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Jessie Fuentes is Interviewed about Chicago; Polls on Trump; Supreme Court to Weigh Conversation Therapy Case; Ruby Chen is Interviewed about Two Years Since October 7th; Rebecca Stephens is Interviewed about Stranded Hikers on Everest. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired October 07, 2025 - 08:30   ET

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

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[08:32:15]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking overnight, President Trump's push to deploy troops to blue states now pitting governor versus governor. And Trump is now floating the idea of using the Insurrection Act if courts try to stop him from sending in troops.

Let's show you an image now from Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott, who posted this showing National Guard troops from his state boarding a military aircraft headed for Chicago. J.B. Pritzker, the Democratic governor of Illinois, says those Texas troops are headed to Chicago, where protesters have been clashing with ICE agents. The administration launched an immigration crackdown in the city last month, and ICE has been ramping up some pretty harsh tactics in the streets and homes and courthouses and in hospitals it turns out where we saw this encounter recorded on a cell phone. It shows a Chicago alderwoman trying to advocate for someone who was arrested by ICE and injured himself. And then she herself, you see there, was handcuffed by ICE agents and arrest was threatened.

And that Chicago alderperson, Jessie Fuentes, joins me right now.

Thank you so much for being here Miss Fuentes.

Why were you detained by ICE? Did you learn whether you were detained? And were you actually arrested or no?

JESSIE FUENTES, CHICAGO ALDERPERSON, 26TH WARD: No. I was not arrested. I was detained momentarily.

I was called by the hospital leadership, who had expressed real concern for ICE agents being in the hospital, scaring individuals that were in the emergency room that were there for medical care, and staff members who were also extremely concerned with the type of environment that would be created with ICE agents in the emergency room.

I was detained for simply asking a question, if they had a signed judicial warrant to detain the individual that was in the room. And they could not produce that. But, more importantly, they met me with violence in a moment in which I was not impeding on an arrest. I was not trying to speak to the patient. And I was not physically touching any of the agents.

But this is typical pattern for ICE agents in the city of Chicago. We see it with them arresting individuals who are working, who are citizens, taking children out unclothed with zip ties on sidewalks in the middle of the night, then harassing individuals, teargassing them in the middle of the street. This is typical behavior that we have to address.

SIDNER: What are you going to do about it? After you faced this type of behavior, and you're saying, you know, the reports of children being taken out of their beds, American citizens also being swept up in all this where it's, you know, detain and then ask questions later, what are you going to do about it?

FUENTES: Well, I think we need to be able to leverage every single tool that we have in our possession, utilizing legislative tools like Mayor Brandon Johnson did yesterday, and signing an executive order that bans ICE agents from city assets.

[08:35:08]

We are also fighting this in the courts. J.B. Pritzker, our governor, along with many other elected officials, filed a lawsuit that we will hear from a judge in their verdict on Thursday. We need to be able to document what is happening in this moment. It's extremely important that while individuals are exercising their First Amendment rights peacefully, that they are also documenting the atrocities that we are seeing in our neighborhood. It is going to be this documentation that allows us to see this other side. But more importantly, not allow the narrative that Trump and his administration is putting out that this is about safety. It's not. This has been about control and instilling fear and trying to silence dissent in the city of Chicago.

SIDNER: Let me ask you about this picture that was posted by the Texas governor of National Guard troops heading to an aircraft, which your governor says that aircraft is heading to Chicago. Plus, Trump also authorized 300 Illinois guard members to Chicago to what, he says, protect federal officers and assets. He's calling Chicago a war zone. So is the DHS secretary. Do you think federal agents need protection from protesters there?

FUENTES: No, I think that we need protection from federal agents. And that has been extremely evident in the raids and the sort of violence that we have been seeing in Chicago and the Chicagoland area. There's (ph) just a video that's going viral yesterday of the same agent who arrested me also physically assaulting a woman in Waukegan. We do not need the National Guard here.

Look, in the city of Chicago, our violence has gone down. We are safer in the city of Chicago than we have been in decades. What we have been doing and the investments that we have been making in safety and security at the local level is working. What Trump is doing is a federal overreach. It's an erosion of due process. And the National Guard is not welcome here. And we will continue to fight that in the courts. SIDNER: Let me ask you about what the Department of Homeland Security

has said. They -- they sent this out and put this on their website, that they have arrested 800 illegal aliens, as they put it. Here's what it says, including violent criminals convicted of rape and assault during their raids so far in Chicago. What do you say to the argument that they make that these raids are making the city safer?

FUENTES: Well, we know that the raids are not making the city safer. We know that it's instilling fear in our communities. It is destroying the culture of our commercial corridors. And it is causing havoc.

There is a way to do immigration enforcement that is not a violation of individual's constitutional rights. They are picking up people without signed judicial warrants. They are picking up U.S. citizens who are also being picked up because they are Latino and Spanish speaking. They are taking out black individuals out of their homes in the middle of the night in a military-style raid. They are landing helicopters on buildings and rappelling down from these buildings.

This is not how you do immigration enforcement. This is a violation of people's constitutional rights. People are being abused in the process. The individual that's in the hospital at Humboldt Park Health, where I was handcuffed by the ICE agents, has a shattered leg as a result for the way ICE agents have conducted their activity in the city of Chicago.

SIDNER: Jessie Fuentes, I do appreciate you taking the time. I know things are very busy there in your particular area. Really appreciate you taking the time. I'm glad to see you're all right this morning.

All right, over to you, Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: So, from tariffs to immigration crackdowns, as the topic was just there, President Trump has spent the first eight months of his presidency making good on some of his campaign promises. So, what do voters think about it, and how could this impact midterm elections -- the midterm elections to come?

Harry Enten is crunching the numbers on this one. He's here with us now.

Harry, it's been almost one year since the election. How are voters feeling right now about the president?

HARRY ENTEN, CNN CHIEF DATA ANALYST: You know, sometimes I think it's worth taking that 35,000 vote view. And as far as the American people are concerned, Trump could be better known as steady Eddie.

What are we talking about here? Well, why don't we take a look here. Favorable view of Donald Trump. You know, you go back to October of 2024, 44 percent of the American public viewed him favorably. Now, despite everything, look at this, 43 percent, which is well within the margin of error of that 44 percent. And here's the thing to keep in mind. This was good enough to get Trump reelected back in 2024. And Donald Trump is basically at the same point here right now, which I think would surprise a lot of folks, especially a lot of folks on the left, who very much disagree with a lot of what Donald Trump has done.

BOLDUAN: Well, what do you see is underneath that and driving that? Why is he basically the same?

ENTEN: OK. You know, to quote the esteemed scholar (ph), Dennis Green, the former head coach in the National Football League, Donald Trump is who the voters thought he was. What are we talking about here? Well, is Trump doing what he promised in the 2024 campaign?

[08:40:01]

Yes, 52 percent, the majority of Americans say that Donald Trump is doing what he promised, compared to 48 percent who said no. So, what essentially is going on here is the voters expected all of this from Donald Trump, the majority did, and that is why his favorable rating, simply put, has not really moved all that much compared to where it was a year ago. Trump is basically doing what the American people thought that he was going to do. Indeed, if you look at the numbers, Trump has basically the steadiest favorable rating this much through a presidency of any president on record. And it's basically where he was a year ago. Good enough to get him reelected.

BOLDUAN: So, then what is -- what are you seeing as how this is impacting midterms?

ENTEN: Yes. OK. So, one of the questions we basically had as we've gone on through the numbers, right, is that Democrats have not been able to run away with it. And now we know it's basically because Donald Trump is where he thought he was, which was good enough for the Republicans to maintain control of the House last time around. Look at this, the race for Congress, Dems versus Republican margin. You look at "The New York Times" poll, it was tied a year ago at this point. Now it's Democrats plus two, within the margin of error. Look at Yahoo/YouGov. It was plus three Democrats at this point a year ago. Now it's plus four. Maybe the Democrats have gained a little bit, but in reality, Kate, what we're really seeing is that the American public is pretty much steady. They are basically where they were a year ago at this point. Maybe Democrats can take control of the House where the polling is right now, but maybe not, because the bottom line is, we've seen numbers fairly similar to what we have right now. We had it a year ago, and it was not good enough for Democrats to take control.

The bottom line is this, as long as Donald Trump is where he is, Republicans will, in fact, remain competitive. If they, in fact, gain a little bit, it really would not be that surprising to me if Republicans were able to maintain control of the House, especially given their redistricting efforts in many of those states.

BOLDUAN: Fascinating. It's a -- it's a really good look, Harry. Thank you so much.

ENTEN: Thank you, Kate.

BOLDUAN: John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, happening this morning, the Supreme Court set to begin hearing arguments on a case centered around conversion therapy for minors. This is a free speech challenge to a Colorado law that prohibits licensed counselors from practicing this so-called therapy on gay and transgender youth.

CNN chief Supreme Court analyst Joan Biskupic joins us now.

This is the -- one of the most closely watched cases, at least this week, before the court.

JOAN BISKUPIC, CNN CHIEF SUPREME COURT ANALYST: That's right, John. Good to see you.

You know, increasingly, disputes over LGBTQ rights are coming before the justices. Just last session, we had the case from Tennessee involving state efforts to ban puberty blockers, hormones, other medical care for trans youths. And the Supreme Court upheld those bans.

This time it's a law coming from Colorado and blue states, as opposed to red states last time, that says that it would prohibit licensed mental health care counselors from engaging in what's known as conversion therapy. And that's encouraging trans and gay youth to change their -- their sexual orientation or their gender identity. And in this case -- because Colorado and many medical experts say that that's a dangerous practice, that it's -- it's a kind of substandard care that could actually hurt young people.

But a woman by the name of Kaley Chiles, who's a licensed therapist in Colorado, has sued, saying that that law violates her free speech rights because she wants to engage in what she calls talk therapy and try to talk to young people who are gay or trans about their gender identity, about their sexual orientation. And she -- she describes herself in the legal filings as someone who's a practicing Christian, who believes in God's design, and also, you know, encourages people to hold on to their -- their biological sexual orientation.

Now, she lost in lower courts, John, and the lower appellate court went with Colorado saying, this is -- this is kind of akin to a medical malpractice law. This is regulating conduct. What Ms. Chiles says is -- this is just about speech. This is a First Amendment case. But she's lost and appealing today. And I think she probably has a good chance with this court that tends to believe in pretty wide First Amendment rights and has sided with the challengers to these LGBTQ rights cases, John.

BERMAN: We will learn a lot based on the questions they ask.

BISKUPIC: Yes.

BERMAN: Whether it is about speech or conduct.

Joan Biskupic, in Washington for us, thank you so much.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, still ahead, see what happens when a server jumps in to help as a customer begins choking and can't breathe.

Plus, hundreds of people stuck on Mr. Everest after a surprise blizzard dumps feet of snow. What they're experiencing after days of being stranded. We talk to a woman who has summited Everest about the conditions.

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[08:48:58]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: At this hour, peace talks are underway in Egypt. A second day of peace talks. Key negotiators from Israel, Hamas and the U.S. are meeting to discuss President Trump's 20-point plan to end the war in Gaza. All of it happening exactly two years after Hamas launched the horrific October 7th terror attacks on Israel. Attacks that killed 1,200 people in Israel on that day two years ago, 250 people were taken hostage by Hamas. Of the 48 who remain in Gaza now, just 20 are still believed to be alive.

Joining me right now is Ruby Chen, his son, Itay, is the youngest U.S. hostage -- American hostages taken by Hamas.

Ruby, it is good to see your face on this day, and it's good again to see the images of Itay right there with you.

How are you feeling today on this horrible anniversary, first and foremost? I mean where is your heart and your head at this moment?

RUBY CHEN, SON ITAY CHEN TAKEN HOSTAGE BY HAMAS: Yes, it's a very complex thing. It's been 732 days since I last saw and talked to my son.

[08:50:00]

We had a lot of thoughts. Where would be the place to be? We actually thought about being in Washington. Maybe even jumping to Cairo. But we thought that, you know, being with family, with all the other families here in Tel Aviv made the most sense for us.

BOLDUAN: Yes. You know, President Trump had said yesterday, the way he put it is that he thinks that Hamas is agreeing to things that are very important. And he says, I really think we will get a deal done. After two years, and so much talk of talks, does this time feel different for you?

CHEN: It does a bit. You know, two weeks ago the president came with his peace plan at the U.N. And we also saw the involvement of Mr. Jared Kushner, who was successful in the past in building a international coalition with Arab states to create the Abraham Accords. So, him and Mr. Witkoff there now, as we speak, I think they landed in Cairo.

But on the other hand, Kate, I'll share, in May, when Edan Alexander, the U.S. citizen from Tenafly (ph) came out, you know, we had high hopes that Mr. Witkoff would be able to bring out all of the U.S. citizens. And when he met us, you know, he took me and my wife aside, and he looked us in the eye and he said, you know, I apologize, it just wasn't your time.

And we pray to God that, you know, Mr. Witkoff now in -- in Cairo, that it is our time and that it is our time to be reunited with our son after two long years.

BOLDUAN: Yes. And I think that your voice today is one of the most important. I mean what -- what is most -- what do you want to make sure and what do you want those negotiators, Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, all of those involved, what do you want everyone negotiating this right now, this time, to hear from you?

CHEN: Yes, so the fact that the president was able to convince the mediators to frontload the release of the hostages is, you know, indeed what we want to see. I'll share maybe another incident that we were in Doha, in Qatar, in January, at the beginning of the year. And, you know, we were in front of Brett McGurk at the time at the Four Seasons Hotel. And I asked him, like, you know, why is it that the deal that is happening with those hostages coming out, how is it that all of the U.S. citizens are not part of the first phase of the deal? And he promised to me and said, look, if we have the first phase, we're going to get your kid out in the second phase. And we know that happened.

And Mr. Trump, he's been very focused on America first policy, which includes prioritizing the release of U.S. citizens from wherever it might not (ph) be. Just last week we saw a U.S. citizen that was released in Afghanistan, that was held by the Taliban. And I pray to God, and what I want the president and his team to know, that this time all of the U.S. citizens, you know, they need to come out. And it can't wait for a second phase or whatever it might not be.

I think after two years as a U.S. taxpayer, I think it's time for the administration, as it has in the past, emphasizes the U.S. citizens that are still in captivity, including my son, the youngest U.S. citizen that was taken out of the 12 hostages initially. And I just would also like to remind you that out of those 1,200 people that were killed by Hamas, 47 of them were U.S. citizens. And that, you know, also those people are seeking justice as well.

BOLDUAN: Your son, Itay he was killed and abducted by Hamas on October 7th. What will it mean to have Itay back to you, even if it also does mean planning a funeral?

CHEN: So, you know, we still have some hope, actually, Kate. What we notified is based on intelligence. There was nothing physical associated to the data that we got. So, you know, you could always think maybe there was a doctor, maybe he got to a hospital, maybe something, you know, it's still possible. At least that's how we -- that's what keeps me and my wife getting up in the morning.

And even if we are going to get the bad news and -- and that's what's going to be waiting for us. For us, it's very important to remove that doubt. And he is no less of a hostage, even if that is the case, than any other one. And for us it is extremely important to get him back and be able to have that closure on that anyone should have, especially my son, again as a U.S. citizen that was on the battlefield and he protected a lot of people, saved a lot of lives, that I think is the dignity that he deserves and the one that I, as a father, needs to -- to provide him.

[08:55:19]

That's kind of like how we see it.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely.

Ruby Chen, thank you very much for coming on, any day, but especially on a very, very hard day and tragic anniversary like this. We really appreciate it.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, thank you, Kate.

Right now, rescuers are racing to evacuate hikers trapped high on Mr. Everest. Heavy snow buried campsites and blocked trails on the mountain's eastern slope over the weekend. That's on the Tibetan side. So far, nearly 350 people have finally been able to -- to get out, brought to safety, while more than 200 are still waiting for help. One hiker telling CNN, she and others used cooking pots to dig their way out.

Joining me now is Rebecca Stephens, the first British woman to climb the seven summits, and chair of the Mt. Everest Foundation.

Thank you so much for being here.

Can you give me and our audience just a sense of what it is like and the conditions up there? And then when you see, on top of that, this blizzard that for a lot of hikers sort of came out of nowhere because it's not the time of year to have something like this happen. What are they dealing with up there?

REBECCA STEPHENS, CHAIR, MT. EVEREST FOUNDATION: I think that's the most important point is that we would have expected the monsoon to be over by now, and it's stretching into October. We are seeing seasons change all over the world, and that includes the Himalayas.

Where they are, I have been there. I've walked there to the east side of Everest. But I do emphasize, it is a walk or a hike. It's not a climb. The east face of Everest, the Kangshung Face, is extremely steep and very rarely climbed. But these trekkers are between about 4,000 and 5,000 meters on relatively easy terrain. But they have been surprised by the snowstorm. Which, because of monsoon and because the altitude, it is not lovely dry snow. It's actually quite wet and cold. So, the major risk, I think, is that of hypothermia.

But it's the same weather pattern that we're seeing in India at the moment. And in Nepal. And that eastern face of Everest, unlike the north face, has the monsoon coming up, which is why we're seeing this precipitation at this time. Oh, unusual at this time of year. But there will be no precipitation to talk on about on the north side where it's very dry and arid. SIDNER: Yes, I mean, how difficult is -- is it for a rescue to happen

when something like this -- like this happens? You've been in these conditions.

STEPHENS: Yes.

SIDNER: We're seeing what looks like yaks, you know, sort of being used to -- to -- to help people. What is used to try to help people get out?

STEPHENS: Well, yaks are the local pack animals and the most sturdy and best adapted to that altitude. They are also using ponies. But, you know, over 20 years ago, when I was there, it was very remote. But there are villages close by now. They have built huts and such like. So, I think with local support and I think Chinese officials are in there as well, as long as people can keep warm, they should be able to get out.

I think the casualties so far, unfortunately, one person did die. I don't know the exact circumstances. But, you know, that's incredibly unfortunate. I would suggest that the others should be fine and should be able to walk out as long as they can keep warm.

SIDNER: Is this something that hikers need to know now that the changing weather, the changing climate, this is something that -- that could easily happen again, just an unexpected weather event that doesn't normally happen this time of year. Is that something that people should be warned about?

STEPHENS: I -- I think people should be aware that the seasons are changing. That, you know, the monsoon that we usually said was over by the end of August or mid-September at the latest doesn't seem to be the case anymore. But whenever we go to the mountains, even here in England we go to the Lake District or -- or Scotland, you know, you have to have all the kit with you, preparing for the worst weather. Mountain environment is unpredictable. So, we know that and we have to practice that. I think, unfortunately, people were surprised because of the changing weather here. But really moving forward, we, in all seasons, we should be prepared for every eventuality.

SIDNER: Rebecca Stephens, you are a braver woman than I. You have been to all these different peaks. Not my thing, but it is a beautiful scene I know that when you -- when you do this, you get to see nature in a way that is absolutely spectacular, which is why people do it. I thank you so much for explaining all that to us. We appreciate it.

John.

[09:00:05]

BERMAN: All right, this morning, new video shows a man breaking into the Washington State Capitol.