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DHS Announces Launch Of ICE Operation In Chicago; Supreme Court Allows Trump To Continue "Roving" ICE Patrols In CA; Sanctuary Cities On Alert As ICE Raids Ramp Up In Chicago & Boston; Appeals Cout Upholds $83M Verdict Against Trump In E. Jean Carroll Case; FL Surgeon General Admits Vaccine Rollback Came Without Data Review; Six Killed, Several Injured In Jerusalem Bus Stop Attack. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired September 08, 2025 - 15:00   ET

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

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[15:01:11]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Federal immigration crackdowns ramping up. The Department of Homeland Security is launching what it calls Operation Midway Blitz in Chicago, the operation set to target undocumented immigrants who have criminal records. But Chi-Town is not the only Democratic-run city bracing for raids.

And Florida's Surgeon General defending the plan to end vaccine mandates in the state. What he's now revealing about the decision, we'll discuss with one of Florida's former Surgeon Generals.

DANNY FREEMAN, CNN HOST: Plus, a legal setback for President Trump in the E. Jean Carroll defamation case. An appeals court just upheld the $83 million payment against Trump for defaming the magazine writer.

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

KEILAR: The immigration crackdown has begun in Chicago, but will the military be coming to town? That is a big question right now after the Department of Homeland Security announced it's launching an ICE operation they're calling Midway Blitz. This follows weeks of President Trump flirting with the idea of deploying the National Guard there as he did in Los Angeles. So far, that has not happened.

But earlier today, the Supreme Court handing the Trump administration a big win in California. In a six to three decision, the justices lifted restrictions that a federal judge had put in place on so-called roving patrols. This move essentially gives federal agents more free- range during immigration stops that critics have blasted as being racially motivated. Let's go to CNN's Kristen Holmes, who is live for us at the White House. Kristen, what are you learning?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna, I mean, one thing to note here, this win for President Trump is all about these immigration stops. And it's something the White House believed that they would win because they believe that they can actually do this legally, enter into these cities, if they are expanding upon a federal immigration program. That is why you have seen this kind of flirting with the idea of the National Guard in Chicago not actually come to fruition, because what they're doing first is modeling this after what we saw in Los Angeles in terms of starting with what they know they can legally do, which is expanding those federal immigration programs.

So, we're told by the White House that more of these immigration officials are on the ground in Chicago. But what happens next is really wait and see. What happened in Los Angeles is that we saw some protests that then the administration used to bring in the National Guard. The question is whether or not we see the same kind of reaction in Chicago.

We, of course, have heard from President Trump, we heard from his border czar, Tom Homan, all saying that options were on the table to bring in the National Guard, but there have been legal complications in doing so. And one of the things we've seen from President Trump is essentially him pushing these Democratic lawmakers in Illinois to invite him in, so that they have the legal authority to help, as they say, fight crime in addition to these immigration enforcement efforts that they have. This is what Trump said today, lashing out at those Democratic officials.

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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're waiting for a call from Chicago. We'll fix Chicago. And I don't know why Chicago isn't calling us, saying, please give us help. When you have, over just a short period of time, 50 murders and hundreds of people shot, and then you have a governor that stands up and says how crime is just fine, it's really crazy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: So, expect that kind of continuing lashing out at the Democratic governor there. The other thing to mention is that Homan also said that they would be targeting sanctuary cities almost as a whole across the country in the coming days and weeks. Brianna.

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KEILAR: All right, Kristen Holmes, live for us at the White House. Thank you. Danny.

FREEMAN: With us now is John Sandweg, former ICE acting director under President Obama. Thank you so much for joining us as there's so many big headlines when it comes to immigration. I'd like to start here, though. DHS blamed the Boston mayor for sanctuary city policies that, quote, "not only attract and harbor criminals, but also place these public safety threats above the interests of law-abiding American citizens."

Again, the sentiment being this is part of the reason why we have to be tough in cities like Boston. What's your perspective here? Is there evidence that, say, Boston's mayor or these policies have actually put Massachusetts public safety at risk? JOHN SANDWEG, FORMER ICE ACTING DIRECTOR UNDER PRESIDENT OBAMA: Yes,

Danny, I don't know if it's fair to blame the mayor, right? I believe a lot of these statutes are passed by city councils or the state legislature. I will say there's a little bit of both here. Clearly, the administration likes the politics, right? Wants to draw this juxtaposition, kind of argue that Democrats are protecting undocumented criminals, whereas the administration's trying to make the country safer.

From an operational perspective for ICE, you know, these sanctuary policies can be problematic, but they really differ. It's not fair to label one sanctuary policy the same as others. In some counties, there were individuals who might have serious violent criminal records that the states would not let ICE take custody of those individuals in the jails. As a result of it, ICE feels the pressure to go and do more enforcement in the streets to get those people after they are released.

Obviously, that is frustrating to ICE, but to be very clear, the administration kind of blames sanctuary - this broad brush for what's a sanctuary city, but there's a difference when you have a local chief of police come to you and say, hey, you can't arrest this person who was booked into jail for, let's say, something petty, like driving without a license. I think that is more understandable than some of the more extreme sanctuary policies where you're limited from getting people with violent criminal histories, and I think there, the administration might have a little more of a point.

FREEMAN: John, can we widen out for a bit right here, because the border czar, Tom Homan, also called sanctuary cities, as we've been discussing, problem areas. And we saw the announcement today that immigration efforts are going to ramp up in Chicago, likely, over the course of the next week.

I guess, from your perspective, what do you think the administration's goal is right here? And I just mean that to say, how can they measure success when they go into these cities and have these major enforcement actions?

SANDWEG: Dan, I think we're going to find out in Chicago, right, I'm very curious to see what tactics ICE is using. If we see what we saw in Los Angeles, which I would call indiscriminate operations, where you're hitting areas where you think you're going to find a large number of undocumented immigrants, but you have no idea in advance of, you know, getting there who those people are.

The problem with that, so like, the best way to think about that, your Home Depot parking lot. When you go hit your Home Depot parking lot, the reason the administration likes that is they can make a large number of arrests at once. The problem is you just don't find your criminals there, and you have no idea in advance if there are going to be any criminals there.

Now, if they go with one of the more targeted operations, what we saw in the beginning of the administration, and candidly, what you see ICE do during the Obama and Biden years, that is where you're now looking at, okay, we know this person was released from custody. He has a violent criminal record. He's serious. We're going to go put in the time and effort to find that single person and take them into custody.

I think if we see the administration doing the latter, those targeted operations, then I think they're serious about getting criminals off the streets. But I think if we're seeing the former, then it's political rhetoric, and really the border interest is in rounding up as many people as possible. And the problem with that, Danny, just one last thing quickly, is that while you're out there hitting that Home Depot parking lot, that dangerous criminal or that MS-13 member is still at large in the streets. No one's going after him because everyone's busy just getting these economic migrants that just don't move the needle for public safety.

FREEMAN: John Sandweg, thank you, as always, for (INAUDIBLE) and for breaking down what's going to be a very, very important and consequential week likely moving forward. Appreciate your time. Brianna.

KEILAR: A federal appeals court upheld the $83 million verdict against President Trump for defaming magazine writer E. Jean Carroll. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals said the jury award was reasonable given the evidence presented at trial. The panel of three judges cited Trump's repeated denials and public criticisms of Carroll even after the first jury found his statements were defamatory as a reason to uphold the punitive damages. CNN Correspondent Kara Scannell is following these developments.

Kara, is this the final word on the case?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is not the final word, Brianna. Donald Trump's team has 90 days before they have to decide whether they want to ask the Supreme Court to take up this appeal. Then it will be in the hands of the Supreme Court whether or not to do that.

So as for now, E. Jean Carroll cannot collect on this judgment or the prior $5 million judgment that a separate jury had awarded her and that a federal appeals court had also upheld. The issue in today's case was this $83 million judgment. $65 million of that was punitive damages. That is the aspect of it that is given by the jury to punish the defendant in the case. And in this case, this appellate court panel of three judges said that it was reasonable in part because of Donald Trump's conduct.

[15:09:59]

They wrote: "The conduct here supports a significant punitive damages award - it involved malice and deceit, caused severe emotional injury and continued at least - over at least a five-year period."

And what the court highlights here is that it was just two days after Donald Trump was found liable by the first jury that he was at a CNN town hall and repeatedly made the same statements that the jury just found to be defamatory. The court pointing out that Trump had made similar statements leading up to the second trial and even during the trial. So, that is one reason why they upheld this punitive damage award, even though it was quite large.

They also said that Trump could not assert any sort of presidential immunity here. That is something that Trump is also likely to continue to push in light of the Supreme Court's decision in that criminal case. You know, so as for now, this is still ongoing litigation. Trump had posted a $92 million bond after this verdict was reached, but it won't go to E. Jean Carroll until the final court speaks on this.

Today, Carroll's lawyer saying that this decision showed that the judges found that Carroll was telling the truth, Trump was not, and they look forward to this ending. Trump's team had said that this was a witch hunt, and they said that the Justice Department should represent Trump moving forward. That is something that the courts will have to decide. Brianna?

KEILAR: Kara Scannell, thank you so much for that report.

Still to come, Florida's top health official defending a plan to end vaccine mandates statewide, and he admits the decision was not based on data.

Plus, it is the deadliest attack in Jerusalem in two years, what we're learning after gunmen opened fire at a bus stop.

And then later, lawmakers just got their hands on the first batch of documents from Jeffrey Epstein's estate, including the infamous birthday book. We'll have that and much more coming up on CNN News Central.

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KEILAR: Florida Surgeon General is defending his push to end all immunization requirements in the state. It's a move that would make Florida the first state to end a longstanding and constitutionally upheld practice of requiring certain vaccinations for school students. He spoke with CNN's Jake Tapper yesterday about the reasoning behind the effort.

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JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Did you do any data projection of how many new cases of these diseases there will be in Florida once you remove vaccine mandates?

JOSEPH LADAPO, FLORIDA SURGEON GENERAL: Absolutely - so absolutely not.

TAPPER: So, you have not prepared hospitals in the Florida counties most at risk with the best treatments for any outbreaks of measles, mumps, rubella, whooping cough, polio, and you have not looked into how many kids might now get these preventable diseases, that's what you're saying?

LADAPO: No, no, that's what you said. What I'm saying is that it's an issue of right and wrong in terms of whether parents should be able to control, have ultimate authority over what happens to their kids' bodies. In terms of outbreaks, we do have outbreaks in Florida, just like every state, and we manage those, so there are no new special, you know, procedures that need to be made.

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KEILAR: Joining us now is former Florida Surgeon General Dr. Scott Rivkees.

Dr. Rivkees, thank you for being with us. No data projection of new cases, he says. He says it's an issue of right and wrong in terms of whether parents should be able to control what happens to their kids' bodies in terms of outbreaks. What's your reaction to that?

DR. SCOTT RIVKEES, FORMER FLORIDA SURGEON GENERAL: Yes, first, thank you so much for having me.

You know, first, this is sad for the state of Florida, not just their children. We know that schools are areas that are supposed to be safe spaces, and we know that vaccines play a very important role in terms of this. Now, you can make projections about what the risk is going to be, and before one would make such a drastic change in policy, one would think we would look at that.

There was a recent study that came out of Stanford within the past two months, which looked at what would happen if vaccine childhood vaccination rates went down by 10 percent, and the results are chilling. More than 10 million individuals are projected to get measles over the next two decades. So, for Florida, one would expect that there'd probably be 800,000 new cases, probably associated with 800 deaths just over the next 20 to 25 years alone.

KEILAR: How should Florida hospitals be preparing for this?

RIVKEES: Yes, that's a really important question. So, let's look at an example of first, you know, of what happened in Broward County, which shows what can go wrong. So, there was an outbreak in Broward County, a school of about a thousand children, that happened about a year and a half ago. There were 20 children who were not vaccinated that were exposed, and typically, you would have those children isolated at home.

Dr. Ladapo pivoted from conventional wisdom, what is conventional recommendations, and left it up to those parents to determine whether their children go back to school. And the result was that parents in the community were afraid, and 20 percent of the kids in the school, 200 kids, were kept home.

Now, they were lucky that this was a school that had a 97 percent vaccination rate, but if it was lower, down to 80 percent, the results would have been quite different. And we know that for children, when they have measles, the hospitalization rate is anywhere from 20 to 40 percent.

[15:20:02] So, in terms of what different hospitals are going to do, if the - if

outbreaks of measles are managed like they were back in Broward County, hospitals could easily become overwhelmed.

KEILAR: In that interview, Jake asked Dr. Ladapo to respond to your criticism of this policy change, and Dr. Ladapo said, the sky isn't falling in countries that don't have vaccine mandates for school, and parents are capable of making the correct decisions for their kids with information they get from pediatricians. What do you say to that?

RIVKEES: Yes, so first of all, you know, it's important to point out that most parents are in favor of vaccination, 80- to 90 percent. But even if just five, 10, 15 percent of children don't get their children vaccinated, that is enough to create enough risk in a community where you can actually see these outbreaks. The sky won't fall right away, but as rates continue to fall, we will find these areas, as we've seen over the past year, where you'll have pockets of outbreaks here and there.

I mean, just within the past year, there have been more than 30 outbreaks of measles across the United States, and predictably, we're going to end up seeing more. You know, in some school districts in Florida, the recent data from the Florida Department of Health now show that in some counties, rates of vaccination for children going to kindergarten are now less than 80 percent.

KEILAR: Yes, that is very low. Dr. Rivkees, you wrote an opinion piece for The Hill. You said, "With the CDC degraded, local and state departments of health care and academic institutions need to step up and fill the void."

We're seeing the governors of California, Washington and Oregon launching a West Coast health alliance to coordinate their vaccine guidance independent of the CDC. There are nine states that have banded together to create the NorthEast Public Health collaboration. What's the effect of having states kind of splintered off on public health?

RIVKEES: Yes, it's, you know, we're in a very difficult situation that put parents really asking themselves what do they do? You know, we've gone decades looking to the CDC as the authoritative agency for public health recommendations. And with what's happening at the CDC, both physicians, health care community really does not have confidence. So, this is why you're seeing different academic organizations like the American Academy of Pediatrics issue different recommendations.

So, now, we're hearing states end up having different policies or recommendations. And we're going to end up in a situation where we're going to have a patchwork of different policies all across this country, rather than a uniform policy. Viruses don't respect borders. And we're going to have some states where you have more cases of measles. Other states where you're going to have less cases of measles, which is going to be very unfortunate.

KEILAR: Dr. Scott Rivkees, thanks for being with us.

RIVKEES: Thank you for having me.

KEILAR: Ahead, at least six people have died, several others seriously wounded after a shooting at a Jerusalem bus stop. We'll have the latest there.

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KEILAR: Israeli officials say they have identified the two gunmen who opened fire on a Jerusalem bus stop, killing six people and injuring several others. Israeli police say the attackers, who were killed at the scene, are residents of Palestinian villages in the occupied West Bank. CNN's Jeremy Diamond is with us now from Tel Aviv.

Jeremy, what are you learning about the attack?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna, it was certainly a gruesome scene today in Jerusalem. During rush hour, these two Palestinian gunmen opening fire indiscriminately on a crowd of people who are waiting by this bus stop. At least six people were killed, more than a dozen injured, some of whom are still being treated at local hospitals.

I spoke with a paramedic on the scene who described what he found when he arrived minutes after this attack began, bodies laying on the floor, some of them in pools of blood, some even with bullet wounds to the head. When we arrived on the scene, there were still shards of glass all over the place, bullet holes in a bus that had been at the site at the time.

Now, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, he was on the scene as well and vowed that Israel would carry out a harsh response. We've already seen some of that response, as Israeli security forces began raiding the two West Bank villages from where Israeli authorities say these two attackers hailed from. Brianna.

KEILAR: And Jeremy, Israel is issuing some more evacuation orders for people living in Gaza City. The IDF or the Israeli defense minister, rather, is warning of a massive hurricane hitting Gaza City today. What can you tell us?

DIAMOND: Yes, that's right. We are seeing new leaflets, new evacuation orders being issued for people living in Gaza City. Keep in mind, this is a city where up to a million people have been housing, some of them from there, others displaced from other parts of Gaza. We've already seen tens of thousands of people make their way either out of the city or into the city center. But now that displacement is going to increase, especially as Israel is not only carrying out strikes on a series of high-rise buildings in Gaza City, but actually these strikes have been designed not just to strike at people inside of it, but to entirely level those high-rise buildings.

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