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Officer Killed In Atlanta Shooting Targeting The CDC; Investigators Identify Gunman In CDC Headquarters Shooting; Zelenskyy: Ukraine Will Not Cede Land To Russia In Peace Deal; Trump, Putin To Meet In Alaska Friday To Discuss Ukraine War; SpaceX Crew Returns To Earth After Leaving ISS; Record-Breaking Heat In Southwest Begins To Expand East; TX AG Sues To Remove 13 Protesting Democrats From Seats; Republicans Target Democratic-Held U.S. House Seats Outside Of Texas. Israel Facing Backlash Over Plan To Occupy Gaza City; Secy. Noem: 80K Applications In First Week For 10K ICE Officer Job Openings; "Ecuador: The Narco Superhighway" Airs Tomorrow At 9PM ET. Aired 12-1p ET

Aired August 09, 2025 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN ANCHOR: -- it remains up to the people to protect those hard-won rights when they are under threat again.

That's all we have time for this week. Don't forget, you can find all of our shows online as podcasts at CNN.com/audio and on all other major platforms.

I'm Christiane Amanpour in London. Thank you for watching and I'll see you again next week.

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, thank you so much for joining me from Washington, D.C. I'm Fredricka Whitfield.

We begin this hour with breaking news out of Atlanta where a frenzy of gunfire left one police officer dead, the suspected gunman dead, and the CDC on lockdown for hours on Friday. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation says the gunman, possibly motivated by a hatred of vaccines, opened fire on the country's top public health institute, terrorizing the agency as well as neighboring Emory University and Emory Hospital.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

CDC EMPLOYEE, WITNESSED SHOOTING: I noticed a gentleman sort of walking on the sidewalk with what I thought looked like fishing gear at first. And then he sort of made a left, walked up a couple of steps in front of CVS, put his backpack down. That's when I realized that they were -- I think I saw two rifles, I can't be certain, but by the time just before the light went green, he raised the rifle sort of at an angle and started firing at the CDC's campus.

(END VIDEOCLIP) WHITFIELD: The panic also stretched to a nearby daycare where parents were (technical difficulty). The gunman was later found dead on the second floor of a CVS pharmacy. Officials say he was hit by gunfire but police cannot confirm if it came from one of the officers or the gunman himself.

CNN Correspondent Rafael Romo has more details now from the scene in Atlanta. Rafael, authorities just identified the suspected gunman. What are you learning about that person?

RAFAEL ROMO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Fred, major update at this hour. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation has revealed the identity of the suspected shooter as 30-year-old Patrick Joseph White from Kennesaw, Georgia. Atlanta police say there was one single shooter involved who died during the incident.

Law enforcement sources say the shooter carried two backpacks filled with ammunition and also had in his possession multiple guns including two handguns, one rifle and one shotgun. He was wearing what a law enforcement official on the scene described as a surgical mask.

According to Atlanta police, the shooting started just before 5:00 in the afternoon in this very busy part of the city near where Emory University and the Centers for Disease Control are located. CNN has obtained video and photos of the impacts of some of the bullets that struck CDC facilities.

Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum said officers responding to the shooting heard gunfire coming from the CVS pharmacy at this location and moved quickly to neutralize the threat.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

CHIEF DARIN SCHIERBAUM, ATLANTA POLICE DEPARTMENT: We later found the shooter on the second floor of the CVS. He had been struck by gunfire. We do not know at this time whether that was from officers or if it was self-inflicted.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

ROMO: Responding officers also found a critically injured DeKalb County police officer who was immediately taken to nearby Emory University Hospital where he died of his injuries. According to a DeKalb County release, the officer was identified as 33-year-old David Rose who had joined the department last September. This is what DeKalb County CEO Lorraine Cochran-Johnson had to say about his death.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

LORRAINE COCHRAN-JOHNSON, CEO, DEKALB COUNTY, GA: This evening there is a wife without a husband. There are three children, one unborn without a father. There is a mother and a father as well as siblings who also share in this traumatic loss.

(END VIDEOCLIP) ROMO: Regarding the investigation, Fred, one of the most shocking details we have learned since the shooting here at the CDC campus is that the alleged shooter's father called law enforcement before the shooting to report he believed his son was suicidal. It's not immediately clear how much time had elapsed between the call and the shooting.

Fred, now back to you.

WHITFIELD: Remarkable.

All right, Rafael Romo, thank you so much.

All right, also new today, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says his country will reject any peace plan that involves ceding land to Russia. These remarks come just hours after President Trump announced that he will be meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska this coming Friday, suggesting, I'm quoting now, "some swapping of territories," end quote, could be needed to end Russia's war on Ukraine.

[12:05:11]

CNN's Betsy Klein is at the White House. CNN's Nick Paton Walsh is in Ukraine. Betsy, you first. What more is Trump saying about this meeting with Putin?

BETSY KLEIN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER AND WRITER: Right. Well, this conflict has proven to be one of the most intractable issues of President Trump's second term, but some significant movement over the past several days. President Trump announcing on Friday that he plans to meet next Friday with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska.

Now, that meeting came together very quickly, and we are still waiting for more details, including where in Alaska it will take place. But it was chosen in part because Alaska is about the midpoint between Moscow and Washington.

Now, notably, President Trump didn't say whether or when Ukrainian President Zelenskyy will be involved in these conversations, but Zelenskyy has been emphatic that any conversation about ending this war, any plan, requires Ukraine to be involved.

And earlier this week, Russian President Putin met with Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, where he presented him a potential plan. Now, that plan included the possibility of Ukraine ceding territory to Russia. President Trump asked about this yesterday. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You're looking at territory that's been fought over for three and a half years with, you know, a lot of Russians have died, a lot of Ukrainians have died. So we're looking at that, but we're actually looking to get some back and some swapping. It's complicated. It's actually nothing easy. It's very complicated, but we're going to get some back. We're going to get some switched. There'll be some swapping of territories to the betterment of both.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

KLEIN: Now, Ukraine has been emphatic that ceding territory is a nonstarter. It is unclear if they might be amenable to this potential plan. But one other notable item is that European allies have been scrambling to get a better sense of Russia's stance on this, as well as the American position heading into this meeting.

To that end, Vice President JD Vance is set to convene a meeting today with European, Ukrainian and United Kingdom officials in England to discuss more.

WHITFIELD: All right, Betsy, thanks so much.

Nick, to you, what is the reaction from Ukraine to hear the Trump say to the betterment of both, there would be a swapping of territories?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, look, as you heard Betsy say there, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy emphatic that they cannot cede territory. That's basically written in the Ukrainian Constitution and also politically toxic here. The notion after thousands of lives lost fighting for another fourth year, fending off Russia's invasion, that they would voluntarily pull out of some of the most hotly contested places, exceptionally complex ask.

We've seen European leaders, French President Emmanuel Macron, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, leaders of Estonia, Denmark, all gathering round Zelenskyy, ringing to essentially offer their support here. The Europeans really trying to get a handle onto exactly what is in this plan. Indeed, if it's even formulated to the point of being something concrete and being discussed in detailed terms.

Now, the idea we had heard of the past 48 hours is that potentially for this ceasefire, we might see the Ukrainians pull out of Donetsk region and Luhansk. They're mostly out of Luhansk now through Russian military force, but there are parts of Donetsk where their forces risk being encircled and parts too where they're very much fully in control.

So asking them to voluntarily pull out would be a huge thing for the Ukrainian people to swallow, particularly President Zelenskyy. On top of that too, there is the question of, well, the payoff. When does the ceasefire come? Does it come after the ceding of territory or before it?

Europeans and the Americans, frankly, for months ago, have emphatically demanded an unconditional ceasefire first. And that is something Putin has rejected, saying it has to be dealt with technically with monitors. You can't just suddenly switch off the war like that. Well, of course you can if you actually want to. The other question now, of course, to be answered is there is swapping of territory like Trump suggested. What does Ukraine get back? Well, there's tiny border areas in the north and northeast that potentially the Ukrainians could see the Russians pull out of that they've occupied in the last year or so. But, look, this is a very bad situation, frankly, already for Ukraine.

They are seeing Putin being invited for the first time in 10 years to the United States to a bilateral meeting essentially about the Ukrainian war. But without Ukraine, all the European allies it has at the table, who have a very strong stake in how this turns out. And indeed, Kremlin officials now already talking about a return trip to Russia and the betterment of U.S.-Russian relations strategically as part of this too.

[12:10:08]

That's what Moscow want. They want to present a deal to Trump to get him to sign long and pressure Ukraine into and improve Moscow- Washington relations. It's the Europeans now, I think, who've woken up on trying with this important meeting in London between Vice President Vance, European national security advisers, U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy, trying to get more details.

But what exactly has it been that has been agreed or even offered or is under discussion between Russia and the United States? Look, just in simple terms, we're back where we were many months ago with the U.S. and Russia in Saudi Arabia talking about the kind of peace and relationship they might want. That didn't work. It led to all sorts of unraveling and more diplomacy that went nowhere.

And now, again, a sanctions deadline has passed, and Putin is gaining all the time he needs to make the progress on the front line that we've been seeing over the past weeks.

WHITFIELD: All right, Nick Paton Walsh and Betsy Klein, thanks to both of you. Appreciate it.

All right, still ahead, beefed up benefits and massive signing bonuses? How the Department of Homeland Security in this country is ramping up recruitment for ICE.

Plus, outrage over Israel's plan to take control of Gaza City. Families of hostages are responding to the escalation.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:16:04]

WHITFIELD: All right, right now, the SpaceX crew splashing down after leaving the International Space Station and preparing to leave their Dragon capsule now. And you can see right there at any moment, the four crew members are about to climb out of the hatch. The four crew members landed in the Pacific Ocean after spending seven months aboard the space station. Two are Americans along with crew members from Japan and Russia. The hatch was just opened and the crew again inside. Officials are set to speak next hour.

All right, a wave of extremely high temperatures is expected to make its way east this weekend, breaking a dozen records and fueling dangerous fire conditions.

Meteorologist Allison Chinchar has the latest forecast. Allison, great to see you. So how long will these temperatures last?

ALLISON CHINCHAR, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Probably maybe too long that I think most people would like to see. We get it. It's summertime. It's supposed to be hot. But in a lot of these places, it is well above average.

You take a look at where all the heat alerts are in effect right now. We've still got some in the southwest and they've pretty much been in those places all week long. But we've started to see them spread farther north.

So Oregon, Washington now starting to have some of those heat alerts. And you also have some in the central U.S., especially along the southern plains, places like Texas and Oklahoma. But the other concern is in addition to those incredibly hot temperatures, you also have low humidities and you have some gusty winds.

Even if they're only about 15 to 25 miles per hour, that is enough to trigger additional fires. So that's why you have all of these areas under red flag warnings where we have those kind of almost ideal fire weather conditions. Other fire weather forecasts are really kind of focused across portions of Utah, northern Arizona, portions of New Mexico and western Colorado.

But the heat itself, not really going anywhere anytime soon. Take a look at Phoenix. The average high is 105. We get it. Phoenix is a very hot place. But they're going to be at least 5 to 6 degrees above that for much of the rest of the week. You really don't see them drop back below normal until Friday of the upcoming week.

Now, we're also going to start to see a lot of that heat begin to spread eastward into the Midwest and to the northeast. It's going to be a little delayed in the Midwest because we've got some heavy rain here. But it's only going to take it a few more days before you start seeing those numbers jump right back up.

Take New York, for example, average high of 84. They will spend pretty much every single one of the next seven days either at or above that average. In fact, by the middle of the week, you're looking at nearly 10 degrees above the average.

Kansas City also warm, but you got to get through these next few days where we have the rain in the forecast. Then the temperatures will start to spike up. But it's all thanks to this potential for some flooding, Fred. It's going to at least keep their temperatures a little on the cooler side for at least the next couple of days. WHITFIELD: All right. Allison Chinchar, thanks so much.

All right, a battle for House seats is happening in both Texas and California. Both states pushing to redraw district lines. We'll bring you the latest.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:23:30]

WHITFIELD: All right, the battle to change congressional maps ahead of the 2026 midterms is expanding. California Democratic lawmakers are now vowing to hold a special election in November to redraw the state's congressional map. The plan is a direct response to a move by Texas lawmakers to gerrymander voting districts in that state to favor Republicans.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, excuse me, and Governor Gavin Newsom announced the plan on Friday. They were joined by some Texas state lawmakers who left their state to protest the Texas Republicans' plan. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton says he is filing a lawsuit with the state Supreme Court to remove some of the lawmakers who are refusing to show up for the special session to change the Texas voting maps.

Let's bring in now Ian Millhiser for more insight into all of this, this expanding now fight to redraw congressional maps. He's a senior correspondent for Vox, and he's also a lawyer who has clerked in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. Great to see you.

IAN MILLHISER, SENIOR CORRESPONDENT, VOX: Good to be here. Thank you so much.

WHITFIELD: All right, so what do you make about the timing of all of this now?

MILLHISER: Well, I mean, to a certain extent, this is a disaster that is six years in the making. So way back in 2019, in a case called Rucho, the Republican justices said that the federal courts were getting out of gerrymandering. There are no longer going to be any more federal safeguards on what states can do.

[12:25:04]

And so, you know, I mean, the immediate reason why this is happening is because Donald Trump is pushing the Republicans in Texas to make Texas more gerrymandered and then the Democrats in California are going to retaliate. But if you look at like the ultimate cause of this, why is this happening, it's because of what the Republican justice did six years ago in Rucho. There used to be federal safeguards against gerrymandering and now there aren't.

WHITFIELD: Then give us a basic explanation of how gerrymandering works. The name, for starters, it came from a Massachusetts politician 200 years ago? MILLHISER: Yes, that's right. Elbridge Gerry, I believe he was the governor of Massachusetts and he just drew the state's lines in ways to make sure that his party would benefit. It's not that hard to do. The terms that you sometimes hear lawyers use are cracking and packing.

So what you do if you want, say, a Republican state where as many districts vote for Republicans as possible is you pack as many Democrats as possible into few districts. You might have districts that are 90, 95 percent Democrat. So a lot of those Democrats wind up wasting their votes.

And then you crack up the Republicans. So you'll, you know, you'll have the Republicans be distributed more efficiently. You might have Republican districts that are 55 percent Republican. So there aren't a lot of wasted Republican votes.

That's what they're going to do in Texas when California passes its retaliatory gerrymander. It's going to be the same thing. It's just going to be turned the other way around so that the Republicans get packed and, you know, the Democrats get spread out more efficiently.

WHITFIELD: So if the bottom line is, you know, political advantages, a lot of people look at this, even the explanation of gerrymandering, and they wonder, you know, why and how is this even legal? So explain why it is legal.

MILLHISER: Well, it shouldn't be legal. We have a constitution and it says several important things. It says that no one shall be denied the equal protection of the laws. And that means that if you draw your state line so that Democratic votes count more than Republican votes or vice versa, that's an equal protection violation.

We also have a First Amendment that, among other things, prohibits viewpoint discrimination. So if you discriminate against people because they're Democrats or because they're Republicans, that is also unconstitutional. The reason why these provisions of the Constitution aren't being enforced is, again, this Rucho decision from 2019.

WHITFIELD: So President Trump, you know, has ordered the Commerce Department now, you know, to work on a new census, because usually this gerrymandering comes after, you know, census numbers and after a decade or so, but it isn't clear when this new census will take place. But can you explain the correlation of redistricting and a current census?

MILLHISER: Yes. So the way that things are supposed to work is that every 10 years, the United States takes a census. That determines the whole number of people in each state, which is used to determine how many members of the House of Representatives each state gets. And then, you know, you carve up the states into districts for however many members of Congress the state gets.

Trump wants to do an early census, and the most important thing he wants to do is he wants to cut -- I believe he just wants to cut undocumented immigrants out of the census, people who are not lawfully present. Now, that is unconstitutional. The Constitution says that the census must count the whole number of persons.

WHITFIELD: Right.

MILLHISER: It doesn't matter what their immigration status is. They count. So if Trump wants to try to not count certain people, he's violating the Constitution. And frankly, it's not even clear to me this helps Republicans. I mean, Texas and Florida are both red states. There are a lot of immigrants in Texas and Florida.

So even if Trump gets away with this unconstitutional extra census that he wants to do, it's not even clear to me that his party benefits.

WHITFIELD: Interesting.

All right. Ian Millhiser, you really did make this super interesting and fascinating because I think some of this detail a lot of folks did not know. Thank you so much.

MILLHISER: Thanks for having me.

WHITFIELD: All right, up next, Israel is facing a backlash over its plan to occupy Gaza City. We'll go live to Tel Aviv as protests are expected to get underway.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN HOST: All right, new today, Israel is facing increasing backlash over its plan to take control of Gaza City. Several Middle Eastern countries issued a statement condemning the move.

Germany and the U.K. were among five countries who strongly reject Israel's plan. They're warning it will worsen the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and could endanger the remaining hostages held by Hamas. Satellite imagery shows Israel building up its military forces near the border of Gaza City.

Dozens of military vehicles can be seen at a staging location just two miles from a key border crossing. CNN's Matthew Chance is in Tel Aviv. We're also expecting protests there today, Matthew.

[12:35:02]

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CHIEF GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right, Fredricka. In fact, I'm in the center of Tel Aviv right now. And you can see that the protesters have started to gather. But, you know, it's going to get a lot more busy than this. They come every Saturday night, basically, to protest for the release of the hostages still being held in the Gaza Strip and to protest against the policies of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister.

But, you know, what we're expecting tonight is something, you know, a little bit more intense, given the very controversial move made by the Israeli security cabinet earlier in the week to conquer Gaza more fully, escalate the military operation there. And there's a woman here just to give you a sense of the mood of the protesters. Start -- from start-up nation to endless war nation. That -- that's one of the -- the signs in English. Most of the signs are in -- are in Hebrew.

There's a sort of table of merch over here as well, which I'll try and take in. Excuse me, sir. These are little stickers that people are taking off, look, with the number 673 on, 673 days since October 7th, 2023, with the, you know, yeah, with the -- with the raids by Hamas and other militant groups into southern Gaza, of course, where so many people were killed.

And these are stickers that people can take away. This one's quite interesting, isn't it? Because some -- it says in Hebrew, I've been told, Benjamin Netanyahu, you're the -- sort of like you betrayed the soldiers. Betrayed the soldiers. And so that's particularly pertinent to key -- the recent announcement, because there's a lot of concern amongst Israelis that, you know, not only is this move to conquer Gaza City going to jeopardize the lives of hostages that are still being held there, and there are 20 of them who are still believed to be alive. There's 50 in total.

But it's also going to threaten the lives of soldiers, to give them a mission that basically is going to lead to more of their deaths and isn't necessarily achievable. Hi, Nuria (ph). Nuria (ph), Nuria (ph) -- I spoke to Nuria (ph) earlier. She's looking after the store.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: One of the volunteers.

CHANCE: Yes, one of the volunteers.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We've been demonstrating for over two years, even before the war.

CHANCE: Are people listening more? You've been demonstrating for a long time. Are people increasingly listening to your criticism of Benjamin Netanyahu?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, actually, less.

CHANCE: They're less?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. People are just getting very, very tired, exhausted, in fact --

CHANCE: Of?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Of everything that we've been through, the war, the alarms, the -- the -- the people getting killed all the time, what we're doing, what they've done to us. People are just tired.

CHANCE: What -- what's your response to, you know, what -- what's your response to Benjamin Netanyahu's decision to double down inside Gaza, to take Gaza City?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think it's an illegal decision. I think it's horrible. I think it's the end of us.

CHANCE: Well, I mean, supporters of Netanyahu say it's intended to -- to make Israel safe again.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, they've been saying that for the last two years, and so far it hasn't worked. So maybe we should try talking instead of fighting. Maybe we should try doing something different. And then --

CHANCE: Well, they've been talking as well. Do you think that, you know, this is a way of securing the release of the hostages, or do you think it's going to jeopardize the safety of the hostages?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No. It's a way of securing his seat for a few more months. That's all.

CHANCE: Of securing?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: His seat.

CHANCE: His seat.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Not the hostages, not Israel, not our peace or safety or anything. It's just for himself.

CHANCE: All right, Nuria (ph), thank you very much. Thanks for talking to us. Fredricka, there you have it. A lot of allegations, particularly after the -- the recent announcement, that this war is being extended by Benjamin Netanyahu for political reasons. He's got a fragile political coalition.

There are right-wingers who he depends on for support, and they're very much in favor of this. But recent opinion polls suggesting 70 percent of Israelis want the war to end as soon as possible and for the hostages to return back as soon as they -- as soon as they can be through a peace deal. Fredricka, back to you.

WHITFIELD: All right. Well, it's a pretty blunt talk there from Marie (ph) there. I think she said Marie (ph), Maria (ph). Blunt talk, which really is perhaps indicative of the kind of frustration she and many others are feeling. Matthew Chance in Tel Aviv, thank you so much.

All right, let's continue this conversation with us now as CNN global affairs analyst, Kim Dozier. Kim, great to see you. So the Israeli military, the IDF, warning against this plan. So what does this incongruency between the Israeli government and the military set the stage for?

KIM DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Yes, the head of the IDF has gone public with his criticism of the plan because, as he says, the military is tired, exhausted by constant deployments. And remember, that also included deployments to the north for the attacks on Hezbollah and repelling the attacks by Iran. So you have reservists now who are refusing service in Gaza.

[12:39:57]

You also have a higher suicide rate among the troops. And when you look at the goals stated by Netanyahu's cabinet, one of the main goals is the eradication of Hamas and the rescue of the hostages. Hamas has said it will kill any hostages that Israeli troops approach, as it did last fall when the Israeli troops in southern Gaza inadvertently approached some hostages hidden in a tunnel.

And in terms of the other goal, eradicating Hamas, Hamas has now become a guerrilla organization together with other militant groups like Palestinian Islamic Jihad. And their ranks are filled by people who are furious over the loss of their loved ones by what they see as an indiscriminate bombing campaign and starvation of their people. So kill one, produce 10.

That is a formula I often heard of in Iraq and Afghanistan when the U.S. troops tried to do the same thing. The more they smashed, the more they created in terms of guerrilla groups.

WHITFIELD: Is a goal also to clear out Palestinians, not just Hamas, but clear out Palestinians from Gaza City, too?

DOZIER: Well, key members of Netanyahu's cabinet have articulated that that's what they want to do. And Netanyahu has previously embraced Trump's Gaza Riviera plan, something that Trump threw out last February when he talked about moving Palestinians out, taking over the strip and turning it into a tourist area or a high tech business area. Palestinians obviously revolted against that. So did very many Gulf nations, Arab leaders writ large.

And Netanyahu has also talked about turning it over to some sort of Arab force that's not Hamas or the Palestinian Authority. Arab leaders have also rejected that. They're not offering up their forces to rule over Gaza.

WHITFIELD: All right. Kim Dozier, we'll leave it there for now. Great to see you. Thanks so much.

All right. Straight ahead, a look into new ICE recruitment efforts with relaxed requirements and even promises of large signing bonuses as the Trump administration tries to hire agents for immigration roundups.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:47:05]

WHITFIELD: All right. With billions in new funding, the Department of Homeland Security is scrambling to hire thousands of new ICE officers to carry out President Trump's immigration crackdown. To encourage more applicants, the agency is offering huge cash bonuses and easing age restrictions.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KRISTI NOEM, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: The response has been overwhelming. Part of the big beautiful bill that President Trump advocated for allocated to us the resources to hire 10,000 new ICE officers. We have had that open for less than a week and we have over 80,000 applicants for those jobs. (END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: All right. Joining me right now to talk more about this hiring blitz and its impact is Garrett Graff. He is a national security expert who has written extensively about border hiring surges after 9/11 and in recent years you are also writing and commenting about it. Garrett, great to see you. So Secretary Noem says no age limits for new applicants, up to $50,000 signing bonuses, student loan forgiveness options, enhanced retirements as well. I mean pretty enticing. Good or troublesome? And -- and who is this appealing to? We know already that actor Dean Cain is on board.

GARRETT GRAFF, NATIONAL SECURITY EXPERT: Yes, that's an odd new hire to say the least. I think what we are seeing is already the reason that law enforcement hiring surges do not go well historically. It is very hard to grow an agency that is healthy with any sort of integrity. It requires real hard work to ensure that training and culture standards are met.

And what we have seen ICE already starting to do is what agencies are often forced to do in this case, which is they cut hiring standards, they cut training standards, they cut supervision and official oversight standards. Because, you know, a different way of looking at this is that in a normal year where ICE might hire 1,000 people out of that 80,000 pool of applicants, ICE is going to hire 9,000 additional people who would not be normally qualified to be part of ICE.

And that -- that is a model that we have seen already go poorly for other law enforcement agencies, including ICE's sister agency within DHS, Customs and Border Protection, which underwent a similar doubling of its agent core in the week of 9/11, growing from 9,000 to 18,000 border patrol agents that resulted in a decade of misconduct, crime, and corruption within the agency and led to the arrests of more than 2,000 of its own officers and agents.

[12:50:06]

WHITFIELD: You've been, you know, pretty critical about, you know, how this ICE hiring blitz has been handled, even in your writing, in your doomsday scenario website. Here's a portion of it saying, if you're excited to dress up like you're taking Fallujah for a raid of hard- working roofers in the Home Depot parking lot, working for ICE or CBP shouldn't be for you.

So, you know, who is going to screen all these applicants? I mean, what's your concern about how they will whittle it down to those who really, you know, have the skill set, the wherewithal to carry out these jobs?

GRAFF: Well, I think part of the issue here is that ICE already has some of the lowest educational and professional background requirements of any federal law enforcement agency, and they are going to have to cut those in order to meet this hiring -- this new hiring surge. And as -- as I said in that line, in that essay, you know, part of what really worries me is that the recruiting pitch that ICE is making is the pitch that we are seeing on, you know, TikTok videos and evening news clips and social media, where you're seeing, you know, agents rousting America's grandmas and raiding Home Depot parking lots in full tactical gear.

And the types of people who are going to find that exciting and appealing, I would argue, are exactly the people that we should not be giving sweeping federal law enforcement powers to.

WHITFIELD: You know, while I have you, you know, I do want to take a few moments to talk about the somber 80th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and your new book, "The Devil Reached Toward the Sky: An Oral History of the Making and Unleashing of the Atomic Bomb." It goes in depth on that historic moment. What are you hoping the lessons are from that bombing? And, you know, why did you feel so passionately that it was time to kind of reeducate people or encourage people to reflect on what happened?

GRAFF: Yes, this today, of course, Saturday marks the 80th anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki on August 9th, 1945. And this project for me really grew out of this moment where we have effectively every first person memory we will ever have of World War II. I mean, these 80th anniversaries, I think, feel so poignant to people because they also mark the unofficial passing of that generation who fought and survived World War II. And as much as nuclear weapons may feel like history, they are more relevant to our modern moment in -- in particularly 2025 than they have been for many of the last 80 years.

And one of the things I really wanted to do with this project was to tell the stories in the voices of the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki so that we can carry forward their vision as they pass away, that they are the last survivors of an atomic bomb. And I think it's going to be up to us now in this moment to help carry that dream forward to a new generation.

WHITFIELD: Well, congratulations on the book and really well served on helping people to understand all at stake and why that, too, should never be forgotten. Garrett Graff, thank you so much. We'll be right back.

GRAFF: Thanks for having me.

[12:53:46]

WHITFIELD: Thank you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: This weekend on The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper. CNN's David Culver has a rare look into a country that was once known as a popular tourist destination in South America but is now plunged into violence because of the drug war. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID CULVER, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Ecuador is not a cocaine producer. And yet the blood spills here. Cocaine is flooding into these streets. And with it, an explosion of brutality. You might think you know this story, gangs, drugs, corruption. But what we find here may surprise you because this isn't just about cocaine, it's about a system, one that pulls in the poor, empowers the brutal and protects the powerful.

CULVER: Oh, my gosh, there's blood on the ground. Careful with your step here.

CULVER (voice-over): To understand Ecuador's unraveling, we follow the chain to see who moves, who profits and who pays.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: All right, David Culver is with us now. So, David, you know what -- what drew you to Ecuador?

CULVER: This is a country that was known as the island of peace. I mean, you mentioned it being a popular tourist destination. It's interesting because we've started to -- to post some clips from this documentary on Instagram, and predominantly the messaging is, oh, my country. It was never like this before.

And people would say that to us so often when we're down there. I think basically we wanted to really understand, as were covering it from a news perspective, a deeper look, and we wanted to know, you know, we talk about cocaine on a broader scale and it feels so disconnected to most folks, but then you wanted to see where the human aspects of it lie.

[13:00:08]

And we're able to do that. And I think the fact that, you know, we open up this documentary with the story of -- of a missing young man and his parents who clearly had never had exposure to media, let alone international media, and are sharing their story. And it's in that uncertainty that we begin to then delve into this topic and see how cocaine, which roughly 70% of the world's cocaine, flows through Ecuador even though it's not produced there for the most part, it's Colombia and Peru and then pours through and then goes out through the coast and goes around places like the Galapagos Islands, which has essentially become the fueling station for these drug runners and then continues on to the U.S., continues up to Europe.

You begin to realize how vast this network is. And -- and I think you also then start to see the violence that is -- is a result of it. And now as we start to see more headlines about the U.S. involvement, signing a security agreement just in the past week and a half or so and sending more resources, there's even the possibility of troops being deployed. It's not confirmed at this point, but it's something that could come.

And certainly Ecuador at this point, Fred is calling for that. The President himself was at President Trump's inauguration front and center and has met with President Trump on subsequent visits in trying to push for this.

WHITFIELD: Yeah. Important reminder. Oh, also very sad and eye opening, but we look forward to watching all that you bring us. David Culver, thank you so much.

CULVER; Thanks Fred.

WHITFIELD: It's an all new episode of The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper, Ecuador: The Narco Superhighway. It airs tomorrow, 9:00 p.m. Eastern only on CNN.