging as we speak because this is developing before our eyes.

Kate, I think you have got some (INAUDIBLE).

BOLDUAN: And as Katelyn continues to dig, former deputy director of the FBI Andy McCabe is back with us. Andy, thanks for jumping back on.

You reaction to this news -- a court-authorized FBI raid of John Bolton's home.

MCCABE: Yeah. Well, it's really stunning. I mean, I don't think -- I don't think many people saw this one coming.

But -- so let's level set exactly why the FBI is there. Now, of course, we don't have the substance of what it is they're --

BOLDUAN: Right.

MCCABE: -- investigating but we know that if they're at his home he's got -- they have to have a federal search warrant, which means they went in front of a federal court -- a U.S. judge and presented probable cause that evidence of a crime exists in that location.

There's absolutely nothing I think publicly known about allegations of criminal activity against John Bolton. We know he's been involved in disputes with the former Trump administration over whether or not he had improperly had classified information in his book. So I think that's logically something that I think -- people think of as a possibility here.

But we really don't know yet because we haven't and likely will not see the affidavit that supports that search warrant. Typically those affidavits are not made public until after and only if someone is charged publicly and indicted.

BOLDUAN: And Andy, I mean, to remind everyone -- I mean, anyone who watches the program will know this very clearly because, I mean, Bolton was on just this week talking to us -- that since he has left the administration, in the book that he wrote about the first Trump administration called "The Room Where It Happened" and since, he has been a very vocal critic of the president and his policies kind of up and down. And he is -- and Donald Trump has gone after John Bolton on social media many a time. So there is quite a bit of animosity between these two people outside of the work that they did together.

What -- how -- what can -- John Bolton was called by CNN and said that he's not entirely sure what's going on and he was going to look into it himself. What do you expect is the first thing that we are going to learn about this, likely hearing it from Bolton himself, I assume?

MCCABE: Well, yeah. I mean, I think it's -- that's probably the likely first source of information. I have absolutely no doubt that Mr. Bolton will have very good counsel and they will attack this in a full-throated and complete way, as they should, right?

[07:50:00]

So we know that Mr. Bolton has said critical things about the president. That's not illegal. That's not a crime. That's pretty squarely within your First Amendment right in this country. And, in fact, you shouldn't be -- you're not supposed to be. The Department of Justice and the FBI have all kinds of policies absolutely prohibiting investigating people for the exercise of their First Amendment rights.

And so if that's what's going on here -- and there's all kinds of reasons to believe that might be the true motivation. We know that the president has embarked on a pretty extensive effort to go after his perceived enemies. To -- you know, the infamous revenge tours.

BOLDUAN: He said he was running on retribution -- yeah.

MCCABE: That's right. I am your retribution is what he told his supporters.

So there's all kinds of reasons, I think, to think -- to look at this with a jaundiced eye and to be aware of the fact that there is more than just the probable cause articulated in this search warrant. There is this very fraught relationship between the two and the president's history of going after people using the levers of power that he has access to, particularly the Department of Justice, to go after people he doesn't like.

BOLDUAN: Well, and real quick --

MCCABE: And that is something that every American should be really concerned about.

BOLDUAN: Sorry, Andy. How high -- you talked about, you know, the court -- this was a court-authorized raid. How high is the bar to getting before what needs to be presented to a judge to get this authorization to go in?

MCCABE: It's -- you know, it's not as high of a bar as what's necessary to prove a case -- you know, an indicted case in criminal court. The burden is probable cause, right? BOLDUAN: Um-hum.

MCCABE: So it's typically thought of as 51 percent. Just enough to convince a judge that there is reason to believe that there's evidence of a crime on that property or in the place that's described in the warrant that will be searched.

Overturning that warrant, it's likely Mr. Bolton will attack that warrant and will claim that it was actually sought for improper motive and that maybe the probable cause was insufficient. That's a little tougher mountain to climb because courts are pretty deferential to those line-level judges who make these decisions about probable cause kind of in the moment.

But at the end of the day if there is no evidence there this search will turn out to be just a performative political act and not actually significant to an ongoing investigation and it may not get them any closer to a criminal charge. So we'll have to really watch it closely.

BOLDUAN: And this is all unfolding as we speak and there is much more to learn.

Andy, thank you so much.

To bring everyone up to date, according to a person familiar with the matter, the FBI has conducted a court-authorized search of Donald Trump's former national security adviser John Bolton's home this morning.

BERMAN: And just to remind people of something that has just happened in the last week between the two men.

BOLDUAN: Yeah.

BERMAN: John Bolton said that Vladimir Putin won --

BOLDUAN: Yeah.

BERMAN: -- in the Alaska summit. And President Trump called John Bolton a fired loser. And then days later this FBI search of John Bolton's home.

We're going to have much more on this as it's developing at this moment. Stay with us.

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[07:57:45]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BERMAN: All right, this is the breaking news this morning. We learned just moments ago, according to a source, that the FBI conducted a court-authorized search at the home of John Bolton as part of a national security investigation. John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, former

national security adviser under the first Trump administration, a frequent critic of late of President Trump. A frequent vocal critic of President Trump. And President Trump has been a frequent vocal critic of John Bolton. Lots of bad blood between these two men.

But again, learning that there is a court-authorized FBI search at John Bolton's home this morning.

Let's bring in CNN's Katelyn Polantz for the very latest on this. We saw pictures of officers around the home of John Bolton. What's known at this time?

POLANTZ: Well John, we are looking at these pictures of John Bolton's home in Maryland being searched by the FBI or FBI officials going to his door to conduct a search. And we have confirmed that the FBI conducted that court-authorized search, meaning that they would have gone to a court as part of a very likely criminal probe.

Our understanding is this is part of a national security investigation. Exactly what that would be and what sort of reasoning the Justice Department and the FBI would give the court for conducting that national security search still a huge question here.

But this is a person that Donald Trump has been very much on the outs with since he wrote a book about his service in the first Trump administration when John Bolton was the national security adviser to President Donald Trump. At that time Trump was very unhappy that Bolton was talking about things that Trump did that made Trump look very bad publicly. Ways that Trump himself handled other foreign leaders, national security, classified issues.

And Trump, at that time back in 2020, was saying that John Bolton should face criminal problems for allegedly publishing classified information. Trump was saying that any conversation with him was classified and thus, none of it should have been able to be revealed in John Bolton's book.