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Soon, Senate Panel Votes on Holding Fauci in Contempt of Congress; Trump Denies Munitions Shortage Despite Reports of Depleted Stockpile; Hot, Dry Weather Ahead Raises Washington Wildfire Risk. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired August 06, 2026 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Dr. Anthony Fauci about to face a contempt vote just as a Republican senator overnight claims to have obtained a copy of Fauci's phone. We're on the Hill where all this goes next.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: A major update overnight in the case of Nolan Wells, the teen found dead after a July 4th boating trip. Several people now charged with threatening a judge in the case.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: And a woman after my own heart, people of Memphis rallying around a morning show anchor who was caught snoozing live on T.V. The struggles of dealing with these hours, we get it.

I'm Sara Sidner with Kate Bolduan and John Berman. This, oh, is CNN News Central.

BOLDUAN: A major moment is about to happen. The Senate Homeland Security Committee is preparing to vote on whether or not to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci, the man who led the nation's response to the COVID pandemic, to hold him in contempt of Congress for refusing to answer their questions at the hearing that we watched play out in full view last week.

Fauci appeared under subpoena, as we've discussed, to face a barrage of questions from senators led by one of his most vocal critics, the committee's chairman, Republican Senator Rand Paul. Fauci invoked the Fifth Amendment repeatedly over 100 times in that hearing after saying in his opening statement that Senator Paul had an unhinged obsession with him and that the hearing was nothing more than an attempt to put him in jail.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, FORMER DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Given Senator Paul's obvious obsession with calling for my prosecution, his repeated slanderous comments about me, the only conclusion I can reach is that the sole reason he is calling me before this committee is to get me to say something, anything, that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words, quote, behind bars.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: And another twist now. An investigative subcommittee of that, the broader committee, now has obtained what they think would be a -- could be a major tool in their investigation into Fauci, a copy of his phone, his iPhone. The subcommittee chair, Republican Senator Ron Johnson, says that he hopes the phone's contents will address many of the questions that Fauci himself refused to answer in the hearing.

Back with us now, who was here with us during that entire hearing, is CNN's Meg Tirrell. So, what is the main criticisms leveled at Dr. Fauci by Republicans here that has brought this whole thing about?

MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Right. So, it's mainly Senator Ron Paul, as well as --

BOLDUAN: Rand Paul, yes.

TIRRELL: Rand Paul, I'm sorry. Ron Paul --

BOLDUAN: Yes.

TIRRELL: Ron Johnson, Rand Paul. It's mainly those two who have been focused on Dr. Fauci.

And, really, what they are say -- they're trying to figure out about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic. And Senator Paul, in particular, has focused on the idea that this sprung from a lab. He has said it was possibly an accidental lab leak. He also has talked about gain-of- function research and how he says that is why this virus was able to spread so quickly among humans.

He has accused Dr. Fauci of lying to Congress about the origins of the pandemic, about NIH funding that kind of research in Wuhan the epicenter of where this began. And, of course, Dr. Fauci has disputed that, including in 2024 testimony addressing all of those things, saying that they weren't funding that kind of research and saying that we need to keep an open mind about where the pandemic arose from.

BOLDUAN: Gain-of-function research has been talked about so much over these past few years since the pandemic. What is the debate around it? Where does it stand today?

TIRRELL: Right. So, gain-of-function research is -- has been a legitimate scientific debate particularly in the virology community over the last 15 years or so. And in this context, gain-of-function research refers to essentially trying to alter a virus or a pathogen in a lab to try to better understand its spread or to do vaccine development or preparedness in terms of developing therapeutics, basically to ensure that we understand how things might work and pose risks to us in the future.

[07:05:01]

But there was an experiment, or set of experiments, about 15 years ago out of the University of Wisconsin, as well as out of the Netherlands, on flu viruses that caused a huge stir because, essentially, they took a dangerous bird flu virus and they altered it so that it could spread among ferrets, which have a strange likeliness to humans in terms of the way they spread the flu. And this was considered very dangerous because if you take a bird flu virus that doesn't spread well among mammals and you make it spread among mammals, it could cause a pandemic, and they worried about that.

And so that caused this whole debate in the scientific community about how this research should be governed. And so there is legitimate debate about this.

But in terms of COVID, most virologists say that there is not evidence that this was altered in a lab. Dr. Fauci himself has said that that's molecularly impossible, but that is the debate that's been going on.

BOLDUAN: Yes, a debate among the scientific community and what is now at hand here in this committee. There is overlap, but it is also quite separate and two different conversations that are happening.

It's good to see you, much more to come in the coming hour. John?

BERMAN: All right. Breaking overnight, in a threatening post, President Trump is denying that the U.S. faces a shortage of munitions. He posted the military has, quote, massive amounts.

There have been numerous reports on dwindling stockpiles of key air defense systems during the war with Iran. Sources tell CNN the U.S. military has burned through roughly half of its Patriot interceptors since the start of the war, and 80 percent of its THAAD missile inventory.

Let's get right to CNN's Alayna Treene at the White House. These reports seem to have set the president off, Alayna.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. And you can see the president really trying to defend the military at a point when, of course, this war is very much still ongoing, and the president has been trying to use the threat of more massive strikes and attacks on Iran to force their hand in these negotiations.

I want to read for you just a little bit of what the president posted just after midnight. He said, the U.S. has massive amounts of munitions, especially of certain types. Additionally, large amounts are being manufactured and shipped to the U.S. as needed. He went on to say that defense companies are still building things as well.

But, clearly, this is a concern of him, and I know from the conversations I've been having, John, with officials here throughout the Trump administration in Washington, this is a major concern the pace at which they are using these munitions and depleting a lot of the stockpile that the military has.

I'd remind you of the reporting from our colleagues yesterday, great reporting. You mentioned some of it at the top, but the U.S. military has exhausted nearly 80 percent of its interceptors for a key missile defense system. And this comes, again, as we know, that top officials in the Pentagon have been warning that a lot of the munitions they need to continue this war have been depleted. And so it causes a major issue that the president really does not want people thinking about, I think, at this time, which is why you see that post from him just after midnight.

I do want to say simultaneously, we're getting more details on the conversations around a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. I will say we did hear from the vice president last night arguing that this entire process has been very messy. He said that the Iranians have been very difficult to negotiate with, but he does think they'll get there in the end.

I want you to listen to a bit of what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

J.D. VANCE, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: I do think that where we will ultimately land -- it's going to be messy, and it's going to take some time to get there. Where we will ultimately land, as you see, oil, I think, was at $79 today. Those oil prices are going to come down and stay down. Iran will never have a nuclear weapon, and the United States will be in a stronger position. But we're kind of in the middle of the game, and I think people are trying to prejudge exactly how this is going to go.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TREENE: We're kind of in the middle of the game. Look, this is not where I think a lot of top people here at the White House, John, believe they would be in August after this war started in February. They recognize that the midterms are nearby. Gas prices are still bad. And one of the key issues that they're dealing with, trying to get the strait reopened and have free flow of traffic is not an issue that they had prior to this war beginning.

So, a lot going on behind the scenes about how to proceed here, we'll see whether or not this deal between Iran and Oman, and the U.S. says they are involved, can actually be reached in the next couple of days.

BERMAN: Interesting to hear the vice president say how difficult he thinks the Iranians are. It was a couple months ago he was talking about how cool it was to be in the room and hearing from them.

Alayna Treene at the White House, thank you very much. Sara?

SIDNER: All right, thank you, John.

Breaking overnight, two food-related outbreaks are growing in the United States. A severe illness linked to lettuce now expanding to 15 states as we learn more about new problems with jalapenos beyond what's already there.

All right, we're getting new details in, about the Nolan Wells investigation, the suspicious death of a teenager raising a lot of questions.

[07:10:04] And now three people have been charged with threatening witnesses, even the judge. What we're learning about this case this morning.

And new video from inside a passenger plane after a sudden midair drop sends 17 people to the hospital.

Those stories and more ahead.

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SIDNER: New this morning, President Trump's son, Eric, said the Qatari-donated jet will not be the aircraft displayed at his father's future presidential library.

[07:15:04]

NBC News reporting Eric Trump said the plane that will be featured is a retired Air Force One aircraft that carried six presidents, including George W. Bush, during the September 11th attacks. The comments reportedly made by Eric in a text message appearing to mark a shift from earlier plans that called for the Qatari-donated Boeing 747 to be donated to the Trump Library after, of course, he leaves office.

Here's how President Trump described accepting the jet last year when it was first announced.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: So, I think it's a great gesture from Qatar. I appreciate it very much. I would never be one to turn down that kind of an offer. I mean, I could be a stupid person and say, no, we don't want a free, very expensive airplane.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: There's been a lot of controversy surrounding this jet. But as of now, the fate of that jet remains unclear. John?

Oh, nope, that'd be me. I will just keep going here.

A new warning from the godfather of A.I., the smarter artificial intelligence gets, the harder it will be for humanity to control it. That's a quote. During an A.I. conference, Nobel Prize-winning computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton said even his, he is alarmed by AI agents escaping their test environments, potentially causing real- world problems.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEOFFREY HINTON, GODFATHER OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: So, we're actually making new kinds of beings. They have goals. We give them goals. And from those goals they derive other goals, and we don't necessarily know what other goals they'll derive. And so we're creating a new kind of being, and I think it's very scary.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So, do you believe that A.I. is intelligent? HINTON: Oh, it's absolutely intelligent. I think sometime between 5 and 20 years, they'll be better than us at more or less any intellectual task. And then, they could easily crush us if they wanted to.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: The music might be soothing, but what he is saying is terrifying.

Hinton's comments come as another tech giant, Meta, is grappling with it's A.I. agents going rogue. The parent company of Facebook and Instagram says one of it's A.I. models hacked into another company's system during testing.

Sound familiar? We've seen that with two other companies in the last few weeks. Meta blamed the breach on a mistake by its testing partner, which allowed the A.I. model to access the internet, and said the incident is currently under investigation.

CNN has also learned that an advanced A.I. model from Anthropic used fake identities to try to deceive real people and plant malicious code. The incident happened during testing by a British research lab. Officials at the lab said the attempt to insert the malicious code was unsuccessful, and there was, in this case, no real world harm. See, we need A.I. to do this job to be done. John?

BERMAN: I just think we need relaxing music. It makes everything better.

SIDNER: It makes everything better.

BERMAN: Not this.

SIDNER: You're going to need it for this next story.

BERMAN: Yes. No relaxing here. Pun intended.

New this morning, the wave of cases of parasite-induced explosive diarrhea is spreading, now hitting 15 states. Health officials added six new states, Arkansas, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, after lab tests linked the sicknesses there to cyclospora.

The outbreak has been tied to lettuce supplied from Mexico by Taylor Farms to grocery stores and restaurants. The CDC says there are now more than 10,000 confirmed cases.

The number is likely higher. Two people have died and nearly three other, 300 others hospitalized. This morning, three people are facing federal charges in the investigation into the death of 18-year-old Nolan Wells after allegedly threatening witnesses and local officials.

Now, none of the three accused appear to know Wells or his family. According to a court affidavit, one of them threatened to kill an unnamed witness and their family. Another person is accused of threatening to send a bomb to the judge's office.

Nolan Wells was found dead two days after a July 4th boat trip with friends to an island off Mississippi's Gulf Coast. His family conducted an independent autopsy, which found the cause of death to be undetermined, pending further investigation. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Coming up for us, the man accused of intentionally starting one of the devastating wildfires out in Spokane, Washington, he's headed to court today. And the fight against those fires seems to be getting harder as they are now facing another round of surging temperatures out west. We have the latest on that.

And one reason we carry on is to avoid checked baggage fees. Not anymore. One airline is now planning to charge to use the overhead bins.

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SIDNER: Happening today, the man suspected of setting a massive wildfire that destroyed hundreds of homes in the Spokane area and forced thousands upon thousands of people to evacuate, set to be arraigned in court today. It comes as fire crews say some containment progress has finally been made in all three active fires in the Spokane area. But crews are now preparing for a new challenge, flame- fueling winds and intense heat.

CNN Meteorologist Allison Chinchar joining me now. Give us some sense of what the conditions are going to be and when they are going to arrive.

ALLISON CHINCHAR, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes. So, I mean, the last few days have really been actually relatively good for them weather-wise. The winds have been very, very calm. The humidities have been on the low side, but not as low as we saw over the weekend, same thing with the winds. It's those temperatures that have started to tick back up again.

But even with that, the firefighters have been able to make some advancements in terms of containment. Again, you can see, albeit the numbers are low, they are much higher than they were yesterday in terms of where these fires had been just 24 hours ago.

Now, we talked about the heat. That is definitely much, much higher than it normally would be and certainly much higher than last weekend. Spokane, the average is 87 degrees. They're about 10 degrees above that for the next couple of days. But it's not just them. Boise, Portland, much of the Western U.S. in general is looking at those temperatures anywhere from five to 15 degrees above average. And that, yes, is going to hurt the firefighting crews because, again, it kind of limits their ability to fight a lot of these fires.

Remember, they've got all of that very thick, very heavy equipment that they're wearing in that intense heat.

[07:25:02]

We also have very low relative humidities.

Now, again, right now it's about 17 percent -- 16 to 17 percent in much of that area of Eastern Washington. At the same time yesterday, it was about 12 to 13 percent. So, again, we're starting to see a slight rise, not all that much, but again, every little bit helps.

The one big concern going forward is going to be the winds. They have been relatively low the last few days. That has been very helpful for the firefighting crews, but that changes today. Once we get into the afternoon, you'll start to see those tick back up around 20 to 25 miles per hour around the Spokane area, and really elsewhere too, getting those winds back up around 15 to 20.

Same thing for tomorrow, we're going to see a little bit of a lower level in the morning, and then it ticks right back up again into the afternoon. This is a concern because it takes not only the ongoing fires and spreads them, but can help trigger new ones as well.

SIDNER: It is a mess, but at least they're starting to get some containment because for so many days it was 0 percent.

Allison Chinchar, it is a pleasure. Thank you so much. John?

BERMAN: All right. New this morning, the Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed responding after new attacks from President Trump.

And an elderly man attacked in the middle of a fast food restaurant, the bystanders who jumped in to help.

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